Chapter 68: Your Name

"Can you understand her?"

When he saw them communicate so seamlessly, Rhos couldn’t help but ask. There was a lot he didn’t know about his strange roommate. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to believe she knew another language.

Koa’s hollow pink eyes moved toward him, regarding him for a second before she shook her head, returning her gaze to the girl.

"Not a single word"

She didn’t elaborate any further, causing his eyebrows to draw together.

"What do you mean you don’t understand a single word? You just had an entire conversation with her, didn’t you?"

Koa placed the bowl on the counter. Then wiped the corner of the girl’s mouth one last time.

"I don’t need to understand her words to understand what she wants"

She too gently took the girl’s hand and turned it palm up, studying her fingers almost absently while she explained.

"Red Deer, words aren’t the only way people communicate. Her tone changes depending on what she wants. So does the rhythm of her speech, where she looks, how she moves her hands, how tense her shoulders become and how close she allows me to stand. When she doesn’t want something, she pulls away before speaking. When she’s asking for something, she looks toward it first. When she’s uncertain, she watches my face after speaking to see whether I understood"

Rhos looked at the girl as Koa continued in the same gentle, almost sleepy voice.

"She can’t understand me either, so I make myself easier to interpret"

She picked up the bowl and held it at the little girl while exaggerating the questioning tilt of her head.

When the girl shook her head, Koa put it aside.

"I keep my sentences simple and make my intent obvious. If I’m offering something, I show it. If I’m asking her to follow, I move first and wait. If I don’t want her touching something, I stop her and make my disapproval clear. She doesn’t understand the words, but eventually she associates sounds with intent."

She glanced at him briefly.

"In other words, we’re guessing what the other person wants and hope its right"

"Of course"

People communicated before linguistic language was a thing. It was ridiculously obvious once she explained it to him.

Something clicked in his mind.

Why hadn’t he thought of that?

His senses were literally designed to notice subtle changes in the world around him, and he spent his entire life reading danger from movement, sound and behavior enough to form a fighting style from it.

Yet he had been so focused on the fact that the girl’s words were incomprehensible that he never properly tried understanding everything surrounding them.

But to be fair, their previous interactions weren’t exactly favorable for linguistic experimentation.

Most of her communication toward him consisted of screaming, glaring and attempted murder. It was a first seeing her so calm.

’I should’ve realized that’

Still, now that he knew communication was possible, one particular problem became more important.

Rhos looked at the little girl again. He tried to think harder about a name that might be suitable for her but failed each time.

He considered picking something short, convenient and easy to remember, like when you’re naming a pet animal.

But that felt wrong.

After 10 minutes passed, he eventually gave up. By then he had already cleared out his bowl and thanked Koa for the delicious food again.

He raised an eyebrow as realization dawned.

"Newborn babies are usually named by their mothers, right?"

The look Koa gave him the instant he said that made him feel uncomfortable. He couldn’t interpret what it meant. Was it a surprised look or was she judging him?

Whatever it meant, it disappeared almost immediately when the child reached toward her, and Koa absently allowed the girl to play with two of her fingers.

"Usually their parents"

"Fine, parents. How do women do it?"

It was only after he said it that he realized how stupid that sounded, Koa’s side eye told him that much.

"You know what I mean. How do you decide what another person is going to be called for the rest of their life? There are thousands of names. How do you know you’ve chosen the right one?"

Koa considered the question while watching the little girl tracing one of the lines on her palm.

"You’re overthinking it. Some use their culture, where they were born, someone they admire, something they want the child to become, or something they don’t want forgotten. Religious families borrow names from their faith"

She pulled her hand free when the child started examining her fingernails.

"There is no perfect name. You don’t know who she’ll become, so you can’t choose a name that perfectly represents her"

The little girl reached for her hand again.

"Pick something that represents what matters to you. Family, culture, personal inspiration, religion... whatever feels right when you look at her"

Well, that made things a lot simpler then. Rhos leaned his elbow against the counter and thought about her words.

"Family?"

That was easy, his only family was his older twin sister, Asha.

He could name the girl after his sister, perhaps, but he rejected the idea. Asha’s name belonged to Asha. Trying to force some imitation of his sister onto the girl felt wrong.

"Culture?"

What culture?

Even though he once lived within an Enclosure, circumstances forced it to be his home. But even after years here, there were moments when he still felt like an outsider... an Outborn.

"Personal inspiration?"

Asha again.

Rhos almost laughed at how his life embarrassingly centered around one person.

"That leaves religion"

He wasn’t religious, but he knew faith. Obviously everyone did. The Thirteen Legendary Figures were embedded so deeply into modern civilization that even people who didn’t worship them knew their stories.

Each one of those legends had a Sect dedicated to their worship. The one Rhos was indoctrinated into– The Eternal Darkness Sect– revered a figure named Morrigan.

’Darkness is not the absence of light, but something ancient that existed before light had ever been born’

Rhos hadn’t thought of those teachings in a long time. It felt strange remembering them now.

’Morrigan’

He turned to the girl and repeated the name. It sounded too formal. Like it belonged to something older and larger than the child sitting beside him with a blanket around her shoulders.

He tilted his head.

"Morri..."

The girl stopped playing with Koa’s hand and looked at him.

"Morri"

Rhos’s lips curved into a smile.

"Yeah, I like the sound of that"

At that moment, spiritual energy stirred inside him without being summoned. It flowed through pathways that had remained dormant until that exact moment.

Somewhere deep within himself, a voice resounded in joy.

[Rejoice!]