On the subject of exercising or moving around: He may want to do that now, because Saffron hasn't called him over yet.

He has finished moving around, so now he will exercise! He is So Happy. Doing it with grass and bright full-spectrum light and Lots of Space is much better than doing it in his room.

«All right, come over.»

Conrad will fly over with Windkeeping. Given that he only has to traverse this estate and not the empty void of outer space, it is practically instant.

Saffron has a rough draft of a contract. It's not in purple ink, the lines are widely spaced, and there's no signature field.

It's for a year and a day. Specifically, it's for 31622400 seconds of time passing on the surface of Luna, outside of any subjective-time-warping domains. If a dispute about contract duration occurs, the Lunabellan Office of Weights and Measures has final say.

The gist of it, on Saffron's side, is that Conrad will be treated as a valued member of Saffron's household. He will be fed, he will have a room, he will if necessary be defended, he will if necessary be helped with acquiring mana. Saffron is aware Alphazon considers itself to own Conrad and will likely make attempts to repossess him, and that she accepts that this makes her defense obligation more burdensome than typical.

On Conrad's side, he is to behave appropriately as a member of Saffron's house and repay her kindness. He is not to enter Saffron's or her other client's private spaces. He is not to damage her domain. He is to diligently work until he's produced a certain amount of Kisses in value, or for 56 hours a week, whichever criterion he meets first. (When this work can be done without equipment, he may choose when in the week he does it.) Extra duties may be assigned at Saffron's discretion in response to infractions, but Saffron is not to overestimate infractions or set him up for failure, and if he believes she is doing so, he may go to her matron. He will receive 5% of the proceeds from profitable work he does during this time. He will be available for up to 28 hours per week (counting commutes) of instruction, but if no plans are communicated to him, he is permitted to do other things during that time. He is not to produce a child, and magic incorporated with the contract will assist with this.

Additionally, until such time as Conrad becomes fully capable of his own defense, he will remain within a minute's travel of Saffron's estate, unless visiting Chasmapolis, Hawthorne, a few other places which are probably Lunabellan cities, or some other location Saffron authorizes.

If Conrad cannot fulfill his obligations as specified here, he owes Saffron an amount of money that varies based on what costs she's paid but has a (rather high) cap, to be repaid as promptly as possible without causing himself permanent harm, and her future obligations to him are void. If Saffron cannot fulfill her obligations as specified here, she is required to pay Conrad for the value of his work, with interest, and pay up to a large amount of money for him to be guarded for a week while he seeks out an alternate source of shelter.

Oh, and being in consciously breach of contract for an extended period without sincerely attempting to remedy that breach is going to cause exhaustion and pain, and Lunabella will publish records of the behavior.

Conrad will read the contract Saffron offers. It will take a little bit.

At the end, he will ask, "May I ask questions now, Lady Saffron?"

"You may, and you may also propose edits to this draft."

"I am not sure what constitutes a private space and would like to have a map that denotes where private spaces are so that I can be sure not to enter them.

What counts as damaging your domain? If I pluck a flower, does that count?

If I learn Portal magic, does the 'one minute away' clause mean that I can then travel to anywhere that my Portal magic could take me?"

He is not planning to have a child, and indeed, he's not even sure if he can have one! So he will have no issue with that.

"I can assign someone to make a map of the estate with private spaces labeled. If you learn Portal magic, you may travel anywhere you can portal back here from. This is not necessarily the same as 'anywhere your portal magic can take you' – you could portal out and lack the mana for a return trip, or in theory portal somewhere whose occupants would prevent you from returning. It is rather similar, though."

Saffron clicks her tongue. "As for damaging my domain, hmm. Taking a single flower from a plant with many flowers is fine. But you do bring to my attention that this is a complicated thing. I don't plan to punish sincere mistakes, and I can assign Cumin to tutor you? She seemed to like you well enough."

"Yes, Lady Saffron.

If I am unsure about whether something would or would not constitute as damaging your domain, I will ask Madam Cumin.

Can I use the empty bubble for magic practice?

Suppose that I wish to purchase equipment or infrastructure that might require a lot space or special handling. How would I seek approval for this? What can the workshops support?"

"So. I'd love to be able to offer you that, but that empty bubble is not persistently present at all, much less at that specific location. As for equipment or infrastructure, you would seek approval by asking me."

And she can go over workshop specifications, as well as discussing workshops she has access to through her matron.

Sad! Now he wants to learn Domain magic so that he can have his own empty bubble.

He didn't know that Saffron had workshops through her matron!! Conrad thinks that is very good.

"As for proposals: I do not want corporal punishment to be used on me.

Also, I do not want to be imprisoned or locked in my room, or being prevented from exercising or moving around your estate in general, except for certain areas which are off-limits-but-dispellable-with-permission, such as private areas. I am fine with a greater portion of the estate being similarly unavailable for me to move around in so long as these are conditional or limited in scope, such as a workshop being unavailable temporarily because it is occupied or being repaired, or someone is visiting and I am not supposed to talk to them or go near them."

"So. I do not plan to hurt you. However, it's much cheaper to magically enforce a contract with pain for failure than with compulsions to complete an action, especially if you're in a hurry to find a notary, which my understanding is you are. We can put in a clause specifying that I personally will not hurt you or encourage others to do so. We can specify that you have rights to be in your room, a path between your room and the perimeter of the estate, and to walk, run, or fly around the perimeter of the estate, barring brief occasions on which someone is visiting whom you ought not approach. Does that sound adequate, or no?"

"The contract having a pain effect built in in the case of breach is undesirable but understandable and acceptable to me. I was more worried about it being used regularly, like in Hawthorne. Yes, I would really like to have that clause in.

Yes, Lady Saffron, that sounds adequate."

A pause.

"The contract says that I must work until I have achieved this many Kisses in value, or until I have spent 56 hours on such in a week, whichever comes first. Will I be given instruction or restrictions on what valuable work I should or should not do? How will the value of the work be assessed? For example, if I make a statue, then that has value, but unless someone buys it in the same week, then how would its value be calculated for the purpose of fulfilling the contract?"

"You will be given instructions, yes. If I fail to give you instructions for reasons besides you arranging for me to be unable to do so, you will not be responsible for not following them." Scribble scribble. "I assess value, but the contract requires that I do so in good faith. The statue counts when you make it, not when it's sold, as you're not responsible for sales."

"I would like to put in escape clauses in the case that I am unable to follow the instructions or give the desired output. Examples: You task me with doing very intricate Firecalling work, but I am unable to reach the required precision. You task me with creating twelve statues in a week, but I am only able to make ten in a week. I am injured and cannot work."

"The hours-or-Kisses setup is intended to serve as an escape means for the first two issues. The third is … hmm. My understanding is that you are capable of performing valuable tasks while injured. Is your concern that you will be unable, or that you would want additional recovery time?"

"I am not actually concerned about being unable. If I am injured, it will either be severe enough that I die, and hence will be wholly physically unable to work until or unless I am resurrected, or it will not be that severe and I will be able to repair myself in several hours to a day provided with support.

However, there does still exist some chance there will be a situation which is neither. Such as...perhaps I am injured in such a way that I suffer from mental changes or damage, and this mental state prevents me from healing myself. Or that something goes wrong with my healing processes such that they become much slower at healing me.

In any case, it seems good to put in something so that the whole contract can always terminate gracefully, even if the situations that would trigger that eventuality are very, very unlikely."

"Oh, sure. That's what the clause for converting to a solely financial obligation is for."

Conrad thinks about this for a bit.

"I think there are no more amendments I want to propose."

"Lovely. Do you want some time to think it over, or shall we head to a notary now?"

He thinks about it for a few minutes. Part of him wants to hold out to see whether Zamira or Clothildis will contact him, but part of him wants to get this over with so that he can be under a matron's aegis already.

"We should head to a notary now."

"Excellent. Take my hand, I have a portkey there."

Conrad doesn't know what a portkey is, but Saffron told him to take her hand, so he will.

"Yes, Lady Saffron."

Well, in this case, a 'portkey' seems to be a something in a small cubby on Saffron's desk, maybe? She reached into the cubby, and a few moments later, an effect tried to transport Conrad.