Losa watched her as she spoke, intently it seemed, with interest, with amazement of some sort. But it was only when Ikuseghan saw the affirmative word – yes – that she smiled back at the rainbow. The Tempest princess could not recognize most of what was said, other than ‘yes’ and ‘you’. Her grin only grew as Losa grinned back at her… that is until the tides turned and Ikuseghan was less than pleased when Losa turned to face the stranger that had approached then. The stranger spoke some words, and all the pup could do was look frantically from one wolf to the other, hoping that someone would finally just look at her while they spoke. She wanted to know what they were saying, why they were speaking around her. And so she did what she always did whenever those close to her ignored her – it did not matter that Emerie had no idea that she was deaf and needed to be able to read lips in order to understand what was going on in the world around her. And so the little pup made an odd, wailing noise that sounded like a throttled fawn, only more awkward, and not full of pain but rather of irritation. Ikuseghan wanted knowledge, wanted interaction with her new friends… if they were indeed going to be friends of hers. That was why she had thrown herself against Losa’s limb, asking for her attention.

Ikuseghan stopped throwing the tantrum when Losa stepped back and spoke more openly this time so that Ikuseghan could read her lips. The pup furrowed her brows – again, many of the words were lost on her. Words like ‘the’ had no purpose in her language – it was just an article spoken to address a specific object, but Ikuseghan had not conquered the spoken language well enough in order to need such clarifying statements. Instead she focused on the words that she did recognize – ‘ocean’, for one. That had been the one that had just been said, the one that Ikuseghan had finally figured out how to say. And then there was ‘water’ – a word she had learned long ago – one that she had associated with ‘thirst’ or ‘thirsty’. Most of the time, when she spoke with her parents, they would bring her to the main river that ran through the middle of Dierne Hrof… or elsewise to the lake in the south of the pack. And finally, ‘big’. Iku understood big and small… but not the rest. Ikuseghan shook her head – ‘than’, ‘this’, ‘in’… they just jumbled all of it and made it all far too confusing. And so she ignored those syllables and focused on all that really matter. “O-see-uhn big lake?” She smiled but then it faded as Losa continued to speak. “What s-ahlt? What be-YOU-tee-ful? No thirst O-see-uhn? Why?” Ikuseghan laughed despite her frustration – and she did not at all regret escaping from her home… not if it meant that she could learn all of this new information, all of these new words.

But she could not follow what came next – the information that Losa spewed from her mouth was full of too many words, too many syllables, too many motions and too quick of tongue and lip for her to follow. Ikuseghan whined again, but did not through the tantrum that she had throne before. Living with her family, she understood that they could sense and experience the world in a way that she never could, that they could communicate with each other more simply than she could. And though her parents and siblings were cognizant of this fact and made sure they were careful to talk slowly and simply whenever she was around… they always slipped up. And they were family they were meant to be the ones closest to her. But these wolves, they had no experience with her, and thus could only do their best. Ikuseghan took a step back, watched Losa’s lips move, picking up what she could. ‘Dierne Hrof’, ‘mountain’, ‘sky’… and yes, even ‘ocean’ now. Iku wished that she could understand more, that she could understand all of it, but she simply kept watching. There was ‘wolf’, ‘pack’… ‘Dierne’ again… ‘varg’. And there was a new one, a repeated one. Iku tilted her gaze toward the stranger. “You EE-ME-Ree? Eh-Mer-ree? Uhm-ree? Which? What name?” Ikuseghan wanted to know what Losa was talking about… but she could only learn that in time… by waiting and watching Losa’s and Emerie’s lips, and being patient while she waited for explanations. “Who find? Where we?” The concept of find had been a particularly difficult one for her to understand, and it was through the gaze of hide and seek that she had finally come to realize the truth of it… and she was proud of herself for being able to use it. She could only hope that she had enough of a grip on language for Losa to be able to understand her… and then for Ikuseghan to understand the explanation.