invisible string ↝ ao'nung

IV ; I Knew You Were Trouble

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞
No apologies, he'll never see you cry
Pretends he doesn't know that he's the reason why
You're drowning, you're drowning, you're drowning-ing-ing-ing-ing
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞

Sylwana wanted to listen to her brother's advice, she really did. But Ao'nung was just so irritating. To ignore him was painful, and to insult him was satisfying. How could she resist the urge to belittle him?

He seemed to feel the same way. There wasn't a moment he was in her presence where he did not make a snide comment about her. Whether it was her physical appearance, how she was going about an action, or how annoying her voice was, he simply could not stand her.

His voice was like scraping knives against each other; it set her on edge. It was maddening. He spoke like he was above her, better than her. During lessons, she never could seem to do anything right. Her position was off, she was not moving in the correct way, her hand signs were jumbled up and didn't make any sense, she was breathing through her lungs and not her stomach. How was she supposed to breathe through her stomach? That was not its main purpose, and it just so happens she has lungs to store air. When she pointed this out, he looked at her like she had sprouted ten heads. Told her she was a moron, he was wasting his precious time, sitting here teaching her how to breathe. That she should know this, it's the easiest thing he could ever ask her to do. And yet with every passing day he had not one positive thing to say about her progress.

She blamed him. He was surely the reason she was getting nowhere. All her life, she excelled at everything. Hunting, tracking, flying, running, climbing... You name it, she could do it, and do it well. Her baby brother was thriving, and she knew it was because Ao'nung was not the one teaching him. Just give her one day with Tsireya or Rotxo as a teacher, and she could probably do everything better than Ao'nung. No, not probably. Definitely.

Though there was a nagging in the back of her head. Ao'nung was also teaching Neteyam, who seemed to have no trouble picking up the Metkayina ways. Her other half was always just as good as she was, even better than her in some areas. How was he not provoked by Ao'nung? He was even pleasant with the ocean boy. He listened to his instructions and his irksome voice and didn't want to smack his vexatious face? She had always been impressed by Neteyam, but this was taking it to a whole other level.

Some part of her knew she was just being stubborn. Stuck in her old ways because she didn't truly want to believe she was never returning to the forest. Her family, sans her mother, accepted this and tried to adapt. She couldn't. She refused to.

And Ao'nung was only making this transition harder.

"No." Ao'nung looked murderous. He was attempting to teach her the Metkayina sign language. Today she was learning basic verbs. To walk, to make, to run, easy. Simple. Apparently not for her.

Sure, she had mastered two or three. Easy ones, like to swim or to watch. She just couldn't get 'to be'. Ao'nung had purposefully picked the easiest verbs he could think of to teach her. And she still wasn't getting it after several hours.

"I did exactly what you did! Look," she repeated the movement. "That is not what I did. I did this," he signed the word. "You made up an entirely new language."
"This is an entirely new language for me. I have never encountered this before so I deeply apologise if I don't get it right the first time." Ao'nung scoffed. "Yeah, except this isn't the first time. This is the twentieth time in an hour you've gotten this one verb wrong. Again."

Sylwana huffed, signing the verb wrong once more. Ao'nung groaned. "How are you this dense? I thought you weren't as much of a freak as your brother or sister, but maybe it's all up here," he tapped her head, "and not on the outside." She shoved his hand away. "None of us are freaks. We didn't ask for this, it isn't our fault we're stuck here with you. This is just what happens when you're being hunted down."
"Hunted down for what? Being idiotic freaks?"