after midnight au ra headcanons.
as their horns grow, their hearing improves in turn. for ease of birth, auri babies kinda dont have horns at all yet (they tiny lil stubs where their full sized horns eventually will be at the very most) and are basically born deaf

as such, use of sign language among au ra is extremely widespread, in order to communicate with children. they learn to sign well before they learn verbal speech. even adults will usually speak verbally and sign at the same time, or talk with their hands at the very least

auri sign language has persisted for eras upon eras. raen and xaela sign language have evolved independently from each other since the raen left the steppe, but a sharp-eyed person can spot subtle similarities between the two due to their shared roots