As the days rolled onward, I would accompany one of my parents as they went about their business. And when I was tired, they would give me time to nap, which I greatly appreciated. As it turns out, being carried about was demanding work. But if I were awake, I would be hanging out with one of them. It almost seemed like an apprenticeship for basic living, though I don't think they intended for me to pick up on anything for a while.

The majority of the time I spent with my mother. From what I could guess, my father was a hunter of some kind, if that spear he carried when he went off was any indicator. When he was around, around 50% of the time, I would spend the majority of that time with him.

So early on, about a week after first taking me around town, my parents resumed what I assumed to be their normal lives. Mother spent a lot of her time making deliveries to various people in the tribe. I decided to start calling it a tribe because the collection of people was quite small—had to be under 300 members—and everyone seemed to know each other very well. As for the deliveries, they were mostly tools made out of bone and various other animal parts. I can personally vouch for them being animal parts, as I've seen her make them. She was rather skilled and could make a large array of tools: knives, cords, arrows, spearheads, and hide protective items... She also made decorative knickknacks and jewelry, but I think that was more of a hobby.

These deliveries also served as an unspoken invitation to visit the person receiving the delivery. At first, I thought that the items were some kind of customary gift one gives when visiting, since the visit seemed to be of much more interest to both parties than the parcel, and nothing of value was ever exchanged in return. However, the recipient always seemed to be expecting the delivery, and some of the items were rather specific and didn't look like they would make a good gift, like a rack for holding those food heating stones. The whole thing looked to be more like a friendly ritual.

All that being said, the visits were strange. By that I mean, there was almost no communication between my mother and the other person, outside of a few comments. For sure, they definitely exchanged greetings, and I wouldn't be left out of this initial banter. After that, however, they would sit down and just kind of look at each other from time to time making an occasional gesture. I found it bazaar to be quite frank.

Now while they were mostly quiet, they did occasionally speak up, and interestingly enough, it always seemed to somewhat be about me. I suppose that the child my mother was always carrying around would be a topic for discussion, but not the only one.

"Seems like Indigo is getting big, how old is he?"

"He is 5 moons now."

"I was surprised when Indigo returned the greeting so well, I was honestly stunned!"

"Yes, he seems to be very intelligent for his age. Honestly, he surprises me every day..."

"I don't think I've ever seen a child that well-behaved before. He hasn't once raised a fuss."

"Honestly, that worries me sometimes..."

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These were the kinds of things they talked about. It was never very long, and then they would return to that strange silence. And these visits had to last for hours. Now to be fair, they wouldn't only sit in silence, they did other things too, like cook, clean, and sometimes dabbled in what I guessed were various kinds of hobbies, all the while being almost completely silent.

Now maybe I shouldn't have been that surprised. After all, my parents didn't talk to each other very much either. I did think this was strange, but perhaps they didn't have much to talk about. It wasn't like they had gone out of their way to visit each other like Mother seemed to be doing. Perhaps this species just didn't have much to say, but it still seemed strange. They had plenty to say to me. The mystery gnawed at me.

One day, I couldn't take it any longer. I had remained silent on the issue, mostly because I thought it would be rude and inappropriate to ask, and honestly, because I was a bit nervous. But remembering my vow, I knew I had to inquire. "Why are you always so quiet?" I put forth the question, at which the two turned their attention to me. They were both surprised.

"Indigo... Did you want to be part of the conversation too?" My mother was the first to speak. Her sentiments were kind as always. Did I want to be part of the conversation? Was I missing something?

"You are always so quiet, I was wondering..."

"Dry-Grass Bonecrafter, now I feel downright awful. Did he feel left out this entire time?" Dry-Grass Bonecrafter? This was my mother's name... Due to the nature of telepathy, I knew this was the case, but this sudden bit of information caught me completely by surprise.

"Don't feel bad, Willow Harvester. It's my fault for not realizing my son would naturally want to be included." Another name... This was the first time I encountered names other than my own, and now suddenly I was hit with two of them. "I'm sorry, Indigo. We will include you in the conversations from now on." They kept saying they were going to include me as if it was an email chain I hadn't been included in. But the amazing thing is, that seemed to be an apt analogy because right after this brief exchange, the pervasive silence was replaced by a richness of conversation. They conversed about the kind of thing that you would imagine two women talking about, anything ranging from a new recipe they had tried to some town gossip. I was shocked. To think this entire time, they have been having these kinds of dialogs, and I was none the wiser.

On the walk back home, I thought about all the conversations they had had, and just how much I was completely ignorant of. I may have memories from my previous life, but a lot of it wasn't compatible with this world it would seem. It was like I had been playing a first-person shooter and suddenly switched to an RPG. There were a lot of overlapping skills, but the game was pretty different.

Of course, there was still one thing that my inquisitiveness was tugging at. "Mother, why is it I couldn't sense your conversation before?" It seemed a simple enough question to ask.

"I was just intending to speak to only them." I think she originally intended to leave it at that, but I think she knew I would want more details, "Other people may not like it if they can hear your conversations that do not involve them. That's why we only send our thoughts to the people we are talking to, it's good manners."

Oh, that did explain a lot. And it did make sense, kind of like not talking in a library. Also, this could be really useful for keeping information secure, even in a crowded room. I decided to name this ability "Whisper." I guess it didn't seem that cool to these people, since that is all they have ever known, but it would have a myriad of applications back in my world of origin. Another interesting thing to point out is that she used the same idea of intention that she used for telekinesis. Perhaps I needed to try and get this Whisper thing down first, and then I could apply what I learned to telekinesis. This would also hopefully eliminate the risk of a repeat of the "Death Wail" incident, as I've come to call it.