Then you are welcome to stay here as long as you'd like, provided you are willing to keep debts low all around and work with us to settle them before departing.

"I'm fine with that plan but will need some coaching on how much of what to do when."

The next sheet is prewritten.

Things that incur debt by observation (when you watch or listen to this, you can become indebted)

Beauty and performance (visually stunning artwork, song, dance, theatre, storytelling, juggling, sex)

Things that cause you to be in debt, or reduce the amount another person is indebted to you:

Soliciting and receiving information. It counts as soliciting information if you successfully make it clear to the other person what you want to know, whether through language or otherwise.

Destroying things of value that belong to others (plants, food, artwork, clothes, environmental features) 

Soliciting and receiving acts of service (sex, affection, obedience, assistance with a task)

Refusing a reasonable request made by someone who you are indebted to (a request is reasonable if the amount of debt they'd incur in fulfilling it is less than the amount of debt you're in)

Physical violence (except towards someone indebted to you, and smaller in degree than their debt is)

The reciprocal actions all cause other people to be in debt to you, or reduce the amount you are indebted to them.

"I had a problem with my prior traveling companion where at one point she felt very urgently that she needed to settle some debt and addressed this by sneaking up on me in my sleep and tearing my wing."

Were you in a fairly extraordinary amount of debt?

"So I'm told. I don't think she appreciated my reaction to this behavior though."

"I don't want anyone to touch me. At all. I would rather sing. A lot. I can draw too. I'm faster than you, so if the amount of border patrolling I've encountered is representative I might have some advantage at that if all you need is a report, I'd obviously be impaired at negotiation with anyone I found."

If you're willing to patrol the border fairly regularly I would expect you could avoid ever being in significant debt during your stay here.

People won't have encountered a kind of person who hates touch before, but I'd expect them to have no trouble remembering once informed.

"I don't expect particularly that it will hold if you meet more like me."

Nod.

"Do you people do nicknames? No one has introduced themselves since I've been in the area at all."

Names entangle people, if they're used enough to be deeply significant to the user. So people try to invent different ones for new contexts and not to use any in unfamiliar hearing. You can call me Lohte.

"Nicknames do this to you too, not just your real name?"

Definitely don't give anyone your real name, that entails a - fairly disastrous degree of entanglement. But even nicknames do it some, if they're persistent enough and identifying enough.

"You can call me Harmony."

All right.

I would be interested in learning more about the person you are entangled with but not travelling with.

"I don't know very much about her."

That sounds undesirable.

"Well, for most of our acquaintance I couldn't communicate apart from by blinking in code."

How did that happen?

"I arrived that way. It took a while to fix."

Nod.