"He– wow. That's...holy crap. That's really unusual, right?" Marian is trying to remember if she knows literally any facts about Malawi, including how far it is from Johannesburg, which is...the capital of South Africa, she's pretty sure, so presumably south? 

"I haven't met anyone else who did it."

Nod. "I - god, it's probably a good idea to...ask him a bit about it, so we can, uh, get a better sense of what kinds of things are going to be especially scary for him? But I'm...kind of nervous to find out! Also I think he's scared of me, maybe because I'm an adult?" She shakes her head. "He - must be pretty smart and resourceful, though, if he survived that. Is he, like, making friends and stuff?" 

"He seems to fit very well into the freshmen's group dynamic, although he's scared of Jiang Cheng."

"Uh, sorry, which one is Jiang Cheng again? And do you think there's any way you could ask him to be less scary with Masozi specifically? Adjusting to being here has to be hard enough for him without being scared of his enclavemates too."

"The one with the angry eyebrows." She demonstrates.

Marian snickers. "- Sorry. Yeah, I know who you mean." She frowns. "Does Masozi seem to be eating enough now? I don't think he was malnourished enough arriving here for suddenly getting more food to cause health problems, but I remembered that's a thing that can happen and I don't actually...know how to check for it, here - I think in the mundane world you would maybe do blood tests? I really wish I could test him for common micronutrient deficiencies too but making sure he has multivitamins will have to do for now, I guess." 

"Nie Huaisang reports he's been eating regularly."

"Oh, good! Anyway, back to your brother. Do you think he'd talk to me? Or is he too scared of adults? - Oh, right, also he only speaks Mandarin. So I'll have to have you translate anyway if I want to do a learning disabilities assessment." 

"I think he'd talk to you but he'd give you the answer you seem to want."

"...Well, that would make it harder to assess, but I think for most cognitive tests he wouldn't be able to guess the right answer. Uh, what in particular does he have trouble with for other languages - is it mostly just saying the words right, or learning letters and reading, or remembering and understanding words when other people use them? ...It'd be useful to know if you remember whether he learned to talk later than most kids, or if he had a lot more trouble than usual learning to read and write in Mandarin." Actually it would be pretty surprising if he learned Mandarin writing fine but couldn't manage to learn the English alphabet, which in Marian's understanding is much easier. "Does he also have trouble with math?" 

"It's hard to know. In language classes he just freezes up whenever anyone asks him anything. He can make flashcards, he makes really good flashcards."

"Hmm. So that could be mostly just a social anxiety thing, and maybe for him that affects writing less than talking out loud? ....Is there any way to cast spells by writing them down? Or, I don't know, in sign language. Maybe he would find sign language less scary because it'd feel more like writing than like talking, but it's a complete language..." 

"You can cast in the sign language but not many people have so there aren't many spells developed for it."

Marian sighs. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense, though - if it's something where he would freeze less in scary situations, that might still be worth it even though it'd be a lot of extra stuff to learn." Shrug. "I'm just tossing out ideas right now, anyway. Probably the best way to have him work on this would be something exposure therapy-y, like, starting with an exercise that's really easy and doable even for him now, until he's used to that and doesn't find it scary, and then building up from there?" 

"Like... have him try to hit Wei Wuxian while Wei Wuxian stands very still?"

"Yeah, like that! Or, uh, maybe starting even smaller than that - I'm not exactly sure what would be a smaller step than that, maybe hitting a punching target with a picture of Wei Wuxian's face on it, I don't know, or practicing spells on fake models of mals instead of real ones?" 

"Tap him on the shoulder."

"Yeah, like that! And there might be things in that same vein for languages, or talking in front of people in class?" 

"You think the languages is a problem with the anxiety and not the learning the languages?"

"It seems pretty plausible to me that that's at least making it worse! Like, maybe he's in fact slow at learning languages, but I think even in the mundane world it's really common for kids with learning disabilities to end up with a lot of trauma around school, because their teachers are impatient or don't know how to explain the material in a way they can follow or punish them for wrong answers. But with enough patience and breaking things down into tiny steps, I think usually even kids with serious learning disabilities can often get pretty far?" 

"Oh, that's good! And there is no one here disappointed in him or who's going to yell."

"Yeah, I think that'll help a lot! Though it might still be stressful to practice with you, if he wants you to think well of him, which I think people really often do with their older siblings? ...I wonder if he could practice with Masozi. He's trying to learn Mandarin now, right? If they get along well, then maybe he would be less intimidating for Wen Ning to practice with, and Wen Ning could make him flashcards and stuff if he's good at that?" Marian herself has made some very brief forays into trying to learn a bit of Mandarin in her free time, since it seems kind of important here, but it turns out that it's INCREDIBLY HARD especially the writing. 

"That seems like a good idea, I'll ask him. Masozi is getting restless anyway, since he can't really go to class because people might assassinate him."

“He— shit, what? That’s awful! Is he upset about it?”