And practical demonstrations. Hands-on lessons.

An unambiguous indication of which parts were hottest.

Maybe some ideas for future refinement...

Things Luthien could do to Daniella at the next opportunity? 

Certainly.

She'll pay close attention. 

There's a good girl.

Wiggles!!! (El's good girl.)

The best one El's got.

Best one she'll ever have. 

Undoubtedly.

Kisses!!! (Which her own administrations to Daniella will probably feature less of...)

Then El will have to make up the difference for her.

Wonderful. 

Alas, all too soon the warning bell for curfew rings.

Her face scrunches up, like it always does when curfew looms.

(She'd complained to El once that their first night in the school had been her worst ever night, the first time she really truly remembers sleeping alone, at least in the several years before induction. She often seems to prefer a room full of mals, a good fight over a lonely night. She pretty often sleeps in the library, though, El's hand in her hair, her sleep made deeper by their mom's insomnia spells, and then studies at night, but today's been too busy for that.)

El's probably going to have to chide her to leave in a timely manner. 

"Come on, Lu." One last kiss. "I'll see you for breakfast, okay?"

Kiss. "Yeah." And she steps back then turns away, clearly fighting not to look back over her shoulder. 

Never gets any easier. (They've tried sharing. It- doesn't work. El's worse than useless the next day, and while they're not balancing on the edge of failure, they just don't have the budget to make it a regular thing.)

(Luthien isn't hit as hard by sharing - she's good at killing mals with pretty minimal mana use - but it's not exactly conducive to a good night's sleep. She can usually get enough anyways, she needs a lot less than El, but... The five hours of sleep she can get by on can be more or less grabbed in the library, most days, and since she installed the sun lamp she traded a weapon worth a small fortune with Shinta for in her room she's been able to swing three or so, with catch up on the weekends.)

She heads back to her room without a complaint, where she somehow gets about two hours of sleep in broken fits and starts, spending the rest of the time exercising in the dark until she's built some mana for their crystals and exhausted herself enough she can doze half asleep for the last hour before it's time to get up for morning shower and breakfast. (She and El, of course, always watch each other's backs for hygiene.)

(Okay, she doesn't actually spend all of her awake time exercising. She gets frustrated enough at one point after having laid awake for an hour to start shouting at the void in her room, demanding shielding spells, artifice guides, something to keep mals out of a room for a single precious night. She gets: detailed instructions for building a door-warden out of human bone and sinew from some of the cleverer mals; yet another wildly expensive way to summon mortal flame (she's up to double digits on that one); a spell that will convert her door into a mana-thief to kill any mals trying to squeeze past it, and incidentally also any students walking by; the usual hoard of summoned something-or-other she could in theory command to defend her; a spell that needs to be constantly chanted with a circle and will ward malice out only as long as it's being repeated perfectly (great except for how she needs to sleep - and it's got astronomical mana costs and is too complicated to just bribe a couple of freshman into hiding in her room and casting it for her); a spell that will kill everything around her room for a very large distance and create what she's pretty sure is a radioactive fallout zone that will last for decades, though it's of course described in a dead language by an author who doesn't know what radioactive fallout is; and increasingly off track spells as she gets more and more frustrated, until she finally gives it up for broke and goes to sprint around her room until she feels somewhat less homicidal.)

So. Yeah. Not a very productive night, and it's a grouchy Luthien that emerges.

Yeah. El's wards only got pinged once and nothing actually came in, so she's in really good shape, actually. Lu can have the second shower if she wants, El goes quick and then she'll have the rest of the time before they have to leave for the cafeteria.

Honestly, having the best El makes up for a lot of the Scholomance's bullshit. Not all, but a lot. 

It'd be so much worse for both of them if they didn't have each other.

And for everyone else.