She goes barefoot, blank-heeled.
No time has passed. The fellow behind the counter recognizes her. "What are you doing back here?"
"I claim Aelare's blessing," says Aya firmly. "I want my papers updated."
"Your cart fell into a magic?" surmises the clerk.
"Yes, and I'm -" She lifts her foot to show off her clean heel.
This makes it much easier for the security guard manning the door to knock her over and get her hands and feet in shackles.
They pat her down; they take her necklace, they take the mirror Prime gave her in case she ran into any trouble, they take her holy water and hit her when she tries to speak to Prime or Perinixu for help and she doesn't get any words out. They haul her into a side room.
"AELARE'S BLESSING," exclaims Aya. "Look at my -"
"Wrong province, as of last week," says the clerk. "In Tharlo the gods aren't allowed to steal any recoverable property anymore. Were there any other survivors from the accident?"
Aya stares at him.
He slaps her hard across the face and repeats his question.
Aya murmurs, "No, sir."
-------
She doesn't look like she's pushing a century of age.
No time has passed.
She has - she still has? - her grace, when she's made to shuffle into a different holding pen. But the magic could have done that.
Magics can do anything.
No time has passed.
Magics can do anything. A magic could give her minor augmented abilities. It would be trivially easy to find a new outfit and a necklace and little bottles of water inside one.
Magics have been known to alter memory. They won't give her her belongings back to check to see if the water and the mirror really connect to people on the other ends.
And no time has passed.
He didn't. He buys and then frees nineteen slaves, the last of which was something of a headache to buy. There was another buyer that he didn't like, because the man very obviously had every intention of raping the poor woman he'd be buying, and quite frankly Prime is going to let that happen over his dead body. He outbids the man with a glare that ice could be compared unfavorably towards, and then leads the poor terrified woman to where he can sign ownership of her to herself.
She needs to have it explained to her that he is not going to hurt her or ask anything of her - especially anything of that nature. Bizarrely, she finds this sort of insulting, and he spends the next ten minutes explaining that it's not that she's not pretty, but it's that he is - taken. He leaves off the 'sort of' and the 'a magic necklace did it.'
The reminder of Aya does make him think, however. She still hasn't called him. That's sort of weird, but maybe she's busy? Doing... something?
...
Maybe if he were younger, he'd believe that. But he is not younger, he is five hundred years old and easily the most paranoid member of the Adarin club. He calls her mirror. There is no answer. So he has a brief debate over the importance of privacy while the newly freed woman prattles on about something he's not paying attention to, deems it secondary to safety, and then scrys.
By some miracle he doesn't immediately break something nearby. He's not certain how. Probably the knowledge that it would scare the daylights out of the poor woman in front of him to see him lose his temper so thoroughly.
"Here," he says, interrupting her. "Take this," he hands her a good amount of money, "have a wonderful life of your own choice, I'll be in the area if you need help, but if you'll excuse me, there is somewhere I very much need to be."
She's confused. He doesn't care.
He doesn't wait until he's out of sight to fly off. He is emotionally compromised.
The landing near Aya's holding pen has none of his usual casual slowness. It's a crack, it dents the ground he lands on, there is a shockwave.
"Hello," he says. He's got a good poker face, he could almost be greeting someone off of the street. A neighbor, maybe. Except for the way his eyes pierce straight into the soul. "Who exactly is in charge? I would like very much to speak to them."
This is very annoying.
He raises his voice.
"I don't recommend keeping me waiting," he growls. It's - remarkably projecting. Also, terrifying.
Prime has yet to use a single trace of mana. He's keeping it in reserve. In case he needs to kill people. (He will definitely kill people if he needs to.)
"I will, of course, be getting you out of here. And probably also everyone else present. Just on principle."
"Well, sir, if Aelare wants to personally take it up with the Duke of Tharlo that's none of my affair, but for the time being that's the state of it. I looked over her file; she's slaveborn, this outfit bought her a little over a week ago, and her cart overturned into a magic well after the legislative change came into effect."
There is a crack of lightning. From the sky. Right next to the man. It doesn't make sense for lightning to behave in this manner. There isn't a cloud in the sky, the ground isn't the tallest object. It doesn't make sense. But it is lightning all the same, there is a crack and heat and static and Prime is just looking at him like he's stupid.
"How interesting," repeats Prime.
"I thought so. Keys to her chains, if you would please, and if you could just correct any papers that are so very obviously dead wrong. I would be ever so grateful."
"Poor souls. So inconvenient that you can't keep thinking feeling human beings under your complete control to be beaten, raped, imprisoned, and worked to death. Such a pity. It must be quite trying, I don't know how you'll cope. But, I like to think of myself as a reasonable man, so I will even be kind enough to offer a sum of money to give your employees as their final wages while they find a new career."
He flies up, undoes a section of the awning so he can just float down, and lands neatly among the slaves. His first priority: scoop Aya into a hug.
"Well," he says, actually genuinely pleasant instead of terrifying and addressing the slaves, "Ladies and gentlemen. I have every intention of freeing you. I would like to listen to how you'd like to be freed, such as being taken to a country without slavery, or to a province where Aelare's blessing is valid."
"Pity I'm not breaking everything. I would be very good at it right now. I even have scrolls. But the chains are easy to fix, and the necklace, mirror, and holy water is-" Scry? "In a drawer in the office, I can retrieve those without issue."
"My baby," squeaks a woman not much older than Aya's apparent age.
"Okay. Where's your baby?"
"W-with her father. He named her free."
"...Oh. That's going to be a lot harder. But tell us who the father is and we'll - look into it."
Is the door locked? The door is locked. How annoying.
Prime rolls his eyes, has a brief debate over if he really cares about the safety of the door, and then neatly slices the lock's offending non-entry bolt with a shield. The door opens, and in he goes.
"All you need to do to fly is to concentrate on meaning to. It gets very easy very quickly," Aya tells that person. She divides everyone else up into three groups and has them all hold hands. She cannot resist the urge to give Adarin a kiss before she collects her group and flies up through the awning gap with them to lead the way out of the province.
Right then! They land (Prime gives instructions for their third, less experienced flight enabler) and then Prime starts turning relevant tattoos to the color of skin around them. He frowns at the new one Aya's gained, but doesn't comment. He just looks vaguely upset.
"Well," she says, "there's not really a known limit to what magics can do. They took my holy water and my mirror so I couldn't call anyone, and - and I don't look as old as I am, and - it wouldn't be impossible for someone to fall into a magic and walk out with some supernatural powers and new clothes and an unmarked heel and a love side effect and decades of coherent memories to explain it all."
...Partly for headache reasons.
Eventually she finds a little inn with a fountain in front that looks nice and reasonably priced. In she goes.
They have already done the thing where he is her pillow. She gets them one room. The receptionist gives them keys and directions up the stairs.