Excitement [Emy]

Romi · Jul 25, 2015

Most people were not excited to get a roommate. Enelen, however, was. He was over the moon at the idea of having a roommate of his own. Growing up, he'd shared a dorm room with a small legion of other boys, and eventually he'd graduated up to his own room. But he'd never had a roommate like this. Having a bunch of people living in a shared room with bunk beds was not nearly the same experience.

He'd yet to actually meet his roommate, but that hadn't diminished his enthusiasm at all. He was entirely confident that whoever his roommate would be, they'd be fantastic. The thought that they might be less enthusiastic than he was hadn't even crossed his mind.

At the very least he wasn't coming with much. He really just had his staff (which stayed with him at all times, and could hardly be considered a piece of furniture), and a bag which had been enchanted down to look no bigger than a coin purse. Actually it was the size of a full sized backpack, and he had to expand it out to take anything out, but it meant he could carry around far more than he appeared to be able to.

The school had said it would be providing some things for him - the basics of life, in so many words. That was fine. He didn't need much - his magic made him largely self sufficient, after all. The majority of his magic was of the quality of life variety.

It took him a bit to find his assigned room, unused to the layout of the dorms, but when he did he knocked once on the door. Did his roommate even know he was coming?

Tag to @"Emy"

Emy · Jul 25, 2015

Na Lan Tai Hu

Sitting on the edge of his clumsily made bed, Na Lan stared at the door leading to the hallway and waited. Normally, such a thing would have been impeded by the fact that his bedroom had had a door. But closed spaces always made the lake spirit feel just a bit claustrophobic so he had removed it at some point and brought in a screen to use in case he ever felt the lack of it bothersome. He simply was unable to remember when exactly that had happened. The door had vanished by the end of his first year on the island, in any case. Surely, he would have put it back if there were any complaints. Or if he had ever had a roommate.

It was actually a bit of a surprise to discover that after a decade of hanging around the Academy, somebody was finally assigned to his room. He wondered if they would mind not turning on the lights too much. Even after all this time, the spirit still found artificial lighting to be strange and creating unnatural shadows. For windows, it would be nice to have the blinds down after the morning. It was a bit cooler that way.

He had lit a few candles for the benefit of whoever it was that would be coming, which was easier on his eyes. But having had a few hours notice beforehand, Na Lan had plenty of time to reevaluate the situation and light. Maybe a few dozen, maybe a few hundred more. It honestly did not matter because the entire area had been reinforced against the elements. All of them. Also because his bedroom was filled more with carefully stacked bowls of water than furniture.

Curiosity had kept him awake, when he normally would have called it a day hours ago, before the sun even set. It was only polite to wait up. But there was nothing that said he had to stand right at the door for that. So he threw aside all of the more decorative and heavier parts of his clothing and mostly alternated between lying down on the bed and staring at the ceiling and sitting on the bed and staring at the door.

Eventually, there came a knock on the door. With an absent pat down of his robes to get the wrinkles out, Na Lan went there and opened it with a dreamy but expectant stare.

Romi · Jul 26, 2015

The dorms seemed sizable, but it was hard for him to tell if they were bigger or smaller than his room had been at home. After all, his room had been packed with books, boxes, and bookshelves, so it had been nearly impossible to get an accurate idea of how big the room was. He'd also been in the same several years, meaning it seemed to get smaller as he grew. The Starlight Academy dorms were... well, a fresh start, if nothing else.

A very fresh, whole-new world sort of experience.

His first impression of his roommate was a slight tingle of disappointment that he was the shorter of the two, even if it was only by a smidge. It was only after the first bout of disappointment that his brain caught up, registering the... the rest. The... ears? The horns? It looked like coral, but it appeared to be sprouting out of his head, and if the odd ear things hadn't stuck out so far, he would have wondered if it wasn't a costume.

It wasn't, was it?

His eyes widened with surprise, and it took him a moment to register it all - not even the room, but simply his roommate - and then he was back to normal, a pleasant grin on his face as he bowed. It was smooth and well practiced, his usual method of greeting beyond the standard verbal one. Formalities seemed more fitting for a roommate, although he wasn't even clear if humans on this world did bow. Mostly he'd just seen people clasp hands.

"Hello! You're my roommate, yeah?" That went almost without saying, didn't it? "My name is Enelen."

Tag to @"Emy"

Emy · Jul 26, 2015

Na Lan Tai Hu

The spirit blinked slowly, taking a moment to observe the young man standing in front of him before bowing back. It was an instinctive action to sink a little deeper down than he had, for the sake of thousand year-old courtesies. Also gratitude for not having to go through that awkward moment of maybe shaking hands, maybe not. He had always found the very existence of hands to be strange, in any case. Fish did not have hands, after all, and they seemed to do just fine.

Na Lan rather liked fish. But this was hardly the time for that.

He introduced himself in a subdued tone. "I am called Na Lan, although my full name is Na Lan Tai Hu. It is nice to meet you." And this was not a lie, although the flat quality of his voice might have labeled it as such. "You will have to forgive me. I am not too used to being around humans in such close proximity for extended periods of time."

Glancing back into the room for a moment, Na Lan opened the door wider and stepped to the side. Uncertainly, he said, "Will you come in?"

Romi · Jul 27, 2015

Enelen didn't mind hands, but hands were so often occupied with other things. A bow had always been customary in his home world, especially among the School of Staves, which almost always kept their hands on their stave. He let go of it when he ate, and he let go of it when he slept... and he always had it within a foot of him. The thought of just leaving it in another room or something was like the thought of detaching his foot and leaving it lying around.

It was strange, because it was quite clear to Enelen that the language he was speaking was not the same language as his name. Everyone on the island seemed to speak one language, which made sense, and was certainly making things easier on his translation spell. He was mostly surprised by the lack of emotion in the other boys voice, although he couldn't be sure if that was just the way he normally spoke, or if it was simply him being formal.

Of course, whether intentionally or not, he'd answered one of Enelen's questions. He'd of course immediately wanted to know if he was human or not, and he only managed to keep his mouth shut for long enough to step into the room, glancing around, before he laid into poor Na Lan with his questions.

"You'll have to forgive me too. I've never met someone who was not human before, so this is a first for me." If people like this existed here, did they exist on his own world, in hiding? Or was this world unique in having such a wide variety of humans and non-humans? "I am not from this world originally, so I'm hoping you'll be forgiving - I don't know your customs yet." He was taking the assumption that Na Lan was just very polite, and trying to be polite in turn, even if all he wanted was to drown the poor boy in questions.

Tag to @"Emy"

Emy · Jul 28, 2015

Na Lan Tai Hu

He made a quiet sound Enelen's revelation, one too quiet for human ears to normally pick up. One that was too quiet for Na Lan to pick up as well, actually, which was what clued the spirit into the fact that it would have been inaudible to just about everybody. In water, the disturbance would have been perfectly detectable but here on land, it was a different matter.

"Ah," Na Lan said, only barely audible now as he moved away to the main part of the room. The door closed behind him. "I am afraid that I may confuse you then. The customs of my -species- are very different from those of the general population. We are aquatic by nature and not meant to dwell on land for too long but I have adapted over time." He had been forced to adapt, truthfully, and had not quite succeeded in the transition.

Romi · Jul 30, 2015

So it was a customs double whammy. He didn't know all that much about this world, and he didn't know anything about non-humans. He'd just have to do his best to figure out which was which when speaking to Na Lan.

He trailed after him, feeling no particular need to set his bag down. It was light, and small enough it wasn't going to be a burden. Of course he'd have to unpack, but that could come later. He was far more interested in his new roommate than he was in his room.

"You're water-breathing then?" That was what aquatic by nature meant to him, although he realized it was technically possible that he meant aquatic in the way a dolphin was aquatic, coming up for air. "How can you breath on land?" Would it be rude to ask what he was? Because he really did want to ask.

After a moment he decided he could get away with the faux pas of asking, considering the allowances he expected to be made. "What is your species called, anyway?" He glanced around before taking a seat on the couch in the living area, staring up expectantly.

Tag to @"Emy"

Emy · Jul 30, 2015

Na Lan Tai Hu

"My people do not have any particular name," Na Lan answered as he went to fetch a tea set. Tea was one of the few things that the spirit could actually ingest comfortably so he made a habit of keeping some around in the dorm. From time to time, it was comforting to be able to taste something pleasant that did not remind him of oil or harsh chemicals.

There was a small burner on the coffee table in front of the couch that Enelen was sitting on. Kneeling opposite of the boy, Na Lan began to boil some water. Water from the tap was a little too hard for his tastes and bottled water could sometimes be strange when left too long. So this was rainwater, strained and purified until it was absolutely perfect. The same could be done with regular water but it could never feel quite the same.

"We are merely water spirits. Rivers, lakes, ponds. It is not too common for us to leave the bodies that we were born from," he explained. "To many, it can be distressing. Those of my sort do not truly breathe, nor are we made of flesh and bone. It may be more accurate to say that this form is a construct of water and magic. We normally live as long as we are able to retain our water. It is an easier task when we are not on land."

The questions did not seem bothersome to Na Lan in the least because for the time, the fluidity of his interests were converging on this one new point that had entered his life. It did not occur to him to ask any questions of his own, however. Na Lan was used to providing answers and daydreaming away the spans of time when he was actually supposed to be asking them.

Romi · Aug 2, 2015

He couldn't imagine not having a name for what he was. Sure, his species name wasn't very useful, since it was identical to the one used in this world for a slightly different species (ones apparently largely incapable of magic), but it was still there. He could say what he was if an alien crash landed or something.

'Water Spirit' was just fine. In fact, he wasn't entirely sure why that wasn't considered his species name. Was there something about it that he was missing? He considered asking, before deciding it was probably a cultural thing - something he was missing, and would understand later.

That said, things sort of clarified themselves as Na Lan continued to explain, and his eyes lit up as he slid forward on the couch, until he was perched on the very edge.

"You're a magical construct? On my world it was always considered a possibility, but no one could ever actually demonstrate it. The earth itself has mana of it's own, so the thought was that it had to be somehow alive. But if people like you existed on our world, we never found them." He'd had an awful lot of questions before, but now he was drowning in them. Metaphorically speaking.

"Did you create yourself, or were you specifically summoned?" Was that rude? Maybe, but Na Lan didn't seem very bothered by him asking things.

Tag to @"Emy"

Emy · Aug 4, 2015

Na Lan Tai Hu

As he tended to the pot, Na Lan noted idly, "You ask many questions. It reminds me of the mystics who sometimes visited Lake Tai." Repetition in this scenario was not something that Na Lan tired of easily. After all, these questions had been spaced out over the course of centuries. Millennia by now. It was interesting seeing what sorts of reactions the questioners produced, though the earliest ones had long since faded from memory. It was little sad in a way, Na Lan supposed. For many of those, he was the only living being who still remembered their existence at all.

"Arguments can most likely be made for either theory," the spirit said slowly. "I was conceived from a puddle that became a pond that became a lake, though I was not truly birthed for another few thousand years, when the spirit of the Yangtze awakened me. It could be said that I had formed on my own before that point but it could also be said that I was unintentionally summoned by the Master of Rain. Such a distinction is not entirely important to us."

Checking to see if the water had boiled properly and seeing that it had, Na Lan turned down the fire to let it cool. "Constructs are not too rare in this world. Perhaps yours was governed by different laws."

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Excitement [Emy]

Romi

Secretly a Bird

Emy

Well-Known Member

Romi

Secretly a Bird

Emy

Well-Known Member

Romi

Secretly a Bird

Emy

Well-Known Member

Romi

Secretly a Bird

Emy

Well-Known Member

Romi

Secretly a Bird

Emy

Well-Known Member