"I see. So, what else have you been up to other than acting like a fifteen year old?"

"Oh, fuck off."

"...so now I've got a few new spells I've been intermittently working on."

"So about that elven ancestry…"

"I just find it really intuitive!"

"And you know who else used to find this kind of thing really intuitive?"

"Not elves! Spell design is not one of the things they've got on us, actually!"

"Really? Damn, hoped my bluff would land, I don't actually know anything about elves other than that they were powerful mages."

"Yeah, well. I get that I'm apparently really good at it but I think it's just like the same way I'm really good at maths."

"If you say so."

"I do!" Vallynn downs the rest of his strawberry wine and asks the bartender for another one. "And now that you're all caught up on my life, do you have anything less vague than 'can't complain' to say about yours?"

"Can't get anything past you."

"Were you even trying?"

"Not really."

"So?"

"I can't tell you much. As in, I am literally magically prevented from even forming the intention of telling you stuff."

"—wait, seriously? How does that work, how does the spell know what you're supposed to be allowed to say—"

He shrugs and taps the clear stone attached to his earring.

"—is the enchantment on the stone? So you could take it off?"

"The stone continually renews an enchantment on me, as I understand it."

"I mean that's how enchantments work in general but maybe if they specified that they might mean something else?"

"And I can't form an intention to remove the enchantment either and I must try to stop anyone from trying to remove it or dispel it and if I lose it anyway then I'm not allowed back at the Guild and if I tell anyone anything they're also obligated to hunt me down and destroy me completely."

"...that's thorough. But wait, isn't a dangling earring—" He pauses. Squints. "It's not actually the earring, is it. That's just to draw the attention."

"That would be a smart thing for them to do."

"Fucking Hel, man, are you not even allowed to acknowledge that?"