The Sky's Eternal Sunset

My Fingers Are Wrinkly

For a moment, all of me is alive and at home in the sea

I'm swirling and twirling so graceful and grand

Not stubbing my toes, getting stuck in the sand

For a moment, life is cool

I'll splash in the world's biggest pool

This is more than my thoughts ever thought it could be

For a moment, just a moment

Lucky me

For A Moment-Jodi Benson and Tara Strong

ʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔ

Roxas's not sure how to feel when he shows up at the small cove for his lesson.

He's used to arriving with Sora sitting on the beach waiting for him. Sometimes it's vacant, and Sora strolls down a few moments later. But today is neither of those things. Today, Sora has company in the form of one of their other friends, Riku.

Roxas is polite, smiles, and waves before inquiring why there are more people than usual. Riku does the explaining since his Aquan is still leagues ahead of Sora's.

Sora is finding it difficult to make lesson plans around the topic of grammar. Spelling, reading, and writing basic words is one thing, but he's not sure how to teach Roxas how to put them all together to form actual sentences that he'll understand. And since Riku's fairly good at that, he's happy to help further Roxas's schooling on this matter.

Makes sense to Roxas. Sora's area of expertise as he recalls is more in the physicality and biology of mer, not their language. That means Sora has limits to what he can teach.

Roxas supposes he doesn't mind that Riku is Teaching him. Sora is still going to be there during the lessons, his notebook in his lap as he furiously scribbles down paragraphs upon paragraphs of notes for any papers he has to write. If Riku needs a sign language translation, he's there and ready to assist.

Over the coming week, Roxas wracks his brain over the grammar rules of English. Some of them make sense, but others just muddle his mind, spinning it in his confusion.

Why do the words 'a' and 'the' even exist? Like, he knows there's a difference between 'a book' and 'the book,' but in Aquan and his sign language, the difference is implied through context. Seems like a waste of breath to have seperate words for them, but Roxas's long accepted that English is a weird weird language.

For example, when Sora showed him words with silent letters, he nearly had a fit. All letters have a sound, except in some cases? How do you know? Do you just have to memorize the ones that don't make a sound? Words that end in 'b' but don't make a 'b' sound frustrate Roxas to no end. Why have the letter there if it never makes a sound?!

Roxas's come to the conclusion that he'll never fully understand this... primitive and strange language, but damn if he isn't going to try anyway. He's committed to this. And the last thing anyone would ever say about him is that he's a quitter.

Sometimes during the week, Kairi and Remus will show up with lunch. Normally, the tech trio would eat at the lab, but they figure since Riku's helping teach Roxas, they'll just bring the food to him. Roxas likes that they do this for several reasons. He gets to try some of their human foods, and they have longer breaks where he gets to listen to them talk super fast and try to figure out what they're saying.

When they finish eating, Kairi often climbs into the strung up hammock and fiddles with her translator. She points it at the humans when they're speaking and checks to see if it records and translates properly. Roxas can tell just from her face whether or not it's going well. If it's good, she spends most of her time smiling as she swings back and forth. If not, it's a pouting frown and growled noises that Roxas's not sure are words but understands just the same.