...Okay, but obviously most people are just going to do whatever the president tells them, and obviously if they don't listen he's not going to just be okay with that. But presumably he's saying otherwise for a reason, so... probably it's really important to pretend? The president wants everyone to act like they're just going along with them because they're a good person, or something, and not just because he's the president? She has no idea if that's right but if that's right it's probably not legal to just say it.

"...I don't know what a photograph is."

"There's a device people can point at you that'll give them a very detailed picture of you, or whatever else they point it at.  It's not magic at all and doesn't do anything besides make a picture and sometimes a bright flash of light.  The picture is called a photograph, and the device is a camera."

He has an urge to add 'It really doesn't steal your soul or anything,' because he remembers hearing somewhere that people used to suspect it did, but this would really not help.

"And sometimes they take videos, which are moving pictures."  ... That just sounds ridiculous, when he's trying to inhabit her perspective.  If he was her he wouldn't believe himself about it not being magic either.  If he can manage to explain a photograph he can definitely explain a video, but first she'd have to be on board with the general concept of technology, and he's not sure that she is.

It'd probably be possible to do something like that with illusion magic. She really has no idea how you'd do it without magic. What does it even mean to say that something like that isn't magic — well, it could mean that Detect Magic can't see it, except if magic is uncommon here it's not like they'd be able to cast it.

"...Can I see one?"

"A video?  Mm, one of my neighbors has a television - that's a device for showing videos that were made by professional stations instead of recorded by a random person.  I'm sure we can visit and watch something in a few days.  I don't have anything that does them, myself."

Nod. "Are there... things I might think are legal for me to do, that actually aren't allowed?"

"I don't think so, but then again how would I know? What sorts of things do you think are legal for you to do?"

"...well, there's a lot of things that are legal, or that I'd expect are legal, I don't think I can possibly list all of them. Uh... travelling around in the town where we're going to live without needing a travel pass? Or, uh, if I count as a visitor, there'll be a way to get me a pass, it won't just be illegal for me to be there at all? Defending myself if someone attacks me — uh, in a way that everyone would agree was definitely an attack — as long as he's not important or anything? Uh...." Probably she should try to remember some of the things people said were illegal in other countries, in case he was telling the truth. "...thinking that it's bad to execute people and destroy their souls if they haven't actually done anything wrong? Being a woman who — uh, I don't actually know what sorts of things are illegal for women here, I've just heard that outside Cheliax there's a lot of things women can't do, but I don't know how much of that was made up."

"Yes, I can't list all the things that are legal either - that's our problem here, isn't it."  But it's not a rebuke, he's smiling a little.  "You can travel everywhere in the country, but you should have an ID of some sort - we'll get you a school card.  Hopefully they still do those during the summer?  Hmm, that's a good question, I'll look into it."  And then to go abroad she'd need a passport - can she get one, is she a Polish citizen, who's going to figure that out... Well, that's definitely not an urgent question.

"You can defend yourself if anyone obviously attacks you, but it has to be proportionate - if someone hits you or grabs something from you you can hit him back, but you shouldn't try to kill him unless you have a good reason to think he's trying to kill or rape or torture or kidnap you, does that make sense?"  He's not sure if she has any idea what a proportionate response is, but at least the 'a way that everyone would agree was definitely an attack' shows that she has a sense of what she doesn't know and can think of ways to think around that.

"And it doesn't matter how important he is.  Or - of course it matters some, people will give someone important more of a benefit of the doubt - but if the town mayor attacks you in a way everyone would agree was an attack, you can absolutely defend yourself and most judges will convict him."  He sounds very serious about this, in his oddly soft way.  "I don't know what things were like where you grew up, but here we're-- trying very hard to do better than letting powerful people get away with whatever they want."

That sounds so fake. ...Probably people aren't supposed to just say that that sounds really fake, but it does.

"I understand, sir, I won't hurt people worse than they deserve even if they attack me." She pauses. "...The part about important people is really different from how it worked at home. If — well, they might've been lying about all the laws, but the laws I were taught said that there were some laws that just didn't apply to nobles or priests at all, and other laws that applied to them but the punishment written into the law was lighter. And even if they did break the law it was really unlikely they'd get in trouble for it — they might've had issues if they broke the law in a way that hurt someone else who was just as important as they were. ...Has it ever actually happened that a town mayor here murdered an innocent person, or forced himself on a woman, or something, and he was punished for it the way anyone else would be?"

Well, my father's still in prison, is his first thought - but that was politics, not really the same thing.  And not a conversation he much wants to have on the train.

"The law as it's written is the same for everyone, that part is very clear.  But whether they really get in trouble... You're right that that's a different thing."  And her question really does cut to the center of the issue, doesn't it.  "I think they usually do, if it's an obvious and clearcut case, but I could be wrong about how often.  I only remember one situation like that - the mayor somewhere got in a public fight with another man, over a woman I think, and wounded him badly enough that he went to prison for it.  It wasn't a large town."  He can tell what this must sound like to her - like it happens far more often than that, and it doesn't mean much if someone got punished once if almost all of them get away with it.  He doesn't think that's true, but it's not as if he can prove it.  "I do think they mostly just don't commit murders or rapes or torture.  Nobody'd vote for them, even if they managed to escape a conviction.  I'm sure many of them do plenty of.. corruption, taking bribes, hiring their friends and relatives for official work, ignoring regulations, overworking their employees... and probably get away with it.  It's easy to pretend these sorts of things didn't really happen.  But they do have to be able to pretend, I think, and that's much harder when someone's dead.  And most people don't want anyone dead anyway."

Sure, maybe lots of people don't want anyone dead enough to murder them over it, but there's no way that none of their town mayors have forced themselves on women. In Cheliax they wouldn't have bothered to keep it secret, maybe here they occasionally at least sort of care about pretending to be decent people, but she flatly doesn't believe that it doesn't happen. Powerful important men aren't going to be less likely to do that sort of thing than regular people.

"Was the man that he got into the fight with important, or being protected by someone important? Or just... a regular person?"

"A regular person, from all I know. Had a small shop in the town. Didn't go on to do anything political about any of it."

Maybe he had some sort of powerful person protecting him and Mr. Dąbrowski just didn't know. Maybe it's not really the town mayors who are important, the actual important people are all government ministers. Maybe the government... tried a town mayor once to try to trick people into thinking that they weren't treating them any differently.

Maybe they really did lock up someone important for hurting a regular person, except if they were actually consistent about it you'd really expect it to happen more than the once! (Maybe it did happen more than the once, Mr. Dąbrowski's been to other countries but that doesn't mean he somehow magically knows about everything that happens.)

"That — would not have happened back home. ...when I was listing things that I thought were legal earlier were the other ones all, uh, definitely legal?"

Marek is, despite himself, also thinking of ways for that situation to have been more complicated than he thought.  He does not, indeed, magically know about everything that happens.  But he really is pretty sure it's generally true that if someone important committed an obvious violent crime in broad daylight he'd go to prison over it.  It's just that they mostly don't do that, because why would they, really?  People commit crimes like that when they're either desperate or wildly impulsive, and someone with an important position is unlikely to be either.

"Mm, what else was on your list?  Women can do the same things men can--  All right, let me think about that and make sure it's really everything, but it's nearly everything.  You can vote, work, own land, run a business, marry who you want, and so on.  Uh, once you're 18, that is, you mostly can't do those things now."

All right, what details are there that she could possibly want to know?  Not that any of them are likely to come up any time soon, but again, it's important for her to build up an idea of the kind of society she's in.  "Men can... be out in public with their shirts off, and women can't?  Prostitution is illegal - for men too, but I don't think that, uh, really comes up.  Oh, women can join the army but not in roles that are supposed to do the actual fighting or command fighting units - also men have to go through army training and can be called back in at need, and women are only involved at all if they volunteer.  I think there are some restrictions on women doing very heavy or dangerous work in general too, like mining.  Although again you're 16 and can't do any of that anyway."

He wonders how different all that was from what she grew up with.  Somewhat, probably, since she asked the question, but he doesn't have a confident guess about how.  She doesn't really act like she grew up in the sort of place where women can't do most things, he thinks - not that he really knows what people who had would be like, but even so.

"...Why's it illegal to be a whore?"

She'd also like to know what counts for that, but it'd be hard to ask without making it sound like she's trying to figure out what she can get away with.

"Uh..."  What is he even supposed to say here??  (He doesn't think that question ever came up in Young Communist discussion club! Although after a moment he thinks he can see how it could have, and that helps him get in the right mindset to answer it with any amount of sense.) 

"It's bad for people, to have that kind of relationship with sex.  It should be something people do out of a personal connection - preferably a marriage - and because they want to, not because they have to.  When women do it for money it's usually because someone's pressuring them into it and he needs to be made to stop.  Or sometimes just because they don't think they have another choice, but they do and someone needs to show them that.  I know, mostly the law lets people do things that are bad for them, but this one's just so common and such a bad situation to end up in."

Author's note:  prostitution was actually legal, but in the "it's not illegal for an adult to personally sell sexual services, but it's illegal for any third party to organize this or profit from it or encourage it or provide a location for it" way which makes most setups illegal in practice, plus some informal bothering of prostitutes by the police on top of that.  I forgot until I looked it up, so I'm declaring that it's realistic for Marek to just be wrong about it.

When she was still young enough that her mother thought she might be a wizard someday, her mother told her that sometimes girls sleep with men without expecting those men to do anything for them, just because it's fun, but that it's a lot more fun for the man than the woman, so if you're not an idiot you'll only sleep with people when you're getting something out of it. Obviously it'd only be money if you're a whore, but sleeping with a man because you think he cares about you is a really good way to end up alone and pregnant. (At least when her mom ended up alone and pregnant she'd gotten something out of it.)

People in the countryside care a lot more about only sleeping with people they're married to but she's pretty sure they're not doing it out of 'personal connection', they're still adults.

She is... separately... confused about why it'd be illegal for the woman, if it's the man that they think is doing something wrong? 

"...are there other things where — it's illegal to do them even though it's someone else who's actually doing the thing that's wrong?"

... Ouch.  That's fair, at least sometimes - although not always, he thinks.  What a complicated subject to be talking to a confused 16-year-old girl to.  He's lucky the train is empty enough that they have the compartment to themselves.

"To be clear, pressuring someone into prostitution, running brothels and so on is also very much illegal. And the actual, uh, being a customer."  He has noticeable trouble even clearly referring to the concept.  "I think it's just that if you don't make it illegal for the women then it'll keep happening anyway, and - it's not that they aren't doing anything wrong, it's just that they generally have sympathetic reasons."

"I don't think there's anything else quite like that, but - I'm not entirely sure what you mean, and I could be missing something.  Hmm - pressuring people into suicide is illegal but suicide isn't, although the police will try to stop it.  Selling drugs is illegal but taking them isn't.  Generally pressuring people into crimes is illegal.  Oh, selling alcohol to minors is illegal, you should definitely know that."

Author's note:  He is again wrong about buying sex being illegal.

It makes sense that it's illegal to pressure people into committing suicide, she kind of thinks the Asmodeans were lying about it being Evil but if they weren't it'd definitely make sense to make it illegal, and even if they were lying a country probably wouldn't want a bunch of its subjects killing themselves. Selling... opium? She's heard of cityfolk taking opium... being illegal could also make sense, she barely knows anything about it but what she has heard is that it's got some sort of powerful enchantment that mind controls people into buying it if they even get close, obviously that'd be illegal and it's stupid to punish people for getting mind controlled. Obviously it's illegal to try to get people to do crimes.

The alcohol one is more confusing. They don't have priests for the water, is the idea that... it's wrong to charge children for alcohol at all, because they'll try to drink water that isn't safe and get sick? But it seems like then everyone would just send their children to buy the alcohol. Probably that's not correct but she's not sure what he means instead — maybe he's specifically thinking of the kinds of alcohol that aren't legal for anyone in Cheliax? But it'd be weird to just call those 'alcohol'...

"I'm confused about the last one, what exactly is it that they're not allowed to do?"

"Uh - a minor is anyone younger than 18, or were you confused about something else?"  He doesn't have any guesses what, but if she just didn't know the word, or the word alcohol for that matter, she would've just asked that.  He's starting to get a feeling for when she sounds like her confusion is something more complicated.

"Back home you're an adult at sixteen but that's not what's confusing. I'm not really sure what to ask, I'm going to... try to explain how it would've worked back home, and you can point out how it's different here?

Uh, so there were some kinds of alcohol that were illegal for anyone, because they made people Chaotic — I don't know if they actually do or if the Asmodeans made that part up. So it'd be illegal to sell those to a kid but it'd also be illegal to sell them to an adult. But if the priest's not around to make water you might sometimes drink alcohol with a lot of water added — it'd be disrespectful to do that to water a priest made, like you're saying you're not grateful to him. People say it's a way to ward off sickness, or to make it so that you'll grow up big and strong, but I guess they might've been lying about that too. And I don't really see why it'd make a difference if it's a kid or an adult who buys it, as long as they've got the money, if you can't charge kids money for it it seems like everyone would just send their kids to buy it."

Hopefully that's normal for villages that usually don't have a priest, not just places that usually do?

"Oh!  Yes, that does ward of sickness, but it doesn't work all that well, and it still does make you - a little chaotic, yes, that's not a bad word for it.  We have better ways of making water safe to drink now - you just boil tap water and it's fine, or you can buy bottled water from a store if you're out somewhere.  Of course that costs money, but it's not like beer is free.  So the only reason people drink alcohol now is, well, because it makes you drunk and that can be nice, or because you like the taste.  It is legal to be drunk as long as you're not doing anything wrong otherwise - we make and sell very strong alcohol, maybe the sort of thing that was illegal for everyone where you lived."  Honestly, he wonders if that might not be a better thing, overall.  Drinking is too ubiquitous a part of life for the possibility to normally come up, but since they were just talking about other common things that were made illegal because they're predictably bad for people...  Only bad for some people though, and good for others, so he's not sure it'd really be worth it, and it would be such a mess.  It's interesting that someone tried, and apparently had it more or less work, but everything else she's been saying about her village does not make it an encouraging example. 

"So - the thing about children is that alcohol is worse for them than for adults.  When you're still growing, it can mess up your development and make you grow up-- more chaotic, less responsible, less healthy, less smart - instead of just temporarily make you like that while you're drunk.  Maybe the very weak alcohol you had wouldn't do that - I'm not sure, really, but if it did it'd only be by a little - but the sort of thing we have definitely would, and that's why it's illegal to sell it to minors.  You're old enough that it's not as if you can't drink at all, but... teenagers are famously irresponsible as it is.  If they could buy alcohol themselves, they'd do that with their friends and get drunk somewhere with no adult supervision, drink who knows how much, do stupid things, end up in a hospital.  Not that they don't do that anyway," he smiles a little, "but we do try not to make it too easy.  So if a responsible adult offers you some alcohol, that's fine, it's not illegal for you to ever drink anything - it's just illegal for people to make it too easy for you to have it without someone around who's looking out for you and knows what they're doing. Which basically means illegal to sell - I guess it'd probably also be illegal for a store to give it out to you for free, but nobody would do that anyway. Does all that make sense?"

She's never heard of alcohol being bad for people if they don't even drink enough to get drunk, but she guesses she doesn't have any idea how to know one way or the other.

"Do you have to spend a lot of time chopping wood or do you have, uh, some other trick that isn't magic?"

"I personally spend a lot of time chopping wood, which I don't mind at all and would need to do for heating anyway, but nowadays most people have gas or electricity, it's just that I live in an old house and haven't paid to get it modernized."  He looks rather cheerful about that.  He grew up in a modern apartment with gas and radiators, but he always liked wood fires when they had them at scout camps or at friends' houses, and turned out to still like the old ways even when living with them every day.  "Uh, gas is... a gas... that's flammable, it comes from under the ground and you can buy it in large bottles and attach it to the stove so it lets out the right amount to cook food on, and electricity is--" she's absolutely not going to believe him that electricity isn't magic, is she "--a sort of lightning that runs along wires and can be used to heat things or make light or power machines.  It really isn't magic but I have to admit I'd have trouble explaining how.  ...I do have electricity at my house, just for light and not for heating." 

He's already thinking about whether there's any way he can show her what electricity is and how it works.  How do those dynamo bike lights work, maybe that's something they could take apart and make sense of...  If she wants to, which she probably won't - he thinks teenage girls usually have different hobbies, and she did seem more the reading type than the hands-on one.