"I would steal more reds if I could but that might not even be the only reason to do it, it wouldn't be that hard to hide one and they seem to kind of get murdered a lot anyway and a mage has some chance of protecting themselves and others. I wouldn't gamble on it if I were red unless I was already very wedged but it would have made sense in Biyan on a long enough time horizon, say, if I'd been red in Orvara after they did their test city I'd do it -"

"I'd do it. I'd also dye my hair and lie - it's not even that uncommon, I suspect -"

"Then why are people like they are, shouldn't they all have keeled over from horror by now?"

"They don't know it."

"But probabilistically -"

"People aren't great at following thoughts to their logical conclusion and also they think - and the reds help them think - the reds are cowed and not very smart. And there are a lot of safeguards, a red couldn't do it without outside help, and they can't imagine why anyone would help. It's like - sure, anyone could take a gun and go shoot up an elementary school, but no one ever does, even though there are so many of us, and helping a red disguise themself is - on that scale of horrible - to most people."

"...even if it happened you can just take a long shower, that won't fix shooting up a school."

" - if there were a red going around in disguise you would have to throw out most of your possessions, demolish some buildings - showers would get you clean but everything they had touched -"

"...but if you shoot up a school children are dead. ...And in contact with things while being dead, if you must."

"If you asked people 'why hasn't anyone shot up a school, there are after all an awful lot of people and some are terrible', people'd have about the same intuitions about it as 'why hasn't anyone dyed a red's hair and disguised them as a clean caste and helped them escape'. I am not making claims about which action actually causes more harm."

Sigh.

"They're out there, but you can't say so."

"Well. I will have my school and it will probably have a handful of red mages in it who will go around with Adamants."

"I hope that works."

"Me too."

About how many students in the first class is she looking at probably? They should all be clear now.

A hundred sixteen! Of late-spring conceptions it looks like it's about one in five thousand. Statisticians are trying really hard to figure out the dietary factor.

Well by then she will have some kind of scheme where the earlier students can teach the later ones. Hundred sixteen is not too awful. She announces that it would be a good idea for those families to try to befriend and socialize native elementals to be translators and magic helpers, especially if it isn't convenient to teach them Anitami.

The blue and green children will all be fluent in Anitami by the time they are of magic-school age, tutors having been hired, and they're seeking out elementals to be friends and magic assistants for their kids. Other people email asking how they befriend an elemental exactly.

They could talk to the elemental response team about bringing them along next time they respond to an elemental in their area, or just go up to one if they find one, and they should be very gentle and patient about things the elementals don't understand and find out what they are interested in and offer to help with that.

...this person works full-time in construction and then bartends in the evenings; her husband is gone for months at a time in the shipping industry. One set of grandparents runs a little bodega open sunrise-to-sunset and the other takes their grandbaby mage with them while they work as janitors. 

Maurabel can try to send them an elemental she or her elemental friends cultivate but she can't do that for everyone.

Then lots of baby mages will not have the resources to go elemental-befriending. 

The blue mage has six elemental friends already and wants to collect the whole set!

That seems inefficient. Are the baby mage's parents aware that there is only one mage teacher and if she is slowed down catching up students without such advantages their baby mage will get a worse education? Perhaps the elemental friends could be shared.

The baby blue mage's parents will pay Maurabel extra to teach their daughter at her own pace instead of sticking her in a crowded classroom full of purples. Lots extra.

Maurabel is not in it for the money.