"We would be there now but you're weird and nobody wants you to look weird in front of a lot of people. And you're small and cities aren't very healthy for little kids. I guess probably when it seems like you're not going to stand out and you're a little bigger."

"What's unhealthy about them? How do I stop looking weird, I'm already fixing my hair."

"Your hair is fine. You're weirdly smart for how small you are and also you're like me, you say things because they're true even though everyone else is being stupid on purpose, and if you do that in front of anyone outside our household then whichever of our parents finds out first will hit you. And cities are crowded and full of poor people and they have epidemics. And thieves."

"...well, what things am I supposed to be stupid about in public?"

"...Hmmm. I don't know all the things people are being stupid about and all the things they're just being obnoxious about even though they're right. Don't say anybody's parent was a slave. Don't say bad things about anyone. Don't act like you think you're smarter than people like us, or - a mayor, or a soldier, or the Star-of-Stars - but you can think you're smarter than serfs or something. Don't... I have no idea when it is and isn't okay to imply that something someone is thinking about doing would be cowardly. Don't say your ambitions are bad for anyone - don't say you're going to take over the country, don't say you're going to grow up to sell paper for a living, the paper is a hobby, you aren't a papermaker. And ask a woman, too, I don't know how to be a woman. I think it's complicated."

"Is it okay to want to write books?"

"Yes! I do."

"Because I would rather do that than make paper, it's just it would be awful if there wasn't enough paper for there to be books for everybody and I was not sure the people who are paper makers already are on top of that."

"It's not their fault there isn't that much paper! There are a lot of people and not that many of them make paper!"

"Sure, and I don't even know who should be making paper and isn't."

"Nobody! If I made paper then Sesat wouldn't be safe. If farmers made paper then we couldn't eat. If weavers made paper then we couldn't wear clothes." Feris is getting kind of worked up about this.

"There's nobody who's just doing something that doesn't need doing at all? ...like whoever is making Sesat not safe in the first place. They could make paper instead. And then you would have more time to write books."

"Yes, they could. They're in other countries, like Iral and Azan, or they're pirates - do you know about pirates yet?"

"No! Tell me about pirates."

"When people try to trade with other people who are really far away - because different places have different goods, like tin or fish or bananas, and people want a little of each instead of lots of just one - sometimes they load up a ship and send it someplace, and then the ship is attacked by pirates who steal everything on it."

"- but then what do they do with it if it's full of more bananas than they could eat by themselves."

"Sell the bananas, I suppose. Or let them rot. Or make them into something that keeps. It’d depend on their resources."

"People would buy bananas from them that were stolen?"

"Some people are terrible. Or starving. Or they lie about it."

"Oh."

"So I’m supposed to grow up to keep Sesat safe. Zaira was too, but he can't." He has a club foot.

"Well he can't do it running around shooting arrows at things, he could do it by knowing who's supposed to have bananas maybe."

"Yes. He’s plenty smart and useful." And he and Feris would trade places if they could. Feris doesn’t say that but he makes an unhappy face.

"Only if they'd just let the bananas ROT maybe that wouldn't help much. Probably there is something though."

"Maybe you’ll grow up to do something clever about thieves."