<span style="font-family: 'Arial'">The man proved his knowledge of Dusanian by responding in turn, using more fluent and smooth intonation. Snow wasn't quite sure what he had been expecting — that the man would lie about his origins? Or was it something else. <i>You lie, </i>Snow thought. There was an unshakable feeling of there being holes in Altair's story, but as to what he didn't know. <i>I trust in my instinct. But my instinct will not tell me what you lie about. This, however... is not it. </i>Some of his suspicion melted away, although it ultimately lingered at the bottom of his gut. He trusted the man's words enough to believe that he was from that hot desert land. That he was a Dusanian slave, bred and trained. But there were other parts he didn't quite hold trust for, parts that had been explained in a way that left him unsatisfied. <br/>
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Surely there had to be more to his story than what Altair dared to share. The flogging was recent. The man wasn't scrawny, not in the manner of someone long subjugated to the will of pirates. If he had truly been on a pirate's ship as he said he was, then he had only sailed with them for a short period. He did not deign to play with the idea that a pirate would lash a slave with such ease, over superstitious prayer. Pirates, though thieves and rapists, were seasoned men. Most had been inundated with countless gods and deities over their lives. Snow doubt that it would've taken only a small bit of prayer to incur the wrath of a pirate. No — there had to be another reason.<br/>
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"I know no more Dusanian. Just the common greeting. It was taught to me by a man who was passing through the land, a man that crewed a spice ship," Snow explained. The slave was eager to please, almost too eager. Snow had only extended a pitiful bit of Dusanian the man's way, and he was already asking if using it would please him. "Perhaps not. Though, if you wish, you may continue to speak it... I will not understand a lick of it, however. I only know this tongue that I speak in right now, and have weak strength in some others. I know little Ellanian as well." <br/>
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The way Altair posed his questions gave him an air of naïvety. It was difficult for Snow to tell if he was skilled at feigning ignorance, or if he was truly ignorant. "Igna's End... it is the ancestral home of my family and Diens'. It's located close to the coast, and is constantly bathed in sea mist. It's not quite as cold as other parts of Weiss, but there is certainly an amount of frost to be found," Snow recalled, from memories long past. It had been years since he settled in Igna's End. "Of course a slave would be allowed to leave. Why would they not be?" Did the man not know that slavery was forbidden in Weiss? "We do not get very many visitors. Foreigners would much prefer to sail to richer areas, such as the capital, for their trade. Others may stop in Igna's End, to resupply shipping provisions. Igna's End is not so big a place so as to be a center of commer<br/>
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Altair turned to Diens, and asked the older man a question in a curious tone. <i>Was he a slave? </i>His words were near jarring. Snow had never dealt with someone so unfamiliar with the ways of Weiss, not like this. The ignorant men he had always seen were trained sailors who had never had a reason to speak the common tongue of Weiss. Here, he had a man that spoke fluently, yet knew little about the land whose tongue he used. "No. Diens is no slave. He is a free man, bound to those of his choosing. There are no slaves in Weiss, no true ones."<br/>
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