The pen was already in his hand.
The magician did not remember finding it.
He remembered needing it—and then the need being answered.
Cold metal. Familiar weight. Balanced, like it belonged there. The same certainty Sylence carried without effort now rested in the magician's fingers, as if borrowing him.
Around him, the spirits recoiled.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
"This isn't yours," one whispered, thin and unraveling.
The magician ignored them.
For the first time since the lighthouse, his thoughts aligned long enough to cut. Pain still threaded through him—delay, distortion, the sensation of always arriving a fraction too late to himself—but clarity had returned.
Briefly.
That was enough.
He knelt and pressed the nib to the stone floor.
The pen did not drink blood.
It drank intent.
The surface darkened as he wrote, each word anchoring itself beneath language.
RETURN ME TO MY HUMAN FORM.
UNDO THE CURSES PASSED THROUGH MY BLOODLINE.
RESTORE MY MIND TO COHERENCE.
The words settled—heavy, final.
The spirits screamed.
Not in protest.
In loss.
The ground shuddered—not violently, but precisely. The magician's body convulsed in careful increments. Bones remembered their shape. Nerves recalibrated. His reflection stabilized.
His shadow arrived on time.
For one perfect—dangerous—moment, he was human again.
He inhaled.
Air hurt.
Emotion followed immediately, unfiltered: regret like acid, fear like static, grief sharp enough to cut, love arriving last and worst of all. Too much. Too fast.
He almost collapsed.
Almost.
His hands shook as he steadied the pen.
One more line.
Slower.
Deliberate.
IN RETURN:
LET SYLENCE'S FIRST WISH BE FULFILLED IN FULL.
NOT BY ABSENCE—BUT BY INVERSION.
LET HIM FEEL NO EMOTION,
AND SUFFER THEIR PRESSURE WITHOUT RELIEF.
The pen hesitated.
That mattered.
"What you are asking," something said—not a spirit, not the lighthouse, not even the system—"will not break him."
The magician laughed. Weak. Human.
"I know," he said hoarsely. "It will sharpen him."
"And you?"
He looked at his hands. They trembled.
"I've already paid," he said. "This is interest."
The pen sealed the words.
Far away—
Sylence paused.
Not in pain.
In pressure.
Emotion did not return. Instead, its absence compressed. Silence gained mass. Thought narrowed. Decisions sharpened until mercy felt inefficient.
Silence no longer emptied.
It endured.
It pressed.
It did not stop.
The magician collapsed to his knees—not from misalignment, not from punishment.
From exhaustion.
Human exhaustion.
The curses were gone.
So was his advantage.
Behind him, the spirits whispered—not reverent now, but afraid.
"You've doomed him."
The magician smiled faintly.
"No," he said. "I made him honest."
The pen vanished.
Not dramatically.
As if it had never been an object—only a moment of permission.
The pressure did not lessen.
It stabilized.
That was worse.
Sylence stood at the edge of the lighthouse platform, breath shallow, thoughts compressed into something sharp enough to cut. Emotion remained absent—but its outline pressed inward, like a shape trying to exist without permission.
Silence had gained mass.
Something moved through the fog ahead.
Low. Deliberate. Ancient—not by age, but by certainty.
It stepped into the lighthouse's spill of light.
A dragon-shaped creature—smaller than myth, heavier than belief. Its scales reflected no color, only presence. Each breath fogged the air as if reality hesitated around it.
Sylence did not step back.
For the first time since alignment, he wanted something.
A voice spoke behind him.
Not the lighthouse.
Not the spirits.
Not the shadow.
Something closer.
"Your emotions have become weight," it said. "Pressure without relief."
Sylence clenched his jaw.
"I know."
"I know you do," the voice replied. "And I know what you want."
The creature lowered its head.
"You are willing to touch him," the voice said. "You mistake that desire for weakness."
The light intensified.
"It is not."
Sylence's fingers curled.
"Let your wish be fulfilled," the voice continued. "Not as a burden—but as a bond."
The pressure spiked—then paused, as if awaiting consent.
"This lighthouse will be your permanent home," the voice said. "Not a prison. An anchor."
Sylence turned his wrist.
The watch felt heavier than before. Denser. Crowded.
"In return," the voice said, "you will be given containment."
The watch ticked—once—out of rhythm with time.
"You will be able to store every ability you carry within it," the voice continued.
"Not erased.
Not active.
Preserved."
"For use?" Sylence asked.
"For restraint," the voice corrected.
The creature leaned closer. Warmth reached him before contact.
"You will not lose your humanity again," the voice said. "But you will not drown in it either."
Sylence didn't hesitate.
"I accept," he said.
Desperately.
The pressure broke.
Emotion flooded in.
Not filtered.
Not prepared.
Joy struck first.
It hurt.
His breath caught. His chest tightened. The world sharpened violently, colors bleeding into meaning. For the first time in his life, things mattered without instruction.
Then a thought whispered.
Are these emotions normal?
The ground tilted.
What if the one who believes they are normal… isn't?
Sanity trembled.
What if that belief spreads?
Sylence collapsed.
His body shook as he clawed at the stone, gasping—not in fear, but confusion.
"I just want to be normal," he whispered. "Please—just normal."
The pain peaked—
Then softened.
Relief arrived.
Not silence.
Balance.
He reached out blindly and touched the creature's scales.
Warm.
Alive.
The first word escaped him without thought.
"Heaven."
The name settled.
The creature accepted it.
Tears streamed down Sylence's face. He laughed through them, untrained, overwhelmed, alive.
"Thank you," he said to the lighthouse. "For giving me this."
Then—heart overflowing—he added:
"Let him come with me."
The magician.
"In perfect condition."
The light paused.
Then agreed.
Emotion surged again—too much, too fast.
Happiness compressed into something sharp.
The first trauma of being normal.
Sylence did not recognize it yet.
The sea carried the boat forward.
Sylence sat at the bow. Heaven lay curled beside him, steady and warm. Behind them, the magician sat wrapped in a borrowed coat, breathing like someone learning how again.
Town lights appeared on the horizon.
Ordinary.
Too ordinary.
Sylence watched them without warmth, without dread.
Only calculation.
A shadow unfolded across the water.
"Your first two wishes are still being fulfilled," it said.
Sylence did not look away.
"You must begin the ritual again in one month," the shadow continued. "Or you will pay with interest."
Then it vanished.
The boat continued.
Elsewhere—another town.
Another gathering.
Quiet eyes. Hollow calm.
Emotionless figures standing together.
Waiting.
The dream was no longer solitary.
It was organizing.
The shadow was panicking willing to find a person matching the personality of old sylence for a dream which was much more than an insanity.