In which Sauron's hasn't realized the full consequences of tearing his soul apart.
Soul-binding was a very ancient, delicate art, so ancient that its ways had long been forgotten.
Sauron hadn't realized how far this would have gone. Had he known, he would never have inflicted such torture on himself, but it was too late the moment he set foot in the cursed bowels of the mountains. The lava boiled, calling for creation, and the Maia answered. In his hubris he had visualized a weapon such as one that would never have seen the sun before, one that would make the very earth quiver at its might. Sauron had always been skilled, from the moment of his coming into the world. His fingers were meant to create, to solve, to invent. He had gladly given in in his desire, listening to the fire below that demanded creation. Gold had melted, maddening swirls of orange and yellow had glistened in the heart of the mountain, joining themselves to form one unique being. The Ring took shape, bending under the hammer, the heat, the fire, its perfect form becoming more and more precise with each minute that passed. The Maia never stopped, ignoring the infernal roar of the mountains around him, the deafening echo of the lava crashing against rocks below.
Sauron had poured all his energy, all his being into those swirling colors of orange. This object, as tiny as it was, was to shape the entire fate of Middle-Earth. It stared at its owner, new, glowing with rage, eager to learn and to see this new world it was destined to. Sauron had continued, again and again, to perfect it, to shape its curved form, to engrave the letters that would be forever printed on the Ring's side. This Ring meant more to him than anything he could have expressed. It was bound to him, for all times to come, and this until the end. The bond that had formed between the object and its owner, the tired but gloating Maia, was born from an endless fire.
Then had come the most delicate part, a very ancient art, only heard of, never truly practiced, with so little knowledge on it than Sauron was hesitant at first, but his greed and thirst for glory had banished his doubts. He had closed his eyes and looked into his mind, looked at his soul, that fragile ethereal sheet every being possessed on this earth.
That was when it had happened. Sauron couldn't recall precisely how the ritual had accomplished itself, but it had happened all the same. The Ring was almost finished; its glow was blinding now, defying the lava swirling around them in graceful flowers of orange. Sauron had felt it more than he had thought about it; it was rather a primary instinct, something he had automatically sensed. He was in harmony now with the creation of the jewel, and felt more and more attracted to it.
His soul, the very core of his personality. Sauron had had a sudden foreboding feeling, one that couldn't be fought, and he felt it pulling itself, in the way of a ghastly sheet, before being violently torn apart in a roar of agony that dominated the one of the lava. The rip had resonated within him, overtaking his body, lacerating his mind. An impossible pain, such as the Maia had never known before, had attacked his being. The pain was indescribable as the monstrous sound of the tear crashed in his mind. It was everywhere and nowhere at once. His thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, half of it had vanished as one piece of his spirit attached itself to the Ring, lodging its precious knowledge inside the gold metal of the jewel. Sauron had fallen to the ground, his sight momentarily blinded by the pain, unable even to think as thoughts were pulled apart, dissected like vulgar insects in his brain, and memories leaked and left his consciousness.
The Maia had no idea how long he had stayed in this state. He only knew the pain, its scar in his mind, the tear, clear as day, in the core of his soul. He could only see this flickering sheet, the suppurating wound in its ethereal fabric. Sauron breathed hard, still blind, his hand closing on the Ring. The feeling of hot, warm metal against the convulsive shakes of his palm somewhat reassured him. Colors flowed in his vision as sight very slowly came back to him. New sounds bloomed in his ears, and trickles of blood left his mouth as his heart resumed its normal beating. The Maia stood up, still shaking. He felt new and old, strong and weak at the same time. The Ring looked gently back at him, pulsing before his eyes, rejoicing in its might. Sauron had taken it, and strength had come back to him.
Sauron never felt as powerful with the Ring. He understood what had happened, and even if the event had deeply shaken him, he wasn't afraid of it. Soul-binding was an impossible art, one that had only been talked about but never been performed. He didn't fear the consequences, and didn't even think that there were some. He enjoyed the new might he had been given. All races fled before him. His armies were taking territory after territory. Middle-Earth was his.
Sauron became so intoxicated with power that he forgot all threats against him. He was powerful, above every creature walking on earth, or so he thought. Other races were meaningless, and their armies had no power, no strength to oppose his, though the Maia failed to see the Elves' continuous growth in might. He ignored the men coming together, the vague sense of hope the races of Middle-Earth felt. Sauron neglected Elves, and he thought nothing about men. He became so reckless that one day, it was all taken away as the sword of the heir of Númenor cut through his flesh, separating him from his Ring. It was his turn to flee as his flesh dissolved, leaving his spirit naked and defenseless. There wasn't time for him to recover the jewel; his only priority now was to hide, to disappear within the earth, and never feel the sunlight again. He only wanted to bathe in the shadows, feel their comforting touch, far away from the wrath of Elves and Men. The fate of the Ring was unknown to him, but it didn't really matter, for Sauron trusted his ability to find the artefact quickly. He had spies everywhere; beasts and woods and men. One would surely catch a glimpse of it, and bring it back to him.
Time passed. Sauron had no news of the Ring. He had other matters to attend to; new armies to build. Spies to send. Shadows to spread. The Ring could wait. It was in no immediate danger, Sauron was convinced of it. Yet the Maia grew uneasy, often thinking about the lost jewel, its golden gleam, the beauty of the circle curving in on itself, the fire of the letters, until it occupied his every thoughts. Sauron struggled about focusing on his tasks, his strategy, while his mind always came back to this one piece of metal. The Maia couldn't detach himself from it. He needed it. Worry began gnawing at him, bit by bit, year by year, but still the Ring was lost.
Time passed, colors changed in the landscape, coming back to this eternal cycle the Valar had installed for the earth, but the golden gleam Sauron so desperately longed for was impossible to find. It seemed to have simply vanished, swallowed by nature and its greediness. No beasts had caught sight of it, and no rumors were to be heard. The forests were quiet and refused to talk.
The Maia hadn't the time to direct research by himself: there was too much to do. His enemies were slowly becoming aware of his presence. Time, a relentless enemy, was quicker to strike him with the coming of the ages.
That was when Sauron began to notice peculiar things, things he hadn't really paid much attention to. His mind seemed to erode just as the rocks around him did; the names of his enemies were lost to him. Faces became blurry, morphing into strange features he didn't remember seeing before. As Sauron confronted the she-Elf, dismay came over him, and he fled again, feeling strangely puzzled and terrified at the same time. He knew her; he knew her voice, her power, but he simply couldn't recall her name, nor her origins. The wizards and Elves standing at her side were lost to him too. They had turned into nameless, shapeless things, devoid of any connection they might have held to his past. That terrified the Maia. What did those creatures mean to him? Had he loved them? Had he always nourished hatred for them? Were they new, or were they already there at the beginning? His life was slowly escaping him, dripping from his consciousness to join the lost Ring, wherever the jewel might be. That loss of control over what he had always thought about his only infuriated the Maia as much as it scared him, and he remembered the tear in his soul, the way emotions had vanished from his grasp.
Sauron's mind became frantic with the need to recover his artefact. He grew bitter, lashing out in anger more and more often. Every frustration, every tiny and insignificant obstacle fed his wrath.
The wizard and the she-Elf had temporarily beaten him, but even the knowledge that they wouldn't succeed in the end wasn't enough to soothe his psyche. His mind kept demanding the Ring, and, very far away, the Ring kept demanding him. Sauron could perceive it now as his need to have it had turned into an unfathomable crave. Desperate shrieks and cries sometimes came to his ear, begging him to find it.
Then the war began, and Sauron noticed something else. His eyesight begun to dwindle, very faintly at first. Simple shapes become eerily blurry in the corner of his eyes. Colors weren't as precise as before, and he failed to catch their nuances as they all swirled in one undefined homogenous mass. The light was too strong; its brightness constantly attacked his pupils, and the Maia began to dread even the flicker of the fire. He decided to lock himself in his fortress, in a tower where darkness reigned and all light was chased and destroyed. The obscurity soothed his eyes for a while, but his sight continued to fail him as he was separated longer from the Ring. Sauron lamented over this, unable to see the world, dreading and resenting everything around him. He needed to see, he had to; he refused to lose control over something as trivial as this. The Maia stayed in his throne room, despairing, trying every spell he knew to cure his lost sight, but to no avail. His vision refused to come back, colors and shapes became mindless enemies, sounds aggressive creatures born out of the darkness. The Orcs fled him as he attacked them, refusing to let anyone or anything come nearby. He loathed the Orcs, inferior creatures that were still able to see, and loathed the Nine for their ability to walk under the sun. Sauron cried and pleaded, tears coming of his useless eyes. Out of his misery was born the Great Eye, blazing with fire, the only spell Sauron had found that still allowed him to see, in some way, by connecting his mind to another entity of his creation. The Eye kept watching the land, surveying Middle-Earth rebel all around him.
Sauron had sent forth every spy, every creature under his rule, as well as the Nine. He couldn't go on without the Ring. It was imperative to retrieve the jewel. It had to be found. Then maybe his eyes would be healed, and he would see the world again.
It was not to be so as the War went on. However, Sauron got to have a glimpse of the halfling who had found it. He instinctively felt his presence, as soon as Frodo put it on. Now the Great Eye was gazing down on this little creature in the shadow realm, for Sauron had forgotten all colors, and only darkness mattered now. Fury came over him as he watched Frodo look back at him in fright, and he cursed the halfling, a being so unworthy of the Ring that it was blasphemous in the eyes of the Maia.
Relief came over Sauron after this; the Ring wasn't totally lost. It was still there, roaming the land, bearing with it another part of his soul. As each day passed, Sauron sensed the tear widening, and his thoughts became discordant, wordless as the ghostly pain of this scar came back to haunt him. No magic, as powerful as it was, could ever heal this unseen wound. He became weary of everything, and paid little attention to what was going on anymore. A man came to defy him through the Palantír; Sauron didn't remember who he was. He only recognized the man as a threat, and that was it. His mind, now suppurating with the invisible scar inside it, was focused on the Ring and nothing else. He longed for it, and yet hatred begun to brew in his heart as pain grew in his body. He resented the absence of the jewel, and the childishness of his behavior, but he simply couldn't help it. His eyes now only saw complete darkness, whereas they could still catch blurry shapes before. His heart beat, but it seemed devoid of any purpose to the Maia as he listened to its tired melody. The Ring was far, far away.
War continued. Death spread. Sauron didn't exactly remember the purpose of this war, too, but he didn't mind. Let them suffer as much as he did. The Eye watched them, them and their insignificant effort. The Eye watched the gray land, the gray sun, the black clouds shadowing all life. It appeased him a bit, but that wasn't enough. Sauron realized that nothing would ever be, and his hatred for the Ring grew even more.
Life was heavy, and brought nothing but pain to him. The Maia surprised himself when he thought about how death would feel like, and if it would finally offer him the peace he sought. This was a curious thought, but one he continued to reflect on nevertheless. Death was a concept as foreign to him as love. Maybe the Ring was doomed from the start, a curse for everyone, including him. Sauron bitterly regretted its fabrication, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
The War went on, his troops now advancing without much trouble in Middle-Earth. The Rohan didn't really matter to Sauron; empty pieces of wasteland weren't worth shedding more blood. He only wanted to see the White City fall. He resented the resistance of men, while he was forced to stay locked inside his own tower. The Maia wished very much to have been the one on the battlefield, to feel the adrenaline and energy battle brought, but his body was in too much pain now. Sauron spent his days in a half-dozing state, his head resting on his shoulder, the Great Eye blazing at the top of the tower. Nobody came to see him now; his orders passed through minds, but never the Maia's voice was heard again in the dark halls.
His decadent state wasn't left unnoticed by his captains, but none dared to approach him, even the Nine. They feared his discordant voice, the broken pictures it left into their heads, and fled before the light of the Eye.
Sauron became unaware of how much time had passed. His immortality, which he had always considered the greatest gift a being could inherit, weighed heavily on him, stretching his life like a long, thin worn thread that would soon break. He had forgotten almost everything, and only remembered the warm glow of the Ring, and the terrified eyes of its current bearer. He remembered the spark of pure horror, and yet the determination with which the halfling had carried on. It made him almost laugh, to know that this tiny being he had no idea could even exist was stronger than him, in a way, walking an unknown land toward a certain doom. Sauron longed to know his name, but that would remain a secret too, he supposed. Warriors had fallen for much unimportant, lesser things than this.
Sauron had one more opportunity to see Frodo, one day, as he suddenly sensed the very presence of the Ring in Mordor. He grew restless, but remained patient, and his Eye focused on Frodo once again as its golden light swept over the desolated land of Mordor, and caught sight of two tiny wanderers. He saw them, saw the halfling's body fall to the ground, amongst the burnt rocks, felt his weakness and the torment the Ring had inflicted upon his mind. The Eye watched them, and wondered. Sauron reflected, gathering his broken thoughts as best as he could, and recalled the light of the Ring, the greediness with which he had made it. He could take it back. Then what? Life would stretch even more, and he would be even wearier than he already was. What if he lost the Ring again? The jewel would never stop occupying his mind. He had become a prisoner of his own creation, something that the Maia would never had thought possible. The scar was too wide now; it would never be healed.
So the Eye quietly looked away. Its golden light slid on Frodo, and then wandered off, far from the tiny hobbit and his shivering body, covered in the ashes of the Mountain that had birthed the Ring.
Sauron ignored them and their progression; his Eye was now called elsewhere. He guessed the strategy of men and gave them what they want. A last battle before what he knew was going to be a welcomed end. He sighed blissfully when the Ring fell into the lava, melting to join its original creator. An immense feeling of relief overcame him as he heard the furious, protesting hiss of the Eye above, lost among the sudden crumbling of the tower. Orcs shrieks rose from below, inhuman cries filled the sky as the Nine died, one by one. Th Mountain itself roared in disbelief, not understanding how it could have lost, spilling his lava in resentment. Sauron head all of this, and didn't care, for he was finally free. He wouldn't have to bear any more pain. He stood up, his hand carefully grasping the side of his throne, and he frowned, at first stunned. His surroundings had changed. He blinked, unsure of himself, as various, faint shades of colors came progressively into his eyes, before bursting into a true palette of gold and orange as his sight was given back to him. Darkness was banned from his mind, and the Eye exploded, letting go of the despair and the misery that had created it. The Maia's sight was still blurry, fragile, as the one of a newborn, but Sauron was too happy to notice it. He looked one last time at Middle-Earth, and saw the sun, a beautiful shade of gold, a color which no longer bore any despair to him.