Finding The Way Back (A Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts Fanfiction)

[12] The Nose that Knows the Way

The campfire tonight has been...quiet...to say the least. 

Before that silence, Benson and Dave had been talking about their dreams from the conversations before camping for the night. Their dreams had been pleasant ones before Wolf pulled them out.

It was also a good opportunity to get some more sign language learning. Which Chess did.

[IX-ME HAVE 4 FRIEND] 

"Uh..." Benson volunteered to communicate since he knows a little about ASL. Though frankly it's taken a bit of time for him to answer. "You have...four friends?"

"Mhm!" Chess smiled and nodded. He proceeded to sign again, occasionally repeating himself due to messing up. He listed the name of his friends in the sentence.

[4-of-them NAME FS-NORA, FS-VOXX, FS-BLEU]

"Uh..." Benson squinted really hard, concentrating as he watched. He sighs in defeat. "Sorry, can you repeat it again? Uh...wait a second..."

Benson tried to make the [AGAIN] sign. He got it mostly right. Chess, due to having Piece as a dictionary, repeated it as he used his face as a means to emphasize the question. Benson nodded and did the sign. Chess repeats his sentence once more.

"Ohhh," Benson got quite excited. "That's the name of your friends. Nora, Voxx, and Bleu, right?"

"Ah!" Chess nodded excitedly. Looks like learning ASL is going well!

"Man, I don't know how you made a language when you can't even speak it." Dave commented. "It just looks like charades to me."

"It's a little complicated," said Benson. "But it was developed by people who were deaf. Meaning...they couldn't hear others...or anything really."

"Why not just write it out?"

"Eh...well..."

"LEARNING TO READ AND WRITE ALSO REQUIRES A PERSON TO UNDERSTAND LANGUAGE AUDIBLY, THE ABILITY TO LEARN READING AND WRITING BECOMES A STRUGGLE FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE DEAF." explains Piece. 

Chess decided to make a slightly snide remark about Dave. It was about that time with the Newton Wolves that was explained to him.

[IX-THERE FS-BENSON IX-HE HAVE SMALL BRAIN]

"Haha!" Benson managed to catch that and laugh. "Yeah, you could say that again!"

"Ey!" Dave took offense, even if he understood none of it. "What did you say about me!?"

Chess repeated the same sentence to mess with Dave, and that went on for a while. Benson eventually had to break the whole charade up and help with camping for the night.

And now, everyone's gotten quiet. Kipo, Wolf, Benson, Dave, Mandu, and Chess, everyone is huddling around the campfire for warmth, but there's a palpable tension in the air. Whatever happened with Tad Mulholland...it left something.

"Well! That's the weirdest Mute I think we've come across." Benson tries to break the ice. But the ice is 5 feet thick.

Chess is mainly sitting in the corner of the stairs, leaning against the wall behind Dave and Mandu. Silence passes again. It feels like people have something to say, but fear in what happens if someone says it. And...Chess does too. He doesn't know what would happen if he tells them that he doesn't need to be with them anymore to find what he's looking for.

To find what he truly is.

Frankly, he didn't need to be with them anymore to complete his goal. After all, it's the reason why he went with them in the first place. But now...he put that goal on the side for Kipo's dream. To find her way home, back to her Burrow. And, now that he's thinking about it, he and Kipo have a similar dream. Both involve finding a way back home. It's just that...he already has his map. He could leave any time he wants. Heck, he can leave right now too.