Yup, there she is, coming in from Korean history and, judging from how she immediately heads his way, already looking for anyone from Sacramento.

Raleigh makes a beeline for her. 

"Hey! Howwereyourclasses -" because he's not going to be RUDE by not saying the expected pleasantries but also he sure is distracted and in a hurry, "- also you got a minute? I - um - I... Cassie gave me the rundown on, on Vanya..." 

"Classes were good and I am specifically looking for Vanya logistics; how private do you want this conversation and should we grab food first?" She made sure to get here as fast as possible so she could get both food and information before either one became unavailable.

"Let's get food first." Raleigh received very firm instructions from both his parents that this is ALWAYS the priority and only the most critical negotiations should ever eclipse it especially early in the term. 

He walks close-ish to Marcy and is visibly shaken and disturbed, but doesn't say anything else while they're surrounded by other freshmen. 

It's a pretty shaking and disturbing situation! She puts just enough attention into her food to make sure it's edible and sufficient in quantity.

Raleigh is fully aware that he's not really up for the careful scanning called for here, so he mostly loads up a plate with brussel sprouts. 

"...All right. Want to, uh, go - find a spot in the hallway or something - I don't want to go too far if you're expecting Larisa to look for you...?" 

"I am, yeah, if she didn't delegate it to you. Hallway's good."

They can go hold up a piece of wall and she can eat one-handed with the tray on her other arm.

Raleigh ignores his sprouts for the moment, since his stomach is in knots and he's not even slightly hungry. 

"I, uh - I don't want this spread around, it's more political than I expected? ...I did see Malik in class and I explained I couldn't really tell her everything, but if you didn't mind telling your other friend later, I...feel like the two of them maybe don't like me or something?" 

". . . I don't think they'll mind you not telling them? I mean, they'll eavesdrop just because everyone wants to know anything that might be useful, but they won't be annoyed at you about it. Also, we're not, like, friends friends, we just had homeroom together and got some of the same classes and they seem smart." Telling Raleigh they were eavesdropping feels mean, but not saying anything would have been dishonest and unfair to Raleigh.

"....Oh. I see." The remembered voice of Mother is now yelling in Raleigh's head about Misjudging A Social Situation, but damn it, he can handle that later. 

He takes a deep breath. 

"So, uh, right - what happened is, uh, there were two small enclaves that - ended up having this really dumb feud - and Vanya was dating a boy from one of them, a junior, who had a twin brother..." 

He goes through the whole awful story, hesitant and occasionally with a tremor in his voice. Vanya's boyfriend's twin (Cassie wouldn't give him any names), pushed into the void to poach his room. Vanya's boyfriend's odd affinity for emotions, and the mental-link artifact he made for Vanya. 

Vanya, apparently, DIRECTLY EXPERIENCING his boyfriend losing his shit, going maleficer, and murdering half a dozen students before he, too, was slowly and painfully murdered in turn. Vanya nearly dying in the process, because apparently the boy who loved him was no longer even capable of noticing where or what or who he was draining malia from. 

He's almost in tears by the time he finishes. 

Okay so first of all, holy shit.

Secondly, that explains why they're acting like they expect him to recover. She's never heard of anyone having this exact reaction to partially getting their life force drained, but it feels intuitively a lot more like a broken limb (horrible and dangerous but healable and not inherent to your quality as an ally) than like a personality fundamentally unsuited to survival. For all she knows she'd be in the same state as him if someone drained half her life force.

Thirdly, Raleigh looks like he's going to lose it, so she had better say something. "Thank you for telling me. I hope he recovers further." That was at least something, though it would have been better if she had said something useful.

Raleigh swallows hard. 

"I - apparently - he, it, it - did something to his affinity? Or his mana capacity, or something, no one's sure yet. ...Just, apparently even in the first week, when he was still totally out of it, he - would sing something and blast a mal into powder. In his sleep! And he's....somehow generating like a third of all of Sacramento's shared mana, right now. No one's sure how, even, he - apparently doesn't say anything when people ask him...." 

Wow okay that solidly moves the needle on "is Sacramento insane or amazing" all the way to the latter end. No wonder Boston is apparently willing to make long-term loans of favors. Score one for trusting your upperclassmen. Also, yikes, because what if the reason he's so unresponsive is that he's breathing manually or something and generating mana from the effort of continuing to exist. 

"That's--better than not that? The whole thing still sucks, though."

"Yeah." 

A pause. 

A longer pause.... 

....okay apparently he is going to EXPLODE unless he says something to someone. 

"It's so awful! I - just - I mean, I shouldn't be scared that it'll happen again to our year, it was so weird, but - still.... And, I - aaah - I feel so bad for Vanya? He - we thought he had a 50/50 chance here at best. Because he's brilliant but he hates hurting anyone or anything. And...just...." 

Raleigh trails off because what is he even supposed to say. 

"It really sucks! And it's, like, a reminder of the fact that reality is finding new ways to suck for teenage wizards all the time. So it makes sense to be freaked out even if that particular thing is never going to happen again." That's not reassuring at all though. "But also--you have resources. You have the rest of Sacramento. You can fight back against the suck."

Raleigh is only slightly processing any of the words in there, but he can definitely tell that Marcy is trying to be comforting right now. And he doesn't want to be rude and he should be making friends with Boston - right - so, he should, what, pretend to feel comforted...? 

"- Thank you," he says softly, and sort of leans against her. 

She takes a few seconds to pull up the script for this--it's not one of the commonly needed ones--and then awkwardly pats Raleigh's shoulder.

Oh no - he was trying so hard not to be rude or to put anyone in an awkward situation but Raleigh can tell that Marcy is feeling awkward about this, aaah–

Deep breaths. 

"Anyway. Uh, the thing I decided on to tell, er, Malik - we had a class this morning - was just that I couldn't say much because of politics, but that the big parts weren't likely to happen again? And then, um, I did - I felt bad not saying anything helpful - I told her that mind-linking artifacts were probably a bad idea..."

Raleigh is trying to hide his feelings and failing abysmally; his expression declares very clearly that he's nervous about Marcy deciding he is Bad At Social Judgement.

"That sounds true and like good advice." Which is too bad because mind-linking artifacts would have sounded pretty cool in a different context. "Maybe don't tell her anything else, though; I don't know her well enough to say she won't gossip."

"....Fair enough." 

"I mean, you've got your own judgement, you can tell her stuff if you think it's good to tell her stuff, I'm just saying that if you thought I was vouching for her that was a miscommunication. Um. Anyway. I'm going to help; I signed up to help Vanya with his homework during work period." She needs to go find Larisa and talk logistics for that but she doesn't know how to politely end a conversation with someone she's awkwardly semi-hugging.

"- Oh. Right. Um, let's - go find Larisa, then....?" 

Awkardawkwardawkward he's so bad at this–

"Yes, let's. And thanks again for explaining."

Onward to wherever Larisa is! With no more hugging, because that would look weird and also she can only really manage two of walking, hugging, and balancing her tray at the same time.

It would look really weird! Raleigh is pretty content to back off from all the hugging. 

Larisa is sitting at the table they claimed for Sacramento, shoveling food into her mouth and waiting for Cassie to, presumably, haul Vanya over here from his latest class. Thought he really should have been here by now so maybe he ended up having a sobbing breakdown in lang lab again and has been dragged to his room instead? 

"Hi, Larisa. Can we talk logistics for work period at some point?"

"...Yeah, guess we'd better. Uh, it'll depend how his morning went, and since he's not here yet and freshmen are arriving, I'm guessing the answer might be 'badly.' I do know he at least went to his calculus class, so he should have the homework and it may or may not be partly done already - when he's having a good day he does it in his History of Musical Spellcraft class, since that one's hardly a challenge for him. Normally he does work period in the library, we've got a nook there and he's generally using it for spellwriting rather than working on lab or shop assignments - you'd also be welcome to introduce him to your friends or study group if you wanted, I think socializing is good even though he'll literally never seek it out, and he likes being helpful to other people and might have advice on your year's classes. If he's having a bad day he may not want to leave his room, but I guess we'll see." 

"Okay, thanks. Where should I drop him off after work period? And if he won't leave his room will somebody come and find us, or should I have someone else in there with me to send to find you?"

"Cassie's the one who synced her schedule with his - she needs her work period for shop assignments, but she'll come track you down ten minutes before the next block of class starts and make sure he gets there." 

"Sounds good. I think that's everything?"

"S'all I can think of right now, anyway." Larisa rubs her eyes. "Sorry. Hectic day. I really appreciate your being willing to help out with this." 

Raleigh looks over at Marcy. "Wanna sit together at lunch, or are you trying to meet more new people?"

"No problem," she says to Larisa, then "I was planning on sitting with Bella because she has a line on eidetic memory potions and was going to introduce me to the brewer; want to come along for that?"

"- Ooh, yeah! I met Bella on a supply run earlier, with Shannon. She's nice. ...I should find Shannon too, I think I actually saw her sitting with Bella at breakfast so maybe they're friends now." 

He hunts around the cafeteria for any sign of a Shannon. 

There's a Shannon! She's just followed a group into the cafeteria and is in line. 

Raleigh waves to get her attention. "Hey! Shannon! Wanna come sit with us and Bella?" 

Shannon waves back to acknowledge that she's seen them. The girl with him is...Boston enclave, she thinks? Cool. Making friends with more enclave students seems good. Her parents would make approving noises about it. (Assuming she manages to make a good impression instead of sounding very stupid...) 

Marcy waves back at Shannon and looks around for Bella.

There she is. She waves, but she's already finished eating and is putting things in her bag. "Hey folks," she says, "I actually have to go do damage control relating to potion side effects, sorry it's not as promising as I implied, Marcy."

"Oh, yikes, I hope it's nothing too awful. Good luck!"

"Thanks! I'm hoping to at least get a good spell out of it!" And she zips up her bag and goes out with some presumably potion-related people.

"Welp, looks like I can't get you a line on good potions after all."

"Eeep! I hope the side effects weren't too awful." 

Shannon catches up to them with her tray. "Where did Bella go?" 

"Seems somebody sold her a crappy potion and she's off countering it and/or getting a refund and/or telling everyone else not to try them. She looked more annoyed than ill," she adds, because it's true and because it's wrong to imply someone is vulnerable.

"Oh no! Was it the memory potion guy from this morning? He...I can't believe it was on purpose, it must've been an accident, he seemed really sincere." 

"I've never met the guy but it seems pretty likely--first time in a new lab, maybe some reagents he bought or scavenged last night . . . if someone's going to mess up that's probably when."

"Yeah." Shiver. "I guess I need to be really careful when I make my potions to trade. - Ooh, are you interested in mouthwash that keeps your teeth in perfect condition, by the way? Raleigh has some and I'm going to make more to trade as soon as I have a chance to do an alchemy supply room run." 

"I have toothpaste; is the idea that you can just spit it into the void and have one less reason to go to the bathrooms?"

"You also only need to use it once a week, and it's faster. Also I didn't want to use the same toothbrush for four years and I didn't have weight allotment to bring spares." 

"That's really cool! What's the shelf life?"

"It's good for at least six months? I've never had any left over after longer than that." 

"Sounds pretty good; what're you charging? Also has anyone else tried it already? It's not that I have any evidence you aren't awesome but I have just had a reminder of how much I don't want to be a guinea pig."

"I used it last night! And my teeth totally haven't fallen out." 

Optimal path here is probably to buy some now, keep brushing her teeth in the bathroom for the next week or two, then if nobody's had their teeth fall out when bathroom runs start getting dicier they can split it four ways and not have to worry about the shelf life.

"Alright then! Want an hour of mana for it?" It'll pay for itself well before it runs out, that way, and probably turn a profit for Shannon too depending on how much time and mana it takes for how big a batch. "Or we can see if any of the alchemy supplies we brought in are things you're looking for."

"Oh! It'd be really great if I could check out your alchemy supplies, yeah." 

"Alright. I've got peonies, snail shells, malachite powder, silver nitrate . . . I don't remember the whole list, I can bring you to Abigail's room after classes today and we can go through it."

"Hmm! I could maybe substitute silver nitrate for the antiseptic component. The recipe I use at hope is alcohol, salt, mint leaves - that's mostly to make it less gross, I've done it with orange peel too - peroxide, and a bit of crushed seashells for enamel strength but I think I could use anything else sort of similar, so probably snail shells are okay?" 

"Take some of whichever you think'll be hardest to get the thing it's substiting for, then? Or a bit of both."

"Snail shells seem harder - lots of things have antiseptic properties but aren't too toxic to put in your mouth. ...The mouthwash isn't poisonous to drink or anything, by the way. Though I would recommend it anyway, just 'cause it's gross." 

"Not gonna drink the mouthwash, roger."

Raleigh is sitting and poking at his food and not really engaging with the conversation. 

"- Raleigh? Are you all right?" Shannon glances at Marcy, in case she knows something that Shannon missed here. 

Probably if it's okay for Raleigh to tell her it's okay for her to tell Shannon? Better give Raleigh a chance to tell her to shut up first. "Raleigh--heard a really depressing story earlier. It's kind of not mine to tell though."

"....Shannon, you probably should know," Raleigh says quietly. "You got along with him yesterday?" 

Blink blink. "Sorry, what? With who?" 

"Oh, sorry, right. With Vanya." 

"- Yeah. He's a really good singer! He sang me some incredibly beautiful songs - except, uh, I think I listened too closely to the words and now the school's decided I should learn Russian." 

"...Right. Um, we should help figure out how to get you tutoring for that, probably?" Hopeful glance at Marcy, in case she knows someone who's a better option than either Vanya or Larisa, neither of whom he feels great asking for even more favors from. "Anyway. Vanya - is having a bad time right now - and so I got someone at my enclave to, um, to - tell me the full story about what happened to him." 

He stares down at his hands. "- Marcy can you tell her, I - just -" 

Marcy repeats the story, softly, with only those details of which her memory is very confident. 

"Oh. Oh my god. I - I'm sorry - that's awful. Is - do you think he's going to get better?" 

"Yes." Because it's unacceptable for that not to be true. "I - but - oh, you might not've even heard about this. Did anyone mention the freshman from Toronto who walked into the void on purpose last night?" 

"Who did what?"

"Yeah, apparently she'd been--at risk--for a while. And she said she was going to walk into the void and gave away all her stuff and disappeared so everyone figures she did it. And now--it's like that thing where you need to not think about purple elephants or whatever. For Vanya."

"...Yeah, that's about what it sounded like. He - Cassie made it sound like he's really trying to, to get better - or at least just get through the year - but it sounded like what happened really messed him up a lot. Anyway, we're - keeping an extra close eye on him for the next bit. Marcy's going to help out some. If you were up for doing your homework in his room with him tonight, or something, I think Larisa would really appreciate that too." 

"Mmm." Shannon glances hopefully at Marcy. "I - don't know if I'm any good at saying helpful things instead of dumb things that would upset him more?" 

"Honestly my plan is just to keep my mouth shut except for maybe talking about math." She knows what she's good at and it's a long list but "being kind to fragile people" is not on it. Even if they're fragile because of horrible life force injuries rather than because they suck.

"- Ooh, does he like math too? Maybe we can talk about that. I'd be happy to listen to him talk about music but I don't know enough to hold up a conversation myself and he....sort of runs out of words sometimes?" 

"- Okay, that part isn't new. He was kind of quiet and - a bit shy, I guess, even when we were growing up in the enclave." Raleigh rubs his eyes. "The really weird part is apparently he suddenly got a lot of affinity for combat and really powerful spells, after the thing happened?" 

"- Huh, what? That's so weird! Has that ever happened before?" 

Shrug. "Not that I've ever heard of." 

"Me neither. I've heard of people starting out crazy powerful on some axis but not ending up like that after an accident. Or on purpose."

Raleigh really does not feel like spending any longer on this topic! He's not sure how to SAY that, though. 

Shannon, whatever her social flaws, is perceptive enough to notice when someone is uncomfortable, and in this case she finally has enough context to guess why. So. Change the subject to something more fun? 

"How were your morning classes?" she asks Marcy brightly. "I had Welsh Mythology, which was–" okay fine it was not, actually, very interesting, "...which was all right? I met - one of the mundane kids from Chicago, I think? She seemed pretty together, though, so I guess she's landing on her feet. And I met someone from Jaipur, and this indie girl from Wales except she really wasn't very talkative." 

"I'm glad at least one of the Chicagoans is doing okay; I haven't had much chance to meet any of them. I had Korean History, which has good spells and is interesting even in the non-spell bits. And then this afternoon I've got Maleficaria 1700-Present and my first ever German class."

"- Oh wow! Good luck with that?" 

"I think someone in Sacramento has German," Raleigh says, because being helpful is a much easier mode of social interaction than others. "I can ask around, if you wanted tutoring help with it?" 

"I guess I might but I'm pretty sure I can keep up okay; it's close enough to English. It's poetry so I might end up speaking it like a crazy person who speaks in poetry for a while but I'll figure it out. The real hard one will be starting Akkadian next week; I need to ask my room for the Akkadian equivalent of Doctor Seuss over the weekend."

"Oh wow, Akkadian! What's that related to, I'm blanking on it." 

"Hebrew and Sumerian and stuff. Which I also don't know; I got it as a schedule revision. If I like it I might move into Hebrew or Aramaic next year; I hear Aramaic is good."

"Ooh! I almost learned Hebrew earlier - it'd be, like, learning about my history and stuff? My dad's parents were Israeli. I'm technically not Jewish because it goes through the mother, and - well, it's not like my dad was ever observant or anything. Anyway they convinced me I should focus on alchemy and potions instead, for my affinity, and I wasn't sure if there'd be a lot of Hebrew medicine and healing spells and stuff. My dad thought Arabic would be a better bet, if I think I'm up for picking up more languages." 

"That makes sense. Inconvenient that your dad didn't manage to teach you as a baby, but given that, better to take whatever has the best spells first."

"....Yeah. I - think if either of my parents had actually been to the Scholomance, maybe they'd've prioritized it more? But I think my dad has, uh. Some awkward feelings about that side of the family." 

She kind of wants to say "Congratulations to your parents on surviving outside" but actually it seems like time for a subject change. "It's really cool that you have a healing affinity. Is it anything specific within that, or fully general?"

"I think I'm maybe better with potions than spells? But that might just be practice, like, we didn't really have a way to get books with spells, and my dad's good with alchemy stuff - he says knowing lots of mundane chemistry helps - so I got more support for playing around with that. Also my mom thinks I'm better with fiddly delicate stuff than, like, high-power healing in general? But it might just be that I don't have my full adult mana capacity yet, she wasn't sure." 

Isn't Shannon so COOL and SMART and GREAT. Raleigh is beaming at her. 

"Nice! Does mundane biology help with the healing too?" 

"I think so, anyway! I guess especially with - making it targeted? I read an entire dentistry textbook - I mean, it wasn't mostly for the mouthwash, my parents just wanted to make a call on whether it was safe for me to adjust my own braces in here - but since braces make it hard to clean your teeth, and I already knew all about what causes plaque and dental caries and stuff, it was a pretty easy leap from there..." 

"That's really cool!"

Marcy's parents had bullied her (mundane) orthodontist into taking her braces off a year early; he had complained that she was probably going to need them again in five years, but of course neither they nor Marcy cared.

"Yeah, right, isn't it? Also biology is just really fascinating! I have a potion that enhances healing - it's not very powerful, I mean, but it's really mana-efficient, even as a freshman I can make it pretty easily. And I got that to work by trying to target the immune system in particular, once I'd learned some stuff about it." 

"Oh that's cool! So it would help with a cold but not a bruise?"

"It helps with injuries too! But, like, not immediately. It makes wound infection a lot less likely, and that's actually a pretty big deal for, like, burns and stuff? And it helps your cuts heal faster and with less scar tissue. But it's really just not powerful enough to save someone who's bleeding out right now." 

....Oh no she said 'like' at least twice just then? And she's pretty sure she was doing uptalk. Probably? Was she doing it– oh no now she's doing uptalk in her HEAD why is she like this. 

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense! I bet you'll be able to do some really awesome stuff in a couple years when you can dump a big pile of mana into things."

"Yeah, I hope so!" 

And, all right, that totally counts as having done her fair share of carrying the conversation, so now Shannon is going to look over expectantly at Raleigh. 

"....I had, uh, history of magical conflicts? It was - fine. I guess." He's mostly distracted remembering the awkwardness with Malik. 

"Neat. Is it going in chronological order, or what?"

"....Maybe, but I got the impression it was also going in the order of - I don't know, theory first and then specifics? It was mostly just talking about the whole abstract concept of conflict between people or countries. Which, I mean, it was sort of interesting? But I couldn't figure out how it obviously applied to anything I've heard on the news, and it definitely didn't have any spells." 

"Learning how to avoid fights is useful but you can't really do diplomacy with a mal. I got a spell for transmuting food in my last class, which is kind of a waste of mana given that we already have transmuted food, but maybe parts of it will show up again somewhere else."

"Mmm." 

"- Oooh, I'd actually be really curious to see that spell? Uh, if you're - willing to trade it for something else I know or can give you, I guess. A lot of healing spell drafts I was working on depend on being able to convert ingredients into a particular substance that a person's body especially needs when they're sick or injured...?" 

"Ooh, yeah, I don't know if it will do things that aren't generally conceptualised as food but it's worth a try; what spells've you got that you'd be willing to teach?"

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

”- Uh - I have a spell that makes someone pee even if their bladder is paralyzed? …I didn’t mean to invent that spell, it just - happened. And I have a spell that can make scars less visible? I - also have a bunch more drafts, just, I don’t have enough mana  to cast them yet…”

"You can also just trade me for something you learned as a kid. It's okay if I can't cast it yet; I don't know if either of us can cast the food spell yet either."

"Ooh, yeah - I'd have to get my notes from my room to see all of them, but I learned this French spell that, uh - drives off a lot of kinds of mals? My dad says the way it works is by making a really loud sound only the sound is a higher pitch than what humans can hear? He says it's like a dog whistle. It works a bit when I cast it - uh it definitely makes actual dogs flip out and run away - but if you cast it at full power it's apparently pretty incapacitating to mals that can hear it." 

"That sounds awesome and I will totally trade you the transmutation spell for it. I'm spending work period with Vanya in the library, if you want to stop by with your notes. And I can teach you the--wait, I forgot to ask, do you speak Korean?"

"I - um -" Wait crap of COURSE a spell Marcy got in Korean History is in Korean, she is such an IDIOT. "I - sorry - I don't." Her face is hot again. 

Marcy feels kind of dumb too for forgetting that not everyone knows Korean. Some of her squadmates don't even know Korean. "Rats, there goes my end of the trade. I can teach you an English spell for sealing and unsealing a box? It costs mana on both ends and a senior or a really determined mal could force it but it's in-affinity for my yearmate Franklin and he uses it a lot."

"- Oooh! That'd be really good actually, I want to keep my rarer alchemy ingredients sealed up..." 

And they can spend the rest of the lunch period talking about and exchanging spells. 

Just before the bell, a girl comes over from the Sacramento table. "Hey. Marcy?" 

"Oh, hi, yes," this must be Cassie here to show her where Vanya is. "Shannon, Raleigh, it's been rad and I'll see you later." She shoves her last slice of bread in her mouth like a deranged chipmunk, grabs her bag, and rolls out.

[Continues in https://glowfic.com/posts/5172]