Help. It's again.

Silence

If she ever took the time to properly ponder it, Imogen would've discovered that she could find quite a bit of irony in her relationship with silence throughout her life so far.

As a child she hated it, because silence was the way there was a hole in her home, silence was the absence of a mother or generally a second parent that most other children around here had. Silence was the way her father refused to talk about her mother completely.

Then came her adolescence, came her powers. And while silence was the way her father barely spoke to her anymore, spoke with her, spoke of her, spoke about her, barely acknowledged her existence at all some days, downright avoided her most days, the concept of silence had become, most importantly, nonexistent for Imogen.

Silence was no longer dependent upon the absence of sound, silence and sound no longer needed ears to be perceived by Imogen. There was always noise now, thoughts inside her head that weren't her own, painfully pushing in from all sides, a migraine for the ages in those early months when the awakening of her powers caught her unaware and unprepared, before she found ways to put up her first set of makeshift mental walls.

Those first few months were hell on Exandria and Imogen had never wished for silence, had never craved it, needed it like that. Like she did when she was curled up underneath her bed, hands over her ears even though she knew it to be utterly futile, knew the problem didn't stem there, crying and screaming in pain as her head was forcefully split open.

Silence wasn't there anymore and yet it was the way that nobody came to help, that nobody showed up to help her out from under her bed, that nobody even tried. There was food and water outside of her door, she knew because she could always hear his thoughts when her father dared to enter the house to make that for her and leave it there, but she seldom had the strength to crawl over there to feed herself. At least not during the first couple of days.

It got better after that, she started pushing back, started pushing the mental outside world back out of her skull best as she could, but it was like having to start using a wholly new set of muscles she'd never known existed. It was a slow, painful, exhausting, arduous process. It was three months until she had a relatively stable blockade up inside her mind and a noticeable smaller amount of weight on the scale.

Yet the thoughts of others always remained right there, just at the edge of her mind, a painful buzzing like a persistent swarm of bees, no wasps, battering against her mental shields day and night. Exhausting became her normal. Knowing what silence was like was a dream long forgotten.

She wished there to be silence inside of her head, she wished there to be silence outside of her head whenever she was spotted in town and the scathing whispers started back up not only on the mental but also the audible level, even if just faintly there, a halfhearted effort to talk about her behind her back at least.

And then, Laudna. Not silence but like music, soft, gentle, calming. Calming, not painful. Soothing. Imogen would've taken anything that wasn't the agony of the storm of every thinking being's thoughts encroaching upon her mind. She took Laudna's company gladly. It was a drop of water on a hot stone, but that it was anything close to improvement at all was a novelty and Imogen loved her friend for the gift she gave her.

Silence was the promise her mother made when trying to recruit her to her cause. Silence and the long since forgotten sensation of being alone inside her head without the entire world trying to break in. The others couldn't understand how tempting it was despite knowing that she was longing to join forces with the murderers of one of her friend's family members, with the murderers of her very friends themselves, of her best friend.

Imogen wanted to know silence again so badly. She wanted to not be overwhelmed and exhausted all the fucking time so badly.

Imogen couldn't be that selfish, not with Orym looking at her like that, not with everyone and the world counting on her, but that didn't make the longing disappear. Didn't manage to shut up the notable part of her that so desperately craved the silence that it tried to whisper convincing words of how breaking the world and innocent people might be worth it to her again and again and again.

The world and the people had never bothered to try staying out of her head and stop hurting her either, it childishly argued. She didn't believe those thoughts, but she couldn't make them go away either, no matter how much reason she tried to apply. Imogen tried to ignore it, buried the hope her mother had so unfairly sparked deep down below and carried on like the others did.

Silence greeted her again when she least expected it. The circlet had been a safeguarding measure, a just in case purchase, it hadn't even been specifically bought just for her. And then it sat on her brow and suddenly something felt different, quieter, she felt lighter, the constant pressure was gone and when she tentatively lowered the steel fortresses her mental walls had evolved into there it was. Silence. Merciful, blissful, complete silence inside her head.

Imogen inhaled carefully. Exhaled slowly. Swallowed and blinked against the burning tears welling up in her eyes. The silence remained. And the stubborn little thoughts about switching sides were gone without a trace. Her mother's promises turned to ash.

For the first time in years Imogen was alone inside her head, not in pain, not exhausting herself in a constant fight to keep others' thoughts at bay, not struggling. Just bathing in beautiful silence. Imogen cried.