Excitement [Emy]

Was he a 'mystic'? He supposed he sort of was. But it was a sudden relief to hear something familiar. The various cultures and countries of this world had no parallel in his own, but many natural landmarks - mountains, rivers, and oceans - did. "We have the Yangtze river too." Of course it was called something else, but his translation spell removed any ambiguity for him.

"Is the spirit of the Yangtze like you? Or is that the master of rain? Or... are they the same person?" He wasn't entirely clear. The master of rain could have been a great mage, named as such in a type of grand title. Or it could be the Yangtze itself.

He nodded at the speculation. "I think so. It's possible that magic simply functions differently - or that humans access it in a different way. Perhaps constructs don't have much of a presence because humans are so magically active." If constructs could self-form from latent magic, the lack of latent magic, and the constant activity of it, might ruin any of the type of slow forming that Na Lan had described. The whole thing was the exact sort of thought experiment that Enelen loved.

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Tag to @"Emy" ​

So he was right... maybe. There was really no way to know if his theory was actually correct, even if someone else had confirmed they thought it sounded plausible. Magic here clearly didn't work exactly the same way it did back on his home. Even if humans were supposed to be spirits and magic wrapped in flesh, most humans weren't capable of accessing that magic in the way that they were back at home.

He paused, looking suddenly far more serious than he had. His eyes rested on the pot that was beginning to boil. "We killed our planet. We didn't realize what we were doing, but in the end we'd taken every bit of magic from it, until nothing was able to grow." A confession. Not to what he'd hurt, but to the closest possible equivalent. He'd decided that Na Lan was a spirit of the earth - the earth his people had hurt. "Which is why I'm here - because we fled." Everyone who was willing had gone, leaving those who chose to remain behind on the husk of a planet. Even before they'd gone and drained it down to the last drop, plants had barely grown, and animals had been dying off en masse.

"We probably... killed off all our gods. Any that remained." Most were probably faded to nothing with the advent of magically active humans, but whatever had lived was now no doubt gone. Nothing was left on the world he'd left except those humans who had chosen to stay behind, and they wouldn't last all that much longer either.

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Tag to @"Emy" ​

It had been a stupid, selfish attempt at absolution. Seeking forgiveness from something that he had not truly wronged. To find out that it was not nearly so unique as he would have hoped was... unsettling. To find out that humanity was repeating the same mistakes, just with a different method...

Hadn't that been why they'd scattered, though? To go to many worlds. To spread knowledge. And to hope it would not happen again. He didn't know how much he could do, but he had to at least try. That was why he'd come, after all.

He didn't know what 'pollution' was, even if he got the general jist of it. His world had no equivalent. Mana did not have unnecessary byproducts that destroyed the world around them. They didn't burn fossil fuels, and they had no use for oil. Crops were protected by wards, not pesticides, and the closest concept they had was 'waste'. But it was not the same thing, and his translation spell faltered, giving him only the word pollution - a word without meaning or context.

He tried it out, when he spoke again, although the word 'pollution' sounded strange to him. Out of place. A word of this world, not his own. "It's sad to realize that humans make the same mistakes no matter the world. I guess that it would be better for you if you could find a source of water without 'pollution'?" Having his very core be poisoned sounded... unhealthy at best.

He took the tea carefully between his fingers, although he didn't sip it yet. It seemed hot, and he glanced down at it. Similar enough to the type of tea they'd drank back on his world, although a different variety than he was used to.

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Tag to @"Emy" ​

Thinking about it, Enelen decided that made sense. The water in a lake was far stiller than the water of a river, which was essentially relentless and endlessly moving. A river spirit probably wouldn't ever really slow down. They'd probably be endless movement.

"Why not an ocean?" Of course, he wasn't considering the type of water, only the nature of it. An ocean was vast, and could no doubt hold many spirits. It had activity like a lake, but wasn't constantly rushing the way a river was unless you were near a shore or a large current.

He considered the question, taking a moment to dwell on it. He wasn't entirely sure, if he was being entirely honest with himself. He'd spent a very long time planning out the jump, and trying to prepare for what would happen when he got there, but he hadn't really made any long term plans for what he'd do when he got there. Everything was short term. Finding food. Finding shelter. It had been far from a sure thing that he would land in a proper civilization that was in any way similar to his own that planning for it had seemed silly. It was like planning for what you'd do if you had a day until a meteor hit the earth. The odds of it happening were so low that it could barely exist as anything more than a thought experiment.

"I... I'm not sure. I will try and make a home here, on this world. There's nothing to return to in my world, but I can hope that someone else from my world might arrive here." He wasn't sure if anyone ever would. It depended on the number of magically active worlds that existed out there, and in a large part on sheer chance.

He'd never been very lucky. "I suppose I have the rest of my 'college' years to figure it out." College was another one of those words that sounded quite strange to him, not having any straight equivilent for him. There was an equivilent of 'school', but organized learning ended when someone graduated out of their equivalent of high school, and the only option after that was essentially a life within the school itself. The idea of going back to school for just four years was alien for him, and it had taken quite a bit for the poor man at the admissions office to get him to understand it.

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Tag to @"Emy" ​

He really should have thought about it in advance before saying it. A freshwater fish could no more go into the ocean than a whale could swim into a freshwater lake. Why would a spirit be any different? They still lived in the water, and the water was their home.

He caught the boys glance to the cup and let out a little noise of surprise, immediately reaching down to pick up the tea. He had gotten lost in thought, and it would not be the first time (nor the last) where he'd completely forgotten about a drink he'd just gotten, or a meal he'd just been served. Often he talked for hours, only to realize that he'd left his meal untouched and it had gone cold on the table.

He took two big gulps, very clearly trying to play catch up with his tea. He didn't want to seem rude by not drinking it, but he had very obviously been distracted by... well, by everything.

He was very easily distracted.

He took a moment to think over the question that had been asked, looking completely unoffended by his stated goal being plain. It only took him a minute or so to decide. "Well, I guess I really just want to learn. Everyone on this world already knows all about it, so I'm behind. I like learning new things, and I suddenly have a whole world full of new information."

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Tag to @"Emy" ​