It was several months before I went to the library again. I had to. I had no choice. There was a rare book on the bender general Senge that wasn't at the school library, and I needed it for my thesis. As much as I tried to avoid him, he seemed to be the only librarian on duty, sitting behind the checkout counter and paying me minimal attention.

He checked my book and thankfully acted as if he didn't know me up until he scanned it into the system. Before he handed the book back to me, he signed and mouthed, You wouldn't like this book.

"It's not about liking it. I need it for my thesis."

You should write your thesis on someone else.

I couldn't help it. I couldn't help but see him as Harsul. What did he have against this air bender general?

I wanted to ask so badly. I twisted my brows into my forehead as I tried desperately to hold my questions back. "Why are you doing this to me?"

He seemed confused. What?

"I don't want to pry into your personal life; you don't want me to talk to you about the war, and yet you bait me to ask questions you don't want to answer."

I saw the confusion clear from his face, and he looked away, tapping the book I wanted to checkout.

I'm not - "baiting" you, he signed and mouthed slowly. He was using the words I used to help me understand what he was saying.

"Well, what else would you call it? Or are you saying you'll answer my questions?"

He didn't say anything, but part of the blame was on the hardship of his ability to communicate.

"Come on, Chaitanya," I groaned. "I'm a historian. I want to know what happened. You of all people should respect- or at least understand that."

He turned back to me, glaring. He didn't use real sign language, instead a simplified gesture system. Who do you think I am

"Why did you give me that book on Harsul?"

He snorted, drawing the connection. You think I'm him? He continued using gestures I didn't understand, but I was beginning to think maybe he wasn't Harsul afterall. Or he was very good at covering it up. No one would want to admit to being Harsul, not even the traitor himself.

I had another idea. Maybe he didn't know the editor. Maybe he was the editor.

I could feel that he had a role to play in this story.

Chaitanya stopped himself, recognizing that I wasn't understanding his random movements, and grabbed his pad, quickly scribbling down a response to me. He tore it off and held it up to me.

You're looking for a story from a soldier that lost his voice from trauma, but there's nothing for me to share that you couldn't ask any other soldier.I don't want to remember my past, but reading about the war through "fiction" works helps me to recall the events as fantasy. I wish the war existed in a different time from me.

I took the note from him and rubbed my thumb along the edge.

Chaitanya wasn't much different from me… finding the line blurry between fiction and non-fiction.

I folded it and held it tightly in my hand. "I can't help myself… I want to know your story, which is exactly why I can't be coming here anymore. I want to respect your privacy as much as anything."

He looked down at the book on General Senge and nodded before handing it to me.

I turned away, but I heard him knock on the counter to get my attention. When I turned to him, he gestured to his head, mouthing, Remember. Then he pointed at the note in my hand and mouthed, the note. Finally he gestured to himself then to me and mouthed, I gave you.

General Senge was the last general to join the benders in the war. The air nomads were commonly a peaceful people, but the Republic pushed them to the edge, invading in their territory, building planes strong enough to push past the wind currents they created in the mountains to keep intruders out.

Senge was a monk herself, so she was very level-headed, deliberate, and precise like a surgeon when it came to the attacks she planned.

Her tribe was small, but when their freeform nature sharpened, they were a force to be reckoned with.

These airbenders were all descendants of Aang, so there were less than forty of them.

The book went into great detail of his tactics and criticised him heavily on all his weaknesses. While Senge's squad was very coordinated and tactful under his command, the author of the book recommended he should have split up his squad and divided the airbenders amongst the rest of the army, using their unique abilities to coordinate with other benders.

Republic Lieutenant Chaman lead an army of a thousand, erasing the tribe wholly and almost every airbender to near extinction.

There were two others that have been known to have airbending abilities, but they weren't of the tribe. One was a man that ran away from home at a young age, becoming a major for the benders early in the war. Another was a warrior that fought using a sword, the son of the former.

When I returned to the library to turn in my book, Chaitanya accosted me, shoving a pre-written note in my hand. He ran away before giving me a chance to read it.

I walked slowly out to my car, unfolding the note as I did.

I know how genuine you are about respecting me. I know you were curious about me before I approached you. You seemed like you were waiting for an excuse, so I made one for you.

I know I need to take responsibility for that action, so if you can learn enough sign language to be comfortable with asking and understanding a response, I'll promise to answer any one question truthfully.

Regardless of your decision, I thank you for kindness, Yakone.

I couldn't let this opportunity go to waste. I spent weeks trying to self teach more sign language, all the while glancing upon the first note Chaitanya gave me, never truly grasping the concept until suddenly I grasped it all to much.

Sometimes you learn more from listening to what people want to tell you than asking what you want to know.

When he was telling me to remember the note, he meant this note.

I had been bouncing back and forth between asking Chaitanya for help learning again, but I was afraid that he might reject the request after before. And even if he didn't, I wasn't sure I could help myself.

But reading this note and understanding it made all the difference in the world.

Chaitanya wouldn't reject teaching me, and if I let him lead the teaching, it might give me hints to what potential answers might be.

And as I had hoped, Chaitanya allowed me to be his student again.

He opened our first lesson asking me which words I wanted to use, and I wanted to show him that I learned the first lesson he taught me. I wanted him to teach me.

Unfortunately, for several weeks he taught me nothing but basic conversational pieces while having me practice the alphabet. I was hoping for words like "war" or "fight" or something. Not "would you like a sandwich for lunch."

Then he began teaching me cheats. Sign language became tricky when it came to proper nouns. It was difficult to spell out each letter of a place or a person, so that person or thing was assigned a nickname. Chaitanya had assigned one to me, but only now was he telling me its origin.

Do you know what your name means? he signed.

Yes, it means red- I frowned, unsure of the symbol to complete my name. "Aurora," I finished aloud, and Chaitanya nodded, showing me the gesture he always made when addressing me. "That's aurora?"

Yes.

"So how would I say your name? What does your name mean?"

Chaitanya shrugged, wearing a cheeky, smug smile. You will have to learn the meaning of many more names if you are to be a true professional with signing.

"How do I learn them?"

Chaitanya nodded out the window of his tiny office to the library. Read. Search the Internet. Ask people.

"I'm asking you right now."

He looked down at his desk and tapped his fingers together before deciding to tell me. It means fire fly, he signed, tearing apart the compound word I did not know in sign language. He then signed it again as the actual word. Firefly.

I slowly repeated it. This was how I said his name in sign language? Why did it fill me with so much happiness?