One of the lights drifts over and boops Bun on the nose.

He is an adult man who definitely does not make any expressions or embarassing laughing noises about it.

Well, then, the light is going to have to do it again, isn't it. 

The halfling's new best friend is so cute! The halfling hopes that he and his friend have a happy time together. 

"Does it do anything other than touching people's noses?"

He smiles. "They dance."

This spinning pattern is showing off a little bit. 

"Maybe not useful, but still very pretty."

"If it's dark, it helps you see."

... This is a world without electric lighting. "Light and a show, then."

"I used to use them to do my homework by."

"It makes sense you'd want that to be one of the first things you teach a wizard in training."

"I had to help my mom in the shop after school so I often didn't get a chance to start my homework until the evening. --Of course, Dancing Lights only works for a minute, so it doesn't help that much, but. It was good practice."

... He was having to do homework in the dark with one minute of light at a time? And the school system wasn't... Set up to handle situations like that??? ... Because it's an education system. They do that, sometimes.

But he is still full of too-late-sympathy. "I can see why you're so good at them now."

"--I am really glad I live in Cheliax because there's no way my mother could have afforded to pay a wizard to train me and-- when I had figured out how to hang Prestidigitate and Mending I could take in work and she didn't have to work so hard. I wouldn't have wound up at the Worldwound, in any other country."

"I realise universal education is a lower priority than stopping smallpox, and one I'm less able to do something about, but--"

"It's really important to make sure that every kid who can be a wizard has the chance. --When I made second circle I hired my mom a servant and now all she has to do is gossip with the other old ladies."

It feels a bit risky to extend vulnerability to someone as a recruitment strategy by mentioning something that is actually pathetic and vulnerable, but they're lying enough already and Tanidio doesn't want anything else to keep track of.

Awwwww. "I'm glad you were able to help her."

Tanidio has developed a Theory. His theory is that, obviously, it is kind of weak and pathetic that he's taking care of his mom because he wants her to be happy, so instead he's taking care of her because it's embarrassing to have someone who's his who's cleaning her own floors like some kind of peasant. But Good people like being weak and pathetic, so he can be weak and pathetic at Bun, and then Bun will trust him and not ask too many questions about things he shouldn't ask questions about. 

In some corner of his mind, he is desperate to tell someone who gets it about how much he cares about his mom. He doesn't think about that. He's very good at tucking away thoughts that it would be inconvenient to think. 

"I suppose they educate everyone where you live. Just like they have treatments for the pox and rice cookers and laundry machines." 

"Nine years that's free and mandatory, and then another three years that's free but you don't have to do it. I had more to be a doctor, but that I had to pay for."

"That's very good. You don't get that much free school unless you're a wizard. --They make you pay to become a doctor? But doctors help people."

"Doctors earn money that can pay back their educational costs."

"I guess you don't have any equivalent of tours at the Worldwound for being a doctor."

"Being a doctor technically got me out of our equivalent."

Laughing: "That doesn't seem fair! They need doctors in war!"

"And if we had one I'd join, but-- we've been lucky."