"Where were they from?"

"We met in Absalom. A bit of everything - not Cheliax. Fellow from Oppara and one from Zimar, one native in Absalom, one from Ustalav. A woman. She wasn't different than the men."

"They're not very different, in Avistan. - I guess I don't have firsthand knowledge of anywhere besides Cheliax."

"Matches what I've seen. They are different, in Osirion. People will say things that aren't true, like that men're smarter, and it's true that many of them aren't happy but they aren't just men who people force into dresses and set to raising our babies."

"How're they different?"

"Less inclination to violence. Typically, there're exceptions. Less trusting, less risk taking. More naturally inclined to be responsible, people say, and I think that gets at something though maybe it's not quite right straight-up. And - people say that women flourish when they are loved by their husbands, and men flourish when they love their wives, and I think that gets at something too. 

Probably if you used magic to change a baby around at birth you'd get them to want whatever it is they were raised wanting. I'm not saying it's a property of the soul or anything."

Nod.

"Your turn. Several times over."

"Were you happy in Cheliax? Like, forgetting the afterlife, day to day and stuff?"

"...I dunno. Some days."

"You teach the kids in the nursery all that stuff you said about - being a good little cog once they don't want anything anymore?"

"Sometimes. But - children are very serious about things. And they're children, you know, they'll take an idea and try to be all grown up about it right now, even if they can't. It's important to teach them discipline, but it's also important to - they'll just die, if they don't get the things they need, and they can't get all of them themselves, so they have to say when they want things. They couldn't live otherwise. And - that's just how the world is shaped. Even adults can't keep from wanting anything, not yet, because - we're not done becoming what we'll be, either. It's not good, but it's - human.

"I do think that maybe one of the best things about being an adult is that you don't have to ask people for things you want anymore."

"You what?"

" - you don't have to beg people for things? Decide how to frame them so they sound like reasonable things that you should have? You can mostly just go buy them. Or figure out that they're not attainable and that you need to figure out how to endure not having them, without bringing anyone else into it."

"Oh. I guess so."

"I'm not sure how true that'd be if I were Osirian, so. That's one thing Cheliax has going for it."

"I think of growing up as - figuring out how to live with the fact other people want things and you can't always just ignore them and go off on your own. Or you can but you'll hurt people."

"Huh. That's not a framing I've heard before.

"When I grew up I totally went off on my own and started ignoring people I had not previously had license to ignore."

"I did that when I was - your age, I guess. It was - part of growing up. But - men my age aren't really seen as grownups, in Osirion, we're grownups once we get the risking-our-lives out of our system and settle down with a wife and a career plan that puts food on the table for the next fifty years. And - I can't do all that, exactly, but I - do think of it as something I'll get to someday, someone who can interact with society without - needing to retreat into the wilderness for a year to stop hating it."

"I mean I didn't run away from society. Just - my parents, I guess."

"Ah. Yeah. I had good parents. Makes a lot of difference."

"I guess it would.

" - uh. I guess it's my turn but I can't think of anything. 

"What do you think's going to happen to Verita, after you learn more about the Deep Plane?"

"Dunno. - we won't kill her. I think I know a way to keep her safe, if it comes to that, even if the plane really could be used to destroy the world."

"...that's good. I don't - know where we'd live, or anything."

"It'd be Osirion. If it was - if security was that important. Otherwise you should probably settle some place in Avistan that's all - the way you are, less the torture - and we can give you money to get started but if she could really be used to destroy the world then it'd have to be the people I'm sure of."

"Ah."