The Sage and Pupil
Apr. 8th, 2019 10:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
storiesfromhomeNo one in the village visits the site of the old monastery anymore. The animals avoid it of their own accord, and even the hungriest sheep never step foot on the hill leading up to it. The children say that it's haunted and spook each other at night with stories of the strange things that reside under the ravaged foundations or within the windblown standing stones. But the older people of the village don't think it's haunted. They think that things far worse than mere ghosts hide in the ruins of the monastery; they will never say what it is. They say it's best not to talk about it.
But Ardan isn't afraid to come here. People are afraid of anything they do not understand, she knows: and if there is something here that no one understands, something strange enough to scare people, she wants to know what it is. This is what has driven her to become a healer, after all, what has given her the daring to seek tutelage in her chosen profession. There is a thirst for knowledge within her that cannot be quenched.
So she follows carefully but quite eagerly behind her new master as they set off into the monastery's ruins. Under their feet the old cobbles that used to make up the monastery's outer walkways are almost completely overgrown with long grass; above them the stones that once made up the monastery's fortified walls rear like broken teeth. The sound of summer cicadas is very loud in the forest surrounding the ruins, but within the ancient bounds of the monastery itself, nothing makes noise. In the relative silence, the sound of their passage across old stones and through the grass seems almost noisy.
What's left of several outer buildings dot the hillside around them, their existence only hinted at by the sketchy outlines of foundations - a lump of stone jutting from the ground here, a line of discolored soil and crumbled chalk there. But the monastery itself has not been so thoroughly destroyed by the unkind hands of time: still the skeleton of the building stands, round as a gigantic beehive, falling apart by slow degrees. The stones that built it are carved into perfect, equal bricks and stuck together with mortar so tough that it even outlasts the stones themselves in some places, creating stretches of wall that look like nothing so much as hardened nets, or megalithic spiderwebs. The roof had once been made of stone and mortar too, but it has mostly fallen in by now. The inside of the building is relatively bright because of this; if you look up, you can still see the purple-blue of the late summer sky shining like the round reflection at the bottom of a well above you.
Ardan steps carefully over some fallen masonry as she follows behind her mentor. She squints against the sunlight as she looks up at the back of his golden-haired head. She doesn't dare ask when they will stop: her teacher does not take well to being questioned.
But Ardan isn't afraid to come here. People are afraid of anything they do not understand, she knows: and if there is something here that no one understands, something strange enough to scare people, she wants to know what it is. This is what has driven her to become a healer, after all, what has given her the daring to seek tutelage in her chosen profession. There is a thirst for knowledge within her that cannot be quenched.
So she follows carefully but quite eagerly behind her new master as they set off into the monastery's ruins. Under their feet the old cobbles that used to make up the monastery's outer walkways are almost completely overgrown with long grass; above them the stones that once made up the monastery's fortified walls rear like broken teeth. The sound of summer cicadas is very loud in the forest surrounding the ruins, but within the ancient bounds of the monastery itself, nothing makes noise. In the relative silence, the sound of their passage across old stones and through the grass seems almost noisy.
What's left of several outer buildings dot the hillside around them, their existence only hinted at by the sketchy outlines of foundations - a lump of stone jutting from the ground here, a line of discolored soil and crumbled chalk there. But the monastery itself has not been so thoroughly destroyed by the unkind hands of time: still the skeleton of the building stands, round as a gigantic beehive, falling apart by slow degrees. The stones that built it are carved into perfect, equal bricks and stuck together with mortar so tough that it even outlasts the stones themselves in some places, creating stretches of wall that look like nothing so much as hardened nets, or megalithic spiderwebs. The roof had once been made of stone and mortar too, but it has mostly fallen in by now. The inside of the building is relatively bright because of this; if you look up, you can still see the purple-blue of the late summer sky shining like the round reflection at the bottom of a well above you.
Ardan steps carefully over some fallen masonry as she follows behind her mentor. She squints against the sunlight as she looks up at the back of his golden-haired head. She doesn't dare ask when they will stop: her teacher does not take well to being questioned.
