Page 114 of To Free a Soul
Weldir considered telling him that his sibling was here, but he knew the answer almost immediately.Nathair cannot respond right now, and I don’t think it will do Merikh any favours to learn that he’s technically alive here, and suffering.
That could deepen his guilt and loathing.
One day he will learn of it, but not now.
“This time, should I give you warning?” Weldir stated with the mildest hint of humour.
Merikh refused to pull his sight from the world. “Actually, before I go, I have one final question.” His fingers twitched, and then he rubbed the pad of his thumb against his claw tips. “How does a Mavka die? What is our weakness?”
“Depends on what you wish to do with that information,” Weldir answered plainly.
Merikh tilted his head to the side, but didn’t stop pointing his snout towards the horizon.
“I understand now why she didn’t tell me. I likely would have told Jabez, and he would’ve used that information against Orpheus, or even myself.” His orbs flickered with blue, and he grunted before they flared with red in a rather unnatural way, as if he focused on the stabilisation of his emotions. “I deserve to know. The feline-skulled Mavka has grown interested in my presence, and it annoys me. He’s so fucking curious, and he will not let me be, and I am...” Merikh regarded his deadly claws again, his fingers shaking, before curling them into fists. “I’m angry. All the time. I don’t want to be the reason another of our kind dies.”
His orbs morphed to orange, and they held that colour. Actually, they deepened the longer they were here.
“Your skulls aren’t as indestructible as you believe,” Weldir eventually answered. “It may take overwhelming strength, perhaps only that of another Mavka, but if broken... that is the end.”
His voice was small, low, and it didn’t match his usually boisterous and confident personality when he asked, “He’s here, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
Merikh grunted and turned to him. “I’m done. Take me back to Earth.”
“You don’t wish to see him?” Weldir asked, truly curious.
His orbs flickered between blue and orange, highlighting the way guilt and sadness warred inside him. “No.”
Weldir didn’t try to convince him otherwise, nor press him further as to why. He took his offspring from Tenebris as he’d asked.
I was right not to tell him of Nathair’s condition.If this was how Merikh felt – that hecouldhave empathy for his own siblings – then knowing that Nathair was suffering would only deepen his hurt.
It’s not his fault. They didn’t know.
A time unknown, but of adapting
Heavy, laboured breathing filled Weldir’s ears as he coalesced his physical self into his hands so he could present them.
He positioned his left palm flat but facing up and then placed his index, middle, and fourth fingers of his right hand in the middle of the left to sign ‘M’ at Nathair. His offspring mimicked it, and Weldir removed his fourth finger to create the letter ‘N.’ Then they continued onto ‘O,’ Weldir dipping into the memory of a soul that knew sign language to relay the next letter of the alphabet.
Austrális sign language was what Weldir had decided to base his teachings on, and then they had both agreed to create their own language that could incorporate Nathair’s orb colours. He didn’t have flesh upon his bony face to make expressions, so most signs weren’t possible to their full extent.
He wanted Nathair to decide what each gesture signified, and to structure his own sentences. He believed this would give him a sense of control over his communication abilities.
But if we create a structured base from one culture’salphabet, it’ll make the process easier.They could begin communicating by finger spelling, and Nathair could see how to formulate gestures from an example.
Once they were done, Weldir showed him how to finger spell his own name.
He took two fingers from his right hand and pressed them against his left palm for ‘N’. Then his right index finger touched the tip of his left thumb: ‘A’. His right index poking the side of his palm right below his left pinkie signified ‘T’. All four fingers of his right hand brushed from the centre of his left palm up to his fingertips to sign ‘H’. His right index finger touched the tip of his left thumb again: ‘A’. Then his right index touched the tip of his left middle finger for ‘I’. Hooking his right index finger until it almost made a semi-circle, he pressed it against his left palm to indicate ‘R’.
“N-A-T-H-A-I-R,” the serpent Mavka copied, before pointing to his chest to signal himself with bright-yellow orbs of joy.
“Yes. That’s your name.”
Then Weldir started a different word.
With his hands steepled, he interlocked all his straightened fingers together except his thumbs: ‘W’. Then his right index finger touched the tip of his left middle finger for ‘E’. His right index finger pressed against the centre of his left palm to sign ‘L’. He made a backwards ‘c’ shape with his right thumb and index finger and pressed the tips against the length of his left index finger, indicating ‘D’. His right index touched the tip of his left middle finger for ‘I’. Finally he hooked his right index finger until it almost made a ‘u’ shape and pressed it against his left palm to spell ‘R’.
