"I have never been so blessed as to have visited them or been educated about their polities, but I would like one with a public park, if there are any among the stars."

"Great. Yes. That's - that's not difficult," Nelen says, pulling out his pocket everything and beginning to scroll frantically through the options.

"And you're going to stay here in Sesat where you get to own a slave until you've pinned all that down, hm?" Feris says teasingly.

Nelen glares at him and pops up to the ship.

"Do you have a name? Or a name you'd like to have?"

She looks around frantically for a while.

"...My lord may call me whatsoever my lord wills." In Sesati she manages a double meaning of "you can call me 'my lord'" but she's keeping a very straight face just in case and the ambiguity may not translate.

"- we can go back down if you want, you can go anywhere at all, I was just concerned he might have a point, or some of a point. I'm not your lord, I'm a diplomat, I don't want to own a slave, I want to find you somewhere you can live in luxury among the stars, I just don't know where would be best." Scroll scroll.

"Would my diplomat" (this isn't possessive in Sesati and it's a productive way to form new titles) "find it easier to work with narrower criteria?"

"It might speed things up but it would make sense if you didn't have anything more restrictive in mind than 'a park'."

"I could make something up if my diplomat would prefer that, though. More blue and purple flowers. Taller hills. Name that's two syllables and not a common noun. Frost. The ability to teach people dances in private before they're called on to dance in public. Uses tattoos for something else. Closest to here that's all those things."

This doesn't actually seem to help him very much but he will gamely attempt to find something. "- Motkyn, an integrated city on Space Arda, chilly and mountainous, this random promotional photo has lilacs in it, it looks like they have a smart tattoo business in town?"

"Of course. Integrated?"

"It means it's not heavily skewed to any one species. It was founded by Dwarves but it looks like they encourage other peoples to live there."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. I will... drop you off at the Integration office there? And they can help you with whatever else you need?"

"As my diplomat wills."

"- do you need anything else from me in particular? I would like to stop even slightly owning a slave as soon as possible."

"Not at all but I was under the impression that my diplomat had stopped doing that already by coming here."

"Yes but you are being nervewrackingly deferential."

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no. Is she supposed to apologize? Will that make it worse? Is everyone going to expect her to hit a new and different specific level of deference and get angry if she overshoots as well as if she undershoots?

She's... mostly still breathing. Shallowly.

"Sorry. Sorry, I - believe me, I understand, I was not exactly a slave but sort of like one, growing up, it's just. Sorry. I was not expecting this and don't know what to do and don't know if I can rely on you to correct me if I make a mistake."

"...Oh, I, uh. I did think you might have been something like that but I wasn't going to presume to treat you like you were any less than any person as long as no one brought it up." She stops addressing Nelen as a person entirely. Probably even if he objects to that too she can find something in the middle faster than he'll run out of patience. "I have no idea how I'd correct you if you made a mistake because I have no idea what you're trying to do."

He relaxes. "I just want to find you somewhere you can be free and happy without me personally being responsible for you."

"I know nothing about any of these places that you haven't personally told me just now so I'm sure I can't help with that. How am I supposed to address people?"

"- I don't speak more than ten words of Sesati. I'm using translation magic. Whatever you were doing before sounded like you were treating me as in charge of you and now you don't but I don't actually know what you changed."

"...Okay."