"Mmm." Ma'ar retrieves the knife, but tucks it into his tunic pocket so it's at least out of her sight, he's less worried than usual about being able to get to it fast. He...has more of a read on Azabel now, though a very tentative one; he thinks he's met people like her before, usually being like her would be a way to get yourself hurt, but maybe someone in her family is important or something and so not as many people are willing to mess with her. 

She clears away the lunch dishes and goes and gets one of her novels for him to practice reading, since they've been doing math all morning.

Ma'ar has never read a novel before! It's slow going, he still needs to sound out most of the words under his breath and semi-frequently runs into Tantaran words he doesn't recognize and has to ask Azabel about it, but he goes at it with impressive determination. 

Several pages in he lifts his head and gives her a puzzled look. "Did this - really happen...?" 

"- no, sorry, I should have specified. It's a story." Has he never heard a story - well, he at least thought of the possibility that it didn't happen and asked -

"Oh." :Where I come from, stories are usually in rhymes, like songs, so they're easier to remember: He supposes he's heard more non-rhyming stories since he started travelling through Tantara, but he can't recall seeing someone read one right out of a book, though the concept makes sense and it's neat. 

"We have those too but I like reading them better."

"Mmm." It's frustratingly slow right now but he can see that it'd get a lot faster with practice. He keeps reading, very focused and frowning to himself slightly. 

She helps him when he's stuck or when a word is pronounced oddly.

Ma'ar is still kind of on edge, twitching whenever there's a random house noise, but reading is satisfying and Azabel is mostly not being alarming at all, and he gradually starts smiling more.

Eventually he notices that the sun is sinking in the sky. "- Should I go? Before your mother gets back." 

"You could stay for dinner if you want but if you don't want then this would be the time to go get dinner in the Tower." Ranara will probably fuss over him and honestly she has no idea if that will go over well or not.

Ma'ar goes very still for a moment, thinking. He has no idea how to explain - or whether it's even safe to try to explain - that he doesn't much want to eat at the dining hall and might just...not...but also a randomly selected adult is way more likely to be threatening than a kid his age who's also a girl.

(That makes a surprising difference, actually, he's never had a girl his age try to stab him and only once had one try to pickpocket him, and Azabel seems rich so she probably wouldn't do that - also he's noticed she often moves clumsily, when she's walking around, so probably she couldn't sneak up on him anyway... She would probably be very offended if he said that was part of why he likes her, so he isn't going to.) 

"Ranara won't mind, I'm allowed to have people over." She doesn't often use this ability because gryphon diets and sizes do not lend themselves to sitting at a dinner table noshing on bread and beans but still. "I could walk you back to the Tower if you're nervous about that..."

He takes a deep breath. It's - probably not going to be worse than the dining hall, he feels like Azabel would come across differently to him if her mother were often angry or mean, and if she turns out to be nice, then he'll know and can come back again later. "I'll stay." 

"Okay! Ranara will be home any minute." They can keep reading until then.

Ranara is home soon enough. "Oh, you have a new friend!" she says.

"Mama, this is Kiyamvir Ma'ar."

"Hm - Predain? Last name first?"

"- I didn't actually ask, do I call you Kiyamvir or Ma'ar -" says Aza.

"Kiyamvir is my father name," he says woodenly, staring at his feet - he can't remember the Tantaran word for 'clan', and also now he's on edge again and trying very hard not to look like he wants to reach for his knife, since that seems like it'd make this situation more threatening rather than less, if he offends his hosts. "You can call me Ma'ar." 

"It's lovely to meet you, Ma'ar," says Ranara, "I'm Ranara. Are you in Aza's classes?"

"We're going to be in the same mage class, Urtho said," says Aza.

"How exciting!" Ranara starts bustling around the kitchen and assigns Aza to chop vegetables, which she does.

:Should I help?: Ma'ar asks Azabel. He's confused; in Predain usually people rich enough to go to a fancy mage-school are also rich enough to have servants to cook for them, they're letting him into the school but he figures he'll be expected to work in the kitchens here or something. 

:Sure, if you want to!: She passes him an onion. Maybe he will be immune to onion tears and she can just do the cabbage.

Ma'ar is competent at chopping onions (he sometimes did kitchen work at various inns in exchange for a meal, though more often just washing dishes or carrying out slops) and doesn't complain about it stinging his eyes. He's quiet, though, his shoulders tensed again. 

"Aza, did you put our guest to work?"

"He asked!"

"I didn't hear him ask!"

"He's a Mindspeaker too."

"Did he ask just to be polite?"

"I don't know how to tell!"

"Ma'ar, you don't have to chop the onion if you don't want to," Ranara says.

"I don't mind." He's just about done chopping it anyway; he finishes up and stands there uncertainly, wishing he felt less conspicuously out-of-place here. 

"Well, thank you very much," says Ranara, and she collects the onion and the cabbage and dumps them in her pot, alongside beans that have been slowly simmering over the fire since lunchtime. When that and a bundle of herbs are simmering away she sits down at the table with her daughter and Ma'ar. "Did your whole family move to Tantara, or did you come all by yourself for school?"

"Don't have any family." Ma'ar hopes this isn't somehow the wrong answer. It's not quite true, his grandmother and even some of his siblings could still be alive, but it's true enough to be the easiest explanation. 

"Oh, you poor thing," says Ranara, eyebrows knitting together. "You don't look any older than Aza -"

"I'm thirteen," volunteers Aza.

"I'm fourteen." He remembers Tantaran numbers especially well right now, he did so much with them today.