"He wasn't supposed to die!"

"Anybody can die in the scholomance."

Anyone can die in the scholomance but hello, person being cried on, that is approximately the worst thing you can say to someone who is crying on you.

Hm. "That's true," ugh she hates not knowing people's names, "but I'm sorry anyway. I'm Mochizuki Ayako, from Kyoto."

"Nie Huaisang."

"Jin Zixuan."

"Jin Zixun." He says it like an insult.

"Lan Wangji."

"Lan Xichen. I'm Wangji's brother. It's lovely to meet you."

"Meng Yao. I'm not an enclaver, I'm maintenance track."

"Lovely to meet you too." She had not actually expected half the enclave to introduce themselves. What does she do now.

"Da-ge was supposed to be alive. Because he's the smartest and the strongest and the best at magic and-- no one thought he was going to be the one who was supposed to die-- I draw, my affinity is art, I don't--"

He is going to relieve Jin Zixuan of the holding-Nie-Huaisang duty. 

"The Scholomance is unpredictable but the entire Shanghai enclave is going to do its best to make sure everyone here is safe."

"Of course." She helps Xichen get Huaisang off the ground.

(They're still being watched. That's a good thing. Ayako is a performer before she is anything else.)

"Nie Mingjue was Meng Yao's and my sworn brother before he passed. I hope you can think of us as your older brothers as well."

This is much better than Nie Huaisang had any right to expect.

He bows. "Yes, er-ge*, san-ge**."

*Second oldest brother.
**Third oldest brother.

(Two of the Shanghai enclave sworn brothers with someone on maintenance track? --whatever, she's not going to comment on that, what would she even say.)

Yeah honestly he's also pretty weirded out by that but if he gets a second person invested in his continuing to be alive out of it he's not going to complain.

"Ayako, what's your affinity? Mine is emotions."

Charming smile up at Lan Xichen. "Performing. Dance, singing, anything on a stage, I'm going spellwriting-track." 

"You'll get along well with Nie Huaisang. His affinity is visual art."

"He can kill any mals repelled by extremely fashionable outfits."

Looks like the Shanghai enclave made itself extremely easy to locate. 

"Hey, Lan Xichen! Wen Qing! Nie Mingjue! Jin Xizuan, Jin Xizun! I have mail for you." 

"Jin Zixun is me."

"Jin Zixuan is me."

"Da-ge's DEAD!" Nie Huaisang says, and bursts into tears on Lan Xichen's shoulder this time.

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." 

"The fundamental problem I've encountered is that my healing affinity expects to be about making people's bodily systems work better, which is obviously not at all what we want. I've been trying to create a spell in which the fetus is conceptualized as a parasite which should be expelled. Did you know the uterus is in fact a hostile environment for embryos, in order to discourage pregnancies that aren't worth the expenditure of energy? I've been thinking about something that leans into that. There are some really interesting problems in magical theory here."

"Sounds like an interesting challenge at any rate."

(Ayako personally went the 'get the implant before you go in' route, which seems more practical on every single level, but that's hardly the point.)

"May I speak to you two in private?"

"...sure." 

"Of course." Also, what. 

She takes them aside. "This is my brother, Wen Ning."

Little wave.

"My brother is monolingual in Mandarin. He doesn't like hurting things even in practice combat. He is meek and quiet and a coward. Do you understand me?"

What. No. Absolutely not. What do you even say to that? You can't just go around offering your condolences for their living siblings sitting there right in front of you. 

He just bows. "I'm pleased to make your acquaintance." 

...yes, Ayako understands perfectly well, but if the Shanghai enclave can't keep someone safe, what exactly is Wen Qing expecting from Julian? 

No offense Julian, she adds, even though none of this is leaving the privacy of her own head. She's not totally sure why Wen Qing thinks Kyoto will have such an advantage over Shanghai either. But it's a less glaring point of confusion. 

"Likewise," she says out loud, and bows with him. 

"As long as you keep him alive, I will tutor you in spell-writing and I will heal you whenever you need it. I'm very good at healing magic, I'm the best in the school, you can ask anyone."

"That's a very generous offer and of course I'll do all that I can, but – I'm not sure I have any particular advantage at this." And she's Shanghai, and she has an actually useful affinity, and she can absolutely afford to bribe someone more qualified than the random freshman her parents paid to deliver her mail. 

"I'll talk to the others in Kyoto but my prediction is they'll think it's a good idea, but also— yes, what Julian said." 

"Obviously I'm going to trade up as soon as I can but he needs protection now and not when I've found the freshman Mandarin speaker who's the best at combat. I suggest you do a good job and I won't want to."

"Alright. Uh –" he turns to Wen Ning – "I think it's best if you take all my classes. That way I can accompany you. I'm going for all honors but don't worry if you're not any good, I'll just do your homework for you. I need to grind mana anyway. What's your room number?" 

"...does this offer extend to the rest of my enclavemates, who will be helping fulfill our end? If so, and depending on the rooms, I'd actually suggest he takes classes with me and Masane Mei, she's the best in Kyoto for the last several years at athletics and combat casting." 

Goddamn enclavers. 

Look this is benefiting him too.

"I do not have capacity to heal an entire enclave and maintain the slack Xichen likes in case a disaster happens to Shanghai enclave, but I can handle a third guard."

"I can do my own homework, sir, ma'am? I don't want to bother anyone."

"It's really no trouble at all." 

To Wen Qing – "Will you be warding his room or do you want me to do it? I'm quite good at wards, actually, but I'd want to be compensated for the mana expenditure." 

"Deal, then. And Julian, I can take some of his homework if you'd like, I'm doing Mei's anyway." 

"Zixun does the wards for our enclave. There's a reason we haven't let him get eaten by a mal yet. Well, also Xichen would frown."

"I can do my own homework?" Wen Ning says fruitlessly.

"I'm sure you can," she is not, "but if you're going to be in our classes, part of protecting you is making sure the homework gets done." 

"Right, can't have you getting eaten by a rogue problem set. Anyway – what's your name?" 

"a-Ning," Wen Qing says sharply, "you will do what your guards say."

"Yes, jiejie*."

*Sister, affectionate.

Oh, that's such a healthy sibling relationship. Even if Ching-hsia had the spine of a bowl of congee, he hopes he wouldn't speak to her like that. And then he remembers that he's never going to speak to her again at all and his stomach does something funny. 

 "I don't think I got your name either?" (She did, but since they aren't responding to Julian and it'd be rude to point that out.)

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Wen Qing."

"So – you must be Wen Ning?" 

"Yes, sir."

"You really don't have to call me sir." 

"Okay." There is a visible pause where he's not saying 'sir.'

"You also don't have to call me ma'am. So, I'll talk to Mei this evening, and we'll need a room number so we can coordinate what we're going to do about classes?" 

"64A."

"77B. I think that means we're close?" 

"I'm 555A and Mei is 700B, I don't think we're anywhere near." 

This is a solid point in favor of retaining Julian as a bodyguard.

"Julian, I am the favorite of the Shanghai zongzhu-- you can ask anyone-- and you should know that if my brother somehow makes it through graduation I will make sure the person who made that happen will have a place at the Shanghai enclave."

So he'd had better be just about the best damn bodyguard anyone's ever seen. Not that he expects this to work – that boy is definitely going to die – but hopefully he can build up some goodwill with Shanghai in the meantime. Unless they blame him when Wen Ning inevitably bites it. 

"Thank you. I'm very grateful to have been given this opportunity." 

"Thank you for protecting my brother."

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. 

"I promise I'll do everything I can." 

"Likewise."

When they look back, Lan Wangji has peeled off, Nie Huaisang is somehow still crying in the lap of Lan Xichen who has the patience of a saint, Meng Yao is lurking at Lan Xichen's shoulder like a particularly obedient servant, and the indistinguishable asshole Jins are playing cards.

Deep breaths, Julian Chan. If you're very very very very good, you'll be seeing a lot of these people. 

He turns to Wen Ning. "Do you have any friends in your year?" Anything to get him to stop cowering. 

"Wei Wuxian complimented my archery once?"

"Which one is he?" 

"He left a while ago, I saw him talking to an American."

"Well, you can introduce me to him later. Uh – I assume you want to eat with the rest of the Shanghaiers? Just let me know when you're done and I can walk you back to your room."   

"Okay," he says.

Lan Xichen is saying: "--Song Lan really should be here by now, did he die in the past two years?"

"No," Wen Ning says quietly, "he was at the induction."

"...he was a strong wizard and it's unusual for anyone to die the first day."

.........ahahaha what. 

"We got the first death of the year!" Nie Huaisang wails into Lan Xichen's thigh.

(Looks like they're back to local drama. He's going to get something to eat). 

"It's strange because something happened to the Americans, there are a bunch of mundanes walking around in pajamas and without shoes. They'd be easier food."

"That's...... really weird, yeah." 

What the fuck what the fuck how does someone from the Shanghai enclave die on the first day —

"And we don't have the supplies he carried in either. --Wen Ning, Nie Huaisang, you know what his things looked like, if you see someone with them kindly"-- he reconsiders the end of his sentence-- "come to me and I will tell them that those supplies belong to Shanghai and we would like them back."

He doesn't like losing a sixth of what they were supposed to come in with, and he doesn't like losing Song Lan, a strong reliable alchemist who could have been trusted to keep the others safe. Part of him wishes Wen Ning or Nie Huaisang had been the ones to die, but he shakes his head. The Shanghai enclave is his responsibility. Everyone in it is someone he must keep safe.

Meng Yao puts a hand on his shoulder. "Er-ge, there's nothing you could have done."

He rests his head affectionately against Meng Yao's arm. "I know. It's just. A bad omen."

And if you can't keep your freshmen safe what the hell kind of chances do I have of doing it, she thinks, and doesn't say it because that's rude, and are literally all of the Shanghai kids as useless as Wen Ning and Nie Huaisang, she thinks, and doesn't say it because that's both egregious and cruel.

She's not sure what on earth she's supposed to do here. She makes her excuses, and gets back to the Kyoto kids.