There had been weeks of rage. They had given the soldier a room with a few other Brothers, in the beginning, thinking company might calm him. They had been wrong. Between his night terrors and his fits of fury, no one wanted to room with him. The Elder Brother hated to do it, but eventually he had to put Sandor in a room by himself. He knew it would make the man feel even more isolated but it couldn't be avoided for the time being. Until the man learned to stop lashing out physically, he had to think of the safety of the other Brothers.
He ended up putting the broken man in the room next to his. That way, if Clegane called out in the night, it would be easy to tend to him personally. His heart weighed heavy for the man. He would wake to horrible sounds of terror coming from the man's room. Stumbling blindly in the dark he would find Sandor, eyes glassy with ghosts only he could see, hands pressed to his ears while he screamed. It would take time to get the man to realize the cries he heard were his own and not the voices of others he had been the cause of in his lifetime. The Elder Brother sympathized. He knew the struggle the mind faced when it was no longer kept busy with its usual distraction of violence or vices.
He visited with Sandor daily. Usually later in the evening so as not to ruin the day for the man, though he knew he risked disturbing the man's sleep. It was a hard choice to make. Everything about the man was difficult, but he knew the fight was worth it. One man's soul returned to him was treasure beyond measurement in gold. Most evenings ended in terrible acts of wrath.
Sandor Clegane had a tongue of fire and fists of thunder. He was far from simple. He found more and more exquisite ways to use his knowledge to try to cause fear in those around him. Never once did the Elder Brother take the soldier's words to heart. Clegane threatened him with violence that never occurred. It was objects and not people that met with the man's hands. He knew Sandor only wished for others to understand the hurt he carried inside him. Slowly, he was teaching the man that, sometimes, words were more helpful than actions.
If Sandor had been an animal, he would have been a frightful beast. A snarling, foaming, biting, clawing, furred atrocity, gnawing at its own foot caught in a trap. But he wasn't an animal. He was a man. A fact that the Elder Brother drove into him daily. Bellowing shouts would ensue, wood would splinter, and dishes would shatter. The Elder Brother wouldn't give up. If he could make Sandor realize that, no matter what he did, there was going to be one person on his side always, the door to healing would open to him. The man thought himself alone when he was surrounded by those ready to help him shoulder his burdens.
It happened a month after his arrival to the Isle. There had been a crack in his rant of the night. The Elder Brother seized it, pushing until he could sense Sandor breaking. Tears were pouring out of the man's eyes while he continued to kick at nothing and holler at all the Gods he could remember. He seemed surprised when he rubbed at his face to discover wetness. And then he had crumbled; falling into a ball on the floor, clutching at his knees while ragged sobs tore through him. The Edler Brother sat quietly nearby. Close enough to be of comfort but still a respectable distance away. When the man wailed, he dared to lay a hand on his trembling shoulder. Sandor didn't shove it away. Progress had been made. When Sandor had lifted himself off the ground, scrubbing at his face with his robes, the Elder Brother had lifted his sleeves to bear his wrists to his struggling companion. The scars were old but still quite visible.
"You'd think, with all my experience handling a knife, I'd have learned to do it properly," he told Clegane. The man nodded back to him. Sandor hadn't taken the same route but he had been close at times. They understood one another.
Rage began to mellow into sorrow. Screams of terror in the night became shuddering cries. Fits of temper became rivers of tears. The local potter was glad the weekly need for new dishes had ceased. It was a new sort of pain for the man to learn to bear but the Elder Brother tried to reassure him it would fade with time just as surely as the anger had. He gave the man a shovel. During the day Clegane buried his sins, and at night he wept for forgiveness.
And then the day came, when he sat with the man and talked of past events. Sandor spoke of a girl, barely a woman, and smiled. A brief twitch of lips grew into grins and laughter over the next few months. He watched the man dabble into new territory; places called peace, tranquility and happiness. By embracing his faults, by seeking forgiveness, Sandor had used his pain to create a foundation on which hope could build upon.
The Elder Brother heard nothing but silence from the room next to his throughout the night. A new Brother joined them and Clegane asked if the man could board with him. Sandor took the man under his wing, mimicking the Elder Brother in council. The wheel of healing had come full circle and he knew that the Hound had died while Sandor Clegane lived.