For reference - Loric. "LSE." Spoken. (I'm shoving everything spoken into a nebulous language category - not specifically English or Spanish - that Marina understands. Just go with it.) I also don't know anything about the d/Deaf/HoH community in Spain so pelase let me know if I've gotten something terribly wrong. The title's from Thriving Ivory's "Back Where We Belong" because I'm sentimental shit.
Adelina suggested a CI exactly once. Marina was eleven, and Adelina had stopped responding to Loric a year ago.
It fell through, because it wasn't like Adelina's pocket money could pay for the surgery, let alone the doctors that would follow. But.
Marina still remembers the clench in her chest. Adelina wanted - Adelina wanted what they all did, to fix her. As if there were something wrong with her. As if she needed fixing.
She remembers, and she aches, because when she was younger it was Adelina who told her that she wasn't less than anyone else.
Marina wakes up with the pillow to her face. Just like every morning, she almost falls out of her narrow bed when she rolls over to look at Gabby. Marina's bleary eyes catch something along the lines of Get up, dumbass.
Just like every morning, Marina signs a sarcastic "Thanks, Gabby," to the girl's turned back, and tries to work up the motivation to get out of bed. She considers what would happen if she stayed in her bunk and closed her eyes and just ignored the pounding vibrations of dozens of girls getting ready for school.
She gets up.
Just like every morning, she signs to Adelina in the halls. Good morning.
Just like every time Marina uses Loric sign, Adelina's eyes skitter over her, like Marina's not even there. Silent, unnoticed, unimportant.
She should really stop hoping for change. Stupid, she tells herself, tracing the bare outline of the sign. Stupid.
Sister Maria, one of the few who know LSE, gives Marina a strange look, clearly confused by the unfamiliar sign. Marina smiles and shakes her head and politely asks how Sister Maria's morning has been.
(She should really stop remembering how things used to be.)
School is always an ordeal because no one knows LSE. Marina's Spanish teacher has picked up a few signs, but that's it. Marina has to rely on the muffled sounds that she can sometimes identify, imperfect lip reading, and a girl named Rosa who's in all of Marina's classes and is fine with Marina copying her notes.
Not everyone's as tolerant as Rosa. The other girls sometimes cover their mouths purposefully while they talk to Marina, somehow finding great amusement in Marina's confusion. Being able to see in the dark is incredibly helpful when you're trying to sign, but it's times like these that Marina wishes she had x-ray vision instead, to see straight through their hands.
The teachers aren't as bad. But the math teacher still huffs an annoyed breath when Marina asks for him to explain something again, please, this time facing the class instead of the chalkboard. The gym teacher must think Marina's an invalid, because he doesn't let Marina do anything more strenuous than a push-up.
(Marina doesn't have an issue with this specific consequence. Getting out of gym is pretty nice. But she wishes it weren't because of, you know. The way she was born.)
Marina ducks aside into a familiar doorway, ignoring the girls behind her, who brush past closer than really necessary.
She smiles across the room at Héctor, doesn't bother signing as she approaches and slides into the seat across from him. He smells like alcohol. For a little too long Hector looks at his hands, gripped loosely around a bottle, and Marina knows what he's doing - she's seen it before, Héctor trying to decide whether it's worth letting go to sign to her. Today the answer is no. Marina, of the sea, he says aloud. At least, she thinks that's what he says.
"Hey, Héctor," Marina signs, resting her elbows on the somewhat sticky table. "How is your mother?"
Héctor frowns and glances down. Well, it's supposed to be a glance, but Héctor's drunk. It looks more like him dropping his chin to his chest for a good ten seconds before blearily looking up.
"I'm sorry," Marina tells him. "Really."
Héctor smiles at her for the first time this week. He must decide she's worth it, because he unclenches his hands from his drink and signs back. "I know."
The new girl knows LSE. Her name is Ella, and she's mute, and Marina loves her.
Marina also doesn't have to try and protect Ella or anything like that. Marina would fail, but. Even Gabby and her clique aren't going to mess with a mute seven-year-old. Guilt factor for the win.
"Selectively mute, really," Ella tells Marina one day at lunch. Her signs are quick and furtive. "My dad." Her fingers still for a second. Pauses, restarts, flicks the sign for 'past' over her shoulder. Marina winces. "My dad, he was hard of hearing. I can speak aloud, but I guess I don't want to. I don't know. It feels wrong."
"It's okay," Marina signs quickly. "You don't have to…" She pauses, searching for the right word. The one that comes to mind is Loric, and yeah, Ella's great, but that's not gonna fly, for more than one reason. Marina makes a face, settles on, "...explain. You don't have to explain yourself to me."
Ella grins. Marina smiles back and lets her right hand say justify in a language only she knows.
But. Then.
Be brave, Marina, Adelina orders her just before she dies, and all Marina can think is that Adelina didn't forget Marina's first language. Adelina never forgot.
It hurts less than she thought it would, Marina realizes, when she stands numbly in a church with her Cêpan's lifeless body underneath her. She'd always imagined grief to be a kind of deadly, sharp hurt. This grief is cold and slow and no less fatal.
"Marina," the girl that looks like Ella signs.
Marina grins. It feels feral. Ella must agree, because she takes a step back, and the man who's been following Marina moves forwards. He says something that Marina can't make out - or, no, that's not quite it.
Marina could probably read his lips if she really tried, could probably get something fairly accurate even with the facial hair and the dust that fills the air.
It's just that she can't bring herself to care.
So, it turns out that Ella's not actually mute.
Selectively mute. Whatever. Marina doesn't care because it wasn't ever real to begin with.
When Ella looks away from her spoken conversation, Marina catches the younger girl's eye, and. And.
See, Marina's angry. She's angry because she has never, not once in her life, met someone like her - Deaf and, well, maybe she's not proud, but she's definitely not ashamed of this, the way she was born. Adelina pounded that into her head long before growing distant.
Marina had thought that Ella understood that. Marina had thought that there was much more conscious choice on Ella's part. Marina had thought that Ella was like her, in that respect, both of them willing to be separate from other people for an identity they'd grown up with.
The fact that it was all just an act, a ploy to try and get closer to Marina? That. Well.
That burns, scorching its way into the emptiness that Adelina's last breath sucked out of Marina's chest, filling her with something close to rage.
But this isn't over yet. Marina suppresses her emotions with extreme prejudice.
She also attacks with extreme prejudice.
(The Mogs die and Marina burns from the inside out.)
Once they're dead, she approaches with caution, her whole body shaking with adrenaline and something she can't quite identify. It might be agony or exhilaration. She doesn't know. She doesn't think she wants to know. That'll make this all too real.
I'm Number Seven, Marina signs in a language she hasn't used, really used, in what feels like lifetimes.
The girl furrows her brow, and her hands are shaky, unpracticed, but the meaning is clear enough. Nice to meet you, Seven. I'm Six.
Marina laughs out loud at the familiar signs. Ella jumps at the sound, and Crayton looks disconcerted, but Marina really couldn't care less.
Six asks to see Marina's pendant, but Marina doesn't need to see Six's, not when she knows Loric.
"I'm sorry," Ella tells her as they board the plane.
Marina doesn't respond until they're in their seats. It's not okay, not by a long shot, and Marina's anger at the younger girl still burns, but its intensity fades, just a little bit, and seeps away.
"I know you are," Marina signs back.
Six taps Marina's shoulder. Marina twists in her seat to see what Six is saying. All clear. Did you see anything?
Marina shakes her head no and lets herself worry about the flight so she won't have to think about what they'll find in India.
Eight's good at Loric sign. He tells Marina that his Cêpan'd had perfect hearing, but back on Lorien, Eight's family hadn't, half of them hard of hearing. Eight had grown up signing. When they'd landed on Earth, they'd kept using sign as a method of silent communication.
After his Cêpan's death Eight had stopped practicing.
He's still better at Loric sign than Six and Crayton. It's nice. Marina likes that she doesn't have to slow down, and when the others talk, Eight makes sure she understands generally what's going on. He's not good enough to translate, but his muddled explanations are clear enough to give Ella a break. His presence makes her feel like less of an outsider and more of a member of the Garde.
The rest of them pick up several of the Loric signs very quickly. It's more necessity than anything. Legacies. Healing. Garde.
Ella didn't know any Loric sign before now. Six didn't know any LSE. Crayton understood both, but didn't sign either.
Marina signs, now, in a strange mixture of two languages, enough so that both Six and Ella get the gist of what she's saying. It feels good, this mixing of signs, one language from lightyears away, the other from far closer. It feels right.
Could you heal yourself? Six asks one day. Your -
Six doesn't know the sign, but the way she waves her hands at the sides of her head is clear enough.
Maybe. Probably. I don't know. Marina scrunches her nose up, not quite disgusted. Why would I?
And Marina's pretty sure that Six doesn't get it, judging from the confusion on the other girl's face, but Six doesn't push and Marina doesn't elaborate.
Five has forgotten Loric sign, and Marina doesn't think anything of it at the time. It's understandable. When one is running for their life, one tends to forget signs learned at the age of five.
But. After. After, she wonders whether she should've known, whether it was some kind of clue that Five wasn't what he seemed.
And when Eight dies, Marina screams, feeling her throat tear from the fury that vibrates through her bones. Or maybe that's just her imagination.
Either way, it hurts.
Either way, her mouth tastes like blood.