Pat pat pat. "I'm Lan Xichen. Wen Qing's over there."

Okay, sobbing kid first. "Uh – I'm sorry – do you want his letters?" The Nies also sent a care package with tea and healing cookies, but he's certainly not going to mention that. 

"Here, for the rest of you – " 

Sniff sniff. "Yes."

--okay so he wants the care package obviously but how can he-- right.

"And they didn't even send him anything-- because they thought he would be strong enough--"

Pat pat. "I am sure everyone's parents sent them care packages, a-Sang*."

*Affectionate nickname.

Right fuck of course the kid brother knows what the parents were planning, he's an idiot, there goes all the goodwill this errand was going to get him, and just where does this enclaver get off talking about everyone's parents? Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

"Let me look – oh, there it is, I see, they must have come apart during induction. Here you are. Uh, sorry for your loss. I'm Julian Chan." 

"It's nice to meet you. Hong Kong?" 

"Oh, good guess! Yes. Not enclave, though." Which means he's in the market for alliances. Sucking up kills his soul a little bit the alternative will probably kill the rest of him. 

"What's your affinity?"

(Everyone is looking towards Lan Xichen like he's the one who's in charge.)

But the person standing closest to him doesn't have an enclaver power-sharer and didn't receive a letter.

Well he's just going to concentrate on the leader then. 

"Extradimensional spaces – basically, enclave magic. Everyone says I'm going to be really great at making them and expanding them." When he's a lot older and has a lot more mana. He does his best to sound confident, like surviving is a fiat accompli. Let's focus on what a useful enclave member he'll be if he grows up and not on the fact that it won't help him one tiny bit with graduation. 

"It sounds tremendously unfortunate to get that as an independent, I'm sorry. Did you manage to find an opportunity to practice?"

Oooooooooooof. 

"At this stage of my life I'm really trying to be more well-rounded. Of course I had to spend a lot of time studying for the exam, and learning healing and combat and defensive magic." Look at me! I'm useful! I'm so fucking useful! He hates everything and everyone. 

He continues to absently pet the hair of the sobbing Nie Huaisang. "Congratulations, this is the last time in your life you'll ever need to write a poem in Classical Chinese. I have no idea why that's even on there." 

"Oh, I like poetry. And it's probably good practice for spell-writing – it has the right combination of creativity and structure. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to focus on spell-writing or artificing, so it seems like a useful skill to have." 

No, it's actually very stupid, he thinks, but that's not at all his job. His job is finding people with useful skills so he can get Nie Huaisang and Wen Ning and Meng Yao out of here in one piece. "Whichever you pick, after you graduate you'll certainly be welcome to visit Shanghai-- I imagine there are all sorts of improvements people would want to make. You know we don't leave the enclave much."

"Why are we talking to the useless guy?"

"It's called being polite. He did bring you your mail."

"Yeah, because he was paid."

"Talent comes from many places."

Ayako has not been witness to this many people performing in so many different ways since the last diplomatic meeting between Kyoto and Seoul. It's sort of fascinating. "If you choose spellwriting I'll be doing it with you. --I don't think I introduced myself, I'm Mochizuki Ayako, I'm from Kyoto."

To Ayako – "I'm pleased to meet you. I've heard Kyoto is lovely." 

To Lan Xichen – "I would be honored to provide any possible assistance to your enclave." God, he wants to give this up as a lost cause. The only thing worse than getting eaten by a mal would be spending the rest of his life in a confined space with these stuck-up assholes. "I'm given to understand that very few wizards are able to enlarge enclaves substantially. I hope I'll be able to make you all more comfortable." 

"Wen Qing is also doing spellwriting. Her affinity is healing. Her pet project is reliable abortion spells."

From a few feet away: "If you know anyone who's pregnant I'll trade them to let me test spells on them!"

"She's our mad scientist."

"Oh, how interesting!" Not like that isn't a solved problem everywhere except this one school. "If anyone I know gets unlucky I'll be sure to send them your way."