"Yes..." He furrows his brow at her. "But that's not a disqualifier all by itself, just a risk factor."

"Heads up that half the people involved are going to just not believe the verdicts are really based in anything other than who deserves to get what they want for being a better person."

"I mean, being a better person does... help... with parenting, so that's only half wrong, but... do you have an idea for how to, uh, spin it, when it comes up?"

"I don't know. I mean... I guess... what would you do if there was only one parent but some other random person thought they'd do a better job?"

"If there's only one parent then they can still lose their child for being abusive or neglectful but there's less likely to be family court involvement in the first place so in practice the standard is lower."

"Mmmmaybe tell people stories about that happening so they know it can just happen like that? I don't know. Does it come with other important things like restraining orders and teleportation?"

"Having your kids taken? Some jurisdictions prevent you from having more children if this happens. Not all of them."

"Oh, uh. I guess that makes sense." Shrug. "Anyway, I guess that's it."

"All right. May I have your contact information in case we need your advice again?"

They totally can.

And Nelen will take her home.

Feris, meanwhile, gives a report to the king in private and then walks out ranting loudly about how none of this would have been a problem at all if people hadn't started it by using restraining orders in the first place when those are obviously a weapon fit only for slaves and cowards. Why, he wants to know what pathetic excuse for a man first came up with the idea!

" - Actually," a bystander interrupts, "did my lord not hear that it was a woman?"

"Oh, well," Feris says, grumpily but no longer yelling, "I'm sorry to have insulted her. I suppose it's quite understandable for a woman."

That's the best he thinks he can do to get the free Sesatis to stop their nonsense, and then he heads to Leopard Hill as fast as he can to take an old friend aside for a private conversation. His friend Mora was in charge of their chariot crew, which is him and Feris and Taren and Tena and Valan; now three of them are scattered to the stars and Feris is busy in the capital and Mora's mostly alone in Leopard Hill.

"Do you remember when we all got drunk together right before we went to guard the border?" Feris whispers as they wander outside the walls, halfheartedly looking for anything useful that might be growing nearby.

"Yeah, why?"

"Do you remember the slave?"

"What, the pretty one?"

"If you think it was pretty, sure. I need to buy it."

"That one specifically?"

"Yes, that one specifically. I will explain later, but I need it if it's still alive and I need somewhere to talk to it privately - "

"'Talk' to it, huh?"

"Yes, actually, talk to it. Possibly along with this person from Vanda Nossëo who - never mind, I can explain that later. Who's it belong to?"

"Taren's uncle, pretty sure. What do you need to talk to it for?"

"Look, you know the plan with Valan?" (He does not know the plan with Valan. He knows a different plan with Valan that has the same first step.)

Mora nods.

"A restraining order would screw us over and I don't trust Taren's uncle to prevent it from happening, but I have more pull with the envoys and can more easily protect my property even if things go badly."

"Shame we can't just kill it."

"It really is. Will you help me pay?"

Mora laughs. "With Vanda Nossëo threatening to come take them all? He'll give it to you for a song. If it's one he hasn't already sung for a shopkeep."

"Then sing for me," Feris says with false sweetness.

"Are you mad about something?"

"I didn't get us into this situation. You and Valan got us into this situation. And I definitely cannot go track him down and demand that he pay."

They get the slave. They arrange a private space for their consultant to talk to it. They summon her back to do that.

"...Uh. Hello."

"Might I know what my lady wishes from me?"

Fere snorts. "Wow, that's just creepy from this end. I'm no lady, I'm nothing but dirt." Dirt is one of Fere's nicknames. They're all like that, or someone would notice and ban them. "The kinda dirt you'd find on some ugly rock." That's her nickname for the person who calls her Dirt.

The slave raises her head. She only has the one mark, so she was born into it. "What kind of ugly rock?" (Meaning, who gave that slave that nickname? They all have several nicknames, and they get them from other slaves who each also have several nicknames. Outside a local context, one nickname isn't disambiguating. A long chain of them can be, or a unique loop.)

"A dirty one."

"Mhm."

"I'm not from around here, I don't if I've seen the same stuff you have." I don't know if we know the same people anyway, is what she's implying. "But what're you?"

"Trash. The rotten kind. Like rotting lentil pods."

Fere shrugs, because she can't recall hearing of anyone who's nicknamed Trash by someone who's nicknamed Rot by someone who's nicknamed... Pod? Probably Pod, maybe Lentil. She tries a little harder to establish her own provenance - her Rock is Worm's Slug, Worm also has these other two nicknames...

Trash waves her to silence and then asks, "Do you have any idea what's going on?" She speaks as though they're equals and neither is a person.

"A little bit. You know the restraining orders thing?"

Trash laughs. "Such a stupid idea. Yes, I know that thing. What about it?"

"...I was going to try to figure out how to bribe you not to try to get one."

Trash laughs harder. "Well, I'm not, but I'll take your bribe."

"Okay. What do you want?"

"Is being whisked away to Vanda Nossëo to belong to one of those nice starfarers on offer?"

Fere opens her mouth to answer that, shuts it again, sighs. "Yeah, I think it is. But between you and me? You should ask for something else."

"Are they not what they seem?"

"Oh, they're what they seem, that's just redundant, ask for something you weren't already getting."

"...To know what's going on?"

"Secret treason, I think, at least if what I heard is true. It might not be. You, uh. If you got a restraining order it could make it harder to rescue everyone."

"There is no one who wants me to do that but how would it affect anything?"

"Someone needs to teleport for their clever plan, I think."

"Okay. And - your face - if they don't do tattoos or shave your head how do they mark us in Vanda Nossëo?"

"...I think the idea is they don't because they hate slavery."

"Um. I don't... I don't know how to do anything, though? I don't know if I want to starve."

"They have this thing - it's sort of complicated - okay, imagine being a queen or something, right? Imagine not really having to do things because someone really really powerful wants to keep you around, yeah?"

"Are you telling me Vanda Nossëo is offering me that?"

"Well, they offered me that. Only without the specific powerful person because it's - it's complicated. They let me live like that but there's not a king to charm for it. Or, like, they would? They did but I got bored and started working."

Trash nods. "And all I have to do for this is not get a restraining order?"

"Yeah. It's legit."

"Can I have a servant keep a flower garden for me?"

"Is that important to your choice here. I mean, yeah, you can, but would it change anything if I said no."

"What choice, the choice to do as I'm told and be rewarded or disobey and be punished? If I were going to pick the second I wouldn't be here, now, would I?"

Fere sighs and doesn't argue.

"And..." Trash starts to say more, then pauses for a long time before continuing. "In the end it wasn't the rebels who saved us, was it."

"If we're going to get everyone out, it will be. Anyway, but you won't get in the way, whatever your reasons, right?"

"Of course."

Fere steps out to let Feris know.

"And the price?" he asks.

"Wouldn't go amiss for you to pay her your first installment of the basic income and apologize when you do."

"Optimist, is she?"

"Maybe."

"Fine. I think if I take a picture of us here I can summon Nelen, unless he's busy - do you want to stay and see if he makes a face?"

"Yeah, sure."

Nelen comes when he gets the picture and looks between the three of them, head tilted.

"Nelen, this is yours now. Do with it as you will." Feris smiles and watches Nelen's reaction.

"- this?" says Nelen blankly.

Feris gestures at the slave. "This!"

Nelen goes extremely ashen as though he has been told that he must personally journey into the underworld in order to rescue his tormented loved ones. "- why."

Feris starts cracking up, gets it together, and says with an attempt at gentleness that is at odds with how hard he has to work to keep from laughing, "Because you're the one who can get someone out of Sesat and into a safer jurisdiction fastest of anyone I know."

Nelen looks sort of wibbly about this but turns to the slave. "You are free to go anywhere you want," he tells her. "Anywhere at all. I can take you wherever you want to go, or get someone else to do it, and then you never have to think about me again, you're free."

"My lord is generous and merciful. I would prefer to go to the stars and live in great splendor there, and, um, might I be permitted to know if my lord finds fault with me beyond my lord's objections to slavery?"

"- no, of course not, I don't even know you, I just really really really really object to slavery!"

She smiles. "I hope my lord will not take it as an insult if I say that I shared my lord's opinion on this matter even before I heard it from my lord."

"That is completely reasonable and to be expected!" he says, holding the note of hysteria down to a light whimper in his voice. "Do you have a preference among the various stars!"