The nicest thing about graduation, Bea thinks, is that in the brief window after breakfast and before the flames burn through, most of the mals are migrating down to the graduation hall. So it's possible to let one's guard down slightly more than usual and not feel too bad about it. And if you go two to a room instead of separately to wait for the cleansing to finish... it's not like curfew's being enforced.
"Hey, cutie!!!" Bounce! "Your enclave didn't give you too much grief?"
"Nah. Wanted me to sign up on an alliance, but I said I needed to think some more."
She sits down on Dani's bed with a little bounce. "We wanted to ask you - and we already ran this by Shinta - do you want to join our alliance?"
She laughs and hugs back, squeezing tightly, then gives Dani a very enthusiastic kiss after her 'yes.'
Though now they need to fetch Shinta to write Dani's name up with their alliance!!!
Shinta has finished settling her own haul into her room, and can be pretty easily fetched. (Though she doesn't see the point of the quasi-ceremony of writing names up.)
It's an exercise in team bonding. And a public commitment discourages defections, though El thinks that won't be a major consideration with this group.