“Goddess. Why do you talk so much? It’s like you vocalize every thought in your head just to hear your own voice."
Although Talyssa winced at the criticism, she knew this was perhaps her opening to shed some light on why she talked so much. After all, she was here to gain some insight into Cheyenne had been so upset with her. Why should she not give some Cheyenne some insight into her own background?
"I do not know how much you know about what my siblings in fire and I went through," she said carefully, deliberately. "We were held in a castle, by scientists who equally wanted to experiment on us, because of our gifts, and at the same time wanted to suppress our gifts, so that they might not be used to rise up against them."
She looked Cheyenne in the eye. She was not ashamed of any of this. None of it had been her fault, after all.
"I was seven when I was first taken to the castle. They spent a short amount of time trying to understand what I could do. Studying me. Researching me. Experimenting on me. Then they drugged me. I went from being able to speak every language in the world, to not being able to speak at all. My senses were dulled. My intellect was dulled, by the drugs they pumped into my body."
Still, she did not look away. It felt important that Cheyenne hear this. "It was almost ten years of hearing but not being able to respond, listening but not comprehending, before my brothers in fire hatched a plan to dismantle the castle piece by piece, and escape the scientists. Now... I speak, to remind myself that I can speak, because for so long, that ability was forcibly taken from me."
She bit her lip. She'd never told Tanek or Neculai this part, but the box was open and Pandora's secrets were pouring out. "I have nightmares, where I am back in the castle, but this time I understand everything and can say nothing. I scream, but no sound comes out. I can appreciate that perhaps my talking gets tiresome, but... I talk to remind myself that I can now."