Acceptance

Santiak stepped through the Agarthian portal, bloodied from his ventures - a coagulated mix of his own blood and that of others.
Of late, the world had begun to seem very different to him, the some jolt of unreality that had befallen him when the Dragon had first approached him - but just as he was unable to describe the difference back then, before the knock on the door, he was incapable of describing the current difference as well.
The world had fallen silent, the usual sounds of howling wind, pouring rain and screams of comrades and foes that were so ingrained in his travels had become naught but muffled whispers, echoing and being subverted, like pain subsiding after taking an aspirin. Conversely, all the inaudible sounds of the world had bellowed with resounding force, every blade of grass that bent under his wight cracked as with the sound of breaking bone, the insects hastily consuming their meals sounded not unlike the ravenous feasting of starved wolves, even the stagnant air of undisturbed tombs seemed to yell, most of the time a incoherrent cacaphony, but sometimes they noises seemed to succesfully form words, words that were unrecognizable to him.

As he made his way to the Dragons Coil, he smiled and nodded politely to the shopkeeper, who tipped his hat in return without lifting his gaze from yesterdays newspaper, the noise crackling like fire.
Every footstep began to increase in decibel the closer he came to the Dragons Coil, and fresh blood trickled painlessly from his ears and eyes. Waterfalls.

He smiled a perplexed smile when he noticed the usual guards had been replaced by a silently observing monk, his eyes seemingly following Santiak as he approached.
As he came closer, the monk gently laid his hand on Santiaks chest, looked sternly at him, and motioned him to follow.

They approached one of the many locked doors throughout the coil. The monk opened the door with an unworldly silence, and a gentle breeze from inside seemed to erase all of the ambient sounds surrounding them, only then did Santiak realize just how accustomed he had become to the ceaseless cacaphony.

The monk invitingly swung his arm into the darkness of the silent house, and Santiak smiled and nodded as he let himself be devoured by the silence inside.

Santiak blinked as he gazed out into the small enclosed garden of the monastery, the light hurting his eyes that had grown so accostumed to the dark room he spent the majority of his days, and time thereof, in.

Nothing spectacular had happened after the doors had closed behind him. No great epiphany, no ceremonial welcome, nothing. Rather nice, really.

He had been guided to this small room, and had yet to hear anything. Not just from the monks, but at all. Even the worn bed seemed too shy to make it's host aware of its age.

As for what Santiak did with his time; absolutely and utterly nothing. All ambition had vacated him, often he would go days without eating or drinking, not because of the stale bread or tasteless water, but simply because it didn't seem to occur to him that he needed sustenance.

He would lie in his bed and look at the ceiling of the dimly crimson lit room - the small window let in just a slither of light, but each morning that slither of light pierced his scarce moments of sleep, so he had eventually tainted the glass red with careful application of blood magic.

From time to time fragments of images would dance gracefully across his mind, so vague and so distant he never noticed before they had vanished, and only then remembering them as distant dreams of days past.


Santiak didn't really know what he thought of how his days were unfolding. He missed his friends and Little Brother, of course, and hoped he would return some day soon. But he also felt as if something was supposed to happen, as if he was waiting for the sun to rise, but with no "epiphany clock", he had no idea of when this metaphysical dawn would come.


He scratched at the coagulated blood on the small window, drawing streams of shredded light on his chest, flakes of blood wafting silently to the floor. As he dragged his nail against the window for the 5th time, it produced an almost deafening screetch.
The screetch reverberated and coalesced into a scream, a roar so loud and so painful he couldn't help but grasp his ears in an empty to block it out, but it only grew in intensity.
He fell to floor, blood pouring from his palms, coating the floor in a slick pool of blood, streams climbing the walls like manic spiders.
He breathed heavily, staring into the blood, and for a moment he grasped a vision of a glistening crimson scale in his mind, bubbling out beneath the void of his mind.
A moment later it dived beneath his hold once more, as did the roaring scream, his palms siphoning back the pool of blood.

Santiak hauled himself back into bed, the streams of now coagulated blood started to stand out through the darkness. He felt as if he was being subjected to a Rorshach test, he couldn't make anything out of the shapes, but felt like he desperately needed to glean something from it.

As he stared at the newly decorated walls of his room, the silence once more fell across his world like a thick blanket of snow.
Inside him, something he couldn't identify - a feeling, an ambition, a need - began to stir.