Speak softly and carry a big stick

Iliril of the Chant

Iliril couldn't tell if Enelen was helping him or just making him want to shake him a little more for good measure. As deadpan as possible, with the air of somebody who really used to being seen as completely useless, he said, Y-yes, En-nel-len, I am v-ver-ry s-sor-ry f-for n-not b-being b-born c-comp-pletel-ly p-perf-fect." Because while Iliril might not have been very good with people, he was very good at picking up things along the lines of Oh, well. Have you just tried not being yourself for once? He couldn't even be properly angry about it by this point, just a little frustrated and cross.

The deadpan became full out blank confusion at Enelen's next comment. Iliril asked, "W-what is t-techn-nol-log-gy?"

Iliril of the Chant

Of course, Enelen hadn't meant anything by that. Iliril frowned, saying, "W-well y-yes, n-nob-bod-dy ev-ver d-does, d-do t-they?" before simply sighing. He was used to it, after all. Maybe it was time to just give up. If, after all this time, people were still thinking it and he was the only one bothered, maybe that meant that the problem was with him. At Enelen was being nicer about it than most. Iliril could live with that.

He thought for a moment about what the other mage was talking about. Switches on the wall? Iliril did recall something like that but he just assumed that he wasn't supposed to touch those. It was a simple bit of survival advice that he had grown up with. Do not touch anything that nobody says you can touch.

"If it w-works l-like m-mag-gic, t-then isn't it m-magic?" Iliril asked. He was already shaking his head at himself, though. Maybe this technology thing was simpler to that issue about other beings. Being who he was, he could hardly say something like I really do think that's just magic without hypocrisy. Benefit of the doubt, then. But he still struggled to accept it as it was. Unlike Enelen, though, Iliril didn't have a boundless curiosity. He was very simply, a small character who was happy in a small world. Usually. It was nice to have some sort of control over his life.

In any case, there had been this question in the back of his mind for a while, so he retrieved the slip of paper that he had been given by the admissions office. "I k-kind of f-forg-got w-where t-this is," he said, showing it to Enelen with a muffled yawn. It was just his room number, and he supposed that he should have remembered it seeing as he had gone out on his own. But things were becoming hazy in his mind and the memory of the past week wasn't holding up all that well.

Iliril of the Chant

Lightning. Iliril regarded that explanation with a fair amount of disbelief. That sounded not only extremely dangerous but also highly unstable and just who on Earth came up with that idea? It sounded like it had probably come about from some big accident at some point. He did suppose, however, that it made some bit of sense. Light was light so. Something. Illumination. He couldn't put his finger on it exactly but there was a grain of logic behind it. It still sounded insane.

"T-this w-world is s-strange," he remarked, before stumbling over the threshold of the dormitory in surprise. "W-what?" There wasn't any way that Enelen had misread, was there? The typeface was all very clear. "Y-you're j-jok-king."

Was it wrong that Iliril felt strangely pleased? It was probably the fact that he had somebody familiar from somewhere familiar right next to him. Wait. Had he hallucinated all of those moments of loudly and messily sobbing his eyes out in frustration? Or had that actually happened? Were the walls thin enough that it could be heard from the next room over?

He was not going to ask. He was not going to ask.

Iliril of the Chant

"I'll k-keep t-that in m-mind," Iliril said, with maybe more of a stutter than usual as he retreated into the room. The moment the door clicked closed, he sagged a bit against it, all at once feeling the tremendous need to just lie down. There were still things to do, however, so he held on for a little longer, comforting himself with the fact that he could stop anytime he wanted.

He pulled up the blinds and opened the windows for the first time since his arrival, clearing out some of the accumulated stuffiness. Iliril supposed there wasn't much used hiding from the world at this point when it had already found him and began picking up some of the papers that had made their way to the ground, throwing away the ones which were too smudged or too torn to be of use. He was normally a meticulous person and presence of this mess was a sudden disturbance.

When that was sorted out as best as he could for the time, Iliril went to his bedroom. A few minutes were spent playing with the switch on the wall -yes, it did work as Enelen said- and his exhausted brain was actually amused because lightning! Honestly, who thought of that?

But most importantly, as he fell onto the bed, there was nothing and nobody who could keep him from bursting out in a desperate, sobbing laughter. Well, welcome to the world, I guess.

He would deal with the consequences later.