"Ah, but I do not have a gun."

"Precisely! So we are both equipped with the knife that will do best for us. Yours bloodthirsty, mine docile."

He pats his gun and his knife in turn. "Good boys."

"Yes, for us docile is my brother's scissors. They are for thread but have put up with quite a number of haircuts today."

"Well, is hair not a kind of thread? I imagine that is the use it will be put to, anyway."

"Very true! We're planning to trade haircuts for the resulting clippings later on; long strands of human hair are better than short but short isn't useless. But we weren't expecting it to be so relevant on the first day."

"What happened over there, anyway? I noticed the... odd concentration of long-haired people... but no one is really sure why."

"Oh, has that not made it into the Sinosphere yet? Someone destroyed the Chicago enclave right before induction."

"Shit. Really?"

"Yep. There were a couple of surviving freshmen who were outside the enclave when it happened, they brought in the news."

"That is... terrifying. Maybe I should tell Lan Xichen about this - he will probably know in a few days anyway, I suppose - fuck. To what end - I guess we wouldn't know."

"If we ever find out it won't be until next year at the earliest."

"Well. It is good to know what happened, anyway, even if it is not why."

Maybe he will tell Lan Xichen. It'd be bothering him about something he'd learn in a few days anyway... but he can't help feeling like this is the kind of thing you want to know as soon as possible.