"They did not mean to," Scorpius says, "not at first. Everyone gets told how to generate mana, what to do, what reasonable amounts to give and take are. But then they pull a bit from the sharer and they notice it has more than they expected. And maybe they take a day off and nothing changes. And no one notices." Blast blast oh that one is irritating he's gonna have to lightsaber—no, it's a light whip now—dismember it, probably. "After a year of this," he continues after he's back, "they are all so used to it they don't even notice. Maybe some of them don't even know that everyone else isn't contributing, they still see the amounts of mana in our reservoir grow.

"Then sophomore year they tell our new freshmen about it, and now it's common knowledge. And they still have a lot of mana. And they make faces at me sometimes, when they think I'm not looking, when I give out mana to outsiders a bit too freely, but of course they know they have nothing to complain about."

"They didn't mean to." Edmund shakes his head in disgust. "If they hadn't told the freshmen about it, I'd accept that. But the freshmen will have to live without you. They could've told the freshmen, Scorpius Lake is an impossible, unthinkable blessing and if you take advantage of his impossible, unthinkable generosity instead of developing your own abilities then you will deserve exactly what happens to you."

He shrugs. "Unless something catastrophic happens, they will still have enough of my mana in their reservoir leftover to tide them over the transition of... me leaving."

Edmund struggles with the words. "Nothing is ever enough. There will never be enough of a surplus that some idiot who never even met you can't decide - we've still got the Lake surplus, I can lean a little harder. We've still got the Lake surplus, I don't have to work for it. We've still got the Lake surplus, I'm invincible. They'll take just a bit more, just a bit more, until they realize they don't have the Lake surplus anymore, and they won't know what to do without it."

"...if their parents outside don't teach them to generate mana for the pool that is almost, in itself, murder."

He carefully does not look at Edmund as he says that, though, and what he doesn't say is how much he agrees.

"Oh, they can generate mana. But they'll be used to drawing for every little thing. Work is a habit, and a damned easy one to break."

"Mmm."

Tasty mals! So he doesn't have to actually voice his thoughts.

"...I'm not going to talk to you about - duty. I know it's not really done, between enclaves. But. If it was me. I'd feel like I had to - be harder. Take a firm hand, before it was too late."

"I cannot be—their leader. I have told them all of this. They will do with it what they will but—" Oh good an opportunity to cut himself off by going after a mal, awesome, he does not want to finish that sentence right now.

"...you can't be their leader? Why not?"

He's not going to snap at this boy even though he feels like it, and instead he will kill a mal or two with a bit more prejudice than usual before saying, "I just don't have the skill. I kill things, that is what I'm good at."

And that's a lie, and he usually doesn't feel bad about lying, he lies all the time, but why is this boy opening up so much to him, and why is it so hard this time to quash the desire to open right back up? Honestly, what is it with these Pevensies? Someone should take them to a lab to study them.

"You are very good at it," Edmund admits.

Does this have anything to do with your mother is not a question he is going to ask Scorpius Lake, because then Scorpius Lake would be entirely justified in setting him on fire.

"...I don't want to make it sound like you're... doing something wrong," he says instead. "I don't think anyone can blame you for - for not spanking your clavemates when they get out of line."

Scorpius laughs, again, a bit more relaxed again. "I don't make a habit of spanking people without their consent anyway." Innuendo is easier, he can do innuendo, Edmund is even cute.

Edmund blushes a bit. "Well. That's something to keep in mind."

"Is it?" he asks lightly in between one spell in Old English and one in German. "I'll keep it in mind that you're keeping it in mind, then."

"Surely you're aware that you're attractive."

"It would be unseemly for me to say 'yes' to that."

But then he frowns, looks up and around, says something in Latin, and suddenly Edmund's vision is swimming and his ears are ringing and—oh there's a psychon right there isn't there, funny how he didn't see it before. Scorpius casts a couple more spells in quick succession and they have no visible effect other than making the psychon flinch and then scream (and become a bit more real in the process) and then he can pummel it with his lightwhip.

Which buys them another one or two minutes of reprieve as other mals go for the psychic-aspected corpse rather than them for a bit.

"Sorry about that, you can carry on flirting with me now."

"Aaaagh." Edmund sticks his tongue out and shakes his head vigorously. "You are like the stars in the sky, ow my head."

"Psychic class mals are the actual worst," he agrees. "I suck at healing spells or I would offer you something for the headache. Want some mana instead?"

"Uh. Don't think that'd necessarily help my head."

"No but if you have some better healing than I can offer you could use it for that."

Here's a light tap of mana, which coming from Scorpius Lake is "probably about half what Edmund can carry at all".

Edmund twitches. He incants something in Latin, then sighs with relief. "That's not usually worth the mana, but - that's kind of an incoherent complaint when you're around, huh."

"It is! And people get suspicious when I offer stuff for free but something tells me you won't think I poisoned it with malia or am secretly trying to kill you or something."