he was waiting. there was not a mark of any outward temperament that was displayed upon his face, except that of one of a distant insouciance.
and then he swept into the room. he was pale, maybe deathly pale, but that was nothing hinting of that in that tall figure. no, he hinted of dreams. of chromatic visions of the sweetest icicle frosted cold clinquant sparkling shimmering radiance, of lightless visions of the darkest chilling acheronian twisted tenebrous mirthless funereal despondence. he was both; an ambivalent entity. he was very tall for a person, if he was actually one. his eyes were black as worm-holes; it felt as if shreds of your skin were peeling off into him everytime you met his gaze.
"good evening." he swept across the room in a swishing manner, lubricated by an unexplainable gravitas about him and the dark matt cloak that he moved under. there was also a certain hollowness in his voice; he could not make out whether it was that of an emotionless detachment or just a sense of unreachable intelligence.
"i heard you question me."
there was no room for quivering now. he knew what he came for.
"of course. i question your ability, your logic, your element. everything."
he sighed and ran his colourless hands down the spines of the corridors of shelfs. "if i must answer... you seek what you create in your subconscience. yet it is not i who can give you that."
"but you create them! you are the oneiromancer!"
"so i've been told. but i'm not a vatic. these are but your desires, and no amount of selfish rumination and abstraction could make me oracular."
"so all these, are not... real?"
"i detest that... word. it does not give any meaning. it is merely label that something is in existence."
"then what is it? subconscience? these are but my desires, isn't it not? and you can do nothing about that?"
"you dream, you learn, you desire. it's the basic unit of taking in each breath of air and chemical reactions occur; exhalations, blood flowing, worlds existing and colliding all in the space of your synapses. you are alive by following them."
"i ream, i learn, i tire. when patience is exhausted, and penitence fails, you may just want to take a scythe and jump into the obisidian canopy and slash it, tearing the woven tapestry and letting the stars fall into someone else's cereal bowl."
he could detect the slight tinge of discomfort in him as he observed him stopping to a standstill, eyes boring into that veneer of fear-fueled courage. for a shortest moment he saw a blur of emotion bubbling in the oneiromancer, but then, it stopped, peaceful as a morgue.
"you seemed to have lost your fascination that is usually associated with your kind. maybe even wiser, but a pathetic creature full of irony. i suggest you recover what is lost to you, then, perhaps, you could be happier."
"and how should i go about it? and what if i fail?"
"you tire, you go on. you fail, you live on."
"and of what consequence would that be for me? how does that even change me?"
"it is inconsequential that you change. you are just a mere plaything in someone's playground, a sandbucket in some child's sandbox. whether you fail or succeed depends very much on someone else's devices. but it is of no harm to try. perhaps both your devices would match very well."
and by that same fluid motion he swept out of the room, leaving a frosted sentinel salvaging whats left of his sanity.