This girl is frowning at the Hindi section, drawing pictures of the spines of the books adjacent to the one she has tucked under her arm.

Well, that sure is a creepy vibe she's giving off, isn't it. It's not quite like maleficer vibes - he's seen, like, six of those in the freshman class alone, what a mess - but it's close enough. 

Hanging out with an obvious maleficer in the stacks as a freshman: not wise. 

On the other hand, maleficers who kill people don't have evil vibes. They look sweet and friendly and kind like Granny Lola. So this girl's probably of the hamster-a-week persuasion, and he can't exactly fault her for wanting to survive the Scholomance. And if she does decide to graduate to freshmen-eating, Alexius is better-prepared to resist than most other possible targets. Might even get to take her stuff if he survives the inevitable stab-fest. And he does need an edge that isn't potion-selling, now. 

He glances at the notebook. "That's a good idea." 

"That'd be why I'm doing it."

He snags an introductory Hindi text, fixing its location in his memory. If he's going to aim to learn Hindi next, might as well start soon. 

"Looking for spells, or to learn the language?" It'd be nice to know someone else fluent in Hindi, or working on it, if she doesn't plan on killing him. 

"Well, I was hoping to start on some French and Spanish this year, but apparently our lovely institution of secondary education wants me to be advised that there are some 48 dialects of Hindi in current circulation, on top of the language being some seventeen centuries old, and it was silly of me to think it was going to settle for modern standard, so now I'm going to spend all year on those and, if I'm lucky, Urdu. And how is your week going?"

Well if it's going to be a contest..."Came in with a plan to sell memory potions to get an edge. Turns out they're broken in a way that wasn't caught by two years of personal use or ten other testers." Also he started at the Scholomance, but he can't exactly claim exclusive suckage on that one. "Wish I could blame the school for that one, but I think it's just my affinity screwing with my brewing." 

"Didn't scratch off the right circles in the affinity lotto?"

"Eh, it's more like one of those tickets that gives you like five matching numbers but you don't know if it's worth ten bucks or ten thousand till you check." Who knew the contents of Florida gas station convenience counters would be so useful in the Scholomance.

"And you stuck without a radio, huh." She finishes her drawing and looks for another likely Hindi book.

He checks the next row for mals, then for more intro Hindi material. "Till I can piece one together, so to speak." They're really beating this metaphor into the ground, huh. 

"Good luck with that. If you find a beating-your-affinity-into-submission spell I will trade you for it even if I have to learn both Vietnamese and Finnish."

"There's a thought. Even if I did, it would probably go horribly wrong...my affinity is myself, see." 

"Reflexive pronouns, that's a new one."

"I confess I'm attached to it, in all its weirdness. What did yours do to deserve a beating?"

"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."

It's not a great deal and he doesn't care. "Deal." He starts writing out both. 

She writes hers, complete with the advice about starting with the Simple Gifts song as an anchor till you have the hang of the spell and the part about the bandage one being best done in a Welsh accent.

He hands his over. The ice spike has minimal notes other than "needs a water source" but it seems like the kind that could scale up with enough water and mana input. The speed one has some details about estimated effect size and pronunciation tips that let you speak it faster without tripping over the words. 

He glances at the set-right-spell and - 

- he hasn't even finished consciously reading it and it clicks.

Nothing has ever gone this fast for him before, not even the two-word Latin buff. WHAT IS THIS SPELL. 

He pockets the bandage-spell without looking at it. "Wow." 

"Wow?" she asks, looking up from the speed one.

"This - I don't - " he is great at word today, yes he is. "This is a heck of a spell. At least my affinity thinks so. I've never gotten one instantly before." 

"...congratulations. If you turn into a superhero I'll send my mum a letter about it."

The Snark is strong with this one. On the other hand, with how much his affinity loved this spell, it's not out of the question. "If I turn into a superhero, I'll send an autograph to go along with it. 'Alexius the Great.'" 

Now how does a maybe-maleficer end up with a spell like that? Have a spiritual healer for a mom, he supposes. Does that have something to do with the aura? If so, is it less than it would be otherwise, or more? 

"Got your name all picked out already, you're well on your way to rescuing kittens from trees if you can find any of either."

"All I need's a costume. I could go digging through my heritage, whip up some gold and shiny armor like Doctor Fate or Hercules. Pity I suck at artificing." 

"Save time by wearing your pants on the outside and your blanket as a cape."

He snerkers at this. "The Shining Scrounger, that's me." 

He pockets the set-right-spell - not that he's ever liable to forget it, now - and checks to make sure no mals have snuck into his backpack during the conversation. "I should head out and -" test The Spell "- get to work on this Hindi. Good meeting you, El." 

"Good luck establishing boundaries on what kinda Hindi."

"Thanks!" Alexius waves goodbye and beelines for his room. To the extent one can beeline in the Scholomance. He plops onto his bed, bouncing a little, and starts with the Simple Gifts song, just to be sure he's doing it right. 

The Spell...works exactly as described. 

He hadn't known, not really, how much the stress of the Scholomance was already affecting him, weighing on him, bending his thoughts with growing misery, burden piled upon burden and fear upon fear, until it suddenly wasn't. 

It is almost worth it to have come here, just to have learned this spell. 

Caught between tears and laughter, Alexius eventually succumbs to both.