"I think he certainly thinks that."

"Well, that is something." Sigh. "He has become very quiet in my class. I find that I miss his opinions; he did not always express them with the most tact, but they enlivened our debates, there was value in that." 

"I think he was worried that he wasn't - supposed to take the stances he did, that the debates were not really the kind where every opinion is allowed. I didn't have much advice for him. In Cheliax it was always very very stupid to say your opinion on things."

"I do think he - is poorly able to predict what will upset and frighten the other students to hear, which I suppose makes sense given his life experiences. But perhaps once he is more used to Tantara and to the Tower, I will encourage him to speak his mind again." 

"I think that would make him very happy. He likes learning about those topics. He said to me that if they are complicated and easy to do wrong, that's all the more reason for the debates, so he can learn the problems with his initial plans."

"Oh. Good." Urtho smiles fondly. "He is so quick and so eager to learn. It is a wonderful thing to see in a student." He rubs his chin. "Do you have any other advice for me, on - how to understand him better, or communicate my own wisdom to him in a way he can make sense of?"  

"I think - comprehensive arguments that you shouldn't try something are not as useful to him as specific arguments about what will go wrong if you do. They can be coupled with 'and I haven't thought of all the things that will go wrong, and even if you solve these you shouldn't imagine you have solved all the things that'll go wrong', but it is better to start with something that actually specifically will make the world worse if he tries it. And I think it can be helpful to - ask him to argue both sides, so you can see how he understands your perspective."

"Hmm, I can try that. I appreciate your counsel here." He bows his head briefly. "You would think that after fifty years of teaching the little ones, I would know how to do this. I - suppose I have had other students who were like them in their fear, but - he is unusually brilliant and unusually...the opposite of helpless. A person who will fight rather than flee. I think that is why he worried me more." 

"I think you were noticing something real about him. But - not something that it's hard to talk him out of, if you can explain why it makes things worse for people."

"I hope you are right." 

"Me too."

Urtho doesn't seem to have much else to say, after that point. He sighs again, rubs his chin some more, and eventually clears his throat and asks her to please keep explaining the project she had been showing him before Lady Cinnabar's interruption. He's his usual friendly absentminded self for the rest of their meeting. 

Well. That - probably went well? She heads back to her room and gets nothing done all afternoon all the same.

Ma'ar arrives home as per usual, greets and hugs her in a preoccupied way and immediately gets out his schoolbooks for homework. 

She lets him work and starts dinner.

He seems very focused on his assignment, but after a while it's clear that he's been staring at the same page of his book for a while. 

"- I really don't like not feeling like I can ask questions in class," he mutters finally. "This wasn't for debate class, just history, but - we were learning about a battle in this war a few centuries ago and I wanted to ask why the general leading it didn't do something that would've let him win it for Tantara, but...I was scared I would get looked at again. Or sent to the stupid Mindhealer." 

"That makes sense. I'm sorry. I talked to Urtho today and he seemed to - intend to do better. And promised the Mindhealers won't do anything to you, though I know that's not the whole problem...what did you think the general should've done?"

"So the trouble was that the other side had killed all his Adept and Master mages and they still had Adepts, he just had some Journeyman mages with weak Gifts and they couldn't even shield the attacks let alone fight back. But - they could've used blood-magic. I'm sure people would've volunteered - there were un-Gifted soldiers volunteering to just try to storm the other side's mages in enough force to knock them out, which would've gotten hundreds of people killed. Or if they were trained to do compulsions he could've ordered them to get in close enough to do that to the other Adepts, but I don't know if they would've known how." 

"Does it not take training, to use blood-magic."

"Apparently not really. They'd be - sloppy, if they hadn't ever done it, and it'd have messed up the land and weather more, but if he just needed them to make some really big fireballs, they could've done that." 

"Was the other side using blood-magic?"

"Dunno if they were in that battle. They'd been known to, or at least some of the mercenaries they'd hired had." 

"In that case it seems like a reasonable suggestion to me."

"...I guess it's against Tantara's laws. But - generals break the law, sometimes, in war. In one of our classes the teacher said it was brave of them to, when it was a different thing that wasn't blood-magic, because he'd get demoted or kicked out of the army entirely afterward but it saved hundreds of his soldiers." 

"- well, if it's against the laws he shouldn't do it, because he might not be aware of the considerations that led his government to make that law, and when a powerful person like a general breaks a country's laws he's undermining the ability of his government to make any promises at all to its neighbors and allies about its conduct."