Season Content Notes: (internalized) ableism
Dinner was a pleasant memory and Kyawtchais had used up all eir fiber. Ey was debating whether to return to the SilentSpinner compound or stay there for the night. Kolchais had made it clear several weeks ago that ey was welcome, but Kyawtchais was still feeling eir way. Especially with no formal response to eir courtship.
The silent-one squatted down next to em, pulling Kyawtchais from eir thoughts. Ey was carrying a hank of thin rope. “You asked last week about net making,” the silent-one murmured, “Do you want to see?”
Kyawtchais hand-spoke, “Yes.” Ey was tired and speaking was more effort than ey wanted to make. Luckily the silent-one had started learning a little of the hand-speech.
The silent-one showed em how ey threaded the rope through a large needle. The needle wrapped the rope around a small square of wood and knotted it. The needle let the silent-one make a smaller, tighter knot, slipping through spaces far too small for fingers. Then the square moved, and the rope wrapped and knotted again. The wood, the silent-one said, keeps the holes in the net the same size.
The child was watching also, inching closer and apparently not hearing Chotaikytsai calling em to bed. “Why are you making holes?” the child asks, “Couldn’t the fish swim through and escape?”
Kyawtchais’ thoughts froze, caught on the idea of a net without holes. Ey couldn’t picture it, but almost eir fingers could feel how it might be.
The silent-one laughed and said, “We want the little fish to swim through. We only want to catch the big fish.”
Kyawtchais tried hand-speech but the silent-one didn’t know enough. Ey forced the words out of eir mouth. “Try. Try net without holes. What look like. What be like. Try.”
The silent-one looked at em a long moment, then nodded. Chotaikytsai took the child’s arm, but the silent-one told em, “Wait. Help me with this.”
The silent-one set the wood spacer aside, cut away the beginnings of eir net, and started over. Eir fingers fumbled each time ey went to wrap the rope, not knowing what to do without the spacer. Chotaikytsai and Kyawtchais said nothing, watching. The silent-one spent more time dragging the long end of the rope through than making the knots, and it seemed like the rope was fighting em. After a minute, ey shook eir head and said, “The rope can’t bend tight enough. It’s too thick.”
But there was something there. Kyawtchais could feel it, like a string coming together in eir fingers. String.
Ey grabbed eir spindle and pulled off an arms-length of string, handing it to the silent-one. “Try!”
The rope needle was too big. Chotaikytsai hurried off and came back with a thread needle. Kyawtchais couldn’t sit. Ey jumped up and moved away from the fire to twirl in place, spinning emself round and round like the spindle, feeling the bubbling feeling of laughter tickle eir chest. This! This!
Near em, the child was spinning also, spinning and laughing aloud. Somewhere nearby the silent-one talked with Chotaikytsai and Kyawtchais wanted to watch. But ey was too excited, too bubbly, and ey knew, without watching, what will they do, what will happen. A net without holes! They would do it, those two with their clever fingers, and spin something new into the world.
The world was nothing but a blur, and ey spun faster, closing eir eyes, throwing eir head back, and the bubbly laughter burst out, filling the world.
Kyawtchais came back to emself, still giddy, but tired and ready to be still for a while. Eir legs don’t want to stop, but the joy and excitement that forced em to eir feet is … not gone, but quieted, flowing calmly within emself instead of bursting out.
Eir moved back to the fire and sat. Lefeng was there now, and Kolchais, and the gruff-one. Lefeng smiled at em and offered em a blanket, then went back to watching. The silent-one and Chotaikytsai were arguing, hunched over something that Kyawtchais couldn’t see clearly, but could feel against eir hands, rough and bumpy, thicker than any weave, a delight to the fingers.
After a few minutes, they sat back and the silent one spread out a square, no bigger than a hand. It is a fabric, but not one Kyawtchais has ever seen.
Ey held out eir hand, and the silent one gave it to em. Ey closed eir eyes and it felt… not right. Ey had been right, the knots made hills and valleys, waves in the fabric, rough and new. But the pattern wasn’t regular, broken and distorted, with small holes in places and big ones in others.
Ey opened eir eyes and looked. Nodded. “Is start.” Handed the scrap to Lefeng.
Chotaikytsai nodded.
“We could do better,” the silent-one spoke to eir hands. “It needs a different knot than the nets, and shifting to a new row is… but we can do it.” Then, to Kyawtchais, “We had to take more string. Add it to what we had. We would have asked, but…”
Kyawtchais wouldn’t have heard them anyway, ey shook eir head. “Good. Can make bigger?”
“Yes. Just need enough string. Maybe try working in a circle next time, since it doesn’t row well.
Awed, the family looked at each other.
“The markets have nothing like this,” Tsouchm said, “Right?”
“Nothing,” Kyawtchais nodded. “No-thing, no-thing, not-thing. Knot thing. No knot thing. Knot thing.” The sounds felt so good on eir tongue, but ey made emself stop, bit back the words.
Kolchais asked, “Can you teach me that? I think I could do that.”
Lefeng shouted and thrust eir fists at the sky, startling Kyawtchais and making them laugh again.
They had a trade.
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