"I guess that's a way to be."

"You can't just spend your whole life slavishly obeying whoever has the sharpest sword. So Pharasma's a bitch, that doesn't make us hers."

"What're you gonna do instead? More criminal geopolitics?"

"Gonna sit here and spin thread, apparently."

"I mean if you did get out."

"Pick up my stuff, retire somewhere very very far away. Adopt some dogs."

"Sounds nice."

"Could even dump some of the gold on a charity, if I decide to play the stupid game."

"Faster than this nonsense. Why were you in the piracy etcetera business to begin with?"

"It's interesting and it pays well."

"And you didn't know yet that you weren't getting paid enough?"

"Eh, I mostly got unlucky. Or was betrayed, one of those."

"Any idea who'd've betrayed you?"

"I have a list, why?"

"I hear sometimes people want information. I dunno if it'd be useful but if you don't mind saying..."

"One of the boys who got captured, thus arranging their way out and not mine, but then why kill me? People we'd screwed over recently -" she lists some, counting off her fingers. "Thought it might be the Osirians, if they wanted something from me, but they haven't done anything but stick me in their stupid monastery and give me some lectures about womanhood and lawfulness and obedience and so on."

"Womanhood too, wow."

"Did you know that the gods designed me to give my husband babies and take care of them and raise them to honor him? Real stupid of them giving me a brain, if that was the plan."

"Gosh, gods designed you? Such privilege. Better patch all their design flaws for them."

"Half the girls here are hoping for a husband. Means they're allowed to leave. Not much chance, but, you know, some men can't find a free woman."

"The kind with that much of a selection deficit might not improve much on spinning and staring at the same walls every day."

"They'll hit you, they'll fuck you, they'll occasionally feel bad and buy you presents, hard to say if that adds up better or worse. I'm not chomping at the bit."

"I'm probably never going to get married myself but maybe it'd sound great after a week of spinning. Should I let you get back to that, or is there anything else I should know?"

"Eh, come back if you wanna pay for any of the rest of it."

"Will they even let you keep money, in here?"