:Well, you can come over for dinner. And when classes start maybe you should ask a teacher about what you're supposed to do about bullies?:

:I think if I was allowed to fight back they’d stop. But fighting’s against the rules and I’d get kicked out of the school:

:If I thought you'd be able to guess I wouldn't suggest asking: she says reasonably. But it can't actually be in line with the rules to hassle people all the time either, right. :If I were you I'd write down all their names:

Ma’ar isn’t sure why that would help, but goes along with it. :All right:

:I'll see you at dinner:

At dinnertime Ma’ar drags himself out of his room, with some reluctance, and hurries down to the courtyard, then looks for Azabel with Mindspeech to check if she’s already home.

She is in the SKY.

All right, that looks terrifying but also amazing, and he’s - jealous? Not if the flying with her gryphon friend itself, he would be so scared, but...maybe of the fact that she isn’t scared?

She hugs Skan goodbye and waves as he takes off again and goes in to help with dinner and tells Ranara to expect company.

Ma'ar is still walking over, he's taking an inefficient route because he keeps dodging down other paths to avoid passing too close to people. He arrives a few minutes later and greets Ranara politely. 

"Hello there, dear!" says Ranara. "It's fish and fried rice tonight."

"Hi," says Aza.

It's very good! Ma'ar is ravenously hungry and has to make a deliberate effort not to cram food into his mouth as fast as possible. He does get up the courage to ask for a second helping. 

Ranara spoons him more rice; the fish has already been divided up. "Are you excited for classes?" Ranara inquires.

"MmmIguess," Ma'ar mumbles into his plate. 

"I want to learn to work the permanent Gates, that's supposed to be pretty easy and then I could see who comes and from where," Aza volunteers. Also she'll be able to look at the magic but she isn't sure how similar that is to a normal Gate.

"Is that hard to learn, do you know? Are students even allowed to work them?"

"I don't know but it's the first thing on my list of stuff to ask!"

"You have a list?" That's a good idea, Ma'ar is thinking, maybe he should make one too. Well, for whenever he figures out which questions are safe to ask versus will mysteriously get him in trouble. 

"I like to have lists of things so I don't forget." She doesn't know why more people don't.

Some people only recently learned to read and write at all and are still getting used to the implications of it. It's a very good idea though. He could have lists of all sorts of things. 

Azabel serves herself a little more rice too, and eats it and clears her dish.

Ma'ar is quiet. He's feeling tense and out of place, like there's something expected of him and he has no way of knowing it, or knowing what the implicit rules are and what will make them angry with him, because he can't read their minds. Also being places without his knife is surprisingly stressful even if Azabel is right that he's incredibly unlikely to need it here. 

He sits very still and tries not to take up space or be very noticeable. 

"Have you had enough to eat, dear?" Ranara asks him.

He startles a bit, even though it shouldn't be odd or surprising for her to talk to him when he's sitting at her dinner table eating her food. "Mmhmm thank you," he says tightly, and he wants to run away and be where no one can see him and he wants to ever know what's going to happen next - 

Also it's objectively stupid to be scared here, there's no indication of a threat, but then again he keeps not seeing the danger coming, over and over. 

:Azabel this is really scary right now: he sends to her in Mindspeech, he doesn't know what else to do and this seems better than running away. 

:- well, do you want to leave? You can say 'excuse me please' and go if you want: She would be so bewildered if it weren't for her Mindhealing lessons but under the circumstances she tries not to be offended that he thinks this of all things is scary, it's just he overused his scary-meter and it broke.