Ribo is currently working on learning Russian. She hasn't gotten a textbook from her language lab so she's instead seeking one out in the library. She manages to find an introductory book and is walking around with one eye on her surroundings and one eye on the book. Is it efficient... probably not but grammar is a little boring. "Hi there," she says when she notices someone else walking around.

"Hello!" says Nia. "It is time for my midmorning break! Is it time for your midmorning break? Did you even know you had a midmorning break? It is not in the handbook."

She giggles, "I don't think that's quite a thing but I wouldn't mind taking one."

"You cannot study all day long even on weekends. It will make your brain escape! Out your ear! What are you studying?"

She closes her book. "It's a good thing I didn't plan to then. I'm Ribo by the way what's your name?"

"I'm called Nia! Nia Miriti. I am from Notting Hill."

"I'm from Canada, near Banff. I don't think I've heard of Notting Hill."

"Part of London, but not what people will think, hearing 'London'."

"That makes sense. London I've heard of."

"It is very famous! It has an eye! Like Sauron."

Ribo bursts out laughing. "Like Sauron!... That's great! I never would have thought of comparing a Ferris Wheel to Sauron's Eye."

"Hopefully whatever is doing grading of my composition likes this sort of thing."

"Hopefully, Mother says nobody is quite sure how the grading works."

"My mother says this too but my father believes it is random! Once he caused a fistfight about this in order that he steal a treacle tart."

"I hope it was a good treacle tart. Mother said that getting other people to do your homework usually yields better grades than doing it yourself. She wasn't sure why that would be though."

"Probably you do not sell the homework if it is bad?"

"Mother said sometimes when she did assignments in trade for other people they got higher grades than she did when she gave them the same answers, so I don't think it's just that."

"Huh! Possibly the school thinks it is impressive when someone has improved?"

"Maybe, hard to know. What have you been reading up on?"

"French! I have made Montréal friends," it's a strong word but there's not a good term in any of her languages for "people who know me from a hole in the ground and kind of approve insofar as they think about me at all on account of we met two days ago", "and they recommended it. I have Spanish, it is similar."

"Nice, Mother got my slot from Montréal but I don't know French, or Spanish for that matter."

"How did your slot happen, in that case?"

"My mother does healing. I can't say more, medical confidentiality you know?"

"We do have that in the UK! It is why my family doctor has not told someone about all the mysterious animal bites, I think."

"Did you get attacked by Mals a lot then?"

"I think not unusually much? Townhouse, mundane neighbors, wards. But our neighborhood plays host to a terrible lot of little things that can bite and not kill, so we have injuries often and deaths rarely."

"Ah, well lots of injuries and little death is better than more death with fewer injuries."

"Agree! Something bigger got into the house the very instant of induction but it was aimed at me, and may have been confused. Most probably my parents have killed it."

"Hopefully, I'm glad you made it here safely."

"Me too! Not even a mysterious animal bite!"

"That's good."

"Do you live close to Montréal?"

Ribo giggles, "You'd think so wouldn't you but I'm on basically the other end of Canada."

"I learned geography in school but I learned it in Spanish. What is on the other end of Canada in English?"

"Well Canada has ten provinces. Quebec is the one Montréal is in and it's one of the ones on the east coast. I live in Alberta which is not quite on the west coast but it's one province east of the west coast."

"How provincial!"

Ribo giggles again and smiles, "What about you? What makes your part of London special?"

"Has a movie titled it! But I have not seen the movie. Otherwise I don't think it is the most exceptional."

"Neat, what kind of movie?"

"Romantic comedy, I think."

"I hear those can be cute, I haven't really watched a lot of movies to be honest."

"Nor me. We saved them for special occasions and mostly my little siblings picked. Disney Disney Disney!"

"Those are supposed to be well made. They do Pixar too right? Mother and I watched WALL-E together once. She was rather offended by some of the science but agreed it was well made."

"They do! I liked Toy Stories. We were not allowed Monsters Incorporated, did not want to encourage dangerous ideas."

"I don't think I've watched any of those. Would seeing a made up monster make it easier for Mals to get you? I didn't think new ones generated spontaneously like that."

"The monsters are friendly, I understand from the trailers. Not like mals."

"Why didn't your parents want you to watch it then?"

"Did not want a baby sister saying 'kitty!' and trying to make friends if she sees a chimaera."

"Oh, that makes sense. I wonder if there's other movies like that which teach bad lessons for magical children."

"Probably! So many movies about not judging by appearance even if appearance is 'slug'."

"Is that a common theme? It seems a little odd for it to be given how much people talk about discrimination being a problem... maybe that just means people don't take the movies to heart."

"Maybe movies are too much with the metaphors and most people would get along if slug aliens did appear."

She chuckles. "Hopefully, I don't think that's likely though."

"Slug aliens? Yes, very."

"Yeah, aliens will probably be at least that weird but there's so many possibilities that every individual one is pretty unlikely."

"Do you think they will be wizards? Some of them?"

"I don't really know, we don't really know why some people are magic. Mother has tried to find a genetic marker for magic but she hasn't found it yet. She isn't sure if it exists. I don't know how likely it is for life to be magical considering how many types of Mals there are though it seems pretty likely they'll at least have their own types of those."

"Alien mals! How terrible, we must hope they do not visit soon."

"Yeah, hopefully though maybe theirs are nicer. Books say our Mals used to be."

"We shall leave bowls of alien milk."

"Something like that yeah."

"I do not volunteer to milk the aliens."

"Did people leave out human milk? I always thought it was cow milk?"

"I do not want to do any milking alien cows either!"

"Yeah, who knows if they even have any, maybe for their Mals you're supposed to leave out cookies instead. With no way to know it probably makes more sense to just eat the cookies though."

"Mmmm, alien cookies."

"Yeah, they're probably a unique experience..."

"They will not taste of ginger biscuits from Tesco? Say it is not so!"

"I don't think I've had those, are they good?"

"Yes! I brought zero, though."

"Maybe there will be some in the vending machines at some point."

"If you see them tell me and I will try to trade for them. I might share even."

"Will do, I'll usually trade for snacks I haven't tried before."

"Daring!"

"I'll try anything that doesn't seem like a horrible idea at least once."

"What is the best thing you tried?"

"Probably the graham cracker smoothie, I made it thick enough to eat with a spoon and added graham crackers after putting it in a bowl. It had this incredible mix of smooth and crunchy and also sweet and sour."

"Intriguing! I would taste that."

"If I ever find the ingredients I'll try to find you. I can also write down a recipe."

"I will trade you Mum's recipe for Yorkshire puddings."

"Sure, sounds fair." Ribo pulls out a piece of scrap paper and starts writing.

Nia has scrap paper too thanks to Sir Spell the Marvelous! Also Yorkshire puddings have like four ingredients.

Ribo's recipe is a little bit more complicated but not that much more. She hold out her paper. "Here you go."

"And here! We are the most best traders."

"Absolutely, it's important to trade for fun things not just boring essentials."

"Also good for doing efficient trauma bonding so we do not die of lonely."

"Yeah, everyone in here probably needs more friends."

"We could be friends!"

"I'd like that, you're fun."

"Thank you! If I am not fun no one else will be fun for me."

"That makes sense. What classes are you taking? I wonder if we have any together... Other than Mal Studies."

Block EF (T) Intro to Lab
Block EF (Th) Intro to Shop
Block AB (M) Myths, Legends, Zoology: The Effects of Maleficaria on Mundane Natural Science
Block GH (Th) Western European History through 1500
Block I History of Artificing (Section 2)
Block C Language Lab
Block D Introduction to Geometry
Block GH (T) Mathematics in Nature
Block J Intro Incantations
Block K Freshman Composition
Block L Romanticism and Realism in 19th-Century Hispanophone Writing

Ribo shows hers.

Block EF (T) Intro to Lab

Block AB (M) Intro to Shop

Block GH (T) Mechanical Design Fundamentals

Block GH (Th) Western European History through 1500

Block C Asia in the Modern World

Block EF (Th) Language Lab

Block K Formal Logic for Spellcraft

Block L Applied Electromechanics

Block D Calculus for Engineers

Block I Russian Literature Before Pushkin

Block J Poetry & Prosody

"It looks like we have lab and European History together."

"I will see you there!"

"Sounds good, it was wonderful meeting you." She sighs and looks at her book. "I should probably get back to learning Russian though."

"Yes, you must also be a good friend to your Russian. Another time!" And Nia traipses off.

And here is another person, reading the titles on one of the shelves, who smiles and waves slightly when he sees her traipsing in his general direction.

"Hello new person! I'm called Nia."

"Val. Alchemy, you?"

"I think languages, but there is time to decide, freshman schedules are not so different depending."

"Yeah. Why languages?"

"Safest, and also do not yet know my affinity."

"Is it still, once you figure in the risk of the void being wrong about which languages you speak?"

"Still safest? Yes, because language lab is up highest."

"I guess that's true. I don't know. I'd be more nervous about that than about being attacked but maybe I shouldn't be."

"More nervous about what?"

"Getting spells I couldn't understand."

"You can only fix that by learning the languages more! You cannot convince the void 'oh, you have made a mistake, confused me for my identical twin, actually Quechua and me are strangers entirely'."

"I guess. - Wish I did have an identical twin who spoke Quechua, now that I think about it."

"So specific! What would your Quechua twin do for you?"

"Find out if Quechua has enough cool spells to be worth learning. Also swap outfits with me so we could effectively have twice as many clothes each."

"I don't know about Quechua either way. I cannot even remember who speaks it or if it's modern or dead! I am doing French next."

"French is cool!"

"Yes! It was recommended to me. Similar to Spanish, which I have. What do you have?"

"Oh, hey, you have Spanish! Sorry, just, I've been wanting to swap Mal Studies textbooks with someone who got theirs in English?"

"I got mine in Swahili. What's yours?"

"Well. Spanish. I haven't got Swahili, though, and I'm specifically after English." Which is fine, he can probably swap with Leander or something, the important thing is how he isn't listing his languages.

"Sorry to disappoint! I think many people have English and know Spanish, though. Popular languages. Good you are not looking for Quechua."

"Yeah. Probably anyone who has Quechua as a first language has Spanish too, and then they could maybe swap for Spanish and swap that for English?"

"Maybe! If I meet anyone wishing their English book was Spanish I will say, 'I met Val in the library, trade!'. What will I tell them about how to find you?"

"That I'm the one with the terribly long hair, I suppose." He has an obviously professionally done haircut which is, at its longest, an appreciable fraction of an inch. "My full name is Valiant Reed?"

"Shall they stand on tables at dinner, shouting, 'Hola! Valiant Reed!', or go somewhere else and speak quietly?"

"I haven't yet got anywhere that I hang out most of the time, which now that I think about it I should do something about if I'm going to be all cagey about my room number. How about you, how are you arranging to be found?"

"Was not planning to be cagey! Is this wrong? Should I start?"

"Telling people has some downsides but I guess not telling people has some too. And I guess someone could follow you home anyway?"

"Yes, or ask people."

"Yeah. Well, I'm in 290B, how about you?"

"315A!"

"That's a nice number."

"Is it very? Haha, now I know your combination lock code probably."

"Well, if you try it, I guess you'll find out," he says with the vague drawl of someone who is either hinting about something cool or making a veiled threat.

"If I ever find your bicycle, I will turn it backwards and lock it back up again! Hahaha!"

"You dastardly villain."

"Oh yes. Worst of worst. Planning to steal the Pacific Ocean."

"No! Not the Pacific! You can have the Bering Strait, though, no one is using it."

"But I want the Pacific one because the Atlantic should be biggest! It must win!

"Secretly, the Pacific Ocean is part of the Atlantic Ocean already."

"You don't say! Well, what would I do with the Bering Strait anyhow. I don't want to ber anything."

"Right, that's why you want the strait to do it for you."

"Maybe I would think of something to ber if I had a strait to do the work."

"That's the spirit!"

"So where did you come from? I grew up in Notting Hill."

He names his little town and does not elaborate further than that. "What's Notting Hill like?"

"Neighborhood of London, but if I say 'London, I am from London, Londoner girl Nia that's me', probably I have a suspicious accident next week and all the London enclave is accounted for in their reading room and all saw each other they promise."

"Oh, okay, I've seen London on TV. It's very historic."

"Yes! It is older than I am. Old enough to run for Parliament. Maybe more than thirty years old."

"I think it's even old enough to retire!"

"It has such a work ethic!"

"It should take its gold watch and then go find work somewhere else!"

"Who will hire it? It has so much experience, but it is so expensive."

"Maybe it can sell its autobiography. Then it'll be a lot of people paying a little."

"I like it. I would sign up for the class Reading London's Autobiography in one heartbeat."

"Yeah. What would it displace, though? History of Magical Education? Maleficaria since the 1700s?"

"Geometry! Who needs it."

"Geometry gets you math credit, not history credit."

"Are you sure? They used triangles long ago. Probably even circles."

"Maybe there's a History of Circles class that could be displaced but I didn't hear about that in homeroom."

"In Chaucer's time there was a point and a radius that loved each other very much..."

"Circles are older than Chaucer."

"Maybe I am talking about a specific circle! History of artifice is not about how it is possible that you make tools."

"I don't have that one, how is it?"

"Not interesting so far but I've hopes for later."