Annie can spot an enclaver when she sees one, and it's not just the power-sharers. She does not expect the kid is looking for her, but she does smile in a 'I'm a polite person with good sense' way.

That's enough of an excuse for him to wander over!

"Hi! Edmund Pevensie, London, ran out of plausible introductions several people ago and now resorting to just saying outright that I'm out to meet people. The real tragedy of the Scholomance, I think, is that it'd be impractical now for me to offer people sweets as a way to introduce myself."

Is he flirting. Annisa has a script for that but expected it to have to wait until her hair grew back. Oh well, script it is. "Well, I'd hardly think you'd have to bribe people to say hello to you! Or are the sweets just so we'd have a topic of conversation that isn't 'sure are a lot of monsters here trying to eat us'."

"The latter, if somebody wants nothing to do with me I'd sooner leave them alone. But offering someone a strawberry cream or something lets you feel them out a bit. I guess I could do the 'what's your track, what's your affinity' thing but it gets so dull and it's a bit - pushy, isn't it, if someone wants to be paranoid in a place like this I can't blame them and I certainly don't want to plunder all their secrets."

Ah huh. What do you want to plunder. "I can probably come up with some candy opinions despite the total lack of candy! Perhaps all the better for it, really. Do you know kue maksuba? It's a layer cake made with duck eggs and sweetened condensed milk, without any flour. It comes out more like a flour cake than you'd expect, but very rich."

"Never had it! I've never been fond of cake but frankly that sounds like the perfect kind for me, more like a pastry cream that thinks it's pastry itself. Something to try when we're all out of here, I suppose."

He glances at her dagger. "That's a lovely blade - your work?"

"Yes." With a ton of help - really it was mostly her father - but why admit that. "My affinity's weapons."

"Oh, that's fantastic. I'm Creative Writing - my older brother's an artificer too, physical enhancement affinity. He's the tall one, blonde, big sword on his belt - makes him look unfriendly but he's a big sweet idiot really. I think the sword makes him stronger, or something, and he piggy-backed it into cutting things too, but that can't be anything on what you could do."

"Oh, that's really neat." If the brother were in their year that might be a proposal for a collaboration, on weapons that both make you stronger and also are really good at killing things, but freshmen don't know how to do that kind of thing and anyway you don't really have cross-year collaborations, you get better by too much over the course of a year (and the indicated older brother has several on her). So why mention it? Is Edmund flirting on behalf of his older brother? That she's not going to do, not even for a UK enclave, messing with older boys is a great way to get hurt and they won't even be around to protect you for very long. 

Edmund looks - momentarily confused?

"Yeah. I should've pressed him for workshop tips so I'd have anything to tell you but he wanted to read his letters and all. - I'm sorry, I never asked your name, just gave you mine and immediately started nattering."

"Annisa." She might end up going by Annie, which sounds American, but sometimes being slightly exotic is a good thing. "You didn't natter much, I was selling you on Indonesian cakes."

"It did sound like a very good cake! Indonesia, I guess that's where you're from? Don't think I've met anyone from Indonesia - not exactly shocking, enclaves being as they are, but, you know."

How to point out that there's very few of them in a way that sounds like "so I'm very talented" and not like "so I'm bitter".

"We haven't got an enclave but Shanghai throws some seats our way and I'd say we manage to get in everyone who's going to get out, which is the best you can really do anyway."

"An excellent equilibrium if you can manage it. I'm hoping London managed it this year - half of why I'm doing so much meeting and greeting. It's easier to keep people safe if you know who can do what."

As if he's trying to keep a random Indonesian artificer safe. "Who all did you send?"

(Another little moment of confusion.)

"Nigel's our real standout, he's five and a half stone and five foot even but he's got a lightning affinity and I swear he'd bite a mal to death if he were out of mana, which is why we protect him like a swaddled infant, which he loathes. I love him like a brother and wish that he had the self-preservation instinct God gave a lemming. Ella's an alchemist, utterly brilliant, bollocks at healing but for enhancement and general utility potions you can't do better. Adrian's on languages like Nigel, more into the shields and the weakening things so Nigel can blast them to pieces. Also Ella and Adrian are mad for each other and it's disgusting, heterosexuality should be banned."

"Not one for elaborate romantic gestures yourself?"

"Who knows, never found a boy worth it. Or if I have I don't know him well enough yet. Ask again in a month, by then I'll presumably know my cohort."

Okay what now. 

"Well, good luck with that! " she says before she can think of anything else to say.

"Cheers! Is that 'I've run out of social interaction for now,' should I be making my exit?"

What??????????? Everything about this interaction is completely baffling but especially the part where he seems so obsessed with whether she is inconvenienced by his presence? Maybe he has chronic self-confidence issues and no one beat them out of him?

"I'll remember your face, if that's what you were looking for, but if you want more dessert recommendations I'm not out of those."

"How very oblique. You really have a way with words, if your affinity wasn't so keen I'd say you should be creative honestly."

What does that meaaaaaaaaaaan??? Annisa decides that British people are the worst, even worse than Americans, who at least say what they mean. "I see why it suits you! You speak very precisely." 

"Thanks! It's the one thing I am good at, too curious to go for language and too impatient to do crafts. But words, words, words - that I can do. I really do think you'd have a talent for it. Your words mean exactly what you pay them to mean. - I guess I don't strictly know that you've read Alice in Wonderland."

Annisa has read precisely sixteen books in English, chosen for having cultural touchstones with the Americans so she can make friends with them. Alice in Wonderland is not one of them. She wonders whether it should have been or whether the British kid is just weird. "I can't say I have. Should I?"

"I can't say it's a top priority but I always liked it. What I mean to say is - you don't just say things that mean what you're communicating, you say something a little sideways of it and leave it to translate. 'I'm not out of dessert recommendations' is just a really fun way to stay 'you have not pissed me off', is I guess what I'm communicating here."

"Well, see, if you say things indirectly than people can misunderstand you if they'd like, and sometimes that's what helps us all get along. You understood me correctly, though."

"A sophisticated view of human nature! You keep revealing character traits and they keep being fascinating. D'you want to trade room numbers in case we're close and want to know it, by the way? There are advantages to having a known quantity in screaming distance."

The disadvantage to sharing your room number is that it makes it easier to hurt you but an enclaver hasn't got a lot of reason to do that. "Yeah, all right. I'm 255A."

"656B! Not particularly close, disappointing - though I've already got a next-door neighbor who seems fantastic and I suppose it'd be pushing my luck to expect the well-affinitied artificer with the many-layered personality to also be on my hall. I'll be delighted if I see you in classes, though."

WHY is he FLATTERING her what's his ANGLE what does he get out of it. "I'll look forward to it! If you do meet anyone who's near me you can send them my way."

"Oh, I should but with the way the room numbers work here I can never remember what's actually close and what's a false friend - I'll try anyway."

"If you wrongly send people my way who are merely interesting non-neighbors I'll forgive you." Too bold? Only one way to find out.

Brilliant grin! Brilliant grin is what that gets her. "Oh, you can't encourage me like that, I'll end up recommending you to someone from across the school and you'll never see each other again bar classes and then where will you be."

"Marching over to you, very put out, demanding you be held accountable for your distant friend-making ways." Annisa has NO IDEA what this kid wants.

"Well, it's good to have met you, but Nigel will bend my ear if I spend all evening making one contact. Part as bosom friends, broadened by the experience et cetera? And of course I'll send neighbors if I find any."

????????

"Tell your Nigel that I am charmed and impressed by your friendmaking diligence. And good luck."

He salutes and wanders off.

Annisa stares, bewildered, at the wall for a minute, trying to fit that conversation into an ever expanding set of unsatisfactory theories, and then remembers she should still be networking.