Between Us and Ashes
It would arrive when she had the words.
In the meantime she expressed herself in the available vocabulary.
She had seventeen words. She was aware, from the focused quality of attention she received when she used new ones, that this was considered significant. She used them carefully. She had decided early that words were not for filling space — they were for communication that required precision. Lyra talked constantly. Esme watched what Lyra said and what it produced, and she made her selections accordingly.
Her current seven most used words, in order of frequency: *Mama, Dada, Yiya* (her word for Lyra, which she had developed independently of the actual name), *no, more, block, please.*
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