"Maybe I just don't like its face."

Was that an I don't want to talk about it, or just more banter? Augh, he sucks at this. "Odd reason to dislike an abstract magical concept." 

"You say that but you haven't seen its face."

Well, that wasn't vaguely threatening. Not at all. 

...she seems sincere about it, though. Weird. Okay, Alexius. A riddle. What kind of affinity earns the hatred of its owner? Not mild annoyance, but actually willing-to-learn-two-crazy-hard-languages in the Scholomance to mess with it? "Maleficing" jumps to mind, he supposes, if you are sane and want to stay that way. It is also not the sort of thing one wants to talk about with strangers. 

Oddly enough, "sane and want to stay that way" is a point in Library Girl's favor, at least given a pile of assumptions. Why the vibes, though? Maybe she's doing just enough maleficing to not die? 

"My, uh, condolences, I suppose. For that and the Hindi debacle. I'm just starting the language, myself." Hindi seems a safer topic than affinity-bashing. Affinicism? Affinitivism? 

"Well, make sure you're very clear with the language lab that you are content with modern standard and do not also need..." She flips to a page of her book. "Asamiya, Bengali, Bhili, Bihari, Dogri..."

"I will take that under advisement, thank you!" He should probably ask Hira when they study together. If she isn't shunning him for his potion fuckup, ugh. The thought makes his stomach clench. 

"Anytime."

"Do you have any interest in spell trades? I'm Alexius, by the way." 

"El. What've you got?"

"Personal spells, mostly. Stimulants, gut microbiome tweaks, wake-up ward, ice spike projectile, cold resistance, minor boosts to reflexes or speed. Others depend on what languages you have, those are in English." 

"Welsh, Marathi, Modern bloody Standard Hindi."

Huh. Welsh is a focus area he hasn't seen before, but maybe it makes sense for someone growing up in...Britain, by the accent? "Sadly no overlap there. I do have a handful of English self-healing spells too, but they're for minor injuries or illnesses. Anything you like in there?"

"Say on about the stimulants?"

"One is a simple cheap cup-of-coffee-equivalent. The other is more complex and fiddly but you can get anywhere from 'slightly perky' to 'cocaine' by varying the mana trickle." 

"How good's the speed?"

"It's on the lower end of the generic move-faster spells. Modest chunk of mana for a freshman, gives about a ten percent boost." Enough to not be the last out of a room, maybe. 

"Does it cast fast?"

"Couple lines." Not ideal, not crippling.

"Sounds good to have. I've got - I can't cast all my mum's spells, mind, but I can write them down, she's mostly a healer but more of a spiritual wellness focus than you normally get with those. Wake-up ward that might be the same as yours, a shield, I flipped ahead in maleficaria to get that blunt force spell for squashing things so I don't have to use the stupid cooking spell but you'll have that soon anyway though I suppose conceivably you could want the stupid cooking spell..."

Hmmm. "More healing's always nice, I mostly have low-grade personal stuff right now." And let's face it, he is going to get bitten, burned, bled, stabbed, poisoned, and all variety of harmed before this nightmare school is over. The sooner he can turn his survivable injuries into a mana tax, the better. 

"Best one is cast on a bandage, you get better results if you also sing it to the fiber in progress but it helps at all on a made bandage. There's also the silly no-mana one for 'putting yourself right', but that won't help if you've been bitten - I suppose it might help if you were in shock from it -"

"Bandage one is not quite up my alley though I suppose my affinity'd help if I planned to wear it...elaborate on the 'putting yourself right'? It sounds intriguing."

"Well, the big selling point is it costs no mana - you can boost it but it works fine without. Fixes you right up if you woke up on the wrong side of the bed or have, like, subclinical anxiety or something."

He shouldn't, he should pick the bandage one it's more practical, he doesn't have anxiety, but his affinity is pulling at him. He hasn't felt it register an opinion this strong since he tried cheating with malia that one time. "...anything else you'd like for that one, if we swap healing for speed?" 

"I'd take the ice spike."