Waste Paper by Himring

Chapter 4: Sculpting

(I thought I'd finished this sequence, but then another chapter came to me...)

He sits for her, holding his hands still, in plain sight, so that she can sculpt them.

This is something he used to do sometimes, casually, routinely, when she needed a model, a gesture, a pose. He remembers how. It is not something he did in Beleriand. In Beleriand he was himself the artist and his art form drama; he went on enacting himself until eventually all poses fell away.

They have not spoken much yet. She thinks she is finding out things, though, just observing how he sits, how he moves, how he holds his hands. She focuses on the hands.

The hands begin to tremble. He seizes his right with his left, trying to steady both.

'Have I made you sit too long?' she asks. 'Do you need a rest? You should have said something.'

The hands go on trembling, harder. He turns his head away.

She comes and sits beside him, wants to reach out, but he is all hunched up, untouchable.

'I know,' she says helplessly. 'I know.'

He takes a deep breath that ends in a single sob.

'You don't,' he says. 'I don't even...'

He holds the back of his hand against her cheek, almost not touching.

After a while she goes back to sculpting.