"Hey. Verita, right? Korva was hoping to see you."

"Was she," she says, doubtfully, but she snaps the book shut.

"'s this way. Are you settling in okay?"

She shakes off her momentary mild case of honesty. "Yeah! It's cool here, there's lots of magic to study."

"There sure is. I hated it for the first year or so but then, I wasn't magic."

"Huh.

"How did you end up here?"

"Oh, uh, this was eighteen years ago, when they mostly sourced slaves. Now I think - now I think we're not really taking new people at all, under Khemet the third bless his memory there was an application process, but before that they just - advertised."

"Huh."

She adds some reasons to her list of reasons not to like this place.

"...so were you, like, a kid? When you came here?"

"Sixteen. I guess that doesn't sound very much like a kid to you."

"I dunno. S' the age of majority in Cheliax. Korva started taking care of us when she was sixteen."

"It's too young to have children, I think, at least somewhere like here where we can afford not to risk it, but the idea is that you have a while to learn all the protocols and get used to everything before you go anywhere where you might get attention."

"Oh," she says, neutrally.

"Are you a slave now?"

"No. Khemet the third bless his memory changed how it all works, to make it more modern and so on. Everyone's free, now."

"That's good. I guess."

"I think so!" She reaches Korva's room and knocks. "There're only slaves now when countries that do things differently send presents, and we mostly just pretend nothing's different, there, it's hard enough being sent to an entire other country without also having to figure out exactly where you stand with the local laws."

Nodnod.

She opens the door.

"Hey."

"Hey."

- aaah, she should have checked in sooner.

"Are you - can you come in a minute?"

"Sure."

She lets herself be ushered into the room.

"What's up?"

"What's up with you? I haven't seen you in - weeks - "

"I'm right down the hall."

"Ostensibly."

"I'm there every single night! It's not my fault if you're too busy to ever come say hi!"

- ah, fuck.

It hadn't occurred to her, somehow, that she had control over when she saw Verita, and not the other way around, but now it seems obvious  and she feels like an idiot. Verita is the dependent one; she's the parent. She has a responsibility to come and check on her children, not the other way around, even if they don't have any desire to reach out to her. Especially at a point when reaching out to her is hard.

" - I'm sorry. I hadn't - I thought you'd come see me when you were ready."