The Purpose of I

The keening was a cruel noice that raked across the ears of the lost men. Echoing out from a place to the south of them they glanced at each other with wary understanding.
"We should go see what it is." Alastor murmured, from behind the bush.
Helios moved from his hiding spot where he had ducked upon hearing the first wail.
"We know what it is, best avoid the creature. We need no more trouble then that we already have. Or would you like to give up on her as well." Helios looked to his half hidden brother.
"We all want to find Hebe, Hel, let him be." Aeolus emerges as well.
"That sounds like the beginning of a but." Helios looked to the sky as if begging the gods that his brother be sensible for once in his life.
"But a creature in pain it's our duty to help." Aeolus continued.
"That was our duty a long time ago brother. Before the war, our duty was to the clan now that is gone, there is nothing we are bound to but our sister. Unless we are no longer bound to our brother's wife either. Shall we just dally here then." Alastor's voice begins to rise with frustration as he to took from hiding.
"Quite." Helios demands. "Its stopped?" The boy paused listening to the the eerily silent forest.
"I'm going to check it out." Aeolus sprints into action leaving his cursing brothers to follow.
The creature came into view like she was always just beyond their sight though she sounded far away, streams of foreign babble flow from her lips as she hunches over her ankle before she halts looking up like she scenes them.
The brother's gaze upon the fallen creature with equal parts wonder and trepidation. Unlike humans in the very fabric of their being, the Fae's humanoid body does nothing to disguise the animal like movements of the foreign entity or the stone still face that lacks in expression but not in the wildness of natural beauty.
"Jesh Ther." her voice is strong like she's no longer trapped by devious human contraptions in pain and vulnerable but the words themselves are soft like they where only ever meant to be whispered on the wind.
The brothers look at each other before emerging before the fallen Fae, the thing all children fear. It's not that they forget the stories their mother told them of the horrid creatures called Fae just that there is a different between hearing about a fearsome monster and seeing a person in pain. Even if that person will not admit it.
"We should leave, go find Hebe." Helios stepped into the silence. Her gaze whipped to him but she didn't speak the strange words again.
"And what about what her kind does to ours, we should kill her before she kills us." Alastor hissed. The women inclined her head to the last one as if asking his opinion while acknowledging the words spoken by the volatile one.
"Then what would we be but like the people we run from." the truth rings strong and painful in his words, the Fae women twitches as if this annoys her but it's hard to be certain what emotions such a creature possesses. "They may have forgotten they are healers but have we as well." Aeolus whispered to his brothers.
Helios looked away from his brother in shame. Once the tribe of Therapeftís had no warriors but know he looked down at the calluses on his hands, they came not from the welding of pestle and mortar.
"Well I am no longer a healer Aeo, I was trained to kill with my arts." Alastor stepped forwards but his eldest brother stoped him. Sometimes death is the most merciful but healers must always know when.
"You say we do this for Hebe but how will we find her without help?" Alastor looked behind his brother to where the Fae lay helpless but he knew the truth. Like any corner animal she was feral and unlikely to help them.
"And how do you suppose we help her if we can't tell her to not attack us." Alastor asked.
"Some languages are universal." Aeolus insisted, though he doubts himslef, he turning to the wounded women and slowly lowering himself to the ground at her eye level. This is who he is, the man who comes to the aid of the wounded even when they lash out, at least that's who he hopes he still is.
"Can you understand me?" she didn't blink and as he began to inch forward it, she was still as the old trees, the ones that no longer blow in the wind lest they break.
Moving his hand to her ankle she watched the two others as if she identified them as the threat instead of the closest one. He moves her ankle she hissed at him but he didn't flinch so she calmed. Healers don't flick he tells himself, over and over, is that not what you are.
"Lost?" she curled the word so it came out more like loss.
Aeolus grinned at her as the brothers shifted nervously, tales of the Fae where almost never kind. Aeolus though was never afraid of such things, he was always fascinated by one thing in particular about the Fae, his mother used to tell him they could not lie in their language and they had no word for self as if they just couldn't imagine the one without the whole. It had interested him as a child. It interested him know, a creature that was never alone, that understood to strike out at another was akin to striking one's self.
"Yes, we got lost looked for someone." He set about losing her from the trap. Holding his hand out for his brother in a silent gesture for help hoping she wouldn't react badly. Helios approached slowly drawing a knife then handing it to her.
She eyed it curiously as if wondering what it was for before setting it aside. They set about freeing her she looked at the boys focused more on the problem than her. When she smiled imitating the gesture she had seen, Alastor grimaced at the fangs she flashed but did nothing to hinder the progress towards freedom.
"Veal." she proposed this time. Making them all look at her again. "Veal" she repeated.
"What?" Helios furrowed his brow in confusion, she murmured a couple words in her own language before bring her two hands together to shake them in an imitation of sealing a deal.
"Deal?" Alastor supplied.
"Yes, noloss." she replies confident in her words. The brothers look at each other in confusion.
"Well she knows Selsesi better than we know the Fae Language." Helios commented
"Olmorv." she supplies again proving them right in her superiority which she seems glad they noticed.
The brothers stand once they free her but she doesn't rise with them. Aeolus quickly stops to check on her but she moves across the ground like water over rocks crouching a couple feet back in seconds.
"Veal, noloss." Alastor looks at his brothers patiently.
"You said we needed a guide." Aeolus eyes widen in understanding for a second as he comprehenion finally dawns, he really hadn't imagined that this would come of his words, he had used as an excuse but he was looking at a Fae now he would have to adjust, everything to them is very very real once spoken aloud.
"Not lost. You could take us to Hebe." when she looks on blankly he shakes his head then tries other words. "Um, female, women, wife, mother and children." miming two heights for the two words her eyes brighten on that one and he pauses to repeat them. "Mother and children."
"Mothmor." she roles the r before gesturing for them to follow.
Alastor looked at his brother who seemed ready to follow the creature into the night. "Absolutely not." he mutters in disbelief. "You know how deals end for the mortals in the stories."
"Its a story Al and we need to find Hebe. We should follow her." Helios insisted. Aeolus didn't look back as he takes off after the fae into the woods and his brothers once again follow. She did not lead them astray not that day , not any other day either.
Before she left the brother's at the cave where their Hebe was hidden, she handed Aeolus a little reed with holes she mimed blowing on it then pointed at herself.
"You." Aeolus breathed as his brothers hugged Hebe. She cocked her head the most human gesture she had yet performed was completely alien on her.
"No, Os." she walked back into the unknown but not for the last time.
******
Aeolus was laughing when he saw her emerging from the brush, Jii walked over to him in the water like way she always did. She seemed practically a part of her surroundings never quite stirring them as she passed. In fact the plants, the ground, even the wind seemed to aid her every move.
"Hello." she hummed her Selsesi had achieved a useable status but she still didn't speak in sentences. Unable to fathom the concept of self as a singular being she still mixed her grammar to suit her sentence structure.
"Jii, I've missed you." she blew out a frustrated breath a habit she picked up from us, the fae didn't have many silent cues built into communication or at least that's what Jii had told them.
"No away lonj." she murmured is her heavy accent corrupting the sounds.
"Long." Aeolus popes his g in example.
"Longe." she tried to make the stop harder failing miserably. "No know these voices." she finally complained.
"Sounds, the word your looking for is sounds." Aeolus smiled at the idea, she seemed to have mixed the definitions again.
"Voices." she insists, this time she seemed to say it was a secondary purpose, like it meant something knew to her, it wasn't altogether uncommon for this to happen. She was very clever always coming beck having learned knew words and meanings for old ones while she was away.
"A person uses their voice to speak." Aeolus continued as if picking up some forgotten lesson.
"Yes, seak." Aeolus chuckles, but he pauses as well wondering how she could teach him so much about the world without ever getting a word right.
"Why do I bother." he looked down at his hands wondering how long a human would take to ever become so clever.
"The surface of I is voice." she put her hand over his as she shared this revolution, softly as if she could communicate her meaning in her tone, one of those things she struggled most with.
"What?" Aeolus looked at Jii as she repeated what she said.
"Once say surface is heal, surface is voice, all human nee voice, is meanin off Vo, hewman." She looked into his eyes, it was there most often Aeolus thought he could see her smiling.
"Fae think humans are made for talking?" He asked. Of all the things to say humans where meant for talking seemed the least of their abilities. How could speech be his purpose?
"Is their surface." she continued as if understanding he wasn't figuring it out.
"Purpose" he corrected half heartedly.
"Invivivual." she pressed.
"Individual." he repeated. "I'm a healer though." Aeolus continued as if that somehow made her point impossible. She smiled in her eyes at her silly little human who thought only in the number one. I am one thing he seemed to think when he was so so many things.
"No you are a voice." she tried one last time to explain in amusement, he huffed this time. It was ok though, she was closer closer than she had ever been to understanding him.
"Aunty Jii Aunty Jii have you come to play." called a little girl as she came around the corner.
The Fae women smiled and nodded.
Human's Language was many languages woven together but she had finally told him the answer to the question he asked that day at the trap. She hadn't had the words to then, she barely did now but she hoped he understood one day.
As she learned she understood and she wanted to be the one who could tell him she was an I. But first she needed to understand more then just the language to say the message she now had.
She loved him but the words where so hard to say until she understood them she couldn't say them. She never thought her inability to lie would be a problem until she didn't understand the truth and it kept the answer from her lips.
It kept the truth form escaping into the facts that where the speech of her kind. She could not lie so she could not call herself an I, but the truth was the one she repeated in her mind every day since she met him in different words as she tries to expel them from her mouth, I love you.
The only words she really needed in her soul to give his.
I love you.

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For those unfamiliar with my world the reason the Fae have such a different language is because they are very nearly telepathic more closely resembling a hive mind which uses imputes and emotions instead of words to communicate. This nullifies the need for a mechanism of self reference, the word I. The reason for her understanding the other language though is largely because though in this it seems like their speaking English they actually speak a language called Selsesi which is descendent from the language of the Fae language Olmorv which becomes more comely referred to after some confusion as the Old Words.https://www.worldanvil.com/w/gandrain-starfyr/a/old-words-article