It's weirdly hard to talk about, still, the concepts only half formed in his mind. Ma'ar frowns, kicks at a pebble. 

"Hmm - in terms of concrete things, it seems like they do a lot of vocational training for convicted criminals, so they can have other ways to earn a living, and I think Predain could use that. And...I don't know, just, in general they seem to - have hope? That the world can be better if we work together to make it that way? And - I think Predain could use that sort of hope." 

"Sometime I want to go to -" - what to call it - "settled Predain, see for myself."

"We could plan a trip to the capital on our next break. If you wanted." 

"Sounds good to me. Should we bring Skan -"

"...Uh, I think I'm more worried that he would terrify a lot of people in the city, and it'd be harder to hide him. Also I don't know what he'd eat." 

"Yeah, if the weather's better he could maybe hunt more successfully outside city limits but maybe he'd just get a pig that belongs to someone." Sigh. "I guess we can defend ourselves but I'm not sure how to look it, which seems important."

"Wear fancy mage-artifacts really conspicuously? ....I'm not sure if that would work, though, since people need to know what artifacts look like. We could just carry swords, maybe - I know how to fight with with one, and it doesn't actually matter if you don't, you've got Mindhealing set-commands and the point is just to look scary so you don't have to do anything..." 

"I don't think I'd look scary even if I had a sword."

"- Really?"

Ma'ar takes a half-step back. Looks thoughtfully at her.

"Can you imagine I've just threatened to - uh, read your mind - and tell me that you're about to set-command me to NOT DO ANYTHING unless I leave you alone." 

...sure, she can pretend he has done this. "Back off or you'll be frozen till sunset."

Ma'ar holds perfectly still. 

:- Want to see what you look like when you say that?: he says a moment later, in Mindspeech. :I can bounce it to you:

:Sure, though I don't know if I'd think myself was scary, I don't think I'm scary in the mirror even if I make faces in it:

:Well, I think you - definitely don't look harmless?: 

And he bounces her the image of herself as seen through his eyes, fierce and glaring. 

:I'm not sure somebody who likes attacking people would detect that I was actually dangerous and not just overconfident? I might be overthinking this though:

:I mean, I don't think it'd make us completely safe from attackers, but - I do think that nine out of ten of them are looking for easy targets, and if we're together and armed and you have that expression on your face, I'm pretty sure we don't look like easy targets: 

:Yeah, that makes sense:

Ma'ar pauses for a moment, looking at her, then glances aside. "....See you in class tomorrow?" 

"See you!" And she's off.

And they fall back into their usual routine. Ma'ar nods to her as usual at their next class, and glances over when the teacher asks them to partner up, but another student grabs him first (both of them are popular potential partners, nowadays, since they're usually head to head at the top of the class) and he shrugs apologetically at her. 

When Azabel writes to the various contacts provided by the woman at the temple to Bestet, she eventually receives back a trickle of answers, the last of them arriving just before the end of their current session. One of them has stories about a differently-styled order worshipping Bestet, among some different nomadic clanspeople living in the mountain foothills southwest of Tantara's borders; here the men participate alongside the women, though the entire culture is matriarchal. Another letter has a few more stories of possessions; the letter-writer was herself possessed on three separate occasions, twice to fight off attacks while traveling as a mercenary with a merchant caravan in the Ceej, a third time, after she settled down to be a town elder, in order to viciously lecture the town mayor for letting some visiting highborn boys get away with harassing local women. She claims to remember all of them somewhat, but the last the most clearly, since she was still 'partially in control' and felt more 'empowered' by her Goddess than fully pushed aside by Her presence. 

That is all interesting and she passes the letters on to Ma'ar for him to read.

"It - does seem like maybe it's good for Her to be around and have followers, in places where there's lots of violence against women? ...Then again, maybe Her having influence makes things be more violent, overall. I dunno. I'd have to think about it a lot more." 

"It might be that having lots of her people around has a deterrent effect but I'm not sure how we'd find out."

"Mmm." Sigh. "Anyway I think I'd still like to go see the capital, after exams." All their current classes have final exams at the start of the week set aside for them, so they have almost a fortnight off. "You still want to come?" 

"Yeah, it'll be interesting. And probably involve less hiking."