He thinks for a moment.

"Are you certain she will not return to thievery? I can incorporate a full pardon into appointing a magistrate, it's somewhat expected with a new emperor in power, but if she immediately returns to thievery it will be unfortunate for future stability of the system. The opals will easily cover the price of a slave, doubly so an escaped slave. I can direct the money as appropriate if she can identify to whom it should go under a truth spell. No I will not pardon an escaped slave for escaping without compensating her master, the emperor's right to lay claim to arbitrary property is tenuous and I refuse to let policy rest on it. Especially at the moment."

Iovetra understands this explanation logically, and acknowledges it as a solid way to politic, and is in fact intellectually on board with the 'compensate her master for her' plan. Emotionally, she wants to murder that guy, and scream a little at Kaddar about how there's no one to compensate Afra for the suffering she endured while enslaved, after she escaped, and the way she had to sell her body and steal to survive. That will just go completely unremarked upon, thought probably her expression shows some percentage of it.

"I expect she will not have to return to thievery, on account of how she has magic that apparently comes in at least two colors and is probably therefore very very useful, and also has a terrifying vampire friend who is, I will stress, also an escaped slave, and thus very sympathetic to her grievances and situation and fully aware of how cultures with slavery view people as property to be compensated for," says Iovetra, flatly. The next part is not quite so flat:

"When I said I wanted to solve the problem by throwing opals at it, I was aware of what I implied, thank you. Please do not start an argument with me on this topic as if I'd said something I hadn't, and am someone else, I have been very politely not starting any arguments at all and request the same courtesy. I very sensibly and honestly explained the situation and offered the equivalent of monetary compensation and am working to fix this legally and above board, you're welcome."

...note one point for "something weird, not an average immortal". Awareness of political structures among humans is certainly not standard issue. Also oops.

"I apologize for the unintended insult. There will be no problem if compensating her former owner is acceptable. Can you present a strong case she would not have been captured and returned independent of my intervention? Right to an escaped slave almost certain to go unfound is substantially lower priced when sold, and the crown is not obligated to pay substantially more than fair value." Daine has enjoyed the exercise. He can't abolish slavery but that doesn't mean he can do nothing about it.

"How many people has she harmed accidentally? Two-colored magic is unfortunately prone to uncontrollable outbursts. I can pardon that but the lingering memories will often destroy her chance of recovering in the eyes of the local population. Although if you plan to assist her in departing the area, this is less a problem; the legal status will suffice unless there are substantial rumors I have failed to hear thus far."

Deep breath. She is a friendly vampire who will make nice with the humans, and not go on a continent spanning mission of conquest in a bid to make the place better under her immortal rule. That is what bad, evil vampires do, and she is not one of those.

"Apology accepted. I expect I can make a strong case, yes, she has magically evaded capture for an extended period of time, and I can personally confirm her defensive measures hold up extremely well to outside tampering." Even when she was giving birth and needed a midwife! But, yes, there, implications that it's Afra doing it instead of the magic cave, isn't she clever. "I have not had the chance to ask for specifics about her accidents, and I don't know her plans for if she'd like to stay or leave. If she'd like to depart, I will be happy to assist her."

"I then suspect her former master will then be cursing this day despite the payment." A short smile at that. He's exaggerating, but there is something appealing about using the old decrees for funding slave takers to such a purpose. The Banjuku have proven remarkably capable of touching exactly the letter of those standards. He conspicuously has not asked Daine if she has any idea how.

"If you can provide me a plan before I announce the pardon, it will be more effective — a penalty commuted to exile from the immediate area will stem attempts to poison her future, but only is possible if she will in fact depart. Have you spoken already with Numair on the handling of her Gift? He is the expert here on working with twin-colored magic."

"I have not, my first priority was making sure this was all legally above board. Now that I have a confirmation that this is a workable plan, I can go back to her and ask her specifics about what she'd like to do with her future. I also don't really have a good grasp of how Gifts... work... so I expect a technical explanation would be lost on me at this time."

"Knowing him, I suspect Numair will have strong opinions. Quite likely multiple. I recommend asking him while Daine is nearby; she will catch him when he drifts too far into academic exploration which is better done later. A route to controlling her Gift is among the must valuable things we can straightforwardly provide before reaching her more immediate vicinity." Given that she is apparently being fed and has shelter, at least.

"On what subject, if she is given something on the condition it not be shared, will she in fact keep it secret? I can issue her a letter directing any official intervention to me for the next week, but it will interfere with any other plans we have if it is noticed. If she will mention it without need it may be better to give you a temporary letter of sufficient authority to handle any such quarrels."

"She is quite thoroughly hidden, and I've been helping her with staying that way by getting her food and other material goods, which was her main risk factor in getting discovered. I expect that with sufficient rations, she could go entirely unnoticed until your retinue arrived to sort things out. Relatedly, I would like to purchase at least two weeks worth of food supplies. As to her secret keeping abilities - I mean, we had a language barrier before last night? So I can't accurately say at this moment in time. But she has no one to gossip with except her infant son, so. I do not foresee that as a problem."

"In that case, remind me to write that while we lunch." Two weeks of extra food? They don't have two weeks in reserve— two weeks for two people. Thirty person-days is one day of reserves. They scheduled some losses to chasing the Hag rumors, but they do have sufficient reserves even so. They will need to stock up more aggressively in the future, but hopefully that will not be a problem.

"You can also speak with Chosim — him, over there — for supplies. He will better know what precisely we have which will store well."

Iovetra nods agreeably. "Two weeks is probably me being a little overcautious, I've been quietly fretting about her food situation since I learned the specifics of it. If I am eating overmuch into your stores, please let me know." But that should also probably be discussed with Chosim instead of the Emperor himself! She will go do that, and explain the situation. Nursing mother with an infant, period of malnutrition that Iovetra has been combating with the power of being a terrifying vampire that can hunt down and murder all wildlife (she studiously does not mention the egg stealing), carry weight is not really a problem for her, storage of the food probably will be - does this all sound workable? She can go do some hunting of nearby animal life if he wants her to make up for the loss in stores?

He looks a little worried until she mentions hunting, at which point he is much happier about this plan. (He would definitely be too professional to not provide her with food, but she can tell he would have been unhappy about it.) Malnutrition... does she know what specifically will be needed? He has a wide range of options, they didn't bring anything specifically for nursing mothers but he can show her some of the standard advice — actually, she's an alchemist, isn't she? What advice does she know for nursing mothers? Zaimid keeps saying they need to study other people's traditions as well, she must have some very different traditions and maybe they'll be useful here.

Anyway. Food, including a good mix of blander rice and breads and mild protein, working up to some red meat once she can. Quickly if possible! But better to eat something she'll retain well than to push her to red meat too quickly. He has some fruit but that's harder to come by out in the desert, she should eat something but Iovetra might be better for that than the caravan. ...but if needed, here are some preserved options, fresh replacements will do for the caravan. He can go into more detail about her exact options. Extermination of the local animal life would be very helpful thank you, they were already relying a little on the mages to keep them stable after the detour and this is leaving their margin very tight.

Extermination of the local wildlife for the sake of the caravan, can do. She is also willing to do supply runs to the nearest local town, she runs very fast and can carry very heavy things, just - interfacing with general humanity is, uh. Slightly tricky? What with being herself and all. She doesn't want to scare people. Having some kind of imperial seal of approval and money to exchange for goods would go a long way, she thinks. With an imperial okay, Iovetra is perfectly happy to run errands for them. Or just go buy supplies from the nearest town and bring those to Afra; where does that happen to be? (She already knows, but she will play dumb so as to disguise Afra's location.) Just, again; she thinks she needs assistance of some kind to avoid terrifying the local populace.

She is similarly happy to talk about her traditions of dealing with nursing mothers; protein rich food is actually moderately important, as is calcium, but this is such a weird niche case, actually? Afra's past the worst bit of the malnutrition, Iovetra's just still fretting about it a lot. It has by necessity been meat, and most of that lean. Grains would be great to help balance that diet.

They can definitely provide a seal of approval if she can carry things. (Their current fast transportation method is Daine, who can only carry what she can fly.) The closest villages... well, they have a map which is probably years out of date and people have a habit of moving around, but there should be one around there and the one they're headed to around there? And they came from one back here, but it's a ways off, they needed the oasis to make this connection safely — if she needs an exact location more than proximity, it's an option.

(The second of these is probably the village Afra is near.)

...protein? Calcium? These are interesting words. He is interested. Tell him more of this "protein" and "calcium".

Excellent; Iovetra will copy down the map and investigate these locations for gathering supplies, both for Afra and for the entourage. She can pull double duty, she's fine with it.

Oh! Oh! Does he want to learn about ~nutrition~? She can assist in this endeavor!!!!

Okay so proteins are a subset-of-food that are really really important. Examples of proteins are meat, fish, eggs, and some nuts and leafy greens, though plant based food can be very hit or miss on the subject. They contribute to lots of things, but muscle mass is a particularly notable one; someone starved of protein will lose muscle faster than someone well fed, and eating a lot of protein can help a human bulk up.

Calcium is an important mineral that humans need, particularly for bone strength and, in a nursing mother's case, milk production. Egg shells are high in calcium, as is milk and cheese.

Does he want to hear about carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals, too? Because she knows so much about human nutritional needs, and she is so happy to share this knowledge! She will cheerfully explain which parts of which foods (that she knows of) have which things. She is actually qualified to immediately diagnose potential problems the caravan might've been having. The most obvious problem she would predict for travel food is - if there's a word for it in this language, she doesn't know it, but bleeding of the gums, tiredness, poor wound healing? Are those things anyone here is experiencing, because if so, then Iovetra can just go make a tonic for that, literally right now.

He does! He wants to know so much about nutrition! Some of this makes sense, and he has some sense of what a body is made of, but she clearly knows more!

...is protein the thing which is why nursing mothers sometimes faint more easily if they're not eating enough meat? That stands out enough for him to focus on it. If there are non-meat (cheaper) alternatives he should spread the word with the hospitals they're planning to set up. Everyone knows meat is good, but being good for nursing and being affordable are not the same thing. Fainting doesn't seem like muscles though?

It's not really a surprise that a useful ingredient for making milk is in milk. Dairy is definitely cheaper than meat, and egg shell is even cheaper if you can extract the calcium somehow... is this the sort of thing you can boil into water? Eating eggshells directly seems like a bad idea, but steeping them might work.

He does want to hear about everything she's got! Oh and that, yes, that's why they have the preserved fruits, nobody knows exactly what it is but they know you need a steady supply of reasonably fresh fruits to keep it away. (Carthak has done quite a bit of research here for naval reasons. When all your enemies are across a sea from you, a navy suddenly starts to look very important. He will not say anything about this because he has more sense than that, and the efforts on crossing the desert did have some connections. Not everything they've done on the matter is naval.)