Marcy asked the void for combat spells and got a Mandarin scroll of something that promises to be able to throw a mal across her room and into a wall, but it's got some of the more obscure characters and it's never a good idea to guess, with incantations. If she can get them looked up today she'll have the spell by tonight or tomorrow. Something moves in the corner of her eye as she goes down the shelf, but it's just another student, so she doesn't take her focus off the spines until they both put out their hands for the same dictionary.

Oh.

"Hello."

"Hi."

There is one Mandarin-English dictionary on this shelf and Connie doesn't know which of them reached for it first.  She takes a quick glance around and at the other side of the aisle; no luck.

She should... probably say something. 

I'm glad you didn't escalate and lose your slot

How long did you have to go strict mana for

Just because I stopped interacting with you completely and didn't say goodbye doesn't mean I didn't think you were cool before that

So if hypothetically you were the freshman killer you definitely wouldn't kill me, right

"What are you planning to translate? I just need like eight characters for a spell scroll."

"Bunch of stuff for my history classes."  

She should offer that Marcy can have it first, that's both more practical and more polite, but Marcy isn't some random other enclaver she should be trying to do favors for, and then they'd have to find a table or talk about how Connie can get it from her after, and it's not like Marcy's going to offer that she can come to the Boston reading room which is good because if she did Connie might scream.

Standing here not doing anything or arguing about it are both worse, though, so after rather too long to be inconspicuous Connie takes her hand off the shelf.

Convenient how Connie has acknowledged that Marcy has the shorter task and should therefore get to go first without Marcy having to make the case for it.

"Are you planning to still be in the library in an hour? I should definitely be done with it by then."

They need to figure out a spot to exchange it where nobody will see them being awkward at each other or in any way associate them with each other or the concept of awkwardness. The Boston reading room and the main reading room are therefore both out. But also it shouldn't be somewhere too surreptitious because that would imply to Connie that Marcy was doing something she thought was sketchy and there's nothing sketchy about working out dictionary usage with a fellow student. So, somewhere public where nobody will see them. 

Heck.

"Yeah, probably."

Turning up at the Boston reading room briefly to hand it over would actually be much worse than sorting out how to pick it up, no matter how tempting it is to kick the problem down the road and ask for it first after all.  But no actual way is she going to hang around the door waiting, either, except she can't predict which spots will be free, so that leaves her finding a public place and looking like she's waiting around for Marcy to do her a favor, or Marcy hunting around the stacks and maybe never finding her.

Well, she can always come back tomorrow and look again, it's not like she doesn't have other homework to do.

"I'll probably check the English-language Chinese history section again and then find someplace to tackle my comp homework."

Crap, she was really hoping Connie had a brilliant idea for a pickup spot. "If you do it in the main reading area I can find you and drop it off." She'll just have to act casual and assume everyone has their own shit to pay attention to. It's a dictionary, not drugs.

(Marcy is not totally clear on what drugs are other than that they're substances that make you stupid and reckless and that you should be careful not to let any get into your body.)

She is not going to sit around in the main reading area looking up anytime someone comes by in case it's Marcy, she will fight her homework first, 方阵 or no 方阵.

"Don't know if there'll be open spots in the main area, but I can aim for someplace visible from the end of the aisle?" 

"That works."  It does in fact work; she doesn't want to look surreptitious in front of anyone but the main person she was at risk of looking surreptitious in front of was in fact Connie, and of course Connie has more to lose from looking awkward than Marcy does so it makes sense. 

Now is when she should say something friendly yet plausibly deniable. "See you in a bit, then; I'll try not to take forever about it." Hm, that second half could have been phrased better but not a disaster.

"Sure, see you.  ...if literally every spot in the English-language Chinese section is taken I'll be in early modern Spanish lit."  

That was probably too much?  Marcy's got her own stuff to do, asking her to wander around two different sections is kind of a lot.  But she's said it now and if she takes it back she'll look desperate.  

Marcy's appreciates the detail, because she's absolutely not going to fail to hand over this dictionary. That would be a dick move and give entirely the wrong impression. One does not fail to follow through on agreements with perfectly unremarkable people one has just met.

"Sounds good." Hm, one more pleasantry or turn around and walk off? How about a cheerful "Later!" Okay, now turn and walk off. Mission accomplished.

Okay.  That went... fine?  Basically?

Connie does wind up locating an empty chair by the English-language Chinese books (no second dictionary in evidence) in almost the perfect spot- where the second aisle from the left takes a bend, so she can easily see the end of the aisle but only about five feet worth of the main reading area can see her.  It's not even suspiciously convenient- a squashy broken-down armchair with no attached desk, oddly wide and short, listing to one side a bit where a back leg broke off and someone propped it up with a brick and the end of the shelf instead of bothering with mend-and-make.  Obvious enough why someone might venture deeper to look for a better option but just fine for her purposes, so (after a bad moment when she feels something hard in the seat and stabs it before figuring out it's a broken spring and not a mal) she settles in, tucking her feet up on the seat beside her and propping her Mathematical Models textbook on her knees for a writing surface. 

About forty-five minutes later, Marcy approaches and holds out the dictionary. "Here you go." It sounds just the faintest bit rehearsed.

It would be weird to pretend she didn't notice Marcy at the end of the aisle so Connie tucks her comp homework in her textbook and stands up as she approaches. 

"Cool, thanks."  Connie's no stranger to rehearsed sentences and is a thousand percent not going to judge.  She accepts the dictionary and... should probably say something else.  "Find what you needed?"

"I did, thanks! Good luck with your history homework."

"Thanks, you too." 

Aaaaaand this is the problem with stock phrases, they come out when they're not quite appropriate too.  Heck.  At least Marcy presumably also has history homework, it's not like she said 'you too' to someone wishing her a happy birthday. 

"Is it true Kevin's doing all your guys' maintenance shifts?"  She was aiming at 'polite small talk' but has the sinking feeling she has achieved 'cover up the awkward with worse awkward'.

Marcy was expecting this from someone sooner or later. Enclavers farm out their maintenance shifts to minions, therefore it's minion work. She doesn't know whether Connie's thinking that, of course, but the optimal response if it's a veiled insult and the optimal response if it isn't are the same. "Yeah, he likes pipes and ducts and keeping everything just so, and I like doing homework."

Connie nods.  "Makes sense."  She wasn't even ever planning on maintenance track, it shouldn't sting.  "Nobody's calling him out by name or anything, I just heard American enclave boy with, y'know, ears, and I figured.  Can't be that many."

Time to stop talking now.  She shuffles the two books over to one arm and snags her backpack to load them into.

Kevin is in fact the most likely out of everyone she's met to be described as having 'you know, ears'. "Makes sense." She should say some variation on goodbye, now. 'See you later' would be too much like an assertion; she isn't sure if Connie wants to see her later. She's not sure if she wants to see Connie later. She can't say 'good luck' because she already did once. 

"I should get going. Have a good day!"

"Yeah, you too."  Connie slings her backpack over one shoulder and- starts to head deeper into the stacks, even though she doesn't really need any more books, because she does not want to say goodbye and then walk in the same direction.  Maybe she'll get lucky and find a desk or something.