[i][b]Funny, am I?[/b][/i]

The weighted words rolled into existence through her mind as her finger brushed the statue’s head. It was a response so swiftly instinctive that Aylen did not, at first, notice what had changed about his imprisonment. But as a turmoil of images and questions wove their way into his awareness, his mind turned from its pursuit of those heavy steps and reached for that contact with such rapid haste that his own shock travelled with them. 

[i][b]Who are you? Child? Human? Mine?[/b][/i]

No one had ever thought him funny before. And that lack of respect surely ruled out the last. But where had she? was this a young girl? The thoughts he’d discovered held no particular flavour he could understand as gender. Where had it come from? The only reason he knew he was reaching into a mind not his own was the distinctly different patterns within and a line of separation that warned him he could go so far, and no farther. 

Still, he grasped at what it offered; stealing the identity it had given him through… A statue? his prison? Perhaps. He gave himself shape and form and being, though he could create only the illusion of substance, and a life-sized version of the statue appeared beside the girl. Blinking slow, stone eyes and gradually gaining colour as he plucked and threaded ideas and images through her thoughts to create himself. It took time, too long perhaps, for a young human, but short enough by Aylen’s count, before he was standing before her, a white bearded, balding old man, with green and yellow robes as he’d once worn them, draping over sandaled feet. Bright green eyes were half-hidden by wiry eyebrows and wrinkles like canyons spreading from their corners. They peered out sharply at her from the otherwise still gathering illusion as his question repeated itself, purely for form’s sake.

[i][b]Who are you?[/b][/i]

He did not yet have the hang of adapting his facial features into speech patterns to align with his thoughts, so his lips remained still as he tilted his head forwards, inclining his body ever so slightly in gratitude.

[i][b]Agatha…[/b][/i]