Ilde speaks four and a half languages and never has enough vocabulary for the things she doesn't actually want to say because words are hard when she's trying to use them to communicate; she thinks a great deal about the meanings of words, the dictionary definitions and the subtler implications of choosing this one over that one. She is very good at twisting words elegantly around painful silences, and she calls this poetry when lying at the bottom of the bathtub with her eyes closed isn't working, but...words. They're hard. And quiet is good.

People are loud so we know they're alive. Right after a crisis. Everything shifts, for a while, in all sorts of different directions; that's just one of many truths being lived in Baedal right now, and there's something appealing about it that she can't begrudge. Doesn't want to participate in, mostly, but appreciates being able to witness. The roar of noise that doesn't mean anything is people, sometimes, and as overwhelming and alien as it can be as an experience, it's also-- people, being alive, being near her.

In small doses, it's comforting.

(...in large doses it reminds her that she mostly doesn't like people.)