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.
"I don't really feel like I have a right to be bothered about it? But it's strange and makes him harder to figure out and it makes it harder for him to figure other people out."
"Yes, I can understand that. Are you - wanting to do something about it? Have another conversation with him, explain your impression -?"
"Maybe? I don't know that I actually have a good explanation for him and he was acting totally normal in class today."
"It does seem likely that he will be - more able to achieve the goals he cares about in the world, if he can understand other people better? But it also does not seem urgent, and he may well figure it out on his own in time."
"Also he was the one to leave yesterday so maybe he just wants to think about it on his own for a bit and then he'll bring it up."
"So I guess I'll leave it alone for now but if he still hasn't brought it up in a week or starts acting weird or something I will rethink this."
He pats her shoulder. "I would not worry about it too much. Ma'ar is someone who can look out for himself and his own feelings, I think."
Ma'ar, indeed, isn't noticeably weird or uncomfortable with her at all during the ensuing week. He doesn't offer himself as a test subject for lie detection again, though.
That's okay. She'll crack it without his help. She goes to Lionwind the following week and announces she has the Mindhealing-style lie detection and is going to start working on the Thoughtsensing one.
"Excellent work! I have made some progress there, I think, but I will not be at all surprised if you crack it before I do, you are such a diligent student."
"I might! The trouble is I'm not sure who to practice on. When I was trying it the Mindhealing way the worst case was I'd accidentally see their gears, which isn't very invasive, but with Thoughtsensing it's worse... will the truth checking thing work with their shields up? I'd think probably not except there are different kinds of shields for all the gifts, and people sometimes wind up with Thoughtsensing shields even if they don't have any Gifts of their own, and in Haighlei that would look like... I guess it might just look like some people being better at questioning uncooperative subjects."
"Hmm. You know, if my teacher's theory behind this is correct then it ought to work, and might even be helpful for learning. Her idea was that Gift-channels are - somewhat specialized, but not necessarily as rigidly as people tend to think? And that, for example, a Thoughtsenser can learn to 'unfocus' their senses - in a way that is actually much less useful for reading the content of thoughts, just as a poorly ground telescope lens is no good for looking at stars, but that also picks up on broader patterns of the mind? In which case learning to 'unfocus' Thoughtsensing in this way, to also cover what Mindhealing Sight generally does, would mean looking around the usual Thoughtsensing-specific shields? ...I am not sure, though, this is all very speculative."
"Huh! Well, I still have to find people who don't mind if I accidentally read their minds to practice till I can unfocus enough."
"I do not mind if you practice on me, but unfortunately I am also very busy. Do you have other ideas for people to ask?"
"Ranara would probably say yes but I don't actually know if she's comfortable with it as opposed to just thinking it would only be responsible to agree."
"Then it sounds like we have a plan - you can talk to him. And if it turns out he is uncomfortable with it then we could discuss ways to bring it up with your mother that would involve less implicit pressure?"