"This... doesn't happen in Osirion, does it?"

"No! - not, not guards roaming the streets preying on people. The pharaoh can have anyone he wants, but the pharaoh's not  - whichever random thug won the last war here -"

"....sure."

"Whole royal family can marry without the approval of the girl's family," says Mahdi. "Technically. Does seem pretty different to me."

Hagan cracks the arrow he's been fiddling with in half. Looks up at them, then back at it.

"Without the approval of the girl?"

"I don't really know anything about how it works in practice. Vows aren't valid if said at the point of a sword, or under an enchantment. One imagines a member of the royal family could be very convincing. D'you want that mended -"

"No."

"Let's just get out of sight of the city."

They do that. Mahdi casts Rope Trick. They can eat from their rations. The casters can sleep.

"S' fucked up, being able to declare that random people belong to you now."

"Yes. It is."

" - well. So long as I'm not the only one who thinks so."

"Fazil's practically not allowed to think that the pharaoh can ever do anything wrong. Since the pharaoh is an aspect of Abadar and so on."

"I guess that makes sense. Sort of building up a moderate size grudge against Abadar at this point."

"I don't even think the pharaoh has actually ever done anything wrong. I think the argument - that it's different with the pharaoh because he's not just a king - I think it might basically be true. But I don't like - it shouldn't be allowed, even if he's careful not to hurt anyone, and even if he has so much - of whatever stuff he has - that that actually works. People shouldn't have to take that on faith."

"I have a lot of trouble believing that there's anyone in the world who's never done anything wrong. At least who isn't a baby. But - I guess I can at least respect that as a - perspective. Fails more gracefully if you're wrong."

"I guess 'never done anything wrong' isn't what I believe. I dunno. 'm not good at words. And don't want to - " Sigh. 

"Sorry. Not mad. Just - on edge, or whatever."

Nod. "You should learn our hand signal language."

"Maybe. Dunno if I'm any good at languages."

"It's not a proper language, just - things that come up while adventuring. Mahdi said he'd do a wall of electricity and then make us invisible and we could fly out, with the teleport only for if that fails because it's a scroll and those are really expensive. And it seemed like - it'd have been good if you knew that was what we were planning -"

"Yeah."

"Or at least that we were planning anything."