Perhaps it is because I do not speak my own language, but I find myself somehow learning hers. I'm not sure I can even call Helovia's tongue mine, for this land is my father's and I am not his. If I choose to never speak, do I have a tongue at all?

Nevertheless, when Aquila commands me I recognize her and the meaning of the word immediately. I think that it is her inflection, combined with my own knack for learning and the odd situation we have found ourselves in, that affords me the knowledge. Not yet having the fire within me to disobey, and feeling that the pounding has not improved upon being increased physically, I do as I am told. My gaze snaps to lock with hers, however, and there is something like animosity betrayed there. Even though it is not her that I take issue with, I can hear her voice ringing in my ears.

Does she forget that her voice is piercing above the water, that the waves cannot dull her tones into something sweet? Aquila is abrasive, and by comparison I feel impotent and strange. Wanting nothing more than to be something other than a weak child, I face her with stiffened shoulders and a look of fire. Let the water cool her now.

But it's not a temperament I can keep up, particularly not with the throbbing hurt in my skull. I settle with a cool and slow nod when she asks if I, too, am affected. The rage dies down but there's still a glimmer of it, some sliver of its remains. I do not wish her to lose sight of my potential so quickly that she forgets it.

I gather the purpose of some words, but the majority of her meaning is lost. My nose wrinkles and I step closer to her, the kissing of my spine particularly awkward despite the fact that I am distracted from its pain. Wounds of the mind. I can't picture Aquila being wounded, not the way I am. Without thinking I reach up, suddenly becoming aware of the shrinking gap in our heights as I grow older. My teeth gnash and grind, an obvious expression of my pain, and I reach to try and tap them against her horn. The gesture isn't intimate so much as an explanation for the hurt that I feel. Bone against bone. The constant striking, the discomfort of it all.

When my teeth then move to attempt to touch the base of her horn, I try to explain something else. That there are different types of pain, and that I know them all too well. She knows of cures but speaks them in languages I can't understand--I do the same with injury.

""