Season content notes: internalized ableism

Kyawtchais struggled to keep eir head up, eir feet moving. The street was quiet, not like the market areas and docks where the family-less lived. But from inside the compounds came the noises of forest birds, children playing, grandparents yelling… and over (Or under) it all the scrape-scrape-scrape of Kyawtchais’ own feed against the road.

The sounds, every one of them, even the littlest, hurt. Every movement hurt.

Ey came around the corner and saw tall-Lefeng… no guarding-Lefeng waiting, hand on eir long knife, watching the street behind Kyawtchais. Safe, safe with Lefeng to guard and Kolchais to watch.

Ey dropped the distaff and sank to the ground, barely managing to hold onto the spindle with its burden of thread.

Voice around em, but ey couldn’t separate out the words. Noise. Just noise.

A gentle hand under eir arm hurt, like lightning under eir skin and ey flinched away. but rather than letting go, the hand tightened, firm, crushing the lightning, grounding eir. The hand lifted, and another on eir other arm, firm, firm, holding em so ey didn’t float away into the nothing, the grey cloudy fog that filled eir mind.

More voices and a bowl was pressed to eir lips. Ey couldn’t smell anything, but it was cool, and after ey drank it the tight space behind eir eyes loosened a bit.

Hands guided em again, supported em. A wall against eir back and the hands pulled em down, urged em to sit. The hands released em, but ey grabbed for them. Hold me, hold me, don’t let me float away, don’t let me lose myself.

Ey didn’t know if ey spoke, didn’t have enough sense of emself to recognize the shape of eir hands, the movement of eir tongue. Bodies settle alongside em, weight pressing against eir side, an arm over eir shoulders. Pressure, stronger, firm, the voices stopped, stopped, and went away. Ey floated there for a timeless time, seeing but not seeing, hearing but not hearing, while the weight of /family/ on either side held em safe and kept em grounded.

Sometime later, food was brought, pressed against eir lips. It felt wrong, eir tongue recoiled from contact with the wrong-foreign-stagnant-hurt-but-not-hurt thing in eir mouth. Ey forced emself to swallow, and there was more cool, more water, and the food was gone.

Voices again, a voice this time, a singing voice, and Kyawtchais joined it. Not because ey understood it, because ey didn’t understand, but because it was so familiar. It was part of em and part of the safety, and eir voice joined the other. Slowly ey relearned the shape of eir tongue and the sound of eir voice and what it was to speak and to sing because ey was singing, singing a lullaby that was the first song the SilentSpinners learn and the last sung when they sleep forever. The first song ey had shared with eir new family. And another voice sang it with em, pulling em back to it, pulling em back to emself.

Eventually, the song ended. Kyawtchais took a deep breath and looked around, looked at the silent-one next to em, staring at eir own twisting hands, starting to sing again. Kyawtchais placed a hand on eir knee and said, “Thank you,” eir voice rusty and strange in eir mouth.

The silent-one fell silent again, then muttered, “You’re welcome,” and got up and was gone.

On Kyawtchais’ other side, gruff-Tsouchm grunted and stretched out eir legs. “Mind if I sit a bit longer?”

“No” Kyawtchais leaned into em, and the arm wrapped around em. A few minutes later Lefeng appeared carrying a distaff wrapped with fresh fiber, and then the spindle spun the rhythm at the heart of the world.

Ey spun the rest of the day, and family came to sit with em, to hum or sing softly, to bring water or food. The sun set, and the stars came out, and the spindle whirred and when the grey fog thickened again and swept Kyawtchais into restless sleep, ey was safe in the heart of eir family…

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