“Ahhh, Thannny, I’m s000 sleepy. I can brush in the morning.”

Thann gave a short sharp whistle, then signed, +And all night little bugs will be digging at your teeth and when you’re trying to smile at a mallit or an anyalit, all you’ll have left are gums.+

“Mallits, hunh.”

Thann tapped her cheek, grinned at her, and went out.

As xe got a glass of water and the toothbrush, xe could hear Bazekiyl and Mandall still talking. There was that in the sound of their voices that made body parts soften and swell. Xe glanced through the door.

Bazekiyl took the blue ribbon from her hair and passed it through her fingers… her head close to Mandall’s, her cheeks flushed, a little smile on her face… winding the ribbon through and through her fingers. Thann’s thinta heated with the feel of xe’s fembond loving the silky slide against her skin…

Xe hurried back to Isaho, impatient suddenly with the child’s demands on xe.

While Isaho brushed her teeth, xe lit the nightlight, a slow burning candle in a glass bowl, and set it near the door. Xe took the brush, so Isaho could rinse her mouth and spit the foamy water into a waste water bowl. Xe dropped the brush in the bowl and set them aside, pulled the blankets up and tucked them around the child, touched her lips with a reminding forefinger, then touched hands with her as they went through the nightprayers they’d signed together since Isaho was old enough to learn what the signs meant.

As xe bent over the drowsy child to give her the night kiss, the floor shook under xe and there was a deafening explosion, then a rattle as the walls of their place fell in.

“Baba!” Isaho pulled away from Thann and scrambled to her feet. “Mam!”

Thann caught her, tried to push her back down on the pallet, but Isaho broke free again and ran from the pantry.