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.
"Oh, They deffinitely sound less dubious than Vkandis! I mean, even if it's Vkandis' followers and not Him who're deciding to be all proud about the setting-on-fire, who He draws as followers still says something... Want me to tell you about the Twain now?"
Ma'ar turns and shuffles through the notes splayed out on his bed.
"...The Twain are confusing. I didn't get a satisfactory answer on whether They used to be separate gods or at least more separate than now - or on what it means that there are two of Them, even. The temple I visited did say there were two, not four, and the priestess said that They represented different aspects of..." a pause while he looks at his papers, "- uh, of something related to masculine and feminine traits, it wasn't very clear. It sounds like They've been worshipped for a long time by various different temple orders, although it was hard to get any specifics on that, or on what They want. ...I asked about Them working with other gods, and apparently there's a legend about Them working with Bestet?"
"Yeah, I heard about that from Bestet's end! Apparently she turned some lady into a sword!" She produces notes on that meeting.
"- Turned her into a sword? Weird! The story I heard was - less specific than that, there was just this poetic ballad about vengeance." He makes a face. "With lots of murder in it."
"Mmm. The person I talked to said that she thought there were a few versions of the story but this was the only one she knew. I wonder if it really happened that way - the woman being turned into a sword, I mean."
"- I would too, except I'm not sure about the part where maybe she's just set on getting revenge?"
"Well, it isn't against me, I'm pretty sure, and I don't think meeting her would make it worse?"
"I guess in the song I heard, it - wasn't that clear whether she hated all men or just men who'd done bad things to women - which the ballad said 'most men have' - I don't think I have but it's still kind of nervewracking..."
"I don't know what she'd be defining as 'done bad things' - I've probably been rude to women or inconvenienced them by accident..." Ma'ar shakes his head. "- That's not really the point. I - think I also just feel nervous about the idea of a person becoming a sword because of a god-miracle, and - why the gods bothered, whether They slipped anything else into them in the process."
Nod. "It does seem worth trying to. What else would you ask her, if you could meet her?"
"What it's like to be a sword, I guess? How she feels about that and whether it seems like a good solution to the problems she was having at the time."
"Do you have any ideas for how to go about finding her? The ballad I heard wasn't very helpful for that."
Nod. "Anyway - uh, do you have any questions on mine, or do you want to tell me about the battle goddess one now?"
"I don't think I have questions mostly because what you've got is so vague." She lays out her Bestet notes.
"Interesting. She sounds more - narrow-minded - no, that's not quite what I mean, but - like She cares about a smaller set of things than the others?"
"Yeah, I thought so too! Unfortunately they didn't have much in the way of books and intellectually curious priesthood."