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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.
smol bell in urtho's tower
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small-and-alone
Ma'ar keeps walking, absently kicking at a pebble on the path.
"I think you're doing something specific, even if it's not on purpose? Because, I don't know, you - grew up learning a certain way to be, that works well here. And I...didn't...and I don't think I can just 'be a clever curious student' like you, and I'm bad at pretending and - don't really understand what I'd have to pretend anyway, just, I think there's something..."
small-and-alone
"I didn't say you were." Ma'ar still feels like he's completely failing to convey something important and he has no idea how to fix the problem.
small-and-alone
"Hmm." Ma'ar falls silent, keeps walking.
He looks faintly pleased, though.
anticipating_night
It's OBVIOUS, isn't it, he wants to know things and he's as quick as her in class and he is literally enrolled in school. He's weird but not on any of those axes. What does he think he is, an indifferent idiot of a capybara?
small-and-alone
"I think I'm - more risk averse than you are?" Ma'ar says finally. "I don't think what you're doing is wrong, for you, just - I have less to work with, right. I don't have parents, and I don't have a really rare Gift like Mindhealing where one of my teachers is going to care especially hard what happens to me. And...it's not like I'm worried about getting kicked out of the school, at this point. But - if I want to be able to fix Predain someday, starting from this, then - I need to do better than 'not getting kicked out of school'."
anticipating_night
"...are people in Predain going to write to the Tower for letters of reference, or..."
small-and-alone
"Predain doesn't have nearly enough mages. Definitely not enough trained mages, who could be teachers - I can't teach literally everyone myself. So I've been thinking that I need to be on good enough terms with people here that I could talk them into moving, or at least coming over to visit and teach for a bit." Shrug. "And - there's probably all sorts of things like that which I haven't even thought of, but where it'd matter whether people like me here."
anticipating_night
"Oh, so you need to be able to recruit...
...and your plan is to do this cold without taking any social risks at all ever, I see, brilliant."
Okay that was mean but seriously.
small-and-alone
Ma'ar thinks that he takes all sorts of social risks, actually, even if they don't seem like that to her. And possibly drawing negative attention from literal gods wasn't something he felt like risking - coming along at all was nervewracking enough.
(He feels maybe a little bad now that if the shaman does go tell a spirit avatar about this and the Goddess is mad, it'll be mostly with Azabel...)
He does not bother to answer.
anticipating_night
"You should practice," she says, after a minute's attention to what would adequately compensate for being mean. "You should... come with me next time I visit my dad and meet a bunch of people who are not important to your plans and who you'll never see again, and - try stuff, expand your comfort zone."
small-and-alone
"- That's a good idea. I would appreciate that a lot. You're - sure you wouldn't mind...?"
anticipating_night
"He only has one spare room so we'll have to figure that out - I don't think he'd like it if you were in with me - but assuming you're okay with sleeping by the hearth or something sure."
small-and-alone
"Or I could just bring the tentifact and sleep in the backyard, if you have one?"
small-and-alone
"Good." Ma'ar smiles faintly at her. "I know I need to get better at people things. It's just - it's confusing, and it's scary - maybe more than it should be, I think the grownups here are...less dangerous... But still."
anticipating_night
"I can introduce you to all the people in the town where I was born and you can test hypotheses. Do you have hypotheses?"
small-and-alone
"A bit? Some of it's - hard to test or even have guesses about, like whether someone being a certain amount of friendly means they'll say yes if I ask for help later. I - usually have hypotheses when I'm thinking about whether to say something, though, of how people will react." He makes a face. "It'd be so much easier to tell how they were reacting if I read their minds too, but I know I shouldn't."
anticipating_night
"Yeah. But you can tell me what they're saying and I can give you a second opinion?"
small-and-alone
"So do I."
They've reached the Tower now. "Er, want me to give you the books? Or come back to my room and we can look at them a bit?"