Lissa likes poetry, but as she comes in and sits down, looking around, and looks back down, she realizes that apparently this is poetry in a language she doesn't actually have. Her eye twitches before she glances over at Raleigh.

"Um...hi," she says. "I'm Lissa. From Chicago."

"Oh. Hi. I'm Raleigh, Sacramento." Raleigh is pretty sure she means not the enclave, he had both of the surviving enclaver freshman pointed out to him, but it's rude to ask out loud. "Uh, any chance you speak German?" 

Oh, is this guy Shannon's potential boyfriend? He is pretty cute, honestly. Not that she's going to try to go for him or anything, that's probably against the girl code.

"I'm afraid not," she admits. "But maybe that means it's not that necessary, if both of us don't?" She looks around at the rest of the room. "Dunno about everyone else though."

"I think Tristan and Justin from Sacramento both have it, so at worst I can ask them. But we're, um, pretty swamped right now." Please don't ask please don't ask pleasedon'task–

She just nods. "I'm taking the language lab, so maybe that'll help for me." She knows that she probably shouldn't ask if she can get in on that assistance by now. That's probably way too much to ask for, and she doesn't have enough to trade yet.

"Yeah, I've got language lab too, but - ugh, I guess maybe it'll be German up next. I'd been hoping I might have a while to polish up my Latin more - I can read spells in it, but apparently not follow a conversation." 

The Germans are over here looking somewhat concerned. Or, well, in this case trying to look mature and politely concerned but internally he's jumping up and down going study group! study group!! gonna heroically save the day!!! about rescuing a bunch of Anglophones from a class they're perhaps not quite ready for. What could possibly be a more worthy sort of person to save from certain death by animated homework, he asks, than one who gets into trouble over an excess of enthusiasm for love songs? Certainly he will be a proper Minnesänger by Field Day, mark his words, but even a little appreciation for the art should certainly be nurtured and encouraged! 

"How rude of the school," he says, very sympathetically. "None of you even a little, really? - Hermes Grey, Berlin." 

Oh my god, he's going to try to form a study group. Hermes. Sweetheart. Making a good impression is great and everything but waxing poetic about the essential joyous hopefulness of von Veldeke or whatever is not going to be helpful to people who don't even know what order the words go in. ... Nope, can't say that out loud, Enclave Solidarity. Oh well. It's probably fine. 

"My German knowledge is pretty much capped at bad German accents in Nazi movies," Raleigh admits. "Could be worse. My friend Shannon got Russian and that's much less closely related to English." 

"Oh, how unfortunate. I pushed that class off my schedule for this one, I think." Because just like everything else, a damned course catalog would be too expensive, of course.  

The kid in front of them turns his chair around.

“—none of you guys, either?” he asks, somehow at once apprehensive and relieved.

"I think I know a few loanwords?" suggests Lissa. "I don't think I could make a sentence, though."

He tries to look sympathetic. "I swapped into this one specifically, my parents raised me with German." So I can help you with your homework, if you have something to offer, he doesn't say.

"- Oh, nice! What other languages do you have?" 

"English, German, Spanish, Vietnamese, Latin. You?"

"English, French, Spanish, and - theoretically Latin, I can read and cast spells in it, but I'm not conversationally fluent." Apparently, to his ongoing embarrassment. If he had known that the seniors would have SECRET CONVERSATIONS in it, he might have worked harder on it. 

"Oh, I have French too!" adds Lissa. "Plus Chinese and English, of course. Otherwise I wouldn't be talking to you guys." She seems pretty impressed at hearing that Raleigh has Latin, though.