First off, by his gender being fluid, to you mean he sways between identifying as fe/male, or being made of ink, biologically sways between male and female?
With his appearance, is there any color to him? What I'm visualizing is something akin to a statue.
All one color, but details are made with outline/depth. Is this accurate, or does he manipulate multiple colors to take on a fleshy tone/give his eyes specific color? With that in mind, does he take on human behavior? We blink to keep our eyes moist, is this something he's picked up on (despite isolation) or does he stare like Hannibal Lector? Similarly, does he visually age? And how's that something he'd pick up? Clothing is another thing that raises questions. Does he make them out of ink, or if not, does he physically have some? Does his body stain it, or is there some sort of membrane that stops that? Like how you can touch the surface of water without getting your finger wet.
With his speaking, are the bubbles physically attached to him, or can he actually make the ink fly? I assume it's flat so you only have a good view from the one angle, but how legible is the writing? And we talking full words here?
Does the man who brought him there stay there? If so, what's the relationship there? Father/son, master/apprentice?
Either way, it sounds like a hell of a lot of isolation. Is Iris the lonely type? Does he create creatures just for the sake of playing with, and with reading those books, are they based on characters he's come across.
If he's not the lonely type, there has to be some crippling boredom going on at some point. With the perfect memory, I don't know how many times you can read the same story, and sure there's an entire library there, but if
every book's already been read...
What's the deal with people trying to steal books from the back room? Has he read the books in the back room? (assuming yes because of one thing up) If so, does he realize what's so important about them? And how does he feel about this mission? Sure, it's still the beginning of eternity, but it's
eternity in one spot.
