Writing comes. Glued things don't. No. No. No. If you couldn't fit a teacup on it or a cup of tea in it, no.

"I will tell him our results."

"Mmhm."

"He thinks there'll be a market in shipping, letting people know when to expect you and with what inventory. And in art theft but I said we'd pass on that."

"There are art dishes?"

"Yeah. Fancy ones from really far away."

"I'd still have to see them. And it would get you in trouble."

"It would. We'll stick to letting ships communicate with home so the wagons to take their wares inland can arrive at the right time, Caranth says that'll be quite a lot of money all by itself."

"I didn't realize there was such a fortune to be made in, uh, wagon-timing."

"Shipping is a high-risk, high-margins industry, says my brother who would know. You don't mind doing it?"

"You keep asking me that."

"Because if you don't want to, better to know now than after we've had dishes you're familiar with go out on ships."

"You spent eight thou on me," she points out. "I am pretty sure I remember that part."

"I - yeah. But I'm not, like, going to torture you if you don't do what you're told, so in practice it kind of matters what you want to do."

"You can tell me to do stuff. I'm real cooperative about things that are not taking my kid."

"...okay."

"...what?"

"I'm not sure what the - moving parts are - to 'I'll do what you say because you own me' - if they're not 'and so you can make my life suck if I don't'."

"...I have no idea how that's confusing."

" - okay, say that the embroidery had made you impossible to hurt and you didn't need to eat or drink, and neither did Cathei. Would you still feel like you should do what I said because I own you."

"...yyyyyyes? That's, um, that's how it works."

"...and when he says 'you should let me sell your daughter because I'm super fucking evil', then you're not supposed to anymore? Or you still are supposed to but you just couldn't -"

"I'm not actually sure 'supposed to' is the thing you - would want to mean if you knew what I meant -?"

"Uh. Okay. I don't know what you mean, I just kind of figured slaves did what they were told because otherwise people would hurt them."

"That's like, in there, but... I mean, you could go around hurting other people too, if you wanted, you'd just have less help if they tried to hurt you back..."