Connie spots him from another line and heads over (she's obtained a few mini muffins, a carton of orange juice, and a single sausage link).  "Heya.  Cool if I join you?"  She's looking a fair bit twitchier than last Friday, or even Monday's comp section.

He swallows a bite of waffle. "Absolutely! Congratulations on making it through the first week." Any other school, that would be hyperbole, but not here. "There were times I felt I wouldn't." 

"You too."  Connie checks behind her, picks a seat where she's facing the higher-traffic direction, and plops down.  "You hear so much about it but it's different, actually being here."

"That it is. On top of all the everything, I was not expecting this much maleficer activity this early in the term, it's unnerving." 

"Yeah, that's for sure."  She hunches over her tray a bit.  "There was an upperclassman in my shop section, just kinda... going around looking at everyone like he was hungry.  Didn't do anything that I saw, and Holden would probably have said something if someone else went missing, but... y'know."

"Eyeesh. I'm glad Holden made the announcement, at least. Better than being in the dark with nothing but rumor to go on." Disentangling rumor from fact has never been his strong point. No one seems to bother to tell him any rumors in the first place, for some reason. Is he insufficiently gossipy? Is that a skill one needs at the Scholomance? How does it even work? 

He takes a bite of his empotioned waffle and grimaces, sweating and slightly red-faced. 

"Yeah, he's doing a real service for everybody without older siblings... something wrong with your waffle?"  Heck, she doesn't have any antitoxin yet- and shouldn't give it away even if she did- but Alexius would be good for it probably, if she had any, which she doesn't...

"Hmm? Oh, yes, I spiced it for mana building." He rummages in his backpack side pocket and produces a small bottle filled with red liquid that looks suspiciously like Tabasco sauce. "The good news is, it works." 

"Oh, huh.  That's clever.  ...worked better than you wanted it to?"

He coughs. "Little bit, yeah. But that's sort of the point. Now that I've tried it and it doesn't outright kill me, might as well make the most of it. Delicious," cough, "mana."

And after a few months of gustatory agony, he'll magically reset his own tolerance so it'll be miserable again at low doses. Won't that be fun. 

Plan B is coming along nicely, and he didn't even have to fight a maleficer! 

"Long as it doesn't stop you getting enough calories. I still need to figure out a better way to build mana while I'm doing something else, I can do macrame but it takes a lot of yarn, and you've gotta look at it most of the time anyway."  Connie opens her orange juice and fidgets with the flaps instead of drinking it.  

"Oh, hey- not speaking of mana, but speaking of supplies, I guess- are you still looking for someone to buy shop homework off?  There was a girl in my section with a sign saying something about dueling knives, she'd maybe be interested."

Luckily, stubborn determination is something Alexius is good at. (And he's never much cared how food tastes). He sweats onward through the spicy waffle. 

"Oh that's neat, what section do you have? Or, better, do you think you could point her out if she shows to breakfast?" His head pivots, scanning the cafeteria as though expecting to see a girl under a KNIVES FOR SALE sign, before he realizes this is silly and stops. 

"Tuesday before lunch- she was wearing this cool blue scarf with stars on it, so I'm figuring she's either really confident or she wants people to be able to recognize her, or both I guess..."  She twists around as well, scanning the nearby tables.  "Didn't catch her name, she looked, uh, maybe Indian?  Like India Indian, I mean."

"Thanks, I'll keep my eyes peeled." Who even invented that expression, it always makes him imagine a particularly picky mal. Oh cool a human lemme just peel it before I eat. Those eyelids are too stringy for me. 

"Cool.  Uh, let me know if you run into anyone selling soap flakes?  Or regular soap actually. I got laundry detergent for my first lab assignment and it wants soap for an ingredient, and of course all of it was gone by Wednesday."

"I think one of the Shanghai freshmen was running a store and might sell soap? Holden hollered about it on Wednesday. And I'm sure someone is hoarding it and would trade, if we ask around." 

"Oh, that's a thought- I bet it's expensive, though, but I'll check him out if I can't find anybody who got soap for homework to swap with."  She munches thoughtfully on a mini muffin.  "You don't, like, need to go to extra trouble or anything, though."

"No harm in looking. I'll probably need some myself at some point, it's common enough in alchemy. And, uh, hygiene." Odds are good he'll want some cleaning options that don't cost mana. "I got hand sanitizer for my first assignment so soap isn't out of the question." 

"Yeaaaaah, that too.  I think soap is a pretty common one, at least?  I got a pretty cheap laundry spell that should also work as deodorant, but once I get real mana storage I won't want to be using it all the time."  Also a spell for detecting and treating breech births in goats, thank you very much Scholomance.

"Yeah, eventually we'll pass the point where we spend less time building mana for a cleaning spell than it takes to wash by hand, but not yet." 

"Yeah..."  She finishes her muffin and glances behind her again.  "Even now, though, I've been- trying to run as full as I can.  Just in case."

Alexius nods. "You got defensive options? Bella from New Orleans traded me a counterspell last week, it's finicky but better than nothing." 

"Fire spell and the force net..."  She fidgets with her orange juice some more, then leans in and lowers her voice.

"I, um.  I think I maybe ran into the freshman killer earlier."

Yikes. Extreme yikes. "...what happened?" 

"Guy with worse vibes than Garbage Dump Kid, took a cookie straight out of my hand like he knew there wasn't anything I could do about it."

In the Scholomance, stealing food is no mere inconvenience. "That's blatant. Who's Garbage Dump Kid?" 

"That one guy in Maleficaria from 1700, I don't know his name- I mean, obviously- skinny, black, vibes but also looked and smelled like he'd gotten everything he had on him out of the literal garbage?  One of the Shanghai freshmen is teaching him Mandarin- which, like, I wouldn't, but nobody's going to be stupid enough to go after Shanghai." 

And she really needs to figure out whether the Shanghai freshman in question is dating her before avoiding him gets any more obvious.  (For mainly this reason, Connie doesn't tend to sit places where she can see the Shanghai table.)

"Oh, the Shanghai thing - I think I saw him a few times at meals, Shanghai table can be, uh, dramatic - that might be the reformed maleficer Holden talked about on Monday? Masozi from Malawi." Alexius sounds eerily like Holden himself when he pronounces this. "He was supposedly cleared though..." A thought occurs to Alexius. "Did you see a gun on the thief, by chance?" It would normally be stupid to carry that around, but it is also stupid to steal cookies from random people while oozing maleficer vibes, so who knows. 

"No, but I wasn't looking all that closely- didn't look like he was gonna leave me alone so I just.  Shoved him and ran."  She'd gotten through the post-hoc adrenaline crash that evening, locked in her room as it sank in just how close she'd probably come to dying, she is not going to start shaking again now.  She takes a gulp of weirdly-chemical orange juice. 

Honestly this is a weird account altogether. A maleficer looking for prey shouldn't leave their victim alive and shouldn't be stopped by mere shoving, and a maleficer not actively hunting shouldn't blow their cover to steal cookies, what the heck. 

Mom told him that weird stories are a sign of people lying, but darned if he knows what motive Connie would have to lie about this. Garnering sympathy maybe?

"Did you tell anyone else?" If she told enough people to get word to New York or Shanghai, they have the resources to figure out if she's lying and that makes it much less likely that she is. You know, at least assuming Connie is not insane, because someone involved in this fustercluck definitely is. 

She gives a one-shouldered shrug, turning the sausage over on he plate.  "Haven't been shouting from the rooftops, but- one of the seniors from Mathematical Models, my bathroom pack, a few kids from Intro Incantations- I've been looking for Holden but haven't run into him yet, gonna let him know when I pick up Naomi's calc homework.  And there were some other kids in the hall, but nobody I knew and they weren't gonna get involved for a stranger."  She does a decent job of keeping her tone matter-of-fact; it's not like anyone would expect them to.

And here he is, all about to get involved. This is a point in favor of Connie being truthful, but... "It'd be good to tell one of the enclaves involved in the manhunt, too. Holden would probably get word to them but you could also go straight to New York?" He's seen enough contrived drama in movies to know that the thing to do when you have this kind of information is to immediately tell whoever needs to know it. So many horrible subplots that could be resolved with one full sentence of decent communication...

"You think they'd listen?  'S not like I have any proof, right, aside from the vibes he could just be a dick upperclassman and I'd have to find him again to point him out..."

"If he's acted like that once he's probably done it before, and if they get enough reports of an asshole with vibes then a pattern emerges, yeah?" He's starting to sound a little aggravated but maybe it's the spice. "If you don't want to tell 'em, I can. Every bit of info helps." 

"You're probably right, I just-"  Don't want to be associated with maleficing to any more enclavers than she has to, which is stupid, a reputation of 'victim' is less immediately dangerous than 'villain' but will get you just as dead eventually, but 'whistleblower' is probably fine?  And Boston has probably told them by now anyway. 

"I'll find a way to let them know, I guess.  I'd have to be the one telling them what he looks like anyway- uh, Asian kid, yea tall, hair like so, really skinny, if you run across anyone like that with vibes watch out."

"Noted. I'll keep an eye out. Do you want, uh..." he can't say "a bodyguard" because a) he's not that good yet and b) it might be insulting, so, "...help? Like, to pair up between classes? I have the counterspell and I think I could last longer than average against a freshman maleficer, buy you time to run." 

Connie's very much in favor of going between classes in a group, and is about to offer to compare the rest of their schedules and figure out a fair trade for the extra risk, when 'buy you time to run' sinks in and her brain skips a gear.  She can't pay for that. No one can pay for that.  No one offers that.  Why is her life like this.

"I.  I can't-"

Any more words than that are not super happening right now.

"...if you don't want to, you don't have to...?" In hindsight maybe they don't know each other that well? Maybe Connie thinks he might be the maleficer, despite having met a much more likely suspect? 

Connie shakes her head and puts a hand over her mouth- that might have come off as 'no, I don't want to' instead of 'no, that's not the problem' but she can tell if she tries to clarify it'll come out a wordless squeak-

It does strongly indicate "no, I don't want to," but now Alexius is concerned. "...are you okay?" In hindsight maybe that sausage looked a little suspicious, is she nauseous or something? 

Tiny nod.  

Alexius is skeptical, but that was definitely a yes. He should probably drop it. He is, however, officially out of ideas for making conversation. He takes an extra-large bite of waffle. The spice makes his eyes water, sufficiently distracting him from whatever is up with Connie for a minute. 

Connie puts her other hand over her face as well and takes a long slow breath.  Then another.  

That's done it.  She's gone and made it obvious how badly she gets stuck and he hasn't even seen her cast under pressure yet, her best shot at an ally is going to quite reasonably think she's useless and pathetic (...unless that's appealing to baffling suicidally generous boys?  She can't really afford to be offended about that but it's not like she's Pajamas Girl.)

She is not going to cry.  She keeps focusing on her breath and peeks between her fingers, multiplying all the numbers on the orange juice carton together until it gets too big to hold in her head and she can breathe mostly normally again. 

In the Scholomance, it's supposed to be polite to ignore people when they are having a breakdown. Alexius always thought that was monumentally stupid behavior. But he can't offer a hug like he would have for Roberta, since he seems to have upset Connie somehow. So: spicy waffle. Occasional concerned glance. He is so bad at this "pretending not to notice" business. 

I don't not want to but you dying instead is not a plan.

I'm not saying no but that's a bad idea.

I'm not saying no but we need a better plan.

I'm not saying no but we need a better plan.

I'm not saying no but we need a better plan.

That's probably a reasonable sentence, it doesn't leave him much room to back out if he's changed his mind but he still can it's just awkward, and this entire situation is full up on awkward.  One more deep breath and she takes her hands off her face, still looking at the juice carton instead of Alexius. 

"I'm- not saying no, but.  We need a- better plan."

What an awful waffle he has invented. Seriously, this is painful. Alexius soldiers on, buoyed by a mental chant of mana mana mana. 

Oh good, she's talking again. Alexius swallows his awffle with a barely-restrained grimace. "...better than walking between classes together? I mean, you're not wrong, it's still kinda shit, but freshmen only have so many options..."

"No, I-"  Augh the problem with saying words is that you then have to say more words.  She starts picking a muffin apart into crumbs just to have something to do with her hands.

"For- if we find him."  Well, 'if he finds us' is probably what she should have said, but she's not going back to correct it now.

"I'm open to suggestions? I am...moderately confident I can defend myself from a freshman maleficer long enough to, like, turn it into a stabbing contest instead of a magical one. I seriously doubt I can extend that to anyone else, it's pushing it to ask my affinity to cover a counterspell in the first place but if the effect is targeting me alone I can swing it." Also if the maleficer stabs him and attempts to pull malia he's in for a rude surprise, but of course Alexius can't say that. "Ergo, run and get help." 

Oh.  Run and get help.  She's an idiot.

...well, there's still the problem of finding someone who'll run toward the problem instead of away.

"If.  If I can't find someone, though.  Or soon enough."  She abandons the half-deconstructed muffin and drains the last of her juice.  Tries to think about tactics, better to focus on that than how much of a trainwreck she's made of this conversation.

"He's seen my force-net.  Not the fire spell."

"Yeah, there is that. Think the fire spell could kill or at least incapacitate?" Also why did you freak out, are you going to be okay, what the heck...

"Mm.  ...Probably couldn't kill?"  She's never used it on a person, or even the kind of mal that runs mostly on biology, but people are 70% water, right, so it'd probably take a lot of fire to get to the important bits.  "At least not fast."  She goes back to pulling bits off the muffin and assembling some more sentences.

"Force-net takes two and a quarter seconds to cast.  Fire spell takes one and a half.  Both in the same day... could maybe pin him for three seconds.  Maybe five if placing it wasn't tricky."

Okay. He can do this, he can talk tactics, he's been imagining this specific scenario for months. "Counterspell cast time is variable, but not longer than whatever it's countering. It's also doubly the most mana-efficient option I'd have - cheaper if I'm the target, cheaper than what it's countering. I have decent self-buffs for my age but I don't have the mana budget to cast and maintain them preemptively, and only skin-hardening is fast enough to use in a fight against a wizard." There's the ice spike spell but it needs more practice... 

"A few seconds is long enough for a good stabbing, and I have ever practiced knife fighting. It's also long enough to run around a corner, I guess, but all things considered I'd rather not have my back to an angry maleficer." 

"Me neither."  They're actually doing this.  They're planning how to kill an actual person.  If he attacks her first, granted, but she should probably be feeling some kind of way about it.  But no, she's mostly just glad Alexius hasn't given up on her and stressed about failing at language again. 

"He'd go for me first.  So- fireball, counterspell if you need it, I try to pin him?"

He might not go for her first if Alexius is in the way. Not this fucking time. Not again. 

...did he seriously just think that? Crap. It takes him a moment to form words again. 

"...yeah. And unless you're handy with a blade or have mana left, that's when you skedaddle. If I think I have a shot, I'll take it, otherwise I'll be right behind you. How fast is the fire to cast?" 

"Good enough for mals.  Uh.  Some mals."  She pulls her knife out to show off- not the little blade on her multitool or Baby's First Shop Project, she has a single-purpose dagger she clearly brought in with her, handle just fitting her hand.  

"Fire's a second and a half mostly.  ...and it's only three seconds on the pin if I'm all the way full up."

"...so, maybe long enough for an attack, but not long enough to flee. Stabbing is Plan A, then." 

And...realistically, that's about all the planning they can do, here. Schedule swap and logistics time? 

"Yep."  Connie puts her knife away and pulls out her schedule to compare; they've only got the two classes together, but a few more are near each other, so if they both spend work period in the library they could cover about half the week without Alexius going more than half a hallway's worth out of his way.

"And then I can probably go down to shop and lab with the Harbin girls- uh, city, not enclave- and everybody comes up to lunch in a pack from there anyway-"  Words are starting to come more easily now that she's got the practical schedule-wrangling problem in front of her, and can shove away for later the prospect of trying to fight an actual maleficer and the looming question of what Alexius might want in return.

Alexius sketches out his schedule from memory and gives Connie a copy. (If you've got it, flaunt it.) "Okay, looks like we have a decent plan."

He has been neglecting his awffle while they talked, so he takes an absent bite and his face contorts in a grimace of instant regret. The things he does for mana. 

"Yeah.  Here's hoping we don't need it."  

Alexius, seeming to consider the matter closed, proceeds to mildly torture his taste buds. 

Okay.  She has to actually ask, she can't be ambiguously dating two boys.

"So- did you- do you want-"

Goddammit.

Alexius blinks. They figured out the plan, that's pretty much all they need to work out. What else could he possibly...?

Oh. Shit. He just made an offer without demanding a trade. His father had warned him that was, like, Scholomance code for propositioning someone. Alexius immediately feels like an absolute dirtbag. 

Okay, okay. This is easy to fix. Just tell her you'll take a trade in mana per hour or something and clear everything up. 

Alexius inhales a chunk of waffle imbued with the essence of agony and goes into a coughing fit. 

"Oh no, are you okay?"  That came out without thinking and sounding perfectly normal, thank you stock phrases, but of course he can't answer right now- she goes around to his side of the table and thumps him on the back in case it helps.

Alexius has the presence of mind for a reassuring nod as his coughing winds down. His tongue and throat are burning. Ow. Eventually, he wheezes, "Shorry. Din't mean. I wathn't..." Augh. Augh. Cannot word. 

Connie can, extremely, relate. 

She grabs her orange juice, but it's empty- and isn't there something about acids and spice anyway- right, fats and starches.  She pokes the less-destroyed muffin over to his side of the table instead.

"Um."

He's just gonna, uh, not engage with the shredded muffin. A muffin is too complicated a concept for his freaking out brain. He sips some water when he can swallow again. Now he's not choking, his mouth is just on fire. 

"Okay. 'm okay." cough "Sorry. No. Not...Scholomance thing. Not that thing. We can actual. Trade." Bad word is better than no word, right? 

"Oh- okay, yeah.  Right.  Just- friends, then?"  It feels simultaneously too daring and not enough, what do you call someone you just met who's willing to fight a maleficer with you and talk payment after.  She pushes muffin crumbs together into a little pile.

"You still need, uh, mana, right?  Shop help?"

Oh, good. Communication. "Yes. Both." Deep, non-choking breaths. "We could...treat it sort of like an insurance premium? Fee of X hours mana or shop work, and if we actually fight the maleficer," and survive, he does not say, "then owe a big favor, like a weapon?" 

"...huh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense."  Is the yes to both mana and shop help, or to both mana and friendship, is this one of the things you're not supposed to talk about out loud or you'll ruin it- she needs to focus.

"I haven't done a lot of metalwork at home, just wire, but I bet I'm gonna get some once shop starts specializing... actually, I wonder if your affinity would be friends with my glove..."  She taps her fingers on the edge of her tray, staring at the table like the puzzle is laid out there.

The conversation is slowly becoming one he knows how to have! 

"My affinity tends to abhor artifacts unless they are made of parts of me. I have a tooth-and-hair necklace I use for backup mana storage, but I don't advertise it because I don't want to look like a witch doctor. I don't need affinity-friendly weapons, though that'd be nice, just something that's useful for throwing, stabbing, deflecting, or otherwise helping in combat. I'll be able to make myself plenty strong and fast as an upperclassman, just need equipment that can keep up. That's the long-term plan, anyway."