"It's not a super big deal, but you'd have to come get another one printed and you don't want to have to do that every time you need it. And you need it to get into the cafeteria and buy stuff at the school store. So I'd advise against forgetting it."

"I'll do my best."

"Speaking of the cafeteria, are you hungry? Because we could very easily go there next."

"Yeah, I am a bit. How does the card pay for meals?"

"It's got - let's call it a signature, on it, that tells the machine that lets you into the cafeteria that you've got a meal plan included in your scholarship. So when you go to the cafeteria it'll recognize the signature and let you through."

"Wow, a scholarship."

"Yep! As a fish out of water you have a scholarship which waives the normal fees associated with attending Whateley and includes a meal plan and an account at the school store."

Giggle. "I'm not a fish! I was a mermaid for a few minutes one time but I've stuck with wings since then."

"I know, it's just a term for somebody who doesn't have anywhere else to go. You must've made a lovely mermaid."

They approach the cafeteria, which turns out to be an enormous glass-and-steel dome. The dome, once entered, reveals itself to have three levels, the upper level containing a fountain with waterfalls down to the ground floor. There are several different food lines, each delineated with a unique legend. "The carrot," Ariel explains, "is for vegan fare. The cheese is for vegetarians. The steak is for meat-eaters, not to be confused with the cow, which is for obligate carnivores. The geode is for people who eat rocks and minerals, the baguette with a line through it is gluten free, the banana is various fruits, and the cake is for desserts. You must try the desserts. Also, there's the specialty kiosk, which is for people with specific dietary needs, like blood, insects, or live prey. If you have such needs, you can inform the administration and they will be provided. I am going to go to the obligate carnivore line to get an entire rack of lamb, then to the dessert line to get some pie, and I'll be available on the first floor when you're ready. Okay?"

"What's a vegan and why is cheese a vegetable? And what's gluten?"

"Oh, vegans are people who don't eat meat or stuff that comes from animals. Cheese isn't a vegetable but it distinguishes the vegetarian line from the vegan line because vegetarians are willing to eat cheese, unless something else is going on like an allergy. Gluten is the thing that makes bread soft and delicious, but some people can't have it so they eat special bread that's kind of terrible instead."

"Oh. Are there a lot of people allergic to bread softness around here?"

"Not a ton, but some people. It's just bad enough and common enough that the school likes having accommodations for it. But I think people have been allergic to gluten since we started eating grain, they just usually died of it instead of getting special bread."

"Oh."

Rebecca looks around, decides she has no more questions immediately, and goes through the steak line to get whatever looks recognizable. And she swings by the desserts.

There's plenty of good-looking meat-based food in the meat-based-food line, pork fried rice and chicken casserole and hamburgers and shepherd's pie. There are desserts, cakes and pies and other forms of pastry and ice cream and something claiming to be a "dessert pizza", whatever that is.

She'll take shepherd's pie and a slice of cherry pie, since those look sort of normal.

Ariel waves her over once she has her pies. Ariel, as promised, has an entire rack of lamb along with a couple of hand pies.

"Find everything okay?"

"Yeah. How are you going to fit all that?"

"Some mutant powers require a lot of food to work properly. My powers do. So I eat a lot, but I don't really put on weight, it all just goes into the furnace. It's all very unfair to normal human women."

"Enh, I've never really sat down to dinner and wished I could have another one." She eats a bite of the shepherd's pie. "...this is lunch so that's still true." Om nom nomnomnomnom.

Ariel giggles. "Whateley food is really good, yeah."

Speaking of which: Whateley food! Ariel devours her lamb efficiently and with a minimum of mess. She easily cracks open the bones and licks out the marrow, her tongue leaving scratches in the bone.

That's sort of alarming! "You didn't even just shapeshift that on purpose, right? It just happened and now you have a... sharp... tongue?"

"Oh, my tongue isn't actually sharp per se, it's- my main power is that there's a force field around me that I can manipulate in various ways, and I can make parts of it sharp for a little while so I can get the marrow out, or extend it around something and then pull it back so I can get the meat off the bone. I can also do other things with the force field, my powers are not actually primarily about consuming meat."

"Those'd be weird powers if they were! What do you do with it usually?"

"I use my force field to fly, protect myself from rain and mud and bullets, and enhance my own strength - I can lift about ten tons. And it's not my only power either - I can manipulate gravity, and fire blasts of icy force, and I have a natural talent for hermetic magic."