Ranara and her little daughter Azabel move to Urtho's Tower when the latter can say six words ("up", "mama", "milk", "no", "now", and "please") and hasn't started to walk yet. Ranara sets up to teach little children to read, ones who don't have evident Gifts yet - Ranara herself has Mindspeech, is all, with about a classroom's worth of range. Azabel sits in on classes, worn on her mother's back or later plopped in a corner with toys or, when she's only four, plopped in a corner with a book, younger than the other kids in the class. When Azabel has in fact sat through her mother's curriculum she is turned somewhat loose, to walk very carefully up and down and around the Tower, exploring.
"Yeah, she didn't really handle that well, you'd think nobody had ever asked her a question in class before!" At least later she admitted that perhaps she hadn't explained well, which is the coward's "was being stupid".
At least Azabel believes him that he cares. That helps a little. "...I guess if it turns out there aren't books, we - probably shouldn't say anything about studying it until we're older? Because they - don't take children seriously here, and they'd just think we were evil. But we should find out if there're books before we worry about that, probably."
"If he tells me yeah actually blood magic does this that and the other thing to the mind -
- what do you wanna do?"
"...Not use it?" Shrug. "I - don't think it made me addicted but I guess you could - look, with your Sight, to check."
"I know you. I don't know him." And he's an adult with authority over children and therefore it's a lot more dangerous if he decides that Ma'ar is evil.
"That's true... I'm really not supposed to see patients on my own but just looking's not dangerous, I guess."
That...isn't a no, but it's also not obviously a yes and he's suddenly so scared. "Aza please don't tell him I don't want any grownups to know when they - might decide I'm evil and kick me out of the school or - think it's okay to hurt me because I'm bad -"
And now he's crying even though this is incredibly stupid and unhelpful. He curls up and puts his head down on his knees.
"- I won't tell him if you don't want! I mean, assuming you don't go killing more people! But I don't know if I could actually get very far trying to help you on my own."
Oh no is she also going to stop believing him about things he says. It's too hard to talk because he's crying. :I really really don't want to kill people! People dying is the worst thing and I want to make it stop! I - if I kill anyone else ever it'll be because they're trying to kill me or other people or doing worse things than that...:
"I don't think you do, just, like, if something's actually gone wrong with all your gears they might do stuff that they wouldn't do now, and I can't promise I still wouldn't say anything if that stuff was killing people..." Should she hug him. He flinches when people touch him, so probably not?
:I don't want that to happen. That would be - so bad: Now he has yet another layer of things to be scared of. He doesn't really look like he wants to be hugged about it though. :Can you just go ask Lionwind. So we know:
:I'm not scheduled right now so I might have to wait if he's busy but I can go check:
:Okay: And he should go to the library too, but he definitely can't do that when he's crying, so he'll just stay here.
:Done in ten minutes unless it's urgent enough to cut the session short: he says in response to her Mindtouch.
She can wait then.
Ten minutes later Lionwind ushers his patient out, without acknowledging her, and then turns to her. "What's wrong?"
"Today in class the teacher said people who do blood magic get addicted and turn evil and you would think that would be in any Mindhealing book but it isn't so I thought I'd ask you."
"Huh! ...You know, I had heard that bit of folk wisdom before, when I was a child, and it had never occurred to me that if it were true I ought have been taught about it as a Mindhealer - you really are so clever sometimes! It - hmm. I think it is somewhat complicated, the claim is...not false on the surface but also not straightforward as that implies. And you are right, no Mindhealer has written about it. Have a seat and I can tell you what I know?"
"I have never treated someone where their main issue was use of blood-magic and resulting addiction much less - losing the ability to care about human life, or however we might translate what your teacher meant by 'evil'. I have on a few occasions worked to rehabilitate mages - usually teenagers, sometimes younger than that - who were captured when the Tantaran Guard fought bandit groups. Since trying a child for crimes as though they were an adult is - obviously monstrous, especially when many of them were themselves kidnapped, practically slaves - this has been rather concerningly frequent on our border with Predain in recent decades - or in one case raised within the bandit camp from toddlerhood. I think most of my conclusion here is that being put in such a situation is horrifically bad for a child, and use of blood-magic is the least of it, but - that does not make it not a problem, of course."