The young girl’s thoughts faded into his awareness more gradually as she calmed down and he found the threshold at which he could hold the illusion and his thoughts together without barring himself from the perspective spreading out into the surrounding elements gave him. It was not perfect, nothing was, but as she could see him, and he could not see her, Aylen allowed that he looked good enough for the moment. Even if he could not make it look like he was talking. He would continue to try. Though her thought that he might be speaking a different language left his thoughts ruffled. Were they so far apart in time and place as that? It would be decidedly harder to avoid a fuss if that was the case, and he did not really know how to rectify that. 

The only reason he was wielding the magic he’d been given so well now was the simple fact that it was a part of him as much as the earth, and the new aspect of it that funnelled a little girl’s thoughts into his was somewhat similar to delving through stone for its old memories. A nod, at least, was surely universal. He tried it, sending the thought of the action across the space between them and wondering what she would see. He wanted knowledge, and did, in fact, need it. If he was to manage at all in this world he’d awoken in.

At least this fact did not dismay her. Quite the opposite, and his thoughts softened with layered amusement as she fancied herself a teacher. The pleasure she felt at the opportunity he was giving her made it a little better that it was necessary, but only a little. Still, it was better than remaining in the statue. Her explanation, perhaps because it came alongside what she knew and did not have to rely on her spoken words, made him realise that she was a better teacher than he had thought she would be, and that he’d have need of that fact a great deal. 

[b][i]Ahhhh. I did know.[/i][/b] Understanding dawned in his thoughts, along with some faint regret. The world had moved on without him. He knew about pictures on a wall, and stencils in wax. Paper had been far rarer. And he had never encountered the sort of binding she saw in her mind. [b][i]That seems far more convenient than stone.[/i][/b]

He followed her movement through the pressure of her feet hitting the floor rather than trying to decipher the action of thoughts and movement in her eyes. The book she found and the painting inside was fascinating. Not least of which was that there was movement inferred on the page. He could not, unfortunately, make it out very clearly, as she was looking at him rather than the book. But she knew what she was showing him. And he rather thought the fox was a cheeky sprite of a fellow. Her attempt to understand his meaning, however, left him with far less desire to enjoy this new artform she’d revealed. His heart sank as his ire rose again, but he only denied the fleeting hope as wishful thinking. 

[b][i]Knowledge will help me find it. But it cannot recreate it.[/i][/b] For all he knew, his body might be lying at the bottom of the ocean, in pieces. It would explain why the prayers had gone silent. Even if he could still reach it, he did not even know where to begin searching. The last he had known of it, their world was rather well covered by water. His thoughts were quickly turning sour when she interrupted them.

[b][i]Hmmm? See? No. They are not real. It is no matter, yours are.[/i][/b]

He had never been very well suited to using tact.