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his eyefire was great, his tongue was flame;
Taller than most of the Men, taller than the creatures unnumbered at the feast, he nevertheless flickers wildly like a flame in a gale under the threat of going out, crashing across dishes and flagons. The complaints sound as if they come to him through a sludge and he thinks, I am a caged thing, I want for breath. When he stumbles gracelessly from the grand banquet and into corridors wreathed in the gloaming sanctuary of the night, the only thing that stops the discontent from following is a blaze of fire in his wake that feeds from his robes, more illusion than truth yet enough with which to cloak the painful shell that binds him. Would-be assailants stay away, and that is all that matters.
In what seems like a crypt but is, in fact, merely a disused hall, the clumsy noises he makes while floundering are met with the whoosh and woof of his fires the second a tall, proud window shatters into dust. He crumples in a heap of smouldering ruin where he doesn't become aware of his own howling, guttural screams until the echoes press back on his ears. Ears. Mouth. Tongue. Eyes. Hands, he sees, and hands he Sees again much clearer as his Vision is hammered into harrowingly weak bones, sinews, and skin.
This is not who I was. This is a lie; and I am wounded by it, my heart is bloodied in this fragile ribcage. I could tear myself apart and be no more!
Greater in power than the Eldar (Certainly! Always!) but diminished into a Maia made flesh. His hands tremble.
I could perish like this!
He recalls tiny fingers dragging the illusion of mortal flesh out of the sea as Númenor finally crumbled and fell into the great chasm that even he had not foreseen. Imps? Yes, imps, those filthy vermin scurrying about in this place. Had they bound him in it, in the fairness he had donned before Ar-Pharazôn? Had they the power? No; it was another. Stretching his Sight, his Eyes see much and spread to the borders of ... Caer Scima, they search and search and weep, and he snarls in frustration like a wild thing of Dungortheb. The lieutenant is furious with himself when his skull sears with an almighty, humbling migraine, of all things, and there he sobs on the black marble floor like a bird of embers cast out of the fire-pit where it nested, spirit fracturing in despair.
Tears leave permanent scorch-marks on the fine rock.
"It hurts," he whispers to the emptiness. Alone and confused, diminished, Sauron chokes on his own terror and peers with fire-bright eyes into the middle-distance. Daunted wonder wins out. "It hurts."
Like never before.
In what seems like a crypt but is, in fact, merely a disused hall, the clumsy noises he makes while floundering are met with the whoosh and woof of his fires the second a tall, proud window shatters into dust. He crumples in a heap of smouldering ruin where he doesn't become aware of his own howling, guttural screams until the echoes press back on his ears. Ears. Mouth. Tongue. Eyes. Hands, he sees, and hands he Sees again much clearer as his Vision is hammered into harrowingly weak bones, sinews, and skin.
This is not who I was. This is a lie; and I am wounded by it, my heart is bloodied in this fragile ribcage. I could tear myself apart and be no more!
Greater in power than the Eldar (Certainly! Always!) but diminished into a Maia made flesh. His hands tremble.
I could perish like this!
He recalls tiny fingers dragging the illusion of mortal flesh out of the sea as Númenor finally crumbled and fell into the great chasm that even he had not foreseen. Imps? Yes, imps, those filthy vermin scurrying about in this place. Had they bound him in it, in the fairness he had donned before Ar-Pharazôn? Had they the power? No; it was another. Stretching his Sight, his Eyes see much and spread to the borders of ... Caer Scima, they search and search and weep, and he snarls in frustration like a wild thing of Dungortheb. The lieutenant is furious with himself when his skull sears with an almighty, humbling migraine, of all things, and there he sobs on the black marble floor like a bird of embers cast out of the fire-pit where it nested, spirit fracturing in despair.
Tears leave permanent scorch-marks on the fine rock.
"It hurts," he whispers to the emptiness. Alone and confused, diminished, Sauron chokes on his own terror and peers with fire-bright eyes into the middle-distance. Daunted wonder wins out. "It hurts."
Like never before.