Since he was little, every time he'd been bound to rest for an injury, the wordless dreams had begun.
There was nothing so transparent as faces fading in mist or spiral staircases which had no end no matter how he ran. Nothing so simple, nothing that he could dismiss without another thought. They were dreams of screaming grasping hands and the wrath of the dragon god given form in an evil world. Sometimes he welcomed that wrath, or those clutching panicked fingers of little more than flesh and bone. Sometimes he turned away from them, and wept in his mind for the first time since he was a boy. There was always something wrong, always something troubling him, something that wasn't right. In the end it came down to that wish for death that he'd never truly abandoned, that he hadn't faced in quite a long time.
If he'd been damned by the gods, wasn't it right to die?
Wasn't it just?
Those thoughts burned along with his soul in the hellish torment of those dreams, all of it consumed by the fire and rendered to ash. Eragos wasn't sure he would recognize his own face if he saw it in a mirror, then. He wasn't sure if he would recognize anyone's face. Did he want to know a face? The faces that belonged to those clutching bony talons were black shadows and blurry paintings of heavy color. Eragos was certain that he knew those faces. One squint of the mind would reveal them, but he was terrified that he would know them. Terrified that the Lady Vera would be in their number. His mother. His father. His brother. Every soul that had ever relied on him. Once in a fit of excitement he'd thought to see them at last. But when he narrowed his eyes, nothing would happen.
Just the agony of remembrance.
A quiet sigh passed his lips when his eyes fluttered open. The dream was over. In the end it went back to whatever foul place it had came from, and left him alone in the world of the real. What he found waiting for him were questions, questions of a sleeping man upon waking. Did we win? How long ago? And since then? They were all expected questions, all things that he would be told whether he asked or not. So when he opened his eyes and saw the Lady Vera sitting next to his bed, he didn't even consider opening his mouth.
He only blinked, and shifted his shoulders slightly, while he waited for her to speak.