Shrug. "Ask the hertasi. We told them to make him room with someone else - poor them, he's a horrible roommate, but that's not our problem." 

"Uh-huh." Hertasi, hertasi, where are you.

Here's one! "Yes, Azabel?" 

"Hi, did Ma'ar move? Where can I find him?"

"Oh! Yes, this way - poor thing, roommates tried to rat him out for noise violations because he has nightmares or something, but it'd seemed like he might prefer a single to himself anyway." 

"That's what I said! I'd been going to tell him to ask." Follow follow. It's not really surprising that given everything else he has nightmares.

The hertasi leads her all the way down to the end of the hall and knocks on the door. 

"Who is it," says a muffled, suspicious voice. 

"It's Aza!"

"Fine, you can come in." There are footsteps to the door and the rattle of a lock, and as soon as the door is open a crack, Ma'ar immediately heads back to his single bed in the corner and curls up again. 

"Hi... is being in a new room helping? I asked about it yesterday but apparently it happened without me." He's even scrunchier than yesterday.

He gives her a flat look and doesn’t answer.

"I was thinking that I could teach you Mindspeech protocols so you could call me if you wanted anything and otherwise I wouldn't have to bother you, if you don't want company." He sure looks like he doesn't want company but that's what the point of the mindspeech protocols are and they aren't that complicated and he's smart so it'll be fast.

"Will I get in trouble," Ma'ar says, fidgeting with his blanket and not looking at her. "I keep getting in trouble." 

"...for learning the protocol? Or for... using it?" Isn't the entire point of a protocol that if you use it you don't get in trouble. Why would she be offering if learning it would get him in trouble.

Probably Azabel isn't trying to get him in trouble, Ma'ar thinks, she wouldn't gain much from it, and she's been here a long time and has lots of nice things and probably lots of friends, she's not going to be worried about trying to impress the other students. 

"The other boys were trying to get me in trouble," he says dully. "They lied to me about the rules," he sounds very offended, "and - got me kicked out of the room - and they - told a teacher about my knife and the teacher took it."

Ma'ar's expression is particularly devastated about this part. 

"Oh... the hertasi said you had nightmares and they'd said it was a noise violation, which isn't very polite but since it got you your own room and that seemed like a good idea to me anyway I hadn't thought it was a big deal. Did you want to stay in that room?" She isn't sure what to say about the knife, he really shouldn't have been carrying a knife around though she didn't know there was a specific no-knife rule. "What rules did they lie about?"

"They said I had to go to the dining hall for breakfast or I'd be in trouble. ...And then a lot of them laughed about me - having nightmares. I asked the hertasi and they said that wasn't the rule, though." 

"Maybe they didn't want you to eat in your room?" she says dubiously, though it's more charity than these people have really earned to assume they were only concerned about crumbs.

"I think they thought it was funny because I didn't want to." (He does more than think; he miiight have read some people's minds about it, after, he was trying to do that less but now he sort of regrets it, it just let them try to hurt him. Azabel will be angry if he says that, though, so he doesn't.) 

He looks doubtfully at her. "Why - do you want to help me. No one else does." 

"...I guess I'm nicer than them? But also have you tried asking the hertasi, they're very helpful."

Ma'ar fidgets. "They - kind of scare me. I don't understand what things they want or why." 

"Hertasi are really neat, I've studied some of them. They're all different like humans are but not as much since somebody invented them to be how they are, so you can make more generalizations. They're really interested in people, and they like gossiping and moving things around so the people around them are comfortable, and they can sort of understand but don't really have privacy intuitions or being speciesist. And they don't get bored the same way, they can do chores all day long and they think it's fun. I think they think of the Tower as sort of like a weird giant dollhouse they're trying to set up to be pretty and well-organized, and it's sort of like a puzzle to them, only a puzzle that keeps moving around. So if you tell them a bit of puzzle has moved they'll want to fix it up for you!" She really likes hertasi.

Ma'ar listens, nods along. "Huh. Why did someone invent them to be that way?" 

"I think maybe they wanted servants? I don't know a lot about inventing species, it seems like kind of a weird thing to do, but I guess it's kind of like having kids and people do that all the time. Anyway if you want a servant species hertasi are a good way for them to be, I think, since they like it, and if they want to do other stuff they can." She's not sure of this but will think on it in more detail if she's ever considering making a species. Or having kids.