"To sit 'neath the soaring stars of 'ther skies, staring at simple sublime workings of the heavens themselves, or such." 

She takes a mug, and sips lightly at it, trying not to show off too much how tense she is. 

"How poetic. Sounds Old English to me. One of your languages?"

"I've looked into it, definitely - one of the advantages of speaking one of the most widespread languages in the world is how much that people have done with it, magically and linguistically." 

She takes a slow sip. 

"Though I suppose there's not too much of a difference between those, in a sense." 

"Not particularly, no. I'm Lily, and you are?"

"Iron." 

I reach my free hand out to shake. 

" - Incidentally, I heard that you were selling magical bracelets, earlier?"

Lily shakes Iron's hand. "So, what's your story? Where you from?"

She shakes her hand back firmly.

"I wish I felt like I had more to say on such matters - I'm from London, with my family only loosely connected with the associated Enclave. Mostly, I've been training and looking into how to survive here all my life, and even without things otherwise being too problematic in my mediocre middle class life, it can be a bit of a stressful affair to have such a damocles sword hanging loosely above me." 

Larisa is, yet again, physically hauling her brother to breakfast, and dragging him through the line with her while filling both of their trays, because otherwise he just....won't eat. 

- whoa, is that coffee? Amazing! 

She steers Vanya over to a table and plops him down with his tray and tousles his hair. "Eat that, I'll be right back."

And then she heads over to meet the....freshman student? Who is apparently handing out free, well, basically-free coffee? 

"Hey," she says, as cheerfully as she can manage. "You're looking for stories?" 

"Nice to meet you, Iron. And you too, Senior. A cup of coffee's free with a story, and I have all kinds of things to sell if you're interested. Chocolate, gummies, spices, enchanted bracelets, superglue. Coffee and tea too, both good-quality stuff from outside, not the awful stuff the cafeteria calls coffee. The mana-boiling moka pot is also for sale. Interested in anything?"

"I'm curious about the bracelets? I've mostly done tattoo enchantments and inscription work, like with my sword, personally, though learning a touch of alchemy is something that's been helpful for me." 

She hums softly. 

"Don't have too much ready now, but I do have a few people's tenure worth of menstrual suppressant, a flashlight, some matches, perhaps even a healing cookie to trade, if the quality is high enough."

"The bracelets come in blasting, shielding, endurance, and storage. Blasting and shielding reinforce spells of that type - in this case, shielding includes wards - while endurance provides resistance to poison and fatigue, speeds healing, and makes pain less incapacitating. Storage does what you'd expect. All of them are biddable and docile enchantments - part of my affinity - and will play nice with other artificed items. I would take a healing cookie in exchange for one."

She hums softly, and takes a healing cookie out a belt pocket, placing it on the table for inspection. 

"Mind bringing out some samples?"

Lily brings out an example of each from her bag. They're made from wire in different colors - bronze, copper, black - and beaded with semiprecious stones (tigerseye, malachite, hematite). The storage one has a clear, pinky-sized diamond inset in the band. 

"I have a one-off higher-quality storage bracelet with six gems in the band as well, but I'd want more than a single cookie for that."

"Only have two in stock for the moment, unforunately. My own measures tend to my own health adequately enough, but hardly ideal to go without entirely." 

She traces a finger across each, her skin flickering slightly as it metallizes a little against the ward one, before simply letting her fingers brush across the rest, probing. The armored skin effect is mostly a transmutation but should play well enough with the ward effect? The storage item is fine, and the blasting one is unforunately meant more to be an edge for something that already works where her skill with such things was... fairly lacking. 

"So I expect we'll have to see about alternative arrangements for further purchases. But for now..." 

She hands over her cookie. 

"I'll see how well this works for me, and how it interacts with my skills - perhaps for later improvements of the product." 

The enchantments feel solid and tightly-bound, every piece of them exactly where it ought to be. It's high-quality, especially for freshman work. The shield bracelet in particular responds eagerly to her touch.

She smiles, a touch relieved as her skin glows silver for a moment before reverting to the pinkness of her base. 

Lily takes the cookie, carefully stashes it away in her first aid kit, and hands over the bracelet. "Thank you for your business."

"My pleasure." 

She bows her head slightly, and slips the bracelet on her hand. 

"I suppose I might as well as ask of you your story, of this night and of this life?" 

"I was busy last night putting together a new and improved personal storage bracelet, and then I had to generate more mana to ward the place, so I'm pretty tired. But that's what coffee is for. I'm a Canadian independent. Spent my life training and scraping for this slot and getting together things to trade once I'm here. I got in; my sister Rose wasn't so lucky, may she rest in peace."

"Oh..." 

She sighs quietly. 

"Condolences." 

She raises her cup. 

"A toast?"

She halfsmiles and raises her cup. "Rose."

Then she looks over at the senior. "How about you?"

"And everyone else we've left behind." 

She takes a deep drink, and breathes out warmly, resting back. 

A person with an Obvious Maleficer Aura is standing far enough away from Lily to be plausibly deniable and glaring at everyone.

She idly glances over, appraising, but ultimately taking them up on the offer to deniably 'hang'. 

No need to antagonize early. Besides, auras can be decieving.