She offers it.

His eyes go unfocused.

"Congratulations...?" he says after thirty seconds or so. "...Yes, you are pregnant." 

Nod. "Thank you. That's all I - no, I guess that's not all I wanted to know. How often do people die in childbirth in Tantara."

He gives her a startled look. "Very rarely? You look very healthy and so does the babe. If you're concerned - if your sisters have had difficulties or such - we can have a Healer attend closely during the pregnancy?" 

"I'm not very worried but it's how his mom died." She jerks her head at Ma'ar. "They didn't have Healing on hand, though." 

"Oh." He winces. "Poor family?" 

"Yes. If I'm healthy I'm not worried, though." She should be much much harder to kill than a normal person anyway.

"You certainly look very healthy, ma'am." 

"Thank you. I don't have other questions."

He nods, looks around uncertainly for a moment, then nods more briskly. "Please do feel free to call for me again if you have any troubles, ma'am." 

And he heads out. 

Ma'ar, who didn't follow any of the conversation, is staring at Carissa, curious and worried. 

She sits down next to him. 

"It sounds like I am expecting a baby. I know that's got to be - scary. If you are not comfortable with it, I still have the option to Polymorph it away." Almost definitely illegal, here, since this place has Good written all over it, but also they must lose pregnancies sometimes. "I think it's probably safe. They have good healing, and I have magic protections for my safety."

He looks at her for a long time. 

"I think...if you want to live forever...then you're not going to be stupid about that? And so if you think it's not stupid to have a baby here, then–" a long hesitation, "then I trust you." 

Hug. "I think it's pretty safe. And the baby will hopefully be a mage, I bet Iomedae and Abadar can nudge that, and smart, and maybe help us with our mission, if it takes long enough for him or her to grow up and join it."

Ma'ar notices that his shoulders are tense, and takes a deep breath, trying to relax on purpose. "That makes sense," he says, solemnly. "I think you should do the clever thing that will help with your plans." 

It's not like it's really about whether he's scared, after all. 

"It also helps me with my plans for you to feel safe and feel like you are my priority and that won't change."

Maybe the smart thing for him to do would be to nod and agree, but... 

"Why? I - don't think it's going to change what I do, very much. If I believe that less or more." 

"I think it might. The thing you are trying to do is hard. If you have to invent how to do it all yourself from scratch I think it'll take you a long time, to get good at it. If you can trust someone to be really trying to help you succeed I think you''ll get better at it faster and make fewer mistakes and get more done."

He thinks about that for a while in silence. 

It is hard. He can already guess that it's harder than he can actually imagine, right now. 

"- I think I mostly just need to know that you're clever, and - right, about things. And..." this part feels hardest to say, for some reason, "and want the same things that I do. And if that's true, then - I think that's the important part?" And he just has to make sure it also continues to be true that keeping him safe helps her get what she wants. 

"I think so. 

I think - if circumstances don't change before then - I would be all right with you reading my mind when you are done with your learning at Urtho's Tower, and ready to go back to Predain. I think that'll be a few years, at least. I wouldn't want you to rush it on account of this, this is the best place in the world to learn and you're going to need to learn. But when you're done I would be willing to let you do that, so that you can be more sure."

That's - surprising. Maybe it shouldn't be; maybe being surprised over and over is a sign he's not understanding something that's right in front of his eyes. 

Ma'ar nods. "All right." It's a long time in the future and all sorts of things might happen and he'll know so much more, later, the later-Ma'ar will predictably be more right about things, but...he won't forget that offer. Just in case it does end up being relevant. 

And they can go back to reading and writing practice.

Ma'ar picks it up very quickly. 

Eventually he's distracted by the fading sunset, clearly and vividly visible through the enormous windows. The expanse of the Tower grounds below is littered with sparkling lights, almost like an echo of the stars beginning to appear in the darkening midnight blue bowl of sky. 

It feels like he's never seen so much sky before. Which is silly, of course, the stars are if anything more visible from the clan lands, flat and endless with almost no other light sources. 

But...the sky makes more sense, somehow, set alongside the whole context of Urtho's Tower. So many shining lights. Not nearly as many on the ground as there are in the sky, but... 

...but there could be. 

He always knew that the world was broken, but he had never quite been able to imagine what it would look like if it were whole. 

Everywhere could look like this. 

Ma'ar stands by the window, and his breath catches. He looks back at Carissa. Wonders if she sees it too. He hopes so, because he wants to share it, and he's nowhere near having the words to explain. 

It is not clear if she understands or not, but she puts a hand on his shoulder and watches with him.

He wishes Father could have seen this. Which is a stupid thing to wish. He blinks away tears, tries to disguise it with a yawn. "Which bedroom do you want, I couldn't decide."