He couldn’t imagine that anyone who didn’t come from wealth had ever [i]not[/i] wondered what it would be like to have money, to live comfortably. That was all his brothers tended to do when they weren’t working. Talking about what they would do with all the phantom money they would earn from a job they didn’t yet have… Nëis tried to avoid doing that, getting his hopes up. Now, though, he could hope all he wanted--this was a lucrative opportunity.

“I have wondered,” he said, leaning forwards on the ship’s railing. It was getting close to the time the Captain said they would be setting sail, and he didn’t feel entirely prepared for it. “But soon, in time, I believe I will know.” Perhaps they all would, but that was beside the point.

Ignia quieted, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. Introspective, and eyeing only the waves. He could understand, more or less, her meaning. Slaves were what their masters wanted them to be, nothing more, nothing less. He had no particular feelings on the matter either way, slaves had their uses and disuses.

“You will never be freer than when you are on the sea,” he told her. “Here, we are going wherever our Captain desires, and no one knows us. You may not be wealthy, but you may do what you wish. I intend to.”

He was not a slave, he couldn’t say he had any idea what it felt like to be owned and powerless. But he knew what it felt like to be bound by the trappings of law and class, and he couldn’t feel less like the lowly farm boy he had always been than when on the sea. He felt like he could breathe, live days on end without going hungry. That was all he wanted.