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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
"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.
anticipating_night
When he gets back to Charl's house Aza's putting the finishing touches on lunch. "Hey!" she says.
small-and-alone
"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."
anticipating_night
"You probably did fine! If I'm correctly matching description to person I used to play with his daughter sometimes."
"Mm-hm," confirms Charl.
small-and-alone
"Mmm. Er, what's his name, then - and his daughter's name, in case that comes up...?"
small-and-alone
"Thank you."
Ma'ar settles in to eat lunch and wait to see if Azabel will come up with a topic of conversation.
anticipating_night
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.
small-and-alone
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.
anticipating_night
: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:
small-and-alone
:- Well, I wouldn't mind going fishing with him, getting up early is fine. And I can sit with you two this afternoon and catch up on the books I brought to read, and then I guess maybe go for a walk and talk to more people?: He kind of wants a quiet break first, though.
anticipating_night
:Sure! There's enough people around to probably occupy you the whole time even if you go through them pretty quick, they're just seldom doing stuff - oh, no, actually there's very often dancing, but I can't:
anticipating_night
:I really can't help you there! But you could see if anyone would teach you, if you want, it's usually the last hour or so of daylight on the other end of the bridge in good weather:
small-and-alone
:Sure, that sounds interesting and - like good social practice, probably:
small-and-alone
Once lunch is tidied up, Ma'ar retrieves a book from his backyard tentifact setup and joins Charl and Azabel to sit quietly and not talk for the afternoon, until it's time to go look for the dancing; he plans to leave when it looks like there are around two candlemarks of daylight left, to make sure he has time to find the bridge and cross it.
The bridge is clearly visible from the same door Aza opened the Gate on. It's painted blue, though it's pretty chipped in places. On the other side there's more village set around a reasonably sized square; dancers have not yet gathered, though some people are hanging out nearby doing laundry in the river.
small-and-alone
Ma'ar crosses the bridge, looking curiously around, and pauses in the square for a moment before wandering over to the people by the river. He waves. "Hey."
"Hullo," chorus a few of them; others look over their shoulder at him and return to scrubbing.
small-and-alone
Ma'ar turns to face the ones who greeted him back. "I'm Azabel's friend Ma'ar from school. She told me there was dancing here in the evening?"
"Yeah, in the square!" one says. "Do you know how to dance?"
"The dances we do are mostly pretty easy to pick up. Mama, can I -"
"You can teach him to dance when you've done your laundry and not before," says the older woman next to her.
