What it Means to Persevere

Hypothesis

It wasn't very easy for Kazar, raising a deaf Skeleton. Communicating with him as a toddler was a constant struggle. Especially with how easily distracted the boy was with the world. Wingdings always found something he wanted to learn about, and being unable to hear or read lips, Wingdings typically tried to keep to himself while learning. Which made things even HARDER for Kazar. How was he supposed to teach Wingdings how to speak properly if Wingdings was always off doing his own thing? Even now as the Tiger and the Skeleton went home for the day, Wingdings was staring off. From the looks of it, he was watching some other children interact. "..." He wanted to ask Wingdings if he wanted to make friends, but he wasn't sure how. Surely there had to be something out there he could use to communicate with his charge. He adjusted his bag to hold with one arm and tapped Wingdings shoulder. "Tulang?" The Skeleton turned to Kazar with a questioning look on his face. "Do you want to make friends?" He gestured over the children. Wingdings stared at Kazar for a minute, then glanced at the young ones. "Nu-huh."

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Wingdings didn't see the point in making friends if he couldn't understand anyone. The boy also knew that he was behind in his learning because of his lack of understanding. He was sure that it had to be frustrating for his caretaker. The Skeleton sighed as he looked through the hole in his palm. He often wondered what had happened to him to gain these wounds. He hoped to ask one day, if he could learn how to communicate with others. So how did he do that? He hummed quietly, glancing at his caretaker who was reading something, his feline lips moving. He was probably reading outloud to fill the cabins silence again. Wingdings frowned lightly. He wanted to communicate with others. He needed to think. He pulled out a book and a dictionary, the only way he could learn at the moment. The story wasn't bad, it was more research than anything. That's what almost everything in the cabin was, other than the few beginners books his caretaker had bought when he first started reading when he was two nearly four years ago. Wingdings flipped to the 'L' section of the dictionary to look up something, but stumbled across something that could help him with this conundrum. It was only a hypothesis though.

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"Hey." Kazar jolted upon hearing Wingdings speak to him. It didn't happen very often. He turned to the six year old, giving him his full attention. "I want to see if I can do this." He tapped a phalange to the word as he showed Kazar what he was talking about. "If I could lipread, we could finally communicate." He explained. Kazar's eyes widened. Of course! If Wingdings could read lips, communicating with almost everyone would be a whole lot easier! They could finally have conversations, Wingdings could make friends his age, and while there would be some he still couldn't be able to communicate with, they'd cross that bridge when they got to it. At least now they could get somewhere. "Yes, of course we can teach you to read lips!" Kazar nodded eagerly to which Wingdings smiled, wide and eager. He kept the dictionary on his person in case there were words said that he didn't know, otherwise they were both excited to begin this little experiment.

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Naturally, they started right away. Kazar had to take it slow, over exaggerating every sound to see if Wingdings would pick up on it. It didn't take Wingdings to long to pick up on the words when Kazar did this. It was working though, which made them both happy. Wingdings believed that with time and practice, he would be able to be able to pick up on the words no matter how fast the person he was communicating with was talking. Again, it was only a hypothesis though. He couldn't say for certain if this would work for everyone or not, and if it didn't he'd have to adapt and learn different ways to communicate. "What is a Tulang?" Wingdings asked as Kazar was saying something about taking a break and having lunch. The Tiger paused. "Oh. Right. I. Suppose. You. Would. Not. Know." Kazar pronounced slowly. "Tulang. Is. What. I. Named. You. When. I. Saved. You. And. Took. You. In." Wingdings nodded slowly. "I do not feel like a Tulang, sorry to say. I just feel like... it doesn't fit?" Wingdings explained apologetically. "Oh?" Kazar never really thought about it before but... "What. Do. You. Call. Yourself?" Wingdings gave a small shrug. "I don't know why, but Wingdings simply sounds more appropriate to me."

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So Wingdings was what he was called from then on. He and Kazar continued to practice his lipreading day in and day out. Wingdings was getting better with how often he practiced. He literally took every opportunity that he could to practice as well, constantly watching whoever as they spoke when he and Kazar weren't deliberately practicing. It helped him work on the speed in which he could process what was being said to him. He was happy that he finally knew Kazar's name. It was a lot better than calling Kazar 'the caretaker'. He was learning a lot about Kazar too, and what had happened to bring them together. He found out that he'd been abandoned by his previous caretakers and left for the animals to get him. That's how he got the holes in his palms. Wingdings wasn't particularly upset to learn this. It was what it was and he was still alive in the end. He had Kazar now, was pushing through his disability to live a normal life like any other human or monster. It was their loss that they decided to give up on Wingdings.