The New Kid is a Robot?! ~ Part 2 [Seren]

As Delia stepped into the entrance hall, the young girl took a few steps before turning back toward her partner in tow. "T-Th-This is um... t-t-the en-entrance hall." Delia hesitated, feeling very unqualified for the job she placed upon herself. Despite being here for over two years, the young girl often wondered why there wasn't a more official way of showing a new student around the school. It made her remember when she first saw Foresta, being completely blown away by how huge the castle was.

Adjusting the quiver of arrows that she wore loosely around her shoulder, the teen glanced briefly toward all the random pieces of art and mirrors that were spread across the hall. It was quite grand, the height being enough to accommodate some of the strangely tall students that attending Foresta. "D-Do y-y-you know w-wh-what d-dorm you're i-in?" Delia asked Rafael then, considering if the dorms should be the next place to show the boy machine.

The android was gazing at his surroundings with what could only be described as complete wonder. Raf's mouth stretched into a smile, then from that smile came the most wonderful sound--his laugh. Robotic but delightful regardless, his joy echoed off the massive walls around him. Everything was just so huge! Grand doors and paintings and strange shiny windows that showed a boy that kept copying him--hey, there was a Delia-clone there as well! Rafael made his way to the nearest shiny-window-thing, and extended a curious hand toward it. The android on the other side did the same thing. He tilted his head. The other boy did too. He blinked his--wait, the other boy did the exact same thing! "Delia!" he exclaimed in puzzled alarm. "Who is this other boy and why is he doing everything that I am doing? And you have a twin?"

The robot had never encountered the fantastic device known as a mirror before.

He vaguely heard his companion ask what dorm he was in, and he mentally berated himself for his rudeness. "Sorry, I am in Lyra."

Rafael was admiring the entrance hall and Delia remained quiet as she let the android take it all in. It was when he laughed though, that Delia's cheeks took on a light pink color and the girl shifted her weight from one foot to the other - uncomfortable in standing completely still. Seeming to be lost in her own thoughts for the moment, Delia jumped in surprise as her name was called out. "Y-Yes?!" The girl replied quickly, looking to where Rafael was referencing when he was asking about his reflection.

Taking just a few seconds to process what was happening, Delia couldn't help but smile at the boy bot's confusion. "It's... I-It's a r-re-reflection. O-Our r-r-reflection." Delia started off slowly, swallowing momentarily as if attempting to straighten out her speech. "I-It's j-j-j-just a m-mirror." In an attempt to prove that their reflections weren't actually separate beings, Delia moved toward the mirror in question - wrapping her fingers around the back of it and pulling it forward so that Rafael could see it separated from the wall for just a moment.

"W-We're j-just reflected i-i-in this," Delia explained to Rafael then - frowning because she felt like she was coming up short. It was one thing to want to explain something properly, another thing to actually do it when words just felt like rocks falling clumsily out of her mouth.

"Mirror..." Rafael echoed in wonder, pressing his palm against the glass and peering around at its back. His hand met the surface with a soft clink. "Hello, reflection." The reflection-person kept copying him, and Raf glanced downward, eyes widening as he realized that his bottom half was identical to the one in the window--no, mirror. Which meant... "This is what I look like?" he asked Delia softly. So, the wide crimson eyes were his, then. And so was the tanned skin and crooked smile and eyebrows that were currently raised in perpetual curiosity. "I have...have never seen my face before." He scrunched up his nose and laughed at the resulting wrinkles his face made.

He looked at Delia's reflection as well, then at the real her and back again. "I think I like your face better."

Delia watched Rafael curiously as he was discovering a mirror for the first time, feeling oddly humbled by the whole situation. As he looked back toward her, asking if that was his appearance - Delia nodded slowly, offering him a small smile of reassurance. "H-Ho-How come?" Delia asked the AI then, finally allowing herself to ask him some more personal questions the longer they spent together.

It was then that he looked toward her, his compliment catching her off guard and causing the young girl's face to quickly match the color of that of a peach. "I-I-I-I" Delia stumbled around her words once more, bringing her hand up to one of her cheeks as if in an attempt to wipe away the color. "Th-Thank y-y-you." Delia finally said to Rafael then, feeling her whole body suddenly grow more aware of Rafael as the seconds went by.

"There were no mirrors, as you call them, at the Facility," Raf answered, running a hand through his red-and-black hair, looking between his reflection and Delia's reassuring smile. "Just a lot of white walls. And white ceilings. White everything, really." His voice grew softer as he reflected on the only place he had that was close to a home. His memory was so fuzzy and fractured, thanks to his memorybanks being tampered with so often by the technicians.

He looked back at Delia again, and noticed that her face was turning red. He tilted his head, wondering if he should be concerned. Did humans usually change color? "Your face is changing color. Are you alright?" he asked, worried.


(ooc: sorry for the super late response. School and college-planning has had me super busy. D: It feels weird returning to use first-book Raf on this site, when I'm using sequel-book Raf on another)