"Not yours, no. I'd better go." 

And Larisa leans in to kiss her brother's forehead, and then dashes off, battle-axe in hand. 

Vanya continues to stare at his untouched tray of food. 

"Do you feel able to eat?"

Well, clearly not, otherwise he would be eating. 

Vanya just gives her an irritated look and then goes back to staring at nothing. 

She guesses that was a stupid question. She considers a couple other questions but ultimately decides he probably isn't interested in small talk. She decides to try filling the space to see if that's helpful. "I'm looking forward to classes," she says, "I'm interested to see what Calculus for engineers means. I've done some calculus before but..." she chatters on in this vein for a little while; trying to pay attention to his response.

Vanya is.....eventually....drawn out of his silence by her chatter. 

"- You're a freshman? And you're doing calculus already? I - everyone thought it was surprising that I was doing it as a sophomore -?"  

"I'm very good at math. I'm hoping it'll be helpful in some of my projects."

"What's your affinity? Mine is....music–" 

- and then he freezes again, for a few seconds, because AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH–

"My affinity is for wire," she waves her wrist in what has now become a pattern, showing off the wire coiled there.

She notices his freak out but decides that enquiring won't help right now.

Vanyel mostly did not even hear what she was saying just then, and definitely failed to process it. 

"....So it turns out that math is really important to music theory," he says, with the expectation that this should be very boring to anyone not deeply interested in both topics. 

"Oh, are you getting into the study of acoustics and harmonics or is there another relationship?"

"I– yeah, that, I think? Mostly?" 

(Vanya is, to be honest, still barely able to track the words that this random mysterious person is saying to him. Even though they're pretty interesting words! Well, if they were less interesting then he would probably have fled the room by now....) 

- welp he's probably going to sound STUPID, though, if he keeps saying things without thinking....

"- I guess mostly harmonics, right now. Acoustics is really interesting but my big sister said I shouldn't take really hard engineering classes until I'm, uh. Doing better. In general." 

"I can understand that, have you learned much about non-European musical traditions? I've heard they tend to have different time signatures. I'm not sure if that would make a difference for magic."

Vanya's eyes focus slightly more on her than before! 

"- That sounds really interesting! I - it might - I'd have to hear one of their song-spells and try it, I'm not sure..." 

"Well that sounds like it could be interesting to try. I haven't met enough people to know who else uses spell songs. And I haven't tried it myself. How are spell songs different from spoken spells?"

Aaaaaah why does she keep saying things that are INTERESTING. 

"....Ummm, I - so, I guess - mostly it's that song spells have a couple other axes where you can - hmm - where you can include information? There are the words, but also the pitches, and the - mood, or timbre? - sorry I'm not sure how to describe it.... And if you can play an instrument, or have an ally do that, then it adds even more. And - uh, so I've composed a bunch of song-spells with harmonies, and that's - what's the word for 'more than the sum of its parts' - it can make it really really powerful...?"

"Ooh, so it's like a circle casting but faster and more dynamic?"

"- Huh. Yeah, I guess so." 

"That's cool. I can see how encoding mood in your spells is useful. It helps support the personality of the magic. You can do some of that with... oh right, I shouldn't talk about features of languages other people don't know. Well, you can do some of that with tone of voice in spoken spells I think. Are effects like your silence more natural to do with spell songs than spoken ones since they effect sound?"

"...I think maybe, yeah? Although I just invented that spell 'cause I wanted to be able to sing in the library and not bother other people." 

She giggles. "That's as good a reason as any in my mind. Being able to have fun without bothering other people is an important part of life."

"Mmm." Vanya is starting to look like he's mostly not actually present in the conversation or in the room anymore. 

Alright so she needs to keep on the topic of spell songs. "Are there any other spell songs you cast a lot?"

"There's one that scares mals off! It doesn't work on really big or powerful ones, it has to be...sort of convincing them that they don't want to mess with me? But it works pretty well for the kind that are just really annoying instead of really dangerous." 

"That sounds really useful. That definitely has the feel of something that would work well with spell songs, a bit like a rattlesnake's tail."