"The habits of a lifetime are not easily broken," Neuvillette says, tone reassuring and also carrying with it the weight of experience. They're even harder to break when your lifetime is so much longer than a human's, after all. "All the more so when they are the only ones you were ever given a chance to learn."

Not, 'the only ones you were taught.' Just from the way Casper talks, and the way his mood shifts as nervously as his weight, his father wouldn't have allowed anyone else the chance to teach another way.

After some consideration, he continues, "You are not the first who struggles to escape, nor, I fear, will you be by any means the last. But it matters that you have taken the first steps - that you have reached out to others. That you listen to your heart and your own sense of justice, telling you that the way he treats you is unacceptable, rather than simply continuing to follow his voice. These are not easy things, Casper, and even if they were, there would still be no shame in struggling with them."