Cobb listened sympathetically. He understood her life more than most people would. "Yeah, I used to only get a half-day off back before I was a Marshal."

He had fought hard to define himself his whole life instead of being just a slave. Even when he was a slave, he had struggled to retain any shred of humanity his masters wanted beaten out of him.

"Your people made you but now you can make yourself, Lauri-Ell. No one's here to tell you to stop." Cobb didn't know if she would but he believed there was something to trying. She could learn a lot about herself.