taako can’t hear out of his left ear.
it’s not a big deal because he’s never been able to hear on that side, just like lup can’t hear things on her right, and it’s a running joke that they’re a matched set.
each deaf on one side of the head; just enough to be an annoyance in day-to-day life, maybe dangerous in the wrong situation, and so taako and lup do what they always do: they adapt.
taako always stands on the right, and lup stands on his left, and the two of them hold hands to make sure they stay close to each other. when someone says something quiet on the right, taako repeats it to lup; when an explosion rocks the stagecoach they’re stealing from the left side, lup describes it to taako.
by the time they join the ipre, it’s seamless.
none of the others notice right away, and even when it comes out that they translate the world for each other, it’s just a little idiosyncrasy. magnus learns to only talk to lup from her left side when taako isn’t around; lucretia makes sure she’s on taako’s right before starting a conversation. but it’s just lup and taako, taako and lup, the two of them each other’s ears and it’s so practiced after a lifetime together that they don’t even notice that they do it anymore.
lup’s lich form has perfect hearing, they find out. there’s something about being a magical construct of raw energy that tends to cause things like hearing impairments and physical forms to fall by the wayside.
she still stands on taako’s left.
they still interpret, even when she can hear perfectly, because by now they are two matched halves and it is as natural to them as air.
the rest of the ipre doesn’t notice anymore, either, nobody does – until there is a wall of harsh static and redacted memories and taako wakes up with nothing to his name but a stagecoach and a cooking show and an odd tendency to turn to his right and repeat phrases to thin air.
it’s hard for him to learn how to hear things on his left - and it shouldn’t be, he thinks, because he’s been deaf on that side for his entire life - but after a few years of learning, he can focus well enough on his left side that people unaware of his disability wouldn’t notice at all.
he’s the only one who feels like there should be something there.
except one day he meets two men in a tavern and they always make sure they stand on his right. he does not tell them about the deafness. he suspects that somehow they already know, even if it is not conscious.
there are some things lucretia could not erase.
one day, merle says something on taako’s left, and he replies - he’s learned to pay attention to the left side of his hearing by now, and while it’s an awkward and clunky second nature it’s second nature nonetheless. merle frowns, and almost calls him by a foreign name that stumbles on its way over his tongue. both of them forget about it.
when they remember everything, when the wall of static comes down, taako is perhaps the angriest that neither he nor lup bothers to translate anymore.
liches have perfect hearing, after all, and taako has learned to listen.
it is perhaps the cruelest thing that lucretia stole from them.
(i sent an anon about this to @timeforlupsopinion but i love it and had to write it asap omg)