There is a muffled gasp, but no more. The puzzled eyes are glazed in contemplation: a half-escape into a world neither Ruin, nor Namo, nor even Melkor had touched, altered, or understood.
The Wraith's lair, the detached madness, the seeing and feeling through someone else's skin. He becomes a puppet -- Namo's puppet, a body whose actions are dictated by his caresses, thrusts, and kisses.
Meanwhile the mind, outside the immediate experience of whatever pain he may feel, sits quietly baffled like a child in a corner -- imagine a pouting lip, a prematurely-creasing brow, and the too-large eyes that ask the question he dares not voice for fear of sounding foolish:
Why?
He thought they were all right. He thought they'd worked this out. He'd thought they were working and they knew that, didn't they? What went wrong? What sign did he misread, what gesture went misinterpreted?
And then, slowly, through the mind's deep abysses wherein strange alliances of thoughts are made, he begins to wonder -- a question like the pounding of a drum, it distracted him somewhat from the experience, yet was no less painful.
He began to think.
Is this what it was like for Eilinel?
He imagines the two awkward youths on their wedding night, their bodies still barely past the lanky teenagehood of every limb seeming vastly disproportionate to its intended use or owner. He imagines, and tries to remember, how it had felt to both be new, to have only as vague preconception resembling assembly instructions more than intimacy or romance.
He tries to remember their life then. Yes, they had been happy. But happiness had different levels, and one sacrifices certain things for one's lover. He thinks, and remembers her shyness, her blushing cheeks, and how she had wept against his chest that night, how they had held and wept against each other, thinking they understood the perfect joy and perfect pain...
...but did they? Could they ever know each other so well? Could any couple?
And now he thinks of how quiet she was, of how gentle and loving and how... passive she had been, after that first night. How she had given him all, as they had been taught to expect a wife should do. Had it been like this for her every time? Surely not every time, and she had wanted the children so badly, but...
...Had he put her through this, night after night, for lack of either of them knowing how to change it? And had she simply learned to accept it, as he is beginning to learn now, as he is feeling the seeds of acceptance and beginning to understand how one could learn to let it be this way, for the sake of a loved one, for the sake of not knowing how to stop, for the sake of one's sanity telling oneself it was always like this, and the pain wasn't his fault... no, not his fault, not his intention.
He closes his eyes against the blinding glare that is the experience of seeing things in a whole new light, and realizing he'd been wrong since the beginning, been blind since the start.
She had never wept after that first night.
But there are tears on Gorlim's cheeks now: both for his own fear, his own shame, and for the sake of the best-loved girl he now thinks must have suffered the same for the sake of their marriage.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-06-14 03:12 am (UTC)The Wraith's lair, the detached madness, the seeing and feeling through someone else's skin. He becomes a puppet -- Namo's puppet, a body whose actions are dictated by his caresses, thrusts, and kisses.
Meanwhile the mind, outside the immediate experience of whatever pain he may feel, sits quietly baffled like a child in a corner -- imagine a pouting lip, a prematurely-creasing brow, and the too-large eyes that ask the question he dares not voice for fear of sounding foolish:
Why?
He thought they were all right. He thought they'd worked this out. He'd thought they were working and they knew that, didn't they? What went wrong? What sign did he misread, what gesture went misinterpreted?
And then, slowly, through the mind's deep abysses wherein strange alliances of thoughts are made, he begins to wonder -- a question like the pounding of a drum, it distracted him somewhat from the experience, yet was no less painful.
He began to think.
Is this what it was like for Eilinel?
He imagines the two awkward youths on their wedding night, their bodies still barely past the lanky teenagehood of every limb seeming vastly disproportionate to its intended use or owner. He imagines, and tries to remember, how it had felt to both be new, to have only as vague preconception resembling assembly instructions more than intimacy or romance.
He tries to remember their life then. Yes, they had been happy. But happiness had different levels, and one sacrifices certain things for one's lover. He thinks, and remembers her shyness, her blushing cheeks, and how she had wept against his chest that night, how they had held and wept against each other, thinking they understood the perfect joy and perfect pain...
...but did they? Could they ever know each other so well? Could any couple?
And now he thinks of how quiet she was, of how gentle and loving and how... passive she had been, after that first night. How she had given him all, as they had been taught to expect a wife should do. Had it been like this for her every time? Surely not every time, and she had wanted the children so badly, but...
...Had he put her through this, night after night, for lack of either of them knowing how to change it? And had she simply learned to accept it, as he is beginning to learn now, as he is feeling the seeds of acceptance and beginning to understand how one could learn to let it be this way, for the sake of a loved one, for the sake of not knowing how to stop, for the sake of one's sanity telling oneself it was always like this, and the pain wasn't his fault... no, not his fault, not his intention.
He closes his eyes against the blinding glare that is the experience of seeing things in a whole new light, and realizing he'd been wrong since the beginning, been blind since the start.
She had never wept after that first night.
But there are tears on Gorlim's cheeks now: both for his own fear, his own shame, and for the sake of the best-loved girl he now thinks must have suffered the same for the sake of their marriage.