The Inconvenience of Helplessness
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Vanity in the Face of Misery
He stirred under silken sheets and a thin film of sweat. His hair was plastered to his scalp, so he reached to shift his golden blond locks from his vision and only remembered afterwards that his hand was no longer present to do it. His other hand rose to the challenge, markedly more awkward, but accomplished the task all the same, granting him the blurred sight to survey his quarters. The candles were burnt down to lightless stubs, but the sky flushed pink and the sun peeked over the horizon, casting the room into an almost dreamlike rosy haze. He shifted, propped himself up, and pressed his face into his palm. He was awake now, undoubtedly, but returning to his slumber wasn't out of the question, was it?
Loneliness was his most frequent companion he mused, padding through to his study and struggling to tie the woolen sash of his bathrobe. It was not so long ago, comparatively, that he'd kept true companionship, but in more recent times he came to the uncomfortable conclusion that the heat of sunlight in the morning was a poor substitute for the warmth of another body to wake up next to. By now, the horizon shone golden and the sun was obscured only by the spires and rooftops of the Altalaan district. He'd chosen a good residence, for sure. Spacious, easy to find, well-decorated, with shelves in almost excess to match his truly gargantuan collection of literature and manuals. It lacked for nothing materially, he decided, but it was still not whole. He wondered if he would ever resolve to fix that missing piece.
Breaking his fast had been a matter of great difficulty since Merkar'sarh; eating had been in general. He could no longer cut his food as quickly, nor bring it to his mouth as coordinated as he had before; such was the cost of an unusable dominant hand that he had by now elected to discard altogether, rather than continue to suffer the dead weight of in some misguided interpretation as punishment and the burden of failure. In time, he had realised that the arm carried only so much significance as he allowed it to carry, and the shattering of Callandor was the act of a Dread Mage, not a punishment from any god, nor from any deity for that matter, and he was loathe to allow the Dread Empire any true influence on his person. For that reason, he no longer had a right arm, though it was entirely arguable that he had lacked a right arm since the battle.
Bathing was, thankfully, a brief respite from the struggles of amputation, lengthened slightly only by the loss of dexterity and multitasking. He found cleaning his hair to be a particular struggle, given his inability to hold his tresses out with anything more than the force of gravity whilst still being able to brush, but he'd discovered some catharsis in the patience he now needed for even basic hygiene. In the least, his hair was touched by nothing more than the mud of the battlefield outside Merkar'sarh; he'd spent generations of Ailor lives maintaining his locks, ensuring that his hair, that thread-of-gold, was not cut unattractively or unevenly. The loss of one measly arm was no excuse to stop; he had appearances to maintain, even if those appearances were short a limb. He would be a poor representation of Est'alorn if he appeared as anything less than his most well-groomed, though the question loomed all the same; would the Ailor even care if he didn't? He chose not to think about it, and instead lounged in the warm water of his tub for some time longer.
He had always been somewhat lonely, he decided. He was bookish as a child, back in those days when every name was almost a sentence in its own right; back when 'Æraláanist'haimaias' carried the same weight as 'Aeralaanys', but it had been centuries since he was referred to by his birth name, and years since he'd regularly been referred to as anything but 'Asher'; he'd halved the syllables of his name twice, and he wondered if that led others to believe he was anything other than what he already was. 'Asher' was certainly an Ailor name; would those who knew of him only in passing mentions see him as an eccentric or a convert or even an Ailor? He didn't think so, not with the relative prominence granted by his Ministry. Still, the question gnawed at his mind, not enough to distract him, but to pique his interest in the idle stretches.
He rose from the tub, soddened but clean, with ample time to examine himself. His right shoulder was sewn shut where the arm would have extended outwards, paralysed still, but without the dead weight to pull on it. His ribs and chest were scarred and scratched in their own right, but not deprived of their sensation as the arm was. Instead, tiny whorls and trails of stark white flesh extended out from the shoulder and from each scar where the shards of Callandor had shot outwards and marred his form. No magical healing could restore his arm; he didn't believe any magical healing could restore his previous skin tone in the afflicted areas, either. He gave a dry chuckle; nearly one and a half thousand years, and only now had he permanently lost a part of his body. In the least, it wasn't his ears. He traced his remaining fingers across the bleached pockmarks and furrows disfiguring otherwise unbroken skin, and then came to the conclusion that he should dress himself.
And that he did, though with some struggle. His most recent choice of clothing, a royal blue surcoat of sorts, trimmed and embossed with patterns of gold over a pure white robe, was markedly easier to wear than his previous fashions thanks to its relative looseness and the presence of a number of small buckles running along the left side of the surcoat that allowed him to simply pull it over his shoulders and fasten it shut without concern for unseemly struggles with pulling the entire ensemble over his head. Everything was so easy, he thought, when I was in possession of all of my limbs. The world was crafted for those with two hands; the one-armed were simply left to their own devices- if those devices could even be operated with only five fingers and a not-insignificant amount of accumulated resentment towards the circumstances that led them there. He wondered if Rodrigo Peirgarten felt the same way. He wondered if he should hire an assistant. Thoughts for another time, he concluded. The city had need of him- or as much as a city of Magic-hating Ailor could have need of a Magical Elf. But who was more qualified than he was to handle the matters of the arcane? Perhaps there was another. But for now, it was him.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. If only there was a kingdom of the handless for those with only one.
