I was done with the childish pursuits of my youth. I no longer closed my eyes and retreated into a fantasy world. I was older now, almost two, and I didn't have time to ignore the world. Although the world certainly didn't make it easy on me, I wasn't going to let my lack of hearing slow me down- in fact, I would succeed because of it. I had no distractions. When I closed my eyes, I could really close them. My thoughts weren't drowned out by the surely irritable voices of others, and they were such brilliant thoughts indeed. As I grew, so did my vocabulary, the words I could make out and understand increased in number daily. I saw some wolves once who were speaking in a language that I couldn't understand at all, and I figured that it must be one of those other languages aside from the common tongue. Was it possible to learn all of them? I wanted to.

In fact, I wanted to know everything- perhaps it was because language had kept me in the dark for so long. Now that I could understand words, what was stopping me from understanding everything?

My ears drooped uselessly against my head, I never paid much attention to them, they were a useless extension of my body and it was better to simply keep them out of the way. I saw the way that others pricked their ears or laid them flat to show emotion, but I could never quite grasp that. Much like my voice remained monotone on account of the fact I couldn't hear deviations in tone or pitch, so did my face, for the most part. I could smile or frown, but I hardly found a use for it. I could communicate just fine with words, as flat as they were- I had refined my speech to a point and I had to admit that I was getting quite good at using my vocal chords.

It seemed as though I would have a chance to prove my skills as my white eyes fell upon a gathering of my siblings and some unfamiliar yearlings (still family, I could tell by the scent- cousins?)- grouped together in a clearing, doing... something. I hadn't meant to stumble across them, but I'm sure that subconsciously scent had led me to them. I tilted my head slightly as I approached them, easily dwarfed by them due to my more... diminutive stature. I padded over to stand beside Ankh, who had always been a little more.. patient with me. It was still hard for me to follow conversations, but I had gotten one-on-one speech almost 100% down.

I bumped her shoulder and gave my tail a few friendly wags. "Hello, Ankh. What are they doing?" I mumbled quietly, training my eyes on her lips as I expected an answer. My gaze then turned to the other boys gathered, the ones I was unfamiliar with. "I'm Alistair. A pleasure, I'm sure." I said a bit louder, or so I thought- it was always hard to tell whether I was whispering or yelling.