Tag: Textual Conquests

“Ji! Get me a boat.”

masteroftheseas:

misbehavingmaiar:

ji-indur:

The moment the last corsair stepped off the ship, the many rowboats slowly moving away, closer to the shore but never landing, just slowly rocking nearby the cliffs in the gentle waves, Ji Indur felt two things- a sense of loneliness to have his ship so empty and abandoned and the sensation of a cornered animal as he himself could not go anywhere now unless he’d decide to jump into the water. But nay, that would be foolish and look just ridiculous. T’was not that he was /afraid/ of his master. Not at all. At least he kept telling himself that, and right now it seemed there was little for him to worry about besides moving the ship which already had started to jerk forward as the sails had been set, catching the gentle breeze. 

But before he could step to the helm he was addressed by the Maia and once again harshly reminded that even not speaking his mind would not save him from trouble as the ring gave his master ample possibilities to peer directly into his servant’s mind, even without Ji Indur’s permission. How he loathed this connection as it left him without any defenses but he forced himself to remain calm, bowing his head lightly as if to apologize for his curious thoughts. 

While he felt compelled to ask more, curious questions about his master’s time in Númenor, the corsair felt it would not be wise to remind Him of the period in His existence where He had been a prisoner and treated with little respect. So no, no word and no thought would be there willing to ask for more, instead Ji Indur focused on the tasks at hand and the question as to what Sauron had planned and was seeking to accomplish on this element that was under the command of Osse. To think that the Dark Lord felt /weak/ here would not change anything about how easily He could dispose of an unruly wraith would Ji Indur seek to cause trouble or disrupt His scheming. 

And being told that Sauron had considered taking the ship against the wraith’s wishes did do little to soothe the worries and the tension that was still taking hold of his mind and body. Ah yes… That…particular enchantment. For now it would not cause him any harm he hoped so maybe the Maia even found it amusing that one of the Nine had been blessed by the Master Of the Seas. Taking a deep, albeit unneeded breath, the wraith then walked up to the wheel to take control and guide the Kraken out into the open sea. Of course he too wanted to know now what Sauron had planned but all he could still think of was that He’d try to bait Osse somehow and capture him like a fish and if only for a moment. In a fight Maia against Maia with their elements not there to help them…who would win? 

@misbehavingmaiar @masteroftheseas

The ship’s prow pushed through emerald blue waters at a brisk pace, the winds behind them accommodating the strange two-man journey with neither wrath nor mischief. The sun held steady in a cloudless sky, and the Kraken cut a white-lipped ripple through the untroubled sea. 

Sauron, having acclimatized somewhat to the roll of the deck, stood at the stern’s rail and observed the foam-flecked trail fanning out behind them. His helmsman had grown quiet during the journey, both in voice and thought. He’d erred in reminding the pirate how much of his mind was open to him… it was often best to let Men retain the illusion of privacy, to preserve goodwill. 

But his attention was not on Ji, but the waves, and the sleek creatures that dove and dogged their wake– like wolves, but in play, rather than hunt. They were nearing the depths he desired, and his heart thundered. 

“Here. Steady her here.” 

Master if you are listening, bend your thoughts on me and shroud me from Uluboz this day…  The maia rubbed his palms together, centering his will. 

There was work to be done; and despite the dangers, the surge of excitement made him giddy. 

First the rope. It was as long and sturdy as he could have hoped for– what it had previously been designed for he did not know. Perhaps a ship’s anchor, which would be appropriate. To its end he affixed a heavy iron cast hook, used for lifting cargo. When that was to his liking, he moved up the rope and tied the green glass buoys at intervals along its length. Five seemed sufficient. Then the rope he looped and slipped about the main mast, and tied it with a firm and clever knot. 

The entire span of rope weighed as much as a deep chest of coins, but to the lord of anvil and iron it was no difficulty to shoulder its coils and heave it over the side. The length from the mast ran taut as the bulk of it sank, reaching a strange equilibrium between the iron hook and the air-filled baubles. There– he tugged his beard, pleased. 

Next, the net. It was a finely crafted work indeed; he could smell Teler hands and Teler silks in its lightweight weave. He wondered briefly where Ji might have acquired such a thing– but a pirate has his ways. 
There was no elaborate preparation needed here. He folded the net carefully and set it to one side. It, like many of the items, was not essential in itself, but rather a precaution. Or at least, he mused, a interesting diversion. Time would tell.

Finally, it was his turn to prepare. 
Large hands nimbly removed the gold bands from his ears and wrists and fingers– all save one. Then the cover from his head, the coat from his broad shoulders, and the shirt beneath, were laid all aside; waves of slate-colored hair fell over his bare back, unrestrained. He stripped down to nothing save an undercloth and a sash, into which he tucked two daggers– curved and wicked as fangs– and the folded net. 

Then he turned to his helmsman. “If anything goes wrong, know that this line here is my way back to safety. If I am unable to return to the surface on my own power, I will send a vibration up this rope, and you, Ji, will need to pull me aboard. Do not hesitate to use the power of Failaya, understand?”

The dark lord grinned, sharp and white. “Wish me luck.”  

With that he balanced himself catlike on the ship’s rail, and dove overboard. 

@ji-indur  @masteroftheseas

It did not matter how far Ossë physically traveled; his spirit was entwined with the sea, and he felt with its waves and heard with its currents. Much like a Child could choose to ignore an itch or tune out a sound, he often disregarded his senses as troublesome distractions. But with his cousin lurking so close, he was not wholly ignorant of his domain.

He was wary. Every act and every word Sauron spoke of late was to trick and tempt him. This stunt was surely no different, but this one was all the more irresistible because it blurred the lines between game and danger. If he ignored Sauron’s actions and something happened, Ulluboz would never let him forget his failure – at that, he would never forgive himself.

Usually the sea was avoided by their enemies. The triumvirate that ruled it (specifically its lords) had earned the reputation to keep trespassers at bay. Ulluboz may have been the waters’ heart, but Ossë was its true might and majesty. He was the fastest and the strongest when he was in his element, and in the few instances he had acted with no restraint he had earned his given name. As much as he was teased about his leashes, Arda was not prepared to handle him unchained.

His attention shot to Sauron the moment he breached the waves. The sea’s song blurred and muted, fumbled and lost its way in the wake of the shadowy and sooty spirit that bubbled down. Even with his physical body still far out of sight, Ossë’s response was swift:  the waters swirled and cooled and darkened, a vortex forming with the intent to trap the intruder and drag him further into the murky depths as the pressure mounted. The sea’s song altered, resonating with a steady and thrumming beat like a heart beginning to race. On the surface, the Kraken shuddered and drifted gently with the current, slowly beginning to rotate.

It was mere minutes for the glow of Ossë’s eyes to appear from what he deemed a safe distance to watch Sauron, challenging and daring.

@ji-indur @misbehavingmaiar


How cold it was! 

The shock of it paralyzed him as the water enclosed his body. Even the frigid north, with the high winds of the Helcaraxë had not troubled him, but here the water drowned him like a quenched blade from the forge; he felt the boil of steam and bubbles roll off his skin.

For an instant he panicked, spine arching tense with cold, and he fought to regain the surface, finding himself plummeting rather than floating. But there was the rope, the lifeline he’d prepared, and he grasped it in desperation until he could muster his courage. 

He pulled down the great coils until the first of the buoys was within reach. A maia did not need to breathe– that at least was not a concern. The air the baubles contained was for the purpose of defense, which he hoped would not be necessary, but their presence (and their buoyancy) calmed him. And once calm, he was overtaken with awe. 

This was Ossë’s realm. 

To mortal eyes, even the clear sea became impenetrable in its vastness; light itself could not pierce the veil of depth that hid the world beneath. But Sauron saw; his sight which was more than sight took in both the miles of emptiness and the seething life within. His eyes glowed like lamp beacons in the azure deep.

In every direction their lay a new fascination. Clouds of silver fish flashing in unison, moving as though a smoke billow had gained a governing mind (and had he not seen flocks of birds evade falcons thus? How strange the friendship between Manwë and Ulmo!); sail-backed fish of incredible speed lunging into the swirl of prey, and behind them great titans of maw and teeth circling languidly;  delicate and glowing nodes of translucent poison, pulsing and feeding and populating by some whim of nature unseen; in the graveyard of the seabed, carcasses of sunken behemoths squirming with eels, their greying flesh gnawed clean to the bone– and there! There, far to the north, he spied something familiar. 

Ah. He’d been hoping they’d be within the reach of his gaze… Black and white hunters, sea-wolves roaming in packs, cruel and laughing and clever. 

Sauron had seen the bones and slaughtered remains of cetaceans; he had seen them beached and rotted on the black-rocked shores. At times he had even spied them breeching the ice and pulling hapless beasts to their death– but he had never seen them here, seen them flying, rejoicing in their own power under the waves, and this gave him an idea. There was much he could do that would immensely improve his visit…

Keenly he observed their construction, the mechanics of their bodies and the method of their propulsion. He had copied them before, crudely; his design based on partial understanding and mere aesthetic. Now his failures became clear, and so too the way forward to a more perfect construction. 

All this he witnessed as though in a dream wherein seconds move as slowly as hours– but now he woke, and as he began to shift the atoms of his body into a more streamlined and inhuman shape, Sauron felt the sea change. 

The darting silver fish and their hunters fled. The azure swells darkened to the grey of storms. The current, once predictable, stilled ominously, and then it veered, gaining unnatural momentum as it turned a vulture’s circle. It began to pull– down, down, insistent, slow, inexorable. 
Sauron wrapped the moored rope around one fist– now a sleek, shining obsidian. He surged upward against the vortex with his new, powerful finned legs, and turned to face the wild eyes of Ossë. 

“Cousin!” The maia spread smooth muscled, white-on-black arms in greeting, his voice echoing as music over the roar of the water. “You are very much earlier than I expected! I had hoped to spare you my first unlovely attempts at swimming.” He grinned, needle-toothed. “The sea! It is a fierce, beautiful thing! I had guessed but I dared not imagine! You are right to covet it– but as you would not describe its wonders to me, I had to see it for myself! You would not come to me, so I have come to you!” 

His smile was broad but it faltered as the current threatened to wrench him off the now-taut line, anchored to its unsinkable craft above. 

“Please, Cousin, I meant no harm coming here. Where is your hospitality?”

@masteroftheseas  @ji-indur

“Ji! Get me a boat.”

ji-indur:

misbehavingmaiar:

“I am no servant of Manwë, but should the winds be unfavorable, I can provide a draft of heat if necessary… I do not believe there is enough of my, ah, element, aboard for me to move the craft by will alone, but I could attempt it in a crisis.”

Sauron paced around deck, muttering such considerations to himself while inspecting whatever knot or pulley came under his hands. The crew made their exit with many a curious glance backwards, but there was little fuss. 

His wayward pirate thrall he noted was churning with questions– though not the intended recipient of his ring, Ji’s mind was still an open book via the bond with its master. 

“You are wondering why this is novel to me– this ship, this voyage, the sea. You presume that I was at leisure during my passage to Numenor to take in the sights, and not bound in iron and mithril deep within the hold.” He mentioned coldly while the wraith was in hearing. “It is not your place to ask, but I will tell you anyway: I recall nothing but that it was dark, and cold, and damp, and that I was groundless; without bearing or sense of where I was going, and all around I felt the hostile power of the sea growing dense around me, closing in, wishing to crush and bury me. …It was a tense voyage.” Gold eyes flickered, askance. 

“The sea itself does not frighten me. I am duly and appropriately cautious of the powers that govern it, and aware that in its demesne I am at my weakest. I do not relish, Ji, the helplessness that water engenders in me. But today I am determined to overcome these obstacles and attempt something I have never done before. That is why I require help, and this assortment of gear whose usefulness I am not entirely assured of. I do not know yet what I will need, so I shall take every precaution. And I am glad of your help though, in truth, had you chosen to withhold it, I would have commandeered your ship myself.” 

He cocked his head, gold ornaments chiming. “…Not as a personal slight, you understand. I am merely determined to see out this little experiment, and your vessel, with its particular enchantment, is the only one that will do.” 

As they cast out to sea, the dark lord drew a deep breath and steadied himself, watching the horizon. It was a peculiar sensation to feel so vulnerable, as if he were another mortal with only his wits and tools to keep him afloat. But the wits and tools of men had been enough for them to travel the world over, and his own, he considered, were a formidable force in themselves. He kept his senses tuned to his Cousin’s presence, reassuring himself that for the time being, he remained far afield… That suited his purposes for the moment.

@ji-indur @masteroftheseas

The moment the last corsair stepped off the ship, the many rowboats slowly moving away, closer to the shore but never landing, just slowly rocking nearby the cliffs in the gentle waves, Ji Indur felt two things- a sense of loneliness to have his ship so empty and abandoned and the sensation of a cornered animal as he himself could not go anywhere now unless he’d decide to jump into the water. But nay, that would be foolish and look just ridiculous. T’was not that he was /afraid/ of his master. Not at all. At least he kept telling himself that, and right now it seemed there was little for him to worry about besides moving the ship which already had started to jerk forward as the sails had been set, catching the gentle breeze. 

But before he could step to the helm he was addressed by the Maia and once again harshly reminded that even not speaking his mind would not save him from trouble as the ring gave his master ample possibilities to peer directly into his servant’s mind, even without Ji Indur’s permission. How he loathed this connection as it left him without any defenses but he forced himself to remain calm, bowing his head lightly as if to apologize for his curious thoughts. 

While he felt compelled to ask more, curious questions about his master’s time in Númenor, the corsair felt it would not be wise to remind Him of the period in His existence where He had been a prisoner and treated with little respect. So no, no word and no thought would be there willing to ask for more, instead Ji Indur focused on the tasks at hand and the question as to what Sauron had planned and was seeking to accomplish on this element that was under the command of Osse. To think that the Dark Lord felt /weak/ here would not change anything about how easily He could dispose of an unruly wraith would Ji Indur seek to cause trouble or disrupt His scheming. 

And being told that Sauron had considered taking the ship against the wraith’s wishes did do little to soothe the worries and the tension that was still taking hold of his mind and body. Ah yes… That…particular enchantment. For now it would not cause him any harm he hoped so maybe the Maia even found it amusing that one of the Nine had been blessed by the Master Of the Seas. Taking a deep, albeit unneeded breath, the wraith then walked up to the wheel to take control and guide the Kraken out into the open sea. Of course he too wanted to know now what Sauron had planned but all he could still think of was that He’d try to bait Osse somehow and capture him like a fish and if only for a moment. In a fight Maia against Maia with their elements not there to help them…who would win? 

@misbehavingmaiar @masteroftheseas

The ship’s prow pushed through emerald blue waters at a brisk pace, the winds behind them accommodating the strange two-man journey with neither wrath nor mischief. The sun held steady in a cloudless sky, and the Kraken cut a white-lipped ripple through the untroubled sea. 

Sauron, having acclimatized somewhat to the roll of the deck, stood at the stern’s rail and observed the foam-flecked trail fanning out behind them. His helmsman had grown quiet during the journey, both in voice and thought. He’d erred in reminding the pirate how much of his mind was open to him… it was often best to let Men retain the illusion of privacy, to preserve goodwill. 

But his attention was not on Ji, but the waves, and the sleek creatures that dove and dogged their wake– like wolves, but in play, rather than hunt. They were nearing the depths he desired, and his heart thundered. 

“Here. Steady her here.” 

Master if you are listening, bend your thoughts on me and shroud me from Uluboz this day…  The maia rubbed his palms together, centering his will. 

There was work to be done; and despite the dangers, the surge of excitement made him giddy. 

First the rope. It was as long and sturdy as he could have hoped for– what it had previously been designed for he did not know. Perhaps a ship’s anchor, which would be appropriate. To its end he affixed a heavy iron cast hook, used for lifting cargo. When that was to his liking, he moved up the rope and tied the green glass buoys at intervals along its length. Five seemed sufficient. Then the rope he looped and slipped about the main mast, and tied it with a firm and clever knot. 

The entire span of rope weighed as much as a deep chest of coins, but to the lord of anvil and iron it was no difficulty to shoulder its coils and heave it over the side. The length from the mast ran taut as the bulk of it sank, reaching a strange equilibrium between the iron hook and the air-filled baubles. There– he tugged his beard, pleased. 

Next, the net. It was a finely crafted work indeed; he could smell Teler hands and Teler silks in its lightweight weave. He wondered briefly where Ji might have acquired such a thing– but a pirate has his ways. 
There was no elaborate preparation needed here. He folded the net carefully and set it to one side. It, like many of the items, was not essential in itself, but rather a precaution. Or at least, he mused, a interesting diversion. Time would tell.

Finally, it was his turn to prepare. 
Large hands nimbly removed the gold bands from his ears and wrists and fingers– all save one. Then the cover from his head, the coat from his broad shoulders, and the shirt beneath, were laid all aside; waves of slate-colored hair fell over his bare back, unrestrained. He stripped down to nothing save an undercloth and a sash, into which he tucked two daggers– curved and wicked as fangs– and the folded net. 

Then he turned to his helmsman. “If anything goes wrong, know that this line here is my way back to safety. If I am unable to return to the surface on my own power, I will send a vibration up this rope, and you, Ji, will need to pull me aboard. Do not hesitate to use the power of Failaya, understand?”

The dark lord grinned, sharp and white. “Wish me luck.”  

With that he balanced himself catlike on the ship’s rail, and dove overboard. 

@ji-indur  @masteroftheseas

Of the written word

curufinwefeanaro:

misbehavingmaiar:

The Vala sucked in a breath. –Fire–, or the idea of it, leapt from the mind of Fëanáro to his with a strong sense of warning, like a firm hand holding him back.

He had not expected that; he’d never had the mind of an elf touch his before. He had not know they could. For the most infinitesimal fraction of a second, he had a glimpse into the wheels and colorful fragments of the finest engineering brain the Noldor race had yet produced. It felt a bit like catching a glimpse of someone extremely beautiful undressing through an open window… Melkor felt a coppery blush spread hot across his face, realizing too late that he’d not heard a word that had been spoken for several seconds. 

”…a system of thirty-two graphemes…“ Fëanáro continued, voice low and intense, the voice that could famously enthrall a lecture hall in total silence with only a breath, or a all the kingdom with a roar.

As much as it had been tantalizing to gain knowledge of something so pivotal and cryptic as the written word, the chance to have uninterrupted, private audiences with the High Prince had been many times as tempting. He could only imagine what had drawn down the Spirit of Fire from his high disdain of the Vala to have a seat at this table…
Perhaps as the ‘least of the dwellers in Aman’, he was simply the only one of his brethren available for use in this (slightly blasphemous) experiment.

What a strain Vairë must be under, winding our two threads together… Melkor reflected, eyes tracking the elegant, meaningless strokes of ink that flowed across the scroll. They may as well have been geese flying across the open sky, for all they resembled language.
Could he learn? Did a being with no set biology, no childhood, whose raison d’être had been set from the instant of their creation, have the capacity to change?

“Who, if not I, Master Fëanáro? When there was Nothing, I learned of all there could be. When there was only Harmony I wrought Dissonance; when the elements were separate, I broke and recombined them; for the sake of my siblings’ law, I have had to–” Lie “–learn to become other than what I was in order to live. If The Mighty Arising cannot comprehend something new and unthought of, then surely, it is beyond all Valar.” Melkor gleamed, long tendrils of fire curling into a smug halo.
But then, with the candid spirit of the meeting weighing upon him, the Vala paused, thorned shoulders rising in a contrite shrug. 

“…That is, in any case, the only evidence I have to suggest that I can indeed learn of things beyond the continuum of my design. The truth is… I do not yet know.”

I wish to know… I am frightened NOT to know… the shadows of his mind whispered. What hope is there, if it is not possible to alter what was made? 


“Please. Explain how you devised such things. I am listening.”  

« And I would not be surprised, if it were beyond all Valar », Fëanáro answered, but not with malice. He pondered, almost on the verge of tilting his head like an attentive, curious child, but raising his chin instead. « I read… transcriptions of some of the councils in the Máhanaxar, those who were understandable enough to be written down. Again, from memory to parchment. » He was thinking about one of them, in particular, that council which had sealed his mother’s fate and his father’s choice into what Mandos had judged universal laws; he was thinking of the Statute, and he pursed his lips at the thought. « They struggle to understand needs that are not their own, and fail. »

          A tense note quivered in his voice, but as his eyes turned to Melkor again, and to his burning aura, the wrinkle between his eyes disappeared and his furrowed brows relaxed. « But I do not yet know either. » Yet Melkor was agreeing to experiment with him and give him an answer, and that for now was enough. He sought them, and thus answers would come, one way or the other.

          He sat down again, reached out for a new, untouched paper, and picked the quill up, the one whose tip had been blackened by the Vala’s hot breath. « Consider this, Melkórë. Each of the sounds that the Quendi produce with their mouths, their teeth, tongues and throats must coincide with a sign on the paper, and the correspondence must be conventional even as it is arbitrary. When you read those signs you will know to which sounds they correspond, and you will not have to hear them aloud to understand. That is the core of written language. And each of the Tengwar represents and is adapted to coincide to a specific point of articulation in our mouths. »

         He stared at the Vala for a moment, then leaned forward and dipped the quill in the black ink. « This is tinco », he said, and as he pronounced it he also wrote it. Upside down with regard to himself, so that Melkor could observe it from the right direction. His hand moved with a deliberate slowness, making it evident what it was writing: a long vertical line and a single bow on its upper right. « The sound it represents is— T. Voiceless dental occlusive, to use specific terminology. Your tongue must touch the upper arch of your teeth, which is why it is dental, air stops as it leaves the mouth and we cannot prolong the sound, which is why it is an occlusive, and there is no vibration of our throat », he then touched the lower part of his neck, only partially covered by his collar, « here, which is why it is voiceless. But I am being too specific. »

          He dipped the quill again. « Still, it is useful information, for the Tengwar are divided in four series, the témar. Four columns, and the first of them is the Tincotéma, called so because all the sounds represented by these graphemes are dental –or alveolar, which is simply, ah, the tongue touching your teeth’s sockets rather than your teeth themselves. » With quicker movements, he started adding other signs. « In the second row, under tinco, there is ando, then come thúle, anto, númen and… I shall leave out the sixth row, for now. » The quill rested in his hand for a moment, and he found out yet again that explaining in detail how his alphabet worked, and explaining it to a lay, to someone who knew nothing of the discipline, was difficult and tiring. Which was also why he only gave lectures and did not teach classes. He took much knowledge for granted and realising that, at times, it had to be explained was almost vexing.

          « When the bow is doubled », he added, pointing at the second row, « the voiceless letter turns into a voiced one. Tinco does not make our throat vibrate, but ando does. Raising the vertical stem above the bow, instead of below, turns the occlusive into the corresponding fricative– that is, air passes through a narrow channel and is not stopped. Tinco is the occlusive, thúle is the fricative. The fourth row is peculiar to sounds of Quenya, they are clusters. Shortening the stem like in the fifth row turns the letter in a nasal. Air passes through our nose. And all of these variations are valid for the other three colums as well, only that sounds are no more articulated against our teeth but with other parts of our mouths. »

           Fëanáro breathed in and twisted the quill between his fingers. « I trust that a Vala does not need me to repeat what I say more than once, even if it is the first time that he hears of such notions. But I would not be surprised if you asked me why I feel the need to attach so many informations to little glyphs. Would you ask that, Melkor? If you would, then I tell you: letters are not part of our beings. We are born with voices, with the involuntary instinct to breathe, with the need to eat, but remembering how to write means using memory, and creating a way to write means understanding the mechanism. Much like we need to understand how to farm the land, if we wish to make grow what can bloom with a single note of Yavanna’s voice. I made my Tengwar fewer than the Sarati, and thus easier to remember and to use, but that required much understanding. For you see, sometimes what looks easier is what has required the longest work. » He raised his brows and dipped the quill yet again. 

          « If you have no questions, I shall proceed. »

“They struggle to understand needs that are not their own, and fail”

He at once felt a stirring of resentment and understanding; he’d been the recipient of the Valar’s incomprehension time enough, and now he had the uncomfortable sensation that he had overlooked, nay, willfully discounted, many things due to that same loftiness.  It was something he would consider in the future, when calculating his own advantage— but it left an unpleasant feeling in his head, like the buzzing of an insect he could not see, and so he cast the thoughts aside.

It worried him to know that an elf could hear and record the speech of his brethren; that a lesser being could comprehend the divine dialect seemed to him like water running uphill. It was unnatural, shocking— intriguing. Just the sort of information he could tuck away for later use. He felt a small, whimsical swell of admiration for the sheer transgression of these simple creatures, spying on his brothers and sisters in council, learning their tongue. (He presumed they were spying. Even if they had been invited to attend, he was certain that the Valar took for granted the inability of the Children to understand them in their native speech.)

Fëanáro returned to his seat with a hiss of red silk. A sheet of cream-colored parchment slid between them. Quill touched paper;

A little symphony in susurrus. His ears twitched in anticipation.

The principle introduced was such a simple one he felt ashamed for not guessing it immediately— and yet, the longer he thought upon the trouble of producing a sign for every sound a mouth could make, the prospect became dizzying. But he nodded when the prince looked to him for response.

The first glyph was introduced. “Tinco”— Sharp sounds, like sparks from a fire. He watched his host’s mouth articulate the sound, while the quill scratched a little black line and hook onto the sheet with careful elegance.

Immediately, he felt the beginnings of a war within his brain. I already know what that sound is, get on with it! Screamed one voice, while another shouted equally loud, Stop! There’s no room in my head for this! Melkor inhaled and licked his lips, discreetly making claw marks in the table as he took measures to clear the slate of his mind.

“Tinco”, he repeated, and mouthed silently the postures of tongue and throat that Fëanáro described, testing the feel of them as if for the first time, though he’d been speaking them for an age.

It made perfect sense, what was being said. Each little sound was a particle making up a whole, each whole strung together to form an image in the mind, each image placed in context within a larger system of meaning. He understood this— he’d built the structure for gold, for carbon, atom by atom in his mind, before Singing it into the map of existence. Of course he understood! And yet…

Resistance. Or no, rather, slipperiness, was making sounds and information slosh about. There was no place for it to be stored, so it simply toppled through his head and out his ears again as soon as it entered. He struggled to remember what he’d just heard—

occlusive, fricative, rows, teeth, voiceless, tongue…

His secret grip on the table increased. Within he grasped at the fluttering shreds of knowledge he’d held intact for an instant before they’d been blown away by a fresh gust of information. He was drowning, but he did all he could to keep the signs of it from showing on his face.

“…I would not be surprised if you asked me why I feel the need to attach so much information to little glyphs. Would you ask that, Melkor?”

The Vala blinked. What? Suddenly he was reintroduced to the present conversation. How much time had passed? Seconds. He felt ill.

Fëanáro explained how he’d made his system of writing easier and simpler than the one before it. “What looks easier has required the longest work.”

Melkor felt himself swallow on a dry throat. “I have no questions. Only—“ his eyes fluttered shut for an instant, dizzy. “…Give me a moment alone to think, and look at what you have written.”

-dream meme-

doegred:

“You will be gentle with me”

His lashes lower as he nods. “Yes.”

“I will not be gentle with you.”

“No.” He agrees. 

“Lay down.“ 

You are so much smaller than he is; your body grew lean and hard with duress, while his curves outward with strength; a luxurious excess of size and power. It  overwhelms you like a forbidden feast set before a starving man. Your eyes are level with his collar bone, but still, he does your bidding without a word (his breath did halt— your heard it— he is surprised by your tone, not displeased). 

You, in your dream, are driven by the inertia of denial. The less you examine what you are doing, the more you feel capable of anything. Impossibilities dissolve, taboos evaporate, morals avert their gaze for the duration of your sleeping trespasses. The less you examine, the easier it becomes. You climb astride him, lifting your battered legs, taut from riding and long marches, placing a knee on either side of his hips. From here you feel less overwhelmed. From here you can feel his heat, the rise of his broad brown chest, look down at his curious rapture and know that he is waiting for your next move.

 You could strangle him. You could slap him hard across the plane of his leonine face. You could reach for your knife that you know is hidden beneath the mattress, and a viper would be less quick. You have done all these things before, and in the waking world, you would do them again. But now you rock backwards and listen to his long helpless groan; you let yourself be folded in, a warm palm on your back and one in your hair, and kissed (gently, because he promised— though there is tension in the jaw, an impatience that belies hunger in the stroke of his tongue, the frequency with which he presses his mouth to yours, the grip he has on the sides of your skull). 

The dream is merciful in its lack of clarity; the sensations are vivid but the context is vague. You know it is him, but you are less sure that you are you. And since time is fluid here, your experience of a kiss flows seamlessly into perfect knowledge of what his lips feel like between your thighs. 

You tell him to beg you for what he wants, and oh— he does. Those are delicious words in his voice… rumbling, soft and deep and desperate, pleading with you for mercy. You smile so wide it hurts, white teeth to the sky. Your mercy never felt so violent. You want his mouth around you because he wants it so, so badly, and because he is at your feet like a humbled mountain; because you ache for it, because he is shameless, and eager, and you know he will be perfect, that his tongue will curl like wet velvet around you and as you watch, his eyes will close with bliss and he will bury you in his throat until your fingers claw his hair for purchase. 

 He wants so much to please you, to hear ecstasy in your voice when you wail— but you don’t know why. You see it in his eyes how much he wants this, with longing equal to the insatiable cruelty you’ve become accustomed to. 

It is because this is a dream, you think, that pleasure and forgetfulness seem to heal you; allow you both to come together as if all that mattered was how well you fit together. 

You bite him and kiss him and ride him and he sinks into you slow, so slow! (he did promise…) He hardly moves and you feel as though you’re bursting; perched on the edge of overflow, but he is so gentle… why did you have him promise to be so gentle? The sounds he makes leave you panting, and still— his teeth scrape your throat, and still— his back rigid as the curve of a bow above you, bending in rhythm— and still— he calls for you, and just a feather’s touch will end you now and all you can say is his name— over and over— 

You wake with it still on your lips.

(( please forgive my sins of OoC and also probably grammar and purple prose because it is five in the morning and my brain held me hostage until I wrote this I AM SO SO SoRRY *leaps into the garbage* ))

(( @misbehavingmaiar NEVER NEVER NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR THIS GLORY! This is absolutely beautiful! I love it and it caters to all my sins.. This roleplaying community really missed you and this is but one of the many reasons why))

meme: Send my muse a wet dream and they will rate it on how they wake up:

5 ((We have a winner!)) & 1

Keep reading

doegred-main:

Inspired by this post and misbehavingmaiar’s head canon.

There is a strange flash in Maedhros’ eyes, something oddly similar to deep satisfaction when the Maia before him, instead of trying to break his shackles turns into a shiny fluid that bubbles and… In a sudden movement the Noldo throws his sword away, behind a door that his herald promptly closes. Barely a spark of pain appearing in his expression as his right shoulder hits the ground, his left hand flies toward a switch. The movement clearly rehearsed. A flicker of his fingers and the noise of running water filling the cellar is joined by a strange high pitched buzz. 
Maedhros’s laughter is low, throaty and deeply satisfied as the shiny metallic fluid the Maia’s limbs have become twists and turns, splitting in beams that are violently pulled by an unseen force towards the enormous four metallic disks affixed to the floor and ceiling linked together in a toroidal shape. Now, along the mouldy smell of wet earth a pungent ozone scent fills the room.
“Do you like this Thauron?” Only now Sauron notices it: there is not a single piece of metal on the Noldo’s body, his armour replaced by a leather cuirass, strings and buttons instead of clasps..
With slow elegance, contrasting with the breathless tone of his voice, Maedhros refuses his herald’s help and rises to his feet, his eyes shining with satisfaction as he lets them roam over the trapped Maia.
“I studied so long how to make this work.” There is something almost dreamy in his tone.
It is only after a minute of contemplation that the Noldo is finally able to look away. Lightly licking his lips he directs his gaze to a small table covered by a rag. His eyes seem to burn like gray pools of molten aluminium. Turning his back to the prisoner, in a gesture of confidence so unlike himself, he walks toward it, his hand delicately lifting the cloth before the Noldo spares a sideway glance towards his captive. His tone now amicable, almost conversational. “You know: the trickiest part was figuring out the cooling system for the magnets.”
A sickeningly sweet smile twists Maedhros’ lips as he faces his guest again. His hand now grasps what looks like a small spear, its blade shining a glossy white in the unsteady light of a Fëanorian lamp.
Ceramic, a blade of ceramic with a long wooden handle.
“Besides I wanted to make sure I could cool you too, in case you tried to raise the heat. You know..”
The Noldo lightly rotates his shoulders, as if getting ready to exert himself. Suddenly a line of tengwar starts shining on the blade in his hand. His voice is almost a murmur as Maedhros comes nearer the Maia.
“It would be such a shame to make this too brief..”

In the beginning, his Father forged the body he wore in the same molten furnace as the works of the Earth; he’d awoken knowing perfect affinity with each material Sang by Aulë, his own essence replete with their power. It was an act of desperate futility to bind any Maia with mere metal, but especially him– especially Sauron.
He’d begun to melt the chains as soon as they’d been hurled around him, almost without a thought. How does a foe I thought so keen of mind resort to this? His stern face wore only puzzlement as he summoned his red hammer to his hand, pulling it into being out of his own flesh– then the noise began, and his Noldor enemy sprung into practiced action. 

His hammer resists him. There is no magic, no Ainur presence besides himself, but something holds the weapon in the air as firmly as the fist of Tulkas, and his arms strain to bring it even an inch forwards. Red-gold eyes widen. The hammer bends– wilting as if in great heat. It disobeys his will and its solidity dispenses back into liquid potential, coating his skin, but he cannot reabsorb it. His own flesh buzzes with horrendous sound that is more than sound; the pressure without origin twists his feet from under him and he falls sideways into the wall just as surely as if the room had changed its axis. Maedhros looks at him with eyes narrowed in mad, victorious joy– the force that can incapacitate a Maia has no effect on him; he is its master.  

He is frightened. He can hear the song of planets whispering from the disks of metal on the floor and ceiling, but he has never heard this arrangement before. It feels like something he should know, something the matter of his body should hold understanding of, something his Father made. It is new to him who helped shaped everything that is. He is frightened. 

All the power in his muscles will not budge them from their fixed point, the coiling remains of his weapon, and the contorted lattice of metal that were the treacherous chains bind him as surely as shackles, dancing in strange liquid patterns on his skin. He can turn, but not move, twist around only to be repelled, as if the force had some malignant logic behind it. Water flows over the metal and over him, unsettlingly warm and smelling of hot metal. It drips from his face and beard the same temperature as blood, carrying his sweat with it. He does not hear what his enemy says, he does not see the runed ceramic knife until it is under his chin, tracing his sternum.  

“What have you done– what is this? What have you done??” Are all the response he can give to prelude to torture, numb to any threat but the invisible hand that holds him improbably captive. 

*looms over bath* I won’t tell if you won’t. ~Sauron

doegred-main:

misbehavingmaiar:

doegred-main:

*pales, gripping the side of the tub, while breathing slowly through his nose*

“Get. Out!”

The foundations of the room rattled and mortar dust sifted from the ceiling as Sauron’s fist collided with the wall, stones loosened as if a hammer had stuck them. His back trembled, taut and corded with unreleased tension. 

“Then we are both miserable fools! Useless relics with nothing else to sustain us than the hope of some… pyrrhic retribution for losses too great to be paid for.”  He laughed. “How far we have fallen…” 

The rage that had galvanized him moments before suddenly left him, cutting the strings of his vigor. Shoulders broad and gleaming as bronze grew slack, and the great Maia braced his weight against the wall, neither turning to his foe nor leaving as he had planned. 

The sudden sound and the violence of the movement made the Noldo jump to his feet, almost sliding on the pool of blood spilled by his enemy and him both. Still now he could feel a rivulet dripping his lips, falling in fat drops against the marble. Despite his body aching just shy of excruciating pain Maedhros forced himself to move, closing the bathrobe around his form again. His movements now made more curt by the effort to contain pain.

A part of him screamed at him to take the dagger in hand again, another knew better than to do so. Rage and hate still simmered in his gaze, fixed on the point where the knife had planted itself in the Maia’s flesh, like coals under ashes, flaring with the rhythm of pain thrumming in his right arm from the shoulder to what was left of his wrist.
He rose his hand to his face, lightly touching the wound before pushing wet, and now blood matted, strands of hair back.
The Fëanorion could feel the bruises blooming under his skin and over sore muscles, but more worrying yet was the strange way his enemy’s speech resonated with him. 
A part of him knew the instinct to fraternise with Thauron for what it was: desperation borne of the enemy’s ability to manipulate. Still what, despite everything, he knew to be true in his words, seemed to reach inside his defences, tearing an answer out of his chest.
His stance relaxed slightly as the Fëanorion grabbed a bedpost for support.

“Yes..” The tone was low, apparently calm with barely the hint of a defying growl. “We both should not be here. And while you are right..” Despite his efforts a strange vulnerability flickered briefly in his voice before the Fëanorion could stop himself. “.. what we lost is much.. Too much, and precious beyond compare. Yet.. one thing I have not lost is my memory Thauron.”

A bitter laughter carrying a hint od pain as the movement pulled at the wound. “More fool than us is whoever let us back into this world.”

Hah– Such camaraderie! A quick tussle, a dispute between enemies with more in common between them than their allies– he could almost have laughed and clapped Maedhros on the back as if they were kin. But he was through with half-friendships with elves. For a minute he’d dared to let himself grasp once more at that shadow of companionship, but memory proved too long for both of them. It would end in blood, as it always did; disguise or no disguise, stranger or old acquaintance. Yet the temptation to reach across the gulf was strong even so, and he turned to view the expression of his ageless enemy, assessing it for an opening. 

“That I don’t doubt for a moment. But as I recall that tenacious memory of yours led to a somewhat sticky end. What are you doing now with a renewed life? Besides unsuccessfully seeking vengeance in your nightgown against an unarmed foe?” 

{if it’s not too late, because why not} To the Bloated, Gloating, Corpse-Munching Foe of the World. Look to the red hill. Try me. Wishing you a Swift and Agonising Demise, the Lord of Dor Cuarthól.

turambar-masterofdoom:

misbehavingmaiar:

misbehavingmaiar:

“Happy am I to let you wait, ignorant and cold, with your ass in the sod, Master of Fate." 

The note, scrawled on dried skin, is delivered from the hand of a scrawny young waif with freckled skin and short-cropped hair the color of fox fur. 

"I was bidden give this to you upon a red hill, Lord Turambar. I could not refuse,” they said, with something crooked in the tilt of their mouth.

=

A second of confusion whirled in which the facsimile creature darted between man to man, unable to keep them all spell-bound at once.  It was the axe or Turin, and in the instant in which they had to decide, they chose the axe. 

Raza— who was no longer Raza the message-bearer, but the author of it— twisted their ragged head around to avoid the stroke as well they could, shrieking in an awful, gut-wrenchingly human way as the blade sunk far into their collar bone. Such a scream— a child’s scream, or a fox’s scream, the kind that sends mothers out into their yards at night, sick with worry… but as the wound poured forth smoke and the axe that had split the flesh grew warped and red and white with heat, the scream died, swallowed whole and exhaled again as laughter, hoarse and echoing. 

The cut was suddenly dwarfed by the size of the limb it marred— not a thin, bird-boned limb, but a tarnished gold pillar. Melkor shook off the small, stunned men that had laid hands on him, sending them tumbling far across the plateau. 

“How disappointing. You’re every bit as dull as your father. I’d hoped for better sport…” The Vala cracked their neck and joints loudly, stretching out from the confining body they’d held. Dabbing the now small wound with one finger, Melkor winced, and glanced down at Androg. “You are a feisty one… why aren’t you one of mine? You’d be better rewarded in my service than here, scavenging for roots in winter.” 

Turning their eyes back to Turin, the Vala clucked their tongue and jabbed the point of one claw into the unlucky man’s chest. “After I went through all the trouble to make a body and come down to visit, you go and spoil my fun!” They sighed. “Well… the jig is up now. You invited me, and I’m here. What was it you wanted to try, Lord of Bandits?” 

The instant Morgoth’s claw was out of the way, Túrin sprang. The world around him bled a thousand different colours, colours he had never seen and, had he been paying them a scrap of his attention, would not have believed existed. Like the string of a crossbow held too tight on the latch, he was not released but snapped. Never had he been so conscious of his every motion, the dormant power of his muscles and the deadly weight of the sword in his hand – and never had such things been so physically painful to bear. 

Rage, to Túrin was not a red haze. It was colour, and noise, and power, and pain – and it was hate. Incomprehensible, irresistible hate.

That hate powered him forward at a dead sprint and hurled him as high as his muscles could fling him, madness-made-man intending to drive a sword (little more than a splinter, comparably) into any and every part of his nemesis.

The Vala, who sat cross-legged on the red hill just as Raza had, though now six times the height, swatted the offending mortal angrily as one might shoo off a biting fly. 
Túrin’s greatsword left trickling wounds that glittered the brightest copper on Melkor’s thorny leg. 

“Ouch–! You rude little tick! I’ve never met anyone so eager to die! Thank your father for the ill-fortune that makes you more amusing to keep alive!” 

From where Túrin had fallen, Melkor plucked the irritating weapon and snapped it between thumb and finger. “Now what will you do? Something sensible, perhaps?” 

*looms over bath* I won’t tell if you won’t. ~Sauron

doegred-main:

doegred-main:

*pales, gripping the side of the tub, while breathing slowly through his nose*

“Get. Out!”

Suddenly the pressure of Sauron’s arm on his stump wasn’t there anymore, its loss quick enough to unbalance Maedhros and force him to compensate by pressing his right thigh against the Maias’ body. Thankfully the frenzy of the fight dulled every other feeling the sensation of his enemy’s naked skin against such a vulnerable part of his body gave him.
Desperately trying to move his arm and slide on the floor the Noldo attempted to prevent what he knew would be his opponent’s next move, even as a part of him knew it for a doomed effort.
Gritting his teeth he gave the knife a final twist, rotating it almost completely inside the flesh, making sure it would rip most of the muscle it was embedded in, weakening the limb further. A dark satisfaction cursing through his body at his enemy’s sounds of distress.
Then a spark of pain made the Noldo grunt as the tingling ache of pinched nerves spread like a line of fire from the inside of his elbow to the tip of his fingers, making his muscles spasm, go lax and then cramp in an unnatural position.
A half-shout of pain came rom his lips as his arm was twisted and slammed on the floor. The scars left by his father’s jewel becoming numb as his hand smarted.
Maedhros could feel desperation rise in his mind with every movement of the powerful body over him, like a black tide, ebbing and flowing in synchrony with the weight pinning him down. A trickle of blood fell from the Maia’s shoulder on the Fëanorion’s neck, making the sweetish reek of corruption become a mist that surrounded him burning the inside of his nose. The black liquid slid down further and mixed with the water dripped from his body on the marble floor, making it warmish and slick.
The Maia’s face came near to his enough that Maedhros could feel his hot breath on his cheeks and, from behind the wet strands of hair, could see his eyes burning.
He saw it thanks to the cold haze of the fight, the almost cranky frustration in the Maia’s gaze. A sneer twisted Maedhros’ lips. Once such a display of weakness might have given him a measure of satisfaction, yet now whatever he might have felt was drowned in an almost euphoric hate and despairing rage.
Refusing to let him win any ground the Noldo didn’t turn his head, looking him straight in the eyes as he twisted his muscles, trying to slide on the floor and make Sauron loose purchase, but the weight on his chest was unwavering. As an iron shackle. 
Then the Maia sprung into action.
Maedhros had barely the time to begin turning his head before Sauron’s teeth sank into the flesh of his face. In an instant the smell of his own blood drowned even the Maia’s reek and the Fëanorion felt an ice cold spray fall from his lips and cheek as the skin burst under Sauron’s teeth. The arm falling heavy against his neck cut his breath almost completely. It was as if every pain had disappeared; Maedhros could feel the other’s tongue touching his skin and in the red glow cast by his hair the world started to become dark around the edges.
A guttural muffled scream of rage and hate tore from his chest. With a strength borne of despair the Noldo clasped the Maia’s hips between his thighs in an unyielding grip and, with an effort that made his sight go completely black he was able to arch his hips up from the floor in the same moment that his stump flew towards the Maia’s face, hitting it with all the strength he could muster in his right eye. He felt the protruding bone fit into the orbit and kept pushing as he suddenly twisted his hips left, using all of the strength left in his body in a last desperate attempt to reverse their positions.

The sharp, broken point slammed into the socket of his eye, pain bursting hot and red through his skull. Sauron screamed like a burnt jungle cat, rearing back with blood on his teeth. He recoiled off his opponent, not giving Maedhros time to gain advantage, even if the elf had not been choking for air. He could feel the knife still in the meat of his shoulder, stinging brine dripping from his eye. 

Panting, the huge maia rolled to his feet, retreating. Tussles between lions seldom lasted this long when they had nothing to gain… It was not worth the injuries he could sustain to bring one elf to submission. This was not worth the grief. 

He spat blood on the floor, growling as he wrenched the blade from his back. The wound shrank even as the steel left it. 

“You will never—” he hissed, “—never have the satisfaction of meeting me again in the flesh, Lefthander. You will die in my shadow; my armies will march over your bones, and no one will live to mourn your nameless corpse.”  The knife clattered to the floor as the Dark Lord turned his back. 

{if it’s not too late, because why not} To the Bloated, Gloating, Corpse-Munching Foe of the World. Look to the red hill. Try me. Wishing you a Swift and Agonising Demise, the Lord of Dor Cuarthól.

turambar-masterofdoom:

misbehavingmaiar:

misbehavingmaiar:

“Happy am I to let you wait, ignorant and cold, with your ass in the sod, Master of Fate." 

The note, scrawled on dried skin, is delivered from the hand of a scrawny young waif with freckled skin and short-cropped hair the color of fox fur. 

"I was bidden give this to you upon a red hill, Lord Turambar. I could not refuse,” they said, with something crooked in the tilt of their mouth.

=

The strange creature flinched from the blade, throat convulsing with a swallow. But still they laughed— 

“You would not recognize the truth if you looked it straight in the face! You would not see it, nor hear it, nor know its name, if you rolled on top of it in the night… Son of Húrin.” Raza curled their tongue against their teeth obscenely.  

“Go on… ask me how I know of your straw-headed father… ask me how I came to carry a message from the Mighty Arising! Truth or no truth, you’ll not remember this come morning— that is a promise." 

Red-gold eyes widened to round luminescent pools, and those who looked in their amber depths found themselves as caught in their reflection as an ant in sap, unable to blink or look away. The men who held the being who’d named itself “stranger” grew still as stone; all sound on the hilltop died, all color faded but the red of flowers and the red of Raza’s eyes. 

"Why don’t you guess my name?" 

There was no need to guess. Though his blood was ice and his veins, and the rest of him frozen with it, his mind was overtaken by a sudden terrible clarity. 

He had known terror before. He had known hate. But those eyes burned through his every definition with the ease of a firestorm against a wax candle, searing and burning and obscenely licking its way into the very marrow of his soul as if intending to devour it. Every breath drove that horrible look deeper, and the deeper it went, the more difficult each breath became to draw.

Yet, by some fell stroke of luck, there was one on the hill who had not fallen into that horrible howling pit. One whose attention had rather been devoted to the one wielding the blade – in one instant the dire and deadly Lord of Bow and Helm, the next frozen to the point of living death by sheer terror.

Andróg’s pale eyes narrowed, and his hands locked around the hilt of his grim, grey axe. He sprang forward with a roar, teeth bared in true wolfish fashion, and swung the axe down hard toward Raza’s head.

A second of confusion whirled in which the facsimile creature darted between man to man, unable to keep them all spell-bound at once.  It was the axe or Turin, and in the instant in which they had to decide, they chose the axe. 

Raza– who was no longer Raza the message-bearer, but the author of it– twisted their ragged head around to avoid the stroke as well they could, shrieking in an awful, gut-wrenchingly human way as the blade sunk far into their collar bone. Such a scream– a child’s scream, or a fox’s scream, the kind that sends mothers out into their yards at night, sick with worry… but as the wound poured forth smoke and the axe that had split the flesh grew warped and red and white with heat, the scream died, swallowed whole and exhaled again as laughter, hoarse and echoing. 

The cut was suddenly dwarfed by the size of the limb it marred– not a thin, bird-boned limb, but a tarnished gold pillar. Melkor shook off the small, stunned men that had laid hands on him, sending them tumbling far across the plateau. 

"How disappointing. You’re every bit as dull as your father. I’d hoped for better sport…” The Vala cracked their neck and joints loudly, stretching out from the confining body they’d held. Dabbing the now small wound with one finger, Melkor winced, and glanced down at Androg. “You are a feisty one… why aren’t you one of mine? You’d be better rewarded in my service than here, scavenging for roots in winter." 

Turning their eyes back to Turin, the Vala clucked their tongue and jabbed the point of one claw into the unlucky man’s chest. "After I went through all the trouble to make a body and come down to visit, you go and spoil my fun!” They sighed. “Well… the jig is up now. You invited me, and I’m here. What was it you wanted to try, Lord of Bandits?" 

*looms over bath* I won’t tell if you won’t. ~Sauron

doegred-main:

misbehavingmaiar:

doegred-main:

*pales, gripping the side of the tub, while breathing slowly through his nose*

“Get. Out!”

Sauron’s slitted pupils flared; the muscles in his face twitched into a snarl, but it was suppressed in short order. 

Whatever warmth or provocative flirtation had been in his demeanor froze and died, leaving cruelty in its wake. 

“…Leave, stay; fight, don’t fight… Since you can’t seem to make up your mind at all this evening, I’m afraid I’m going to have to do it for you." 

And with that, he sprung— two coiled steps that moved a wall of heavy muscle at an unthinkable rate, shoulder pivoting to collide with the Noldo, knocking him to the floor while iron-hard forearms grappled and pinned his taller opponent, heedless of the knife between them.  

The attack was hardly unexpected, Maedhros had sensed it approaching the very second his last words had left his lips. Maybe some part of him had been wishing for this. The Noldo steeled himself, more than against the savage violence which was to come, against his reaction to it. 

Surreptitiously he took half a step back with his left leg, exposing his right side as the Maia talked. Despite knowing well any hope he may have to hold his own in this fight was linked to keeping his cool and use the Maia’s fury against him, despite his efforts to remain calm even in the air made heavy by the perfumed vapours of the bath and the sweetish smell of corruption that still haunted his darkest nightmares. Despite all this two different needs reverberated in Maedhros’s mind, strong enough to make his hands tremble, were he not to control them.
One was a savage glee, a frenzied need to fight to make Sauron pay for everything, to feel his blood, his pain, to make him scream; it was something that sang with his blood, that made every hair on his body stand. Yet another, a more rational part of his soul, told him how dangerous how unbalanced this fight would be, it recoiled at the idea of any physical contact without an armour  to protect his body and more weapons.
Soon enough there was no more time to think. In two blindly fast steps the Maia charged him.

No matter his attempt to follow the movement, the impact was devastatingly strong. Maedhros felt all air leave his lungs violently enough to burnt his throat as the other body slammed into his side. His, still wet, unbound, hair fell before his face hiding Sauron’s face and the pain of the impact on his right shoulder made his vision go black for a few seconds. In his mouth he could taste blood. Still his body seemed to remember how to act on its own, his mind almost cumbersome, the Noldo let himself fall, an agonised hiss ripping from his throat, and, using the momentum, sank his dagger to the hilt in the back of Sauron’s shoulder trying to hit the muscle and let gravity aid his knife cut down following the underside of the Maia’s arm, in an attempt to rip tendons and make his opponent’s right arm useless.
They crashed to the floor and its marble seemed almost hot as a wave of dizzying force reverberated through Maedhros’s back up to his skull, turning soon into white hot pain as a cold feeling slithered down his side. Another hiss escaped his lips yet, even before he was able to think straight again, the Noldo’s leg raised and he kneed the Maia on his right side twice with all his strength, feeling his rotule sink into the other’s body.

Sauron’s grip was as strong as steel, the reek of his body suffocating and a part of Maedhros , even more than from the pain, felt like shuddering at the feel of his robe opening, leaving him vulnerable.
Still everything seemed to fall into second place before the desperate elation of the fight, as his breath became laboured and all his muscles twisted and tensed first left and then, suddenly right.

He had only one hope right now: to force or trick the Maia to roll over and gain the upper position.

Steam issued from the wound before the parted flesh ran with hot red-black blood, and Sauron did indeed cry out in pain– a tight sound that quavered like a wire snapping– but he did not relinquish his grip. 
The Noldo’s knee thudded dully against his side, finding it nearly unyielding as stone. But the elf’s twisting forced him to reassess his hold; with little enough purchase on the slick floor he nonetheless pressed forward with both legs, putting great weight on his pin-hold against Maedhros’s sternum, while his right hand snaked around the elf’s weapon arm, thumb applying pinpoint pressure on the inside of his elbow and slamming it against the ground. 

His teeth bared white and snarling in Maedhros’s face, pointed long and feral, hot breaths ebbing between them with a deep, hungry growl. 

The body of his opponent writhed long and lean and powerful like a great angered snake he had dared to wrestle, whose fangs had already tasted his back. If he hesitated too long, the elf’s height would give him enough leverage to maneuver away, and the torn muscles in his shoulder would not bear the strain of holding him down. 

He had come with such hopeful, foolhardy intentions… Now here they were and his heart thundered with bright scarlet rage, absurdly close to a feeling of betrayal, even petulance– he did not know how to finish this fight, he had given the  Noldo a victory even in starting it. 

The lack of control made his rage seethe all the hotter. Unable to articulate more than a strangled "You–!”, the Maia lunged, clamping his jaws around the Noldo’s mouth, sinking teeth into his lips and cheek with suffocating force while his arm pressed down against the elf’s exposed throat. 

{if it’s not too late, because why not} To the Bloated, Gloating, Corpse-Munching Foe of the World. Look to the red hill. Try me. Wishing you a Swift and Agonising Demise, the Lord of Dor Cuarthól.

turambar-masterofdoom:

misbehavingmaiar:

misbehavingmaiar:

“Happy am I to let you wait, ignorant and cold, with your ass in the sod, Master of Fate." 

The note, scrawled on dried skin, is delivered from the hand of a scrawny young waif with freckled skin and short-cropped hair the color of fox fur. 

"I was bidden give this to you upon a red hill, Lord Turambar. I could not refuse,” they said, with something crooked in the tilt of their mouth.

=

The men who held Raza by the arms suddenly flinched and cried out in distress: something had twisted beneath the flesh their captive, undulating like a snake working to free itself from an old skin. To the bandits’ credit, they maintained their grip. 

Raza’s head drooped for an instant, gritting their crooked teeth with some internal effort. 

“I am…” they rasped, a small, bitten-back noise escaping their throat before they could catch their breath. “Ahaha… I am running out of time, is what I am…” They laughed, gnawing their bottom lip, then added just under their breath, “This used to be… so much easier.” 

When they raised their eyes again to meet Turin’s, the color and shape of them had changed— but only for the space of a blink. “Call me… a friend of the family, so to speak.” 

Now it was Androg’s turn to snatch at his captain’s arm, though the force with which Túrin drew the sword shook his lieutenant off with such ease that he did not seem to have registered the intent. 

Túrin dug the blade’s tip into Raza’s throat. “No friend of mine, I think, nor of any save yourself. I will have the truth, wretch, or the next thing to leave your mouth will be your own life’s blood.”

The strange creature flinched from the blade, throat convulsing with a swallow. But still they laughed– 

“You would not recognize the truth if you looked it straight in the face! You would not see it, nor hear it, nor know its name, if you rolled on top of it in the night… Son of Húrin.” Raza curled their tongue against their teeth obscenely.  

“Go on… ask me how I know of your straw-headed father… ask me how I came to carry a message from the Mighty Arising! Truth or no truth, you’ll not remember this come morning– that is a promise." 

Red-gold eyes widened to round luminescent pools, and those who looked in their amber depths found themselves as caught in their reflection as an ant in sap, unable to blink or look away. The men who who held the being who’d named itself "stranger” grew still as stone; all sound on the hilltop died, all color faded but the red of flowers and the red of Raza’s eyes. 

“Why don’t you guess my name?" 

sharpglance:

misbehavingmaiar:

sharpglance:

Hope fluttered in his chest, and for a moment the intense desire to vomit all of the bile in his stomach lessened (it would be yellow; it wouldn’t be the first time emptying his belly on the ground in front of him, and thankfully it wasn’t in front of the Ainur). 

There was no time to congratulate himself internally for his cleverness. The threat that Morgoth made, hopefully made casually but he had no desire to find out, made his heart stop as his mind imagined rather gruesomely that claw puncturing fabric and skin and bone. The elf’s mouth gaped as he shuddered again at the thought – if he wasn’t careful, it may be a likely end.

He didn’t miss Morgoth’s observation – how could he know how young he was? Though I may be fully grown, how can he perceive that I am one of the youngest in Gondolin? Maeglin swallowed back the welling of fresh saliva in his mouth so that he could answer clearly. Feeling successful thus far, he knew he had to continue convincingly, and that Morgoth followed the intended line of questioning gave him enough hope to inject confidence into his voice.

“A moment ago, you gave it away. Do you take the defensive or the offensive? You have no plan. From what I have been told about you and how your forces operate – you act when you have a plan. But you have none, and I would not need to be a close councilor to Turgon in order to know what I know." 

Do not divulge that! he chided himself. Blinking, he continued on. No need to keep Morgoth waiting… “And what I know is that the Crissaegrim offer no path or pass into the valley. You have no plan because there is no way in.”

"And yet, does my good eye deceive me?” Melkor leaned forward mockingly, scrutinizing the young elf in the beam of his stare. “It seems to me there is at least a way out of the valley… or else have the Eldar learned to fly?” 

Behind Maeglin, the Dark Lord’s lieutenant stirred unbidden, placing a heavy hand full of mute warning on the elf’s neck. 

"Make no mistake, little mole; you buy seconds of your life with this news. Tell me more. Tell me Turgon’s plan of attack, if indeed you are his close advisor.”

The hand on the boy’s neck moved to his hair, pulling it back taught with a snap. 

"Tell me everything, and there may yet be some reward I could give you.”

The elf swallowed so thickly that he was certain Sauron behind him could feel it through his hand. A horrifying realization froze his body and though he was sweating, he suddenly felt as though he’d been doused into a river whose source was the snowmelt from the Eastern mountains. Maeglin shivered and clenched his teeth to prevent them from chattering.

A small sound leapt from his throat, which was now bared with his head pulled back. It was a whimper, an ugly, ungraceful sound that openly declared his fright and alarm. Maeglin felt shame tear down his fragile walls of bravado. Without that, he felt weak and powerless.

It was unwise to doubt the threat that came before whatever promise of reward, but to pass along this information would mean endangering his mother’s brother’s beloved valley… He hadn’t thought this entirely through, or considered everything…

“R-reward? B-but…” Mouth dry, Maeglin licked his lips before continuing. He needed time to think this over-! 

“G-give me some time to consider, at least…”

Melkor made a blithe, untroubled gesture with one gauntleted hand, laughing sweetly. 

“Of course, of course! Take all the time you need. Lieutenant–”

And the Umaia, whose hard fingers threatened to choke the boy whose throat had uttered such a tantalizing noise of distress, straightened in answer. 

“–Please take our guest to the Realgar Hall, and bind him over a geyser vent. Let him consider his options while the flesh of his hands boils off the bone. And Beloved, make sure that he is comfortable! I don’t want to rush his decision." 

*looms over bath* I won’t tell if you won’t. ~Sauron

doegred-main:

misbehavingmaiar:

doegred-main:

*pales, gripping the side of the tub, while breathing slowly through his nose*

“Get. Out!”

“…Because you are an anomaly here. Because you too have no others to share the cathedral of your mind with, and pursuits that you have had to put aside in favor of war. It is tiring…”  The maia’s yellow eyes creased with something like sympathy. Neither the dagger nor the tightly wound stance of the Fëanorian giant seemed to worry him, naked though he was. 

"Wouldn’t it be satisfying just to experiment and build again? Ainu and Eld, teaching, expanding, learning? Just as Aulë might have done—" 

Then he swallowed, gaze turning suddenly to a distant point on the floor; finding himself exposed more thoroughly than just in skin. 

"You are right of course. This was a truly farcical error…” He chuckled, mirthless. “I suppose we ought fight, then. Just for the sake of propriety.”  
 
He shrugged off the ill-fitting robe and struck a wrestling stance. 

Maedhros forced himself not to feel anything, tried to at least. Because no matter how honeyed his words may seem, what offer they brought, what kind of strange sense they made. This was a trap and Thauron would use every single crease in his resolve to destroy what was left of him. He could not allow himself the foolishness to think otherwise. A younger, more stupid self might have believed no harm could come from a moment of leniency and some math. But now every single word conjured in his mind the words written on the old history book probably still opened on his desk. More painful than any scar.
The thought of Tyelpe made the Fëanorion’s eyes burn with hate. Still, being old also meant learning that the world was far more complex than you thought and each battle had its way to be fought, if you wished to win it. And the way this battle should be fought..
Maedhros steeled himself against the need to flinch at his enemy’s sudden movement or pale at his nudity. He managed one.
The way this battle should be fought, if he wanted its outcome to fit his desires, was not this. He lowered his left arm, the blade of the knife drawing a shining shadow on the wall.

His face briefly distorting in a grimace the Noldo inhaled through his nose, repeating himself that he would have his vengeance. It felt like a lullaby, a lullaby for a monstrous infant whose weight, sweet as only a newborn’s can be, he could sense curling inside his chest, carried nearer to his heart than any of his brothers had ever been. 

It was sudden, from anger his expression became one of polite, if darkly amused, calm. Rising to his full height the Fëanorion stepped away from behind the chair, never loosing sight of the Maia, his motions so studiedly relaxed they almost made the naked blade in his hand look harmless as light glided on its surface.

“What makes you a truly remarkable liar, Thauron” Keeping his tone conversationally benign Maerdhros took a few steps sideways, away from the naked Ainu. “is how tightly intertwined with truth your lies are. It is marvelous how honestly dishonest you can be. Had I met you in my youth I would have almost admired you.” Offering a knife-sharp smile he lightly shook his head, his expression falsely benign. “And, what is even more remarkable is how much of a compulsion destroying has become to you. I’d wager you are like the scorpion of the old tale. You would end up doing harm to your surroundings even if it meant you’d drown.”

Fixing his gaze on the other’s eyes Maedhros’s voice changed, becoming flat as his expression went back to a blank mask. “I do not wish to fight you. Leave.”

Sauron’s slitted pupils flared; the muscles in his face twitched into a snarl, but it was suppressed in short order. 

Whatever warmth or provocative flirtation had been in his demeanor froze and died, leaving cruelty in its wake. 

”…Leave, stay; fight, don’t fight… Since you can’t seem to make up your mind at all this evening, I’m afraid I’m going to have to do it for you.“ 

And with that, he sprung– two coiled steps that moved a wall of heavy muscle at an unthinkable rate, shoulder pivoting to collide with the Noldo, knocking him to the floor while iron-hard forearms grappled and pinned his taller opponent, heedless of the knife between them.  

Gold Threads

findaratoldyouso:

misbehavingmaiar:

The Vala’s voice deepened in laughter. “And are you planning on slithering away from this unsuitable circumstance?” A membrane flicked sideways over his eyes in a reptilian wink. “I understand. I know my own reputation. I know what I am to you.”  He allowed himself a sigh, short and disappointed. “Even the son of Arafinwë, wisest and most gentle, cannot stand in the shadow of the convicted without growing cold.” 

How troublesome! How flighty are the Eldar! Every time he thought he’d coaxed one into conversation they soon skittered away in fear, or else turned their backs on him in cold disdain. 
It came as no surprise, of course. He knew it was too soon to expect even the youngest elves, born in Aman, to be at ease in his presence. Spy on them, walk amongst them, pay them for their time on behalf of his “master”; but never converse with them— the time it took to plant the seed of some minor influence was often all the time he was granted. Not that it mattered….

I do not need their company. I have no desire to befriend the vermin that usurped my father’s love, and turned my kin against me! I only wish to gain their trust so I may learn how best to ruin them.

That thought had kept him warm for centuries— Revenge, vague and far-distant, made it possible to suffer the humiliation of his servitude to Tulkas, to share this over-bright island surrounded by enemies who hated and distrusted him, so far isolated from his works, his children; the servants and lovers he’d made his home with. It was the lie of his good behavior that had made it all bearable; but its comfort was wearing thin. 

…I do not want their company… but theirs is the only company to be had on this contemptible rock, and I can’t have it! The flames around his shoulders leapt and crackled before he could restrain them. 

The prince was easing away from him like a frightened deer, and he had nothing on hand to lure him back, save more words. Quickly the Vala went gliding down the steps ahead of him, a ribbon of black and gold that coiled and reshaped itself back to back with Findarato, feeling the brush of his proud mane just tickle him in the rush of displaced air. 

“Serpents, too, prefer the warmth of light and safe surroundings… They are indeed wise creatures; the wisest of them live extraordinarily long lives, hidden away in the safety of their burrows. They take no risks.” He raised a pensive claw. “They are not known for their bravery, snakes… nor their daring. Not very heroic animals; perhaps that is why I do not see them emblazoned on more Noldor trinkets. Still, who are we to judge? The oldest of them we shall never see, twined about the roots of the earth, deathless and heedless of what we hot-blooded fools do above.” Melkor grinned over his shoulder, shark-toothed, watching the threads extending from the elf’s spirit quiver as if plucked. “You’d make an excellent snake, I think… but I wonder if the resemblance is only skin-deep? Time will tell, I suppose." 

Findaráto hissed in a breath as the flames rose about the Vala and he could see them as if from a distance, huge and enveloping and destructive, a blight upon somewhere once good and green- but he blinked and they shrunk, entirely manageable if threatening in their own way. He could feel the heat of them on his face. 

But then gone again, and this time utterly, as Melkor dissolved and disappeared, flashing by like a spot in one’s vision after gazing too long at something bright. Something not meant to be looked at all and he might have whirled around to watch him leave if he hadn’t sensed him, then, again, directly at his back. Findaráto held himself perfectly still, forgetting, for a moment, even to breath, though he couldn’t say what instinct it was that kept him so frozen. There was a great power at his back and by all rights he should be driven to move and indeed something in him cried out again in warning.

Do not let him get so close.

And he might have stepped away, despite his urge to keep still, might have whirled around and backed up, might have found any excuse to leave. Might have – if Melkor, he who held so many in awe and had once held so many in thrall, had not called him a coward. So sweetly and Findaráto could hear the smile in his voice, but he had grown up in court (grown up with Curufinwë) and he heard what was veiled in those words. His father had picked for himself and his house an animal unsuitable, Melkor said, one without the courage and innovation for which the House of Finwë and the Noldorin host were known. And he, the son of Arafinwë was heir to this legacy?

Well Melkor may be Vala, but he was wrong. There was strength in flexibility and Findaráto knew well how often it took courage to remain still and quiet when others demanded you act, act so often against your convictions. And his father, wisest indeed, knew it to be so.

(And yet – what were snakes, moored to the earth and frozen in the sun, next to blazing stars?)

No. Findaráto would not prove him right. If Melkor doubted his bravery, doubted the very heat of his blood, he would not flee his presence but stay where he was and turn to face him.

The elf and the Vala turned together at the same moment to face one another, and quite by accident Melkor found himself nose to nose with the scowling Arafinwëan prince. 

He could taste the difference in the air as he took a breath, sucking the changed particles over the roof of his mouth; sweat dried and blood cooled, resolve crystalizing like tempered metal. It added a distinct ferrousness to the lingering scent of soft gold, making it less appetizing. 

Melkor blinked first. 

"Have I caused you offense?” His tone was sanguine. “I meant the comparison as a compliment. As I said– I’m quite fond of serpents." 

{if it’s not too late, because why not} To the Bloated, Gloating, Corpse-Munching Foe of the World. Look to the red hill. Try me. Wishing you a Swift and Agonising Demise, the Lord of Dor Cuarthól.

turambar-masterofdoom:

misbehavingmaiar:

misbehavingmaiar:

“Happy am I to let you wait, ignorant and cold, with your ass in the sod, Master of Fate." 

The note, scrawled on dried skin, is delivered from the hand of a scrawny young waif with freckled skin and short-cropped hair the color of fox fur. 

"I was bidden give this to you upon a red hill, Lord Turambar. I could not refuse,” they said, with something crooked in the tilt of their mouth.

=

Raza gave a broken yelp as all the air left their lungs, tugged backwards by four strong arms backed by vicious intent. 

“WHAT?” Their pale legs left the ground as they were lifted, kicking and failing, by two of the larger bandits. “GET OFF, YOU—!! DON’T. TOUCH. ME! FILTH! PISSANTS! HOW DARE YOU?" 

The squalling creature was subdued at the cost of a few bruises and one bloody bite-wound, but was soon held in place, head pulled back by the hair, forcing them to look directly into the eyes of the outlaw leader, whose flint-hard eyes bore down on them like Death itself. 

Raza’s narrow chest heaved and quivered; at first it seemed, of course, from terror, and then— 

Laughter burst out of them; loud, unrestrained cackling that brought a bright flush to their dappled cheeks. 

"Incredible! I didn’t think you’d actually dare!" 

Túrin’s lip curled, though whether in amusement or disgust it was impossible to tell. At his shoulder, Andróg was grinning with savage, wolfish expectancy. The others shuddered at the eerie laughter, but held fast. They had seen worse than this – and so far as dangers went, they saw no reason to believe Raza anything more than some half-mad traitor, or else some other unholy offspring of Angband’s pits that would be disposed of as easily as any of the orcs they dealt with daily.

Túrin held his chilly silence for several long minutes. Better to let the wretch understand their situation thoroughly rather than waste time riling them up. Then, at last, he exhaled slowly, and asked again:

"Who are you?”

The men who held Raza by the arms suddenly flinched and cried out in distress: something had twisted beneath the flesh their captive, undulating like a snake working to free itself from an old skin. To the bandits’ credit, they maintained their grip. 

Raza’s head drooped for an instant, gritting their crooked teeth with some internal effort. 

“I am…” they rasped, a small, bitten-back noise escaping their throat before they could catch their breath. “Ahaha… I am running out of time, is what I am…” They laughed, gnawing their bottom lip, then added just under their breath, “This used to be… so much easier." 

When they raised their eyes again to meet Turin’s, the color and shape of them had changed– but only for the space of a blink. "Call me… a friend of the family, so to speak." 

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started