Something just appeared out of nowhere and doesn't at all look healthy. This might be the most important thing to happen in the last five hundred years and Lia has absolutely no idea what to do about it.

She crouches down nearby and says, "Hello, did you mean to just show up like that? Not that you're not welcome." Although actually this creature is in fact not welcome to crush the newly sprouted plants in her garden, and probably doesn't speak this language at all. "I mean. Never mind."

The creature blinks hazily up at her, rubbing their head and making assorted uncomfortable-sounding noises. The inky phenomenon nervously orbiting the creature's body settles back into the shape of a crown perched between their horns, with a single red slit-pupiled eye staring lidlessly from its middle bits.

Haltingly and clumsily, with hands unused to speaking and also not quite the same shape as human hands, the creature says, "Never mind what?"

"...Uh. That I don't know what to say? Do you need healing?"

"No."

The creature sits up, effortfully. When they notice they're in a garden, they immediately start being careful of the plants; their clumsy attempt to stand is aborted in favour of resting in place.

"I came a long way and landed hard but I'm all right now, probably. Where am I?" They look around curiously; their crown's eye swims across its surface to remain fixed on Lia in case she says anything.

In a fenced-in garden by a little house, not that far from a tall and very steep mountain range, under a blue sky. There are other buildings in view, but it's not very densely built up right here.

"...In Sathend? Near the northern mountains."

"I guess that's on me for asking stupid questions," says the creature, somewhat inscrutably. "I like your garden."

"Thank you. Why did you appear out of nowhere covered in fur? I mean, you're allowed. To be covered in fur. If you like that."

"I've been covered in fur all my life. It's the appearing out of nowhere that's new."

"...Okay, first I thought you were from another world, but then there wasn't a language barrier so I thought you were from here, but I think I'd know if someone anywhere in Sathend looked like that."

"I am definitely from another world and appeared out of nowhere by otherworldly magic. The knowing your language is probably otherworldly magic too but it surprised me." She gazes into the distance for a moment. "I... think I probably picked up something for languages on the way here. Hard to be sure." Her diction is improving as she gets more comfortable with this mode of communication and also less generally stiff and achey.

"Welcome to Sathend! I don't know how to welcome you, though. Maybe I should introduce you to the government."

Suspiciously, "What's a government?"

"There are thousands of us here, so we have some administrative work to do, like figuring out how much the railway costs to run and whether we need to expand the world, so we pick some people to handle it."

She's so surprised, she says "Thousands???" incredulously out loud, then repeats herself with her hands.

"Yep. That a lot?"

"... I've never heard of that many people trying to live... all together near each other. The most people I've heard of trying to live all together close enough that they have to have their noses in each other's business is... Fifty, maybe a hundred? —you said expand the—how big is the world?"

"About thirty miles across."

"...how big is a mile? How long does—I guess I can't ask how long it takes to walk. You have so much leg. How many of this garden would fit in it? And I guess, how long does it take you to walk across, that still matters to how big it is to you even though I'm smaller and probably can't walk as fast."

"Uh... more than ten thousand and less than a hundred thousand? If I want to get somewhere I mostly take the railway. I've never crossed the whole world on foot and it sounds miserable but I think my husband's done it. I bet he took a few days."

The Lamb thinks hard about this.

"...I think your world is too small," she eventually concludes. "It sounds like it's... not big enough that someone who doesn't want to be near anyone can do that, and I think that's too small. I don't know if I can do anything about that, and I don't know if I should, but I think it's too small."

"It grows but the surface area can only grow as a function of the number of people being regularly tortured. Which I promise is less concerning than it sounds. But it's not, uh, completely fine."

...this is the Lamb's concerned face!

"It's... bad. We've been trying to find other worlds with more space that doesn't need sacrifices to keep existing but our ability to try that also scales with the number of people being regularly tortured."

"...well, as bad as this place is, the place I came from is worse, but... I don't know, I don't want to promise anything yet, but I might be able to help scout. I don't need to torture anybody to move between worlds. I might need some other concerning things, but not that one."

"What concerning things do you need?"

She sighs.

"It's a long story and I don't really like talking about it. Can I save it for when I'm not sitting on your plants? I might be able to manage walking by now."

"Yeah, sorry. That's fine. Should I introduce you to the government?"

She gets up, carefully, and picks her way out of the plants.

"What... does introducing me to the government..." She has to stop talking for a bit because multitasking it with the walking isn't going so well. "...consist of?"

"I guess I would... uh, walk with you to where they do things, and let someone know, and then you could talk to people there, or I could go ask someone else to tell them to come here... I don't really know what they'd want to talk with you about?"

"I don't really know either and I'm kind of concerned about it."

"You don't have to talk to them if you don't want to. I mean, I'm not going to keep you a secret, but."

"I guess that's fair. ...and your world is not big enough that I can just wander off to somewhere that doesn't look inhabited and start digging a garden. I guess—I guess you could ask someone to come here, and I could ask them where's a good place to put my house." She looks, insofar as her small grey facial expressions are interpretable, troubled by this prospect.

"...I can probably also tell you that. How big a house and garden do you want?"

"...for myself, just this size would do, but if I'm going to be trying to do magic, I probably need at least twice this much land to build on. Maybe better make it... hmm, let's see..."

Being careful to find a route that doesn't step on any plants, she paces out the dimensions of the plot. At her height this makes for rather more paces than a human would need.

"...I think... about six times this much. If it matters a lot that I definitely have enough land to make all my magic work, which it sounds like it might. I might be able to get away with less, but six times this much will be more than I had at home so it shouldn't be possible for it to not be enough."

"I think that won't be too hard? But not right here. But someplace that's not being used for much. Which isn't news to you. But I don't think we have shared vocabulary so maybe you need a map? We have a map inside, if you want to come in I can introduce you to my husband and show you the map."

"It has to be someplace that isn't being used for much else; I don't know much about the magic I'm working with but I do know that it cares about how mine a place is, and it's less mine if I have very close neighbours. Yes, sure, I'll meet your husband."

The house is still in a state of being moved into. There are a couple of boxes and a rolled up tapestry against one wall, and a long cane on a hook by the front door, and evidence that someone has been painting while sitting on the floor. There's an open door through which can be seen a room where someone is assembling a crib.

"Let's introduce you first, I don't want to be hanging around without him knowing we're in here."

"...can he not tell...?" But indeed he doesn't seem to be reacting to their presence. The Lamb is making her concerned face again.

"Well, he's a mage. Mages can't see or hear." Poke poke. "Hey, it's Lia, I saw this weird furry person, uh, I forgot to ask their name, anyway they appeared out of nowhere claiming to have come from some other world and have different magic and I brought them in here to show them a map of Sathend. Please help I think I'm completely mangling first contact."

"...I see. Hello, weird furry person."

The Lamb attempts, as gracefully as she can, to join this conversation. The touch-sign is as mysteriously comprehensible to her as the visual sign she was using with Lia before, and she can't tell whether that's because they're close enough that the correspondences are obvious, or whether the magic gave her both modes at once, or whether that's even a sensible question to ask.

"Hi," she says tentatively to Val. Her hands are small and rough and a little strangely shaped, but she can make herself understood all the same. She is, verifiably, furry. "Uh—" there must be a way to address Lia while including Val, it would be insane for a language not to have that—right okay— "You don't have to worry about asking me my name, I forgot it, probably for spooky magic reasons. And I don't think you're mangling anything. You've been really nice so far."

"Okay but you constantly look horrified." (She is also looping Val in.)

"Oh, I promise this place is way less horrifying than where I came from, so far!"

Pause.

"...that sentence was so much more reassuring when it was on the inside of me."

"Are you at risk of being followed by any of the reasons your original world was so horrifying?"

"Definitely absolutely not. I wouldn't have even tried leaving if there was any chance I might be followed."

"Good. We've been looking for other worlds but if they're horrifying we're not out of space yet, we can stop looking while we figure out if it's a bad idea."

"The world I came from is very very—far away, in world terms. If I figure out how to be able to move between worlds again I can look at ones that are closer and maybe there'll be something. But, um, the more I think about it the more I think—apparently magic here costs torture, and mine does not, but I think if I want to do anything with it that's as much of a thing as moving between worlds I will need... I'm not sure how to explain. A thing that is concerning but not in the same ways that torture is concerning."

"Would you find it easier to explain with models or pictures?"

"I don't think so. Hmm. Um. ...okay, I can start with—I was telling Lia I'd need a plot of land that was about six times what you have, to be sure I'd have enough to make the magic work. That's because—part of the foundation of the whole thing is having my own place that's mine, with my own stuff there, and building certain things on it. And... the other big part of the foundation... is people living there who are—connected to me, by the magic. Which I would not find so concerning except that the connection makes people like me and look up to me and trust me and want to do what I say, and—when you have people like that, it's hard to figure out—how to not be screwing them over—a lot of what was wrong with the place I came from was that other people who could do that same kind of magic had just set up whole territories of people who were bound to them like that, and weren't at all trying not to screw them over, and were instead doing lots of fucked-up stuff."

"What the fuck."

"I could tell you about the fucked-up stuff but it's upsetting and I don't really want to."

"You should discuss this with the government, it'd be their job to figure out how to monitor the situation and make sure everyone was safe."

"...I don't know if you meant 'it'd be their job to figure out how to monitor the situation and decide if it's time to murder me yet' but that's what it sounded like and if that's what it was going to be like I would kind of rather just not try. Probably. I don't know. Figuring out how to make things better for you guys seems pretty important what with all the torture but I just got done with one situation where I was constantly being watched by somebody who'd kill me horribly if I did anything they didn't like and I do not really want to live like that ever again."

"Well, three things. First, Sathend only uses clean executions and wouldn't kill you horribly. Second, Sathend only uses executions because exile isn't a realistic option, and it sounds like it might sort of be a realistic option with you. And third, I said everyone, not everyone except you. You have a hard problem and it's their job to help you solve it."

"...maybe," she says doubtfully. "Really?"

"Yeah, like, I'm not sure what set of policies would help you find people who'd like your horrifying magic thing, and help you make sure everyone else knows that you're only looking for people who would like it and not just doing it to everyone, but that's the kind of thing that it's the government's job to figure out. It's - you know, I also have the ability to do horrible things to people, and it was necessary to do horrible things to me to make it that way, and my impression of the government here is that they've been basically reasonable about helping us figure out how to make all that as un-horrible as possible."

"I am... not really used to most people trying to make things less horrible, when they have the option."

"From what you've said so far I'm not impressed with your world."

"Me neither."

"And I suppose that's why you're here now. I hope you end up liking Sathend better."

"I hope so too."

She takes a deep breath, then says, very reluctantly, "...I'll talk to the government if you think I should. I guess beforehand I want to know... what talking to the government is like... but I'm not sure how easy that is to explain."

"They'll have a lot of questions and they'll probably want to share most of your answers with everyone. They do think they have a right to go around making rules, but that's only because people generally agree that's a good idea, and you're part of everyone and you get a say in that. I've been advised that if there's something you should tell them then you should make sure you know all the details beforehand, but I don't think you can reasonably act on that advice."

"Are they going to expect me to be good at talking to people? I'm bad at it."

"I don't know..."

"I've never talked to them, I don't know either."

"I spent my whole life avoiding other people as much as I could, so when I try to talk to them I say things wrong or say the wrong things or don't understand implications that should be obvious. I think I've been doing okay so far but I'm worried that—somebody who's used to people putting a lot of effort into interacting with them correctly—wouldn't handle me well."

"Hmm." (This is Lia's "if you're too bad at talking to people to be allowed in society I think I'll go jump off a cliff now" face.)

"What exactly are you concerned they'll do?"

"If I knew maybe I'd be less worried! I just—don't really know—how to put effort into interacting correctly? Or even really what interacting correctly would mean?"

"You've done it right if they learn what you want them to know and you learn what they want you to know."

"I guess that's reasonable. Okay."

"So, um. Should I show you the map now?"

"Sure, all right."

She leaves Val to whatever he's up to next and unrolls the tapestry to reveal that it's a map. She points out the forest, and some lightly used plains, and their current location, and the temple, and the capitol building.

"Where do you think I could claim some land that wasn't near anyone else? The forest, maybe? I'm used to forests."

"These areas," which are mostly not in the forest but there is a place where the forest has recently expanded beyond its originally planned dimensions, "are supposed to have people eventually and don't yet. I think. Approximately."

"Hmm, maybe right here at the edge of the forest, then?"

"I think so, yeah. I would check with a bigger map that has these kinds of things marked on it. And if someone beat you to it then maybe not. But probably? I bet that's fine."

"Okay. Who would have a bigger map? The government?"

"Probably? I think the college would. You probably don't have one of those. Didn't, I mean. Uh, not to make assumptions, did you?"

"What's a college?"

"A college is a place where adults get together to teach each other weird things, sometimes weird things they just found out. There's also a place where adults teach children things that aren't weird but that's a different place."

"Huh. I guess that's a good kind of place to have. Which do you think makes more sense to do first, looking at maps at the college or talking to the government?"

"I would go to the government first but maybe if we go to the college and let someone know we're going to the government next they'll have more time to think about what they want to say?"

"... Okay. I guess." She nervously holds her hand like it's about to be gripping something, but then before her crown can do more than start to slide meltily sideways on her head, she stops doing that and it resolidifies.

"Anyway, they're both in the same direction from here." Lia starts walking. Slowly, because the lamb is short and recently injured.

She's pretty creaky at first but soon enough she's trotting along just fine.

Oh, good. They head in a direction where the buildings get denser.

"Uh, I just realized I'm not sure if you were saying okay to the college or the government. Sorry."

"You seemed like you settled on college first government second but maybe I misunderstood?"

"Okay! Okay. I mean I actually talked myself into having no idea but that’s probably fine. College it is." It is over there and consists of multiple buildings and a tree and a fence which has been painted about fifty times and been artistically carved by dozens of people who did not discuss a unified artistic vision with each other.

There are people staring at them on the way. Lia keeps reminding herself to breathe. Someone waves.

She's sort of fascinated by the fence situation but if she slows down to look at it they'll be here all day. People here are really unfairly tall. Trot trot.

Lia really does not know what she’s doing but if she panics and freezes there isn’t anyone with a better idea of what to do waiting in the wings so she takes a wild guess about who to talk to first and heads into the library (this is a room full of collections of knotted strings and various scientific and technical illustrations and people observing those things; one of them compliments the lamb’s appearance) and asks the librarian what exactly they're supposed to do now.

"Oh," says the librarian, "someone should check it's not a hoax and someone should go tell the government, I guess? Did you see them appear?"

"Yes and they said they have different magic - but it was - I want to talk to the government about it, it has huge implications and testing it would be, uh, if it does work as advertised it'd involve mind control."

The librarian's hands just kind of hover in the air like the librarian just cannot figure out what to say about that.

(The Lamb's little grey face looks unhappily apologetic.)

The librarian also looks like that. "...We don't have to test it if they don't want anything anyone couldn't get by asking," the librarian eventually says.

"No, I don't think they do."

"Okay, well, in that case I don't think we need to do experiments here, but we could send someone to let the government know while they hang out and read or ask questions." In the original language, this is actually unambiguously about the stranger but slowly shifts from probably third person to probably second person during the sentence.

"That sounds like probably a good idea, if I understood right, which I might not have? ...um, I guess one thing I can do that I don't need to mind-control anyone for is," the crown flows off her head and down her arm and into the shape of a hoe, which then unforms and winds around her wrist in a quick inky motion before landing in her other hand as a mallet, and from there unforms again and spirals up that arm and back into the shape of a crown on her head. "But I don't know if that's the sort of thing you can use to tell I'm not hoaxing. And it's not urgent."

" - Yeah, if you can do that much magic and have eyes that’s too expensive for a hoax," says the librarian. "I shudder to think how many people would have to pay how much for you to scam people out of something already free."

"Actually, I think you could outright prove it that way if you don’t have to recharge," says Lia.

"I could do this all day if for some reason it was important to do it all day. I guess I couldn't turn it into different weapons all day, it's finicky about those. Anyway my crown turning into things doesn't have costs, it's just the sort of thing that can do that." Among many other properties she is declining to mention at this time.

"If it doesn't cost you anything, I have a decent sense of how much of that would be possible for a mage."

The Lamb agreeably begins fidgeting with her crown again. It swishes around and morphs into a wide variety of gardening tools, plus a few other odds and ends like a hatchet and a broom.

That's weirdly cute. A local mage would have to have practiced a lot to pull off something that looks like that, and it's clear pretty quickly that even if they had practiced there's no way they could hold onto enough magic to do it so many times. She waits until it's also impossible that there's just another mage hiding nearby and helping.

"That's really cool," Lia says after a while. "And I don't think you could be a hoax."

(Meanwhile someone leaves to go spread the news, and other people gather to watch.)

The crown settles back onto her head and bounces cheerily a couple of times before resuming the semblance of an at least mostly inanimate object. (Its lidless red eye still darts in all directions, independent of its bearer's gaze.)

"It's pretty neat," she agrees. "And useful to always have the tool I'm looking for."

"That is the most convenient magic I've ever heard of."

"It sounds like most magic around here is not nearly that convenient."

"Yeah. Not nearly. Well, so, um, we got a demonstration of your magic in front of some people and I guess we let the government know to expect us, we can also probably take a look at one of their maps to see where you want to build your house while we're here."

"Good plan. Which maps should I be looking at?"

Lia hangs out here often enough to know where to find things. Here’s a nice big map that’s six months old.

The Lamb is looking for an unused bit of forest well away from anyone else's stuff.

The thing about that is that the most remote-yet-nice patch of empty forest that isn’t zoned to stay empty forest was claimed long ago, and the new most remote patch likewise, and so on. The area of new-ish forest visible on Lia's map is still unclaimed as of the making of this one; there’s also a place that’s no longer claimed and will probably have a little house standing empty, and an area that’s not very forested but is pretty out of the way south of Sunrise Point.

"What happened there?" she asks, of the place that's no longer claimed. "Is it cursed or haunted or something?"

"We don't have curses or hauntings. Not for real. It was one person's home for fifty years, I guess he passed away from something we can't fix yet - we'll probably get him back later but we can't live in a world that belongs to the dead while we're working on it."

"That makes sense. I can maybe start there, then - will anyone mind if I tear down his house? I might have to tear down his house."

"I think... probably not in a way you have to care about? Maybe someone else would want it and is just a little slower - or maybe someone else actually did go claim it yesterday - and maybe one of his friends would be sad if they like the design or something. But if they don't like it enough to take care of it then they don't get a say."

"That sounds probably okay. And I can try to remember the design, or make a model of it or something. I'll start there if no one's claimed it, and if someone has then maybe," she indicates a couple of other likely-looking spots on the map, "there or there."

"I bet at least one of those will work. I don't think we need to do anything else here before we talk to the government but if you think of something we can."

"I can't think of anything. Is the government going to show up here or do we have to go show up where they are?"

"They might show up if we don't head over there soon but I was thinking we should go to them. It's not much out of our way, it's closer to the station than this place."

"Okay," she says, with only a mild amount of trepidation. "Sure. Let's do that."

More walking, then.

Rumors precede them now and some people want to stare excitedly or say hello or ask the lamb where she's from or welcome her to Sathend.

The Lamb is moderately weirded out by all the attention but does her best to smile non-awkwardly and say hello back and come up with a better answer than "incredibly far away" (she doesn't) and think of any response at all to being welcomed (she doesn't do that either).

The government meets in a building made of white marble, with columns. Some members thereof are currently waiting there, having heard about the lamb.

The grandiose architecture puts her a little on edge but at least it's not crumbling grey stone. She could really do with never meeting another crumbling grey stone edifice again.

She waves, tentatively. Her crown liquefies and does a restless orbit of her head before settling back into place.

That’s a startling thing for her crown to do.

The person taking point on talking to them stares at the crown. "Hello. Welcome to Sathend. I'm Carey, part of Sathend's government."

"Hi. I'm... the Lamb, I guess. I should probably pick a real name but I haven't thought of one. I'm, I guess, supposed to talk to you about my weird and concerning otherworldly magic?"

"Yes, definitely, and anything you need to get settled here if that's what you'd like to do."

"I looked at a map and picked some spots I might try building a house. I'm not sure what else I'd need to settle in. What have you heard so far about the concerning magic?"

"That it involves mind control."

"Yeah, it's a problem. I... want to try to explain but I'm really not sure where to start..."

"Understandable."

"Okay, uh..." Her crown swishes restlessly around her head again. "...I came from another world. It's, uh, bigger, and more cursed. There's... people there who can do a kind of magic that involves, I guess you could say, collecting, people? And when you collect someone then the magic makes them like you and respect you and look up to you and want to do what you say, and the magic feeds off of that and then you can do other, useful stuff with it. I got into the middle of a fight between some of them and ended up with the same power and it was really upsetting because I think I might be the first person with that power to think to myself 'how do I avoid screwing over the people I'm collecting?' and I'm not nearly as good at it as I'd like to be. —um, collected people can decide to leave, or so I'm told, but uh, they don't, mostly. I don't know if that's because the magic makes it hard or because the other collectors murder anybody who tries to leave them and I'm so nice by comparison that nobody wants to leave me. Um, anyway, I eventually got fed up with all the fighting and the trying and failing to be good to people who depended on me and the being watched all the time by a guy who was going to murder me if I didn't do what he said, so I gathered up all the magic I could and ran away as thoroughly as possible so nobody could follow me, and I landed in Lia's garden."

"That sounds like a horrible situation. I'm so sorry."

Her little grey face scrunches up and her hands wobble with skeptical uncertainty. "I see what you're saying but I sort of feel like despite all the attempted murder I had it better than most people do. I got to leave."

"You're the person in front of me. We can discuss rescue attempts and whether they're a good idea or possible if you want."

"Rescue attempts miiiight be possible but I think they're a bad idea unless I can collect so many people that I get to be more powerful than all the other people collectors and kill them and take their stuff, and even then I'd have to find my way back and I deliberately made finding my way here as hard as possible so finding my way back is going to suck too. I wish I could, though, it really sucks there."

"It sounds like it. Are you, in fact, hoping to collect people here?"

"...well, I have to, if I want to do much in the way of magic. And it seems like you guys could use some magic done. But mostly what I am hoping to do is build a cabin in the woods and grow vegetables."

"We do need magic done and it does call for sacrifices, and it is definitely worth exploring alternatives, but Sathend was a safe and prosperous place before you came and it can continue to be one if you retire to a cabin in the woods to grow vegetables. If you want to do magic and others want to be collected, that's fine, but I want you to know it's also fine if you don't."

"...I'm... probably okay with collecting people, if they're okay with it, to help this place be even better. It's much nicer than where I came from but it seems kind of, small, and terrifying? What with people needing to be tortured so it keeps existing? I think it would be better if... not... that."

Carey snorts. "It would be."

"So if there's people okay with being collected that I'm okay with collecting then I can collect them and try to help out. ...maybe try to find whoever's most okay with being collected, and have them check, if they can really leave. And if they can't, then, well, then we know that, but if they can then it's, you know, lower stakes, for everybody else. —oh also I can bring back the dead, if I've collected them. I don't know if it still works if they leave but I thiiink it would." She considers for a moment, crown swishing a quick inky circle around her head. "Yeah, I think it would. So that's, a consideration, I guess."

"...Huh. We have awful throughput on resurrections. What kinds of limitations do you have and how often can you do that?"

"I think there's no limitations apart from the fact that I have to have collected the person I'm resurrecting, and I need to have enough power to do the resurrection, and enough people collected to, uh... to do it with? To witness it?" Her little face scrunches up in a frown of insufficient vocabulary. "I'm not sure how to say it right. But I think I need either a few people collected, or a lot of stored power to make up for not having any, before I can do a resurrection. And some other setup, the right buildings and magic stuff to make it work. But once I have all the right stuff I can do it as often as I can get the power for it. Maybe once every few days, if I only have a few people collected? And more if I've got more. ...um, when I resurrect people they show up vomiting gross sludge, I'm not sure that matters to anything but I thought I should let you know. It doesn't seem to affect their health once they're done throwing up."

Carey just nods along thoughtfully until the sludge part, at which point she makes a face.

"...Why?"

"That is a great question that I wish I could answer."

"...Well. So, there isn't any prior art in your world about how to behave ethically with powers like yours, is that right? I'm interested in hearing about the sorts of principles you abide by or want to abide by."

"Iiii am not sure I really know what a principle is. I mean, I know what the word means. I just, I guess, so, um, I grew up in the deep woods with no neighbours closer than a mile and then I got sorta murdered and became slightly a god and suddenly had to own a bunch of people or die horribly, and all I know about how to avoid treating people badly is that it's really hard and you can't manage it just by wanting to and I want to and I keep screwing up at it. Um, and if people won't feed themselves for cultural reasons you really gotta remember to feed them and not forget about it for a whole day because you're too sad. But that seems very specific and probably not applicable here."

"Hmm. So, more broadly, when people have made part of their wellbeing your responsibility, you need to remember that and take that responsibility seriously?"

She takes a moment to consider this framing.

"...yeah. Yeah, I think that sounds right."

"It seems to me like it would be a good idea to talk beforehand with people about what responsibilities you're taking on, and maybe write down a list. And that seems like it would also help with making sure you're doing this consensually - making sure to get on the same page with people about what exactly will happen, and agreeing to it explicitly. Does that sound to you like a good idea?"

"I... think so," she says hesitantly. "...I might not be very good at writing things down. I guess I also couldn't talk with my hands before I got here and maybe I will mysteriously be better at writing things down now because of the language magic."

"Someone can write them down for you and you can check if they've been written down correctly. I think - hm. Can you think of any reason it wouldn't be a good idea to have multiple people involved watching the discussions and asking questions whenever you collect someone?"

"...I... guess they might feel weird about it? I might feel weird about it but I think I might feel weird about it regardless and I can get over myself."

Carey smiles. "I think doing it that way will also help make sure that there's no confusion about what would cause you to collect someone or whether your entire collection wanted to be there. It seems to me like - pending everyone having time to think it over and talk with each other - it would probably be fine if you were to let people know being collected is an option if they want it, and if you get a couple of takers, we can talk again about whether this still seems like a good way of doing things once you've tried it or whether you've noticed more problems. Does that sound good to you?"

"Yeah, okay. Sure."