Alyona's finished handing out letters and has been looking for an excuse to get to know people in her own year. She doesn't particularly need to pee or anything, but she could use this opportunity to fill the hydration sack in her backpack and have a store of water to keep in her room. Plus, always good to know where the bathrooms are.

She pushes past some people towards the girl who spoke up. "I'll come! My name's Alyona, what's yours?"

Sophie has not talked to anyone yet because she is a coward and she is going to die.

She suspects she can handle accompanying someone down the hall to the loo, though? If she can't then she is definitely a coward and definitely going to die.

She walks over, ignoring the powerful sense of impending doom, and says, "I'm in. I have to fill up a canteen anyway. - um. Sophie Hara."

"Count me in too!" says a nearby voice, attached to a girl of mildly ambiguous ethnicity with an approximately-American accent.

"I'm El," says El, wow, none of these people are making faces at her at all, amazing, is this enough people, probably, none of these people are obviously mundie-extracted doomy kids. She leads the way, she saw the bathroom on her way in.

"Elizabeth. Nice to meet you all!"

She feels so much less doomy as part of a group. Not quite not-doomy enough to speak up on her own, but -

"Nice to meet you too, Elizabeth. And El! Sorry."

A blue-eyed girl who had been standing quietly nearby, waving her arms around her in a way that looked more like a dance than anything else but still not very much like a dance, says to no one in particular, "five, that's good," and tags along after them.

"Likewise! So, where are you from?"

Alyona tries to size up the other members of the bathroom expedition. The girl who invited everyone - Elle? - is a bit... spooky... but better to be on her good side than not, if that's indicative. Sophie seems a bit skittish. Alyona doesn't have high hopes for her but tries to give her an encouraging smile. Elizabeth seems perky, though. Hopefully she's got the competence to back it up. The rando who is following after them... Alyona is not sure what to make of. She can make up rear-guard, she guesses, and they can put squishy Sophie in the middle of the formation.

As they head towards the hall, Alyona falls in behind El, on the right-hand side.

Sophie is on a roll. "I'm from Yorkshire. It's... nice."

"Wales."

(Sophie is not on enough of a roll to say "oh, I speak Welsh!" The words come to her but what if El thinks that she's trying to find some kind of commonality with her and doesn't appreciate it. She will die if she does not make friends but right now it seems easier than dying of embarrassment.)

Wales, great. Hopefully she doesn't bust out in Welsh, Alyona doesn't need another Celtic language right now.

"Ooh, that explains the cool accents. I'm from Santa Barbara, myself."

"Toronto," Elizabeth contributes.

"The enclaves or just the cities?"

"The city, in my case, although I've got my eye on the enclave. They'll love me, I'm an orphan."

Well, she doesn't seem too broken up about it, so far be it from Alyona to be. "Convenient! I'm from the enclave, but it's a bitty one, I'm the only kid in our year.

"I'm indie."

There is not an enclave in Yorkshire. Of course you're fucking indie, Sophie. What are you doing. She averts her eyes in shame.

...they land on... a puddle. They're not near the bathroom yet, why - it's iridescent.

"Mal," she says flatly, pointing. "Anybody know the breed?"

"Ugh, I've seen one but I don't know its name. I don't have mana, do you with the enclaver buddies have power sharers -" She's backing up.

"Ooze, of some kind? I've got a power sharer." Not that her enclave has a ton of mana banked up at the moment - most of it got used up during graduation, she guesses. But, this is what it's for, so she's not going to worry too much about pulling on what little is there. She can put more back in later.

There's a drain in the floor over there. It's probably where the mal came from in the first place. Alyona puts her index fingers and thumbs together, chants a short line in French, and whistles sharply through the frame of her hands. A spray of water shoots forth from them towards the suspicious puddle.

The ooze is shoved drainward; sparkly bits of it slough off but the rest of it slides into the pipe.

"Nice. I was going to have to figure out if electricity would touch that thing, I think water was a safer bet."

Paradoxically, Sophie seems much calmer now that a mal showed up.

"If somebody with the mana wants to slap a shield over the drain we can book it past and still hit the loo."

"I think I can cover it." She mutters under her breath, deliberately inaudible. The sparkles around the drain cover acquire a pressed-flat look.

El runs for it.

Alyona gives Elizabeth an approving look about her drain shield. She wonders what spell it was she used; it's not one Alyona recognized. But she assumes she couldn't hear the incantation on purpose, so she doesn't poke her nose in it.

A runaway sparkle had been oozing Lunawards, but she smiled at it and signed something with her hands, and it stopped moving long enough for her to catch up to the others as they all hurry past the drain and into the girls' loo.

Sophie fills her water bottle and clicks her fingernails a little. Then she says, to El, "I speak Welsh. Also. Assuming you speak Welsh, being from Wales. And if that information is useful to you in any way."

Elizabeth, too, has vessels to fill once she has done her business.

They don't see anything else on the way to the bathroom and the doorknob is a doorknob and the bathroom itself appears to have been mortally flamed recently enough as it should be.

There are bathroom stalls, and shower stalls with curtains; the curtains have not been prioritized for repairs and some have been taken down altogether. There's a cupboard labeled NECESSARIES, hanging open, one door removed at the hinges, with soap and toilet paper in it.

"I speak Welsh," El confirms. "We can swap spells in it sometime."

"That sounds lovely." Interaction achieved. Back to watching for mals. 

El has some flimsy plastic water bottles until she can make herself a jug in shop. She fills them up.

"I don't have Welsh but I've got Latin, Greek, French, and German if anybody wants to swap spells in those. The shield on the drain was Latin; it's not powerful but it's efficient and it makes a really distinctive noise when it pops, so you get some warning."

Huh. Rando tagalong does sign-spells? Maybe she hasn't introduced herself because she's Deaf. Unfortunately, whatever sign language that was, it wasn't ASL, or Alyona would try talking to her that way.

She fishes her hydration pack out of her bag and works on getting herself two full liters of water she won't have to risk making dangerous solo bathroom treks for next time she needs some.

"I've got all those, and I'd be happy to swap spells. Well, except the Welsh. My Greek is classical, do you have that or modern?"

"Latin's on my shortlist for things to pick up here."

"I've got Latin too. I can -" aaaaah who is she kidding "-tutor you, maybe?"

"Started with classical but made sure I can get by in modern because I didn't know if they'd be dissimilar enough for the school to let me off easy. I could get in on the Latin tutoring too, if you want, we could make it a whole spell-swapping language-polishing circle."

"I'll swap Latin spells, too," the tagalong girl offers, while examining the ceiling as if it is very interesting.

"That sounds awesome." Why weren't people ever like this before. Did the mana-sucking thing eat her aura of doom - no, Lucy commented on it -

Ah! So she's not Deaf! And she's got a British accent, so probably that was BSL.

If they make a whole spell-swapping language-polishing circle, Alyona is absolutely going to get stuck with Welsh. Oh well. Language study partners are probably still worth it.

"I haven't started on modern yet, if the school gives me anything in it I'll bring it to you. I don't wanna make any Latin tutoring promises before I see my schedule. But I'd be happy to swap spells even if I'm too swamped for tutoring."

"I have one of the lost Chicago muggleborns planning to sit with me for schedule wrangling tomorrow morning."

"- oh. That's very kind of you."

Sophie says this without surprise but with a sort of confused wistfulness - why would you do that and I wish I could too.

"There's room for more people at the tables."

"More people to look at schedules with sounds like a good plan."

"If my homeroom's nearby, I'm in. Honestly, I wish it would have us all meet in the auditorium or something for schedule assignment."

"The pamphlet thinks we are most likely to be on this floor but who knows what relationship that has to reality."

"Yeah, we'll have to see. Still, I'll look you all up if I get the chance between getting my schedule and having to turn it in."

"Same here."

"Are you all going languages track too?"

"Oh! Not at all, artificing, just - it's nice to have languages in your pocket if you're any good at them, right?"

"I'm artificing, too. I made these," she adds, nodding down at her rainbow-colored clothes. "But I'm best with painting."

"I'm languages for sure." Alchemy or artificing might have been fun, but if Alyona's going to make it she's going to have to wring as many spells out of her incredibly inconvenient affinity as she can manage. "Surprised you're going with artificing, if you're into paints."

"Oh, I'm not much for alchemy. My mum was, but she passed on when I was too little to learn very much, and I've always found making things with my hands more natural than brewing and mixing things. Maybe while I'm here I'll find an alchemist who makes interesting magic paints," she says thoughtfully.

"Worth asking around, at least. If I run into anyone like that, I can send them your way. ..Except I don't think I actually got your name?"

"Thank you, that would be nice of you! I'm Luna. And you're probably Alyona, I think, unless you're Sophie?"

"Yeah, Alyona."

One can pee into the void, and this is even recommended if you need to go in the middle of the night - disadvantage of the ceiling rooms - but as long as she is here with backup El checks out a stall to pee into not the void. (Directly. The school probably dumps it all into the void later on.) It needs more paper from the cupboard but this is as good a time as any to restock.

Luna takes this opportunity to use the loo, too, in between serving as backup. She also takes a bit of toilet paper, while she's here, since it is paper, after all, and might be workable into some craft she hasn't yet devised.

"I think you can't actually take that out, it's not all real, if it were people'd steal it and turn it into spare pillows or something."

"Oh, that's a shame," she says, and puts the toilet paper back. "There now, I'm sure you'd be very good at lots of different things, but here is where we need you the most," she reassures it.

Well that's adorable.

"I am almost certainly ending up in languages track but there's a chance I'll go creative writing instead."

All in all a successful trip to the bathroom. El leaves with full water bottles and several names to put to faces and no less bewilderment about why all these people are willing to talk to her, and heads back to the cafeteria with them to try her luck once more.