Tag: long post

And So, Humbled they Came

beruthielthequeen:

@misbehavingmaiar​

Anadûnê was a star of five points. She had seen it drawn out upon a map; and she had seen it, too, through the eyes of a great seabird wheeling high above, wings spread to the thermals. It was a star of five points, and so a star of five points – not eight, never eight – was embroidered upon its banners, engraved upon its fine, high doors.

In the center of the isle, or near enough, there was a mountain, the Pillar of Heaven, Minul-Târik. It, too, was a star of five points when seen from above, five long ridges of stone spreading out from the central base. It was said there was an altar at the top, a degenerate thing dedicated to the gods of the Nimîr, but she had never seen it and expected she never would.

Her ship had landed at Rómenna. The passage had been long, and distinctly unenjoyable; the sea smelled to her heavy and decaying, nothing like the clean, dry winds of her homeland. The salt reek of the waves had sickened her, or their ceaseless, grey and white movement had; and she had curled miserably below decks and longed for the umber and gold of the great Dune Sea upon whose verge her city had rested, longed for the cool blue shadows of evening and the hot, sharp vibrancy of day.

They had looked at her strangely in Rómenna, jabbering to each other in the Adûnâyê which was and was not like the Adûnâyê she knew; the rhythms had been strange, the words. The vowels had seemed longer, the consonants clipped off as though bitten between sharp teeth. She had not understood them, but she had understood enough. They looked at her, at her clothing and her hair and her skin, and knew her for foreign. She had never felt so alone as she had upon that reeking dock, nor so stripped down naked and vulnerable.

Upon her arrival at last in Armenelos, however, she had quite quickly learned how much more alone and vulnerable a woman might be. Her betrothed husband Tarannon Bâr n’Sakal, a man of noble birth and of many victories in the conquests of Umbar, had looked at her as a man might have inspected a mare for his stables. Not once had he looked at her with any softer expression, through all the long and all but incomprehensible ceremony which was their marriage, through all the long and all but unbearable night which followed it, nor in all the long and interchangeable days since then.

There were gardens at her husband’s house in Armenelos, though they were not like the gardens she knew. She walked in them, all the same. There were birds in the gardens, tiny red ones called kiriniki which were much beloved by the men and women here. Raucous white gulls wheeled always overhead, and larger birds, ospreys and sea eagles with far-reaching eyes which she loved to borrow and pretend she was as free as they. She missed the britti of her homeland, the muted brown bird sometimes called a desert lark. She missed the little pink pimchee flowers. She missed the long-legged desert cats, and the black crows breasted in white. She missed air which was not wet; and she missed good sweet mint tea.

She missed eyes which did not look at her and see only strangeness. She missed the sound of voices speaking like her own.

She wore black, in this new land, and jewelry of silver set with amber and nacre from her homeland. She wore her hair in tight braids, pulled back and away from the bones of her face, and she wore a head-covering of thin silk held in place by silver combs. She would not ape their foolish garb with its stays and bindings and its brightness; and she would not be a pretty, all but silent kiriniki. She was britti, she was a long-legged desert cat. She had been Tamar Margoliantë; in this new land she renamed herself Béruthiel.

There was only one here who was of her lands and might understand; but he was so far above her as to be unreachable. He might just as well have been across the sea in the east, for all she could speak to him. Or all she could even try. The Zigûr, the wizard he was called. She had known him – known of him, by other names. Giver of Gifts was one. Eye of the Sun, another. Her mother had told her the stories; but the great Lord in his fiery manse in Mordor had fallen before Béruthiel-who-had-been Tamar had been born.

She walked in the gardens at the palace of Ar-Pharazôn, her husband having been called to a council. It was a great honor, she was cognizant of it; and knew further she had been brought only as an ornament to his power. So too had he brought his horse, a proud-necked Umbarim stallion the color of beaten gold. So too had he brought his slaves. Or his other slaves, the ones who wore their collars and chains more openly.

But she had not been invited to the council, of course, but been left to her own devices once her purpose had been served; and, left to them, she had found the gardens. With half her mind soaring above on the wings of a sea-eagle, she could walk their twisting pathways, graveled in pale stone, and forget. For a little while.

Only once since the beginning of the world had he crossed the sea.

They had taken him on foot across the desert, chained between two horses like a slave, down the Harad Road and across the Harnen, passing through kingdoms and villages where he had been worshiped as an avatar of god, the Eye of the Sun. Never once did he stumble or tire. When the king’s men left him unattended in the panic before a sudden sandstorm, he had weathered it alone, eyes shining in the false red night and shrieking winds, as if he belonged there. 

But the sea had broken him; though he saw little of it, chained in the hull of a galley, where he sweated and lay limp in his bonds, shivering and panting with fever as they pulled farther from the shore. The waves around the fleet were fierce and belligerent, as if they knew, and hated, the cargo born to Anadûne, the Gifted Land. 

The sickness left him only when they reached port; and though the dust of a hundred miles lay grey on his caracal skin, he walked proudly as they paraded him through the streets of Armenelos, by far the greatest prize won in Ar-Pharazon’s conquest of the East. He’d not flinched at the stones hurled, the jeering left him unfazed. And when called upon him to perform tricks for the pleasure of the crowds, he changed shape obligingly, and as a great lion had lain at Pharazon’s feet; the tame sorcerer, the warlord humbled. The King had bidden him then to sing for the pleasure of his Queen, Tar-Miriel, who looked on him ever with distrust, and loathing, and did not meet his gaze. He had done so, though she closed her eyes in discomfort, his voice as deep and rolling as the heart of a mountain, as finely tuned as it been in the Beginning. From thence he had been called often to sing for the court’s amusement, and amaze them with secret knowledge of the world and his craft. He’d been made cup-bearer, canny of all poisons and plots long before they reached the throne and having their trust at last, he’d told them still of other things. 

“…Out of the Darkness was the world made, and Darkness alone is worshipful, being the womb of creation where the spark of life was nurtured. Only one has dwelt in and gained mastery of the Dark, and in it that Lord may yet make other worlds to be gifts to those that serve him, and so increase their power without end.’ 

Who is the Lord of the Darkness?’ the King had asked– and still bound in chains of gold, Sauron had told him: “It is he whose name is not now spoken; for the Valar have deceived you concerning him. They have put forward the name of Eru as the true god, the One all-knowing; but that is a phantom devised in the folly of their hearts, with which they seek to enchain Men in servitude. For the Valar claim that they alone are the oracle of this Eru, whose words bind them with false dichotomies and condones their continued tyranny over earth. But he that is the world’s true master shall yet prevail, and he will deliver you from this phantom: his name is Melkor. Lord of All, Giver of Freedom. And he shall make you stronger than they.”

From slave to entertainer, from minstrel to cup-bearer, from cup-bearer to royal advisor he’d climbed, all in a handful of decades. The rites of the faith he’d invented from whole cloth he taught to the king, and besotted, Ar-Pharazon had bid him teach it to the masses of Anadûne. So it was he’d become a figure nigh equal in power to the crown: Zîgur, they called him, the right hand of Ar-Pharazon, high priest of the Temple of Freedom.  

And this was good; he’d gained much more and in a shorter time than he’d dared hope at the onset of his ruse. Willing captivity had brought him close to the heart of the West, the perfect launching point for his chief mission.

He’d done it single-handedly, at half his power, with only his wits and the vulnerability of Men to aid him. Now he found himself once more at the center of a delicate web of deceit, royal favor, distrust, and manipulations, of subtle surrenders and plays for power, as he wound the threads ever tighter about the necks of his former captors. 

Oh, politics was a clever game, a potent game, and he was terribly good at it now. He thrilled at the dangers and the complexity of its rules, and he played against opponents whose very existence opened a boiling, dark chasm in his heart– casting each and every one of the Edain into it would bring him the keenest, most hideous pleasure. 

But he had not accounted for the long silences between games, both impossibly fast, at the breakneck pace of humanity, and a crawl of mundane hours. He was without allies, surrounded by a vastness of water that was a surer prison for him than any iron cell– and every day he spoke the name of his Beloved as though he were a present god, who might at a whim reach down and answer the prayers of his supplicants. But Melkor was not looking down on him from above, and he would not reach out a hand from the Void to touch his servant, except in the dreams he both cherished and feared. His likeness loomed shining at the heart of his Temple, but the gold of his skin was only metal.

 It was well that plots and machinations were all about him, for the silence that fell while he was alone was unbearable. The echo of the sea could be heard even inland, reminding him that if he did not succeed in going forward, he would wither here alone. 

That silence dogged him in the sultry hours after noon, as the duties of his station came to a pause. He’d been half the day at the King’s side speaking of matters of loyalty and surveillance, pulling up the treacherous weeds of Faithful dissent from the ranks, gathering the trustworthy close to the throne, and carefully gardening around the Queen’s untouchable kin and her appointed public servants, so that they had no real power within the law. The waiting lords would now have their hour with King, receiving benefits or councils according to their due– matters beneath the Zîgur. Now there stood a drift of time before the evening services, when fires would be lit, and fingers pricked, and the drops of ceremonial blood offered up to the Giver of Freedom in smoke. He had nothing to occupy him until then. 

As he swept down the hall from the council chamber, a pavilion of the royal gardens beckoned to him enticingly with its quiet sounds and reprieve from the grasping ambitions of Men. To the east, the balcony faced the great temple tower and its shining dome, and westwardly it overlooked the river valley flowing down from the Pillar of Heaven. His feet took him along the white path through the walls of flowers; lilies and orchids, musk and tea roses, poppies and waxflower, myrtle, mint, euphorbia, and sea lavender as purple than the heavy robes he wore draped over one shoulder. There were flowers here he’d not seen since his stay in Umbar, on the golden banks of a brown river, brimming with life. 

Quietly, almost unawares, he found a song pouring from his lips, slow and sweet as dripping honey. It was a song about the joy of rain in the desert, the replenishing life it brought, the serenity of the open sky; a nomad’s song, from the sailors of the Dune Sea beyond hills of the coast of Umbar. 

He’d come to the final stanza when he realized he was not alone in the garden– there was a woman here, whose presence had been drifting high above, where he’d mistaken it for an eagle. She was tall and darker than many in the capital city; straight-backed, though there was something almost timid in her demeanor, shy and quiet as a wild cat.  

Sauron blinked his slit-eyes slowly, and gave a slight bow. “Forgive me, my lady. I did not mean to disturb your solitude– I thought myself alone.” 

An unanticipated survival.

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

There was a cost to great efforts in Song, and there was a cost to setting your will against Power. Salgant couldn’t have sung a note even if he’d tried. Dignity was a foreign land – he was on the verge of collapsing again, half-blind with exhaustion and shaking. He made no protest at shackles or gag, and no more than grunts of pain as he stumbled after the guard. Sometimes the Balrog dragged him up the steps; sometimes he crawled. It was some shred of fortune that he made it to the offered chair on both feet, but Salgant had no mind to appreciate it.

Just keeping his eyes open was a struggle; Salgant blinked heavily at the opulent room and his interrogator. He should be terrified, and somewhere deep inside he was. But that was far away right now. Defiance – for the sake of Gondolin, and his dead, he should be spitting bile. But he was too exhausted. Even the figure of the Abhorred could not bring his nerves back to life. “I…” he began in a rasping whisper, then coughed. “It was no secret.”

It must have been Maeglin. When he’d gone on that long prospecting trip, and come back different. He had been desperate to bury himself in pleasure as though to escape something chasing at his heels. He hadn’t been surprised to see the red glow on the horizon. He’d had some sort of plan already. Salgant had found him weeping once and Maeglin had refused to say what troubled him. It must have been Maeglin. And yet Salgant’s heart cried out that it could not be so. Maeglin had been dour and grim, yes, but he had loved Turgon, loved Idril in whatever misguided form, loved the city that was now fallen. But there was no one else. Maeglin had always suspected Tuor of some treachery, had railed that Hurin’s cries would bring the hunters down on them all. But it had been Maeglin himself who brought Angband to their doorstep.

“No secret inside Gondolin, perhaps,” Sauron paced before the fire, “but for a master of Song nigh equal to Finrod, who Sang a whole battalion into rubble and required no fewer than three Balrogs to subdue– I’d say you were kept very well hidden.”  

The maia pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, pouring clear, iced water into a glass for his guest– the only refreshment he would have seen since his capture. He beckoned for Salgant to drink.

“You are not of the Noldor.” An observation, not a question. Sauron dipped his head in appraisal. “Reports say you Sang in a form of Telerin not heard on the continent since the first rising of the moon.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A rare pearl, then, from the far frozen north. How unexpected.” 

Looming somewhat over the seated company, Sauron leaned nearer the elf’s face, inspecting his starlight-limned eyes with a soft grunt of confirmed suspicion. 

“I rather wish I’d seen it. It’s been almost fifty years since I last had a proper Song battle.” He clucked his tongue. “Pity. But perhaps I’ll hear you Sing in another capacity soon. The war is won, after all. If you prove amenable to our cause, there is no need for talented individuals such as yourself to remain in irons. My Master affords many opportunities to those who cooperate.”

The implied offer lay open before him, like the glinting rim of the water glass.  

Defiance would have had Salgant refuse the water. Practicality and need insisted that he drain the glass, and they won without much struggle. Salgant took the glass with both hands; leaving smears of dirt and soot on the pristine surface. This, he knew, would likely be the last clean water he’d have for some time after he stopped cooperating. It was almost impossible to drink slowly. The chill helped, as did the ice, which Salgant crunched between his teeth and swallowed. He did not speak until the glass was empty.

There did not seem to be much point in arguing about the Power’s observations, or even in panicking as that bigger, stronger form loomed and stared into his eyes. Salgant simply could not muster the energy for fear. Had it been Maeglin who hid Salgant from Angband? It must have been, but he could not dwell on that thought for long. Much good it had done either of them!

“No,” Salgant said at last. His voice was hoarse, would be ruined for days, but no longer clicked and broke in the back of his throat from thirst. “For the pleasure of a more comfortable chain? No.” He should be infuriated at the insult, and somewhere in his heart he was, but he could not reach it.

“Why, that answer was positively Fëanorian!” Sauron laughed, his expression sly as he sat himself across from his guest. “You have been spending too much time with Noldor… Such a typically stubborn and short-sighted response. You served one king by choice, and another before that by no more virtue than being born into their kingdom. This would be little different.”

He refilled the elf’s glass to the brim, but put his hand gently over the top before Salgant could retrieve it, forcing eye contact. 

“I will not press you into service. I have no use for an unwilling ambassador who must be kept in check at all hours; you are genuinely free to accept or refuse without fear of retribution. But I urge you to consider this offer– at least, do not refuse until you have heard what it entails!” 

He slid a finger around the rim of the glass, and the single, pure note it emitted filled the room like siren song. Then he slid it closer to his guest, and leaned back in his own seat. 

“Will you hear me out? Or would you prefer to return to your cell to rest?” He gave a quick snort with a wry twist of his lips;  “I’d happily offer you a room on the upper floor, but alas, I fear it is only a more ‘comfortable’ prison.” 

It was truly a sign of Salgant’s exhaustion that even a comparison to Feanorions earned little more than a curled lip. The spark of anger was there, as it was for the offer at all, but there was simply no tinder to sustain it.

But he watched the glass, and Sauron’s face, and he took the water when offered. And again Salgant drank without stopping; the smoke of Gondolin burning was still caught in his throat.

“I suspect you don’t understand the hearts of elves,” Salgant suggested, once the glass was empty again. His voice was flat and inflectionless. “If you think I am so eager to serve the destroyers of my city. If you think I will forsake my kin laboring in chains below.”

“I’ve been accused of as much before,” the maia conceded, steepling his fingers beneath his beard, “but you are wrong. Do you think the Quendi are the only speaking people who know loyalty, or a soldier’s grief? The war is over, “ he repeated, “and with our many losses comes the foundation of something new; you need no longer be our enemy, but rather subjects. I would have you– or if not you, then someone else more willing– ease the transition of your people into this new era. You could save many lives, help many of your countrymen earn their freedom. I certainly do not intend to keep half of elfindom enthralled as prisoners of a war that is now concluded; that would be a colossal drain of resources and energy. Why not use your powers to help us, and in doing so, preserve what is precious to you? Surely, you did not have much stake in a war fought over Fëanorian property and a theological dispute between Valar!“ 

The great smith let out an explosive sigh, belying the frustration of a second-in-command who has suddenly been made to shoulder a whole empire. The fire in the hearth flared in crackling sympathy. 

“…I try to be reasonable with you. I try to be accommodating…. why did Eru see fit to build a race out of pride and entitlement alone? Are none of you capable of bending even an inch to save your own damned hides?”

He rubbed the bridge of his elegant nose, brow creased in deliberation as he drew a slow, calming breath. 

“Your unusual gift for Song made me curious to meet you Lord Salgant, and I would not have such talent nor beauty lost to menial labors. I had hoped you would prove more cooperative.”  

Salgant took a deep breath and released it, trying to cudgel his mind into functioning at something like its normal capacity. This… no, nothing like hope, he was too drained for hope, but maybe… maybe potential. A path, a way out. Not for him, but for others. Turgon might not have understood – but Rog would have. Besides, they were both dead. Salgant had ever put the living before the dead, however beloved.

“If you know loyalty and grief, then you must also understand my reluctance,” he said, much more measured now. “Only a day or two after my city is destroyed and my king is killed, and you ask for my service? It’s been said I was cold-hearted and I admit that it’s so, but there is still blood in my veins, not ice.”

The lines of his face softened; it was not a concession, not yet, but it was nearer to one. 

“Of course. You need time. We all do– this will be a difficult period for us all.” 

He refilled the glass a third time, the crystal decanter emptying to its last sparkling drops. Melted snow water from beyond the peaks of Thangorodrim, clearer and less sulfurous than the stuff brought up from around the fortress; he’d had it retrieved specially. It was not what prisoners drank. 

“Perhaps you are correct after all that I do not understand the hearts of the Quendi. We have lived under the same sky for centuries, yet I am not familiar with your needs, your wants.  How could I know better than you what motivates your kind? It is my earnest wish to learn more, to see with your eyes. I will need assistance if I am ever to build a realm for my Master that accommodates us all.” 

…If such a thing is even possible, he thought, once again feeling the enormity of the task ahead, salvaging order from the bloody wreckage of an entire Age.
 It was a strange thing for an immortal Maia, sprung into existence already knowing all he needed for the task intended for him, to realize how much there was still to learn of the world he helped create. Certainly it would be a shame if an entire species had to be eradicated simply to make Melkor’s dream a reality. He hoped to avoid that. It seemed wasteful. 

“As you know, it wasn’t very long ago that we were under prolonged siege ourselves. Our supplies are what you’d expect for the end of a 500 year long campaign… Alas, for the moment I cannot tempt you with more marvelous food and drink than what my captains take, and what is indulgent to an orc may not be at all appetizing to an elf,” he chuckled. “Still, I beg you to accept my accommodations while you consider your answer. Your wounds will do better for resting in a proper bed, with a warm fire and bath… And my lieutenant would not be given a second opportunity to make you take the stairs.” 

Salgant had never been the subject of an attempted seduction before. Perhaps one day he would find it humorous that this was the first. The water was naggingly familiar, now that the smoke in his throat had cleared enough to taste it. Still, Salgant drank as slowly as he could.

He could not yet bring himself to address the question of hospitality aloud; he set it at the back of his mind to think through. His heart quailed at the thought of those stairs, but he would not allow that to be a factor. He must think of strengthening his position at this bargaining table. Everything he could offer was solely at the discretion of Sauron, who pursued this, as far as Salgant could tell, only for the novelty.

“I am no great moral philosopher, if that is what you seek,” Salgant demurred. “My bent has ever been more to practical matters, I’m afraid.”

It would offend the Maia to refuse that offer of luxury; it would let Salgant better muster his energies to accept. Salgant would seem more agreeable to Sauron’s agenda. (Agreeable! To Sauron’s agenda!)

“Still, I would like to advance my people’s freedom however I may. You mentioned some possibility of… earning such a thing?”

The thought of accepting Sauron’s offer curdled Salgant’s very soul. To leave innocent people behind to suffer and die –  he couldn’t. He hadn’t even been able to do as much for the guilty! No, he would have to make this work somehow.

He allowed himself a smile, a quick flash of pointed teeth and no more. 

“Of course,” the smith leaned intently over his crossed knee. “You need only convince the majority of them that cooperation is in their best interests. The sooner they swear never to take up arms against my Master, to forsake the kings and the cause that led us into these many centuries of war, the sooner they can be released to start a new life for themselves. I do not say that blithely– I know how much has been destroyed, how much must be made anew. But let them know that if they make their peace with us, they will not be alone in the rebuilding. You can do this better than I. They are your countrymen.” 

The elf’s complexion was looking increasingly grey, though his voice grew stronger after each drink. This was surely too long and stressful a negotiation to be had with someone about to fall unconscious in his chair. 

“I will make part of this decision easier for you– let me accompany you to your new room, where you can rest.” He rose and crossed the distance to his guest, bending to offer his arm for support. 

“You think a very great deal of my persuasive abilities,” Salgant remarked, huffing a breath that might, in other circumstances, have been laughter. It was more honest than he would have preferred, but he was steadily losing his chain of thought, and the idea that anyone at all could persuade captive Quendi to ally with Morgoth was almost too outlandish to comprehend. Salgant could not even picture Rog’s face at hearing it. (Rog was surely dead, and had no face to grimace with.)

Salgant accepted the offered arm as he would from any of his comrades in Gondolin, and it was only after he had regained his footing that the incongruity struck him. Even then it was a distant blow, and left him blinking dully at the feel of the muscled forearm under his hand. That arm, too, had slain his kin.

The effort to stand had taken a toll, not only on Salgant’s thought, but his leg. There had been just enough time for it to set up on him, and he rested his weight on it as gently as he could. Nor could he quite put his thoughts in order, and that was more vital by far.

Ah. Yes. “You are generous,” Salgant said, and meant it, “but I cannot… in good faith… make such commitments without, without conferring on behalf of… those held here.” ‘Slaves,’ ‘prisoners,’ ‘captives’ – which would be more diplomatic, which might favorably incline the Accursed toward Salgant? Which had Sauron himself used? Salgant fought for clarity.

Sauron braced the elf more thoroughly before he could topple over in a faint, which his swaying seemed to threaten. 

He clicked his tongue admonishingly; “Yes, yes, you’ll be given due time to consider. The room and board are not binding commitments, only a place for you to deliberate,” then seeing how his guest was gingerly favoring his leg, he added “pardon the indelicacy,” and without waiting for leave, scooped Salgant up with both arms.

There was no reason for them both to hobble down the long hallway at an injured pace. Salgant had an unusual build for an elf, stout and compact and well-padded for enduring the cold (a configuration which the lieutenant discovered he found most appealing), but even if he’d weighed as much as three anvils, it would have made little difference to the Maia, who hefted the lord from Gondolin as though he were merely a large cat.  

Whatever the elf’s objections, he bore him to the appointed chamber at a clip, finding the room prepared and a fire already laid– the ears and eyes of his servants were keenly attuned to his wishes, and had needed no more prompting than the whip-crack of his thought. 

As promised, the room was not opulent, but it was warm and dry and well lit, practically furnished for ranked guardsman or soldier. There was a large basin with water, clean clothes, and most importantly a bed that was clearly designed for an elf rather than an orc. In fact, it had been Maeglin’s quarters for a time, but Sauron did not feel the need to disclose this. 

He deposited his guest upon the near end of the mattress with care if not dignity, jostling his wounded leg as little as was possible. 

“Rest, Lord Salgant, and if you need anything from my servants, there is a bell-pull that will alert them. If you wish to treat with me, you have only to say my name aloud, and I will be made aware,” he smiled, his yellow eyes glittering. 

☁: Favorite part of RPing. ✉: Any RPers the Mun admires. ▶: A talent of the Mun’s (besides RPing, of course!)

☁: Favorite part of RPing: OH HANDS DOWN it is getting to see how other people have fleshed out characters that I haven’t put as much thought into, and also getting to interact with a bunch of super cute, experienced, creative writers and developing collaborative stories that one person alone couldn’t come up with. Makes me so happy~ u3u

✉: Any RPers the Mun admires: I feel like being a good RPer is a different skill-set from being a good writer; like, I’ve met very talented writers who struggled with the give-and-take nature of RP, and some very talented RPers who aren’t necessarily the most polished writers, but DANG can they play ball and keep a thread moving. There are different kinds of roleplaying that people are good at too, like people who are just extraordinarily in-character, or very good at provoking responses from other muses, or seeding the ground for plots. I’ve met so many great RPers on here with their own specialities and unique approaches, and everyone has something different to offer; there is no way I can do justice to everyone I’ve played with here. XD I’m not just saying that to cop out– genuinely, this is a vast, nebulous, and very personal topic that would require several pages. I’m going to limit myself here to a very biased top-ten:  

@masteroftheseas and I have a long, wacky, beloved relationship between a network of muses that is just about my favorite thing ever. They sit squarely in the center of the venn diagram of “great at writing”, “great at RP”, “great at characterization” and “great at human being”. There is no muse so minor nor sideblog so obscure that you can hide from me, I will follow you everywhere. 

@salmaganto A+ best original Salgant interpretation and clean, tight, expressive writing that makes me giddy. NEED MORE. 

@forgemaiar MAN, BUDDY, I DON’T KNOW WHY IT TOOK ME FOUR YEARS TO FOLLOW YOU, BECAUSE HOO DOGGY, I WAS MISSING OUT. Mitsa-mun plays a mean game of RP ball, it always feels like a fun, energetic game with just the right amount of competition and curveballs. You are always surprising and delighting me with the ways you deploy your muses. 

@elf-and-iron We’ve been fandom buddies since The Dark Ages of DeviantArt. You know more than you should. You’ve seen things that cannot be unseen. And somehow we’re just now RPing with each other and you??? are really?? really good????? Like???? I want approximately 4 more years of blog time to get to know your Thranduil. 

@tulkasastaldo I MISS YOU BUDDY ;A; DORMANT, BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. You’re such a good musemaster, your Tulkas was such an insufferable delight whose very presence created plot and shenanigans. You’re also responsible for finally dragging me kicking and screaming into becoming an RP blog in the first place, so this is technically all your fault. 

@curufinwefeanaro YOU KNOW WHY. For like four years we’ve been swapping spit and headcanons, your command of Finwëan characterization is unparalleled and you’re the only person whose lured me away to sideblogs specifically and only to RP with you. Glacially. At least once a year. Each thread aging like fine wine. Or exploding into skype accidentally like a dropped champagne bottle. 

@valiantfindekano-archived  ARCHIVED BUT NOT FORGOTTEN. Again, another fantastic mun and a muse who generated plot wherever they appeared. STupid, hot, dragon-stabbing, hair-shouting jockstrap…

@thebreathofarda You have such an incredible grasp of your muse and his philosophy. Manwë is a very difficult character to understand fully and relate to, and you write him with such intuition and polish. RPing with you gave me an understanding of him that I don’t think I’d have reached on my own. Best Manwë, most infuriatingly brother.

@theironcrown ANOTHER mun I miss very much seeing on my dash; an irreplaceable presence, a unique set of fully developed headcanons, and a snappy, believable, poignant play style that was a joy to interact with in any capacity. I feel like I just got in on the tail end of that train, and during a time when I hadn’t fully fleshed out my own muses, but DAMN did we get some incredible threads out of it. 

@nerdanel-istarnie BABE WITH NERD CANONS; you utterly convinced me that Nerdanel should come to Beleriand and I am now furious that that isn’t canon because your version of events was so good and so emotional. There are very few people who I trust to write my characters’ actions for me in posts and you’re one of them; your grasp of the narrative and characterizations was so flawless, it was a joy to thread with you. I absolutely would follow your Nerdanel into hell and back, and attend gallery showings for her sculptures and let her spank me with a hairbrush. 

@admirable-mairon NO ONE GETS UNDER MY SAURON’S SKIN QUITE LIKE HIS HIGH-FEMME ASSHOLE BROTHER

shit shit shit shit I said I’d keep this to ten FUCK–

@beruthielthequeen @findaratoldyouso @gildorsonofinglor @poppybrownlock @miriel-therinde @napoldeinlove @doegred-main @maire-annatari @turambar-masterofdoom OH GOD I LOVE YOU ALL SO MCUHSDLFKJS HAHAAugH WE’VE HAD SUCH GOOD TIMES ;A; 

Hey, if you and I have had any kind of prolonged interaction, you’re doing something that intrigues me and interests me and I find valuable in some way. Stay awesome ❤

▶: A talent of the Mun’s: forgetting i have water boiling on the stove

A Hidden Shrine

elf-and-iron:

misbehavingmaiar:

elf-and-iron:

misbehavingmaiar:

elf-and-iron:

“Father, all the Arts have their patron but this one.”

Oropher raised an eyebrow at his son, and a shadow creased his smile. “Do you not give your thanks to Aulë when the wire bends true, and mere metal becomes a song in the hand?”

“Of course,” said Thranduil, but he was a perceptive boy, and he saw the shape of something he was not being told.

~

The boy, bending wire into spiraling baubles, became a youth; the youth began to learn the arts of fire, and mere baubles became gleaming jewels, more suitable for wear than for dangling to adorn a window’s arch. He wore them in deliberate contrast to stark and elegant Oropher, and when he ran and danced with the other youth of Nivrim, often the chime of metal on metal accompanied him.

Still, the thought did not leave his mind that all other Arts had a patron; that all other patrons had a shrine, be it Aulë’s grotto tucked away beneath the roots of the greatest oak, or the open, living structure of intertwined trees dedicated to Elbereth herself. Aulë was the master of all crafts, yes – but in his shrine were the loom and the brush, the chisel and the potter’s wheel. The forge was conspicuous by its absence.

Still he could not find the answer; still the shape of something hidden teased at his mind. Asking bore no fruit, for the elder Elves merely frowned and asked why he wanted to know; pushing for an answer received only his mother’s gentle remonstrance, and an overheard argument wherein she wanted to tell him… whatever it was… and Oropher did not. “He is still too young,” Thranduil heard, and he clenched his teeth and crept away silently through the branches. He did not hear “I do not want to burden him yet,” nor did he hear “Our little wild thing will fly to the forbidden, so best we do not forbid.”

None the less, he was drawn to the vacuum, and in a surge of great feeling he ran. Down the boughs, into the carved and ornate cave that served his family as home, flying like the deer before the hounds. He took up his tools, and took a great breath, and ran again.

Past his own room, half sheltered in stone and half shaded by great trees, and out into the forest, to a place he and few others knew, he darted. It was a quiet limestone hollow, its entrance a low arch crowded by unshaped roots and hidden beneath an exuberant spray of flowering canes. A hollow in the trunk above let in light, filtered by leaves.

Inside was a low bench, crafted of twisted wood and carefully planed and polished. He swept aside the few bits of wire that adorned it.

What did a shrine need? Open space – the oak wood had that aplenty, and this little chamber had some of its own. Quiet seclusion – that was here also. And something to direct the mind, to focus the thoughts. To guide the work.

Thranduil knew not what he was focusing on, save that he felt keenly the lack of something to which to dedicate himself. Yet, he had a thought, and in careful secrecy he assembled it.

A ceramic tray, blackened from the fire below and glossed irregular white with flux above; a hammer, a delicate thing with a handle of silvery wood; a pair of copper tongs, impeccably clean, but their tips rainbowed with heat. Last, a single unburnt rod of charcoal, still showing the texture of the bare wood it had once been.

At last the youth arranged the tools upon the tray, blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he held, and sat back.

He contemplated his work for a short time, smiled, and took out a hair-fine wire, and a tiny glittering stone to spin upon it, to craft an earring. This was no place for hot work, not yet- but it could be, and perhaps it would.

In all innocence, he sat and worked his project, in contemplation of his new shrine to the Maia of the Forge.

It began like an itch, something tickling up the spine. 
There was little to do in the darkness of the keep but wait, patient as a stone, for scouts and messengers to bring tidings from afield. The sensation burned brighter in the absence of distraction. 

The throneroom was cold; the castle empty of servants to tend and maintain it. The marshland air lay heavy and damp, and the wet crept up every wall and grew on every tapestry. Wolves gnawed at bones in the courtyard while orcs patrolled he halls. 

With a sudden intake of breath, Thû was filled with a sudden longing for heat, for the ringing of metal. Cold ashes swirled in the dead fireplace, and he ached to set it ablaze. What was it that had snuck into his brain like a gadfly? And why did his exile to this wet, chilly island feel so especially unbearable today?

The smithy here was pitiful; a peasant’s excuse for an anvil rusted unused in the  abandoned court. Who stoked the fires in the Great Forge at Angband, now that he was gone? Was his workplace, too, gathering dust? Abandoned since his dubious “promotion”? 
Unbidden, his heart recalled the rush of ignition, the oxygen-devouring inferno, the shimmer of convection and the white heat of molten ore. He remembered his forge– not at the heart of Thangorodrim, nor even Utumno, but farther back in the reach of his past; a place he’d tried to forget, the memories interlocked with the sight of familiar red hands, rough as sandstone, guiding him, offering support and direction.

Thû closed his eyes, growling with a shake of his head that sent stray guard wolves cowering. Behind his eyes, he sought the source of this irritation, isolated it to a single point. And as he focused upon it, it grew; like a knock at the door, like a stranger calling his name. 

 He was not accustomed to being the recipient of prayer. He was not like Ossë, to whom the Falathrim built shrines, who sailors praised and offered supplication. Nor was he Melian, whose name was thanked day and night by those she sheltered, lending her strength. He was The Cruel, The Abhorrent; loved by none save those as removed from the Valar’s light as himself, and that had been the nature of his existence since before the first elf opened their eyes to see the stars. 
That was perhaps why the feeling took him by surprise, why the faint brush of acknowledgement against the walls of his spirit eluded naming. 

But whatever it was, it had a child’s voice. And it came from just beyond the border of Melian’s Girdle, on the edge between forest and fen.  

It was a long, long way from Tol Sirion as men might travel. But for a spirit unclad, it was a short journey, and in a grove shaped by water and stone and root, he found the source of his peculiar, gentle torment. 

He moved without shape, without sound, and watched the oak-dark fall of hair over delicate shoulders stooped in concentration, observed the silverwood hammer, the tongs, the tools of his trade set into a hastily made shrine, built with both impudence and sincerity. And the little nut-brown prince, all fawn-limbs and intense eyes, whose nimble fingers bent jewelry out of spider silk wire, attentive yet carefree. 

Curiosity moved him more powerfully than caution or cunning. 

“Boy,” he asked, moving the air with thought rather than sound, “what are you doing? Why do you build to me, whose name you do not even know?”

It started with a breath of heat, barely felt – the sensation unexpected, and thus worrisome. Then, a voice – real and deep, and unlinked to any presence that should lend it such weight.

On the wire, the gem stopped its dance and glittered in a brief backward arc. Swift brown fingers caught it before it could tumble free, just as quickly set the silver web to rights. Thranduil glanced about, half off his bench before he was satisfied that nobody else had entered the little grotto.

Nobody, that is, that he could see. The back of his neck prickled. Why did he build to – then –

He was torn between laughter and flinging himself to the ground in fear; between fleeing at top speed and dancing his sudden delight. It was real, whatever else it was. It had worked.

Then, a perilous thought: it worked, yes; but he was no priest, nor son of a priestess. The forms of address were
foreign to him, and the risk of offending this mystery seemed suddenly
very high. He palmed the half-completed earring, careful to conceal without damaging it, equally careful not to think that Something capable of speaking without a mouth may also be able to see without eyes.

Truth would be the only possible recourse. “I saw no shrines for the metalworker.” Had his voice sounded so reedy, when he was begging his parents for information? Or was it comparison that made him sound a piping bird next to the terrible unsourced sound?

“And I thought – I didn’t expect – “ he floundered to a stop, glancing about for anything to address.

What matter of being was this – and why hadn’t he learned its- no, his – name?

For the metalworker? 

The child’s words flitted about in his brain, unable to find purchase. At last, something in memory stirred; titles he’d left behind him, all those eons ago, titles he’d never had a chance to use, or be called by anyone. Aulë was of course The Maker; but he had been the First Smith.

They will have need of fire, of heat, metal, tools, and craft, he’d been told, and the ancient word for “craft” encompassed all invention, all innovation and progress made from the first rock ever chipped into an arrowhead to the building of towers that scraped the heavens. His duty had once been overseer of the first forge– the patron, he supposed, of all forges. But even the Khazad did not refer to him by name; perhaps because they had never known it, or because they did know, and were too wise to use it. The figure in the back of Mahal’s shrines was nameless, his history omitted. 

So had this boy, this sapling of a Silvan elf who had never lain eyes upon the Valar, summoned him by chance alone? 

Was it so easy to reach through time and distance, working backwards to find the source of something one had no name for, but knew must exist by virtue of its observable effects on nature? How very clever… how much like an Aulendur. he felt an unlikely thrill of pride move his spirit, like a smile.  

Thû laughed. “You did not know to whom you spoke or if I would even appear, is that it? What a precocious young priest… You invented rites for me and reached into the darkness and plucked me down to bear witness, all on your own. You do not even know what I am.” 

Bodiless, he saw the full circumference of the room simultaneously, heard the whispers of the boy’s unguarded thoughts. He was sparking with emotions, fear and excitement and dismay going in all directions. The earring he’d strung together sat in his palm like a glittering insect he was being careful not to crush; To Thû it seemed limned with silver, and shown through flesh and shadow quite clearly. It called to him like a little bell; he knew in his heart he was meant to acknowledge it in some way, before taking his leave. 

He stretched out his spirit to touch it–  how little prince’s heart hammered! Like a wild rabbit in a snare. As he brushed the silver glow, a bolt of clarity shot from his presence in the grotto all the way back to his body, left in the damp throne of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. It startled him, but pleasantly; it seemed to blow fresh heat into his coals. 

A breathless sigh stirred the dry leaves on the floor. 

“No one has ever given me tribute before,” he mused, his thoughts echoing distantly. “I did not expect anyone ever would…. How warm it feels.” 

He paused, focusing for a moment on the young elf’s face, reading his eyes, his features. “You are both very brave and very foolish for inviting me here. But I thank you all the same– is there anything you wish from me, as your ‘patron’?” 

How he shook.

That terrible Being was… not a wild cat, but the presence of a wild cat. He could feel it circling, and his ears rang for the roar, the nape of his neck prickled for the bite. Thranduil took a deep breath through flared nostrils, and counted the seconds as he let it go.

And then the earring he’d palmed, half-strung, chimed with that radiant mind, in a way he could neither describe nor expect. He lost his breath and kept his hand from leaping up only because he clasped it with the other. In the thin wire, he knew the sensation of dark and cold, of an ancient and cunning malice.

No name.

No tribute. 

Very foolish, indeed.

Rustling leaves told him time was passing, while he contemplated the new knowledge. The mystery of how he’d whispered up the Presence from the depths would have to wait; for now, merely escaping intact had become the priority.

Once again he regretted his casual attention to the priests. How did it go, how did the rites close? It was formal Quenya, a set-phrase normally delivered in a priest’s warbling song. He did not trust his voice to keep from breaking, and spoke it instead. Better a simple work done well, than a fine one done badly-

“I thank you for your presence, for your eye upon my works. I need for nothing, and ask for nothing, save your grace.”  

Even that had a request in it.

In stark imitation of a Noldorin priest, Thranduil crossed his arms and bowed, the tiny jewel dangling from between the fingers of his open hand. He dared not voice the thought: take it, please. It and not I.

The specifics of the rite meant little to him, he found; only its nature mattered, that the object in the elfling’s hands had been dedicated to him and no one else.

He had no body with which to accept the little dew-drop of silver, yet on a whim he extended his spirit to touch it anyway. It moved as he brushed it, and when enclosed, it disappeared– far away, in the cold fortress on the river, a minuscule weight manifested in his palm.

The voiceless spirit made a curious, pleased sound, and laughed, delighted.
Such a discovery wanted testing– and Thû wrapped the grasp of his thought around the prince’s extended wrist like a shackle.

Nothing. He passed through flesh like water, and all other material that had not been pledged to him.

“You truly wish for nothing? That seems a foolish waste of a gift.” His words rolled smoothly around the genuflected prince. Their exchange had left him feeling particularly generous. “I might offer to spare you in battle, should we meet in the field. Or grant you knowledge of my craft; perhaps silver-working, or the secret of fine steel–”

He might have gone on listing temptations, but something loomed into his periphery like a fast-building tempest; the presence of another, far less artless being than the trembling boy. A grown Sindar lord rushed out from the invisible wall of Melian’s Girdle, beyond which Sauron could see nothing, and his spirit was ablaze with paternal vigilance. 

“…I will owe you a favor, then,” he finished curtly, sensing this was a threat he could not ignore, even bodiless.  Annoyed at the interruption, he withdrew from the forest quick and silent as a falling shadow, returning on the thread he’d spun from far away in Tol Sirion.

An unanticipated survival.

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

There was a cost to great efforts in Song, and there was a cost to setting your will against Power. Salgant couldn’t have sung a note even if he’d tried. Dignity was a foreign land – he was on the verge of collapsing again, half-blind with exhaustion and shaking. He made no protest at shackles or gag, and no more than grunts of pain as he stumbled after the guard. Sometimes the Balrog dragged him up the steps; sometimes he crawled. It was some shred of fortune that he made it to the offered chair on both feet, but Salgant had no mind to appreciate it.

Just keeping his eyes open was a struggle; Salgant blinked heavily at the opulent room and his interrogator. He should be terrified, and somewhere deep inside he was. But that was far away right now. Defiance – for the sake of Gondolin, and his dead, he should be spitting bile. But he was too exhausted. Even the figure of the Abhorred could not bring his nerves back to life. “I…” he began in a rasping whisper, then coughed. “It was no secret.”

It must have been Maeglin. When he’d gone on that long prospecting trip, and come back different. He had been desperate to bury himself in pleasure as though to escape something chasing at his heels. He hadn’t been surprised to see the red glow on the horizon. He’d had some sort of plan already. Salgant had found him weeping once and Maeglin had refused to say what troubled him. It must have been Maeglin. And yet Salgant’s heart cried out that it could not be so. Maeglin had been dour and grim, yes, but he had loved Turgon, loved Idril in whatever misguided form, loved the city that was now fallen. But there was no one else. Maeglin had always suspected Tuor of some treachery, had railed that Hurin’s cries would bring the hunters down on them all. But it had been Maeglin himself who brought Angband to their doorstep.

“No secret inside Gondolin, perhaps,” Sauron paced before the fire, “but for a master of Song nigh equal to Finrod, who Sang a whole battalion into rubble and required no fewer than three Balrogs to subdue– I’d say you were kept very well hidden.”  

The maia pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, pouring clear, iced water into a glass for his guest– the only refreshment he would have seen since his capture. He beckoned for Salgant to drink.

“You are not of the Noldor.” An observation, not a question. Sauron dipped his head in appraisal. “Reports say you Sang in a form of Telerin not heard on the continent since the first rising of the moon.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A rare pearl, then, from the far frozen north. How unexpected.” 

Looming somewhat over the seated company, Sauron leaned nearer the elf’s face, inspecting his starlight-limned eyes with a soft grunt of confirmed suspicion. 

“I rather wish I’d seen it. It’s been almost fifty years since I last had a proper Song battle.” He clucked his tongue. “Pity. But perhaps I’ll hear you Sing in another capacity soon. The war is won, after all. If you prove amenable to our cause, there is no need for talented individuals such as yourself to remain in irons. My Master affords many opportunities to those who cooperate.”

The implied offer lay open before him, like the glinting rim of the water glass.  

Defiance would have had Salgant refuse the water. Practicality and need insisted that he drain the glass, and they won without much struggle. Salgant took the glass with both hands; leaving smears of dirt and soot on the pristine surface. This, he knew, would likely be the last clean water he’d have for some time after he stopped cooperating. It was almost impossible to drink slowly. The chill helped, as did the ice, which Salgant crunched between his teeth and swallowed. He did not speak until the glass was empty.

There did not seem to be much point in arguing about the Power’s observations, or even in panicking as that bigger, stronger form loomed and stared into his eyes. Salgant simply could not muster the energy for fear. Had it been Maeglin who hid Salgant from Angband? It must have been, but he could not dwell on that thought for long. Much good it had done either of them!

“No,” Salgant said at last. His voice was hoarse, would be ruined for days, but no longer clicked and broke in the back of his throat from thirst. “For the pleasure of a more comfortable chain? No.” He should be infuriated at the insult, and somewhere in his heart he was, but he could not reach it.

“Why, that answer was positively Fëanorian!” Sauron laughed, his expression sly as he sat himself across from his guest. “You have been spending too much time with Noldor… Such a typically stubborn and short-sighted response. You served one king by choice, and another before that by no more virtue than being born into their kingdom. This would be little different.”

He refilled the elf’s glass to the brim, but put his hand gently over the top before Salgant could retrieve it, forcing eye contact. 

“I will not press you into service. I have no use for an unwilling ambassador who must be kept in check at all hours; you are genuinely free to accept or refuse without fear of retribution. But I urge you to consider this offer– at least, do not refuse until you have heard what it entails!” 

He slid a finger around the rim of the glass, and the single, pure note it emitted filled the room like siren song. Then he slid it closer to his guest, and leaned back in his own seat. 

“Will you hear me out? Or would you prefer to return to your cell to rest?” He gave a quick snort with a wry twist of his lips;  “I’d happily offer you a room on the upper floor, but alas, I fear it is only a more ‘comfortable’ prison.” 

It was truly a sign of Salgant’s exhaustion that even a comparison to Feanorions earned little more than a curled lip. The spark of anger was there, as it was for the offer at all, but there was simply no tinder to sustain it.

But he watched the glass, and Sauron’s face, and he took the water when offered. And again Salgant drank without stopping; the smoke of Gondolin burning was still caught in his throat.

“I suspect you don’t understand the hearts of elves,” Salgant suggested, once the glass was empty again. His voice was flat and inflectionless. “If you think I am so eager to serve the destroyers of my city. If you think I will forsake my kin laboring in chains below.”

“I’ve been accused of as much before,” the maia conceded, steepling his fingers beneath his beard, “but you are wrong. Do you think the Quendi are the only speaking people who know loyalty, or a soldier’s grief? The war is over, “ he repeated, “and with our many losses comes the foundation of something new; you need no longer be our enemy, but rather subjects. I would have you– or if not you, then someone else more willing– ease the transition of your people into this new era. You could save many lives, help many of your countrymen earn their freedom. I certainly do not intend to keep half of elfindom enthralled as prisoners of a war that is now concluded; that would be a colossal drain of resources and energy. Why not use your powers to help us, and in doing so, preserve what is precious to you? Surely, you did not have much stake in a war fought over Fëanorian property and a theological dispute between Valar!“ 

The great smith let out an explosive sigh, belying the frustration of a second-in-command who has suddenly been made to shoulder a whole empire. The fire in the hearth flared in crackling sympathy. 

“…I try to be reasonable with you. I try to be accommodating…. why did Eru see fit to build a race out of pride and entitlement alone? Are none of you capable of bending even an inch to save your own damned hides?”

He rubbed the bridge of his elegant nose, brow creased in deliberation as he drew a slow, calming breath. 

“Your unusual gift for Song made me curious to meet you Lord Salgant, and I would not have such talent nor beauty lost to menial labors. I had hoped you would prove more cooperative.”  

Salgant took a deep breath and released it, trying to cudgel his mind into functioning at something like its normal capacity. This… no, nothing like hope, he was too drained for hope, but maybe… maybe potential. A path, a way out. Not for him, but for others. Turgon might not have understood – but Rog would have. Besides, they were both dead. Salgant had ever put the living before the dead, however beloved.

“If you know loyalty and grief, then you must also understand my reluctance,” he said, much more measured now. “Only a day or two after my city is destroyed and my king is killed, and you ask for my service? It’s been said I was cold-hearted and I admit that it’s so, but there is still blood in my veins, not ice.”

The lines of his face softened; it was not a concession, not yet, but it was nearer to one. 

“Of course. You need time. We all do– this will be a difficult period for us all.” 

He refilled the glass a third time, the crystal decanter emptying to its last sparkling drops. Melted snow water from beyond the peaks of Thangorodrim, clearer and less sulfurous than the stuff brought up from around the fortress; he’d had it retrieved specially. It was not what prisoners drank. 

“Perhaps you are correct after all that I do not understand the hearts of the Quendi. We have lived under the same sky for centuries, yet I am not familiar with your needs, your wants.  How could I know better than you what motivates your kind? It is my earnest wish to learn more, to see with your eyes. I will need assistance if I am ever to build a realm for my Master that accommodates us all.” 

…If such a thing is even possible, he thought, once again feeling the enormity of the task ahead, salvaging order from the bloody wreckage of an entire Age.
 It was a strange thing for an immortal Maia, sprung into existence already knowing all he needed for the task intended for him, to realize how much there was still to learn of the world he helped create. Certainly it would be a shame if an entire species had to be eradicated simply to make Melkor’s dream a reality. He hoped to avoid that. It seemed wasteful. 

“As you know, it wasn’t very long ago that we were under prolonged siege ourselves. Our supplies are what you’d expect for the end of a 500 year long campaign… Alas, for the moment I cannot tempt you with more marvelous food and drink than what my captains take, and what is indulgent to an orc may not be at all appetizing to an elf,” he chuckled. “Still, I beg you to accept my accommodations while you consider your answer. Your wounds will do better for resting in a proper bed, with a warm fire and bath… And my lieutenant would not be given a second opportunity to make you take the stairs.” 

Salgant had never been the subject of an attempted seduction before. Perhaps one day he would find it humorous that this was the first. The water was naggingly familiar, now that the smoke in his throat had cleared enough to taste it. Still, Salgant drank as slowly as he could.

He could not yet bring himself to address the question of hospitality aloud; he set it at the back of his mind to think through. His heart quailed at the thought of those stairs, but he would not allow that to be a factor. He must think of strengthening his position at this bargaining table. Everything he could offer was solely at the discretion of Sauron, who pursued this, as far as Salgant could tell, only for the novelty.

“I am no great moral philosopher, if that is what you seek,” Salgant demurred. “My bent has ever been more to practical matters, I’m afraid.”

It would offend the Maia to refuse that offer of luxury; it would let Salgant better muster his energies to accept. Salgant would seem more agreeable to Sauron’s agenda. (Agreeable! To Sauron’s agenda!)

“Still, I would like to advance my people’s freedom however I may. You mentioned some possibility of… earning such a thing?”

The thought of accepting Sauron’s offer curdled Salgant’s very soul. To leave innocent people behind to suffer and die –  he couldn’t. He hadn’t even been able to do as much for the guilty! No, he would have to make this work somehow.

He allowed himself a smile, a quick flash of pointed teeth and no more. 

“Of course,” the smith leaned intently over his crossed knee. “You need only convince the majority of them that cooperation is in their best interests. The sooner they swear never to take up arms against my Master, to forsake the kings and the cause that led us into these many centuries of war, the sooner they can be released to start a new life for themselves. I do not say that blithely– I know how much has been destroyed, how much must be made anew. But let them know that if they make their peace with us, they will not be alone in the rebuilding. You can do this better than I. They are your countrymen.” 

The elf’s complexion was looking increasingly grey, though his voice grew stronger after each drink. This was surely too long and stressful a negotiation to be had with someone about to fall unconscious in his chair. 

“I will make part of this decision easier for you– let me accompany you to your new room, where you can rest.” He rose and crossed the distance to his guest, bending to offer his arm for support. 

A Hidden Shrine

elf-and-iron:

misbehavingmaiar:

elf-and-iron:

“Father, all the Arts have their patron but this one.”

Oropher raised an eyebrow at his son, and a shadow creased his smile. “Do you not give your thanks to Aulë when the wire bends true, and mere metal becomes a song in the hand?”

“Of course,” said Thranduil, but he was a perceptive boy, and he saw the shape of something he was not being told.

~

The boy, bending wire into spiraling baubles, became a youth; the youth began to learn the arts of fire, and mere baubles became gleaming jewels, more suitable for wear than for dangling to adorn a window’s arch. He wore them in deliberate contrast to stark and elegant Oropher, and when he ran and danced with the other youth of Nivrim, often the chime of metal on metal accompanied him.

Still, the thought did not leave his mind that all other Arts had a patron; that all other patrons had a shrine, be it Aulë’s grotto tucked away beneath the roots of the greatest oak, or the open, living structure of intertwined trees dedicated to Elbereth herself. Aulë was the master of all crafts, yes – but in his shrine were the loom and the brush, the chisel and the potter’s wheel. The forge was conspicuous by its absence.

Still he could not find the answer; still the shape of something hidden teased at his mind. Asking bore no fruit, for the elder Elves merely frowned and asked why he wanted to know; pushing for an answer received only his mother’s gentle remonstrance, and an overheard argument wherein she wanted to tell him… whatever it was… and Oropher did not. “He is still too young,” Thranduil heard, and he clenched his teeth and crept away silently through the branches. He did not hear “I do not want to burden him yet,” nor did he hear “Our little wild thing will fly to the forbidden, so best we do not forbid.”

None the less, he was drawn to the vacuum, and in a surge of great feeling he ran. Down the boughs, into the carved and ornate cave that served his family as home, flying like the deer before the hounds. He took up his tools, and took a great breath, and ran again.

Past his own room, half sheltered in stone and half shaded by great trees, and out into the forest, to a place he and few others knew, he darted. It was a quiet limestone hollow, its entrance a low arch crowded by unshaped roots and hidden beneath an exuberant spray of flowering canes. A hollow in the trunk above let in light, filtered by leaves.

Inside was a low bench, crafted of twisted wood and carefully planed and polished. He swept aside the few bits of wire that adorned it.

What did a shrine need? Open space – the oak wood had that aplenty, and this little chamber had some of its own. Quiet seclusion – that was here also. And something to direct the mind, to focus the thoughts. To guide the work.

Thranduil knew not what he was focusing on, save that he felt keenly the lack of something to which to dedicate himself. Yet, he had a thought, and in careful secrecy he assembled it.

A ceramic tray, blackened from the fire below and glossed irregular white with flux above; a hammer, a delicate thing with a handle of silvery wood; a pair of copper tongs, impeccably clean, but their tips rainbowed with heat. Last, a single unburnt rod of charcoal, still showing the texture of the bare wood it had once been.

At last the youth arranged the tools upon the tray, blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he held, and sat back.

He contemplated his work for a short time, smiled, and took out a hair-fine wire, and a tiny glittering stone to spin upon it, to craft an earring. This was no place for hot work, not yet- but it could be, and perhaps it would.

In all innocence, he sat and worked his project, in contemplation of his new shrine to the Maia of the Forge.

It began like an itch, something tickling up the spine. 
There was little to do in the darkness of the keep but wait, patient as a stone, for scouts and messengers to bring tidings from afield. The sensation burned brighter in the absence of distraction. 

The throneroom was cold; the castle empty of servants to tend and maintain it. The marshland air lay heavy and damp, and the wet crept up every wall and grew on every tapestry. Wolves gnawed at bones in the courtyard while orcs patrolled he halls. 

With a sudden intake of breath, Thû was filled with a sudden longing for heat, for the ringing of metal. Cold ashes swirled in the dead fireplace, and he ached to set it ablaze. What was it that had snuck into his brain like a gadfly? And why did his exile to this wet, chilly island feel so especially unbearable today?

The smithy here was pitiful; a peasant’s excuse for an anvil rusted unused in the  abandoned court. Who stoked the fires in the Great Forge at Angband, now that he was gone? Was his workplace, too, gathering dust? Abandoned since his dubious “promotion”? 
Unbidden, his heart recalled the rush of ignition, the oxygen-devouring inferno, the shimmer of convection and the white heat of molten ore. He remembered his forge– not at the heart of Thangorodrim, nor even Utumno, but farther back in the reach of his past; a place he’d tried to forget, the memories interlocked with the sight of familiar red hands, rough as sandstone, guiding him, offering support and direction.

Thû closed his eyes, growling with a shake of his head that sent stray guard wolves cowering. Behind his eyes, he sought the source of this irritation, isolated it to a single point. And as he focused upon it, it grew; like a knock at the door, like a stranger calling his name. 

 He was not accustomed to being the recipient of prayer. He was not like Ossë, to whom the Falathrim built shrines, who sailors praised and offered supplication. Nor was he Melian, whose name was thanked day and night by those she sheltered, lending her strength. He was The Cruel, The Abhorrent; loved by none save those as removed from the Valar’s light as himself, and that had been the nature of his existence since before the first elf opened their eyes to see the stars. 
That was perhaps why the feeling took him by surprise, why the faint brush of acknowledgement against the walls of his spirit eluded naming. 

But whatever it was, it had a child’s voice. And it came from just beyond the border of Melian’s Girdle, on the edge between forest and fen.  

It was a long, long way from Tol Sirion as men might travel. But for a spirit unclad, it was a short journey, and in a grove shaped by water and stone and root, he found the source of his peculiar, gentle torment. 

He moved without shape, without sound, and watched the oak-dark fall of hair over delicate shoulders stooped in concentration, observed the silverwood hammer, the tongs, the tools of his trade set into a hastily made shrine, built with both impudence and sincerity. And the little nut-brown prince, all fawn-limbs and intense eyes, whose nimble fingers bent jewelry out of spider silk wire, attentive yet carefree. 

Curiosity moved him more powerfully than caution or cunning. 

“Boy,” he asked, moving the air with thought rather than sound, “what are you doing? Why do you build to me, whose name you do not even know?”

It started with a breath of heat, barely felt – the sensation unexpected, and thus worrisome. Then, a voice – real and deep, and unlinked to any presence that should lend it such weight.

On the wire, the gem stopped its dance and glittered in a brief backward arc. Swift brown fingers caught it before it could tumble free, just as quickly set the silver web to rights. Thranduil glanced about, half off his bench before he was satisfied that nobody else had entered the little grotto.

Nobody, that is, that he could see. The back of his neck prickled. Why did he build to – then –

He was torn between laughter and flinging himself to the ground in fear; between fleeing at top speed and dancing his sudden delight. It was real, whatever else it was. It had worked.

Then, a perilous thought: it worked, yes; but he was no priest, nor son of a priestess. The forms of address were
foreign to him, and the risk of offending this mystery seemed suddenly
very high. He palmed the half-completed earring, careful to conceal without damaging it, equally careful not to think that Something capable of speaking without a mouth may also be able to see without eyes.

Truth would be the only possible recourse. “I saw no shrines for the metalworker.” Had his voice sounded so reedy, when he was begging his parents for information? Or was it comparison that made him sound a piping bird next to the terrible unsourced sound?

“And I thought – I didn’t expect – “ he floundered to a stop, glancing about for anything to address.

What matter of being was this – and why hadn’t he learned its- no, his – name?

For the metalworker? 

The child’s words flitted about in his brain, unable to find purchase. At last, something in memory stirred; titles he’d left behind him, all those eons ago, titles he’d never had a chance to use, or be called by anyone. Aulë was of course The Maker; but he had been the First Smith.

They will have need of fire, of heat, metal, tools, and craft, he’d been told, and the ancient word for “craft” encompassed all invention, all innovation and progress made from the first rock ever chipped into an arrowhead to the building of towers that scraped the heavens. His duty had once been overseer of the first forge– the patron, he supposed, of all forges. But even the Khazad did not refer to him by name; perhaps because they had never known it, or because they did know, and were too wise to use it. The figure in the back of Mahal’s shrines was nameless, his history omitted. 

So had this boy, this sapling of a Silvan elf who had never lain eyes upon the Valar, summoned him by chance alone? 

Was it so easy to reach through time and distance, working backwards to find the source of something one had no name for, but knew must exist by virtue of its observable effects on nature? How very clever… how much like an Aulendur. he felt an unlikely thrill of pride move his spirit, like a smile.  

Thû laughed. “You did not know to whom you spoke or if I would even appear, is that it? What a precocious young priest… You invented rites for me and reached into the darkness and plucked me down to bear witness, all on your own. You do not even know what I am.” 

Bodiless, he saw the full circumference of the room simultaneously, heard the whispers of the boy’s unguarded thoughts. He was sparking with emotions, fear and excitement and dismay going in all directions. The earring he’d strung together sat in his palm like a glittering insect he was being careful not to crush; To Thû it seemed limned with silver, and shown through flesh and shadow quite clearly. It called to him like a little bell; he knew in his heart he was meant to acknowledge it in some way, before taking his leave. 

He stretched out his spirit to touch it–  how little prince’s heart hammered! Like a wild rabbit in a snare. As he brushed the silver glow, a bolt of clarity shot from his presence in the grotto all the way back to his body, left in the damp throne of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. It startled him, but pleasantly; it seemed to blow fresh heat into his coals. 

A breathless sigh stirred the dry leaves on the floor. 

“No one has ever given me tribute before,” he mused, his thoughts echoing distantly. “I did not expect anyone ever would…. How warm it feels.” 

He paused, focusing for a moment on the young elf’s face, reading his eyes, his features. “You are both very brave and very foolish for inviting me here. But I thank you all the same– is there anything you wish from me, as your ‘patron’?” 

Now, other way around! Your muses’s relationships and opinions on admirable-mairon’s Mairon

–For reference, @admirable-mairon wrote their lovely response here. I’ll try to answer as thoroughly as they were kind enough to do! – 

Gawd, okay, look, their relationship is a hot, hot mess in every possible way. 
It is très #problematique. It is almost certainly going to end in blood and tears and revenge and cathartic hate-banging. They are two very lonely, very territorial cats in a fucked up bag. They’re either going to kill each other or join forces and free up to two separate Melkors* from the Void and then kill each other or kill everyone else, or die trying. 

*Having a separate Sauron and Mairon gets way more complicated when the other player already has an established Melkor, which we do. 
@admirable-mairon summed this up very well in their post: We have two separate Melkors, and two separate histories serving him. The events are the same, but the outcomes and motives were very different, and this gives the muses something to compare and argue about in RP.
We could go one of two ways on this: either this is a sort of Mirror-Universe AU, where two realities featuring different versions of the same person bumped into each other and merged, OR, we have twin Saurons and twin Melkors simultaneously. …That is way too many dark lords for one planet. Let’s call this the “Everyone Is Fucked” AU. 

I answered this in my earlier post, but I’ll stress again that “Brother/Sister” is an honorary title that Maiar who serve/d the same Vala use. They are not biologically related or socialized together. Just. Wanted to specify. Because this is the Silmarillion, and shit happens. #NoTwiceBelovedBro, #My Other Girlfriend Turned Out To Be My Sister, #That’s Rough Buddy. 

Hopefully this is coming across in the RP, but my Sauron sees a lot of his Melkor in Mairon, and Mairon likewise sees a lot of his Melkor in Sauron.
It’s super-duper messy because the relationship between Mairon and his Melkor is SO VASTLY DIFFERENT from Sauron’s relationship– and frankly, Sauron is Not A Fan of Mairon’s very, very abusive Melkor.
They each remind each other of the flaws in their respective masters, and Sauron is simultaneously attracted and repulsed by this. He’s stuck between wanting to subdue and humble his impudent brother, whereby fulfilling the role of abusive surrogate which is so repellent to him, or trying to repair Mairon’s self-worth and coping mechanisms, which will probably land him in another toxic tail-spin of a relationship that will break his heart.   

From a professional Dark Lord standpoint, he can’t simply ignore Mairon, because whatever Mairon does affects their empire and standing as a whole. Mairon is volatile, impulsive, and voracious, and frequently does things that jeopardize alliances or tactical advantage, and this gets under Sauron’s skin in such a huge way. Oh boy does he hate that. He has to clean up little brother’s messes AND organize his half of the war effort, and it just ruffles him up so bad to know he’s associated with a reckless, wanton, MESS MAKER with no sense of diplomacy or responsibility and NO BEARD and A TINY HAMMER.   

RRRRRRRRGHHGHGGG *wringing motion* 

On the other hand, Mairon is cut from the same cloth as he is, and they have enough in common that sometimes they get along like wildfire. Also, Sauron finds it attractive when people are attracted to him, even if he finds them infuriating. And unnaturally hairless. And skinny. And lacking in decorum or basic decency. And blond. 

BUT SOMETIMES they get along great and understand each other perfectly, in between times when they’re undermining each other’s authority or hate-flirting or insulting each other’s aesthetics. 👍

An unanticipated survival.

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

misbehavingmaiar:

salmaganto:

There was a cost to great efforts in Song, and there was a cost to setting your will against Power. Salgant couldn’t have sung a note even if he’d tried. Dignity was a foreign land – he was on the verge of collapsing again, half-blind with exhaustion and shaking. He made no protest at shackles or gag, and no more than grunts of pain as he stumbled after the guard. Sometimes the Balrog dragged him up the steps; sometimes he crawled. It was some shred of fortune that he made it to the offered chair on both feet, but Salgant had no mind to appreciate it.

Just keeping his eyes open was a struggle; Salgant blinked heavily at the opulent room and his interrogator. He should be terrified, and somewhere deep inside he was. But that was far away right now. Defiance – for the sake of Gondolin, and his dead, he should be spitting bile. But he was too exhausted. Even the figure of the Abhorred could not bring his nerves back to life. “I…” he began in a rasping whisper, then coughed. “It was no secret.”

It must have been Maeglin. When he’d gone on that long prospecting trip, and come back different. He had been desperate to bury himself in pleasure as though to escape something chasing at his heels. He hadn’t been surprised to see the red glow on the horizon. He’d had some sort of plan already. Salgant had found him weeping once and Maeglin had refused to say what troubled him. It must have been Maeglin. And yet Salgant’s heart cried out that it could not be so. Maeglin had been dour and grim, yes, but he had loved Turgon, loved Idril in whatever misguided form, loved the city that was now fallen. But there was no one else. Maeglin had always suspected Tuor of some treachery, had railed that Hurin’s cries would bring the hunters down on them all. But it had been Maeglin himself who brought Angband to their doorstep.

“No secret inside Gondolin, perhaps,” Sauron paced before the fire, “but for a master of Song nigh equal to Finrod, who Sang a whole battalion into rubble and required no fewer than three Balrogs to subdue– I’d say you were kept very well hidden.”  

The maia pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, pouring clear, iced water into a glass for his guest– the only refreshment he would have seen since his capture. He beckoned for Salgant to drink.

“You are not of the Noldor.” An observation, not a question. Sauron dipped his head in appraisal. “Reports say you Sang in a form of Telerin not heard on the continent since the first rising of the moon.”

A faint smile quirked the corner of his lips. “A rare pearl, then, from the far frozen north. How unexpected.” 

Looming somewhat over the seated company, Sauron leaned nearer the elf’s face, inspecting his starlight-limned eyes with a soft grunt of confirmed suspicion. 

“I rather wish I’d seen it. It’s been almost fifty years since I last had a proper Song battle.” He clucked his tongue. “Pity. But perhaps I’ll hear you Sing in another capacity soon. The war is won, after all. If you prove amenable to our cause, there is no need for talented individuals such as yourself to remain in irons. My Master affords many opportunities to those who cooperate.”

The implied offer lay open before him, like the glinting rim of the water glass.  

Defiance would have had Salgant refuse the water. Practicality and need insisted that he drain the glass, and they won without much struggle. Salgant took the glass with both hands; leaving smears of dirt and soot on the pristine surface. This, he knew, would likely be the last clean water he’d have for some time after he stopped cooperating. It was almost impossible to drink slowly. The chill helped, as did the ice, which Salgant crunched between his teeth and swallowed. He did not speak until the glass was empty.

There did not seem to be much point in arguing about the Power’s observations, or even in panicking as that bigger, stronger form loomed and stared into his eyes. Salgant simply could not muster the energy for fear. Had it been Maeglin who hid Salgant from Angband? It must have been, but he could not dwell on that thought for long. Much good it had done either of them!

“No,” Salgant said at last. His voice was hoarse, would be ruined for days, but no longer clicked and broke in the back of his throat from thirst. “For the pleasure of a more comfortable chain? No.” He should be infuriated at the insult, and somewhere in his heart he was, but he could not reach it.

“Why, that answer was positively Fëanorian!” Sauron laughed, his expression sly as he sat himself across from his guest. “You have been spending too much time with Noldor… Such a typically stubborn and short-sighted response. You served one king by choice, and another before that by no more virtue than being born into their kingdom. This would be little different.”

He refilled the elf’s glass to the brim, but put his hand gently over the top before Salgant could retrieve it, forcing eye contact. 

“I will not press you into service. I have no use for an unwilling ambassador who must be kept in check at all hours; you are genuinely free to accept or refuse without fear of retribution. But I urge you to consider this offer– at least, do not refuse until you have heard what it entails!” 

He slid a finger around the rim of the glass, and the single, pure note it emitted filled the room like siren song. Then he slid it closer to his guest, and leaned back in his own seat. 

“Will you hear me out? Or would you prefer to return to your cell to rest?” He gave a quick snort with a wry twist of his lips;  “I’d happily offer you a room on the upper floor, but alas, I fear it is only a more ‘comfortable’ prison.” 

It was truly a sign of Salgant’s exhaustion that even a comparison to Feanorions earned little more than a curled lip. The spark of anger was there, as it was for the offer at all, but there was simply no tinder to sustain it.

But he watched the glass, and Sauron’s face, and he took the water when offered. And again Salgant drank without stopping; the smoke of Gondolin burning was still caught in his throat.

“I suspect you don’t understand the hearts of elves,” Salgant suggested, once the glass was empty again. His voice was flat and inflectionless. “If you think I am so eager to serve the destroyers of my city. If you think I will forsake my kin laboring in chains below.”

“I’ve been accused of as much before,” the maia conceded, steepling his fingers beneath his beard, “but you are wrong. Do you think the Quendi are the only speaking people who know loyalty, or a soldier’s grief? The war is over, “ he repeated, “and with our many losses comes the foundation of something new; you need no longer be our enemy, but rather subjects. I would have you– or if not you, then someone else more willing– ease the transition of your people into this new era. You could save many lives, help many of your countrymen earn their freedom. I certainly do not intend to keep half of elfindom enthralled as prisoners of a war that is now concluded; that would be a colossal drain of resources and energy. Why not use your powers to help us, and in doing so, preserve what is precious to you? Surely, you did not have much stake in a war fought over Fëanorian property and a theological dispute between Valar!“ 

The great smith let out an explosive sigh, belying the frustration of a second-in-command who has suddenly been made to shoulder a whole empire. The fire in the hearth flared in crackling sympathy. 

“…I try to be reasonable with you. I try to be accommodating…. why did Eru see fit to build a race out of pride and entitlement alone? Are none of you capable of bending even an inch to save your own damned hides?”

He rubbed the bridge of his elegant nose, brow creased in deliberation as he drew a slow, calming breath. 

“Your unusual gift for Song made me curious to meet you Lord Salgant, and I would not have such talent nor beauty lost to menial labors. I had hoped you would prove more cooperative.”  

Salgant took a deep breath and released it, trying to cudgel his mind into functioning at something like its normal capacity. This… no, nothing like hope, he was too drained for hope, but maybe… maybe potential. A path, a way out. Not for him, but for others. Turgon might not have understood – but Rog would have. Besides, they were both dead. Salgant had ever put the living before the dead, however beloved.

“If you know loyalty and grief, then you must also understand my reluctance,” he said, much more measured now. “Only a day or two after my city is destroyed and my king is killed, and you ask for my service? It’s been said I was cold-hearted and I admit that it’s so, but there is still blood in my veins, not ice.”

The lines of his face softened; it was not a concession, not yet, but it was nearer to one. 

“Of course. You need time. We all do– this will be a difficult period for us all.” 

He refilled the glass a third time, the crystal decanter emptying to its last sparkling drops. Melted snow water from beyond the peaks of Thangorodrim, clearer and less sulfurous than the stuff brought up from around the fortress; he’d had it retrieved specially. It was not what prisoners drank. 

“Perhaps you are correct after all that I do not understand the hearts of the Quendi. We have lived under the same sky for centuries, yet I am not familiar with your needs, your wants.  How could I know better than you what motivates your kind? It is my earnest wish to learn more, to see with your eyes. I will need assistance if I am ever to build a realm for my Master that accommodates us all.” 

…If such a thing is even possible, he thought, once again feeling the enormity of the task ahead, salvaging order from the bloody wreckage of an entire Age.
 It was a strange thing for an immortal Maia, sprung into existence already knowing all he needed for the task intended for him, to realize how much there was still to learn of the world he helped create. Certainly it would be a shame if an entire species had to be eradicated simply to make Melkor’s dream a reality. He hoped to avoid that. It seemed wasteful. 

“As you know, it wasn’t very long ago that we were under prolonged siege ourselves. Our supplies are what you’d expect for the end of a 500 year long campaign… Alas, for the moment I cannot tempt you with more marvelous food and drink than what my captains take, and what is indulgent to an orc may not be at all appetizing to an elf,” he chuckled. “Still, I beg you to accept my accommodations while you consider your answer. Your wounds will do better for resting in a proper bed, with a warm fire and bath… And my lieutenant would not be given a second opportunity to make you take the stairs.” 

It had taken him a while to tie the now mortal Maia up and drag him along but since Mairon had chosen to be bothersome and uncooperative Ji Indur had finally hoisted him over his shoulder and carried him away. Out of Barad Dûr and to the stables. On horseback they left Mordor, undisturbed by anybody as the wraith had made sure to gag his master and set a cloth bag over his head. Now they were making their way towards the place where Ji Indur’s ship was anchored, awaiting their arrival.

ji-indur:

masteroftheseas :

admirable-mairon-moved:

Mairon had exhausted himself rather early on as he tried to fight and didn’t realize how weak a human body is.

He slumped, even dozing off from sheer exhaustion as they traveled on horse-back. Because of this, he didn’t even realize where they were. He could barely hear the waves as his hearing had been muted.

He knew of his cousin’s plight, and it was with fierce restraint that he had stayed in the deeps during Marion’s period of weakness. After the pain and humiliation he had suffered, he did not know if he would be able to resist the temptation to inflict equal devastation on the mortal mockery of the Maia. So he hid himself away for his own safety.

Until he felt the icy shadow that blackened the surface, the familiar swagger of Ji Indur darkened by the power and rage of his ring, and a very familiar essence with him. He may have avoided the battle, but the battle did not avoid him. Hearing his name bellowed, he gave up the resistance – surely he could not be blamed for defending his home, his charge, his realm.

Surging towards the point of conflict, he appeared as a scaled behemoth of his usual self, every bit the Terror his legends warned. His eyes flashed as he circled the floating guests, tail caging them in as he fixed his gaze on the limp offering. “Why do you bring him here? His presence is not welcome in my home,” he rumbled, scowling.

@ji-indur @admirable-mairon

Ji Indur felt Osse’s presence nearing them before he saw the Maia. The water underneath them started to stir and as he looked down into the depths, the bottom so close in the blue green, he notice the massive shape of the Master of the Seas, circling them like a dangerous predator before he broke the surface, causing the Kraken to sway and a wave to wash over man and wraith, almost dragging them under for a moment. The voice reverberated inside Ji Indur’s mind and he bowed his head in a display of respect. 

“I am aware of it, oh mighty Osse and I would not have brought Him under normal circumstances. But the Grey Cloaks struck him with the curse of mortality for three days and I could have ended him there and then and freed myself but alas, it was not up to me to be the first to strike. He is one of the Ainur after all and seeing how He has treated you in the last centuries I decided to bring Jim to you so you can hold council and judge him according to the crimes He has committed against you. I hope you do not see any ill will on my part. Whatever you chose to do, I will accept it as His punishment. And I will not lay hand on him myself unless you tell me to do so.” 

Ji Indur was serious with his words even if it might feel like betrayal to his friends. But he had to believe in Osse to find a punishment suitable for his cousin and to help the Nine -or those willing to- to break their chains. This was the moment where he offered the watery Maia more than just rum and gold- he was offering him his very existence, as terribly corrupted it was. If the Master of the Seas would turn his back on him as well then he knew that none of the higher beings had even a shred of empathy left for what they had created. Of course it was not meant as a test but it could be very well seen like one.

@admirable-mairon @masteroftheseas @misbehavingmaiar

Suspense built in the tableau between wraith and maia, broken by the sound of distant wing beats, a pulsing thrum that grew into the crack of mighty sails as a shadow passed over the moon.

The sailors who had manned the craft bearing Ji and his captive fled splashing into the waves for safety, and a massive fell beast of raven-black scales and iron plate dropped out of the sky. The ship’s boat splintered under its claws where it landed, folding its wide, dark wings. 
As if patiently awaiting instruction, the feel beast watched its master dismount with cold white eyes, sliding off its back saddle to the ground.  
The rider approached, removing his flight mask, a tarnished red hammer slung at one hip, a silver-tipped nine-tails on the other. 

“Cousin, we beg your pardon for the sudden intrusion,” Sauron addressed Ossë with an inclination of his head. “But it seems you are discussing the fate of one I have already laid claim to. The mortal you have half-submerged there at your feet is currently under my protection.” 

He looked from the towering figure in the sea to the corsair kneeling at the water’s edge, and gave half a chuckle. “Ji-Indur. Why am I not surprised by your treachery? I wondered who had managed to smuggle him out from my own fortress… it was a short list of those capable.” 

Sauron tucked the black riding mask under one arm and smiled graciously at the wary gathering. “I understand that you both have significant grievances with my brother-self, and while he is in this… delicate, mortal condition, it would be a unique opportunity for you to seek retribution. I respect this. And though I cannot allow you to kill or maul him while under my protection, I am willing to strike a bargain.”

Moonlight glinted off a heavy ring on the hand that stretched out in offering, its twin around Mairon’s finger, limp and drifting in the wave swell. Sauron smiled, and gestured first to Ji.

“Wraith, your allegiance to my brother has long troubled you. If you kill him in this state, it is likely you will remain bound to his Ring and any remnant of his will, or else destroyed outright with his passing… An uncomfortable way to spend eternity, no?” He laughed. “Perhaps you will consider letting me sever the tie between your ring and his. Only I can do this for you, with a power of equal might to the original bond. You would live on, immortal and retaining some small amount of insight beyond the world of men, free of his manipulation, invisible to his eye, even if he returns to power.” 

“…And you, Cousin,” Sauron shifted, lowering his gaze briefly in respect, “you of all here have the most claim to vengeance. You wish to see him suffer for his crimes, do you not? A mere moment of satisfaction, even if that moment is a long one, would not suffice.” His eyes glowed in the grave light of the moon, colorless and sharp. “To you I offer a lifetime of his suffering. Miserable, weak, aging into grey hair, sallow skin, and sagging flesh, trembling hands and feeble limbs, powerless to do harm to you or yours ever again.” 

The lord of Mordor spread his hands. “Return him to me, and these shall be my gifts to you. Do we have an agreement?”   

tagged by @curufinwefeanaro

– I apologize; all the quotes I picked are super duper long. XD
For the sake of brevity, I’ll say that I get the shivers whenever I read the full exchange between Hurin and Melkor, but it’s several pages long, so I just picked excerpts; and also, the lines between Beren & Company and Thû remain my favorite examples of dark lord snark. 
 Some other close contenders were scenes that didn’t involve either character directly, but were from emissaries or second-hand descriptions of them, like the quote from Isildur about the One Ring. Frequently I find the most evocative moments involving Sauron are the ones that indirectly hint at his personality through the Ring, or through his various servants and mouthpieces. 

Five favorite quotes regarding Sauron:

1) “’And after these words Isildur described the Ring, such as he found it: ‘It was hot when I first took it, hot as a glede, and my hand was scorched, so that I doubt if ever again I shall be free of the pain of it. Yet even as I write it is cooled, and it seemeth to shrink, though it loseth neither its beauty nor its shape. Already the writing upon it, which at first was as clear as red flame, fadeth and is now only barely to be read. It is fashioned in an elven-script of Eregion, for they have no letters in Mordor for such subtle work; but the language is unknown to me. I deem it to be a tongue of the Black Land, since it is foul and uncouth. What evil it saith I do not know; but I trace here a copy of it, lest it fade beyond recall. The Ring misseth, maybe, the heat of Sauron’s hand, which was black and yet burned like fire, and so Gil-galad was destroyed; and maybe were the gold made hot again, the writing would be refreshed. But for my part I will risk no hurt to this thing: of all the works of Sauron the only fair. It is precious to me, though I buy it with great pain.”

2) “Among those of his servants that have names the greatest was that spirit whom the Eldar called Sauron, or Gorthaur the Cruel. In his beginning he was of the Maiar of Aulë, and he remained mighty in the lore of that people. In all the deeds of Melkor the Morgoth upon Arda, in his vast works and in the deceits of his cunning, Sauron had a part, and was only less evil than his master in that for long he served another and not himself. But in after years he rose like a shadow of Morgoth and a ghost of his malice, and walked behind him on the same ruinous path down into the Void.” 

3) “…for Sauron took to himself the name of Annatar, the Lord of Gifts, and they had at first much profit from his friendship. And he
said to them: "Alas, for the weakness of the great! For a mighty king is Gil-galad, and wise in all lore is Master Elrond,
and yet they will not aid me in my labours. Can it be that they do not desire to see other lands become as blissful as
their own? But wherefore should Middle-earth remain for ever desolate and dark, whereas the Elves could make it as
fair as Eressëa, nay even as Valinor? And since you have not returned thither, as you might, I perceive that you love this
Middle-earth, as do I. Is it not then our task to labour together for its enrichment, and for the raising of all the Elven-
kindreds that wander here untaught to the height of that power and knowledge which those have who are beyond the
Sea?‘”

4) “…But Ar-Pharazôn was not yet deceived, and it came into his mind that, for the better keeping of Sauron and of
his oaths of fealty, he should be brought to Númenor, there to dwell as a hostage for himself and all his servants in
Middle-earth. To this Sauron assented as one constrained, yet in his secret thought he received it gladly, for it chimed
indeed with his desire. And Sauron passed over the sea and looked upon the land of Númenor, and on the city of
Armenelos in the days of its glory, and he was astounded; but his heart within was filled the more with envy and hate.
Yet such was the cunning of his mind and mouth, and the strength of his hidden will, that ere three years had
passed he had become closest to the secret counsels of the King; for flattery sweet as honey was ever on his tongue, and
knowledge he had of many things yet unrevealed to Men. […]For now, having the ears of men, Sauron
with many arguments gainsaid all that the Valar had taught; and he bade men think that in the world, in the east and
even hi the west, there lay yet many seas and many lands for their winning, wherein was wealth uncounted. And still, if
they should at the last come to the end of those lands and seas, beyond all lay the Ancient Darkness. ’And out of it the
world was made. For Darkness alone is worshipful, and the Lord thereof may yet make other worlds to be gifts to those
that serve him, so that the increase of their power shall find no end.’
And Ar-Pharazôn said: ’Who is the Lord of the Darkness?’
Then behind locked doors Sauron spoke to the King, and he lied, saying: ’It is he whose name is not now
spoken; for the Valar have deceived you concerning him, putting forward the name of Eru, a phantom devised in the
folly of their hearts, seeking to enchain Men in servitude to themselves. For they are the oracle of this Eru, which
speaks only what they will. But he that is their master shall yet prevail, and he will deliver you from this phantom; and
his name is Melkor, Lord of All, Giver of Freedom, and he shall make you stronger than they.‘”

5) “Then Sauron laughed: ‘Patience! Not long/ shall ye abide. But first a song/ I will sing to you, to ears intent.’/ Then his flaming eyes he on them bent, /and darkness black fell round them all./ Only they saw, as through a pall/ of eddying smoke those eyes profound/ in which their senses choked and drowned./ He chanted a song of Wizardry,/ of piercing, opening, of treachery,/ revealing, uncovering, betraying./ Then sudden Felagund there swaying/ sang in answer a song of staying;/ resisting, battling against power,/ of secrets kept, strength like a tower,/ and trust unbroken, freedom, escape;/ of changing and of shifting shape,/ of snares eluded, broken traps,/ the prison opening, the chain that snaps. / Backwards and forwards swayed their song,/ reeling and foundering, as ever more strong/ the chanting swelled, Felagund fought,/ and all the magic and might he brought/ of Elvenesse into his words./ Softly in the gloom they heard the birds/ singing afar in Nargothrond,the sighing of the sea beyond,/beyond the western world, on sand,/ on sand of pearls in Elvenland./ Then the gloom gathered: darkness growing/ in Valinor, the red blood flowing/ beside the sea, where the Noldor slew/ the Foamriders, and stealing drew/ their white ships with their white sails/ from lamplit havens. The wind wails./ The wolf howls. The ravens flee./ The ice mutters in the mouths of the sea./ The captives sad in Angband mourn./ Thunder rumbles, the fires burn/ – and Finrod fell before the throne.”

Five favorite quotes regarding Melkor:

1) “’Blackheart!’ she said. ‘I have done thy bidding. But I hunger still.’ ‘What wouldst thou have more?’ said Morgoth. ‘Dost thou desire all the world for thy belly? I did not vow to give thee that. I am its Lord.’ ‘Not so much,’ said Ungoliant. ‘But thou hast a great treasure from Formenos; I will have all that. Yea, with both hands thou shalt give it’. Then perforce Morgoth surrendered to her the gems that he bore with him, one by one and grudgingly; and she devoured them, and their beauty perished from the world. Huger and darker yet grew Ungoliant, but her lust was unsated. ‘With one hand thou givest,’ she said; ‘with the left only. Open thy right hand.’ In his right hand Morgoth held close the Silmarils, and though they were locked in a crystal casket, they had begun to bum him, and his hand was clenched in pain; but he would not open it ‘Nay!’ he said. ‘Thou hast had thy due. For with my power that I put into thee thy work was accomplished. I need thee no more. These things thou shalt not have, nor see. I name them unto myself for ever. ’ But Ungoliant had grown great, and he less by the power that had gone out of him; and she rose against him, and her cloud closed about him, and she enmeshed him in a web of clinging thongs to strangle him. Then Morgoth sent forth a terrible cry, that echoed in the mountains. Therefore that region was called Lammoth; for the echoes of his voice dwelt there ever after, so that any who cried aloud in that land awoke them, and all the waste between the hills and the sea was filled with a clamour as of voices in anguish.” 

2) “Then wrath mastered Morgoth, and he said: "Yet I may come at you, and all your accursed house; and you shall be broken on my will, though you all were made of steel.” And he took up a long sword that lay there and broke it before the eyes of Húrin, and a splinter wounded his face; but Húrin did not blench. Then Morgoth stretching out his long arm towards Dor-lómin cursed Húrin and Morwen and their offspring, saying: “Behold! The shadow of my thought shall lie upon them wherever they go, and my hate shall pursue them to the ends of the world.” But Húrin said: “You speak in vain. For you cannot see them, nor govern them from afar: not while you keep this shape, and desire still to be a King visible upon earth.” Then Morgoth turned upon Húrin, and he said; “Fool, little among Men, and they are the least of all that speak! Have you seen the Valar, or measured the power of Manwë and Varda? Do you know the reach of their thought? Or do you think, perhaps that their thought is upon you, and that they may shield from afar?” “I know not,” said Húrin. “Yet so it might be, if they willed. For the Elder King shall not be dethroned while Arda endures.” “You say it,” said Morgoth. “I am the Elder King: Melkor, first and mightiest of all the Valar, who was before the world, and made it. The shadow of my purpose lies upon Arda, and all that is in it bends slowly and surely to my will. But upon all whom you love my thought shall weigh as a cloud of Doom, and it shall bring them down into darkness and despair.”

3)“Sit now there,” said Morgoth, “and look out upon the lands where evil and despair shall come upon those whom you have delivered to me. For you have dared to mock me, and have questioned the power of Melkor, Master of the fates of Arda. Therefore with my eyes you shall see, and with my ears you shall hear, and nothing shall be hidden from you." 

4) “A cloak of darkness she wove about them when Melkor and Ungoliant set forth; an Unlight, in which things seemed to be no more, and which eyes could not pierce, for it was void. Then slowly she wrought her webs: rope by rope from cleft to cleft, from jutting rock to pinnacle of stone, ever climbing upwards, crawling and clinging, until at last she reached the very summit of Hyarmentir, the highest mountain in that region of the world, far south of great Taniquetil. There the Valar were not vigilant; for west of the Pelóri was an empty land in twilight, and eastward the mountains looked out, save for forgotten Avathar, only upon the dim waters of the pathless sea. But now upon the mountain-top dark Ungoliant lay; and she made a ladder of woven ropes and cast it down, and Melkor climbed upon it and came to that high place, and stood beside her, looking down upon the Guarded Realm. Below them lay the woods of Oromë, and westward shimmered the fields and pastures of Yavanna, gold beneath the tall wheat of the gods. Bat Melkor looked north, and saw afar the shining plain, and the silver domes of Valmar gleaming in the mingling of the lights of Telperion and Laurelin. Then Melkor laughed aloud, and leapt swiftly down the long western slopes; and Ungoliant was at his side, and her darkness covered them.” 

(( Personal note: Is it not just slightly adorable that he giggles and prances down the Pelori?))

5) “Then Melkor lusted for the Silmarils, and the very memory of their radiance was a gnawing fire in his heart. From that time forth, inflamed by this desire, he sought ever more eagerly how he should destroy Fëanor and end the friendship of the Valar and the Elves; but he dissembled his purposes with cunning, and nothing of his malice could yet be seen in the semblance that he wore. Long was he at work, and slow at first and barren was his labour. But he that sows lies in the end shall not lack of a harvest, and soon he may rest from toil indeed while others reap and sow in his stead. Ever Melkor found some ears that would heed him, and some tongues that would enlarge what they had heard; and his lies passed from friend to friend, as secrets of which the knowledge proves the teller wise. Bitterly did the Noldor atone for the folly of their open ears in the days that followed after. When he saw that many leaned towards him, Melkor would often walk among them, and amid his fair words others were woven, so subtly that many who heard them believed in recollection that they arose from their own thought. Visions he would conjure in their hearts of the mighty realms that they could have ruled at their own will, in power and freedom in the East; and then whispers went abroad that the Valar had brought the Eldar to Aman because of their jealousy, fearing that the beauty of the Quendi and the makers’ power that Ilúvatar had bequeathed to them would grow too great for the Valar to govern, as the Elves waxed and spread over the wide lands of the world. “

Secondary German Longsword Guards

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Johaness Liechtenauer’s teachings preserved in the Zettel mention that ‘you shall not hold to any position other than solely to the four which will be named here’, in reference to the four main guards, or vier leger, Pflug, Ochs, Vom Tag and Alber. But other sources and fencing masters, particularly later ones, do mention quite a few other secondary guards for longsword. There are some variations and discrepancies between authors of course, as well as different interpretations among contemporary researchers.

Many, if not most of these are considered only transitional guards, so just particular positions while in motion from one to another primary guard or end point of a strike, cut or thrust. In no particular order, these are the ‘other’ longsword guards mentioned in the treatises of the German fencing tradition between approximately 1390 and 1570:

  • Zornhut – wrathful guard
  • Langort – longpoint
  • Mittelhut – middle guard
  • Wechsel – the changer
  • Hengetorte – hanging point
  • Nebenhut – close/side guard
  • Schlüssel – the key
  • Einhorn – unicorn
  • Eisenport – iron door
  • Brechfenster – breaking window
  • Schrankhut – barrier guard
  • Kron – the crown

Zornhut (Wrath)

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Zornhut, or Zorn-Hut, is the Wrathful Guard, a left-food forward guard that holds the sword over the rear shoulder so that the flat touches the shoulder and angles slightly backwards, allowing you to deliver powerful ‘wrathful’ strikes. Alternatively the sword can be held slightly above the shoulder and angled back. Typically the sword points down to the floor, though some fechtschule illustrations show it pointing upwards. Even though the Zornhut looks like a variant of Vom Tag, Joachim Meyer tell us that you can do all the techniques from Ochs from Zornhut. Roger Norling mentions that the Zornhut is a guard that can be found in Wilhalm, Erhart, Sollinger, Meyer, Sutor, Verolini and possibly Czynner. Michael Chidester suggests that 16c Germans might have noticed fencers incorrectly ‘chambering’ their sword backwards from Vom Tag to deliver Zornhaw (a powerful cut delivered diagonally downwards from the shoulder), and knowing the the Italians had a similar guard (Posta Di Donna) they decided to just give this position a new guard name in the German fencing tradition. In a contemporary setting if you see people using this guard it’s more often than not Meyer fanboys.

Langort (Longpoint)

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Langort, or Lang Ort/Langen Ort, “the noblest and the best ward with the sword” is a point online guard held with the point forward and slightly upward toward the face of the opponent, shown in later German treatises as illustrated above, right foot forward, though earlier masters such as Sigmund Ringeck and Pseudo-Peter Von Danzig indicate that it should be left foot forward: “Before you come too close to him in Zufechten, set your left foot
forwards and hold the point towards him with outstretched arms towards
the face or the chest.(MS_Germ.Quart.2020_052r)“ Ringeck also specifies that this guard is called the Sprechfenster, if your
opponent binds with you, as does, among others, Hans Döbringer, who says that you are standing at the sword with your opponent and that you should feel what he intends. Keith Farrel concludes in this article that to Ringeck then, it seems that the Langort is a
position when you have not been bound, and Sprechfenster is when you
have been bound, whereas Pseudo-Peter Von Danzig treated the terms Langort and Sprechfenster as more or less interchangeable. As Martin Fabian puts it, Langort is one of the most used positions in longsword fighting nowadays, and for good reason.

Mittelhut (Middle)

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In this Middle guard, like the Nebenhut, the blade sits back facing away and behind from oneself with the long edge aimed at the opponent, but raised up to shoulder level with the sword extended in preparation to strike. It can be done on both the left, with right foot forward, and the right side, with left foot forward. It is depicted sometimes as having the point slightly upwards rather than completely horizontally, though according to Mike Cartier the point should slight point to the ground instead. It can be described as both the beginning and the end point of a Mittelhau.

Wechsel (Changer)

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Wechsel, or Wechselhut, is known as the Changer, a guard with the hilt next to the abdomen, the point hanging downward to the side at a right angle to the opponent. It is the natural end point for a diagonal full cut through the target, such as the Zornhau. Left Wechsel has right leg forward and the sword on the left side of the
body, with the short edge facing forward toward the opponent. Right Wechsel has the left leg forward, sword beside the body, again with the
short edge toward the opponent. The Wechsel as a guard is not named explicitly in the earlier sources, but a position that looks like it is shown on several occasions, such as  Hans Talhoffer’s Cod. icon. 394a.

Hengetorte (Hanging point)

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Hengetorte, or Hangetort, or Hanging Guard, at a glance looks simply like a slightly downwards pointing Ochs guard, but it is used quite differently. Ochs is a threat with the point towards the opponent and prevents attacks
on the same side as you have your hands, so an arms-uncrossed Ochs on your left with the right foot forward closes your left opening from attacks, from a right Oberhau for example, whereas the Hangetort, which is typically a displacement rather than a static guard, primarily prevents attacks on the opposite side of your body from where
you have your hands, so that same arms-uncrossed with the right foot forward Hangetort points offline to your right, and closes the opening from attacks on your right, from a left Oberhau. In this drill we show both sides of this guard:

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In terms of naming conventions, it doesn’t perhaps help that the Ochs guards are also referred to as the two upper Hangers from the Vier Hengen (the right and left Ochs are the Oberhangen, combined with the right and left Pflug, or Underhangen), which are not the same positions as the actual Hanging Guard, since the Four Hangers all point forwards towards the opponent. Inevitably during practice in an English-speaking environment either of these guards ends up being called ‘Hanging’ or ‘Hanger’ which can cause confusion. As far as the present-day popularity of this guard is concerned, just watch this sparring video by Blood & Iron, a hard training and competitively successful group, and count how many times the Hangetort is used to parry overhead strikes, compared with parries with the more traditional Ochs guard for example. It clearly is a very effective position to safely counter from.

Nebenhut (Close/Side)

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The Nebenhut, or Close, Side or even Tail Guard, is similar to the Wechsel, with the grip of the weapon at hip height, but with the tip extending back and down. Being an ideal starting point for an Unterhau, the Nebenhut on the left side with the right foot forward is one possible endpoint of a Zornhau/right Oberhau, and the one on the right flank with the left foot forward, that of a left Oberhau. In both cases the long edge faces forward toward the opponent, and the tip of the sword points backwards. Ringeck advises the use of Nebenhut only on the left, because from the right it is not as safe. Jeff Ross suggests in this interesting analysis that there is no historical evidence that the Nebenhut is, as commonly thought, a Tail Guard (like the Italian Posta Di Coda Lunga), but rather that it is actually the same guard as Schrankhut or Eisenport, since several treatises offer essentially identical instructions for a number longsword plays, differing only in the name given to
the starting guard involved: Nebenhut in some cases, Schrankhut or Eisenport in the others. Regardless of what the original usage was, I think it’s fair to say that the Nebenhut is generally executed nowadays (perhaps incorrectly?) as a Tail Guard.

Schlüssel (Key)

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Jakob Suttor tells us that to be in Schlüssel you stand with ‘your left foot forward and hold your sword with the hilt and hands
crossed in front of your chest such that the short edge lies on your
left arm and the point stands against the opponent’s face’. A posture from which Meyer describes some plays involving thrusts and cuts, though it does not appear named in earlier sources. There isn’t perhaps an enormous repertoire available from this position, but there are nevertheless some useful techniques and transitions, as Björn Rüther demonstrates in this handy short video.

Einhorn (Unicorn)

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Einhorn or Einkiren/Einkhiren is described by Mair as [once you bind with your opponent with the right foot forward], you ‘wind your long edge on his long, drop downward with your short edge at
your right side, and step well in towards him in the bind. (…) Then immediately wind around and
through, invert your hand and grab around the pommel such that you stand
in the Einkhiren and then stab with your point to his face or
chest.’ Meyer, once again doing things slightly differently states, ‘strike in powerfully and high at his left ear with the flat or short
edge… Thus you force him to go upward rapidly; as soon as he does this,
then release your left hand from the pommel, and let your blade snap
around in one hand up from below against his right, and plant the point
on his chest; meanwhile grab your pommel again… Jab at him thus with
reversed hand’. Anders Linnard, in his video description of the Edel Krieg (or Noble War with a reversed grip, one of Ringeck’s counters to Krumphau), shows us a play interpretation which illustrates one of the ways to end up in what I believe to be that Einkleren guard described by Mair:

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Though it might resemble Fiore’s Posta Di Bicorno, Brian Kirk in this comparative analysis maintains that the two guards are fundamentally different, as the Einhorn sometimes requires that you actually let go of the sword with the left hand, let
the sword rotate in the right hand only, and then re-grip reversed, with
the left hand.

Eisenport (Iron door)

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Like some of the other guards, it is worth mentioning that Eisenport, or Eysen Pforte (or eiserin pforte/eyserynen pforten/eysnen pforttn), the Iron Door, exists in two or more variants; with the point upwards, as described by Meyer, or with the point downwards, as described by apparently everyone else. Meyer tells us to stand with our right foot forward, hold our sword with the grip in front of the knee, with straightly hanging arms, so that our point stands upward out at our opponent’s face. He refers to this as the Italian posture Porta Di Ferro [Alta], as illustrated above by Marozzo, and mentions that since thrusting with the sword is abolished among Germans, this guard is not much in use by then. It’s roughly midway between Pflug and Langort.

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The other numerous versions of Iron Door in the older German texts are described as a variant of Alber, with the point offline to either the left or the right (halfway between Alber and Wechsel), or in a
manner similar to Schrankhut on the right side (or the Italian Tutta Porta di Ferro), with wrists uncrossed and the point offline, or even interchangeably with Nebenhut according to Ringeck. Iron Gate is referred to as ‘the best of all techniques‘ and particularly effective when facing several assailants, more specifically impertinent peasants.

Brechfenster (Breaking window)

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Brechfenster or Prechfennster (breaking / speaking window), is, according to Paulus Hector Mair, to ‘stand with your right foot forward and hold your hilt in front of your
head such that your thumbs are underneath, with the point high on your
right side, and looking at the opponent between the arms’. Mair mentions that if you stand in the Pflug and your opponent throws a Scheitelhau, you can wind up into the Brechfenster
so that you are looking out through the arms with the right foot
forward, to then drop down and strike in with the half edge to the left
ear (zwerchhau). Something similar is shown by Jörg Wilhalm Hutter in Cod.I.6.2º.2_21v. That upwards displacement description sounds a lot like going into Kron, right? In the section on the Schaeitelhau, Mair specifically mentions ‘When he then does the Schaitler to you, displace it with the Kron such that the point and the hilt of your sword both stand above
you‘. From what I can tell the difference being that the Kron is an active parry with regular grip, and not a thumb grip like in the Brechfenster, and that the hands are held higher, aside from the fact that the Brechfenster does not require you to necessarily be in contact with the opponents blade. It seems like an unusual longsword guard, but it does appear in contemporary settings (if practicing with minimal gear and aiming for high targets for example, or people that both zwerch and feint a lot). It’s sort of the mid-point between Vom Tag and the end point of a Zwerchhau.

Schrankhut (Barrier)

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The Schrankhut, or Schranckhut, is the Barrier Guard, described by Pseudo-Peter Von Danzig on the left side as ‘setting
your right foot forward and holding your sword with the point to the ground
near your left side with crossed hands such that the short edge of the
sword is above and give an opening on your right side’, and on the right it’s ‘standing with your left foot before and holding your sword with the point
near your right side on the earth (so that the long edge is above), and
giving an opening with the left side’. Several masters consider this guard interchangeable with the not-so-backwards-pointing version of Nebenhut.

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Joachim Meyer shows the Schrankhut as a left foot forward Crossed
Guard, as seen above, a position with the hands low and forward, with
the point forward towards the ground, similar to Hengetorte but with
both hands and weapon lower. Meyer also refers to this guard as
Eisenport, or Iron Gate, which is a bit interesting considering that elsewhere he refers to Iron Gate as the point-up Porta Di Ferro Alta-looking guard.

Kron (Crown)

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In Kron, the
sword hilt is held out about head height with the point up. It’s a high parry using the crossguard horizontally, with a regular sword grip. More than an actual guard, Kron is a defensive move in which you lift your sword vertically to catch a descending strike, often described as the best parry against a Scheitelhau, on the cross. Kron is used
at the bind and can be a prelude to grappling. The few unequivocal images we have of Kron, like the one above from Ringeck, are always about how to break it with Unterschnitt/Abschneiden, so it doesn’t come across as a position of the utmost interest to the authors.

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Some eminent chaps argue the possibility that what we see in Mair and Falkner described as Kron is not the fighter above on the right, but rather the one on the left, with a halbschwert (half-sword) grip against an incoming strike. Contemporary historical fencers certainly use both moves, but in the halls I train in, virtually everyone only calls Kron that parry or bind with the high crossguard forward. I personally call the other half-sword one “Shit, there goes Dave again”.

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This post exists mostly because I couldn’t find a comprehensive comparative listing of all these different versions of the non-core Liechtenauer guards online in one place to share with my training partners. Meyer’s terminology in particular is relatively divergent from the earlier sources in the German longsword tradition, but well described and illustrated, so there are quite a few articles exclusively about his works, such as the ones in the Meyer Freifechter Guild, the Meyer Free Scholars Guild and Wiki or even the Scholars of Alcala Meyer study, but for the pre-16th century guys, not so much. There’s ARMA’s basic guards of medieval longsword , which seems maybe a bit outdated, as far as the current understanding of the sources goes, but aside from chapter 4 in Keith Farrel’s German Longsword Study Guide (which is an excellent book btw that you should totally buy), I couldn’t find all of these positions within the German school, ranging from Hans Döbringer to Jakob Suttor, in one single easy-to-access online location. This is almost certainly because it’s quite a pain in the arse to do so. I thought this would be another simple copypasta tumblr job but it’s taken ages, and I’m far from having read, captured, and possibly understood, all the different nuances between sources.

All credit to Wiktenauer for most source images and much of the text, in particular the Jeffrey Forgeng’s Fechtkunst Glossary. The KDF Glossary is another great reference point. None of this is primary research of course, this was learnt in the training hall, or by reading other people’s translations, as well as trolling the forums, particularly HEMAA and Schola. Just like any other interpretation in HEMA, there is (some) room for debate in these. I also realise that the minute I post this someone will share a link to an even more comprehensive and better illustrated guide to German longsword guards, but hey, such is life.

Great post!

@fyeahsoftvaporboreanism

Noice

I feel like people need to know the Great Moose Truths.

naamahdarling:

elodieunderglass:

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shredsandpatches:

elodieunderglass:

Despite people in Canada/New England feeling a strong pride and sense of ownership surrounding moose, Europeans have the exact same moose. English speakers completely fucked up the naming conventions for the animal because we fuck EVERYTHING up. 

The Eurasian elk is the exact same animal as the moose. It is Alces alces. Here is a depiction of a Swedish soldier riding a moose into war in the 1700s.

Figure 1. The Swedish army used moose as cavalry animals at various points in history. I don’t know what the armored boar is all about.

However, the English caused a lot of confusion by originally calling it an “elk.” This comes from the older English word eolc/eolh, which shares roots with elhaz/algiz, which, if you know your runes, is the antler-looking rune ᛉ. 

So the English had moose, they just called them elks. But there haven’t been any moose in the UK since the Bronze Age, so the English just started using the word “elk” to apply to “really big deer” – and they forgot that there was a specific animal they used to call “elk.” 

Today, modern people from the United Kingdom have overwritten their own understanding of “elk” with Elk (USA), which are wapiti (Cervus canadensis). 

This is a wapiti, which everyone calls “elk” now:

Figure 2. The wapiti, or elk 

(Cervus canadensis)

“Hmmmmmmm,” British people may be saying right now. “That is a vaguely familiar animal. I feel like that is a STAG. I feel like it needs to be selling me a bottle of whiskey.”

YES. The wapiti is very similar to the UK’s red deer. This is what UK people call a “stag” : 

Figure 3. A stag, or British red deer (Cervus elaphus) – actually slightly less red than the wapiti.

The explanation for this is that the UK colonizers found the wapiti in the USA, but the problem was that red deer were rarely seen by the common people at that time, so they thought they were Unusually Big Deer. And so the colonizing bastards said “Hey, what are these, Nigel?” and Nigel was like “IDK, stags?” and they were like “Yeah but they look really big, don’t they?” and Nigel was like “well, what about calling them big deer, then” and they called them “elk” which at that point had come to mean “big deer” in English. 

Cervus elaphus (name meaning: deer deer) and Cervus canadensis (name meaning: Canadian deer) are very similar animals, and many people muddy the waters by calling Cervus elaphus an “elk.” The word ran all around the world, and American influence meant that it is losing its own definition in its own land. 

Cervus canadensis

are also found in Asia, where the subspecies are called wapiti, from the Shawnee word meaning “white rump.” This is to prevent confusion. If you see one in Mongolia, you must properly call it a “Canadian deer, aka ‘white butt,’ from the indigenous North American word” to prevent this kind of confusion.

Figure 4. The global range of

Cervus canadensis, the wapiti, or elk. 

Okay. Enough about what happened to the word “elk”. The point is that other European countries have reasonable amounts of moose, which they call elk. The “Eurasian elk” is Alces alces, the moose. 

Figure 5. A Swedish army representative wearing Swedish flags and riding a Swedish moose. ALSO, SOMEHOW, THE MOST CANADIAN THING EVER

So when the English settlers colonized Canada and New England, they continued their long history of fucking the fuck up. But in the middle of this, they saw Eurasian elks, had no idea what they were, and went with the local Algonquin word “moose.” 

They also called the same moose “elk” at the same time, and went into a slight confusion where they tried to differentiate them into “grey moose” and “black moose” and “black elk,” but when the dust settled, the world was left with British-colonizers-turned-Americans applying random names to everything, and winning. Wapiti are now called elk, and now red deer are also kind of elk. Eurasian elk are now moose. Wikipedia attempts to explain the moose fuckups here and the elk fuckups here.

The word “moose” is Algonquin in origin. This is why it doesn’t pluralize like English words do. In English, the plural of “goose” is “geese” and thus many people feel that the plural of “moose” should be “meese.” However, “moose” is not an English word. If you wanted to treat it as one, you could remember that moose are hoofed animals of a specific class, and you could follow the rules already laid down for moose relatives: The English plural of elk is elk. The English plural of deer is deer. The English plural of sheep is sheep. You can call multiple moose “meese” if you want to. But that’s why it is the way it is.

Figure 6. The global range of moose, or Eurasian elk.

So there you have it. Moose are an important, scary and hilarious part of Canadian/New Englander culture, but they aren’t just ours – we share them with Eurasian cultures too.

Figure 7: a Russian moose farmer with a promising crop

Figure 8: Finnish people provide a dark warning. “Hirvikolari” is a specific Finnish word describing a road accident involving a moose. There are many dashcam videos of hirvikolari on the Internet.

And now think about all the amazing Moose News you have access to now! You can now enjoy stories of moose destruction, mayhem and general fuckery SO MUCH MORE when you realize they aren’t about deer:

Figure 9: every line of this story is perfect?

Actually, you know what?

 That’s still the most Canadian thing ever.

I’M SO CONFUSED

(also, which one of them does Thranduil ride on?)

@shredsandpatches from how I remember the first Hobbit movie, I think it was a wapti?

A few people have asked this. Thranduil’s mount is a perfect Irish Elk (or more correctly, Irish Giant Deer), known as Megaloceros giganteus.

It’s a prehistoric giant deer, and not a close relation to the wapiti. (which is why paleontologists hope that we’ll start calling it an Irish Giant Deer instead of Irish Elk. TO PREVENT CONFUSION. IT IS NOT AN ELK!MOOSE OR AN ELK!WAPITI, IT IS A GIANT DEER. AND IT EXISTED.)

Figure 2. HOLY FUCK THE IRISH ELK.

Megaloceros went extinct about… 7000 years ago, and certainly did once coexist with humans.  There is a potential Folklore Ghost in the Irish word segh and the German work Schelch suggesting that Europeans may have kept their word for it, similarly to how the word aurochs is still extant, despite the Giant Fucking Killer Bull now being extinct. Anyway, it was definitely an animal and the prehistoric Europeans, Asians and North Africans who knew it definitely noticed it and thought about it, the same way that we all once knew mammoths. The Lascaux deer with palmate antlers was probably a Megaloceros.

Figure 3. HOLY FUCK THE IRISH ELK. Cave painting from Lascaux depicting a prehistoric deer with palmate antlers. Could be a reindeer, could be Megaloceros. The palms aren’t very reindeerish, though.

The LotR and Hobbit designers made the good decision of using prehistoric European animals as bases for the designs of the “fantasy animals” in the movies. Lots of fantasy designers do this. George RR Martin didn’t invent dire wolves, for example. The oliphants in LotR are based on prehistoric elephants, ditto and the orc’s war rhinos and the dwarves’ war pigs. The “wargs” aren’t actually dire wolves – which would be TOO CUTE AND BEAUTIFUL to be scary – but Dinocrocuta or Pachycrocuta, two kinds of giant prehistoric ancestral hyena.

Figure 4: Holy FUCK Dinocrocuta.

Anyway, it’s a good path to do down, because you can be incredibly lazy with the creature design, and take credit for all the cultural resonance it evokes. There is something about an Irish Giant Deer that just looks RIGHT, like EXTREMELY CORRECT AND PROPER, in a way that a made-up fantasy animal doesn’t always evoke.

Figure 5. Dire wolves weren’t actually that big. Smilodon (the sabertoothed cat) is smaller than a Cave Lion. Megaloceros is definitely big enough to ride, as is the spectacular wooly rhino, which always has my heart. The Aurochs (Bos primigenius) is there, looking fab.

And personally I think prehistoric megafauna are just so cool, and they just RESONATE. We spend all this time and energy inventing elves and aliens, looking to the stars and a fake fantasy past for cousins and creatures. Are there other humans out there that look like a different species but are still weirdly hot, and could we have sex with them? Are there recognizable animals that are like our animals, but with weird knobs and jaws?

But we did used to have them. We once had horse-sized war-pigs, giant wolves, lions the size of horses, elephants that bristled with teeth, armored beasts. We once had Other Human People, The Little People, the Neanderthals, with their own culture – and we totally slept with them. We had strange shamanic connections and early spiritual practices and ritual magic surrounding beasts, beasts that have only left ghosts. Because the world changed.

Figure 5. THE SCENE IN “BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD” WHERE SHE TOUCHES THE AUROCHS. I CRIED. IT FUCKING RESONATED. I MEAN THE AUROCHS IS MORE OF A GIANT PIG BUT IT RESONATED. 

But that’s why Thranduil’s war mount is not a moose (IT’S NOT A FUCKING MOOSE LOOK AT ITS FUCKING FACE) and not an elk (WHAT KIND OF FUCKING ELK HAS PALMATE ANTLERS) but a VERY SPECIAL AND MAJESTIC MEGAFAUNA.

I FEEL THE SAME WAY YOU DO ABOUT PREHISTORIC MEGAFAUNA.

IT’S JUST ALL CAPSLOCK ALL THE TIME FOR ME.

THEY FINALLY FOUND SABERTOOTH PRINTS AND I LEGIT CRIED ABOUT IT BECAUSE I COULDN’T  H A N D L E  IT.

FUCKING PALEO MAMMALS AMIRITE?!?!?

sergeantoblivious:

perplexingly:

misbehavingmaiar:

Nerds, help me out here:

I am not a science person, but my understanding is that sunsets are caused by Rayleigh scattering as light passes through a relatively larger amount of air molecules when it is low in the sky and the light travels perpendicular to the earth’s surface; the light then bounces off the clouds and reflects fancy colors into our eyes all pretty-like. 

So, if you had your primary light source actually affixed to the surface of the earth, with light emanating radially from a central point (say, two massively radioactive glowing trees): 

A) Would you see sunsets the farther away from the trees you got, with clear light and blue skies the closer you got?
B) Would you see sunsets only at a certain elevation, and from a distance?
C) Would there be insufficient air molecules to scatter the light? 
D) Would you have to be like, WAY far away to see sunsets? Like on another continent? (Assuming the earth isn’t curved.)
E) I guess shadows would always point the same direction and it would vary depending on where you were relative to the trees?
F) HOW DO YOU GET A LIGHT SOURCE BRIGHT ENOUGH TO ILLUMINATE A WHOLE LANDMASS WITHOUT BLINDING ANYONE THAT LOOKED AT IT?
G) …Okay, would only Manwë and Varda ever get to see Sunsets from their stratospheric perch on Taniquietl? 
H) The trees would have to rotate somehow. I mean. They just would have to. Otherwise you’d have one always casting a shadow on a certain part of Aman. And everywhere else that had something blocking the path of the light, for that matter. Some bits of vegetation would get all the sunlight forever and then it’d be like WELCOME TO THE DEADZONE as soon as you hit tree shadow.
I) Would the lighting situation improve if Varda put like a big ol’ mirror in the sky to reflect the light back down?

J) Should I give up trying to make actual giant glowing trees work as a viable world building element and stick to a magical/metaphysical/non-literal explanation? orz ;; trees tho

reblogging here because i’m extremely curious about the answer

Looking through my astro notes, I think the answers are (in order): 

Yes, yes, no, yes, yes, you don’t, unknown, if you want even distribution of light they would have to move a lot, yes but that just makes the mirror basically the sun, and probably but who is going to stop you?

I hope this helps is some tiny way.

Oh man, I got THE COOLEST input on this question! 😀 

(Also thank you to those of you chipping in from outside the fandom! If you’re confused about what’s going on, I’m basically wrestling with some of Tolkien’s more whimsical ideas and trying to ground them loosely in physics– which he’d absolutely hate me doing, btw.)

So far the ideas that I ended up liking the best were the ones that provided a concrete, unique imagery that I can work with for my art and writing.
  These posts and comments in particular were the ones that I think will influence my design the most, but I am SO THRILLED to see more people adding ideas! ❤

The solution I think works best for my purposes is that the trees disperse light not only from their leaves, but also as a kind of luminous pollen. If the trees themselves are not the primary source of light, but the waves of pollen they create, then that relieves some of the burden of them looking like massive radioactive lightbulbs, AND I think I can do away with having them rotate. (Mind you, slowly rotating tress might be cool… I just don’t know how to draw that effectively.)

The pollen drifts across the landmass and fades as the tree it came from goes dormant. The particles would probably be as light or lighter than air, and have unusual properties that allow them to change states like water. When they fall to earth, they are taken in with the groundwater and travel to the aquifers that are Varda’s Wells, which also collect the “dew” from the trees.
The atmosphere of Aman would be heavy, luminous, misty, and prismatic, with enough fine particulates in the air and reflective clouds above that there would be plenty of light refraction going around creating pretty colors and effects.

The trees themselves will have fractal branches, and they are massive.
I was having trouble picturing the scale of them in relation to Valinor, so I went ahead and squeezed out a model from angry polygons: 

image

Here is Aman, with the two trees in the center. Kinda, sorta, ish. 

 I’ve put the Gardens of Lorien in between the trees becauseI thought that would be a suitable place for them, what with the mingling of the light etc etc. (I basically ignored Tolkien’s notes on where the various homes of the Valar are located and just plunked them wherever they looked natural).  

Alqualondë is sticking off the end there on the peninsula. Up the road is Tirion, with Valmar next door. The hexagonal fortress thingy off to the left is Formenos.

 The Woods of Oromë are on the far side (blocked by mountains in this screenshot) and would probably receive slightly less light, but there are possibly other light sources there, such as bioluminescent plants and lamps shiny Ainur prancing about. The large squarish thing is Aulë’s forge, which sticks right into the mountains. The spiral canyon is Mandos. The big phallic mountain sticking way above everything else is, of course, Taniquetil.

image

Here’s Tirion, and in the background, Valmar, at the foot of Taniquetil. (The weird floaty mickymouse things are clouds. THEY’RE CLOUDS TRUST ME)

image

image

The Wells of Varda are represented by the circles on the ground– they are fed by aquifers that collect the fallen tree-light particles and draw them back to the pools.
…..Please forgive my pathetically sculpted mushroomoids, I did my best.

image

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(For scale, here is our lord and savior, default-human Stan Lee, who oversees all my creations in Sketchup.)

Thank you, Stan Lee. A star shines on the hour of our meeting.

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