"My only worry is that if Orion's not done blasting them all when the gate's about to close he'll refuse to come on through," says Julia, who is arguing in order to distract herself from her lasagna, which is very sad lasagna. 

"If the gate was closing I wouldn't be able to save any stragglers at that point anyway," Orion objects around a mouthful of sad lasagna.

"And you promise you won't stay just 'cause there's so many shiny mals to blast?"

"I can find mals outside!"

"Then we've got nothing to worry about," she says cheerily to the table as a whole. The sophomores are rather glaring at her. - probably she shouldn't be too smug about it. 

Chloe comes over just then, conveniently, with two Oakland enclavers in tow. "Pass me your spices?"

"They don't help as much as I'd hope," Julia says, passing them.

"Oh wow, thanks! That's great!" Destiny tucks her kukri away into its sheath so she can take the offered spices. "I'm Destiny, by the way. This is the love of my life, Morty." 

Wow, she really just likes getting people's reactions to that line. Morty rolls his eyes. 

Well, that sounds like a terrible idea, but you can't blame people for wanting to be normal teenagers instead of Dickens street urchins with knives. "Julia. The love of my life is a Buddhist prayer rug that the seniors wrote off as a failed experiment even though she's really wonderfully well-behaved if you just respect her."

"Awwww! That sounds lovely. Does your rug have a name?" 

"No! I should give her a Buddhist name but I don't actually know much about Buddhism, looking it up is on my to-do list. I was hoping I'd get a class on it but noooo, maybe 'cause the school heard me saying I was going to cheat in history. I wouldn't have if I'd got a class that was actually interesting!!! And in a language I have!"

"Awww. That's a sweet idea. I don't think I've got that - I just have European history plus some English poet stuff - I think Milton was English? Maybe he wasn't? Or she, I guess I'm just assuming old-timey poets were men because, you know, sexism and stuff. Morty, you got anything Buddhism-related?" 

"Tragically, no. My other literature-y class is Bible translations, for some reason." 

"Well, Buddhism is from...India, right? I'm sure there must be at least one person in this school who knows stuff about it. Have you tried asking the void for books on Buddhist spells or whatever?" 

"I could flag down the Indian kids but I don't them to, like, think I'm appropriating their culture? A boy did Buddhist inscriptions on my walls, but he said he wasn't Buddhist himself. I should totally ask for a spellbook, I have spell-adequate Hindi, and then I bet it's less weird to grab the Indian kids and invite them to help me figure out the spellbook."

"You kind of are appropriating their culture," says Chloe. "Right? Isn't that what appropriation is?"

"Well, not if I don't tell them, you can't secretly be appropriating someone's culture."

"I mean, if the rug's already Buddhist then trying to keep it happy by naming it right seems fine? I feel like 'cultural appropriation' is just way less of a real problem than 'now you've got an evil rug after you'." 

...Is that offensive? Morty isn't sure, but he is, again, frustrated by the extent to which Destiny doesn't ever even bother with tact. 

"She's not evil! If she were after me it'd be because she was justifiably annoyed about ill-treatment! But yeah, I'm not going to, like, stop doing Buddhism, I just might stop telling actual Buddhist kids about it if they're going to be mad about it."

"- No, of course she's not evil now, that's not what I meant to say! But, you know, if you want her to keep liking you..." Whatever, nevermind. "I think it's fine to try to get a spellbook that has Buddhist references." 

Change. The. Subject. 

"Anyway," Morty says brightly, "how was everyone's first morning of classes? I had intro to lab, and no one got jumped so I guess that's off to a good start." 

"I had geometry and Ovid. I need a Latin dictionary, the school thinks I should know Latin, but Zeke taught me a song for the declensions. The weird mal-spotter kid is in my geometry and also a giant girl who reminded me how to do long division."

"I have a Latin dictionary you can borrow, Rebecca. I had Greek poetry, and I thought it'd be, like, the Odyssey, which I've read, but today it was all stuff I haven't read and not as good as the Odyssey?"