He's trying to get his mouse tank to actually hold together. When he hears the knock, he slides it under his bed, and adjusts the blanket so no one looking in will see it.

"Hello? Who is it?"

He hasn't opened the door, yet, just in case whoever it is has less-than-positive intentions.

"Theun Jansen, I'm three doors down. You up for a bathroom run? I figure good habits start early."

That's probably safe enough.

"Sure." He pulls open his door -- slowly, in case he was wrong and Theun does pull a knife on him -- and steps outside.

"Oh, good. I didn't catch your name, but you looked to me like you have good awareness, so I figured I'd ask you first."

Why is this random person he just met trying to suck up to him? Whatever, it doesn't affect his suitability as a hallway buddy. It's not like he's going to randomly be tempted to give him all his trade goods for free.

"Jeremy Martin. From Portland."

Theun nods, and when they've started moving, picks up the conversational thread again, "I'm from Philadelphia. Languages track, you?"

"Artificing, my affinity's glass. What languages do you have?"

"Greek, Latin, Dutch and German and some ancestors from that language family, bad Mandarin, and Klingon - conlangers are a menace to wizards everywhere, that's why my Mandarin's so bad."

"Klingon's an actual language? I figured they'd just made random noises, like how most shows do it."

"Yeah, that's what I thought, too. And then I realized I was noticing patterns, I could sort of predict how the rest of the sentence was going to go. So I had to do some emergency cram sessions and not watch any more Trek until Pa could check which things used the language and whether any of the other aliens spoke real languages. And I had to wheedle to get him to not just ban me from the whole series, too."