"Wen Ning is sound. Or would be if he could cast anything."

"Oh, excellent, we could swap spells."

"That's not going to be very useful because he can't fucking cast anything."

"What, nothing?"

"He stutters when he's nervous."

"Oh, wow. Is he art track?"

"Incantations because it has the fewest mals."

...Okay, well, that's idiotic of someone with a stutter. "Oh, okay. Well, I do have out-of-affinity stuff to swap, too, but anyway you were going to show me some cockroaches."

"Yeah. This way." He starts walking to his brother's room.

Which is not the library and therefore a good place for them to go. Also, this is genuinely pretty cool. She follows.

"So... what kinds of things... do you do," he says, and then immediately kicks himself for being an awkward idiot.

"Magically or for fun?"

"Either! I guess!"

"I really enjoy poetry. And I'm doing creative writing, but, like, it's also really cool, whether it gets you magic or not."

"Poetry is useless."

"When it's not spells I guess it is."

"People shouldn't waste time on things that won't help them stay alive."

"...I had to pass a test involving poetry to get here, and it's the same skill in spells or for fun."

"I guess. But now you're here."

"How about you, what do you do?"

"Alchemy. Math."

"Math is cool."

"Alchemy is also cool!"

"I know less about alchemy. What's cool about it?"

The world's prickliest enclaver has STRONG feelings about alchemy-related magical theory.