Three heads turn. The first to arrive is a girl, thin like the other students, probably a junior. "Which Pevensie?" she asks.

His mouth twitches into a friendly almost-smile that is harmless and without any teeth.

"A Susan?"

"That'll be me, then," says the very tall and not very thin boy who comes through the crowd after her. (He has a sword at his hip. A one-hander, probably, but only barely.)

"Shut up, Peter. Yeah, that's me."

He gives a little half-amused snort while internally being nervous and also excited about meeting so many enclavers at once. Yay! They're polite enough to joke with him already! That's probably good! London's always been his backup after Manchester, and he feels way more justified in it now! He's probably still going to die and it's not going to matter!

Letter!

"Happy to be of service," he says politely, and then because he knows how the maintenance track goes he waits for them to start ignoring him again before he leaves, but he expects this to be the end of it.

"Aw, no letter for me," the third says, arriving belatedly. "Don't know why I bothered."

"Why would they send you a letter instead of just talking to you," Peter says, ruffling his close-cropped hair.

"I dunno! - thanks, by the way," he says to Vernon, "presumably somebody paid you for the letter already and you don't need a tip or anything? That's an actual question, not 'go away we're not giving you a tip', because I know people are inestimably shit and if nobody paid you then I'm tipping you."

Nobody did pay him, but it isn't smart to let on that this is what's happening, because it implies that he's stupid and easy to fool. The service has been, presumably, paid for, so even though it hasn't worked out for him in particular that doesn't make it unfair the other way around. It just sucks to be him.

"Oh! Thank you, uh," what's a polite way to say no without saying no, "—Do you know a Jeannette Lémieux? Parisian enclave?"

There! A way to be helped without it really costing them anything, and it's one of his tough 'doesn't know them in person' care packages besides. Verifying an identity is an innocuous way to actually be helped while mollifying the enclaver with how he is Work Focused And Professional and whatnot. Also he got to show off that he speaks French a bit, if they can recognize that his accent for the name is perfect instead of awkwardly English. Not very impressive, for here, but they probably still don't want to do homework.

"Peter?"

"Tall, Black, deeply unfriendly, gold eyeshadow, yes really she's wearing make-up and it's not because she's an idiot. Can't miss her."

"Wow. Maybe I should meet her. D'you mind the company, um?"

"Vernon Durant, pleasure to meet you," he says, and he is absolutely not going to turn down this person from the enclave of London, that would be silly. "And sure, no problem. Yell if anything drops from the ceiling while I'm not looking, yeah?"

"Course. Give me the same courtesy - bye Su bye Peter -"

Once they're out of earshot he takes a small purse off his belt, draws out a mana crystal (not fancy enough to be one of his personal ones, it doesn't look like, but not half bad) and starts fidgeting with it. "I don't actually know what a letter goes for these days," he says conversationally. "It's pretty complicated, right? Because you're supposed to get connections out of it, it's not pure cost, but you're not guaranteed anything really good, and if you had the choice you'd likely rather bring something you could barter. Moreover, I especially don't know what a bunch of letters goes for, each of different expected net value. It's one of those hard economics problems I never studied because why would you study economics instead of something that reduces your chance of getting killed by mals."

Uh. He doesn't have a social script for this yet and this is a grave personal failing on his part, and probably one of the many reasons he's going to die.

"Er. I don't mind letters so much, bit of sentiment to keep people going is downright noble." There, did that... work? He hopes so, this conversation has become more scary than it was. Oh no did he just imply he's irritated to carry other people's garbage care packages, he did, shit.

Edmund doesn't seem to have noticed if he did. "Nobility! A rare, fair trait. But shouldn't we reward prosocial impulses? It makes them more likely to be listened to in the future. And, more to the point - if someone believes that people should be appropriately rewarded for hard work, and they receive the benefit of said hard work without the worker being appropriately compensated, and they don't make an effort to rectify that situation - well, it sounds to me like they don't believe in their own principles very hard?"

Vernon continues to not have a script for this. Someone help. This enclaver using so many big words and making his point so eloquently, and yet Vernon would like to go back to being treated like mobile furniture. It felt more realistic, that way.

He... shrugs? Yes. He shrugs. He's not sure what opinion he's supposed to have here, so. Amiable shrug. And then, "It's Scholomance, I knew the score when I came in."

Oh god that was too depressing, is he too honest, he is probably too honest. But people like honesty?? Aaaaaaa he doesn't have a script.

"I'd like to change the score."

He slips the crystal into Vernon's hand just as they get too close to the Parisisans for him to say anything about it. "<Jeannette Lémieux? My friend Vernon has a letter for you?>"

Jeannette is indeed very tall, and Black, and wearing extremely distinctive gold eyeshadow. She arches an eyebrow. "<Your friend? I must say you do not look so close.>"

"<Well, we have just now met, but I think we are friends. I like to be friendly.>"

Paris is not so far from Berlin, as the wizard flies, so Lysander's delivery was about two parts actually handing over physical pieces of enchanted paper to five parts reciting facts about various people's beloved cousins, but they are not so friendly that he didn't gracefully exit the conversation promptly when the appreciative smiles turn into dismissive ones. He pats Vernon on the shoulder as he passes, because the poor guy looks terrified, and murmurs in his ear quietly enough that Jeannette shouldn't hear, although Edmund might. "Take a couple deep breaths, friend, you're doing great," he says, which sounds completely and utterly sincere because he honestly at least half means it, and then is gone into the crowd in search of sunlamps to investigate.  

Mrph?

He takes the crystal, because this is the only thing he clearly can do. He has been outplayed, except he's been outplayed nicely which is deeply confusing.

And then he gets patted on the shoulder and told he's doing great and aaaa why is everyone being nice to him whyyyyyy.

But actually, no, having a breakdown about people being nice to you when you were expecting to get treated like dirt is not conducive to anything. He has a job to do, he will finish it, and then he will go hide in a corner for a while and adjust to things not working like he expected them to.

"<More of a delivery than a letter,>" says Vernon, in French with a winning smile. And then gives a gracious little bow and bestows her care package upon her. Is it the one with the gobstoppers? No. Is it still less of someone else's stuff he's carrying around waiting to lose and potentially die for? Yes, so it's still great!

She sniffs. "<Thank you. You can go.>" Then she turns back to talking with her friends.

"<No, madame, thank you,>" Edmund says with only slightly too perfect sincerity.

Okay so in an enclave favoritism fight it's definitely London over Paris but also: can you please not. What happens when enclaves fight is the maintenance track people run for cover and get all of their efforts swept out from under them with less notice than Chicago.

(Because of course he heard about Chicago's mysterious disappearance while delivering letters, he's been paying attention.)

"<Happy to have been of service,>" he says, with actual perfect sincerity. And then yes they can leave and Edmund is probably going to follow him again isn't he, that seems to be how this works.

"Sorry," he says as, yes, he follows. "I would not be cut out for delivery. I should probably let you get back to it, but - what's your room? Maybe we can study together or something, if we're near enough."

“It’s fine, I don’t think she noticed.” But also do not start a fight with anything but a mal or a maleficar on his account, this whole system goes much better if everyone makes nice. “And the important thing was being reliable, anyway.” Unsaid: not her favor or notice personally. “… 640A, you?”

Please be far away from each other so it’s massively inconvenient for this weird nice enclaver to keep being weirdly nice at him even though they’re in Scholomance.

"656B. Serendipity!"

They are, as the numbers imply, close neighbors.

He gives a little amused snort, though.

"Anyway, I'll let you get on with your life, but you haven't seen the last of me. I will, at some point, befriend you. And you will never see it coming."

Off he goes.

“The scariest threat of them all,” he says dryly, and he gives Edmund a vaguely friendly wave.

And then it’s back to being a delivery boy!