It won't take him a year to master this, he says. Klaudia has her doubts about that, but considering his... everything, she manages to at least restrain them to a thoughtful 'hmm' instead of voicing them aloud. Discreet! More polite! He can think what he wants about how quickly he'll advance in this. The reality will be whatever he's actually capable of. ...But if he does have previous experience in this sort of thing, then he'll probably do just fine.

"What sort of accomplishments does the most accomplished alchemist in a dynasty have?" she asks, part curiosity and partly to keep him talking while she picks up her chalk to start drawing a circle on the table. Some parts of alchemy are easy. She knows the sigils for sand, glass, and chalk by heart now; it takes barely any thought to inscribe the components of this impromptu project. The details are harder. Some of the lines criss-crossing and snaking through the circle are drawn thick; others, she wets the edge of her thumb in her mouth and carefully reduces the width of the lines to a fraction of what they were. She's gotten better at this part through the past few months, but there's still room to grow. All the while, she casts glances at her new peacock friend. Maintaining polite attention, maybe? Or studying him?