The youngest of them replies. "Oh, you too? I've got some too, just give me a minute to drink some more water and we can go over together."

A couple paper cups later, one of the older girls points out a group across the room. "You're looking for Anwar, I don't see him here but those are some of his friends."

As they wind through the cafeteria, Malak introduces herself.

"Haniyah Malak Bahar, I go by Malak. My family lives in Istanbul, we're affiliated with the enclave but not members. I haven't seen you before so - Cairo? Dubai?"

"Naima Saadawi. Cairo but not enclave. First sibling to make it in, actually."

"Well there's a touch of good fortune! Last I heard Cairo doesn't usually have enough slots for just the enclave kids, I guess they didn't have as many admits this year? How many siblings have you got, would the next one be coming of age while we're still in here, or are you more spaced out?"

"I made a deal for a UK slot," she says, flatly. "Talal and Dahab would arrive my senior year, if they come, but I doubt they will. It's possible they'll be allowed to room in the enclave while they most need protection, though." Or at least that Dahab will, Talal is kind of impossible. This is such a grim thing to think about.

"Oh. I'm sorry." And it can't be a good deal, or at least not a repeatable one, or her siblings would be planning on it. They walk in silence the last little bit to the Damascans.

"We're looking for Anwar? We've got mail."

The Damascus kids do not look as happy about this as they should.

"Thanks for your troubles but it's probably no good. Anwar's blind."

"He's - " she's not that slow, so it only takes her a second's pause - "Because of the microfilm reader?"

"Well either that or his mother put a curse on her last letter to him. So. Yeah, reader's bad. The guy who made it graduated last year - or didn't, I bet the letters you've got say which - so we're probably out of luck for getting it fixed. So no mail this year, or next year, and no way to read the microform books."

She thinks about this, tapping her fingers on the table a couple times.

"I have a pocket microscope with me," she says. "Normal, nonmagical, don't think it's developed opinions yet. Transcribing the letters would be - dozens to hundreds of hours of work, depending on how much people wrote, and more to transcribe any books that are especially valuable, but I bet I could do it. Could try, anyway."

"Hm. That could work, for anything really important. What do you want for the microscope?"

Malak is pretty sure that's not what Naima was suggesting, but she's not going to say anything yet.

Careful, careful, she's not very good at this dance and getting it right is important. "I need to keep it for affinity stuff. I don't mind getting the letters off in between schoolwork, though, if you can offer anything for the time cost. You've got to be busier than I'll be, anyway."

"There's some stuff people'd want to read that they wouldn't want just anyone seeing. Private stuff."

Well there's confirmation that Damascus is sneaking in microform spellbooks, or at least something very valuable. Which strongly suggests they have books that their kids can't just get from the library.

"Well we could copy some of the less sensitive mail for you for a favor. And Naima would probably be willing to rent some time with her microscope if the price is right."

"Is that so."

He looks at Naima and raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I could do that," she says, lightly. "Long as I get it back when I need it. For a start I'm going to need an escort to the school supply rooms," ideally before everyone else picks them over, "at least if you'd like to take me up on copying some of the rest of it. I don't have paper yet."

"Hm. Sounds good to start. What would you want per page of copying, I can talk to the others and see who's willing to pay for a letter." This boy does not think a letter from his mother is worth paying a freshman to copy it, not in senior year when he really needs to be stockpiling everything he can, but being able to be a middleman for all the sophomores desperate for word from home could help with said stockpiling. "You might not get very many takers if you're asking a lot for them, word from home is nice but it won't save you from a hungry mal."

"Hmm. Off the top of my head I don't have any water storage solutions for my room, and I'd like one. But I also don't have an enclave to consistently tag along with, so I'll probably have lots of use for babysitting, or for groups to follow along with to classes and bathrooms, if you think anyone wouldn't mind arranging or offering that. I probably shouldn't set a firm price per page until I've tried it and have more sense of how much hassle it is to read a whole page of microfilm through a microscope, though."

"Yeah that'll do. Do you want to do your supply run now? I can escort you and we can talk rental prices."

"No time like the present. You should come, too, if you're not busy, we can both pick up stuff," she says to Malak. 

"Well I can always use more stuff."

"Great!"

The trip down to the supply closet is long enough and involves enough stairs that Naima manages to earn back some of the mana she lost in transit, which is good, not having any left was making her pretty uncomfortable, under the circumstances. There are a couple mals in the supply closet itself, but luckily she had the foresight not to come down here alone, which is not really foresight so much as not being too dumb to live for even a single day, but. The upperclassman makes short work of them.

The supply closet has mountains of lined paper right now, although if you divide the mountains by 1600 new students she is not actually sure there will be enough for everyone to have the amount they'd ideally like. Not her problem; she's here first, she's going to need a lot of paper, and she's going to take more than her fair share. Plus a dozen pens, a dozen pencils... no, two dozen pencils, be on the safe side. There are even a few notebooks that don't have horrid designs on the front; she grabs those, too, although she also points them out to Malak in case Malak wants half of them.

There don't seem to be any other school supplies apart from paper and pens and pencils - except for, bizarrely, exactly four plastic protractors sitting on a shelf by themselves. She's... not entirely sure what she'd need a protractor for here, but better safe than sorry? She takes one of them and then agonizes over whether to take the others. She does point them out to Malak, while she's in the process of deciding.

There are artificers who could use a protractor. She grabs two, and tucks them into her bag overflowing with pens. (There's some pencils and paper and a notebook in there for personal use, but pens are more useful to trade or take apart so that's what her extra space is going to)

"Take them both, barter them if you don't have a personal use for them. Odds are that's what the next kid down here would do if you leave it. Or an agglo would get it first and then nobody gets any use out of it."

As if to prove her point, a rubbery pink orb drops down from a high shelf and makes a run down the hallway. Malak pins it underfoot.

"Found where the erasers all got to, you want one?"

"I would! I guess it's not like we're taking it out of the system or anything."

She accepts erasers. And also takes the extra protractor, guilt assuaged.