His eyes snap open when he hears the call, shock rocketing through him like a knife. He hasn't heard that voice, or its like, since ...
Turning where he sits, Sauron stares up open-mouthed at the sight of Melkor there, talking away as if it hasn't been absolutely too long since he was unbound and free to do as he pleased, with even a quotient of orcs dithering about his cloak-tails like so much useless foam on the fringe of the ocean.
Do you think we could take it down?
He laughs once, stunned, and finds himself staring back into his hands as he staves off the mild horror of being bound, truly forced into this crushingly minute body, with no easy escape. This isn't like when he faced Luthien and Huan, and she threatened to wrench his body apart and leave him little more than a ghost; what would he be now, if this small, wretched body broke? It is not of my devising, only my design! Melkor does not not dissolve like a dream or a sweet nightmare, this is no game. Everything, from bone to brick, is a block in the self-same prison; flesh or castle, they are the same thing.
"I," he starts quietly, and though he fears Morgoth Bauglir almost as much as he is loyal to him, he cannot look up from his lap. The embers at Sauron's hems flare and settle, unnerved. Even his voice sounds hollow. "I —"
He is afraid to stare into those dark eyes and know he is not the one to have unchained him, afraid to say My Eyes are so weak, afraid that something went wrong at Númenor and now he has warped himself a pretty illusion in which to stay his own madness because the pain was so great as he was robbed of the shape in which he had wrought great evil deeds, no longer able to appear fair but scraped as thin as a shadow and a black wind —
"It hurts!" Of course it hurts, he realises, hands gripping his face where he remains dumped on the floor. You have been forced back into the skin you could not reclaim for yourself. His pitch heightens in a panic and he begs instinctively because I made their isle fall for you, do not leave me like this. He stood on the temple he had that fool-king build for Melkor and crashed down into the sea not to die, but to break as he has never been broken before. "Master, please —!"
If Melkor is even really there in the echoing, engulfing cavern of the antechamber.
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Turning where he sits, Sauron stares up open-mouthed at the sight of Melkor there, talking away as if it hasn't been absolutely too long since he was unbound and free to do as he pleased, with even a quotient of orcs dithering about his cloak-tails like so much useless foam on the fringe of the ocean.
Do you think we could take it down?
He laughs once, stunned, and finds himself staring back into his hands as he staves off the mild horror of being bound, truly forced into this crushingly minute body, with no easy escape. This isn't like when he faced Luthien and Huan, and she threatened to wrench his body apart and leave him little more than a ghost; what would he be now, if this small, wretched body broke? It is not of my devising, only my design! Melkor does not not dissolve like a dream
or a sweet nightmare, this is no game. Everything, from bone to brick, is a block in the self-same prison; flesh or castle, they are the same thing."I," he starts quietly, and though he fears Morgoth Bauglir almost as much as he is loyal to him, he cannot look up from his lap. The embers at Sauron's hems flare and settle, unnerved. Even his voice sounds hollow. "I —"
He is afraid to stare into those dark eyes and know he is not the one to have unchained him, afraid to say My Eyes are so weak, afraid that something went wrong at Númenor and now he has warped himself a pretty illusion in which to stay his own madness because the pain was so great as he was robbed of the shape in which he had wrought great evil deeds, no longer able to appear fair but scraped as thin as a shadow and a black wind —
"It hurts!" Of course it hurts, he realises, hands gripping his face where he remains dumped on the floor. You have been forced back into the skin you could not reclaim for yourself. His pitch heightens in a panic and he begs instinctively because I made their isle fall for you, do not leave me like this. He stood on the temple he had that fool-king build for Melkor and crashed down into the sea not to die, but to break as he has never been broken before. "Master, please —!"
If Melkor is even really there in the echoing, engulfing cavern of the antechamber.