Thank goodness your father isn’t here to see how your manners have developed.
Too bad for you your own “father” always is… Watching and waiting gleefully for you to fail, as he set you up to.
Oh, my father set me up to fail? That’s rich.
I have more Silmarils in my crown still than you have brothers left, boy.
Indeed yours did, with much glee. I guess the taste for punching in the direction one perceives down runs in your family.
Too bad for you your crown and our Silmarilli shall abandon you as soon as your luck runs out. My family stuck together to the end. Then again: for you brothers are a sour spot, I guess. Let’s not start with the wrong foot. You should know the dangers of it. Those of your brothers you do not wish to humiliate or bed end up humiliating and beating you… Ops.. That is all of them, even those you wish to humiliate and bed.
Pity.
Again, this is all so very rich coming from the kin-fucking king in a line of great kin-fuckers.
You may notice, blind to subtlety though you are, that I’ve made my own family, and we’ve held together splendidly since the Utumno days…
Whether or not my “luck” runs out, you’ve lost all capacity to take advantage of the opportunity. Your family is dead and will never see Valinor again, your mission to destroy me failed, and your oath will join Fëanor’s ashes in the wind.
You played all your cards at the Dagor Nírnaeth and you didn’t even make it past the foyer. You are toothless, kinless, handless; I have nothing to fear from you now.
..But yes, clever, that comment about my foot. I gained a limp while you lost an uncle, ~ooh~, what a smarting blow.
I lost an uncle, true enough, but gained a new hope in a cousin. You lost a foot, and part of your face, and your pride.. Or what is left of it. I guess it is pretty much like an overused rug, by now. You know, after all that bending and grovelling.
As for what I might have lost: my dignity is not among the losses, which puts me several steps ahead of you, which, I understand, you might not understand, given your… complex relationship with it. I shall keep my oath and I shall honour my father’s legacy. Unlike your own “family”, which is made of people who will and would turn your back on you and mindless thralls.
As for “opportunities” I fear you are thinking like a vulture. I am not. I shall see you defeated and know I fought against you, held you thrall for more than four hundred turns of Vàsa, and that is what keeps my head high.
I am under the impression that Throndor’s talons and that pathetic crown made with the work of one so much mightier than you to make you taste the wood of his door, might have impaired your ability to do the same.
I do not blame you, though. I think shame and charred flesh suits you.
Nice try, Lefty, but that cousin is also dead; my beloved Gothmog saw to that, just as he saw to your father.
You see, this is the difference between us, Fëanorian: you count your victories in “dignity”, while I count them in materialgains. You have your pride, and I have all of Beleriand, my Silmarils, my freedom, and the decimated line of Finwë and the Two Trees on the roster of my defeated foes.
I find that entirely acceptable.
A pity that you cannot wield shame against me, for without it, you have nothing else to strike with. Your arsenal and your threats are empty. Remember, I’ve seen you in chains too, my darling. I may have worn mine for four Ages, but you cannot say I didn’t make those who put me in them pay for every moment. And unlike your grandmother and the rest of your kin, I came out of Mandos.
And yes, I tasted the wood of Fëanor’s door. And other things of his as well. He too liked the sight of me on my knees.
Do you want to hear about it? I bet he never told you those stories, speaking of shame.
Thank goodness your father isn’t here to see how your manners have developed.
Too bad for you your own “father” always is… Watching and waiting gleefully for you to fail, as he set you up to.
Oh, my father set me up to fail? That’s rich.
I have more Silmarils in my crown still than you have brothers left, boy.
Indeed yours did, with much glee. I guess the taste for punching in the direction one perceives down runs in your family.
Too bad for you your crown and our Silmarilli shall abandon you as soon as your luck runs out. My family stuck together to the end. Then again: for you brothers are a sour spot, I guess. Let’s not start with the wrong foot. You should know the dangers of it. Those of your brothers you do not wish to humiliate or bed end up humiliating and beating you… Ops.. That is all of them, even those you wish to humiliate and bed.
Pity.
Again, this is all so very rich coming from the kin-fucking king in a line of great kin-fuckers.
You may notice, blind to subtlety though you are, that I’ve made my own family, and we’ve held together splendidly since the Utumno days…
Whether or not my “luck” runs out, you’ve lost all capacity to take advantage of the opportunity. Your family is dead and will never see Valinor again, your mission to destroy me failed, and your oath will join Fëanor’s ashes in the wind.
You played all your cards at the Dagor Nírnaeth and you didn’t even make it past the foyer. You are toothless, kinless, handless; I have nothing to fear from you now.
..But yes, clever, that comment about my foot. I gained a limp while you lost an uncle, ~ooh~, what a smarting blow.
He wants to answer. He wants to say I remember these cuts. He wants to say I remember how your body twisted beneath my knife, how your neck bent back as you screamed. But the elf’s hand is closed around his windpipe, and while he does not need to breathe to stay alive, he needs air to speak. The muscles in his throat clench uselessly under the vice of Maehdros’s palm, producing only the weak, wet clicks of one choking.
And he is excited. Because the pain is terrible, but worse would have been disregard– if this stone-faced, savage elf had ignored him, let the memories of his torture fade to distant hurt, forgotten the name behind his scars, his name– that would have broken his heart.
Every time the knife enters him he makes sure to watch his face; he is fascinated by the tension in the elf’s jaw, the hard curve of his lips, the way his nostrils constrict when he inhales sharply, drunk with cruelty. He has so often been on the other side of the blade, watching with pleasure every twitch, every grinding of clenched teeth, every whimper; he knows he is meant to savor the irony of it. Every flourish of the knife is a love note from an avid pupil.
In the pause between cuts there is the hope of a release that does not come; that a part of him hopes will never come until Maedhros is finished, and they understand each other fully. He hopes. He wants to ask do you love me the way I loved you, when I pressed the brand to your thigh, when I looked into your eyes and broke the bones in your hand, one by one? Am I as beautiful as you were?
But his lungs are empty, and there is too much blood in his mouth to speak.
When the Noldo’s knife carves a precise triangle into his chest, his attention is bent entirely in frantic anticipation of an answer that never comes. Maedhros is toying with him. The chilling light catches the elf’s eyes like poison… He will not reveal the secret of this prison yet, there is too much satisfaction to be had in making his captive wait. Sauron knows this– this is his game, though he has never played this side of the board before.
But as the circuit is completed, white fire sears him where flesh makes contact with iron, and his mind goes blank.
Metal has never betrayed him this way before. The shock of it draws a belated howl from him; it is as if his body is refusing to acknowledge the bite of a loyal hound until its fangs were bloodied thrice over. His delayed screams surprise even him.
Once, long ago, the maia had felt the gaze of Namo pass over his spirit. It had been cold and hollow, its pull unforgiving. Just beyond the agony of this strange electric fire, he could feel that same chill tug beneath the heat– it feels like dissolution. It feels like the nearest he can come to death.
The interior of his fana twists and pulls violently in opposing directions, his very atoms seem to wish to fly apart, and it is all he can do to hold the repelling forces together with brute strength of will. It is a small blessing that his jaw locks, for otherwise he would find himself begging through the roar of pain. When he has fought in the past it was to maintain advantage; now, all thought is consumed by the urgent need to survive, to hang on, to regain control.
His eyes and flesh glow with the magnitude of this singular effort, unable to maintain the semblance of humanity any longer. Flakes of black oxide and ash peel off his molten skin. The harder he pulls himself in, the hotter the fire within him grows, and the whiter the heat of his frame…
When the core of him burns yellow-white as a furnace, he can feel the terrible power of Maedhros’s machine begin to slip. It gives him enough leverage to wrench himself off the wall, and with a drunken lurch, he takes a threatening step towards his gaoler.
“Pers… perseverance.” He hisses, smoke rising from his mouth and body. Waves of heat distort his vision, but he can see well enough to lunge.
Even through the haze of drunken hate, this curtain of rotten joy that, rather than being parted by the bone-white blade, is made thicker and thicker with every thread of skin that snaps under its caress, even as his gaze is clouded by the sweetish smell of the Maia’s blood rising in arches of bubble though the air Maedhros should see the signs. After all this possibility is hardly an unexpected one, and yet the Noldo notices barely in time to react. Suddenly the droplets of blood until now floating, start falling around Sauron’s body as his eyes glow and the machine looses some of its grip of him under the heat radiating from the Maia’s body. Behind his shoulders Dimhelesin gasps sharply and his distress hits the Noldo like a wave, sobering through their link, in the same instant in which the metallic smell of burning conductors and ozone reaches him, even stronger than the corruption from the Maia to his newly awakened senses. There is almost no time for rage, fear of loosing his prisoner, or satisfaction at seeing his enemy’s desperate effort.
“DIN! FULL!”
His voice is a roar and yet there is an odd elation in his words even as the Fëanorion grits his teeth, strong enough for his jaw to hurt, and his whole body coils backward. His eyes shine, never leaving his enemy’s and, in the same instant that the Maia takes his first step ahead, Maedhros springs into action.
Behind the Fëanorion’s shoulders his herald barely blinks before moving fast, with military precision, and sharply lowering the lever that control’s the energy flow to the apparatus, any sign of doubt or emotions in his face erased by the danger.
In one swift movement Maedhros’ body launches forward, his hand brandishing the knife in a spasmodic grip.
Around them the hum of machinery rises to a frenzied buzz, the inscriptions surrounding the machine glow livid and suddenly the air is cold enough to make the Fëanorion’s breath rise in a wisp of vapour as he slams his left foot on the tiles, using the force of his movement to bury his knife in Sauron’s shoulder and its momentum to immediately drag it across the expanse of his chest, deep enough to scrape over bone with a screeching chirrup.
With a deep, harmonic, drone the lines of power flare back to life, invisible and yet unyielding, encasing the Maia once again as the temperature lowers and the corona of blood droplets surrounding Sauron rises once again, stretching in elliptical wings around the fuse of the field, and if he were lucid enough Maedhros would know that barely a whisper of space stands between him and unconsciousness. Yet right now all he can feel is the drunken satisfaction of flesh opening for him as a scream of agony tears through the air and the inscriptions on his blade shine like a park of fire in and out his enemy’s flesh.
Just enough to take him out for a while, just that. That much is all he needs.
Maedhros’ very thoughts are tinged with a desperate elation as he opens his mouth, humming the few words of power that he knows and now uncoil on his tongue: not the power of the West, or the power of convictions.. Not only, at least, but the deeper power, the one that links together matter and makes crystal shine, the one that burns without heat in the heart of his people’s gems and makes light flow effortlessly, as it is doing now, though certain ceramics and refined carbon.
It is with a savage last thrust that Maedhros drags the blade to touch the previous cut, closing a broader circuit in Sauron’s body. His lips almost form the words echoing in his mind.
Just enough power for now..
The Fëanorion’s voice is a savage hiss as he buries the knife in the flesh and the ceramic blade chips on the Maia’s ribs with a clear tinkle.
“Yes.. Perseverance..”
This is not happening! This is not happening to me, this cannot happen to me! He’d been in control, the solution to the problem found: heated iron fell immune from the grasp of lodestones, that should have returned the upper hand to him! Had he miscalculated? No… his breath fogs, ice crystals branch across metal and glass, his core of heat faltering in the unnatural cold.
The invisible power reaches out to him again, halting his momentum as surely as if he were walking into Manwë’s windstorms. Clawing the ground uselessly for purchase, he loses his grip in the vertigo, and rises contorted into the air with a scream of helpless anger.
Every movement of the Noldo and his subordinate are precise and desperate, part of a plan, gaining on some precarious goal. They are a soldier’s motions, and yet, beneath all, he recognizes the drunken passion of a more personal motive. It was not so long ago when their positions had been reversed.
Fear makes the great Maia’s heart thunder in his chest, drowning out the horrible drone of the mechanism with its pounding. The Noldo’s knife plunges again and again, thudding into him and parting him with gushing lines. A hard, intimate vibration through his bones as the knife rattles across his ribcage promises a future of unbearable pain– if indeed there is a future.
Maedhros’s face is the only unclouded image he can see; star-bright eyes wide and terribly focused, lips parted and damp as if the elf were panting with lust, his rune-etched blade sizzling with the Maia’s blood.
His eyes shut as another shriek is torn out of him by the opposing fields of the machine, hot lightning crackling through the fresh outlets carved in his flesh. He feels himself losing this body– the one he has no replacement for, the one Aulë made him so long ago. He cannot bear it. He cannot afford this.
“I beg you, stop!Please! I surrender!” Darkness floods his vision and he can no longer tell if he is housed in flesh, or dead, or dreaming.
The grip on his hair was violent enough to pull locks from their very roots. A sudden pain sprayed in a cascade of white hot embers behind Nelyafinwë’s eyes, soon joined by a jot of dark ache throbbing in his neck as his head was violently forced to bend backward. His arms, still chained to the ceiling, were pulled tight enough to make muscles snap. Still he did not scream. He didn’t allow himself to, swallowing back the sound in an open-mouthed gasp. The rattle of iron was almost drowned in his ears by a white whistling nose as he panted in pain. By now the manacle’s unforgiving bite on his numb and swollen wrists felt like a barely perceptible prickling. Yet, despite the veil of tears falling over his eyes and blurring his sight, Nelyafinwë’ gaze remained brightly defiant as it moved to meet the Maia’s.
The only detail he could perceive through the opaque blur clouding his vision almost made him wish for blindness. In the murky word of dark shadows opening before him the furious light falling from Thauron’s eyes seemed to burn its way into his very brain; the detailed image of fiery irises forming inside his mind rather than his eyes. The Noldo’s heartbeat immediately sped up, the droplets of sweat and blood running down his back suddenly icy on his skin. Nonetheless, such a blatant display of frustration, made the shiver that went through Neyafinwë’s body one of perverse satisfaction too.
When Thauron spoke the words falling from his lips felt commanding. The deep bass of his voice ringing through the prisoner’s chest almost a compulsion on its own. The Noldo’ pupils widened as he fought against the poison he felt trickling inside his mind. A deceptively sweet drop of colour that dissolved so easily tinting his memories in a haze of fire, trying to erase the memory of all other eyes, but the red ones staring down at him from his mind.. A throaty growl tore from the Fëanorion’s chest as he fought against the possessive caress grabbing at his very self with every last drop of strength he could muster. Remembering the greys and green and a shining robin-blue. Tasting the sweetish tang of blood seep from his bruised lips the Noldo snorted through his nose and clenched his teeth, never breaking eye contact.
“No.. I am not.” His throat felt as if it were lined with sandpaper and, despite his efforts, what escaped his lips was barely more than a croaking murmur, yet his eyes were still open and shining with wilful defiance. Nelyafinwë could already feel himself bleed for this, and still, even being able to say those words alone, was worth all that would come.
HIs lips bent in a smile, pained despite his best efforts, and his gaze burnt like a magnesium flame. A single tear condensed in his right eye, partially clearing his sight before being trapped in his eyelashes. “I … I will never be yours.”
oh, you.
y’all are trying to lure me back into roleplaying i see how it is
Send me a △ and ask a really invasive question aimed at my character. They’ll have to: Rate on a scale of 1-10 how much they don’t want to answer that question. Answer that question
This is not a joke I find as funny as you may think it to be. In fact the question is completely preposterous, deliberately incendiary and, ultimately, witless. Thus I flatly refuse to fall for this provocation and give it any answer. (10)
….And still I cannot understand how anyone might think I identify with Thauron.. Or even worse Moringotto, naturally
I will not deny Thauron is an extremely good planner, a mind that often I can understand in its adherence to logic; even though he has shown to be prone to be dragged by his affect..no, loyalties..NO, he has none. By his associations, more likely, in actions that he, on his own, would take differently, plan more thoroughly. I must also admit his methodical approach to war is indeed.. intelligent, and his interest for the development of new devices, structures and techniques would almost be admirable weren’t for the directions his efforts take. Moreover sometimes I ask myself wether he too feels to be fighting a battle against forces so much stronger than him, and how that might somehow justify his more.. extreem actions. Wether he might still be fighting to try and give shape to a dream someone denied him, claiming it was for his own good, and tasting ashes and bile in his mouth as he finds himself every time contemplating its very basis rot because of a curse..
The prince’s hand scrambled for the hilt of his sword, but Sauron’s found the back of his head faster.
He drew back a fistful of black hair and gold ribbons, lifting the elf off the ground and pulling him back prone on his knees.
“I said I would still your tongue.“
…
When he had been alerted of the possible hostile presence Maedhros had gathered his personal guard, a small company of knights and left Himring, leaving word to organise a larger force and have it ready to march out, should his signal come. The Noldo Lord guided his men, some carrying the weighted nets used for greater beasts, making them proceed silently, unwilling to immediately reveal their presence to a possible enemy while trying to assess the situation. As they went he took the time to muse, it was odd how for the second time in a row, something had seemed to surface in a place completely devoid of traps. Maybe the time had come to take a second look at some workers. Vàsa had hardly changed her position when the sounds of battle reached their ears, a familiar cry making Maedhros tap the sides of his mare with his heels, while gesturing for his troop to hasten. Realising time was of the essence the Noldo Lord had his rearguard sound the horns to summon the battalion while, accompanied by Dimhelesin and few others he reached a terrain. Down, in a small vale between two hills, a thinning company of Noldor wearing his cousin’s colours was fighting against a small battalion of orcs. Yet what Immediately caught his eye was the shadow lingering on the top of the hill overlooking the battlefield. Maedhros signaled for the rest of his men to continue a full frontal assault the very moment the shadow morphed into an ogrish creature descending upon the troop. "The priority is the prince, enemy has heavy armour, use slingshots or aim for the junctures. Give the prince time.” Gorthaur had made his move. The familiar feeling of cold dread and elation surrounded him as a small company separated from the main body and approached Sauron from behind at the same time that most of the troop charged from ahead. Dimhelesin rode by his side, shield at the ready. They were luckily far enough to allow their horses to keep their footing as the monster slammed into the ground, yet the sight of black hair between grey armoured fingers made his attention focus on a single point as he fought to keep rage under control. It was not yet the time. At his silent signal, as his cavalry broke the ring of wolves in front of Sauron the men with him drew slingshots and a flurry of lead projectiles fell with incredible force on the Maia’s armour. Wanting to give the best possibility to escape the enemy’s grasp to his cousin Maedhros let his anger bleed from him, like a cloud of fire and smoke that surrounded his body and his spear as it flew right into the shoulder juncture of the arm the monster was using to hold Fingon’s head.
Oh, but the prince’s scream was satisfying! A wet, raw-throated howl that tore out of his muddied face. Sauron grinned wide beneath his visor, scraping the fingers of his gauntlet past Fingon’s back teeth, ready to clamp down on the root of his tongue… Would he bleed out and choke to death on the field, or return to his fortress in mute humiliation? Each had its pleasing merits.
Sauron felt a sting at the base of his neck; the report from the shot rang loud as a canon in his ear– he grunted, twitching to one side.
A hail of metal pellets struck him like a swarm of biting insects, enraged and buzzing as they clattered against his armor. The stinging was hardly more than an irritation, and the sound was dreadful, but it was enough to make him stop, and turn his awful head.
Too late. The spear burst through his shoulder in a wall of red pain. Sauron let loose a stunned snarl, catching himself with a stumble as the bolt struck him off balance. The projectile’s point had cleared the leather joint of his armor with as much resistance as water; he could feel the tip of it make contact with the inside of his breastplate, having transfixed his shoulder.
That had been thrown with the precision of revenge.
The warlord’s breath howled in him like a furnace, dropping the prince, his previous quarry forgotten in rage. He could see the red-haired elf riding to meet him, cold eyed, foam at his horse’s bit. One handed he had made that shot, from horseback. There was only one on earth who’s hate could have honed an aim so sharp.
Anguished yelping from dying wolves told him it was time to retreat. The Noldor charged from higher ground, splitting his force in half.
There was no way to reach the spear lodged in his arm to pull it out– he would have to leave the field with the dart still protruding from him.
He shouted the Blacktongue orders– withdraw to safety, scatter and reconvene in the foothills. Yet, it would not do to seem daunted by pain before the orcs that served him. Reaching awkwardly behind him he snapped the shaft of the spear, and threw it, whirling with black blood, at the unhelmed prince.
Black smoke and wolves covered his retreat, wary of mounted Noldor and entangling nets.
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