"Would curing maleficers be something it would take a famous healer to do...?" 

"If they're far enough advanced. If it's only a little, anyone can get better from that." She fidgets slightly. "You know, if they live to adulthood first. It's not very safe to try in here." 

"Ahuh."

"But a Radiant Mind Crystal would never tolerate malia, so that part isn't really related."

El gets to the end of her French worksheet and puts the first page back on the top of the packet. Besides "Nom:" is her name. She habitually writes "Galadri" in a bit of an illegible scribble. The rest of it is more accessible.

Aurélie glances at it, just sort of because the motion caught her eye, and then she does--not quite a double take; maybe a sesquitake, and leans in to get a better look, and then she leans back into her seat, puts her hands over her face, and sort of scrunches up smaller. 

"I am the con of all cons. Maybe if I try very hard to wake up today won't really have happened."

That is a much more satisfying result from a sequence of social events than El usually gets anywhere but inside her own head!

Aurélie is sort of curious what the squiggle in front of "El Higgins" is, but she's already deep-throating her own ankle and really doesn't need to go further. At the end of the study group she hands El a folded sheet of paper on which is written a spell of her uncle's that she thinks the school probably won't have given out, that can do dusting or yanking out hidey mals and crushing them depending on how much mana you feed it, along with the words "I'M SO SORRY PLEASE DON'T TELL EVERYONE," and flees before El can actually unfold and read it. 

"Would your divination affinity or strange other powers happen to know whether it's safe to open this," El asks Kareen.

"Strange other power 'Soundtrack' isn't producing any ominous leitmotifs about it. I could open it first, if you like, I have better reflexes if something is wrong with it."

"But you would be so sorely missed." She flicks it open with the tip of a pen.

It contains the flustered apology, and the spell, and no traps. 

"Can a freshman usually fuck up someone older? I suppose walking into the trap gives them an advantage."

"It would, yeah. Though it looks like she was only embarrassed and has given me a quite nice spell by way of apology."

"Is there some reason she didn't make the obvious connection when you said something about surnames...? ...It's the spooky thing again, isn't it."

"Or she imagines Mum as an angelic virgin, or she's racist."

"Presumably if she were racist she'd've guessed that as a factor as to why I like you, even if she couldn't possibly have guessed we're both half white." If Gwen Higgins isn't white and Kareen is massively misinterpreting the racist comment then she's going to be embarrassed but Backchannel is not informing her that she's massively misinterpreting it so she's probably fine. 

"Maybe so, or she thought I was some other nonmatching sort of brown," shrugs El.

"That is the downside of having thoroughly Anglo names, is watching people visibly not know what flavor of brown you are. Or not realize they don't know. One time I had a teacher decide to pair me and an Egyptian guy up for a group project based on 'shared cultural heritage.' That was one of the more uncomfortable knowing looks I've exchanged with someone." 

"Oh, my name's not thoroughly anything, it's bloody Galadriel."

"Oh no." 

"It is quite likely the very worst thing she has ever done in her life."

"I don't think you need to be a sparkly goodness fairy to have that be worse than the other things you have done in your life!"

"Well, she is one anyway," snorts El.

"Got that impression, yeah. Wow. I figured it was probably short for, like, Ellen, or Eleanor, something like that."

"I'd probably pretend so if it weren't on my maintenance post box and if it didn't have to be on my assignments."