This is a continuation of Slave Verse: Epilogue (aka Slave Verse 4: Time to Love) that was published over on FFN. It has been pointed out to me that I never cross-posted it here to LJ.
A reader asked a big question in one of their reviews of Slave Verse, a question that unleashed a torrent of explanation. So I captured that explanation here, in case I might want to refer to it again later.