After rebandaging her torso, James refilled the tub and brought his tablet into the bathroom. He spent some time browsing around the net while she relaxed into the water solution. Most of his activities were trying to find more information on her species. Unsurprisingly, very few of the host families shared much detail.
After a while, she sat up and grilled at him. He turned. "Hey...you okay?"
She flickered white several times, before shifting into blue and echoing, "Ohh..kyay."
"Good." He turned his attention back to his tablet. His mind wandered, and he remembered the name his sister had recommended...though she had no way to know who she'd been naming.
He turned back to her, and she flickered white again. "Hey...I think we should know each other's names, right? But I don't think I can speak Novaxish...Novaxan? Shit. Either way."
She stared, obviously entirely lost.
He took a breath and put his hand on his chest. "Okay...James."
She flickered white again.
"James."
"Jshaaamsh.", she tried. Her voice vibrated through the name.
"Jaaaaames.", he said slowly.
"Jshaaaamsh.", she repeated.
Good enough for now. He put his hand on her shoulder and stared at her. Eventually, she let out a series of clicks, ending in a trolling pattern and an 'a' sound. He pursed his lips.
"Yeah...I won't be able to say that."
She flickered again. Sally had said like the northern lights, right? He pulled up a picture of them and slowly said, "Aurooora."
She flickered again.
"Auroooora.", he put his palm on the screen. White faded into her spots.
"Awaawa."
Well we'll work on it, he thought. He put his hand back on her shoulder, repeating "Aurora."
She flickered white for a moment, fading into blue and green.
"Okay?"
She shimmered with blue and echoed, "Ohkyay."
Smiling, he pulled his chair into the bathroom and found more videos to teach her with. Meanwhile, he sat on his computer after pulling it away from the wall enough to be in the middle of the doorway. When she saw him center himself in her view, she turned brown and blue intermittently. He, on the other hand, turned his attention to the schematics she had messed with earlier, hoping to get to them and change them before anyone saw. Or worse, before Lee...already accepted it and locked the file. Perfect. He reclined in his chair, running his hands over his head and huffing air in harsh breaths. A chatter caught his attention from the tub.
When he made eye contact with her, Aurora slowly managed to speak while glancing back and forth from him and the screen, "Hh..aawp..."
He blinked a few times to process the attempted word.
"Haawp."
Realizing she meant 'help', he stood quickly and knelt by the tub. She mimicked drawing on the tablet, as she'd done on the very project he had just been worried over. He pulled up an empty file on the same app, disconnecting from his work account. What she drew, rather quickly and messily, baffled him.
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