Each subtle shift of her mind's focus helped him pluck something new from the surface of her thoughts. Whether it was about her papa or their location or how she saw him, it was all important. He'd been asleep long enough for the world to change. What he knew of this place now was surely small enough to fill a seed. But seeds could grow, could they not? It was a fundamental truth of nature, and nature, at least, rarely changed its laws. He belonged there, not in this building, house, the girl’s home. But here was where he was, not there.

And she was panicking. 

He let her. Better to let her get over it than have to go through this again and again. She’d learn, or they’d part ways. His brow furrowed then, the illusion’s motions hinging upon her portrayal of those emotions that leaked between his mind and hers. A thought had escaped beneath the barrage of her whirling mind and now he played with it, uncertain and unhappy with what it might mean. Could he leave her? Could he leave his idol? She was the one giving him a shape, and he could feel that connection as though it was tangible. Did no one else believe in him? Or were they so far away that didn’t matter?

Too many questions. And they were all wrapped around her own of wondering who [i]he[/i] was. And where her papa had gone. He didn’t know. Her papa was the other set of footsteps he’d felt then? A family lived here, perhaps. Aylen’s sigh came as a resignation of his thoughts rather than a deflation of his chest and his green gaze, the most solid part about him yet, followed her own when her eyes slipped towards the table and a tiny little dragon. Through his own eyes, he saw nothing. They didn’t exist, and so, could pass no signal to a brain that also, in a manner of speaking, did not exist. It was somewhere far away, probably still dreaming. 

But Agatha’s eyes could see very well. And now that his attention had been drawn that way, he could feel the scratch of little claws atop the table. He could hear, through her ears, the clatter and crash of Pinafore’s(what an odd little name) defiance. But he ignored it, for now. Instead, returning his focus to the recreation of the body he remembered; the one that didn’t frighten little girls, at any rate. He needed her attention back on him, to gauge his progress, so he asked again for her name, and felt it sift upward towards him, likely without conscious effort on her part. Her feeling of elation sparked a confused pleasure in him, as it was a better response than everything else she’d managed so far and was a far cry from the nothing he’d suffered within the stone. 

And then that sank into worry, but a slow sort, concern and just a touch of the fear that had been there before. He could not fault her for that. He, too, might have felt some concern if the air started talking to him, or he might have supposed it was one of his kin riding the wind. But as her observations dragged out his adjustments into just the very grandfatherly figure she thought was a kindly old man, he felt that fear vanishing too. Ah, children. There was a reason he’d always liked their company. Their minds were surely no more simple than their adult counterparts, but their thoughts were so much more enlightening, less guarded, and certainly freer. He wondered what a picture book was, but he decided to take one question at a time. Introductions first.

He couldn’t help the amusement inspired by her confusion as to how one went about greeting and introducing one’s self to a god, but he made no move to correct her. In so far as he could remember, he supposed he was. And if he was as old as her thoughts implied (and he’d been old before this whole fiasco began), then proper respect was due. Though [i]he[/i] certainly wouldn’t know if she messed up her curtsy. He didn’t even know what that was. 

[i][b]Agatha Eugenia Kerrigan Thrimble…[/b][/i]

Her name echoed in a cavernous way, as though to emphasise the size of the mind that accepted it and sent it back, though Aylen certainly meant no such thing. The weight came from a stirring irritation as she tried out what courtesy she knew and mentioned his sleep. His green eyes flashed and faded as the notion of moving lips distracted him, and the old elemental settled back, his emotions easing free of the illusion until it was as solid as it might ever manage. Which was to say, it looked it, but most assuredly remained nothing but air. Colourful air.

He tried, this time, as he introduced himself, so that she might think of him as something other than ‘an earth god’, to give himself the movement that would make him real. He remembered, now that she’d brought it to mind, that there were muscles that made sound and the sound required movement. Of course, an illusion would never be able to make actual words, but an illusion made by a god might make it seem like it could. Once he got the hang of it.

[i][b]Call me Aylen, as it is my name. It has been years,[/b][/i] he didn’t know how many. [i][b]since I have heard it.[/b][/i]

As he sent the thoughts to her, he tried to move his mouth to match the words. But he could no longer quite remember the shape it should take, so there was a rather strange disconnect between words and lips. He kept trying anyway, the memories would return to him or they wouldn’t, it wasn’t as though he could not communicate until they did. 

[i][b]Knowledge is what I need, Agatha. I have no body [u]now[/u] to sustain.[/b][/i]

He didn’t like that last fact, he didn’t like it at all. And his thoughts were soaked with bitterness as they crept into her mind. But he did not dwell on his lack. For the moment, it was enough that he was free from the stone.

[i][b]What is a picture book?[/b][/i]