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31_days2005-08-15 08:09 pm
http://users.livejournal.com/guttersnipe_/) wrote in 31_days2005-08-15 08:09 pm
[August 15] [Harry Potter] Rational Control
Title: Rational Control
Day/Theme: August 15th // Air and stars
Series: Harry Potter
Character: Gavin Jugson
Rating: G
Rational Control
The floors were cold. The bed was cold. The entire cell was cold. From time to time, there were voices. Even so late at night, there were voices. There was little light. Sitting quietly in the cell, Gavin Jugson knew all of this to be the absolute truth.
Gavin preferred truth. His imagination was by no means well developed; Gavin took more to logical analysis than to dreamy fripperies. Even in Azkaban, he held to his rational state of mind. The dementors could find little to take from a logician. Emotions were for the imaginative, the ones who would visualize and dwell on such ideas as “happiness” and memory. Dementors thrived on memory. Gavin found himself absently thankful for his own collected mind, which generally took little effort to maintain.
Compared to several of his comrades, Gavin was a newcomer to Azkaban. He had spent only a little over a month—thirty-four days, to be exact about it—in the prison. The others had endured years of confinement, and at times Gavin wondered how they had maintained their sanity. Mind, some of them hadn’t kept their minds very well, but they could still function well enough. He had heard them speak, had grasped that to seal one’s very emotions within was the most effective way to remain sane. He kept quiet as he always had, made even more of an endeavor to maintain an utterly logical mindset.
Nights proved tame enough to bear. He slept without dreaming, which came as a relief in many ways. It was a simple matter of control and habit; he had long ago managed to order his mind to quiet it with the slowing of his body. At the worst, he glimpsed misty images of German shores, quiet and mostly unconnected with any true emotion. The silence of sleep always came as a relief.
For many days, he had found the hours of awakening to be just as easy. So long as he guarded himself, remained entirely calm, he was more or less fine. There was always trouble to be had from the dementors, but nothing that tore him apart. Nothing that threatened to break his control.
Difficult times came about, however. Times when he wondered why he was there, why he should stew in such a prison when there was work to do outside. Times when he would recall instructing a body of students, times before he had returned to Britain and entered the service of the Dark Lord. It was not regret so much as a rare sense of wistfulness. At times he would even turn with some regret to thoughts of his own removed family. How did Philomela spend her days? Was Adrian visited by nightmares?
Such thoughts complicated the situation. As days passed, Gavin had found himself becoming more attracted to these memories, these images of things that had passed and were elsewhere. Each visitation of nostalgia became more difficult to stave off. The growing difficulty, harbinger of a wavering control, worried him. Thus far, Gavin has bore quietly the troubles of Azkaban, accepting what he had earned. He could only stand so much. Somewhere in the ever-enclosing distance, a breaking point waited. If he remained long in prison, Gavin feared that he might stumble over this disastrous line. It was a shame to think on. He had always been careful, so well controlled in the outside world….
The outside world. He knew of the outside world. Images of the world began to form in his mind, overtaking his set sequence of thought. Outside there was freedom. Somewhere quite close, the wind blew vitality across the breaking waves. Directly above his head, stars shone, perhaps battling dark clouds to stream their lights through to quiet earth.
Even as the images trampled thought, Gavin became aware of a growing sense of coldness, a shiver that mocked his very thoughts. The stars were obscured and would remain so forever. If ever his body were made subject to the harsh beauty of wind, it would be as a corpse, directly before burial.
He had been cut across the back with an icy blade, it seemed, and now the blade threatened to split the length of his spine in two. One by one the vertebrae would break, split, burst. He saw each and every one shattered. Then the pain became worse, more painful, something that was difficult to understand. Images flashing too quickly to be understood, to be sorted, and the lack of sense was what worried him most of all. These things, these memories, ripped now by the coldness and further stirred about in confusion. And what were these, and where was the order to all of it and why had it gone how could he find it again it had all gone beyond…
Enough.
Enough of this. Take it back, he must find control.
Gavin swallowed harshly, clawed at the air. He knew now what this was, knew exactly what this was. The exploding cold, the pain accompanying it, could be linked to a reasonable explanation. This was the assault of a dementor. He had felt it before, and he could identify it now.
Banish the thoughts.
And so he did. Shoving aside the memories, the wistfulness, Gavin locked them carefully in a corner of his mind. Sorted, shelved, and locked them away. The best thing to do would be to destroy all such thoughts, to banish them forever. Forget all. Gavin sat quietly, arms wrapped around his chest, eyes blank, shivers subsiding. He sat, and he thought that if he could find a way to forget all pleasant things, he very well would.
The dementor passed by the cell, finding nothing more to claim. Gavin watched the creature pass, registering the shape of it, the coldness that followed. The fear that it also brought expressed itself only as a muffled whisper. He now saw the thing as a creature, and as the simple, logically understandable figure that it was.
Day/Theme: August 15th // Air and stars
Series: Harry Potter
Character: Gavin Jugson
Rating: G
The floors were cold. The bed was cold. The entire cell was cold. From time to time, there were voices. Even so late at night, there were voices. There was little light. Sitting quietly in the cell, Gavin Jugson knew all of this to be the absolute truth.
Gavin preferred truth. His imagination was by no means well developed; Gavin took more to logical analysis than to dreamy fripperies. Even in Azkaban, he held to his rational state of mind. The dementors could find little to take from a logician. Emotions were for the imaginative, the ones who would visualize and dwell on such ideas as “happiness” and memory. Dementors thrived on memory. Gavin found himself absently thankful for his own collected mind, which generally took little effort to maintain.
Compared to several of his comrades, Gavin was a newcomer to Azkaban. He had spent only a little over a month—thirty-four days, to be exact about it—in the prison. The others had endured years of confinement, and at times Gavin wondered how they had maintained their sanity. Mind, some of them hadn’t kept their minds very well, but they could still function well enough. He had heard them speak, had grasped that to seal one’s very emotions within was the most effective way to remain sane. He kept quiet as he always had, made even more of an endeavor to maintain an utterly logical mindset.
Nights proved tame enough to bear. He slept without dreaming, which came as a relief in many ways. It was a simple matter of control and habit; he had long ago managed to order his mind to quiet it with the slowing of his body. At the worst, he glimpsed misty images of German shores, quiet and mostly unconnected with any true emotion. The silence of sleep always came as a relief.
For many days, he had found the hours of awakening to be just as easy. So long as he guarded himself, remained entirely calm, he was more or less fine. There was always trouble to be had from the dementors, but nothing that tore him apart. Nothing that threatened to break his control.
Difficult times came about, however. Times when he wondered why he was there, why he should stew in such a prison when there was work to do outside. Times when he would recall instructing a body of students, times before he had returned to Britain and entered the service of the Dark Lord. It was not regret so much as a rare sense of wistfulness. At times he would even turn with some regret to thoughts of his own removed family. How did Philomela spend her days? Was Adrian visited by nightmares?
Such thoughts complicated the situation. As days passed, Gavin had found himself becoming more attracted to these memories, these images of things that had passed and were elsewhere. Each visitation of nostalgia became more difficult to stave off. The growing difficulty, harbinger of a wavering control, worried him. Thus far, Gavin has bore quietly the troubles of Azkaban, accepting what he had earned. He could only stand so much. Somewhere in the ever-enclosing distance, a breaking point waited. If he remained long in prison, Gavin feared that he might stumble over this disastrous line. It was a shame to think on. He had always been careful, so well controlled in the outside world….
The outside world. He knew of the outside world. Images of the world began to form in his mind, overtaking his set sequence of thought. Outside there was freedom. Somewhere quite close, the wind blew vitality across the breaking waves. Directly above his head, stars shone, perhaps battling dark clouds to stream their lights through to quiet earth.
Even as the images trampled thought, Gavin became aware of a growing sense of coldness, a shiver that mocked his very thoughts. The stars were obscured and would remain so forever. If ever his body were made subject to the harsh beauty of wind, it would be as a corpse, directly before burial.
He had been cut across the back with an icy blade, it seemed, and now the blade threatened to split the length of his spine in two. One by one the vertebrae would break, split, burst. He saw each and every one shattered. Then the pain became worse, more painful, something that was difficult to understand. Images flashing too quickly to be understood, to be sorted, and the lack of sense was what worried him most of all. These things, these memories, ripped now by the coldness and further stirred about in confusion. And what were these, and where was the order to all of it and why had it gone how could he find it again it had all gone beyond…
Enough.
Enough of this. Take it back, he must find control.
Gavin swallowed harshly, clawed at the air. He knew now what this was, knew exactly what this was. The exploding cold, the pain accompanying it, could be linked to a reasonable explanation. This was the assault of a dementor. He had felt it before, and he could identify it now.
Banish the thoughts.
And so he did. Shoving aside the memories, the wistfulness, Gavin locked them carefully in a corner of his mind. Sorted, shelved, and locked them away. The best thing to do would be to destroy all such thoughts, to banish them forever. Forget all. Gavin sat quietly, arms wrapped around his chest, eyes blank, shivers subsiding. He sat, and he thought that if he could find a way to forget all pleasant things, he very well would.
The dementor passed by the cell, finding nothing more to claim. Gavin watched the creature pass, registering the shape of it, the coldness that followed. The fear that it also brought expressed itself only as a muffled whisper. He now saw the thing as a creature, and as the simple, logically understandable figure that it was.