"Hiya."

"Pierre, you look kind of down."

He mumbles something too low to be heard and continues to pick at his food.

"Come again?"

"Must you rub it in?" he repeats, more loudly, and sighs.

"Rub what in?"

"Are you this daft on purpose or does it just kind of happen?" wonders Georgina.

"Georgy, don't be such a bitch to the new guy," says Magnhild.

"Well he shouldn't be a bitch to Pierre, then!"

"It's fine," says Pierre. "He's not being a bitch."

Man it's not his fault that Pierre is incompetent not helpful.

"Sorry, that was a bad opening. Um, what I meant to say was, do you want some help?"

"...'help'."

"Yeah. You know. With Lightning Bolt. At least I assume that's what you were trying to learn?"

"What would Mr. Prodigy even know about helping," mutters Georgina.

"Georgy..."

Pierre shrugs uncomfortably. "That's not the problem..."

"No?"

"I... already have a lightning spell. But it's a bad one. And I'm trying to make it work, 'cause if I don't then I'll have to actually learn Lightning Bolt and then I'm wasting my Skill slots."

"...ah. You're trying to get Lightning Bolt to extend your existing lightning spell? That sounds hard."

"And Bjorn found me this book that has some theory stuff that could be helpful but it involves coming up with some novel non-Skill spell and I'm not a prodigy."

"Do you, uh, want to show me this book later and see if I can't help? If nothing else two people thinking about the subject can't do worse than just one."

He looks at Vallynn dubiously. "Don't you have your own practice to do?"

"I'm not in any kind of hurry to get out of here as soon as I can, and helping people out, or just hanging out with them and spending time together, are part of what this place is for. In my opinion, anyway."

Pierre smiles a little bit. "Okay. Yeah, sure, that works."

"Cool! After lunch, then."