Dictionary of my Heart
Ameokk tells August various Storm Speak words over the course of ~9 yrs, despite September urging (conditioning) them to forget them, and despite their own twisted emotions over many of them. Part of them wants to forget too, but half in guilt and half in spite, they refuse to. August helps.
Tejak: He had felt the need to insist
Their voice was bordering on acidic. “Fine. But you can’t ask any questions about them, or ask for specific ones. I’ll just give them to you, okay?”
“Okay, that’s fine, that’s completely fine.”
(He had felt the need to insist, maybe he shouldn’t have. But no one else would have, no one else would have cared to ask, to listen. There was no one else to be angry on their behalf.)
There was a pause. Moonlight fell over Ameokk’s pinched expression. They looked to the side, where, just out the window, a couple of whistleworms hung from a branch. The small animals’ song was faint but sweet in the night air.
Their voice was just as faint. “Tejak. It means sing.”