You needn’t remind me; I spend every hour of my existence easing the pain it has brought me, wishing I did not need these lights, an elven-made crutch, to make the misery bearable.
…But I do not begrudge my lieutenant his ability to change. Sometimes, I find comfort in watching him and his brethren refashion themselves as the mood takes them.
What and where I spent my power gives me few regrets. I would not take back the deeds that gave birth to new creatures, or that gave me influence over that which is mine by right: the matter of Arda… It is the injustice of having to spend myself, in order to achieve by force that which ought to have been considered in the Music itself, that fuels my bitterness.
I would not take any of it back– though perhaps I could, if I so wished. Yet I cannot allow myself to consider reversal an option, after all that I have suffered. I will give nothing back. I will repent nothing.
Ah, that is not necessarily true! It is only a matter of trust and skill, (though greater size is occasionally of some benefit… as Gothmog may attest); I only need ascertain that my partner is at least as capable and experienced in the matter as I am… if not, well! Let us say it is simply easier, and more pleasurable, if I take the reigns.
There are unnumbered roads to ecstasy and I have taken many of them, with any number of companions. However, it is true that under any given circumstance, I would prefer the touch, the chain, the claw, the caress, or the commandment, of my Master.
He is unambiguous about his desires, uninhibited in his expression. It is an unparalleled feeling, to be coveted by one so greedy, to know that only obedience is required to have every need fulfilled. Bliss is to trust completely in another’s control.
That trust goes beyond the flesh. His form as you see it is beautiful enough, but for one such as I, seeing him, feeling his natural and unclad spirit, being subsumed in the sea of his being is… beyond description.
(You must never forget that an unclad state, I am the smaller in the pair! For he is the Mighty Arising, as his name promises.)
In any case, stranger, I am pleased to know I am the subject of your voyeuristic fantasies. Ha! That is a road I too have taken, in both directions.
The world to myself? HAH! The world is vast and multivariate and I have not even firm control of the mid-eastern third of this continent! The more power I gain, the more tenuous it becomes; the farther I reach, the thinner I find myself spread!
My thoughts stretch to breaking point… I must maneuver each pawn directly, for fear of defection. I have no lieutenant I trust well enough to delegate command to.
It is all for an aim, I tell myself, it is all to regain what was lost, to mount a final attack against the insurmountable— but it is slipping! All of it, sliding like sand through my fingers the harder I grasp! I cannot let go for an instant. I cannot cease watching them for even a moment. I cannot rest, I dare not be merciful, I cannot afford to let a single unknown variable survive… What I was fighting for seems impossibly distant, and I must only hold on…
They cannot be trusted. I must do it all. Every movement of every cog must be supervised or else it will stray and the entire machine will collapse…!
I must always be watching. I do not remember what or who I miss. I must always be watching.
You think that because I am suited best to one element that I cannot appreciate the beauty of anything else? We are not opposites, he and I, we are compliments. His “chaos” as you call it benefits from being revised and channeled, and without his energy; that raw demiurgical potential, my will to order would stagnate and become an repetitive catalogue of itself.
You don’t understand what he gave me, or how unusual it is for a Maia to reach outside his caste and seek a purpose in life that is other than the function given him at his creation. That I could choose to make him my Master, that I am able to create things of my own design— that is his gift to me.
…His primary goal has never been destruction. It is freedom; a freedom that requires the dismantlement of the tyrannous structures in place; and when they are undone, I will be there to help create a better framework for this dispossessed world.
But even without these considerations, Noldo… Even were we more at odds than we appear now, I would love him. And if you do not understand that, I cannot help you.
I find it amusing that anyone would truly believe there could be a conflict so pure and one-sided that their enemies displayed no admirable traits. That you find in me relatable qualities does not make me more dangerous, it makes you more human.
How comfortable it must be, to wage a war in which you never have to consider if the cause you are fighting for is worth the destruction of those precious things.
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 