When The "Dusk" Meets The ,,Dawn,, {Kiah}

Actions : Sign Language : Spoken Words
A girl - hearing, as Bastet presumed - dashed everything she had in her arms to the floor and pushed the tallest of the offending hearing girls. The hearing bully was sent to the ground, surprise on her face, as the girl who defended her started yelling at her. Bastet couldn't hear it, but if she was able to, she was sure that she would have been scared out of her wits.

At that moment, Bastet felt an odd sense of surprise, shock, and happiness all in one big mix. Surprise, because she had never expected someone - someone who was hearing, no less - to come to her defense when so many before her had ignored the bullying. Shock, because never in her existence did she ever think someone would do something so bold. Happiness, because someone was able to suck it up and come to her defense, and she acted like it was any hearing girl who was being bullied.

When the bully got back up the other girl pushed her again. Looking at her lips, she couldn't tell if she had said anything or was just saying "huh" or cursing, but at that moment Bastet didn't care; someone was actually defending her. Wow, what kind of guts did it take to do that? she joked to herself as she picked herself up and spoke aloud, clearing her throat before she did so. "Don't fight, please." She gave the two girls menacing looks and turned to the girl that had defended her. Picking up her stuff off the ground, she gave it to her and allowed her to arrange herself before she invited her to walk with her to the deaf and blind school, as she just saw Jade walk out.

Actions : Sign Language : Spoken Words
The girl looked at her like she was insane. It was almost as if she wanted to ask why, but did not do such a thing. Instead of rejecting her, she actually accepted her stuff and walked next to Bastet. Bastet spotted Jade and called her over to them, to which she obligied. Jade gave her a confused look and started moving her hands. "What happened with those three girls? And who is that next to you?" Bastet looked over to her side, and looked at the girl pointedly. "Oh, her? She's the hearing girl that stood up to them, thank God."

Jade looked at the girl, confused for a moment, obviously thinking the same thing. Woah, a hearing girl gave two shits about a deaf person? What has Panem come to? Jade looked at Bastet and the girl for awhile until Jade looked at Bastet and asked her name. Pausing Jade, she put her hands at her side and looked at the girl. She spoke aloud, the words strangled and nearly unintelligable. "What is your name?"

Actions : Sign Language : Spoken Words
As Bastet stood there for a moment focusing on her lips, she caught the word "Elmo". Looking back at Jade and her sister, she sighed the word "defend" with "E" hand formations. Then she spelled her name to the couple, and told them that she would talk to them later. She waved goodbye as they departed, leaving Bastet and Elmo alone. Remembering that she had asked her for her name, she spoke aloud, saying the only word she knew how to say very clearly. "Bastet."

She stood there in silence - no pun intended - with the girl, with one question on her mind. Why? Why did she just suddenly decide to just defend me; a deaf person? Clearing her throat, she tries to speak again, but the words get caught in her throat as they come out. Trying again, she manages to speak again. "Why did you decide to defend me, a deaf girl?"

After trying to lipread some words she barely caught, she somehow understood that this girl actually had a heart; a caring bone in her body that saved Bastet today. She was still shocked that someone came to her rescue, but she felt more surprised that somebody actually cared about people who were more different than them. More different than anybody will ever know. So different was she from others; she couldn't go home and play her family piano and listen as each chord was struck, sending a sound throughout the house.

She couldn't sit in her backyard and listen to the gentle callings of the birds that perched themselves on the fence in which her horses grazed. Bastet couldn't go to the barn and hear her horses' happy neighs of welcome. Anything that involved sound was not for her. Deafened at a young age, she was forbidden to be normal, and she knew it, even though she partially brainwashed herself to think that she was no different than any hearing person. She brainwashed herself to think that she was no different than any blind person. But deep down, in her heart, she knew that everybody was different, whether it be disability, ability, personality, history, appearance - everything.

But this girl here had something that was almost like myth to her - care for someone besides herself. She didn't judge people. She was actually... kind. Kind to another besides the hearing. Bastet felt her eyes burn and her throat close up as she was almost brought to tears. "Thank you for caring. Nobody has ever done so before but deaf friends. It is reassuring to me to understand that we still have humanity in this world." Bastet sat there with the girl in silence, expecting her to say something. She kept a close eye on her lips to read what she was saying.

The silence was normal to Bastet. She was always surrounded with silence. But the silence, the kind that hearing people had, was uncomfortable. Bastet almost expected Elmo to start moving her hands and start talking to her. Rolling her eyes mentally at herself, she sat there and still mulled over what had happened. A hearing person helps a deaf person... I am still so shocked that somebody even considered helping me.

Suddenly, an idea popped up in her head. A very cunning, yet wicked idea came across her mind. Bastet was the type that was out to get people that hurt her before, and today was absolutely no exception. Once long ago, she was at a mall with a deaf friend, and some guys started flapping their hands around and laughing at her. Later that night, she went behind their house to the power box and pulled a wire out of place, rendering the power in their house dead. Since they went to the hearing school that Elmo and Bastet had walked back from, Bastet could silently invade their backpacks and take whatever she thought looked important. They always suspected it was her, but could never pinpoint it exactly.

As she remembered what she had done to those boys a while back, the thought of revenge took place in her mind. I should give them a taste of my medicine; the horrible kind. Tapping Elmo on the shoulder, she spoke with slightly slurred words as she got the hang of talking again. "Elmo, you and I should do something to them. They have abused deaf people before, and I don't want them to do it again."

Bastet looked mischievously over at the hearing girl Elmo as the lipread words hit her figurative ears. Good question, what should we do? The deaf girl momentarily thought of the things that those hearing girls had done to her before and she wanted them to know what it was like to lose their hearing for awhile. She tapped her finger on her chin for awhile, trying to come up with an idea for what they could do until it hit her: modeling clay.

Modeling clay wouldn't stay in your ears forever, but it would stick around for a couple days. "We should stuff their ears with modeling clay so they can't hear for a couple of days. I think I can borrow some from the blind kids in the art room." Bastet's words were, of course, slurry and hard to understand, but as she spoke more and more often to Elmo, she realized her speaking skills were getting better and better by each word she uttered out of her underused voice box that was withering away in her throat.