Moonspear Sal din hug og lat den ri og renna.

Njord didn’t seem to know the proper term for the sign language, which prompted a sharp intake of breath from Towhee. She wouldn’t hold it against him but it just wouldn’t do, especially because both her children seemed unable to hear or verbalize totally normally.

-“Yes, it’s called Ptero,”- she said and signed at once, keeping her movements a little slower than usual in the hope that he could pick up on them. -“I’m really good at lipreading too but there’s a list of things—like accents—that can trip me up. And my two youngest don’t appear to speak at all, so it would mean everything to us if you and Meerkat taught your family to speak it, at the very least. I’m happy to help teach anyone who’s willing to learn.”-

She fell quiet, giving her son-in-law a moment to speak in turn, and intended to pay close attention. But an intrusive thought butted its way into her brain, causing her eyes to go out of focus. Towhee would never forget Meerkat’s melancholy when Njord had disappeared for a while the previous summer. Her daughter had known where he was going, she remembered; he hadn’t just vanished without a word or trace. But something had waylaid him quite a while and he hadn’t sent word. He had just reappeared one day, if memory served, with some sort of explanation that Meerkat had obviously accepted.

Towhee’s jaw tightened, ticked. She wanted to ask some questions, yet she knew it wouldn’t be appropriate to dredge up that sort of thing right now, maybe ever. She swallowed and refocused her eyes, trying not to miss another word.