The Malleable Metal of His Mind by Firerose

Chapter 2

Inhabiting a body was a novel sensation, for the forms he had assumed before were transitory shells of his own making, to be taken or put aside at will, while this frame, this was a gift of Eru Himself. And at first he delighted in it: the sea breeze tangling his hair, the heady resinous scent clinging to the timber, the crinkly texture of his beard when splashed with salt spray – even the rub of rough woollen cloth against his skin, the sting of salt in his eyes, the unfamiliar sensations growing in his belly when this cockle-shell of an elven boat broached the open sea. All these he experienced for the first time, though wind and wood and water he knew, and so he discovered that knowing and living were distinct and as different from each other as thought and action, words and meaning – and he stored up that knowledge with all he learned that long first day.