ZenaraTheDragon:

Really cute story so far!
I like how you describe the process of teaching Leon to talk with lots of dialogue, which is really accurate.
I am very interested to see where the story will go, so if you don't mind I will follow/favorite it.
Anyways, very good writing and I hope you continue!

-ChzLvr25
{Critique}

Cute! I like it so far. It's nice how he comes up with his own name and then convinces the others to call him by that name instead of a number.
I'm sure the story will continue to progress nicely.
Good Work!
Also, if time, please check out my story The Land of Spirits or The White Pegasus and r/r. Just a thought... :)

Chzlvr25
{Critique}

You have a really interesting concept here, and I can tell that you enjoyed writing this just by the way it's written and how the characters converse XD It's pretty out there, in a good way lol.
Please update soon, I have way too much time on my hands and I'm finding myself addicted to this site and just burying myself in reading :P Also, please check out my sci-fi, Dimension. I would greatly appreciate any feedback and support :)

[Leon took the next couple hours to observe the room he was in…. Every so often, one of them would beep quietly and a light would flash.] - - - put this in chapter 1! x3 Having it at the beginning of chapter 2 makes it seem like you're trying to make up for your failure to address the setting in the opening chapter. And that's REALLY tacky.

[making adjustments for the configuration of his legs- a more catlike arrangement of the bones than the others'.] - - - Nice way of saying that he's digitigrade. :) Also, that hyphen needs to be an em-dash: —

[A clear wall. Curiouser and curiouser.] - - - xD Ah, references. :3

Okay, so, you could do a clearer job of pulling off this scene. As it, it's confusing. You haven't managed as well of a mix of Leon's "I don't know what anything is"-ness with the necessities of descriptions here as you did, say in the opening of the previous chapter.

I'm imagining that the room's "strange wall" is a transparent, super-durable material of some sort. Is that right?

[Carefully, he climbed up the smooth surface, the tips of his fingers, toes, and tendrils sticking firmly.] - - - Okay, this is ridiculous. Going so quickly from walking to being able to CLIMB using all six of his limbs? That's not believable. How does he even know what his tendrils can do?

[And that was how he almost missed the food-person's next intrusion completely- he was bouncing up and down on the bed enthusiastically, letting loose sounds of delight he'd found himself making.] - - - D'aww… :3

["Having fun?" it asked him.] - - - Okay, so, the "it" thing is really bugging me now. *Grabs a megaphone* STOP IT, PLEASE. xD

["Am is are, are is am, am and are, like is."] - - -This sounds REALLY far out". xD You could do a better job of communicating the idea of verbs to Leon. People learn language through association. I would recommend doing the following:

Take out the italics from the first time Mira says "Yes. I am Mira, you are Leon." Have Leon respond with "Am? Are?", then, instead of Mira saying her current, trippy line of dialogue, haver her say "You are Leon. I am Mira." but with "are" and "am" in italics. Then, continue as is with "Leon blinked." :D?

[Leon sniffed, still wondering. "Why 'are', why 'is'?" He stopped and waved a hand. "No. Words is 'are', words 'is'... Why?"] - - I love this. This, and the ensuing discussion about plurals is really great. Also—as I said before—now that I'm familiar with the characters (and now that you have the one-on-one thing going with Mira and Leon) the lack of dialogue tags isn't that bothersome, not like it was in the first chapter. But, that's because I'm familiar with it now.

["Is...?" "Is what?" "Is what?"] - - - Meh, I still think you should put in a simple dialogue tag for the middle line when you have three consecutive short lines of dialogue like this.

[Leon frowned and beckoned it to climb up, for closer examination of the light.] - - - The "it" is annoying and confusing. It took a moment for me to discern what you were talking about. That's time away from being immersed in the story, and the read. Xo

["Why am I? Why Leon, why human and no human, why-?" Mira sighed and shook her head. "Speaking," it said. "Then why."] - - - Good. For a second there, you were loosing track of the plot and getting too absorbed in the speech lesson. This question from Leon refocuses the chapter at just the right time. :)

You could actually explain the idea of a phone quite easily using "in" and "out". I.e. "Talk in" (Mira points her finger at Leon's phone), "Talk out" (Mira puts her hand above her phone and points her finger to the ceiling).Then, she could do it in reverse.

[shrugged, wondering at the persons's crazy ways.] - - - "person's".

[It was amazing. Spreading above him, branching, arching over his head, strong, dark arms with bright, light-filtering clusters forming a canopy above him…] - - - I like this. It's another instance of your ability to give evocative descriptions of ordinary things without using the key nouns one would normally use (tree, branch, leaf, etc.). Awesome! :D

[his fingers, almost sticking to their wide pads] - - That he has gecko-like "pads" on his fingers should have been explained in chapter 1, in my opinion.

[He grinned down at Mira before... He reached up to touch the expanse…] - - - I love this descriptive passage. I wonder if it's foreshadowing something… ;D However, it relies on Leon's climbing skills, and I still think that you've given him masterful climbing-skills and limb-coordination way too abruptly in this chapter.

[Mira broke off as Leon's antennae slowly curled around under his jaw] - - - "antennae" ?! Where did this come from!? *grumble grumble*

Okay, so, I really don't like the ending of this chapter:

1) Having Leon suddenly use a mind-meld-esque capacity of his physiology so soon is not believable. If it happened accidentally, that would be better—somewhat.

2) Stop changing the way he looks, damn it. xo In chapter 1, I visualized his alien parts as being slightly reptilian; now, I picture them as insectoid in appearance. I don't like it when characters seem to *magically* gain new body parts or powers as a result of laziness on the part of the author's descriptive faculties.

3) Mind-sharing stuff is hard as hell to write in a manner that is both convincingly "chaotic" and yet still accessible enough for the reader to understand. You need to make the style of the two characters' thought patterns clearly discernible from one another. One thing you've been doing so far is having Mira talk in a slow, simple way to Leon; have her thoughts be lengthy and clearly phrased, while have Leon's thoughts come in the hyphenated streams. Just do something to make the two characters' thoughts distinct from one another. It'll make it much easier to follow.

4) The whole thing with "it" becoming "she"/"her" is gimmicky. Having Leon speak in more fluid sentences is enough evidence of his learning; the shift in pronoun use is over-the-top, IMO. Also—as I've said previously—it doesn't explain why Leon has been calling himself "he" this whole time.

Besides these technicalities, the story is good. It has the benefit of not only being (mostly) easy to read, but, it makes me want to read more (and when you update, I will!). Kudos to you for being able to do that. :D

CV

Its good that they have a sense of cohesion when they speak. Now is there going to be a backstory to this?

I like the first half of the opening quite a bit. The "one and one and…" etc. thing is very nice. I like the way you portray a character already equipped with developed mental faculties coming to terms with being "born". It's quite convincing, and not at all forced. Great job.

On the other hand, I think that, once the dialogue starts with Dr. Gray, things get confusing. The fact that you are using pronouns to bear the weight of character identification is, I think, a little too abstract (i.e., using "it" for Gray and "he" for Leon). The dialogue without dialogue tags exacerbates the confusion. I would give a little more description and information in all of your dialogue tags—don't omit any of them. For instance, I would say "Dr. Gray said", or give some equivalent descriptive clue whenever Gray speaks so that there's absolutely no confusion as to who is speaking. Keeping such matters clear is essential when you have a nameless character.

Another, more radical, solution would be to put the narrative into Leon's first-person perspective. The use of the first-person "I" would remove all ambiguity, but, it would also alter the flavor of the non-dialogue parts as well—and I already like the flavor that they have, as is.

As for the self-naming part, how could Leon hear an "Az" in his mind if he hasn't heard that sound before? I checked over the dialogue spoken by Leon and the Doctor, and the sounds "Lan", "Eo," and "Az" are not used in the dialogue. (Meh, this is probably me just being nitpicky. xD)

Oh dear, the second dialogue exchange (when Mira enters) is even more confusing than the first one! Xo Too many skipped dialogue tags! You don't necessarily need to say who says each and every line, but, there should be more pointers as to who is talking, especially at this early of a stage in the story. At least, that's how I see it. Same thing goes for the third, extended dialogue between Mira and Leon. Although it's better than the previous two, it's still too gossamer for my taste. Especially because this chapter is ABOUT the formation of Leon's capacity to communicate and to understand communication, there should be extra special care taken with the way you introduce dialogue and characters. I've read several stories with similar beginnings, and, one of the more common approaches to avoid confusion is to keep the "awakened" character in contact with a SINGLE teacher-figure, and to develop that relation slowly.

Another possibility for removing the confusion in the last dialogue scene would be to tell it from Mira's third-person (or even first-person) perspective, so as to avoid the minimalism of Leon's tabula rasa of a perspective. Or, you could just add more details and dialogue tags, and try to use NAMES rather than "it"s for the humans. xD

[He did pick up that one sequence several times- one-four-seven-five-three- and each time he interrupted with, "No. Leon." Eventually they started using his name in their conversation.] - - -Nice touch. I like it. :)

I don't like how you suddenly tell us that Leon is in a "bed". You should have him take stock of his surroundings first thing when he wakes up. Don't ignore the setting. I thought he was on a lab table, or even in a incubation tube of some type. I don't like it when I have to correct my mental image of things—it reminds me that this story isn't actually happening, and it breaks me out of my reading groove. In my opinion, it's a grave sin for a writer to force their readers to "re-imagine" things in large amounts. The images conjured by a story should build upon one another, each new description enhancing and refining the information provided in the previous descriptions—not re-writing it! xo Not being specific about the setting in the beginning left it up to me, as the reader to fill in the details. Then, you start providing the details, and instead of feeling like my imagination is being complemented by your descriptions, I feel like it is being re-written. C'mon, don't be lazy. :3

[Leon shifted how he sat to make his tail more comfortable.] - - - And he only now realizes he has a tail?! Xo Not realistic. He should notice/feel this first thing, when he takes his initial self-inspection.

[the least he could do was wear the clothes.] - - - Inconsistent. You avoid explicitly saying "clothes" in that entire description of him putting them on, so why does he suddenly refer to them as such after they're on? xo

Okay, so the "it" thing is just plain ANNOYING. I get that you're trying to maintain a third-person limited perspective, but, c'mon: how can Leon know that he is a "he" and NOT know that Mira is a she or that Gray is a he? That's inconsistent. Also, using it all the time is rather disorienting; I keep forgetting that you are talking about people! xo

The language stuff and the awakening scene are all very well done It felt quite fresh! :D However, you NEED to clean up the presentation and make it clearer and less confusing. Keeping track of things was very difficult in this chapter, and it was constantly disrupting my read.

CV

Wow! This is amazing! Two alien/human thingies teaching themselves how to talk! Wacky! I like'd it, had a lot a humor in it! Hope to see more!

I love it, as always. Really, it's here that shine! I'm already in love Leon!
-Fez