It's considered polite to keep one's shadow out of other people's way, but not nearly as important as the other way around. Deliberately moving your shadow into someone else's path is a provocative gesture; accidents are easy to forgive.

Mammals are raised for milk only, not meat. "Does your world do…leather, too?" He is clearly uncomfortable and also clearly trying not to judge.

"...my boots are leather, and I need them. They're magic."

ARE THEY NOW. "I would avoid mentioning that to anyone else, unless you want to be viewed as an exceptionally sadistic killer."

"I did not personally kill the animal the leather is from, you realize that? Also they don't normally take it off while the animal's still alive so sadism doesn't enter into it. Why are you okay with killing a chicken and not a cow??"

Sveneric visibly relaxes a little when Bella says the word 'animal'. Not that he thought she was walking around in boots made of human skin. Probably. It's not like it would have been the most surprising thing about her world, or even in the top five.

In response to her questions, he holds up a hand. "I didn't say that that those assumptions would be correct. The cultural consensus is that mammals are closer to humans; they think and feel more deeply, and care for their young more, than other species. I don't know whether I agree with the distinction; some people don't, and forgo meat entirely. But the taboo is real. Most people on this world would be repulsed by the idea of wearing cow's skin."

"I know vegetarians back home but most of them avoid birds too. Or they're like that for completely non-moral reasons just because of how their species works. And then there's the ones who eat people, so cows never really rated in my consideration."

"If you want to avoid strangers' judgment, can just say it's a substance from a foreign world. Even I didn't recognize the material, and I'm one of the few who's seen leather before.

"What sort of magic, if you don't mind my asking?"

"They make me less clumsy. Without them I trip and fall, a lot, and certainly can't run, and have to be very aware of the banister the whole time I'm on a staircase."

"That's a remarkable piece of magic. Our knowledge of healing magic is progressing rapidly, but I'd be surprised if we could manage anything like those boots in our lifetimes."

"Well, maybe when I get more than abstractly aware that this is a science world I'll... do some science or something."

"I'm looking forward to it."

As they get close to finishing the translation, Sveneric asks whether she wants to be present for the discussion. The students are very excited to meet a dyranarya-by-another-name from another world. "I should warn you that the academy is near a deposit of disirad. Same effect as the dyr—heightened perceptions, peace, and a sense of emotional distance—but impossible to shut out unless you want a migraine. And nausea is a common symptom for first-timers."

"I guess there's no magic mirrors to let me remote in?"

There are not.

"Then yeah I think I'll pass on meeting in the nauseatingly mind-affecting room but I'm happy to talk to these people somewhere else?"

As would many of them! And Sveneric would be happy to organize visits to Bella's house or to some third location, as she prefers.

...if there might be any more cultural hangups she's about to innocently run into like the leather one she'd just as soon none of these people know where she lives, can they rent a conference room in a library or something?

Done. And Sveneric can have the discussion at the academy transcribed for Bella, as well.

Great. She'll read that as homework before she meets with 'em.

The day they finish the translation, Bella is getting dinner when overhears Detlev's name in a (loud, drunken) conversation at a nearby table. One man insists that it was Detlev who defeated Norsunder's leaders. Can't be, says another, it was Sartora who rode in on her horse of lightning and smote them with her mind; he never bought all that nonsense about Detlev defecting anyway; have you forgetten what happened to Sartor? or the old king? Nobody got hurt in Sartor, the first says, and Detlev had nothing to do with King Carlael, that was a different Norsundrian.

Maybe she will avoid this restaurant in the future on account of it has drunk people in it. Pity, the artichoke thing is pretty good.

It will be a few weeks until the student discussion, since Sveneric is having everyone copy out the translation first. Anything notable as she passes that time?

She discovers turkey bacon and makes a note to revisit it in a few years when she's forgotten what real bacon tastes like?

The Colendi have definitely figured out bird bacon of some kind.

Sveneric drops off the transcription himself. The conversation went something like this:

* Why is mental privacy important? Because it just is. Because people have grown up expecting it, and organized their thought patterns around the assumption of privacy. (Will this be different in a hundred years when everybody has dena Yeresbeth?) Because it's important to be able to explore new ideas without worrying about judgment from onlookers.

* What are some scenarios where it might be okay to read a person's thoughts without explicit consent? Pretty much everyone agrees that it's okay in self-defense. And when someone is lost in the mental realm, it's okay to go looking for them. And it's not your fault if someone sends you something unconsciously, that means they wanted you to see it—except people aren't require to act on their unconscious impulses, so maybe it is your responsibility to shield better, but maybe it's their responsibility to shield better, except most people still don't know about mental shields yet; no consensus on that question. There's a long and lively debate about whether it's okay to read someone's mind for their own benefit, with many personal anecdotes of (self-defined) success and failure; David, one of the teachers, offers that the "for your own good" justification is a quick path to tyranny. One student brings up catalyst studies, where you obviously have to read people's thoughts to identify potential catalysts; Adam, another teacher, says that's not really the same thing—with the breadth of perspective afforded by a dyr, it's more like reading reports about population statistics than combing through a bunch of individual people's brains—although once you've identified a catalyst then yes, the benefits of reading thoughts usually outweigh the costs.

* What conditions might have led to the adoption of these ethical norms (especially the norms that not everybody in this room agrees with)? Subtle arts seems to have a lot more raw power than dena Yeresbeth, especially when it comes to influencing people's minds; maybe that's part of it, maybe the rules emerged in reaction to all subtle arts and therefore ending up more strict than if they'd just been for mind-reading. Maybe there's a bad history of subtle artists abusing their mind-reading power; it's not hard to imagine a paranoid king scanning his subjects for any whiff of conspiracy, and the damage that living under such a reign would do to people's spirits.

Notes on this look like:
- organizing one's thought patterns without the assumption of privacy would be qualitatively worse
- why would everybody have it in that amount of time? that is an insane uptake rate
- it is okay to knock people unconscious in self-defense but reading their minds is too traceless, too broad, too squidgy around the self-defense conceptual borders
- what does it mean to be lost in the mental realm
- it is definitely the responsibility of the more powerful and informed party in the situation to prevent accidental "impulsive" sharing
- thank you David
- what is a catalyst?? can people maybe volunteer to be screened for this property instead of just picked out of random contexts?
- she's not actually sure about the raw power thing, whoever was able to go through her shields when she landed in the cold place was clearly a powerhouse by Materian standards
- the stricter rules are for therapists. Materia is full of unethical assholes who do all kinds of horrible shit. Therapists need to be trusted. If you don't care about being trustworthy then you can fill your entire organization brimful of rot and there is no law of any universe that will stop you. Bella herself aspires to be completely nonhorrible and to spread the good news about this being a thing.
- yeah no kings have other ways of managing that though it is not uncommon for them to involve subtle artistry at some point in the pipeline.
- but if """everyone""" is going to have this in a hundred years, the zeitgeist of the neighbors could be just as chilling as a king, if softened some little bit by the need to be palatable to a majority so only minorities in whatever respect and not the bog-standard median commoner will be affected.

Sveneric can answer the immediate questions. "Lost in the mental realm" means that the mind has been severed from the body. This can happen from overextending on dena Yeresbeth or from overdose of an extreme painkiller called kinthus.

No one knows the timeline for certain, but one hundred years is a pretty reasonable estimate. It's a little faster than just extrapolating from the numbers would suggest, but not much faster, and it matches the expectations of those who are most in tune with the world's magic.

A catalyst is someone who's in a position to make lasting historical change—their decisions will ripple out into the future, affecting millions of lives or more. Of course it's not really a binary thing; history is made of everyone's decisions, in greater or lesser degree. "Catalyst" is shorthand for people on the high tail end of influence, people who decisions at certain inflection points will, for whatever reason, have an outsized impact.