The Sentinels and listened to this voice, like i never heard before

family! deirdre can now hear actual words... doesn't know what they mean yet tho. italics is babble!  

days and days of deciding!

the truth of her indecision was present only in her lack of understanding the day when she could know, but still was not yet warmed to the idea of that knowing. words changed to something she could devour and know, something she could touch and bend to make use of. the things The Giver and The Source said were regarded with some intrigue and yearning but--but!!!

on the fourteenth, deirdre suffered from a small cold. she was warned it would go greater to the point of taking her from this place should she decide to become Earth, an invisible nymph. but the clever witch posed a question to them: can i not do such things in this body? and they responded to her that she had the power in her that such a thing was indeed possible, that she was a witch of a long and ancient line that power had not skipped over as perhaps it had a generation before, that the forests and the rivers and the rain and the wind might still bend to her will if she truly put mind over matter in the literal sense—to wit, the answer was yes. it was only a matter of figuring out! and it would take time. deirdre, in an uncharacteristic moment of thoughtlessness, neglected to ask if her father was a witch and if he could teach her. her sniffles abated, and her dry cough was vanquished in one long sleep.

deirdre awoke, and heard for the first time. and not in the sense that she had in her beginning with Them. in that time, she had heard tones, and rolling things, and there was nothing about them that could be grasped. they were white noise, for the most part; pleasant and soothing. that went unremembered. for in her sleep, deirdre had accepted this life, had made her choice. she would stay with her beloved, and The Source and The Giver; she loved all three so much that she could not, even under the premise that she would one way or the other have a life with them. no, deirdre had acquiesced to herself at last: this life was what she wanted, in this body, where they looked at her and knew her yet did not, but would! as she would, with them! and when she accepted this with conviction, deirdre woke, and knew not a thing but for the three in front of her, and those that had came and went but were still a part of her life already.

and deirdre believed that this was all there was to her life, having forgotten she had lived many lifetimes before this one.

father... a whole word, not mumbled, not nonsense. it still lacked meaning to her, but it could be heard. later the attachment of word-to-thing would be understood. but now? now there was something physical here. a point to looking to him, watching his lips move, watching the shape they made and what that very shape brought. ...mother... her own pale lips parted slightly, trying her hand at mirroring him, but she listened still, no sound escaping her. ...earth... air... these words filled her soul. deirdre knew without knowing or without how that she could communicate with the dark shade beside her that she rest upon, and spoke, so beautiful... but to her awareness, there was no question it must have always been that way. it was belated, her realizing it. that must be what it was. these things coming from it, i wonder what they mean? (in being unable to differentiate gender, 'it' was everything, truly.)

she had different words for all these things, after all. snow, not yet heard from him, would be "the pale soft thing that falls from the mouth above." surely it was a mouth. things fell from it as it fell from their mothers or else their fathers mouth when it came time to feed! her names for the two before her had been forgotten, however. ...wind... these words were not droned on, but words she picked up on, words she grasped so far. deirdre would forget them, too, unless they were repeated. that she could hear them delighted the seraph cub, who truly smiled—for the first time—and laughed with delight at a word she found amusing, the one mentioned before, snow! deirdre marveled at the way the word connected.

and then came a truly gorgeous word: emaleth. deirdre did not know this to be the name of her sister, and said to any who would listen: e-hmmmm. mmmmmmm, her lips tickled as she tried it, not knowing that it was connected for as long as this life to the one beside her. try it, try! it makes this tickle, and she turned to her sister to move and (try to) bump her muzzle against the curve of her mouth, grinning.