Tu Es Ma Lumière

39 - Deaf *Modern*

Here's a thing about children, they don't guess and they don't question. They accept and they adapt. If you give a child two buckets of sweets and only allow them to eat one colour, they will eat that colour, they won't ask why they can't have the other. If you give them the ultimatum between one pair of shoes, they will pick the pair they want and won't question why they can't have both. They come up with responses and solutions adults cannot comprehend because they are so simple and uncomplicated. 

Perhaps that's why the day James Stuart introduces his daughter to his best friends' second born son, Mary does not question why Francis cannot respond to her when she speaks. She waves and he waves back. That's where it started.

The two quickly become inseparable with each other. Wherever a man sees a blonde haired little boy, they see the dark haired little girl. Other people question how they can have a bond so deep after just two weeks of knowing each other. Maybe it's because Mary doesn't question why Francis is so different to her. Or maybe it's something more. Or maybe it doesn't really matter.

But that man wouldn't know why young Francis doesn't focus on a man's eyes when they speak. In fact, the boy focuses on a man's lips when they talk. The reason for this is simple. For François Simón Léon de Valois-Angoulême-Medici is deaf.

He has been since he was less than a year old. The only son between Henry de Valois-Angoulême and Catherine de Medici had caught meningitis as a babe. He survives his infancy, but he cannot hear a thing.

His family rally around him as he ages, more and more as his mother continues to birth children. He worships Sebastian, yet he is understood only when Mariposa Vivienne Mionette Stuart-de Guise comes into his life. From them, he is complete.

For a while, that is.

Four years after Mariposa comes into his life, she is gone again with the flick of a wrist. Her father dies and her family must return to Scotland from France. She is their eldest child and the rightful owner of her fathers' business Tycoon. Her mother will run it until she graduates from education. They can never see each other again. 

Except they do.

They see each others' face upon screens every night. They watch each other age. There is nobody else for them. Mary signals to him in sign language as they talk. He replies with words. She returns to him after twelve years of being apart. She has ruled her buisness for three years, he helps his siblings with their schooling. They make each other happy and that is enough.

Well, until it isn't.

He becomes frustrated when the children go to school and he is left alone. He wishes he could have gotten the life that his siblings had gotten. He wishes that he hadn't survived what he did when he was a child. He wishes he could be better for his girlfriend and for his family, he wishes he could be useful. His mother cries as he smashes their kitchen into pieces.

The only thing that calms him is his beloved girlfriend gently tracing on his back. A line, a heart, and a U.