Advice she'll happily take.

"If and when you accumulate things of your own, I can clear out a section of a store room for you, too."

"I'll keep an eye out for neat stuff, then."

"There's a lot of cool things out there. - Probably tomorrow we should discuss stuff like 'money' and 'schooling' and all if you'll be staying with me past a few ports... Still, it's late right now."

"Bedtime?"

"For me at least."

"See you in the morning, then."

Soft smile. "Goodnight."

And she heads back to her room.

To sleep.

Villanelle's up early the next morning, though she stays quiet and avoids waking Ellie. Still, there'll be warm food (kept at 'just cooked' magically) when she wakes up.

Ellie sleeps later, and doesn't say much until after breakfast. Which she does appreciate.

"So I've been putting some thought into training you," she says, once Ellie seems more awake. "And in general having you on ship - or following me around when I'm in my home port for long stretches."

"Oh?"

"So I'm not going to demand a fee from you or anything. I'll ask you to help with chores around the ship, and in my home when we're there, but I'll train you in how to do those, and if they're cutting into your studying time I'll reduce or remove them. I'm also hoping to hire you for extra work once you're up to speed on some things - it's important for you to have the ability to be independent of me, and that includes 'having your own money.' I can help you with investing it or whatever. The extra work might be doing my share of chores, or might be helping me with legal cases, or might be helping me with magic or historical research."

"For studying - I'll teach you magic, but I also want you to learn other things, too. The classic school stuff is history, planeology, foreign cultures, languages, science and medicine, and math and economics. But I want you to choose a visual or materials art like calligraphy or knitting, a performance or auditory art like music or poetry, and a weapon, too. You need to know how to defend yourself even without magic, and art's good for you. I'm pretty widely educated, but if you pick something - especially a weapon - I'm not trained in, I'll look into finding you supplemental teachers."

"Is that acceptable?"

"That sounds... fair. I haven't done much art, martial or otherwise."

Small smile. "I'll make sure you get a good range of options, then."

"And - there's a good set of rights you have, as my student and as someone on board an Aitanian ship, and some legal considerations. I copied the relevant law," she puts a pamphlet on the table, "But I'd also like to go over some of it with you."

"You're being very thorough."

"Yeah. You're not from my cultural background, and you don't have any reason to trust me. And I don't actually know you that well, yet, so - I want you to be able to get a sense of what you can expect."

"All right."

"So the big thing - you can officially register as my student, which gives you the right to sue me in court if I don't fill the obligations of a teacher. These include providing you with an education, and as a sole master, feeding you, housing you, and some clauses about how I'd be allowed to discipline you. It also makes any kind of flirting or beyond between us illegal on my part, but in a 'you'd have a very easy case to take me to court with' way, not in a 'we could expect police scrutiny if overly affectionate' - at least not in Aitania main, I got homosexuality legalized there but it's still trickling out to the colonies, and different nations are differently accepting..."

"If you don't register as my student, you'd still have rights as my roommate, but I'd have far fewer legal responsibilities toward you. - I fully intend to fill those responsibilities anyways, because I don't do things I'm not willing to commit to, but some people like the extra assurance. Being legally my student would also help for getting into a university if you decided to do that."

"I think... I'd like to think about this for a bit?"

"Yeah, that's very fair. You don't have to make a decision right away - it'd be a while before I could register you, anyways - and I'm fine teaching you while you're still undecided."

"Okay."

Small smile. "I know this is a lot... You can also ask me questions whenever. Or tell me if I'm being a dumbass."

"Thanks."