Nikita Valesta - Silence

The sept was silent. Nikita sat in a couch that she had moved to sit with the back to a wall. She had met Erasha and the wolf had taught her as promised and after a soft nudge and a gentle nuzzle the two parted their ways.

Now Nikita was alone in the sept once more. Not alot of people had been around at this time. The christmas season tended to do that. The silence did not tell of emptiness to Nikita.There were many kinds of silence and Nikita knew many of them.
There were the static and stale silence of the stasis. The Silence of the Weaver was the kind of silence when there were pressence, but it was still, frozen in motion, frozen between breaths. The Weavers silence was an eerie one indeed that would provoke anyone to try not to make any sounds of their own out of fear for what might be woken.
The silence of the Wyrm was best described as the lack of sound that dominates the battlefield after the last enemy has died, but before the defying victory howl is heard. The silence where the scale of the horror and destruction is slowly seeping into the minds of those alive to witness it.
Or the silence of the world as the corruption wins. The moment where everything is silent as the knowledge that something worse has taken hold and grasped so tightly and won. Or the silence that settles when the defilement of a body is complete. Between the sobs of a raped woman bleeding to death between the bushes of the rarely visited park. The silence of a child too afraid to wake his drunken and desperate parrents, knowing that it will get him beaten again.
There were also the silence of the Wyld. That was not the lack of sound, that was before there were any sounds. It was the silence of the raw potential, a silence where you did not make any sounds, because a sound could not be made. In the raw silence of the wyld, a sound could create and alter things.

There were other kinds of silence too, of cource. Silence when a dear friend breathes out for the last time after a long and prosperous life. Silence of anticipation where you wait for something good to happen. Silence of respect. Silence of defiance. Silence of an ambush waiting to happen. Silence of the snapped in breath that is held for a heartbeat before the Beast is let loose and the roar of a frenzy drowns out all sounds.

And then there was the silence that Nikita was experiencing right now. It was the silence of peace. Nikita was alone, but the creaks the the hum and the throb of the sept were still there, discrete in the background but no sounds dominated. It was the peace of the silence when no harm were being done. No threats being issued. No violence being taken out on others... no rage pouring. Just a few people being pressent in the sept, each sticking to themselves. No conversation, just silence. Peace.

Nikita listened to it. She listened as someone walked down the stairs. she listened as they stopped at the bottom step, the moment of lack of sound was most likely them looking at her and think about why she was blindfolded. A few moments later, the steps moved across the floor and out the front door and Nikita was left along again. Still the silence dominated and still Nikita was blindfolded, left only with the sounds, the smells and the feeling of the air drifting over her, pushed by the movement of others.

Christmas eve. A holiday and a time to be jolly, but for Nikita; a time to be calm and silent. Silence of peace was a rare treat, and she savoured it for as long as it would last.