Some of the women Yngvi knows now had been noble hunters once. The Carta was there and there are multiple ways to get out of Orzammar with them, but some didn't want to leave, they wanted to stay because it was home, it was where your family were, why should you have to leave because some rules made by other people said this is all that we've allowed you to have, this is your space, this is where we don't have to see you. Yngvi personally can't wrap his head around it unless it's in two parts: a better life for you, your family, and the ones after who won't know all the same things, and a way to thumb your nose at those same people who'd put you down there. That baby boy they were beaming at? That longed for boy? It came from the dust beneath all the art.
"Sometimes she might get another chance, it's...the Carta tends to think of people as investments. A noble might have a bit of rough and tumble with someone beneath them but to make sure you'll actually have a noble when you're a Duster, there's a lot of upfront costs before the pay-off: education, clothes, make-up, speech lessons, probably stuff on how to behave, maybe even some dental work too since it's Dusttown, they'll probably have bad teeth or they get gold caps on them. Music lessons are big too, even different languages to sing or instruments. Things like that. If she doesn't have a son after all that…" He swallows uncomfortably, acutely aware of what it sounds like because there's no way to change what it is even if he doesn't cast judgement on the women (girls, some of them are definitely younger than him, they stand a better chance after all) but because that was him. All his lessons. All of Gunnar's. How much they'd bring in versus how much it'd cost to get them there. "If she has a daughter then either she's left with a debt to repay or she's just left. It's not like she had anything in the first place. Just a chance that's taken away from her, but usually a debt because the Carta gets its cut. And all the good stuff about getting to be in the noble caste with your family, that lasts only as long as that child lives too so...y'know. Terms and conditions."
When is a person not a person, that's always what it comes down to.
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"Sometimes she might get another chance, it's...the Carta tends to think of people as investments. A noble might have a bit of rough and tumble with someone beneath them but to make sure you'll actually have a noble when you're a Duster, there's a lot of upfront costs before the pay-off: education, clothes, make-up, speech lessons, probably stuff on how to behave, maybe even some dental work too since it's Dusttown, they'll probably have bad teeth or they get gold caps on them. Music lessons are big too, even different languages to sing or instruments. Things like that. If she doesn't have a son after all that…" He swallows uncomfortably, acutely aware of what it sounds like because there's no way to change what it is even if he doesn't cast judgement on the women (girls, some of them are definitely younger than him, they stand a better chance after all) but because that was him. All his lessons. All of Gunnar's. How much they'd bring in versus how much it'd cost to get them there. "If she has a daughter then either she's left with a debt to repay or she's just left. It's not like she had anything in the first place. Just a chance that's taken away from her, but usually a debt because the Carta gets its cut. And all the good stuff about getting to be in the noble caste with your family, that lasts only as long as that child lives too so...y'know. Terms and conditions."
When is a person not a person, that's always what it comes down to.