"Ah, if you want to hold her tail so she doesn't flick me in the face," he says (she does) "again, that'd be grand, I should be done with this in a minute."

Ma'ar has some amount of experience with donkeys, from the times he accompanied caravans on the road. He nods, makes eye contact with the donkey and makes a soothing sound, and then gently pins her tail with his hand (and mostly with an invisible net of mage-energies, but he's not trying to show off unduly, here.) 

"Thank you, young man. What'd you say your name was? Didn't sound Tantaran."

"I'm not. Kiyamvir Ma'ar. I come from Predain." 

"Hunh. Your accent's all right." He gets the rock out of the hoof and lets the donkey's foot down. "You can let her tail go."

Ma'ar lets go. "Mmm. Thank you, I practiced a lot." He glances around. "Er, how long have you lived here?" 

"Oh, all my life. Why?"

"I guess most people here have probably lived here their whole lives? Urtho's Tower isn't like that." 

"I've never been there! But yeah, most people here have always lived here."

"So you must've met Azabel when she was, er, born here?" 

Ma'ar has no idea if this is a normal sort of question to ask. He's firmly resisting the temptation to read the local man's mind. 

"Oh, I probably didn't see her till she was at least a few weeks old, but yes, known her all her life, off and on obviously."

"I guess it would've been more inconvenient for her to visit before she could do Gates." Ma'ar is trying not to fidget. 

"Yeah." He tugs the donkey along. "She'd still come every couple of years, though, or Charl'd go to her."

"Mmm." Ma'ar nods. "- Anyway, is there anywhere in town you'd recommend I see, while I'm visiting? Er, she suggested I take a walk and look around while she's busy." 

"My cousin grows roses, that way," he says, pointing.

"Oh, thank you! I'll, uh, go have a look."

And Ma'ar nods and smiles at the man again, and then extracts himself in what he hopes is a minimally social graceful fashion. He's thinking that probably he should debrief all this with Azabel later and see if she agrees with that assessment. 

When he gets back to Charl's house Aza's putting the finishing touches on lunch. "Hey!" she says.

"Hey! I talked to one of your neighbours. ...Umm, I didn't get his name, I introduced myself but he didn't back, he was with a donkey and he looked like -" and Ma'ar gives a brief description. "I...think it went fine? He didn't make faces like he thought I was weird, or anything." 

"You probably did fine! If I'm correctly matching description to person I used to play with his daughter sometimes."

"Mm-hm," confirms Charl.

"Mmm. Er, what's his name, then - and his daughter's name, in case that comes up...?" 

"Torx and Milera."

"Thank you." 

Ma'ar settles in to eat lunch and wait to see if Azabel will come up with a topic of conversation. 

She asks Charl how his life is going and he answers, terse but warm, about keeping troublemakers away from trading-boats and landgoing traders, about keeping the chickens out of trouble, about patching up his fence and fishing. In exchange she summarizes for him her last term at school, prompting Ma'ar occasionally for his angle on classes and teachers.

Ma'ar's answers are also terse, at first, but he gradually relaxes and starts offering longer asides and even asking Charl a few questions about life in the town. 

:- Did you have a plan for what to do this afternoon?: he asks Azabel privately, as they're wrapping up lunch. 

:No, there isn't actually much to do. It's kind of a boring town, that's why Ranara moved away. Often I spend a lot of time hanging out in the same room as Charl while I read a book and he whittles or washes dishes or something and we don't even say anything. Sometimes if I'm up early enough I go fishing with him, it's interesting enough with magic: