The Seven Stages of Sociopathy (V)

Age: 4 plus 11 Months and 29 Days

Sixty-three even steps of flat ground in a straight line save for the puddle at step forty-one and the larger one at fifty-five which were easy to step over and around, forty-five degree left turn followed by another thirty steps, then turn right for another eighteen then right a second time, two short stairs, shoulder-push the inn's self-shutting back door inward, walk forward across flat boards for another eight steps, turn right 40 degrees and go through the other door, descend twelve steps down to the basement, forward eight more steps then around the untapped wine barrels and he could finally set the case of twelve nectar bottles on top of the last one he'd carried in, then turn around and trace the path to the storehouse in reverse and repeat.

He actually longed for the days immediately following his decision to start going about… everything with his eyes closed as much as possible. At least then counting the steps was more than a habit he indulged in a vain attempt to distract himself. He could find his way blindly around most places these days as long as he didn't rush, and sometimes even then given the whispers and lines that now filled the darkness under his shut eyelids wherever there was an object or a wall. Even unfamiliar areas were navigable if he was careful, not that there were many of those left, and he could even detect new or moving objects like people that weren't a normal part of Candlekeep's layout. Visitors of all sorts and stripes. Especially people. All thanks to the uncanny awareness he had at all times of where their hearts were. Along with their main veins and arteries. And eyes, and joints, and tendons. Anything and everything that could allow him to put an end to them, especially the elements that would make it all neat and efficient if struck, cut or pierced just so. It wasn't even due to having improved hearing or anything like that, though his five senses had definitely sharpened as a result of the increased reliance on them. No, after a while of managing to keep his eyes closed and, therefore, himself unencumbered by the perception and drive to inflict death, whatever it was about him that drove him to seek, acknowledge and bring about death seemingly decided that his attempt at finding some sort of peace from it just would not do. So one day he started to become aware of… death candidates even without looking at them.

He hadn't told Gorion yet. He hadn't explained his seemingly spontaneous decision to forgo sight either. He'd never brought up the promise of death he saw in everyone and everything for that matter. There never seemed to be a point to it. His father was busy enough anyway, what with the misgivings he had to deal from other people, not all of whom dismissed him as merely strange. Cyrus just wished his solution had worked for more than a month. Longed for the peace of those two weeks.

Longing. He liked the feeling less and less every time it came over him, but he was also grateful it existed, in those very rare moments when he felt anything at all. It was the whole reason he'd figured out that his drive to inflict death could be directed, or at least partially satisfied even if his waking eyes never stopped showing him the path to its successful delivery upon all and sundry. It had come to him one night, while lying on the roof of the stables, staring at the sky – the only thing that didn't seem to have a death waiting for it, or at least none that he could inflict – when he was trying to make sense of his life and how little of it was actually life. He internally wished there was a way to inflict on his lack of peace the same thing that whatever-he-was seemed to be trying to persuade him to inflict on everyone and everything else. He wished there was a way to take a hold of that unwelcome constant in his life, the death seeking drive that coloured everything in his life and, at least for a while, have it dead.

The solution had surged into his mind immediately upon forming that thought. That if his eyes were to blame for his inability to find peace in absence of murder, then he shouldn't use them anymore. Over a dozen different ways to kill his eyes flashed through his mind, each with varying levels of effectiveness, efficiency and pain. He found it rather silly to get only notions so drastic, when there was a much easier way to go about the idea. That is to say, just keeping his eyes shut as much as possible.

At least whatever-he-was-inside certainly adapted quickly to enforced blindness, sharpening and coordinating his other senses until he could go about his life almost as easily and comfortably as before, lack of color notwithstanding.

Now he supposed he shouldn't have left the caveat of "at least for a while" in that wish. Maybe then his uneasy peace would have lasted more than two weeks after he got a hang of functional wilful blindness. It was a minor consolation that the dwarven awareness of Stone and Shape he'd only felt that one time when he first saw Candlekeep's walls managed to emerged from the fugue of his mind and stay with him since his first days of darkness. But even that consolation was offset by the reason why that was now a fact. That the Path to Certain Death had judged that very trait a proper tool in murdering that peace of mind he'd diligently sought. It was that innate dwarven situational awareness that it perverted into his newfound ability to perceive death-dealing possibilities sightlessly. He supposed it was a blessing he didn't outright lose the innate sense instead of just… growing a death-seeking infection on it. And through it. And under it.

Reevor was waiting for him at the storehouse entrance, having brought out the last couple of cider crates. "Already back, are'ya?" He asked gruffly. "Still goin' 'round with yer eyes shut, I see." He handed him one of the cider crates while he picked up the last four, two stacked on top of each arm and led the way back to the inn cellar. "Really wonderin' what goes on in tha' head of yers sometimes, boy. But I s'pose 's'not my place to question it."

Unlike Winthrop the innkeeper who could never set aside his curiosity, comments and practical jokes, Reevor really meant that he said. His was a turbid existence, a way of life that didn't include many concerns beyond his storehouse, good ale and an otherwise easy day-to-day life. His views were hard to twist, emotions hard to bend, let alone crack or ground to powder. Mostly because he didn't care much about others' opinions or expectations of him, since there weren't many. His role was clearly defined and he revelled in the straightforwardness of managing the keep's food and drink stores and not having to worry about anything else besides, other than alleviating his boredom and indulging in a good ale every other hour.

Not that any of that made much difference to Cyrus, considering what he'd done to the man's composure the first time they spent time together. Reevor's initial ease of mind around Cyrus had been well and truly killed that day, even though the older dwarf did his best to dismiss the event as evidence of a budding battlerager. His emotions only seemed clearer now, easier to pick apart with each passing day, especially since Cyrus started going around without seeing. They came to him in beams and arcs, eddies, currents and motes and flickers. Boisterousness and determined deliberation in regards to Cyrus himself, with an ever present underlying current of wariness/confusion/worry, both about and for him. The feelings bared themselves and their vulnerabilities, like everything else that could be used towards the purpose he had grown used to denying himself. Emotions were, after all, perfectly capable of inflicting death if guided and struck in the proper way.

Capable of even driving a person to inflict death upon themselves.

Cyrus turned his mind away from that line of thought. Longing made itself felt once more as he wished he could claim to have done it due to some internal decision.

Sadly, that was not the case.

The reason for his distraction were the two men looking down at him from one of the only two balconies that Candlekeep boasted. The one just outside of the quarters belonging to the Keeper of the Tomes. The Keeper next to which Gorion stood. Cyrus allowed himself to actually use his eyes to look at them, though it wasn't his eyes, exactly, that revealed most of what he perceived even then. His father was a seething mass of frustration, outrage and weary resignation that was nevertheless drowned out by protective fury on Cyrus' behalf. All of that masked by a veneer of respectful disagreement on the topic at hand. All of it perceived by the infant dwarf due to those emotions' intrinsic causal relation with the feelings and intentions of the other man, intentions of the type that never seemed capable of staying concealed or posing any mystery to Cyrus, even when he was the target. Especially when he was the target.

As he averted and re-closed his eyes and followed Reevor, the boy wondered why his father would be in any way surprised, let alone so emotionally unprepared as to only barely keep his full reactions to himself.

So Ulraunt wanted him dead.

It was hardly something new.