Field of Silence

'Left... And then here... Right? Is it right? Or is it... Well, it can't really be anything but right, but then... Does it say one or two corners?', she muttered, as she tried to decipher the hand drawn map somebody at the Administration Office gave her. 'Honestly, can this be more illegible!', she yells under her breath, raising her head towards the sky and rolling her eyes, before focusing on the lines once more. Getting to the book store should not be this hard!

She turned another corner, then another, barely watching where she was going as the squinted at the damn lines. Somewhere in the back of her mind she noticed that the noises around her were getting louder, and louder, people yelling, dogs barking, and something else making some strange strange noises. Was that a cow? Why was she hearing a cow of all things?! Wait, was that a sign for the River Street?!

Without really noticing, as she went further and further into the marketplace, Maria slowly raised her Field of Silence around her in order to concentrate better on her map, quieting everybody in the three meter radius around her.

'Well, this can't be right.', she proclaimed, frowning at the map. If looks could kill, the poor paper would have turned to ash by now. 'Gh, damn, who the hall drew this?! Do they even know the city?! Or basics of drawing for starters!', she mussed under her breath, turning the map around to see if it made any sense that way. It didn't. 'Oh, I give up.', she sighed.

All of this happened while her field was still up, which meant that only she could hear herself, all the others silenced, unable to hear, or speak. She didn't seem to notice though, focused on looking for something that at least resembled the bookstore, all the people around her slowly falling into panic. They knew, of course, what kind of island they lived on, some of them being specially gifted themselves, but the silence prevented them from making business and it wasn't going away.

Scratching her head, Maria turned, sighing, as he decided to go back to campus and ask somebody there to draw her a better map. Doing that, she, of course, had to bump into someone. 'Oh, I'm so sorry...', she said, raising her head. The boy was quite colorful. How did she not notice him before?

Maria was shocked for a moment, first by the force of impact, then by the boy's cry, only to be started down by the women in the end. Although she did give her a smile in the end.

'Uh, yeah, I...', she was still a bit confused. Then, she looked around, taking in the lingering panic and the quite curses that people were saying, suddenly realising that she had done it again. Her face instantly lit up like a fire in a cold winter night.

'Oh, for the love of all I thought I learned to control it.', she said quietly under her breath, looking at the boy. No wonder he was so surprised, she knew very well how being in her Field of Silence affected those who encountered it for the first time, several of her friends describing it as very unpleasant and threatening to do some equally unpleasant things if she did it ever again. She usually just scoffed, telling them that she will stop using it once they stopped being so loud, but this was different. These people were complete strangers, not her friends! Plus, she had silenced the half of the market place!

'I really, really, really am sorry.', she said again, looking at the boy. 'So sorry.', she was still blushing like a tomato.

'I, uh, wasn't apologizing about that.', she said, lowering her head, her blush getting worse and worse. 'Um, apparently, it helps if you close your eyes for the moment and count to ten, taking the deep breaths.', she said to the boy again, even though until now it was the woman who had been answering to all of her apologizes. 'At least that's what my friends said, and they got caught up in it one time too many. Their words, not mine.', she was still fidgeting under the woman's watchful gaze.

'So, uhm, sorry, again? About the Field, I mean, I really didn't notice what I was doing, and, uh... Should I apologize to all these people as well?', she said turning around, immediately looking for some kind of platform she could say her apologizes from.

'I am careful of where I am and where I'm going!', she bursted out unexpectedly. She might have been timid and prone to blushing when she was at fault, but she was not a pushover, not even when the one criticising her was an older woman, no, scratch that, it was because it was and old...er woman. She didn't even know her! Though, she was right, this time.

'Usually!', she added, still half annoyed. 'It's just that this stupid map got me all focused, and whenever I'm focused, my Field of Silence goes up!', she fussed, tapping her foot on the ground. 'And it only got me walking in circles in the end! I could've done that myself, thank you very much.', she complained under her breath some more, before rising her head.

'Ah, you wouldn't happen to know where is the bookstore, would you?', she asked timidly once more. She really needed those books.