Malak slides onto the bench next to him.

"Those free to a good home?"

"Sure. You a good home?"

"As good as any."

"There's some mighty fine competition out there," he says, but he also hands over a muffin.

"Probably not by the standards of blueberry muffins. What's your deal?"

"Mal Mendoza. Honest crook, straight shot with a BB gun -- hell of a lot of good it does me in here -- an' purveyor of fine-ass blueberry muffins. You?"

"Haniyah Malak, also, apparently, an honest crook." She grabs a second muffin and stands up.

"If I were a worse person I'd've taken the whole tray as soon as you said they were free to a good home. I sure thought about it. Next person along will probably try."

(She is not confident she could've taken the whole tray without starting a fight, which is why she only took two. She is not a bad person but this is the scholomance and he did say they were free to a good home.)

"Sounds like someone who ain't a good home, way I figure it. Enjoy your muffins, Haniyah Malak."

"Enjoy yours!"

"Did you already check those for poison?" is the first thing the pretty blonde says. 

"Yeah, gave two to that girl."

"Alright," she says, and sits down and takes a muffin. "Pitch me on whatever's so important as to merit free muffins." She unwraps it and takes a bite. She is going to sit here and eat muffins and not hazard the line and he has until she is done eating muffins to talk to her. 

"I ain't said they were free, you know. Just 'cause you came up and helped yourself..."

"I saw the other girl," she says around a mouthful of muffin. "If you're not going to defend them, they're free."

"I gave her a muffin. Don't mean they're free for the takin'."

"You're not doing anything to me either. Do you wanna try to convince me to pay for it?"

"Ain't doin' nothin' now."

(Malak, who has neither bitten into her muffins nor completely left earshot yet, is feeling quite vindicated.)

"So do you in fact have anything interesting to say?"

"Sure know how to put a guy on the spot, don'tcha?"

"I think you did that yourself with these muffins."

"You sit at my table, you steal my breakfast, and now you're complainin' about the conversation?"

She raises an eyebrow at him. "I spent last night minioning for an enclaver with more clout than sense, and she was a much better conversationalist than you."

"Takes all kinds."

"I suppose." 

What a baffling boy. She finishes her muffin and stands up and grabs another. 

Tomonori will come investigate the muffins. He smiles politely and briefly at Eliza.

"Hello. Do you mind if I have one of these?"

"Might could spare it. You musta spent half your weight quota on manners, huh?"

"No. Manners don't weigh anything, that's why everyone should bring them. I'm going to check these for poison."

And he does, reciting the spell he memorized for it.

"Someone oughta told me, before I left all mine at home."

"That's okay. It doesn't help you stay alive anyway, that's what spells are for. Do you know any good ones?"

Non-poisoned blueberry muffin!

"A few. You lookin' to swap?"

"Yeah, we can swap. I can write some for you if want, or I have some in Classical Chinese you probably haven't heard of."

"I ain't in the business of learnin' Chinese. Tell you what, though, you help us nail down a room in the library, you can hang out in it an' write to your heart's content."

"I'm good at divination. Identifying what something is, if it's hard to tell, or detecting things that are hard to see, or sometimes finding things, but you can usually just find them without wasting mana if you're smart enough."

"Now that sounds like the sorta thing you could get some use outta. You runnin' with a crew already?"

"No. I talked to some interesting people, but no one who could complement me. I met someone who had some great ideas about killing mals- maybe messing up the whole food chain. No way to do it yet, though. Did you meet anyone who's good at fighting or warding?"

Lissa wanted a muffin. This boy took all the muffins. She comes in in time to hear that they're not poisoned, at least, though she still takes out her Swiss army knife.

"Do you mind if I poke mine, just to check?" she asks. That's what you should do, right?

"Hello, Mal, what can I do to get one of those tasty-lookin' muffins, Mal," he suggests.

-sure, Mr. I-Left-All-Mine-At-Home.

"Maybe this is the no-manners breakfast table," Tomonori suggests.

"Sure, I'll take bribes instead."

"You can decide what the next spell I write is, and I'll share it with you."

"Drive a better bargain, friend, that's worth more than a blueberry muffin. That'll buy you in to our little jaunt to stake out space in the library."

"Oh, okay. Thank you. Um. I have-

Some paper? For a muffin."

Mal, who has just made someone pay him for the privilege of doing him a favor, is smug but not so smug as to turn down free paper. He accepts it and forks over a blueberry muffin.

Are those muffins free or for trade? She'd been eyeing them from the breakfast line and it looks like the girls just grabbed some, but the Asian boy handed over some paper for them. Well, one way to find out. "Hey, what are you handing out muffins for?"

Blueberry muffin! And library friends! The simple joys in life.

Tomonori will sit and eat with Mal, if that's fine with him. And peer at this Swiss Army knife to see if there's anything magical going on while he waits to see what the new girl does.

Lissa's knife is very nonmagical, as she was advised.

"Nice to meet you, Mal," she says. "So are you trading, or can I have a free sample?"

"Believe we've established I'm bein' bribed."

"Um...okay. Do you want more paper, then?"

Daria has her own food and isn't interested in giving up perfectly good supplies for slightly nicer food. She wanders off while they're talking, looking for a table.

"Sure, why not."

The point was never the bribes, anyway. The point is meeting people.

Lissa opens her sketchbook and flips to the back, carefully flipping out the scissors from her Swiss army knife. After a pause, she pats the book a bit. "Don't worry, I just need a few pages from you, okay?" she tells it softly.

"Two pages good for you?" she asks in a louder voice.

"Five," Mal counters automatically.

She frowns a bit, wondering if haggling is something to be done here. "Four," she says at last. She's got a lot of spare pages, but paper does seem like somewhat of a valuable investment.

"Only 'cause I like your smile."

That actually gets her to blush a little. She carefully slices away the pages, making sure to leave as little remnant as possible. Patting her sketchbook, she hands over the pages.

Mal accepts them graciously and forks over a muffin.

Lissa grins in gratitude, after poking it slightly to make sure it's actually a muffin. "Thanks!" she says, standing up. "I'm going to go sit with my group now." She dips her head in a quick half-bow before hurrying back to her own table.

Tomonori is finished with his muffin and there's nothing magically exciting here to look at, so he gets up to go.

"When do you want help with the library? I can help with detecting and identifying and finding but not with fighting people."

"I'll let you know."

Cool!

That seems like the end of the conversation, so Tomonori leaves, looking for something or someone interesting.