Lake Rodney Sugar in the creek

In her more than four years of life, Towhee couldn't remember anyone ever responding to her deafness this way: by sharing knowledge of another individual who was hard of hearing. She met this information with a blink, the tip of her tongue pressing against the backs of her teeth. She had questions, though almost as soon as Crowfeather brought up his acquaintance, he cut himself off with a shake of his head.

She opened her mouth to say something but clapped it shut when he went on to answer her earlier question. Towhee vaguely registered the words. She couldn't imagine why any pack would need the assistance of a pair of loners, though she didn't bother questioning it. She was still more interested in this Mothwing.

"Did she know ptero?" Towhee wondered, then realized that was probably a very stupid question. Not only was that term colloquial, the language itself was a local, organic creation. Of course she wouldn't know it. "Did she speak a sign language, I mean?" she pressed, still curious how other deaf wolves functioned in day to day life.

Her mind flicked to Nightjar, the older brother she hadn't seen in years. He had only been deaf in one ear, though Towhee remembered striking up an immediate sense of camaraderie over their shared condition. (To this day, Towhee did not know that Meerkat was similarly deaf in one ear, or she would've thought of her too.) She felt a vague stirring of kinship with this faceless Mothwing, and Crowfeather by proxy.