"All right. Maybe we can do a little Taldane practice after that. - the letter's in Taldane."

"All right." 

Ma'ar does not get attacked by bullies (possibly because he spends the next two weeks with his Thoughtsensing always open and slips away if they come near him. Elwa reports that the bullying hasn't stopped, exactly, despite her attempts to insult back, but - it bothers her less, after having heard from Ma'ar about her options for fighting back, and the actual consequences involved in detention. 

Ma'ar becomes fairly fluent in Tantaran. He practices Taldane with Carissa. Wonders about the letter; considers opening it, but - he trusts Carissa, right now, with that much at least.

Noticing that fact is a relief and uncomfortable at the same time. 

Lady Cinnabar passes him to the regular classes. His magic teacher also bumps him ahead two levels in his mage course-work, to a class that mostly works with various tutors but once a week has a session with Urtho personally. 

Leareth does not turn up to find her. 

How could he? He's right here, though he doesn't know it yet. 

She prays to Aroden. She doesn't expect it to work. Iomedae could have seen her from a world away, but Iomedae was already paying attention to her; the gods don't see other worlds just by default. But there's a mention in his holy texts that Aroden travelled the farthest planes, looking for something. Maybe he'll drop in on Velgarth briefly. 

Occasionally she daydreams about having gone very far away and become immortal and spent two thousand years building things in a wizard tower somewhere. And then finding Leareth, once he was grown up. Obviously this is patently absurd in every way. Obviously the world you've got is the one in front of you and there's no sense in which you salvage something if you shove it down a tragic path it's been down before.

And Ma'ar- she couldn't have done it to Ma'ar, even if she could've done it to the whole world. 

She makes Urtho a headband of intelligence, as a gift. Tells him that wizards all wear them, they help with detail work and holding a lot in your head at a time.

Urtho is incredibly delighted about the present! He stares at it with mage-sight and then puts it on and then tries half a dozen Velgarth spells and casts some of his Golarion spells he's been practicing. 

He doesn't mention having heard anything about Ma'ar's incident with the fight. 

Ma'ar learns more magic and makes more friends and, once he can read fluently, does so voraciously. He keeps needing ask for extra paper from the hertasi because he takes so many notes. 

Two months after said fight, he comes back from his history class with his head bent, and unlike usual, doesn't say anything to Carissa while he heads for the kitchen to make himself tea. 

She is sketching designs for combination int/wis headbands. "How was class?"

He mumbles something and flops down on the sofa. 

- he might be Leareth but he's also a teenager, she shouldn't read into this whatever she'd read into Leareth doing that. 

She pretends to go back to her notes and fails to do that entirely.

He sits up and folds his arms and stares into the distance. 

"Sometimes people are really frustrating," he says eventually, not addressed to anything in particular. 

"Yeah. Did you have a fight with a classmate?"

"...Not a fight fight. Not the kind you get in trouble for. We're supposed to have debates, and..." Shrug. "I guess everyone thinks I'm wrong and evil." 

He says this in a deliberately casual and neutral tone, while his hands twist together in his lap and his toes tap the floor. 

"Seems like in many contexts a disadvantageous thing to have them believe," she says neutrally back.

"I know. I didn't want them to, I was trying to..." He glares at the floor, weary and frustrated. "We were supposed to be arguing about what was true, and, just -" Helpless shrug. 

"Do you want a hug?"

"- Yes." 

Hug.

Ma'ar leans on her shoulder. 

"Sometimes we do discussions about the laws for mages and how they're different in different places and then we debate what they should be," he says eventually. "You're - supposed to disagree with people and say things even if they're controversial? But now I feel like there are secret other rules too and I don't get it." Sigh. "We were talking about blood-magic and I don't see why it should be illegal– I mean, murdering people should be illegal, obviously, but I don't see why blood-magic should be extra illegal. If you're fighting a war or something - or hanging criminals - and not even using the energy then it's just a waste." 

"Hmmm. I don't know much about blood-magic. What arguments did people have?"

He scowls. "I don't even know! That it's gross and evil and bad. I - wouldn't've minded if they had better arguments than that, but 'it's bad' isn't even an argument..." 

"It's not. Sometimes it means they don't have one and sometimes it means that their argument is complicated and they don't know how to explain it to you."

"Mmm." He's quiet for a while, thoughtful. "I - think maybe I didn't know how to explain what I was thinking to them, either. It felt like it made sense to me, but I was saying things and people weren't acting like it made sense? Which I think means they didn't understand it." 

"It could mean that. Or it could mean that they didn't want to understand it because then people would think they were evil, or that they think that not understanding it is a credible way to signal they wouldn't do it."