“Sometimes, a fearsome reputation is all it takes to stop a large amount of trouble and inconveniences from ever happening in the first place.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

Aideen and the freed slaves reached Farouq’s trading house without any further incident, and found that Farouq had already briefed his people to expect them. The good master himself was amongst the waiting crowd, and quickly commanded his people to prepare things for the group of freed slaves that Aideen brought with her.

Namely things like hot baths, warm food, and other sources of comfort with which to help the former slaves take their minds off the suffering they had gone through.

Fortunately his trading house was one of the biggest in Oajib, and easily had more than enough room to handle the sudden influx of people for the time being. They wouldn’t have any problems temporarily housing the freed slaves while arrangements were made with outgoing caravans the house had business with to carry them out of Oajib.

By this point, in terms of legality, by the Sultanate’s own system the insult had been first given by Ghoulam Al-Surad who tried to lay hands on honored guests of Farouq, so they would more likely than not pretend not to see what was happening. Even if the “retaliation” inflicted upon the slave trader was one that was overly excessive by their standards.

Even if the locals tried to make a fuss about it, Farouq’s family had enough influence to take care of the matter either way, something he was all too happy to do if he had to, considering his dislike for the Sultanate’s culture and government in general. As such, Aideen saw no problem with leaving the freed slaves for him to handle.

After all, he was the merchant with the connections. It would have been far more troublesome if Kino and Eilonwy had to manage the freed slaves on their own, even if Aideen helped the two. Instead, leaving a job for the right person to do it was how to get things done with minimal fuss. It was something she hoped the two would take as a lesson to remember.

Namely that everyone has their part to play, no matter how mundane they might seem otherwise.

All too often youngsters – as long-lived people went, both Eilonwy and Kino were still youngsters despite being in their fifties – had the mistaken impression that they needed to do everything on their own. Aideen hoped to instill a lesson in them that it was fine to rely on others too, especially when those other people were far better suited to certain things than themselves.

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It was rather more complicated to arrange for the travel needs for the hundred or so people, and not everyone of the freed slaves even had a home to return to. When Kino asked how Farouq intended to handle those without a place to call home, Farouq said that he would most likely arrange for them to be sent to the Caliphate, where his family’s main branch lived.

There, with their house’s influence, it would be easy enough to arrange for the former slaves to be able to find work and begin their life anew while leaving their past behind them.

That was something that neither Kino nor Eilonwy – for all their natural gifts – had the power to do anywhere near as easily or conveniently, much less in short order. Aideen hoped that the two would notice that everyone had their shortcomings from examples like these, and how delegation of duty was important for most things to function effectively.

They spent a couple days after that helping the former slaves calm down. Saw for themselves the arrangements Farouq had set up with other trading houses he was connected to where they would send the former slaves back to their homes for those who still had a place to call home. On every occasion, the former slaves made their gratitude known, often in tears of joy.

Eventually, only the last batch of former slaves – the ones who had no place to return to, of which there a good bit, nearly a quarter of the group – left behind. Farouq intended to take them back to the Caliphate himself, since his own tenure in Oajib was coming to an end within a month. Satisfied with his preparations Kino and Eilonwy gave their thanks for the help he had given to those former slaves.

The three of them bid their farewells soon after, as they still had a long journey ahead of them. After one last sumptuous breakfast – one they shared with the former slaves still in Farouq’s place as well – Aideen, Kino, and Eilonwy said their goodbyes. They would be headed northwards to their next destination after the meal.

Farouq gave them a proper send-off as befit a “honored guest”, in his parlance, and even accompanied them most of the way to the city’s north gate. Perhaps he was worried that someone might make the silly choice of accosting the three once more, something his presence would deter with quite a high degree of reliability.

Fortunately, nobody made that sort of foolish decision. The locals were quiet, and what guards or constables they ran into on their way to the gate often looked at the three women with a degree of dread in their eyes. It was already common knowledge in the city that Ghoulam Al-Surad – along with several officials he was closely connected to – were found dead in his mansion just a few days ago and that three foreign women were involved.

Apparently, nobody loved the dead people enough to go on a quest of vengeance for their behalf against the three women. Those who might have the reason to do so – the families of the dead Bey and officials, for example – lacked the courage, while the slave trader’s other compatriots mostly laughed at his fate. The removal of a rival was a good thing for them, after all.

So it was that Aideen, Kino, and Eilonwy walked openly out of the north gate of Oajib with nobody interfering.