He is gone.
The very stones of this place sigh out in weary relief. The imperceptable lightening of the burden of the few captives in chambers far below me. I feel them, the endless, endless misery ... like a thread of smoke rising forever in some darkling tribute.
I watched him depart in the dawn, looking down from this dizzying perch set amongst the high towers. That I could do so ... I hate that I am so piteously grateful. To be so reduced by my own need - or as he would have it - by my own desire unfulfilled.
After so many days without sight of earth of stars I am finally placed in a chamber with a window. For all that it is as thin and mean as an arrow-slit, to me it is a glorious sliver of the world.
I did not know how great my need was. The world... this beautiful Arda, this richness and wonder and delight. The sky. The sounds. I find myself shedding the first tears since I was taken, pressing my cheek against the damp stone in my eagerness to see ...anything. And I hear... in the distance, from his garden, the sweet sounds of his caged birds. They sing without a care, as caged as I, but believing themselves free.
But even the beautiful world and this thin gruel of comfort he has sullied. The clouds, the rain, the evening, the thoughts that flood into my mind as it lifts at the simple sight of the first star. He has seeded any and all joy with his presence. The knowledge gnaws beneath the beauty, turning it swiftly to a withering sourness - I have this only as a gift to me. The truth that, here, the whole world is given - or taken - at his command.
