The Feelings She Gives

Rori was just wandering a bit. There wasn't much for him to do outside of schoolwork yet, but he needed to explore this world he had found himself in. Except, he wasn't exactly comfortable with being too far from the school yet. It was slightly less unfamiliar than everything else. And he wasn't sure he was ready to face the big crowds that people said were downtown anyway. He had been thrown off even by the small crowds at the academy itself. He couldn't remember seeing much more than two or three people in reflections and usually there was only one. Not that he'd been forced to - been able to communicate with anyone at all. The reflections were only memories and they seemed to barely be helpful now.

As the mirror spirit came up to the water, his eyes were caught by the light shining off of it, and he didn't notice the girl sitting nearby. He knelt down and watched his own reflection, making faces and occasionally flailing his arms about. He puts his hand out as if to touch it, but then drew back uncertainly. He'd never seen his own reflection before. He was pretty sure he'd never had one before, being what he was. The boy sat by the water and wrapped his arms around his knees, leaning his chin on them and staring at it. He had been told he was on an island, but it was just another thing people told him that he didn't really comprehend. And he hadn't really understood what more than a sinkful of water was.

Now that he thought about it, he'd probably seen his reflection in windows or other passing glances since coming to the academy, but he'd never really noticed it. He hadn't had much time to himself like this. Or such a big makeshift mirror. The boy was so mesmerized he didn't even think to look around, though he was only a couple feet away from the girl already there.

@Kyrii

Even though the girl's voice was gentle, Rori had been so entranced by seeing his reflection that it still startled him. He jumped up so quickly it threw him off balance and he fell into the water. The water wasn't very deep at the edge, and the hollow boy floated anyway, but he still flailed around in surprise. He calmed down fairly quickly when he realized this being in the water thing was actually fun and splashed around a bit.

Then he looked over at the girl and shook his head. He was pretty sure he wasn't a ghost... Actually, he had no idea what a ghost was. But it wasn't his name and no one else had ever called him one. He went to hold up his notepad with his name written on it, but the water had completely soaked it through. Rori shook it vigorously and wildly, quite distressed at suddenly losing his main method of communication. The boy threw the ruined paper to the side and waved his arms at the stranger. Occasionally he covered his mouth with his hand. He was still in the water for all this, but he had once again forgotten to wear clothes, other than his "pants", which didn't really get wet. Well only got as wet as the rest of his body, which water slid off pretty well.

Suddenly he just slumped. He kind of looked forward to getting a chance to "talk" to people, as long as there were only a couple at a time. But it was so frustrating and hard, even when he was able to draw things out. And now he couldn't even do that.

Rori accepted the offered hand sadly and let her pull him out of the water. None of his emotions really showed on his face, though. He still hadn't quite gotten the hang of matching his expressions to what he was feeling and didn't have the trick of natural body language either. That was yet another thing he had used his notebook for - to convey some sort of emotion at least.

He shook his head at what she said, even though he knew the girl probably wouldn't be able to understand why. He was unaffected by the cold and he didn't get sick anyways. His hand would just feel as cold as the water, which probably would feel a bit chilly compared to normal human temperature. Still distressed, he kept covering his mouth with his other hand, but he didn't flail as much until she got him up onto the dry land and let go of him.

When she did let go, he would vary between flailing his distress and covering his mouth, then pointing at the ruined notebook and miming writing. He could mouth out some words, but reading lips was hard for most people and not covered by any translation charms. Plus it was hard to get the words to be distinguished from each other, even when he exaggerated his lip movements because they looked off without a tongue. All he needed was for the girl to acknowledge that she understood he couldn't speak. Then he'd be able to make some attempt at communication. Though at the moment he was unsure how he would do that.

Rori was most definitely mute, aside from having no tongue, his body didn't seem to be able to produce any sound at all, perhaps because he was hollow. He could still clap, which was why he had been so fascinated earlier. Anything that actually let him make sound was something that he would get excited about.

But he could hear her and could understand as well. His mouth and communication skills simply did not keep up with his mind. He was technically an adult, simply naive and inexperienced with almost literally everything in the world.

The mirror spirit was quite happy to accept the new notepad and pencil the girl gave him. Happily frowning, pausing and the attempting to smile. He was good at facial expressions, but sometimes got confused as to which one was which, his eyes were always happy through this though. He carefully wrote out his name, "RORI", in his mirror-letter style of writing and held it up so she could see. Then he pointed to himself. Next, the boy carefully drew a backwards question mark in his strange odd style. He put it on a separate page because he knew he would be using a lot. Holding up the notebook again, he pointed to the girl. He was lucky she had come prepared!

Innocent was probably the best word to describe Rori. Possibly more innocent than anyone but a very small child. He may have 35 years of memories, but they were second-hand memories with no emotional force that really just emphasized how new being alive was. He was naive an inexperienced, open-minded in a way that could be dangerous, while somehow having a maturity of thought that left him enthusiastically embracing life.

Unfortunately for the mirror spirit, his ability to communicate was extremely limited until he learned to write. It was hard to make conversation when all you were really able to do was draw stick figures. It wasn't like he knew how to talk to people really anyways but he had so many questions about everything that he probably wouldn't run out if he could just speak.

Rori gave a thumbs up at her name. He thought it was a nice, simple name, even though he was sure he would still spell it wrong if he tried to write it. He shook his head at the ghost question, then paused and shrugged. He didn't know what a ghost was, so it was possible he could be one, even though he thought it was probably some kind of creature and in that case, he'd probably either know he was one or haven been told by people at the school. He tapped the question mark he'd wrote and looked at it thinking. He had no idea how to ask her what a ghost was since he couldn't draw a picture of something he didn't know.