She's already staking out the enclave table by the time Landon appears. "Morning. ...Who's walking him over this morning?" 

Vanya probably doesn't need a hallway bodyguard for safety, this week; the mal population is low after the Mortal Flame cleansing, and besides which there's a whole freshman year full of easier targets. He still needs to be walked over, though, because otherwise he just...won't eat breakfast.

"Justin's on it." 

"Right. ...I checked with Cassie, we did some swaps to put them in all the same classes." Sigh. "Not great for her, honestly, she's going for artificing track and instead she's in creative writing courses with him. At least he can handle the math." 

Shrug. "Yeah. ...Figure Tristan'd be up for running him to the bathroom today? He should bathe." 

"First day of classes. I don't want to push anyone too hard." 

Landon sits down. For a moment, he lets himself look very tired. 

"...It'll be a good couple of weeks, though. More slack for everyone. Maybe even a chance to - catch our breath a little, plan for the longer term..." 

As if. 

(Larisa does not say this out loud.)

Justin arrives with the crowd of juniors after a few minutes, looking harried. "Sorry, Lan, my schedule's rotten this term. I'm in three advanced history courses, I'm going to have so much homework." 

"I told you to switch out of anything too heavy," Landon says, without much heat. 

"I did! This is after I swapped out of the absolutely brutal Prussian literature class and the advanced geometry I had for no fucking reason. The school's out to get me or something." 

Tristan arrives a little while later, humming cheerfully and finger-combing his damp hair. It's been a bit since his last haircut, and his dark hair is long enough to stick out everywhere. 

He swings by the cafeteria line, loads up, and heads over to join them. "Morning!" 

"Someone's in a good mood." Larisa sounds kind of suspicious about this. 

"I got a bunch of really great language classes! And three of them are with Rose." 

(Rose is an indie girl who Tristan is, perhaps, somewhat sweet on.) 

"Mmm." Larisa's voice contains a negative quantity of enthusiasm. 

A few minutes later, Cassie makes her way into the cafeteria with Vanya, and directs him to the table where Larisa has food already gathered for him, before making her own run at the now well-picked-over cafeteria line. Her expression is that of someone who is trying very very hard not to be visibly grumpy or say anything snarky out loud, and is only mostly succeeding. 

Vanya sits down and looks disconsolately at his food and doesn't say anything to anyone, not even to acknowledge Larisa's hug. 

Raleigh isn't among the first freshmen to trickle in for breakfast, since he spent a while working on his schedule. 

He looks around for any of his recent new acquaintances, especially Bella or Marcy - they were nice - but, after collecting food (and failing to get any extras for Shannon this time) he heads for the Sacramento table first. 

"Good morning! How was your homeroom?" 

"All right? I think I got a decent schedule - here, you can check it?" He hands over the copy he made in his notebook. 

And then lowers his voice. "Larisa?" 

"Mmm?" 

"I really want an explanation of, um." Vague hand gesture in Vanya's direction. 

Vanya is currently staring into the distance, as though he's forgotten that he's in a room with other people and also food he's supposed to eat. 

After finalizing her schedule, Ribo goes to the cafeteria. She carefully checks the food with her trusty wire for Mals and then with a cheap spell Mother taught her for poison. She takes a small amount of a variety of things. Then she goes looking for a table. She notices a decent number of free seats at a table with a few Enclave kids and decides it doesn't hurt to ask: "Would it be alright if I join you?"

The Sacramento enclave doesn't usually fill an entire table, and meeting the new blood is always interesting. 

Larisa glances at Landon for approval first, though, before answering the freshman girl. "Yeah, sure! Have a seat. I'm Larisa. Senior year, Sacramento enclave." 

"Hi, I'm Ribo, I'm from Canada not associated with any Enclaves."

"Welcome!" Landon shakes his head. "...I'm sorry. This place isn't exactly welcoming, is it? Anyway, I'm Landon." 

Vanya is staring down into his uneaten oatmeal and ignoring the new arrival. 

....Okay, whatever, he's clearly not getting an explanation right this second. Raleigh carries his tray off to look for Marcy or Bella. 

"If you mean the Scholomance it's been alright so far. At least for me. I feel bad for that one girl who decided it was too much on the first day."

"- Wait, what happened?" 

"I overheard a girl planning to go into the void and not come back. The first person she talked to tried to talk her out of it but... it didn't go well."

"....She was planning to do what. Would that work - don't you normally just get spat back out speaking in tongues?" 

Vanya is still holding perfectly still, but it's suddenly in a rigid-tense sort of way. 

Gaaaaaaaaaaaah this is really not what they needed today! 

"I don't know, I don't see her here but that would probably be the case if she was void touched too. I didn't get her room number but I know who she gave it to. I could point them out if you like."

"Um, any idea if she was an enclaver? Or where she was from?" 

"She had a power sharer. I didn't catch which Enclave she was from though."

"...Seems worth checking in. You said she gave her room number to someone?" 

"The person she gave her room number to is named Annisa." Ribo cranes her neck and looks around before pointing to Annisa. "I think that's her."

Sigh. "That's really tragic. Whether or not she - actually did it, honestly. ...Guess I'd better go ask her." 

Landon leaves. 

"I'm done eating," Vanya says flatly. "I'm going back to my room." 

"No you're not," Larisa says, which is not the most graceful way of handling this but she's all out of social niceties for the day. 

Landon, looking visibly stressed, marches over to the table where the pointed-out girl is sitting. 

It takes a few moments but Ribo connects the dots. She starts to say something then stops then starts to speak again. "If you'd like I might be able to figure out what meds would help. I also know some pretty effective sleep spells."

Vanya stares at his plate and doesn't acknowledge this. 

Larisa turns to Ribo, though. "...Huh, really? I - do you think there are really meds that could help?" 

"It depends on a lot of things, if it's a result of trauma that can be harder to treat with medication than more chemically based issues but meds can help even there."

"Huh. ...You some sort of expert on the subject?" 

"My Mother is very good at dealing with all kinds of things and I've learned some of what she knows. I mostly know diagnostics and ways to evaluate things because that's ... safer. Trying to fix mental problems directly is really risky unless you're very skilled."

"Oh, wow. Really wish there was any way to get your mother's input, then! But...yeah, we don't really have any, um, contacts here with that expertise. I was thinking of the school nurse, maybe? But I'd want to feel her out first - last year's was fine but I did not like the nurse who was here my freshman year. But if you'd be willing to talk with him a bit, that's a favour we would appreciate loads." And one which could be repaid in other favours of Ribo's choice. Larisa doesn't have to add that part out loud. 

"I'm willing to do what I can. Is there any context," she pauses and remembers they're in the cafeteria "maybe we should talk about this somewhere more private..."

"...Yeah, probably. Don't want to make you late for your first day of classes, though." 

Larisa sighs, and turns to her brother, who is still hunched over his mostly-untouched plate. She reaches to take his hand. "Vanya, are you up for that silencing-spell of yours? It's fine if not..." 

Vanya shrugs and sings a few lines of something in Russian. He has a very good singing voice, though right now it's barely audible. 

The buzz of conversation from the rest of the cafeteria is suddenly oddly blurred and muted. 

"We can talk privately for a bit now," Larisa offers. "I - guess if you were willing to talk with him for longer at lunch, somewhere other than here, that would be great. But I can give you the basics now." 

(Having his sister talk about him like he's not there is an inevitable consequence of...refusing to engage with anyone...but Vanya still hates it and wishes she wouldn't.) 

"Alright," she turns to Vanya, "I don't know if you're up for explaining but if you are it would be good to hear from you. If you're not, I guess your sister can explain."

Vanya opens his mouth, and then closes it and curls into himself. He super cannot talk about this. He would really prefer no one ever talked about it ever again, but he knows Larisa is trying to help and it'll just upset her for no good reason if he yells at her to just LEAVE HIM ALONE. 

Larisa squeezes his hand. 

"What languages do you have?" she asks Ribo, quietly. "I'd feel better not, um, reminding him of it even more." 

Vanya ALSO wants this, but he still hates it when the others treat him like he's made of glass and might break if handled insufficiently gently. The fact that this is true only makes it worse. 

"It's fine," he mutters, thickly. 

"Mother and I were a bit isolated so I only have English, Mandarin and Lojban."

Larisa puts her arm around him. 

"I don't have the faintest idea what Lojban is, sorry, and we've both got Mandarin. Eh. So - last year there was a really big blowup between two of the India enclaves. I'm not going to say which because we've sort of all agreed it's best for it to be water under the bridge, you know... So I'll call them A and B. It started over something really stupid, but it - got really out of control. B poached a room from A - just shoved one of their juniors into the void. Trouble is, the dead kid had a twin brother, and he did not take it well in the slightest."

She hesitates, eyes resting on Ribo's face for a moment, before forging on. "And...he and Vanya were, um. Together. His main affinity was for - we called it emotional attunement, part of it was he could make paired artifacts to link two people, so they'd share emotions and a little bit of senses. He gave Vanya one, so he'd know if he were ever in a tight corner and needed rescuing -" 

And now she has to stop and swallow, hard, because she doesn't like reliving the story either. 

"Take all the time you need."

Larisa mostly just wants to get this over with. 

"Once he lost his brother, he - I guess he'd just been pushed too far? He...went maleficer. I think it wasn't the first time, but it was just a little, before, when he was a lot younger, and he'd reformed and quit it. But this time, he...he went after all the kids from the other enclave. All of them. The freshmen first. Just - one after another, broke into their rooms and drained the life out of them before they could fight back. Even took down one of the seniors and kept going. Then he - ran into a fight he couldn't win, I guess, but he messed up the girl pretty bad. After murdering the entire rest of her enclave. I don't think any of us thought she'd have a hope of graduating..." 

Larisa squeezes her eyes shut. "And Vanya experienced all of it. He went to try to, to stop him - but he wasn't in time, and then - the last fight nearly killed him, we think - we think he was draining mana from Vanya without even realizing it. We thought we were going to lose him. But - we traded off guarding him for almost a week - I took the nights, warded the hell out of his room and held off the mals - and eventually he woke up lucid. And he - he's gotten a lot better since then. I, I thought we could probably get him through to graduation, just - it's really hard..." 

"Do you, have flashbacks, that is, do you find yourself reliving that time and the associated feelings over and over again? If so it sounds like what's happening shares some similarity with PTSD and there are forms of therapy with very good results. The other thing that might help... if you still have both artifacts that made the link, is using them with someone you trust in small amounts and in a controlled environment."

Vanya unfreezes enough to give her a surprised look. 

"There's - a word for that?" he says, shakily and without making eye contact. 

Larisa squeezes him. 

"Yeah. That happens a lot. We don't have the artifacts," it is possible that this is because she instantly threw Vanya's into the void as soon as they put together what must have happened, "but - do you know how that kind of therapy works? Seems worth trying anything that might help, at this point." 

"PTSD is common among people who experience traumatic events. I expect it's something experienced by a significant fraction of Scholomance graduates. As for the therapy, I don't have formal training but the essence of it involves talking through the traumatizing events in a safe environment and working through the emotions so the memories feel safer and aren't at the forefront of your mind as often. For most people, it also involves working through any feelings of guilt they have. It's often the case that people blame themselves for what happened regardless of whether they had a chance to prevent them."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah– 

Having to talk about what happened, which implies having to THINK about what happened, sounds like the WORST THING IMAGINABLE and Vanya is now lowkey panicking about this. 

Larisa strokes his hair. "Hey. Shhh. It's okay. I'm right here." 

She looks back over at Ribo. Lowers her voice to scarcely above a whisper. "...Huh. Really? I - we mostly haven't talked about it at all, because - well, this happens." 

"Unfortunately, there isn't much therapy can do without talking about what happened. There are also drugs that can help somewhat, and as I said at the start I can cast a diagnostic spell that would let me recommend a specific drug."

"Hmm." Larisa is keeping an eye on the time, and aware that she is probably already doomed to be late to class, but at this point she's really not inclined to turn down any offers of help. "Um, I can spot you the mana for casting that spell right now, if you're willing?" 

Vanya is busy squeezing his eyes shut and pretending that he's not here. 

"Of course." She offers a gem studded bracelet, "So you can feel how much I have before I cast." then she whispers something in an unfamiliar language and then her eyes go distant as if she's looking at something that's not there for about twenty seconds. She also sags just a little. "Based on my analysis I think fluoxetine would work best for you. Any SSRI could work but probably not quite as well. You might also benefit from a mood stabilizer like  Lamotrigine. I'd recommend trying the SSRI first before combining them though." After she finishes talking she offers the bracelet again for a recharge.

"- Oh, good to know. I guess, uh, we'll try asking the school nurse if she has those? And - I need to go soon, but if you were up for keeping Vanya company for a bit...?" 

"Alright, I don't think it'll take me long to get to Mal Studies and I don't think the bell rang yet did it?"

"Not yours, no. I'd better go." 

And Larisa leans in to kiss her brother's forehead, and then dashes off, battle-axe in hand. 

Vanya continues to stare at his untouched tray of food. 

"Do you feel able to eat?"

Well, clearly not, otherwise he would be eating. 

Vanya just gives her an irritated look and then goes back to staring at nothing. 

She guesses that was a stupid question. She considers a couple other questions but ultimately decides he probably isn't interested in small talk. She decides to try filling the space to see if that's helpful. "I'm looking forward to classes," she says, "I'm interested to see what Calculus for engineers means. I've done some calculus before but..." she chatters on in this vein for a little while; trying to pay attention to his response.

Vanya is.....eventually....drawn out of his silence by her chatter. 

"- You're a freshman? And you're doing calculus already? I - everyone thought it was surprising that I was doing it as a sophomore -?"  

"I'm very good at math. I'm hoping it'll be helpful in some of my projects."

"What's your affinity? Mine is....music–" 

- and then he freezes again, for a few seconds, because AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH–

"My affinity is for wire," she waves her wrist in what has now become a pattern, showing off the wire coiled there.

She notices his freak out but decides that enquiring won't help right now.

Vanyel mostly did not even hear what she was saying just then, and definitely failed to process it. 

"....So it turns out that math is really important to music theory," he says, with the expectation that this should be very boring to anyone not deeply interested in both topics. 

"Oh, are you getting into the study of acoustics and harmonics or is there another relationship?"

"I– yeah, that, I think? Mostly?" 

(Vanya is, to be honest, still barely able to track the words that this random mysterious person is saying to him. Even though they're pretty interesting words! Well, if they were less interesting then he would probably have fled the room by now....) 

- welp he's probably going to sound STUPID, though, if he keeps saying things without thinking....

"- I guess mostly harmonics, right now. Acoustics is really interesting but my big sister said I shouldn't take really hard engineering classes until I'm, uh. Doing better. In general." 

"I can understand that, have you learned much about non-European musical traditions? I've heard they tend to have different time signatures. I'm not sure if that would make a difference for magic."

Vanya's eyes focus slightly more on her than before! 

"- That sounds really interesting! I - it might - I'd have to hear one of their song-spells and try it, I'm not sure..." 

"Well that sounds like it could be interesting to try. I haven't met enough people to know who else uses spell songs. And I haven't tried it myself. How are spell songs different from spoken spells?"

Aaaaaah why does she keep saying things that are INTERESTING. 

"....Ummm, I - so, I guess - mostly it's that song spells have a couple other axes where you can - hmm - where you can include information? There are the words, but also the pitches, and the - mood, or timbre? - sorry I'm not sure how to describe it.... And if you can play an instrument, or have an ally do that, then it adds even more. And - uh, so I've composed a bunch of song-spells with harmonies, and that's - what's the word for 'more than the sum of its parts' - it can make it really really powerful...?"

"Ooh, so it's like a circle casting but faster and more dynamic?"

"- Huh. Yeah, I guess so." 

"That's cool. I can see how encoding mood in your spells is useful. It helps support the personality of the magic. You can do some of that with... oh right, I shouldn't talk about features of languages other people don't know. Well, you can do some of that with tone of voice in spoken spells I think. Are effects like your silence more natural to do with spell songs than spoken ones since they effect sound?"

"...I think maybe, yeah? Although I just invented that spell 'cause I wanted to be able to sing in the library and not bother other people." 

She giggles. "That's as good a reason as any in my mind. Being able to have fun without bothering other people is an important part of life."

"Mmm." Vanya is starting to look like he's mostly not actually present in the conversation or in the room anymore. 

Alright so she needs to keep on the topic of spell songs. "Are there any other spell songs you cast a lot?"

"There's one that scares mals off! It doesn't work on really big or powerful ones, it has to be...sort of convincing them that they don't want to mess with me? But it works pretty well for the kind that are just really annoying instead of really dangerous." 

"That sounds really useful. That definitely has the feel of something that would work well with spell songs, a bit like a rattlesnake's tail."

"Huh. Yeah, I guess. - Oh and I have one that does explosions but it takes lots of mana." 

"It's probably not safe to ask for a demonstration of that one but it sounds exciting. I wonder whether it would be easier or harder to do healing with Song spells. Maybe you could model them after lullabies to reinforce the theme of safety? I'm not sure if that's actually how things work."

"What I noticed so far is it seems a bit easier to do really broad healing, like, just making people a little stronger and less injured, but it seems worse for anything targeted?" 

"I feel like that makes sense. A song is something that encompasses you and kinda flows through your body, sometimes they make me want to dance. That feels like it would be harder to do precise targeting with."

"Oh. Yeah, that makes sense." 

This is more sentences than he's said to anyone in the last week. Vanya is starting to feel very exhausted and is finding it hard to keep tracking the conversation. He very badly wants to curl up small under a blanket but he CAN'T DO THAT CAN HE. 

And there's a bell. "I should go to my class. Don't want to be late for Mal studies. I hope you have a nice day. It was good talking to you and I learned some interesting things."

"Oh. Nicetomeetyoutoo," Vanya says at his untouched food.