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varan in eclipse
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If they're the only way to increase the amount of torture on this planet, he doesn't say and will probably never say because he has learned his lesson about hoping any foreigners might not hate him and all his people, even if they themselves torture people, and is never planning to bring anything religious up again ever.

He just nods.

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Isabella's twin brother comes for a visit when Varan's been crashing on her couch for a few weeks. "It's me! In person!" he says, letting himself in with a spare key and blinking at Varan. "Oh, I was so right about the orange, go me. Bella, I have a present for you whether you like it or not, I think over your desk would be the best for it wall-usage-wise but if you don't like it I can make it work next to the closet."

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"Is it the one with the planets? You can put that over the desk, I like it."

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"Kickass. Am I gonna hit my thumb with a hammer?"

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"Well, you wouldn't have been, at least."

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"Close enough." He installs a large painting over her desk.

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This is so much the sort of interaction that he absolutely should have expected but has never seen before. He looks at the painting like someone who has never in his entire life done a google image search for a style of art he likes or browsed anyone’s deviantart account and for most of his life saw art that incorporated color once a year. It might be a while before he stops staring.

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"Bella does he like it or hate it."

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"I think he has the vocabulary that you can ask him yourself."

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"Do you like it or do you very much not like it?" Alex says to Varan.

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He does have this vocabulary! He has so little experience with it that this instantly reminds him of Muzzy eating clocks and breaks the odd mood it had him in.

"I don't know. What is that?"

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"It's a painting. I made it. I - Bella, am I dumbing down too much -"

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"I don't know, he hasn't had a lot of live-fire practice, you're probably close."

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"It's a painting of planets. Not real planets. Imaginary planets."

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Paintings are normal outside Nidal so he shouldn't comment on how few of them he's seen. Maybe he shouldn't say anything about Shelyn because he's avoiding saying anything about religion.

"Imaginary planets," he echoes carefully. "I like this painting."

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"Oh good! I got an A on it. - that means my teacher liked it too."

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There is a discernible but slight pause as Varan favors saying the right thing over responding at normal conversational speed.

"You have a painting teacher?"

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"Yeah, I'm an art major. That means, uh, most of my teachers are art teachers."

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...He wouldn't even know what questions to ask about that in Shadowtongue, so he's just going to look confused and curious.

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"...what most people here do is they study things like reading and math - uh, numbers - and other things everyone needs to know, then if they want they can do more school. In the more school they can study things that not everyone needs to know. I decided to learn about art. It does not make very much money but my sister is rich."

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"In Absalom, you can be an art major." Does that count as actually talking about Shelyn, no, probably not. "I didn't buy paintings in Absalom because I'm not rich." But it probably works like the clothing here.

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"You don't have to be rich to get a painting, here. One by an artist anybody's ever heard of, yeah, but if you just want something I made of a dragon or something I - I forgot to do the ESL talking thing, sorry."

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"...What is the ESL talking thing?"

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"ESL means English as a Second Language. I am trying to use words you probably know."

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