"Do you know what triggered it?"

"No idea. I was paying attention to the book, not anything around me - maybe I should go around with more situational awareness till it's figured out -"

Shudder. "Might be a good idea. I'm sorry."

"It's, you know, it's over when it's over."

"And that is really really good, but still."

"Yeah."

"Let me know if you need anything."

"Will do. Thank you."

And she goes back to playing.

Ohshit.

And this time when she'd notified - "do you have a reaction to music?"

"Maybe? Second time it happened you were singing - I didn't hear anything the first time but I wouldn't would I -"

"...suppose not. That's going to be really inconvenient - I wonder what the range is -"

"...I guess we could test that? If there's usually a lot of music around, enough to keep me out for a week -"

"We sing for a week straight when people die, it's the mourning process. We didn't know, or obviously we'd have - do you want to test range, I take it it's very unpleasant -"

"It... is. Do you happen to know how close I've been to music while still okay so we can start from far away closing in instead of the other way around?"

"There are people singing right now, other end of the fortress."

"...so I guess I could just go in their direction really slowly and you could drag me away if I fall over?"

"Sure, that's probably a good way to do it."

So Annie goes in the direction indicated, slowly and gingerly - then flinches back.

"It's not all or nothing, that's something."

"I wonder if it's a distance or a volume thing."

"Well, it's definitely not that I have to hear it, but it could still be how clearly I'd hear it if I could hear."

"That seems almost unfair. ...if you borrow my hearing, by which that singing is perfectly clear -"

"Testing -"

She doesn't flinch!

"Okay, so it's really really not about whether I can perceive the music."

"I can ask them to go quieter, then you can see if that lets you get any closer -"