"Awesome. Do you want, like, a hug first?"

".........yeah." 

Deep breath. 

"If that's, not, uh, weird?" 

Hug! He'll hold on until she seems to want to pull away.

"Well, I think getting kidnapped to a magic wizard school that needs a human nurse despite not needing human teachers or cooks or anything is weird whether you get a hug about it or not."

“- Oh, wow, I hadn’t even thought about whether it was weird that I’m, like, apparently the only mundane grownup kidnapped to work here? I wonder why the school decided on doing that for a nurse but no one else." 

"I think some of the kids are related to the people who run this place and maybe they'd know. But I have no idea why most of the things here are the way they are."

"Mmm." 

Marian takes a deep breath and tells herself very firmly that she has to FOCUS now. 

"...Uh, right. I'm going to read the booklet and, uh, try to - figure out what the equivalent doses are for all these different kinds, and...I guess you might just have to, like, rotate through them, sorry -" 

"If it's going to take a long time to figure that out maybe I should come back after dinner - or maybe I should take the patch now, since it's not like the dose for that is going to be five nineteenths of it or something."

"...Yeah, you might as well. And - oh! It gave me exactly one Nuva ring, too! That's, uh, a hormonal birth control method - it's not as good as Depo, it's only for one month, and uh, it goes in...." 

Talking to a trans boy about his vagina is, it turns out, more social awkwardness than Marian has EVER had to deal with before. 

"....here," she finishes, with an extremely awkward gesture at the relevant area on herself. "Like, all the way in. Um." Her face is burning right now. 

"Oh, uh... does that come with a guide, by any chance."

"It's.....got some really short instructions on the package? It probably came with a guide in the original packaging but the void super did not give me the original packaging, I guess no one lost it that way which kinda makes sense. ....Want me to ask for a guide too?" 

"I'd appreciate it if it's convenient."

Marian walks back over to the void wall. "Hey, school? I really really appreciate everything you just gave me, thank you, it was great! But, uh, is there any way I could get a written instructions guide for using a nuva ring, too?" 

The void, after a few seconds, helpfully provides a pile of loose papers, apparently still fresh and crisp from someone's laser printer, which immediately slip past Marian's hands and cascade in all directions toward the floor. 

Marian scrambles after them. 

"- Sorry! I think it got all out of order but it looks like a bunch of info for patients on the nuva ring?" She holds out the rescued bundle. 

"Thank you! This is great! You should let me know if there's anything you want me to keep an eye out for while I'm out - have you got food, have you got a place to sleep, have you got something to do besides your job...?"

"I mean, there's food in the cafeteria, it's just apparently poisonous sometimes even when it's not secretly magic death monsters pretending to be food? People brought me a dinner tray, though, that was really nice. There's a bedroom here, I guess for me, it's over there? ...I don't really have anything to do except my job, which - isn't very complicated until someone actually gets hurt?" 

"I will see if I can figure out a way to bring you a chess set or something, not that I'm optimistic about finding one."

"- Aww, I'd appreciate that a lot! Or, you know, even just a book to read or something. That's not about medicine. I do like medical stuff but I don't want to just read it all the time, you know? And I'm not sure the void will really give me other things, though - I guess I haven't actually tried asking it for novels or anything." 

"I'll see if I can lend you one of my textbooks, once I have them? Or... something. Do you speak anything besides English?"

"French. And I can sort of read Spanish, it's similar-ish to French, I just totally can't understand it spoken out loud." 

"Oh, score, I want to practice French at some point. And I speak Spanish."

"Ooh! Languages are really important here, right? Because you can learn spells in them? I'd totally be down to trade tutoring you in French for....uh, lots of things, I guess, probably what I need most is - friendly relationships with the kids here? Especially the older kids who can help keep me alive if they think I'm useful enough." 

"I'll see what I can do. Eventually I'll be one of the older kids but if you live that long you'll have to have worked something else out by then."

"Yeah. I hope so. Anyway....thanks. And - good luck, I guess?" 

"Yeah. You too!"