"Yeah, sure." Thirtyx gestured to the empty chair. He wouldn't admit it, but it made him less nervous not to be alone. Seerla set down her plate of fruit and some oat-based goo Thirtyx had never had the courage to try.

"You're not eat—" her eyes narrowed momentarily in concern, then she blinked and shook her head. "Of course you're not eating. Where is my mind this morning?"

Thirtyx tried to dispel the awkwardness with a grin. "If it makes you feel better, I am eating. The post-break hustle and bustle is the best meal I've had in weeks."

Seerla chuckled. The admission might have made other people uncomfortable, but Seerla was no stranger to being different. One of the first children born after Grimmary banned anti-miscegenation laws worldwide, she wore her mixed heritage proudly. Her round eyes were a pleasant, trollish purple, but with the slitted pupil of a Dragonfolk. A smattering of orange scales sat like freckles across her brown cheeks and flat nose. Her dark, frizzy hair was pulled back in a braid, revealing ears that stuck out at an angle not quite as vertical as those of a Dragonfolk but not quite as horizontal as those of a Troll.

She brought her hand—stubby fingers terminating in conical, draconic claws—to her spoon to begin eating. "Were you here again over break, then?"

"Yep." Thirtyx punctuated the 'p' with a pop. He wasn't sure what else to say on that front that wouldn't sound pathetic and miserable, but changing the subject would seem like he was trying to hide something.

Fortunately, Seerla changed it for him. "What are the dorms like during break? I feel like it would be spooky at night with no one else around."

"Eh, I'm used to it." Thirtyx shrugged. "It can be kind of nice, actually. I can sing down the hallways, and no one's around to hear me."

Seerla tilted her head. "Are you a good singer?"

Thirtyx pondered ways to answer tactfully, but he was spared the effort by Benn, who returned at that moment to answer as un-tactfully as possible. "Oh, he's terrible. Like, you can't imagine. Worse than Rhea, and that’s a real feat. How's it going, Seerla?"

"I'm good," Seerla chuckled as Benn sat. "Thirtyx said he's having a feast, but I bet this stuff isn't anything like what they feed you at the palace, huh?" She raised her spoon in demonstration.

“You know, it's not half-bad, really." Benn took a bite of some eggy mixture Thirtyx had also never sampled, and after two chews, his face betrayed his feelings. "On second thought, maybe I wasn't remembering correctly."

"And how was your break, Seerla?" Thirtyx cut in before the conversation could follow the natural progression of discussing Benn’s not-quite-a-vacation at the palace.

Seerla beamed. "It was surprisingly nice. Spent it with my dad's family in Schynnbur. I never saw them much growing up. It took them a while to come around to my parents' relationship—you know how it was back then—but they've come a long way. So have a lot of the people in Drachs. I was a head and a half shorter than anyone else there, but I didn't get any hate for it."

"Eh, you'd have torn them to pieces with your amazing rhetoric skills if anyone tried," Benn said with a grin of admiration. "I made that mistake once and only once. Like most people in this room, I'd imagine."

Seerla brushed off his compliment with a wave of her hand. "Oh, you never gave me any hate, just obliviousness. Besides, I can’t be too hard on you. My parents have told me openly that they were too afraid to conceive when it was illegal, so it’s all thanks to Grimmary that I even exist."

"Don't give Benn a big head, now," Thirtyx said with a wry grin. "He wasn't alive yet either when that law was made—probably." He quickly threw in the qualifier before his mouth made him do it without warning. Sure, the twins aged the same as most kids on Lamiakk, so it was assumed they were born when Grimmary claimed they were, but no one knew for sure.