Heron Lake Plateau A beating heart of stone.

Caiaphas's statement gave Towhee pause. Was her pack mate just now finding out about her deafness? "Correct," she verified, then added in answer to the question, "Not everyone here knows it. And those who do vary in fluency. But I always encourage my fellow Redhawks to learn it. It helps integrate them," and it also made them less of an outsider to their hearing impaired Beta.

"I usually start everyone off with a name sign. It's a signal or series of signals meant to denote your name. You can create your own, use the known alphabet... whatever floats your boat. Here's mine, for instance," Towhee said, quickly flicking threw a few signs*. "And here's the first three letters of yours spelled out, to give you an idea," she said, signing, -K-A-I-, as it was the phonetic pattern she assumed from her lipreading**.

* I don't think I've described this anywhere, hence the vagueness. (Oops!)

** I assume Caiaphas starts with a hard "C," correct me if I'm wrong and I'll adjust the post accordingly!