(She grew up. She ran away from home and started smuggling people out.)

Amait is her great-grandmother's proxy in the Civic Council. Amait's great-grandmother owns a hundred and seventy-seven people, which entitles her proxy to eight votes. If she bought three more it would be nine votes, and that extra vote might make a difference, but Amait has not mentioned this to her great-grandmother. Obviously.

(It'd be one thing if the extra slaves would be purchased in service of the swing vote on abolition. But she's nowhere near achieving that, ten or twelve years off in the best of circumstances. They'd be a potential swing vote on aqueducts and covered sewers and literacy programs and foreign trade. Worthy causes, but - well.)

She plans to abolish slavery before her children are old enough to ask their great-grandmother about it.

One of the house slaves goes to her office and waits at the door for acknowledgment.

She learned all their names and then mostly stayed away. It's - psychologically easier. They don't usually bring messages, either - "yes, Almye?"

"It's your great-grandmother, Mistress." They usually call her ma'am. "Her girl found her passed on this morning."

" - send my grandmother my condolences, and tell her I'll be back - end of the week, can't miss this vote -"

"Yes Mistress."

"Do you need anything while you're here -"

Blink. "I've checked in with the overseer, Mistress."

"Thank you. You can go."

She goes.

Amait's grandmother could maybe with a concerted assault be persuaded to let them all go. Amait ignores this. At least until the end of the week. There's a vote. 

"And it'd have to be quite the concerted assault, aren't she and your mother estranged presently?"

"Last I heard she had written my mother out of her will and my mother had told her that she didn't have parents anyway and would not dream of being associated with the -"

"Go on."

"Sinkholes of worthless idiocy which my grandmother produced by her second husband."

"Sounds like your mother. Okay. Do we in fact need her to convince your grandmother to let them go -"

"I don't know. Maybe. Probably. It's a hard sell - we'd be poor and powerless -"

"So reassure her that she's going to be comfortable anyway, yeah, and maybe even that we can afford paid help - can we -"

"I don't know."

"You must've seen this coming - if not now, next couple years -"

"Honestly I haven't really been thinking, uh, ahead. I guess I should have been. It's - when it happened it was going to either mean I continue doing politics or all the politics immediately ceases to be relevant and I go be a commoner, so - might as well plan as if it won't happen. What else would I have done, taken up a trade so I have something to occupy myself afterwards -"

"A week sooner'll make a big difference to them - nearly two hundred, a week sooner is - years of peoples' lives -"

"I know that."

"How do we convince your grandmother."

"I don't know."

"- I know I should know, it's just - coming up empty - I wouldn't lie to you, if I wasn't going to try to convince her I would just say that."

"I'll go talk to her."

"Thank you."

She goes.

There is an earthquake. It's not a very big earthquake, but even a little one can rearrange a magic.

The magic nearest Amait's grandmother's house extends a tendril made of mirrors and marshmallows and consumes an ox, half an acre of rye, a barn cat, and Amait's grandmother.

Almye brings the news again. And a copy of the will.

- as promised, Amait's grandmother disowned Amait's mother. Left everything to her eldest granddaughter, 'blessed be her years'. 

"Oh."

"Do you need anything, Mistress -"

"Did my - was my cousin there when it happened, does she know -"

"Abem's been sent to notify her household."

" - I -

- everyone else is all right? All -" headshake - "hundred seventy seven -"

"Yes Mistress. Some of the field slaves were close enough to see but did not fall in. They corralled the embroidered cat on its way out for you."

"I'm going to prevent my mother from running off into the magic to see if there's anything to rescue and then I'm going to talk to an accountant about what I can do for all of you. Is there anything that'd be reassuring in the meantime -"

"...Mistress?"

"- I don't, sorry, I'm not really prepared for - I'm not going to split families up or anything, things like that, that people should know before I get there and have a plan -"

"I'll let them know, Mistress."

"But are there other things like that."

"Families would be the principal thing, Mistress."

She looks like she is considering saying something and does not say it. "All right. Thank you."

"Of course." She bows, takes a step back, pauses in case there's anything else.

Whatever it is she still doesn't say it.

Almye goes.

She arrives three hours later. Hugs her. "I'm so sorry."

"Mmmhmm. Is your mother all right - I was expecting her to split the estate -"

"Makes sense to keep it together. We're fine." Tighter hug. "I didn't tell them you were letting them go, thought you should do it."

Amait sits down. "I didn't tell them either."

"- why not, you can afford it, I looked at the budget, won't leave us with much but won't leave them with much either and of the two injustices -"

"I'm not sure I want to do it."

"Amait -"

"I could end slavery. No one's had this much this young in a long time - I could end slavery and reform the council and give every town an aqueduct and a covered sewer - it halves the child mortality rate -"

"By 'had this much this young' you mean 'owned a hundred seventy seven people' -"

"Yes. I mean that I own a hundred seventy seven people and every minute I don't let them go is an appalling injustice and also incidentally I could end slavery."

"I don't think you can."

"...hmmm?"

"I don't think you can and I don't think you will, I think it's like - like wading deeper and deeper into a fast-moving river that keeps drowning people and thinking you'll be safe because you know that it keeps drowning people - I think by the time you have the power to end slavery it won't seem so important -"

"I've wanted to since I was six."

"When you were six you wanted to let yours go. And now you don't."

"I do. I just - don't want to lose everything else."

"And you're just going to keep accumulating more to lose."

"I think I can do it in twelve years. Maybe ten. That's the - absolute maximum - if in twelve years they aren't free because I either ended slavery or untangled it from the vote then I admit I can't do it and let them go."

"Twelve years is a long fucking time."

"I know. I'm not saying I wouldn't be an appallingly evil person, in that case, I'm saying that - there's a bound, that I won't just keep making excuses forever -"

"If in twelve years you're ten days from pulling it off -"

"Maybe I could persuade them to stay."

Fina shakes her head. "Not good enough."

"I know it's not good enough."

"Even if it works it's not good enough."

"I know."

"If one of them escapes, are you going to torture them to death like the law says -"

"The law doesn't say -"

"It fucking does, don't you dare try to soften it -"

"No, I will not do that."

"Then they'll all escape."

"I think I can credibly seem like I would do that, so they don't escape, but then not actually do it if they escape."

"So keep them enslaved by the credible threat of being tortured to death, but then if they actually walk away go 'well, there goes my bluff'..."

"Yes."

"You're disgusting."

"There are lots of slaves and I can end it."

"Then explain that to them and maybe they'll agree."

"They won't."

Fina looks like she is with great effort restraining herself from domestic violence.

"One of them escapes. Gets fatally wounded by whoever brings him back to you - you could mark him up a bit before he dies, preserve the bluff -"

"No."

"He's unconscious, won't even notice."

"...maybe."

"See what I mean, you - you start with 'well, I can keep well-treated people for a decade while I end slavery altogether' and then soon you're at -"

"I could run all those decisions by you."

"Run this decision by me. I say 'let them fucking go.'"

"And then what, and then what, if you want me to do that give me an outline that ends with 'and then there's no more slavery'."

"We could go join your sister."

"My sister is orchestrating mass murder. That doesn't cross whatever line it is I'm crossing -"

"No. It doesn't. It's evil but - the evil's all up front, you don't notice it much later -"

"I promise you that I am aware up front of all of the ways this is evil."

"You going to buy more?"

"Probably not."

"Probably not."

"If I were one vote short on abolition -"

"Please at least tell me you see what I mean, here."

"I see exactly what you mean and I don't think you're wrong but I can't just -"

"Then let me do it. Let me go tell them they're free -"

Amait shakes her head. 

"If I do that, will you stop me?"

"I'll tell them that you're not in charge, yes."

Fina stands up. "Look at me."

She is, of course.

"I hate you. I am disgusted with you. I feel like you lied to me every time we ever touched. Am I telling the truth."

"Yes," says Amait.

Fina leaves.

There are open-air slave markets in town. There's the unpleasant, loud ones for farm laborers and mine workers and ship rowers, but there are nicer ones for scribes and maids and, irregularly, embroideries.

This one isn't marked for sale, she's sitting up by her owner and singing to draw attention to those of his goods that are for sale. Her hair is a shifting rainbow, now mostly red, now mostly blue, principally adjusting itself as though in reaction to the wind. And she's clutching an ivory porcelain teapot in both hands.

Someone stops by to listen to the singing. He glances at the teapot. "What does it do?"

Singing slave doesn't miss a beat.

"Most of the month it's a baby," says her owner. "I can't sell it to you, she can summon it right back whether it's a teapot or not."

" - a baby. Does it grow up or is it just always a baby -"

"It grows," says the owner. "I suppose it might stop at some point."

"Like when it is an adult? That's how it works for non-teapot babies - does the teapot grow - you have a lovely voice," he adds to the slave.

Singing slave winks at him.

"I haven't been taking a tape measure to the teapot," says the owner. "Isn't she good? Last owner was using her for sex and rugmaking, criminal waste."

"Mmmhmm. I -" he looks torn.

"I suppose I haven't actually seen the rugs," amends the owner, "maybe they were good too."

"What're you going to do once the baby's a toddler - when it's not a teapot, I mean -"

"Can't split them up 'cause of the embroidery," says the owner. "Dunno. I'll find something it's good for, kids can get in small spaces and such."

"Uh huh."

"Why?" asks the owner.

- I have a sister who'd murder me if I didn't have a reason but possibly refrain if I had the right kind of one, he does not say, and another sister who doesn't think she has the moral authority to murder me either way but who'll worry less if there were a reason -

"It's such a pretty embroidery - how much -"

"Wasn't gonna sell her," says the owner, "such a nice voice and a good mouth for it too if you know what I mean -"

"Yeah. How much."

"...call it eight thou," he says, "for the both of 'em."

"That's exorbitant. I don't have it on me - tomorrow -"

"'Course it's exorbitant, I like her," says the owner. "We'll be here tomorrow unless someone else does have eight thou in walking around money and also want her."

"Fair enough."

it's not quite so much money he'd have to dp into family accounts. Which is good, because Amait could probably talk him out of it.

He goes back the next day.

There is the singing slave! She has quite a repertoire. The teapot is now a three-month-old who looks just like her (sans rainbow hair) in her arms, dozing peacefully.

Eight thousand.

And the owner signs over the title and pinches the singer's ass by way of a goodbye.

She stops singing and looks at Malare.

"Hey. Uh. Malare."

"Rabka."

"And the baby -"

"Cathei."

"I have a bunch of little sisters, I wouldn't have wanted them to - my place she can run around as much as she wants. Once she's a toddler and when she's not a teapot, I mean - did someone put you two through a magic on purpose -"

"I did. Don't get me pregnant and then try to sell my kid, I go totally nuts if you do that."

" - fuck. I - no. I won't do that. I actually just - I have a collection of embroidered musical instruments and I thought you'd like it, that's all, there's a spare room for you and your daughter -"

"Ooh. I will fit in real nice with a collection of embroidered musical instruments."

"I thought so too! Can I hold Cathei - can be 'no' -"

"Go for it." Baby bundle.

Snuggle! "I can let her go - not out of pocket, they keep jacking up the price for that, but I can set aside the money every month and free her in a year or so. ...I could possibly have haggled for you and then been able to afford to free her right now but I found the idea of arguing exactly how much you were worth really unappealing and it's not like she'll know..."

"Awww."

"Kids shouldn't -" sigh. "No one should but that's harder to fix, or so I am told by the people who are supposed to be doing it. - I'm assuming you'd rather her, if I've the money for one..."

Nod.

"So. I can give you the money every month to hold on to until there's enough." He bounces the baby. "And then we can get her into school and so on - the being a teapot shouldn't interfere too much -"

"She usually isn't a teapot. Just a few days a month."

"Then it'll be fine, yeah. What else will the two of you need -"

"Baby stuff in general. Food for me."

"If I just give you money for it can you go get whatever you need -"

"I think that's allowed, yeah."

"Okay. This way."

She follows him.

It's a big family house with an internal courtyard and four different entrances. One of the side ones is his; he keeps odd hours. He lets them in. There's a bedroom and a music room; in the courtyard there are kids playing something like tag but with pikes. 

Malare sits down. "I, uh, haven't done this before, my sister would have murdered me and I didn't have the means to support someone anyway and, like, I'm not going to hurt you even if you get out of line, and so I'm kind of just setting myself up for things to go badly. But - I think you'll like it here? And if not we'll figure something out, we own a significant chunk of Ivirne, you could live out there..."

"...your sister would have you murdered?"

"- two of them, for different reasons. One of them is an abolitionist who's been running around setting plantations on fire when she's not smuggling people out - no one knows that it's our sister, that's a secret, don't write a song about it or anything - and then my older sister is apparently not an abolitionist but was pretending for a while."

"I will not write a song about your sister the arsonist."

"Thank you. We haven't spoken in a couple years - she didn't ask if I wanted to come - not that I'd have been very good at it, I don't think -"

"Is arson a really complicated skillset?"

"If you don't want to get killed, and if you want to actually accomplish stuff - there's, like, who to target and when and how to make sure innocent people don't get hurt and don't starve afterwards - mind, I'm not sure how careful Atyel is actually being about those things -"

"Starving is no fun."

"Yeah. I don't know if it makes anything better to burn plantations down. But I know she, like, asks the slaves who work there, so presumably they can - figure out the tradeoffs that seem worth it - did someone starve you -"

"After I ran into the magic I stayed there for a while until my owner managed to sell me and Cathei to the guy you met while I was still in it. There was a loaf of bread with wings but after I ate it all I got pretty hungry."

Shiver. "I should give you money for - food and baby stuff and everything -" He starts digging around for that.

"Thanks!"

Money. Smile. If she leaves and doesn't come back he's going to have - complicated feelings about that but. "The family is Finere, if you need directions back or anything."

"I probably won't get lost. It'll be easier to carry stuff if I leave her with you..."

"Right, okay." He holds out his hand for the baby.

Plop. Sleeping baby in his arms. "I will fetch her back when she's hungry if I'm not nearly back by then. I can actually do that with dishes in general, she just counts all the time."

"You can fetch dishes to you from any distance?"

"I have to know what dishes I want specifically."

" - would you mind if the government wanted to use that for international communications or something -"

"Like... summon one plate for yes and two for no, or something? Uh, I guess that wouldn't be so bad?"

"Can you write things on the dishes -"

"Never tried it."

"Well. We could try it and then if it works people could take dishes with them and write notes and you could summon the dishes and we'd have one-way fast communication, I'm sure there's a way to get rich off that -"

"...sure."

" - you don't have to."

"I don't really mind teleporting dishes, it just seems weird."

"It's definitely weird! It's just an exploitable kind of weird and the faster we can make money the sooner you're both free."

"Thanks."

"Of course."

"...so, I'll go shopping now."

"Sounds good. I'll take care of her."

"Thanks!"

And she goes shopping. After she's been gone an hour Cathei vanishes.

Well, she did warn him. He goes to find Amait. 

"Hey! I bought two slaves."

"You what?"

"You do not get to make a face at me. I was saving up for this embroidered piano and then there was a merchant who had this embroidered girl singing to advertise his things - and she had a really pretty voice and a really useful embroidery and a baby who is sometimes a teapot - I'm saving up to free them, unlike some people -"

"Would you not. She won't believe you, you know -"

"I'm going to give her the money every month so she can see how close we are, so I couldn't just - say that we don't have enough, I'd have to actually take it all back from her - maybe she won't believe me until the paperwork's all signed, that's fine -"

"First question Fina asked me is what if they run away -"

"I looked really hard, didn't find her. Terrible."

"I really wish you wouldn't - I haven't bought more -"

"If I already had a hundred seventy seven I wouldn't buy more either."

"I know how horrible it is. I just - don't see any other way to change anything, ever."

"And they're so pretty and they have to do whatever you want -"

"If you hurt her -"

"Of course not."

"What's the useful embroidery."

"She can summon dishware she is familiar with. From anywhere. Possibly with writing on it or carved in."

"That's extraordinarily useful."

"Yep. Does money help you do your thing faster -"

"Not straightforwardly - the main mechanism by which one turns money into political influence is buying more of 'em - but money is pretty versatile, it'll help -"

"You're not going to buy more of them? You're one short now, right - if mine are technically yours under -"

"You'd have to sign the title over, they aren't automatically, but then I would be one short, yes. I'm not going to buy more of them."

"You're drawing lines in weird places."

"I know that."

"Anyway. Dishware thing."

"Ask Caranth how to make money off it, he'll have better instincts than I, I could probably swing favors with it but that won't be very often and it'd take some setup to use it for foreign spying - and if I invest resources in that and then once she's free she wants nothing to do with it -"

"I think she'd be happy to do it for pay, it's not much work and she and her daughter can be comfortable -"

"Yeah. Okay."

He's playing a glittering stringed instrument when his slave gets back. Singing along.

She has bought a baby sling and her baby is in it. She also has some sacks of baby things. She doesn't interrupt the music.

Then he will smile at her and keep singing, for quite a while. There's now a cot on the music room floor for her and the baby.

She sits on it, tucks her feet under herself, unslings the baby to snuggle her.

Eventually someone brings them dinner and he stops singing to eat. And look at her. It's really a stunningly pretty embroidery. "Did you get everything you needed -"

"Yeah - here's your change -" She holds out some coins.

"Thank you. I talked to my sister, she had some ideas for tests of the dishware thing. But maybe tomorrow."

"Whenever."

"Good night."

"G'night!"

He sleeps. 

She snuggles up to her baby and also sleeps.

In the morning she pokes at an embroidered glockenspiel one-handed while Cathei breakfasts.

It makes bird songs! If you hit the same key too many times in a row it curls up and shivers! 

Awwww. What about the harp?

Harmonizes of its own accord with whatever you're playing! 

"Also the thirteenth string bites," he says before she touches it.

"...good to know."

"Not, like, dangerously, it just kinda nips at you, but still."

"Probably makes it hard to play for a bit!"

"It's so inconvenient!" He sits down next to her and plays a little tune around it.

"Maybe a plectrum?" she says.

"Then it won't do the harmonizing thing. Such a silly almost-convenient embroidery."

"What if you grew a fingernail really long?"

"It would have to be really long! But that might do it."

"Gloves?"

"Also stop the harmonizing." He pats the harp. 

"Gloves with one finger, for that string only."

" - There you go, that might work fine."

"What about that thing over there, what even is that -"

"You can play it like a flute - I know it doesn't look it - and it produces these puffs of lavender smoke when you do."

"Ooooh."

"What about the rest of it?"

"That -" it's chocolate, looks like a trumpet - "is edible and will grow back if you sing it a lullaby. You can also just play it. The violin doesn't have a bow but you can play it by pretending you have a bow, sounds great once you get good with it. The clarinet only works underwater. The tambourine produces flower petals - and gravel, if you shake it -" he points at a miniature goat - "the left horn is playable, but the goat will kick you if you have poor breath control."

"...wow. Any lullaby?"

"Maybe they have to be very lovely lullabies and I wouldn't have noticed because everything I sing is great."

Snort. "But it can't tell the difference between Night my Child and Counting Clouds?"

"It approves of both and will regrow all the eaten chocolate."

Giggle.

"Think you'll be all right here?"

"Like I said, I fit right in with a collection of embroidered musical instruments!"

Hug. "Okay. Good."

Ooh, hug. Where is he going with this hug?

...tempted but holding off, apparently. "Feel free to play with everything, just of course be careful - I should talk with Caranth about dishware money schemes..."

"Okay. I won't let Cathei fill your music room with tambourine gravel."

"Oh good. It's a pain to get rid of, gets everywhere."

Giggle.

He's back a few hours later, having consulted his brother on schemes to make money by teleporting dishware. (You can sort of communicate in both directions, via writing/carving on the plates in the one direction and by which plates you grab in which order in the other.)

"Hi! The trumpet will grow for me, I checked."

"Of course it will, you have a lovely voice. Did you get voice training -"

"No, just messed around on my own."

"I could try to arrange that if you want - or if you'd rather just get the manumissions faster we could do that, pay for voice lessons once you're free -"

"Either way."

"Okay." And he will sit down with her and play with his musical instruments.

Yay!

She drops by to visit. They let her in. 

" - hi."

"Slaves staying in line? I bet your overseers are beating them extra, don't want to embarrass themselves with a problem coming to your attention when you're new -"

"This how you're planning to spend the next twelve years?"

"Until you tell me to leave."

She sighs. She does not tell her to leave.

"There isn't a way to do it humanely."

"I don't think I've tried to justify myself in those terms. I said I can do good things with the political leverage, not that - not that there's anything mitigating on the other side -"

"You'll think of something else. Let them go and give yourself a couple years to - to think about it, to be stuck and have to come up with ways to get unstuck - and then you'll think of something -"

"The public education thing's looking to come down to one vote." There are three hundred sixteen votes in the Civic Council but there are blocs; there are usually only a few dozen in play, and having a few more of them in hand means you have more flexibility in which other ones you pursue. 

"If it were just that I'd say 'fine, free them at the end of the week' but it's not that. It's twelve years."

"I'll see what I can do to make the conditions better."

"Amait -"

"It has to end, and I can do it."

"You think."

"Yeah."

"Please?"

"I thought you were going to avoid me or something."

"No, see, I just left so as to not strangle you."

"Malare bought himself a girl."

"Figured hey, if you're doing it -"

"She's pretty and sings well, those have always been traits that inspired flexible ethics in him."

"And if he doesn't want to let his pretty toy go when you're ready to pull off abolition -"

"He's saving up for it right now. But I would make him, if that's what you're asking."

"Then why not loan him the money and make him do it right now?"

"Do you think I should?" 

"Yes."

" - fair enough. I'll write the accountant."

"Thank you."

She still does not tell her to leave but she turns around and starts drafting a letter.

Elsewhere he plays with her hair, idly. "How does it pick colors exactly -"

"I don't actually know!"

"You got kind of insanely lucky -"

"Yeah. At first I didn't know she'd turn back."

Squeeze. 

What a snuggly owner.

"If I were a slave I think I'd dislike being touched," he says, petting the pretty rainbow hair.

"That seems like it would make my life more unpleasant than it needs to be."

"So, what, you just - don't have feelings that'd make things unpleasant for you?"

"It's not like that, just, I don't get all worked up about it."

"- okay. I want you but I don't want you to be unhappy, I like it when you're happy and I - want something I'll still have once you're free -"

"You can have me if you want me! Especially while the baby is a teapot and does not need to be fed fifteen times a day."

Snuggle. "How often exactly is she a teapot?"

"I am not totally sure yet but vaguely suspect the full moon."

"A were-teapot."

"Yes. My daughter the wereteapot. Except it doesn't have to be night and the moon doesn't have to be up."

"What kind of asshole sells off a newborn -"

"Should I actually answer that -"

"Only if you want to."

"The kind of asshole who doesn't want his sex slave distracted or ever unavailable and who knows a guy with a niche training slaves up for specialized stuff from infancy."

He whistles quietly. "I'm so sorry."

"You're a sweetie."

He pulls away and folds his arms and watches the baby sleep. "We've got to end it."

"End what?"

"...slavery?"

"Oh. That'd be something."

"You don't seem very optimistic."

"It just sounds so big."

"I know. And so - everywhere. But..."

Snuggle.

"You're not scared I'd do something like that?"

"I think I have pretty credibly demonstrated that it is a real bad idea to get me pregnant and then try to take my baby."

...then he'll snuggle her back. Pensively.

Snuggle.

"We wanted to do some plate experiments. Plates with writing on them, plates you have varying degrees of detailed description of..."

"Yeah, sure."

He acquires all these! Does writing on a plate come with when she teleports the plate? How about thin things glued to the plate? Can she teleport plates she hasn't seen if she knows where they are? What they look like? Both? What about really tiny thumbnail dishware?

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..."

"So part of it is that everyone agrees that if I hurt you for not obeying me I'm being reasonable, that makes sense. But -"

"...everyone agrees that you bought me and now I'm yours," she says. "I'm an everyone."

"But you do want to be free? Right?"

"That'd be swell! But I'm not."

"What would be, uh, swell about it, specifically?"

"If I had more kids they'd be born free and I could go wherever without worrying about it and stuff."

Nod. "Okay. Well. I want you to occasionally summon dishware so that day can come sooner."

"Sure thing."

Hug. Sigh.

Hug!

Someone backs out from their vote on the literacy thing. She's one vote short.

Malare's two make a hundred seventy nine. 

Amait paces. When her pacing takes her marketwards she is not entirely surprised.

There's a new shipment from abroad. The shipping lanes between this continent and the next are getting busier and one way to get a translator on the cheap is to ship a reasonably bright slave from point A to point B and wait.

...dumping slaves in foreign countries and hoping they pick up the language doesn't seem like it can possibly be the actual cheapest way to get translation. Maybe people like Amait's mother are rare. 

Amait paces for another two hours.

Slaves continue to be around, with signs advertising their attributes. The ones from abroad are marked by heel tattoos instead of helix piercings and some of these haven't been redone yet. Somebody's going around with a needle.

She doesn't watch. She reads the signs.

This one is literate and also reads Ancient Sudre, apparently. Used to be a housegirl.

Maybe she will appreciate being purchased to enable a literacy campaign. Probably not. Amait wouldn't.

Amait asks the price on that one.

She is stared at (by the slave) and told 2,500 (by the seller).

"She doesn't speak the language. I don't care if she's a genius, she can't be useful for anything you can't communicate by pointing and grunting. Maybe she'll be worth more in six months, if she's really so quick, but maybe she's a moron they thought they could get away with marketing as 'clever in a different language', who's going to check if she reads Ancient Sudre? And maybe she dies of the climate. Eight hundred."

"If you want one who speaks the language I have some over here," says the seller. "On the way over they were taught 'stop' -"

(The slave's face says 'but I'm not even doing anything what the fuck'.)

"- and 'come' and 'do what he's doing' -"

"That's adequate for basic work. The kind of thing you pay eight hundred for."

"Ma'am, if you want one who speaks the local language for basic work they're over there and even they're priced as marked. If you don't want one that speaks Esevi I don't know what to tell you."

"They're going to be hard to move until they have more than three phrases and demonstrate some ability to not die of the weather. Fifteen hundred."

"They're fine in the weather as long as you don't try to keep them in an unheated barn," says the seller. "Two thou."

"I'm just taking your word for that. I brought eighteen, you can have it now."

"She can draw," says the seller. "It's not on her sign 'cause the bloke in Eseo who sold her didn't know about it but I've seen her."

"I can check if that made another hundred materialize in my pocket." She counts the money. It did not.

"I got cheaper ones over there. If you just keep giving her paper and taking the drawings you'd make that much back, you like the look of this one you can pay what she's worth."

"Have proof of the drawings?"

He gives the slave a sheet of paper. She looks annoyed at him but she picks up the pen he supplies with it and draws.

It's an embroidered fish-crab thing, fins branching into articulated legs, claws curving from its ribs, scales of all sizes tiling its body.

Huh. 

"FIne, two thousand."

He takes the fish crab and pockets it. "Pleasure."

"I don't have the money, I'll have to come back."

"I'll bill you," he says, "for the extra, just get it to me in two weeks, I'll need your name and address anyway."

"All right." She can do paperwork! She will have to do more paperwork to get it certified she has an extra vote.

And now she has a new foreign slave, who mercifully seems to understand that this transaction has taken place.

"I'm Amait."

...nod?

The name on her paperwork is in Esevi. She gestures at it in case this helps clarify the source of confusion.

"Ayabel."

"Thank you." She starts walking.

Ayabel follows her. Trips. Gets up.

Trips on something or just at random?

Some unevenness in the road. Continues like that's normal.

Okay. She lives in the nice part of town, big old stone place built around a courtyard.

Ayabel assesses it without speaking.

She goes and finds her mother. "You can write Ancient Sutre, right?"

Her mother says something in what is presumably Ancient Sutre.

...Ayabel blinks. "...I - have to - guess pronunciation," she says.

"I have to guess pronunciation," she corrects her. "You learned it from a book?"

"Yes."

"Will you tell Ayabel that I bought her to meet a threshold for another vote, don't need anything from her, and would be delighted if she were to make herself comfortable here, draw if she likes, learn the language, teach you hers, in six months we can revisit and figure out what makes sense. And ask if she needs anything."

"Are you sure -"

"That this is the least horrible thing I can do? No. I'm not sure. But I'm committed."

She switches to Ancient Sudre. "My daughter is our representative to the Civic Council. She wants to explain that they're one vote short on something important to her, and you get a vote per twenty slaves, and she had a hundred seventy-nine this morning, and this is why she went out to buy one."

"...okay."

"She additionally wants to say that you don't have responsibilities here and should make yourself comfortable, draw if you want, and learn the language. And she wants to ask if you need anything."

"I haven't been fed in a few hours."

She translates this. Amait nods and leaves. 

"There were cheaper ones," ventures Ayabel.

"I can ask her why if you'd like. Might've been to cheer me up, I like languages and don't speak Esevi and the reason Amait's running the household is because my mother died unexpectedly six days ago. Might've been something on the card, do you know what was on it? The thing she wants an extra vote for is public education, maybe she thought it was neat you'd taught yourself to read. In two languages."

"I'm sorry about your mother. I think the Ancient Sudre thing would have been the most interesting item on the card."

"Well, I can ask her if you want, she won't mind - I'm not going to try to tell you we're actually good people deep down but we're correct about which things are bad, even if we're trading them off carelessly -"

Blink.

" - there are several ways in which that could have been unclear."

"It was unexpectedly abstract."

"I'm not great at people stuff and have since I was seven refused to live in a building with slaves. I don't know what you need to know."

"Where am I staying?"

"You're here. I might leave. I'm not sure."

"If you leave how do I go about teaching you Esevi?"

"That's the reason I'm not sure."

"Oh." Sigh. "I meant more specifically, where do I sleep, where do I get meals -"

"Kitchen's that way, quarters that way. I don't know if there's supposed to be a particular room for you, I haven't been paying much attention." Sigh. "Amait'll know."

Nod. "Thank you."

"She says twelve years."

"Funny, for a while that's what it looked like it'd be with the last one."

"Mmm?"