Éowyn is a cat @eowyn7023 - Tumblr Blog

eowyn7023

May 30

kenobiwaned

In the Company of Wolves (Part 1 of 2)

As always this fic is dedicated to

@malkaleh

@plotdesigner

@eowyn7023

You can read this fic on Ao3 or under the cut below.

This is an AU of The Light of Hidden Flowers. While it’s not required reading, there are a few salient points to know. Celebrían is the daughter of Galadriel and Saruon in this verse. However, she was raised by Adar. It is set when Celebrían is a child in that fic and diverges from there.

I wanted to write In the Company of Wolves for two reasons. The first is that I love fairy-tale AUs and the trope of forced proximity. I decided to combine those two things. The second is that, in the past, I struggled with understanding Sauron’s character and thought that writing from his POV would help me gain a better grasp of what makes him tick. His characterization in this fic is probably OOC, but I do think that I understand him a little better now. So mission accomplished!

That being said, it is very important to note that Sauron is an extremely unreliable narrator. He’s terrible at self-awareness and introspection. Take everything that he says and thinks with a tablespoon of salt. Seriously, if you drank a shot every time he lies to himself or acts hypocritically, you would be hammered before you read the first 3,000 words.

The title of this fic is taken from the Angela Carter book of the same name. It just seemed to fit for the fairy-tale theme.

Without further ado!

________________________

“Seeing the desolation of the world, Sauron said in his heart that the Valar, having overthrown Morgoth, had again forgotten Middle-earth; and his pride grew apace. He looked with hatred on the Eldar, and he feared the Men of Numenor who came back at whiles in their ships to the shores of Middle-earth; but for long he dissembled his mind and concealed the dark designs that he shaped in his heart.”

“Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age”, The Silmarillion

________________________

The sun has not set, but the light is gone: a fitting backdrop. Though the storm is not of his doing, it stands as a testament to his feelings, which have been hopelessly enraged ever since he felt Galadriel pass into Mandos seven years ago.

He could not tell exactly when he stopped casting a shadow, only that he became gradually aware that the Arien’s rays disappeared behind a dark raiment of clouds, and the winds had increased in a frenzy of stinging slaps. Snow was moving fast from the clouds like a weighty grey curtain. It would surpass him soon, and he is still several hours away from his destination.

Briefly, Mairon considers changing his form; he may be able to beat the storm if he were a winged creature. However, he quickly dismisses the thought. Some part of him is enjoying the way that his anger and frustration are compounding. Besides, he may need to save the energy for the return trip to his hideaway, since this harsh weather looks to last for several days. Interrogating a single survivor of Eregion will be quick work. So he ignores the cold and pushes through the snow, which begins to pile up, congesting his path.

How strange to find a Noldor refugee here in this bleak place. There is nothing around him—just trees and the sky above him. The Eldar who were the most beloved of Aulë usually preferred the trappings of civilization.

Perhaps he should have sent his servants to pull the information out of this wayward recluse, but he dislikes the idea of Orcs being the ones to ask questions about Galadriel. They lack the subtlety required for such inquiries. The way that they had received the intelligence of his quarry was proof. His skeleton crew of troops captured a Silvan Elf who babbled out the tale of a survivor from Eregion setting up camp outside their village. The hamfisted and clumsy Uruks had barely remembered to get the name of their victim, and they had completely forgotten to ask about the identity of the one that Sauron was now tracking.

‘Such ineptitude,’ he thinks with a snarl. It might be prudent to use his quarry as a receptacle on which to vent his wrath. Much to his displeasure, the Orcs still need a certain amount of tactful handling. Though things would be very different if Adar hadn’t managed to slip his grasp.

Realistically, he knows that the chance that this elf had seen Galadriel before her death is a small one. However, the smallest of details could help lead him to her final resting place, and with it, Nenya. His tempest would never have consented to be separated from her ring. Not after the way she had so stubbornly denied it to Mairon above Ost-in-Edhil. More than that…he just needs to see her remains, to keep something of her with him, the way he had not been allowed to do with Celebrimbor. True, he had the Rings of Men. As brilliant as the work is, Tyelpë had lost his joy by the time he finished. Nenya is the last thing linking the three of them together.

Ahead, the foliage grows denser, eventually he has to begin maneuvering around the trees, and the wind lessens as it breaks upon his surroundings instead of on himself. Eryn Galen is an old forest by the reckoning of the Eldar. One that had existed since the coming of the dawn. The woods are dark, and the ground is strewn with fallen logs and rocks. It’s a dangerous place, but he doesn't particularly care about his surroundings.

Taking a breath, Mairon stretches a tendril of his power out. He must be careful; unlike Dwarves and the Edain, Elves can be sensitive to brushes against their fëa. The last thing that he wants is to chase them off. After a quick preliminary, he can ascertain the village within Oropher’s kingdom—presumably the one that Gworiel had hailed from—and just a few hours from there, he feels a secondary presence.

Given the inclement weather, he doubts that anyone is bothering to hunt or travel at the moment. Instead, this must be the wayward Elf for whom he has been searching. No, not Elf, Elves. There are two of them.

Could the Orcs do nothing right? He hisses in disgust at the poor intelligence gathering, but ultimately concedes that it will likely be a boon. Torturing one person can result in imprecise information, as the subject will do anything to make the pain stop, even admit to what they don’t know. However, forcing another to bear the torment in their stead often prompts honesty from the witness. Particularly, if there is a preexisting bond between them.

Woe betide these refugees of Eregion. Better that they had taken shelter with their kin in Elrond's concealed haven. Not that it will remain hidden for long. Once Sauron has found a way to source the power for his ruling ring, there will be nowhere for any of them to hide. With that comforting thought, he soldiers forward onto the terrain.

Long ago, before the waking of Ilúvatar’s children, he had traversed these lands, but time had made them a stranger to him again. Mairon had been impressed by the sight when he first returned months ago, looking to create a secondary fortress. A quiet sanctum where he could practice his necromancy without interruption. He had liked the way the interlaced canopy of trees created a murkiness so oppressive it seemed almost to be a living thing. Yet, when he had first entered, a stillness, like that of a cornered animal, had emanated from the forest. The trees knew that the Dark Lord had come, and they were afraid.

Mairon knows he needs to practice a little subtlety if he is going to create a stronghold under Oropher’s nose. So he has constructed a single tower, occupied by a handful of Orcs who were picked for their strict adherence to his will. Really, it had been happenstance, and no small amount of intrusiveness on Gworiel’s part, that led her to stumble upon it.

The thick branches overhead move above him, distracting him from his thoughts. They create a writhing roof over his head. The cold has a frigid bite that nips at him like an untrained beast. When the storm catches up to him, it strikes his back. The trees groan as they sway forward, catching the brunt of the weather’s fury, but there is still enough snow filtering through to paint the world a swirling white. It increases the sourness of his mood. He is one of the Ainur; a drop in the temperature is not going to affect him seriously. That being said, he is a Maia of the forge and fire, which means that he doesn’t particularly like the cold either.

Eventually, he reaches a river, and rather than risk a crossing over the dubiously frozen water, he backtracks a few paces and leaps over the boundary, landing lightly on his feet. He can feel how close the Elves are now.

Making sure to keep his presence cloaked, he edges toward the flickering sparks of life that he senses and eventually comes upon a small dwelling.

Thinking it best to observe the Elves before he storms in upon them, Mairon takes a circuitous route around what looks to be the animal stable, where someone has helpfully broken a path. The snow is only just beginning to fill the trail, so it is easy for Mairon to cover his footprints. Choosing a small window on the side of the house, where he can observe without being spotted. It would be useful to render himself invisible to all eyes with ease, and he calculates how he could make it a reality in the ring he plans to forge.

Mairon’s theorizing comes to a jarring halt when he clears the frost from a pane of glass and sees who dwells within.

All of his carefully constructed plans are immediately discarded. After years of hunting for his traitorous former lover, it almost defies belief that he would unwittingly stumble upon him hiding in the Greenwood. Mairon had been certain that Adar would make some sort of attempt to enter Mordor and reclaim his so-called children. Yet, the condition of the house indicates that the Uruk has been dwelling here for years. Possibly, since the time that Galadriel had saved his life.

For a moment, he considers ignoring his determination to save his power. It is tempting to match his form to what it had been when he had first known and loved him in Utumno. When Mairon called him Neidragh and truly thought the Uruk was as precious as the name implied. Yet the notion of confronting Adar in the guise of Annatar has its own appeal. He wants him to see the face that had engineered his demise above Eregion as a reminder of what his fate could be should the Dark Lord wish it. In the end, he makes a slight tweak to his hair. A token of the past reflected in the present.

Just as he is preparing to break through the flimsy walls and reclaim his wayward property, he is taken by surprise for a second time when an elfling joins Adar in the main room. Curiosity whetted, Mairon whispers a spell that will redirect the winds before they strike his body and provide the insulation he needs to hear their words.

“I don’t like the idea of leaving you alone,” Adar tells the girl. Mairon estimates that she probably has less than a decade of years to her name, but cannot be more precise without flaying her skin open to examine her bones. “However, the storm is going to last for days, and we need firewood before it snows us in completely.”

From his vantage point, Mairon can’t discern much in the girl’s appearance beyond her gender and the silver hair that is such a rarity among the Eldar. Tugging on Adar’s arm, the child suggests, “I can help you.”

Mairon knows that she cannot truly be Adar’s progeny. Long ago, Sauron had ensured that his Neidragh could never reproduce. Therefore, he must have abducted her. Not from the nearby village, or he would never have dared to remain so close. Had he stolen her from one of the fleeing survivors of Eregion? The long years would explain why the girl is so eager to assist her captor. Mairon well knows that the most effective shackles are those the wearer has no knowledge of bearing. Yet that leaves the question of Galadriel. Had Adar met with her before her death? He can’t imagine her overlooking the theft of an Elven child.

Realizing that he needs answers to these questions, he refrains from his assault. Adar will be leaving momentarily, which gives Mairon the chance to interrogate the girl privately.

“It is kind of you to offer, but you need to stay home. Besides, you’ve never liked the cold.” Adar strokes the child’s cheek. The fond gesture causes Mairon’s heartbeat to quicken with rage. Perhaps he will give his Neidragh another reminder of just whom his hands belong to upon his return. It appears that he has forgotten the first lesson in their long years apart.

“Please?” the girl whines, drawing the word out. “It’s my essecarmë tomorrow! I promise I’ll be good, and if we bring lots of blankets—”

“Absolutely not,” the Uruk injects a note of steel into his tone, but gentles when she whimpers pathetically. “I promise that when I return, we will do whatever you want. At least, anything you want that is indoors.”

She sighs and looks at him with a wretched, tearful expression, undoubtedly calculated to pull on the emotions of her guardian. Mairon almost snorts when the Uruk caves, “Why don’t we open one of your gifts now?”

Still pouting, the child allows herself to be led to where a small assortment of bundles wrapped in cloth lay on a table.

The sight sparks a painful reminder of Eregion. When, after a long day of ringmaking, he had walked into the forge to discover Celebrimbor making a gift for one of the children in the city. It piqued Annatar to see his already wearied smith wasting needless energy on frivolities. He hadn’t bothered to disguise his displeasure as he complained, “I thought that Elves only celebrated significant milestones.”

Celebrimbor pressed a careless hand to his mouth as he contemplated the configuration of gears in what looked to be a music box. The action left a small smudge of grease on his face that Annatar had wiped away with one of the clean rags that were always kept on hand in the workshop. As he predicted, it had made Celebrimbor lean into the touch as he explained, “That is technically true, but we have children so rarely that most of us can’t resist giving them gifts during their early years.”

“You should be turning your mind to more important matters,” he replied sternly.

“When was the last time that you crafted something for the sheer delight of it?” Cajolingly, he held up a tiny but meticulously sculpted box. “You can help me find a way to make this figure emerge from below without the use of a tacky spring. I want the top to slide open midway through the song to reveal it as a surprise.”

Mairon never really cared about these sorts of inane cultural practices that the Eldar are wont to practice, but providing help was useful in binding Tyelpërinquar closer to him. Sighing, he relented, “If you hadn’t designed the device to be so small, you wouldn’t be experiencing this problem now.”

“That’s part of the challenge!” Celebrimbor argued; his eyes danced in delight. They spent hours getting the mechanism to function properly. Its intended recipient squealed gleefully when she saw the little dancer emerge from its hiding place and had thrown pudgy arms around the Lord of Eregion before pulling him down to deliver a disgustingly sticky kiss to his cheek. Annatar had barely been able to keep his expression placid, but for all the time that it wasted, Mairon could not help remembering that night with a certain level of fondness. Particularly, the exuberance which Tyelpë had shown within the privacy of his chambers following the trinket’s completion.

Looking at another one of his lovers enduring the clingy affections of a child sets Mairon’s teeth on edge. Despite her sulking, there is a certain level of excitement in the girl as her fingers pick at the knot until it loosens. Wrappings discarded, she draws out a swath of blood red cloth.

“What is it?” the child squints in confusion. “It doesn’t look like a dress. Is it a blanket?”

“It’s a cloak. See the hood?” Taking a step back so that she can see it in its entirety, Adar holds it up for her inspection. Then he drapes it over the girl’s shoulders, showing her how to fasten it in the front. “It looks like Arradiel sewed pockets on the inside for your hands, and it’s fur-lined as well.

There is a tedious minute where the girl insists on spinning around to see the material fan out around her. She pulls the hood up and giggles, “Pretty!”

“That it is,” Adar agrees, “you must remember to thank Arradiel the next time that you see her. It took her a long time to craft.”

“I will,” she promises earnestly. Then she starts wheedling, “It’s very warm. I’m sure I can weather the storm if I keep it on.”

“Celebrían,” the Uruk says sternly, “you are staying here, and that is final.”

‘Silver queen?’ Mairon mentally translates, wondering if it had been her birth parents, or Adar himself, who had gifted the child with such an audacious name. Even with her hair color, it is hardly appropriate for the offspring of refugees.

“Alright,” the girl sighs as her guardian rustles around the house, preparing for his extended outing into the cold.

Adar gives instructions to Celebrían as he packs, “Put logs on the fire when it starts guttering. There’s food on the table if you get hungry, and you can warm some milk in the pitcher by pouring it into the stand by the fire. I’ve already placed the kettle on the hook, so all you’ll need to do is rotate it towards the flames, make sure you put a rag on the handle before you pull it back.”

“Can I wait up for you?” she begs.

“The closest fallen tree is a far distance in this storm, and then I’ll have to dig it out of the snow and chop it into pieces and drag it all back on the sled. By the time I return, it will be well past the time you usually sleep,” he warns.

Celebrían sends him another pleading look as she latches onto his side. Adar gives in to the extortion and taps her on the nose. “Alright, you can try if you really wish it. Keep your cloak on and stay close to the fire. I’ve put your pillows and blankets next to the hearth for warmth. Don’t move them until you’re ready to go to bed.”

Apparently taking Adar’s disbelief in her ability to stay awake as some sort of challenge, the girl nods with a competitive air, “I won’t need to move them.”

Huffing in bemusement, Adar leans down to press his lips to her forehead. Just before he opens the door, he turns back to her. “Repeat the procedures that you follow when I have to leave.”

Groaning in a put-upon manner, Celebrían recites, “Never let a stranger into the house. If I see a stranger, I don’t talk to them. I should run and hide instead.”

“Take it seriously,” the Uruk chides, “the rules are there to keep you safe.”

“No one ever journeys here,” she complains. “Who would show up in the middle of a snowstorm?”

‘Who indeed?’ Mairon thinks with a toothy grin as he watches Adar rebreak the path the snow had refilled and enter the stable, reemerging with a horse and sled.

As Mairon waits for the Uruk to disappear from his enhanced sight and hearing completely, he occupies himself with planning. There will be no need to adapt a full persona. Not for one simpering child. A kind demeanor and a few clever words ought to be enough for him to gain entrance.

Were his Master able to see him from the Void, Mairon does not doubt that he would be mocking his theatrics. ‘Why bother?’ he would ask. ‘Just break down the door and seize what you want.’

Though he knows that Melkor cannot hear him, he silently replies, ‘It makes it so much sweeter when you get them to collude in their own downfall. Besides, heavy-handed tactics are a mark of idiocy.’

Even in his head, the jest falls short. Before Mandos, Melkor laughed at criticism, but afterward, Mairon would have needed to construct a new fana for making that sort of comment. Rather than pursue the line of thought, Mairon distracts himself by coming up with various scenarios of how he will greet Adar upon his return. He does not settle on any single plan. Much will depend on how his conversation with the girl proceeds.

Speaking of which, enough time has elapsed to reobscure the window in frost and to make Adar’s departure a certainty. A good thing, for the feeling of cold, wet snow in his boots is becoming a decided irritation. The brat better have followed instructions to keep the fire going, or their discourse will be short.

Thankfully, the storm has made his appearance decidedly bedraggled as he shifts his way to the front door and gives it several hard knocks. There is a moment of pause, followed by the sound of scrambling inside. The freezing wind flings the entrance open the moment the lock is disengaged, and the girl dives out of the way with a startled yelp.

Fighting against the gale, Celebrían eventually manages to force the door closed to more than half its capacity by using her body as a brace. She’s panting by the time she is finally successful.

“Did you forget someth—” the girl breaks off mid-sentence when she realizes that her visitor isn’t who she was expecting.

He lets the corner of his lips quirk in a smile and keeps his body language non-threatening. It’s the opposite of the aloof intensity of Annatar, which he had crafted to both attract and intimidate Celebrimbor. When he speaks, he modulates his tone to convey exhausted relief, “I’m so glad to have spotted the light of your fire.”

Staring, the girl dumbly notes, “You’re not Ada.”

“No, I am not,” he says lightly, refraining from ending the sentence with a curse. How utterly predictable for his soft-hearted Moriandor to insist on the child calling him father. She must have been in his possession for a long time for her to use the endearment so naturally. Mairon suddenly wants to throttle this little interloper.

Coaxing Adar to view the Orcs as his progeny had been an unfortunate necessity. His soldiers had required a leader that they could devoutly follow, and Sauron had needed a way to further bind Adar to himself. Until now, he hadn’t known just how angry it would make him to see his Neidragh caring for a child that Mairon did not see fit to provide.

“Are your parents home?” he inquires, already knowing the answer. It will be a first test. Anyone with an ounce of cunning would lie. He’ll need to adapt to that trait if she tries to deceive him.

“Ada went out to get firewood,” she tells him, “he won’t be back until late tonight.”

He perceives a tightness around her mouth in the last half of her statement. So, Celebrían’s insistence on accompanying Adar stems from more than obnoxious clinging. It’s fear, and it’s exploitable.

Mairon inspects the girl’s appearance just as she does the same to him. She’s pretty enough, he supposes. Had she more than a few hours left of her life, she might have grown up to be something of a beauty. Though her gaze needles him. The bitch Lúthien had also been gray-eyed, but the shade and shape are all wrong. Before he can work out who they remind him of, she speaks, “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.”

“That is very wise advice,” he compliments, for he had begun to wonder if she was completely devoid of sense. “Where are my manners? I’m Mairon, and may I ask for your name in return?”

“I’m Celebrían,” she offers shyly. The girl must not meet new people often. Possibly not at all, if Adar’s protective streak has not eased over the ages. He supposes that she must know the dwellers in the neighboring village, but if she had grown up among them, she would have no reason for recalcitrance. It’s another mystery to unravel. How had Adar managed to converse freely among Elves without his appearance giving him away?

“Well met,” he declares, “now we are not strangers.”

“No, I guess we aren’t,” the girl slowly surmises. Her posture eases, and the veneer of familiarity makes her comfortable enough to question, ”Why did you come? There’s nothing here but our house and forest for miles.”

“I was told that there was a village on the borders of Eryn Galen,” he begins. It’s not a lie, Gworiel had revealed that much before she died. Regardless of the irksome epithet of ‘deciever’ that the Elves had bestowed on him, Mairon actually prefers to use the truth as often as he can; it forces him to be inventive in his interactions. That was something he had in common with Celebrimbor; they both enjoyed challenges.

“Did you get lost?” Celebrían’s expression softens in sympathy.

Pleased at the way she has latched on to his baited hook, he admits, “Many things have not gone according to my plans today. May I share your fire for a few hours? It’s terribly cold.”

Biting her lip, the child looks behind her to the warm hearth and then back to his sodden visage. He lets a few shivers rattle his frame, and she winces. “Ada made me promise not to let people into the house.”

Mairon slumps his shoulders in an imitation of disappointment, “I wouldn’t want you to break an oath. In that case, I had better keep going. Do you know how far away we are from the village?”

“It’s a few hours that way,” she points to his left and looks uncertainly at the bleak landscape.

“Thank you,” he weaves as much trepidation into his voice as possible. Then he spins in the direction she indicated and speaks as he mentally begins to count down:

‘Four.’

“When your parents return, will you tell them where I have gone and ask them to bring that information to the village?”

‘Three.’

“With any luck, I will be there to greet them.”

“Two.’

“If not…well, at least a search party may eventually be formed.”

‘One.’

“Wait!” Celebrían cries. “Please come inside.”

Mairon smiles internally, but ensures that his face is etched with dubiousness when he turns back towards her. “You shouldn’t break your promise on my behalf.”

“It’s alright, you won’t get in trouble,” she soothes while Mairon savors the irony that the child is doing her best to assuage his presumably burdened conscience. “Ada said that I’m not supposed to let strangers in, but you’re Mairon, and I’m Celebrían. We’re friends.”

“How kind of you to say so,” he tells her, “I won’t forget what you have done for me.”

Nor will he neglect to remind Adar that Celebrían invited the wolf at the door into his home. He knows that Adar will torment himself with guilt for having left her alone.

“There are hooks over here,” she indicates the wall opposite the cramped dining area, “where you can hang your wet things, and we’ll put your boots next to the fire to dry them. Please sit down and warm yourself while I clean this mess.”

Their conversation at the entryway had let snow be driven in, and as he takes the proffered chair, he amuses himself by watching the girl hurriedly sweep it up before it can melt. She manages to get half of it into a pan and carefully opens the window to cast it outside without letting more of the elements in. The rest turns into puddles, prompting her to run for drying cloths. Celebrían’s red cloak trails behind her as she moves. Eventually, things are tidy again, and she finishes by placing the dirty rags into a basket, presumably for washing. Despite himself, Mairon appreciates that the girl is orderly. Would that the Orcs were half so methodical.

Once she is satisfied with her work, the child joins him at the fire and then blushes. “I’m sorry. You must be very hungry. I should have thought of that before I started cleaning.”

Reaching over, Celebrían picks up the blankets by the hearth and bundles them around him. He lets the affront of her daring to lay hands on him pass since the covers feel exceptionally warm against his chilled fana. She walks over to the table and comes back with the entire loaf of bread that had been left behind for her, “Here’s some food. Ada has tea if you would like it.”

Breaking off a portion of bread, Mairon hands the rest of the loaf back to her and considers. Having something to warm his insides would be pleasant. However, it comes with a major drawback: the tea itself.

Embodied existence is a strange experience for one of the Ainur. It requires practice to successfully mimic all the eccentricities that come with creating a corporeal form, and it took Mairon many years to understand the intricate ways in which the olfactory system is interconnected to create a flavor palette. He hadn’t seen the point of having a sense of smell for a long time and had operated with the most basic tastes. Without the complexity of flavor, tea was not more than a bitter brew. He couldn’t understand why people claimed to enjoy it. Melkor had screamed with laughter when he figured out the problem.

While Mairon has perfected the creation of his forms now, he’s never quite forgotten his original aversion to the drink.

Unaware of his internal debate, Celebrían continues, “I don’t know how to make the tea, but I can show you where we keep the tin.”

“Is the process difficult?” he asks curiously. Celebrimbor had once offered to teach him, but Mairon, who had been busy trying to maneuver him into creating the Nine, was dismissive. Afterwards, he wondered if Tyelpë would have found a tea that he could have enjoyed.

“No?” She tilts her head contemplatively. “It takes time, but it doesn’t seem hard. I don’t like it, so I never tried to learn, but we could probably figure it out.”

“Don’t bother.” After a moment’s calculation, he decides that it can’t affect anything to honestly tell her, “I do not like it much either.”

“Really? I have never known another Elf that didn’t,” she crows in vindication. “It’s because it all tastes like grass, right?”

Strongly suspecting that the number of Elves that Celebrían knows amounts to less than fifty, Mairon allows her the sense of camaraderie. Her dislike for the drink indicates an internal problem. A recent accident, or a birth defect? The latter is rare in one of the Eldar. Idly, he wonders if Adar possesses any tools that could be used in a dissection. Upon further thought…probably not.

Besides, it’s not as if he has plans to create more Orcs. Not the hard way, in any case. “It does, indeed. Is there anything else that we can drink?”

“We have lots of water, or you can share my milk if you’d like,” she offers.

“Milk would be lovely,” he says as he observes her gathering two cups. After placing them near the hearth, she walks back and carefully carries the pitcher of milk towards the fire. She pours about half of its contents into a kettle that rests on a crudely contrived hook, which she then rotates into the flames. While the liquid heats, she returns the container to its proper place and then safely removes the kettle from the flames, distributing its contents evenly between the two cups without spilling a drop. It’s a surprising level of coordination for a child. Maybe it would be prudent to run tests after all.

He waits until the girl is warmed and content before beginning, “Your home is very cosy.”

It’s also barely a step up from a rabbit hutch, but that is neither here nor there.

“Thank you,” she smiles brightly, “Ada works very hard to keep it nice. I try to help, but he says that I’m too small for a lot of the difficult chores.”

“I’m sure that you are a comfort to your father,” he says. Mairon does not doubt it either, which is why he needs to sever this inconvenient connection as soon as he has what he wants. “Indeed, I imagine that both of your parents find great solace in your help.”

As he anticipates, his words make her eyes fill, and her lips droop downward. “My mother is in Mandos.”

“It’s a hard thing for a child to be separated from a parent,” he tells her, and reaches out to clasp her shoulder and brush against her fëa. He cannot examine it too thoroughly, but since she is already upset, she will dismiss the sensation as a product of her feelings.

What he discovers makes him grit his teeth so hard that they come near to cracking.

Adar has touched her mind. His influence runs through her like a thread through a tapestry. He hasn’t just been looking after her, he’s been nourishing her with his spirit. Mairon should have known. The way that the young thralls faded when their parents died had always troubled Adar in Angband. Is that what had compelled him to let this one feed off of him like a leech? So that he could use her as a poppet to soothe his guilt and give him the love he had always craved? The love that he rejected from Mairon.

“I miss her,” she wipes her eyes, completely unaware of the storm brewing in her new companion, “but I have Ada, and he says he loves me twice as much to make up for Ammë being gone.”

The fact that she refers to her mother by a Quenya epithet instead of Sindarin indicates that Mairon was correct in assuming that Adar had plucked the girl from a Noldo family.

Suddenly, the path he is going to take becomes clear. Once he gathers all the information he requires, he is going to tell this little doll every terrible, monstrous thing that her Adar has ever done. He’ll keep her alive long enough for his Neidragh to witness the death of the love that he built for himself before watching the life leave her eyes. If Mairon is feeling particularly generous, he’ll allow her spirit to flee to Mandos to join her mother, instead of keeping it pinned to her rotting corpse.

“How did she die?” he prods. Mairon doubts that her so-called father bothered to inform her that he had been responsible for the destruction of her first home, much less the death of her true parents.

“She received a mortal wound in battle,” Celebrían replies with both pride and grief.

Reaching into his memories, Mairon recalls the faces of Eregion’s defenders. Annatar made a point of knowing the names and faces of all the soldiers in the city, but he had neither time nor inclination to learn every detail of their personal lives. Given the girl’s age, he supposes that her mother could have stepped down from duties while she was breeding and only picked up a sword again when Ost-in-Edhil came under attack. He’s a little surprised that Adar bothered to tell her that much of the truth. Then again, he would have needed to explain the absence of the nîs who had birthed her.

“Is your father also a soldier?” he asks.

“Ada?” she snorts.

Her disbelief makes a certain sense. Despite the experience he gained, Adar never really enjoyed employing the skills of war. It had been part of the reason why Mairon had created a wedge into the minds of first the Moriandor, and later the Orcs. He had wanted a way to stoke bloodlust and side-step moral quandaries. His manipulations were so subtle that his Neidragh hadn’t even realized the effect was induced artificially, and instead assumed that the battle tide (his term for it) was a part of his nature.

This child wouldn’t be so entertained if she could have seen Adar rip the spine out of the back of an enemy’s neck as Mairon had once witnessed.

Celebrían's eyes widen, as if she has only just thought of something. “Ada doesn’t like fighting, but that doesn’t mean that he’s never been in a battle before.”

“Oh?” Mairon raises his brows inquisitively and gestures for her to continue.

“You don’t have to be afraid, I promise that he won’t hurt you,” she chooses her words carefully, “but he does look a little different. He has some scars and burns.”

He internally reassesses Celebrían’s character while she is busy worrying. She just delivered a genuinely well-thought-out misdirection. Adar had been in battles, and he did possess scars, but she deliberately refrained from saying that his scars were the result of those experiences. Instead, she let her audience make that inference on their own, without having to lie. Where in the name of Melkor had the child learned to do that? It certainly hadn’t been from her guardian—his skill in the area had never been this refined.

At least it explains how Adar has managed to converse with the nearby Elves without sending them into hysterics. He must be passing himself off as a Noldorin war veteran.

Mairon keeps his face impassive and vows that he will not say anything unkind about her father’s appearance. It makes Celebrían sigh in relief and gratitude. “Thank you. He doesn’t think that I notice him flinch, but I know that he’s sensitive about it.”

“That is a shame,” he tells her sincerely.

“Yes, it is, my Ada is beautiful,” she says with a ferocity that Mairon admits is a mark in her favor. Maybe he will let her go to Mandos. She probably won’t understand the mercy when he begins ripping her open in a few moments, but she’ll learn to appreciate it after a thousand years spent in the Halls.

More uncertainly, she adds, “I…”

“What is it?” He waits patiently for her to gather her thoughts.

“I think there was someone that he knew from before he became my Ada,” she whispers, “and they made him feel ashamed of how he looked.”

She has no clue as to his true identity. So he knows that it isn’t an accusation, but he still feels a sting in his breast. Though Sauron has been obliged to manipulate Adar over the course of their relationship, he had always been honest when he told his lover how desirable he found him.

No, if anyone is responsible, it’s the Eldar. Though Thingol’s rejection of the Moriondor had been beneficial, Mairon had been given cause to hate the King of Doriath long before his loathsome daughter arrived in Tol-in-Gaurhoth.

While he attempts to formulate a response, a fierce gust of wind whips around the house as the storm continues to unleash its fury. Celebrían burrows into the crimson folds of her cloak like she is trying to hide from something. She shudders and looks at him with trepidation. “Is it a wolf?”

‘This is too delicious,’ he thinks in appreciative irony. If the child is afraid of wolves, then he will give her one. But first, he needs to soothe her imaginings. It wouldn’t do for her to spend her fear on naught but air.

“Relax, it’s only the wind; there is no monster lurking outside your door,” he comforts, saying nothing of the one that she allowed to cross the threshold.

“Are you sure?” She starts when another gale rattles the walls with a mournful cry.

“I’m certain.” Really, the noise only bears a passing resemblance to the howls of a wolf. Soon, she will understand the difference intimately.

“Why does it have to sound like that?” she whimpers as it travels down the makeshift chimney and causes the fire to flicker in protest. She drags a log out of the small stack to their left and places it on the flames before returning to her chair.

“It’s caused by friction and pressure changes as the wind moves past obstacles in its path,” he tells her.

Her head tilts in curiosity, “What’s friction?”

Refraining from scoffing at her ignorance, he answers, “Resistance.”

“What’s resistance?”

“Hold your arm out with your palm facing towards me. I want you to do everything you can to keep it in place,” he orders.

Celebrían obeys, and Mairon pushes against it, asking, “What does your hand do when I press on it?”

“It tries to stay still,” she comments. Naturally, Mairon is not putting much force into the effort; he would shatter her bones if he put even a fraction of his strength into the push.

“That is resistance.” It’s also one of Aulë’s first lessons to him in the early days of Aman’s creation. The memory, as with most things associated with the Lord of the Forge, provokes a flutter of nostalgia followed by a flood of bitterness.

“Then your hand is acting like the wind?” she guesses.

“Yes,” he agrees, “and yours is the house, the trees, and everything else in its path.”

“Okay,” she tilts her chin in contemplation, “but that doesn’t explain why it makes that noise.”

He quickly swats at her still extended palm, and the resulting slapping sound makes her eyes widen in understanding, “The howling is the wind hitting things!”

“In a basic sense,” he comments, not wanting to get into the details of air patterns and sound vibrations with an elfling.

“That helps,” she says to herself, “it’s nothing bad. It’s just the wind.”

“I told you that earlier,” he points out.

“You hadn’t explained how it worked yet. It’s scary when you don’t know why things happen,” she protests.

“I suppose,” he waves his hand and sets aside the subject.

“Do you mind if I write down what you just said?” she begs. “I want to tell Ammë about it.”

He frowns, “Did you not say that your mother dwells with Námo?”

“She might come back,” she scuffs at the floor bashfully. “I like to tell her about my days so that she won’t feel like she missed anything.”

Shrugging, he consents. The child may not be terribly bright, but at least she is smart enough to recognize his wisdom.

Celebrían patters off into another room and returns with a bound book and writing materials. She spreads her things out on the larger table near the kitchen, and Mairon joins her. He expects the haphazard scrawl typical for children—the transfer of fine motor skills had been a problem that he and Melkor had struggled with when they were creating the Orcs—and is shocked when he sees the most precise Tengwar that he has encountered in years.

Biting her lip in concentration, the girl carefully writes of their discussion, only pausing on occasion to clarify the spelling of a word. She has the exact degree of slant to execute the Artano font perfectly. Had her true father been an orthographer? It makes Mairon want to crack open her skull and examine the parts of her brain that control those well-tuned strokes on the page. Adar wouldn’t like being dragged to Mordor with a severed head, but then, if the Moriondor wanted Sauron to heed his wishes, he wouldn’t have betrayed him in the first place.

When they resettle into their chairs, she praises him shyly, “Arradiel says that it’s easy to know, but that only the wise can teach. You’re very clever.”

“One picks up a thing or two over the ages,” he replies with a modesty that he doesn’t feel. He whispers conspiratorily, “Would you like to see another thing I learned a long time ago? I would only show it to someone very special.”

The girl leans in with bated breath. “Yes!”

“Very well,” he covers his eyes and encourages his fana to shift and flow beneath his fingers. When he pulls them back, Mairon has the satisfaction of hearing her gasp.

“They’re different,” she exclaims in both shock and (he is pleased to note) trepidation, “bigger and the color and shape have changed too. They almost look like a…”

Thanks to the changes he has made, he can see her face and hands pale, as the blood leaves her extremities. Next, he conceals the sides of his head and then slowly reveals that his ear points have widened and elongated to an unnatural length for an Elf. His improved hearing picks up on her thundering heart.

“Your ears…”

“Am I frightening you?” he asks, lifting his hand to his mouth as he prepares for the final transformation before he strikes.

Despite her shaking hands and frozen features, she breathes, “I’m not afraid.”

It’s a blatant lie. The first one that she has deliberately uttered in his presence, but that's not what makes him pause. It’s her expression—an echo of Galadriel over the ruins of Ost-in-Edhil—of determination and dread. It isn’t the first time that he has recognized the ghost of his lover. He has seen pieces of her in the past: In one Elf’s way of drawing a sword, in another’s graceful movements. Uncomfortable as it is, such things happen.

This stubborn look is the newest reminder he must bear. For a moment, he is caught in his reverie, and it is enough to prod him about his original reason for coming here before the sight of Adar had driven all else from his thoughts.

With a thought, he adjusts his features to what they had been before. Once he kills this girl, Adar will turn sullen. Torture will eventually loosen his tongue, but his Neidragh has already experienced the worst that he can inflict. It could take months for him to open up, possibly longer. Better to see if the child has any information about Galadriel before Adar falls into recalcitrant silence.

Slowly, he watches her regain control of her breath and chide herself for her reaction, “I was being silly.”

It always amuses Mairon the way that incarnates will dismiss the perfectly good sense that their bodies transmit to them. “You’re not the first person to react that way.”

Lips pursing in confusion, she prods, “How did you do it?”

“Magic,” he tells her.

“Just like Lúthien!” the girl cries in excitement.

“Indeed,” Mairon stiffly mutters, feeling as if he has just slammed a hammer onto the back of his hand. “My arts are more refined.”

Her jaw drops with awe, “You knew Lúthien?”

“We were acquainted," he says, fighting to keep the snarl out of his voice. Trust Adar to extol the virtues of the ill-bred spawn of Melian. With effort, he calmly continues, “In fact, I came to Eryn Galen looking for a friend that we had in common. I thought that she might have passed through this realm. Perhaps you could help me?”

“People don’t travel here very often,” she replies, “and Ada doesn’t trust strangers. So I’ve never met any of the traders or merchants that pass through. The time that Caelassel’s cousin came for a stay with her, we couldn’t visit for three whole months.”

“Even the smallest rumor could be helpful,” he persists. “The last time I saw her, my friend was hurt.”

Patting him on the arm, she sympathetically tells him, “If I haven’t heard of her, then maybe we can ask Arradiel when the storm clears. She knows about everything that happens in the village.”

“A very helpful suggestion,” he tells her, making a mental note to have his Orcs pick up the Elf for questioning when he gets back to his hidden tower. “Remind me to give you a special reward before we part.”

Celebrían shrugs off the offer, “I don’t need thanks. Worrying for someone you care about is awful. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

“Kindness deserves recompense.” Mairon leans in and says intently, “I insist.”

Looking bewildered at his fervor, the girl only nods. “Do you know when she came through the forest?"

“It would have been about seven years ago,” he tells her.

Realizing that she won’t be of help, she sighs with disappointment. “I was just a baby.”

Slowly, as if the thought had only just come to him, he asks, “Is it possible that your father or one of your friends spoke of it afterwards and you put it out of your mind?”

“I guess that could have happened,” she reasons. “Can you describe her?”

“My friend is a warrior,” he begins, “she is as beautiful as the dawn with hair that is brighter than the gold that lies hidden in the earth. She often wears a special silver ring.”

“Wh-What was her name?” she stammers nervously. Mairon doesn’t miss the recognition in her tone or the way that she speaks in the past tense.

“Galadriel,” he says, not even blinking as he focuses intently on her reaction.

Shrinking into her red cloak, the child keeps her eyes firmly on her feet as she mumbles, “I have never heard of her.”

“Celebrían,” he imitates Adar’s authoritative inflections, “I think that you are being dishonest.”

“No.” The word is high-pitched, and she twists her hands together miserably. How can the child be so skilled at misdirection and so terrible at telling bald-faced lies?

“This is important,” he grabs hold of her upper arms and squeezes them firmly for emphasis. “Galadriel is very dear to me.”

A sheen of tears makes her eyes glassy, and he watches them trail down her cheeks as she vehemently shakes her head. He notes with no small amount of disgust that her nose has begun to run. Crying in earnest, she whimpers, “You don’t understand.”

It’s unlikely that Adar deliberately told the girl anything of import, but the Uruk may have let more slip than he intended. Affection is very effective at loosening the tongue. “Then explain it to me. Didn't you just say how terrible it is to worry about someone you care about? I thought that we were friends.”

Veering back, as if he slapped her, she covers her face, and Mairon can only discern the words ‘in trouble’ from behind her muffled lips.

“You won’t be punished,” he vows. He does not plan on telling Adar just how much knowledge Mairon possesses.

“Not me,” she sniffles. Did Adar completely forget to teach her to use a handkerchief? He supposes he should be grateful that she hasn’t resorted to wiping her nose on her sleeve. “I don’t want you to die like…” she trails off with a wail.

“Like who, Celebrían?” he presses, already knowing the answer but needing to get her over this moral hurdle. “Are you telling me that Galadriel is dead?”

She hangs her head in sorrow. “I’m sorry.”

Of course, he had already known of Galadriel’s passing, but it’s important to render a proper display: to let his arms wrap protectively around his torso, his body to sag back into his chair, and tears to trickle down his face. Celebrían tucks up against his side in an attempt to offer comfort, and he allows the contact for the information he needs.

Softly, she whispers, “I know it doesn’t help, but I miss her too.”

“Why should you?” Mairon knows that his tone is too clipped, but he cannot completely curb his anger. “You never knew her.”

Stung, she replies, “That doesn’t mean that I can’t love her. You don’t know what she is to me, she’s—”.

Immediately, the girl claps a hand over her mouth, and her muscles freeze in horror. Obviously, she had been about to reveal some secret that Adar had ordered her not to divulge.

Frowning, Mairon pries her fingers off, “What is it?”

“Just telling you could put you in danger,” she shakes her head vehemently, “if he finds out, then he will hurt you to find out what you know.”

“Are you referring to Sauron?”

“Do…” she stutters in surprise, “you know about him?”

“Most people do,” he comments as he walks over to the place that he had seen her pull clean rags from earlier. He is grateful to see there are still a few left. Mairon takes one from the top of the neatly folded pile and places it into her hands. To his relief, Celebrían mops her face as he intended.

Had Galadriel been the one to rescue this child from the fires of Eregion? Perhaps she passed her charge on to Adar when the poison of Morgoth's crown began to overcome her? Yet that does not explain why she did not take the girl to Lindon. Mairon can believe the High King would cast Galadriel out and deny her the healing she required, but refusing refuge to an orphan makes no sense. There is some piece of this puzzle that he is missing.

“I’m in no more peril than I was a moment ago. Galadriel was my friend. If there is a message that she didn’t get the chance to impart to me, I would hear of it,” he pleads. “Were our situations reversed, wouldn’t you want to know? Even if it places you in danger?”

“Yes,” she says in a small voice. Her muscles slacken in defeat, and Mairon knows that he has her. “You won’t tell? I do not want anyone to be hurt because of me.”

“No one else needs to learn of it.” He leans on the arm of the chair, putting himself so close into her proximity that they are mere inches apart, “You can whisper it in my ear if it will ease your mind.”

Hesitantly, she raises on her toes and breathes, “Galadriel is my mother.”

Those four simple words bring Mairon's world to a screaming halt. His thoughts explode and scatter. At first, all he can think of is that it must be a lie. Except that everything in the child’s actions screams of honesty. Did Adar tell her that falsehood? No, he cares for the girl and would have known that attaching Galadriel’s name to Celebrían could have serious consequences. He would not put her in that sort of danger on a whim.

Beside him, Celebrían has remained quiet; she jumps when he reaches out to grab the sides of her head between his hands. Reminding himself to be gentle, he tilts her face from side to side, tracing her ancestry in her features.

Galadriel lives in the stubborn curve of Celebrían’s jaw and the slightly upturned nose. Her fingers are slender and shapely. He can remember inspecting Finrod’s corpse (though he hadn’t known it to be the King of Nargathrond at the time) and marveling that the Elf had managed to tear apart one of his wolves with such delicate hands. Mairon’s continued silence is making the child nervous. He means to say something, but gets distracted by her hair—the same as her grandmother’s—Earwen had been famous for her silver locks, shared by the likes of Fëanor’s mother and Thingol himself.

Mairon briefly ponders the girl’s paternity. Could Galadriel have sought solace with another after their parting? For one terrible moment, he wonders if the Peredhel managed to worm his way under her skirts, and laments not stomping out that line like vermin.

Galadriel would never betray what they shared, not even if her husband had returned from Mandos. Besides, the eyes preclude it. They are not of the seed of Melian, who had reflected the dark depths of Lórien, but of Finwë. Those are his Tyelpë’s eyes. How could he not have recognized them? The care in her movements, the precision in her writing, the difficulty with taste—not a defect, but a complication from melding the eternal with the embodied. Everything that she does is so orderly. Her very name is royal.

Knowledge fastens its teeth in him all at once and gives him no time to think or plan before it savages him as viciously as Huan.

This is why Galadriel hadn’t returned to Lindon. She must have feared what her brethren would have done to Celebrían. Adar had found her and thought to seize the child in recompense for his grievances.

‘How?’ he thinks helplessly. How could he have missed it? Other than one brief, and extremely disappointing conversation with Eönwë, Mairon had exchanged no words with Melian or any of the Ainur not bound to the service of Melkor, since he had cast off Aulë. Still, it had been whispered that the birth of her daughter had enmeshed Melian in incarnation. That she had been unable to lay a physical form aside while husband and child remained in Arda alive. Surely, Mairon would have felt himself weaken?

Then he remembers Halbrand’s wounds in the Southlands. At the time, he dismissed it as the consequences of taking his Edain form too close to the eruption in Mordor. Now he realizes that it was the siring of this tiny girl hours before that had drained the strength out of him. It’s a wonder that the explosion of the mountain hadn’t discorporated him entirely afterwards.

Something in him whispers the word ‘aberration’. It demands that he snuff out this little light and reclaim the power she had sapped from his spirit. It could be done quickly and painlessly. He acknowledges that he owes her that much. Yet how can he kill her? Is she not a piece of Galadriel that managed to remain with him despite her abandonment?

Caught in his deliberations, Mairon doesn’t hear the approach of another person until the door slams open.

Adar enters the cottage and is so busy hauling in a large sledful of chopped wood that he doesn’t see Mairon, who, in his shock, doesn’t have the wherewithal to prevent the girl from running to assist. He watches wordlessly as they labor together. The Moriondor carries the logs while Celebrían mans the entry, preventing the snow from being driven too far inside.

They don’t speak until the chore is done, and Adar is unwrapping the layers of clothing he swathed himself in to ward off the cold.

“You managed to stay awake,” Adar notes in amusement as Celebrían jumps and attaches herself to him like a burr. The sight of him wrapping his arms around her ignites a flame of wrath in Mairon’s heart. How dare this traitorous ruin of an Orc lay hands on his possession?

‘Were you not prepared to do much worse only moments ago?’ Celebrimbor comments pointedly in his head. ‘Adar isn’t going to hurt her. He would have done it long ago if that were his aim. You know very well what it is that you find upsetting.’

‘Shut up,’ Mairon snarls. ‘You didn’t even know him.’

‘Whose fault is that?’ Tyelpë archly retorts. It infuriates Mairon to no end that his beloved is far ruder in death than he ever had been in life. ‘Despite bringing war upon my city, I feel a certain kinship with him. We both know the horror and beauty of being loved by you.’

Celebrían giggles, dragging him out of his internal debate, “You were so busy that you didn’t see my new friend.”

“Not another lizard,” Adar complains in disgust. “How many times have I told you…”

Their eyes meet across the room. Adar’s pupils blow wide, and his muscles go rigid. His breathing increases into rapid pants that escape his mouth raggedly. Abruptly, he slams his back into the door behind him and slides to the floor, cradling his body protectively around Celebrían.

He hasn’t seen Adar react with such a strong flight response since he was being transformed from Eldar to Uruk. It reminds Sauron of the Moriondor’s helplessness and injects some clarity into the situation.

Before Sauron can act, Celebrían wriggles away and calls, “Stay back, I know what to do.”

Fascinated, Mairon watches Adar panic at the loss of his charge from the security of his arms, and Celebrían soothes him, “I’m still here. Hold my hands. Count your breaths: one, two, in, out, three, four...”

She continues in that vein for some time before adding, “What are three things that you can hear? Good. Do the same for things you see. Can you name them out loud for me?... It’s alright! You can just say them to yourself.”

Ever so slowly, the fit passes, and Adar slumps in exhaustion. Celebrían looks at Mairon and apologizes, “I’m sorry. This happens sometimes; he’ll get confused about whether he’s in danger. It’s a bad memory.”

“What you just did for him helps?” Mairon asks in interest. It is fascinating to know that there are rituals for combating a trauma response.

“I always help Ada,” Celebrían responds. Her chin lifts, and her chest puffs out with the same pride that Celebrimbor always evidenced when he’s completed a particularly complicated feat of smithing.

Beside her, Adar stirs out of the lethargy that had temporarily seized hold of him and drags himself to his feet, carefully placing Celebrían behind him.

While he is tempted to snap the Uruk’s neck with his bare hands and seize his property back from this most brazen of thieves, Mairon has many questions to which he needs answers. Also, Celebrían will be confused if Adar is killed right in front of her, and he has no time to cosset an elfling.

‘It’s perfectly natural to want your daughter to think well of you, Annatar,’ Tyelpë whispers sympathetically. ‘I know better than most how terrible it is for your father to be the source of your greatest heartbreak. Though I suppose that the grief you visited upon me supplanted that in the end.’

‘Will you never cease chattering?’ Mairon hisses. ‘I need none of your moralistic prattling.’

‘Clearly you do,’ Celebrimbor argues. ‘Or have you forgotten that I’m not really here? My spirit is in Mandos. What you hear now is simply an aspect of yourself. In other words: my moralizing is yours.’

Ignoring the point his lover just scored, Mairon turns his focus on Adar and rises out of his chair to get closer. “Your daughter,” he puts a deliberate emphasis on the words, “was kind enough to offer me shelter from the storm. Who knows what might have happened if I hadn’t found her?”

Looking guilty, Celebrían softly says, “I know that I broke the rules, but it was so cold, and I didn’t want Mairon to freeze. Am I in trouble?”

“You offered help to someone that you thought was in need, and that’s a good thing.” Sighing, Adar reaches out a hand to caress his thumb down her cheek; his expression is ineffably tender. “No matter what happens, please don’t forget that.”

“Do you want me to write it down?” She stares at him in confusion.

“Actually, that isn’t a bad idea,” he says. Adar wraps the red cloak tighter around Celebrían’s small frame and then raises the hood. “Have you gotten the chance to copy out the new song that you learned?”

“Not yet,” Celebrían replies. “I got distracted by telling Ammë about my accident with the honey.”

Grimacing, Adar comments, “It’s not an accident if you do it on purpose.”

“But I didn’t know it would be so hard to get off!” she whines.

“That doesn’t matter now,” he soothes. “Go and tell your mother about the song and anything else that you may have forgotten this month, while I have a chat with your friend. Make sure to keep warm.”

“Okay.”

Just as she is getting ready to walk out, Adar scoops her into a tight hug. “I love you very much.”

“I love you too, Ada,” she replies as the Uruk places her back on her feet. The phrase falls from Celebrían’s tongue easily, as if she had this exchange every day of her life. The fire in Mairon stokes white hot as she flashes him a smile and walks out of the front room.

Neither move until they hear the closing of a door. Then Mairon strikes with blinding speed, picking Adar up by his throat and slamming him hard into the nearest wall. “You stole her,” Sauron accuses in an outraged growl, “you found Galadriel and ripped the child out of her still-warm corpse. Do not think to deny it.”

Fighting to speak around the constriction of Mairon’s hands, Adar shakes his head in denial, “That’s not—” the tight grip chokes off the rest of his reply. Reminding himself that he won’t get the information he seeks any faster if the Uruk’s trachea becomes dislodged, he fractionally loosens his hold.

Wheezing, Adar manages to get out, “Galadriel found me, I didn’t seek her out. You saw what a state I was in after you manipulated my children into turning on me. I was hardly fit to traipse across the countryside hunting an Elf.”

“Explain,” Mairon orders, opening his hand to send the Uruk crashing towards the floor, “before I decide to feed you your own entrails.”

Collapsed in a heap on the ground, Adar rolls his eyes, making Mairon twitch in irritation. After gingerly inspecting his throat, he gravels out, “As I said, Galadriel found me. She had already given birth. Knowing that she was past the point of healing, she begged me to look after Celebrían and died within hours of placing her baby into my care. If you want someone to blame for her death, look no further than your mirror.”

As he speaks, Mairon seeks signs of a lie, but finds none, which isn’t surprising. Adar had always preferred to be straightforward. Even at the end of the First Age, the Moriondor had betrayed himself in a thousand ways. Only Mairon, reeling over the loss of his master, and thoroughly distracted by his experiments in the unseen world, had not possessed the eyes to see it. “I’m sure you were very eager to abscond with a child of my getting.”

“I did not consider you at all when I agreed to foster Celebrían,” Adar snaps as he pulls himself to a standing position.

“Mind your tongue.” Fuming at the insult, Mairon delivers a sharp slap to the Uruk’s face. Had he not been using the wall for support, the blow would have sent him reeling. Good. Adar needs a reminder of the deference he owes him. “Tell me about her ring.”

“What of it?” Adar asks in a less belligerent tone. “I know not where Galadriel journeyed in the last months before our final meeting.”

Unfortunately, that is also unsurprising. Galadriel left her child with Adar because she had no other recourse, but she would never have placed an object as powerful as Neyna into the hands of the Orcs. Where could she have hidden it? Tyelpë did his work too well. The Three have minds of their own and do not want to be found by him. With disdain, he notes, “Then I suppose you are unnecessary.”

“Indulge me,” Adar requests. “Are you going to kill Celebrían or claim her?”

To make up for his own lack of decision on the matter, Mairon adopts Annatar’s most haughty sneer and replies, “I have little reason to indulge you in anything.”

“After all the lies and betrayals, do I not have the right to know how completely I was deceived?” Adar protests. “One would think that you would be eager to convey the depths to which you made a fool of me.”

More confused than he is willing to admit, Mairon questions, “What does our past have to do with this?”

“Everything!” Adar cries. He darts a worried look over Mairon’s shoulder, probably worrying that he had drawn Celebrían’s attention with the noise, and continues in a harsh whisper, “When I first knew you, I never dreamed that you would deliberately hurt, much less kill, your own child. After Forodwaith, I was convinced that you were incapable of anything else.”

“Those misbegotten creatures were no kin of mine,” Mairon denies.

“Was it some other Maia who constantly reminded me that I could not have had them without him?” Adar snaps hotly. “Gothmog, perhaps? He was always enthusiastic about telling me what pretty babies we would have when we coupled.”

“You didn’t,” he accuses in outrage. Were Ecthelion of the Fountain not dead already, Mairon would have flayed the skin from his bones for making Gothmog’s death so fast. No matter what happened after Melkor’s fall, the Lord of Balrogs had no right to lay hands on his Neidragh.

“If I did,” Adar notes primly, “it would be none of your business.”

“Oh, you seem to have forgotten,” Mairon presses his body against his lover in a manner that is both threatening and sinuous. Deftly, he slips his fingers underneath Adar’s tunic and strokes the bare skin of his hip. “You are mine.”

It is easy to predict what will happen. As it has always done, such actions will reduce Adar to a trembling mess. In moments, he’ll be begging to bed him. Mairon might even indulge the request. Provided that he recants these filthy claims.

Instead of melting into his embrace, Adar shudders in horror and firmly says, “Stop.”

Astounded and angry at the rejection, Mairon sends searing heat pouring through his palm. Not enough to inflict permanent damage, just enough to leave an impression. Watching Adar shallowly gasp through the pain, he reminds him, “You have only yourself to blame.”

“Is this what you’ll do to Celebrían?” Adar’s face is a mask of sorrow. “It’s only a matter of time until she does something to displease you. She’s stubborn—like her mother— eventually she’ll make you angry. You’ll be tempted to use the most expedient method to force her into compliance.”

“Is she so very disobedient?”

“She’s a child,” Adar tells him, as if that were any sort of explanation. Noting Mairon’s confusion, he adds, “Children test boundaries. It’s in their nature. As a parent, you are meant to provide discipline, but it must never come from anger or selfishness. Withholding love to barter for submission, doling out pain when you aren’t obeyed, you’ll damage her beyond reckoning if you do these things.”

Once again, there is the problem of Celebrían and fitting her into all this. Mairon leans back to ponder the question of this unforeseen event.

Sensing his internal debate, Adar presses, “I could take her to the village. There are people there who will care for her. You would never have to acknowledge your relation. Once you kill me, there will be none in Middle Earth who can share the secret.”

The incomplete nature of the suggestion is galling. “I will not consent to the uncertainties of that scheme.” Stroking Adar’s cheek, he chides, “Besides, are you telling me that you don’t have a contingency plan in place? You are smarter than that. The last thing I need is another Half-Maia being raised to think of me as an enemy.”

“Do you really think that I’m eager to sacrifice another child for your sake?” Adar spits. “Nothing could make me wish to burden her with that grief. She will not have a moment of unmixed happiness once the identity of her sire is revealed.”

Though he can tell that Adar hadn’t meant to deliver a repartee, the comment still stings. The fact that Mairon is troubled at all is an additional disturbance.

‘Are you certain that you want to become a kinslayer, my love?’ Celebrimbor’s voice interrupts his reverie. ‘Your sins are many, but I can assure you that the ramifications of spilling the blood of your blood will be more far-reaching than you can predict.’

Slowly, Mairon says, “I need time to think upon it.”

“If you don’t kill her,” Adar looks ill at the thought, “it will be difficult to transport Celebrían in this storm.”

Presented with the image of himself trying to drag an unconscious elfling (or worse, a wailing one) through a blizzard, settles the matter. Pleased to leave the racking indecision behind, he agrees, “Very well, I will use the days that it takes for the weather to calm to observe her. However, I insist that she be told the truth. I cannot properly study her, or the situation, if she does not know.”

“There is no need for—” Adar begins, but Mairon immediately cuts him off.

“Then I kill her now and have done with it,” he states, feeling heartily sick of all this debate. In the days of Angband, Adar never used to argue with him even a quarter as much. It’s going to take centuries to groom him back into subservience. Not that Mairon means to give the Moriondor any sort of power or privilege again.

“At least wait until tomorrow? Let her have one last night of innocence,” Adar pleads. At Mairon’s dubious look, he tempts, “If we tell her now, she’ll never go to sleep.”

It’s a fair point. Though, on sheer principle, he dislikes the idea of giving in to the Uruk’s demands. “You will not prejudice her against me in any way after she is told. Or the bias will corrupt the information I am trying to gather.”

“You’ll create the prejudice yourself without my interference.”

Before Mairon can punish him for the insolence, the sound of a door opening draws his gaze. Celebrían runs into the room and attaches herself to her guardian’s legs. Plastering a smile on his face, Adar lifts the girl to perch on his uninjured hip and slips her hood back. “Did you finish writing everything you wished to tell your mother?”

“Not completely, but it was so cold that I had to stop,” she shivers, and Adar walks over to the fireplace to pick up one of the discarded blankets. He wraps it around her cloaked form, and Celebrían makes a contented noise. “What did you and Mairon talk about?”

“Your father was just telling me that he thinks you should rest,” Mairon comments smoothly. On further thought, he is not going to gain any meaningful data from a sleep-deprived subject. It temporarily trumps whatever disagreements he has with Adar.

Sighing his relief, Adar leans his cheek against the top of Celebrían’s head, “Mairon,” he stumbles over the name, “is going to stay with us until the storm is over.”

“We can play together!” Celebrían cheers enthusiastically as the adults in the room suppress grimaces for completely different reasons.

“Perhaps,” Adar comments, barely able to project a calm exterior, “but for now it’s time for bed.”

“Where will Mairon sleep?” Celebrían asks in concern. Their house must have only two bedrooms. How the Uruk had found the temerity to raise the child in this hovel is astounding.

Temporarily stymied, Adar eventually replies, “He’s not tired.”

“On the contrary,” Mairon says, “I would appreciate the opportunity.”

While he may not need to sleep, the experience is usually refreshing, and the way that Adar glares at him over the girl’s head makes the request particularly pleasant.

“We’ll get him some extra blankets, and he can make himself comfortable out here,” Adar tells her, obviously trying to avoid directly addressing Mairon.

“On the floor?” Celebrían looks downward. Their floors are not made of wood or stone. It’s bare earth that has been tramped down and covered by a few rugs. “Won’t that be uncomfortable?”

Adapting a martyred expression, Mairon offers, “I have had a very long journey, but I am the guest here, and if you cannot accommodate me, then there is nothing more to say.”

Even from this distance, he can tell that Adar is swallowing a snarl. Celebrían leans back in his arms to ask, “Can he sleep with you?”

Behind her back, Mairon leers at Adar, while the Moriondor chokes. It would seem that his Neidragh hasn’t lost his squeamishness when talking about the ways of the flesh. It’s more proof that he hadn’t given himself to Gothmog. He never could have plucked up the courage. Then again, Mairon never thought he’d gain the resolve to try and slay him either.

“It would be inappropriate,” Adar wheezes. Mairon is insulted that the Uruk is so distressed at the notion of sharing a bed with him.

“Why?” Celebrían asks naively, “I sleep with you sometimes.”

“That’s different.” Noticing the girl preparing to pose another question, he heads her off by adding, “I’ll explain it to you later. If he really needs a bed, he can have yours, and we can share.”

Not missing how the arrangements will make it more difficult for him to interact with the girl, Mairon frowns and considers arguing.

Celebrían jumps down from Adar’s embrace and runs up to tug on Mairon’s hand. “Follow me, I’ll show you my room.”

Setting his protests aside, Mairon allows himself to be led while Adar trails behind, emitting a cloud of worry. At least Celebrían’s fingers aren’t sticky. On the contrary, they are dry and clean. Her hand is very small in his grasp. Within the space of a few feet, she is guiding him past a door and into a bedroom. The toys on the shelves and soft-hued colors of the adornments mark it as a child’s domain.

While Celebrían points out her sparse belongings, Adar opens a chest and removes a few sets of clothing. It’s sleeping attire, and something to wear in the morning, obviously meant to limit her interactions with her sire. He also nabs a book off the desk in the corner.

Yawning, the girl bids him a good night and hangs her hood on a low-hanging hook before following her guardian out. Mairon leans against the doorway and watches as Adar goes to the front room and has her hold the stack of clothes while he gathers up the blankets warming by the fire. Together, they deposit most of their materials in what is presumably Adar’s bedroom. Then they head to an ablution area that is not more than a closet.

Adar glares at him the entirety of the time that Celebrían is inside. When she emerges wearing an oversized sleeping tunic, the Uruk asks, “Did you use the salt?”

She pulls back her lips to display her scrubbed teeth in answer, and Adar trades places with her. He’s in and out of the room in a blur, and when he opens the door, his expression is panicked, as if he were expecting Mairon to abscond with his charge when he wasn’t looking. He calms somewhat when he finds Celebrían where he left her, and picks the girl up, locking them both in his room.

Mairon’s sigil is not an eye on a whim, and a few flimsy walls are not enough to keep him from watching them as they prepare to sleep. Once the candle is blown out and Adar has uselessly positioned himself on the side of the bed nearer to the door, Celebrían says, “You’re shaking.”

“I’m cold,” Adar lies. She curls close to his chest, and the Uruk drapes an arm over her shoulder. A later-than-usual bedtime sends Celebrían off to sleep within minutes.

As he expected, Adar does not follow suit. Instead, he stares down at his charge in grief and concern. Mairon keeps an ear out for noise, but doubts that Adar will attempt to flee into the inclement weather. With interest, he inspects his surroundings. The girl’s clothes are not richly adorned, but the plain garb is solid and decently maintained. The few tears or holes that he can spot are well-mended.

Everything in the room is neat, which pleases him, but the toys are distressing. Mairon has no idea who made them, but mistakes are readily apparent to anyone with even a modicum of skill. There are two faulty soldering points, one instance of porosity, and several surface defects. Maybe he should make one for her? Even if he ends up killing her—especially if he ends up killing her—she ought to at least have a single well-crafted plaything before she dies.

Her desk is the most interesting space. Ink bottles are arrayed in precise increments apart. Examining their contents, he realizes that they are arranged from left to right in the visible light spectrum based on wavelength, from longest to shortest. Who had taught her to appreciate such beauty? Surely not the slipshod smith who had made her toys? She has organized her pens by the size of their nibs. There is no evidence of paper, but Mairon knows she writes in the book that Adar took away. He takes a moment to curse himself for not inspecting it more closely when she had shown it to him.

Within an hour, Mairon has thoroughly inspected the confines of the room. While he considers investigating the rest of the cottage, he knows that it is better to wait until he can avoid the argument with Adar that would follow. With little else to do, Mairon settles in to watch the other occupants of the cottage. The Uruk doesn’t sleep, but in the dark of the night, he eventually moves.

Carefully disentangling himself from Celebrían, Adar tucks the blankets around her to keep out the chill. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he buries his head in his hands and weeps. Turning, he smoothes down the hair of his small charge and mouths the words, “I’m so sorry.”

Looking on in puzzlement, he ponders Adar. In Utumno and Angband, it had been rare for his Neidragh to cry. What in the name of Melkor does he have to upset him? Mairon hasn’t absolutely decided to kill Celebrían.

Adar spends the rest of the night in silent contemplation. When the sun rises, it’s a gray and feeble light that casts itself through the windows. It is barely four hours past midnight. Leaving Celebrían behind to sleep, the Uruk quietly slips out of the room and busies himself with household tasks. Mairon joins him, for lack of better occupation, and then immediately wishes that he hadn’t when he realizes that Adar is preparing to empty the chamberpot in what serves as their washroom.

“Couldn’t you have contrived plumbing for this hideout?” Mairon complains in disgust.

“I have no education in constructing such things. Now I need you to help me break a path to the stable before the snows get too high. I have to give the animals feed to last for a few days, and I need to empty this,” he indicates the pot, “away from the house.”

With a flick of his fingers, Mairon scours the contents of the bowl, and Adar starts in surprise, “Are you willing to do that for the length of your stay?”

“Fine,” Mairon agrees to the request with poor grace.

Surprised and suspicious, the Uruk prods, “Really?”

“If it means you will not be trudging about carrying that foul thing,” he snaps, “but do not expect me to labor for you as if I were some lowly—”

“Uruk?” Adar interrupts pointedly. “Either you help me now, or you wait inside while Celebrían and I do it. It will take at least three hours, and she’ll be miserable and cold the whole time.”

“Or you could leave her with me while you go about the drudge work,” Mairon suggests with a sneer.

“Let us be clear,” Adar says. “As recently as last night, you were seriously contemplating killing Celebrían. I will never leave you alone with her if I can help it. Certainly not for hours. You will help, or you will wait.”

“I could kill you both now and be done with it,” Mairon comments.

“Can you really bear to lose the knowledge?” Adar’s brow raises, but there is no mockery in the question, only calm logic as he continues, “For the rest of your days, you will think back on Celebrían as a partially completed task and wonder if you were mistaken in acting so precipitously.”

“You know me too well,” Mairon complains as wonder and anger fight for supremacy within him. Melkor had seen his potential, Galadriel had glimpsed yearning for better things, Celebrimbor had understood his drive and passion, but none of them had precisely known him like his Neidragh.

With a self-depricating laugh, Adar states, “I never knew you at all.”

Is that what he really believes? That everything was a lie? The assumption is a stinging slap that Mairon would almost feel hurt by if he didn’t know better.

“Are you going to help?”

Sighing in disgruntled agreement, Mairon wordlessly stomps to the front room. Even with his gifts, it’s not an easy process. Unless they want to drown, he cannot simply melt the chest-high snow from the door. He flatly refuses to do the manual labor of digging out the entryway and has the imminent satisfaction of watching Adar sweat through the task.

Once that is clear, it is a game of stopping and starting as they clear a path foot by foot. The whole procedure takes almost an hour, and the Uruk is panting by the time he is done piling up food for the animals, stacking extra straw, and spreading blankets to keep them warm. His last task is to drag the sled he had propped up against the house the night before back into the stable.

Once they trudge back, Adar immediately rolls a large wooden tub into the room and then uses a bucket to scoop snow from out of the window. He sets some of it to boil and a great deal more into the tub near the fire to slowly melt. After an hour or so, he pours the boiling water into the tub to heat what’s already in there.

Remembering all the times he watched Adar bathe in the past, Mairon comments, “You could have asked me to warm it for you.”

“Would you have obliged me?” Adar retorts. “Don’t bother being petulant, I know that you wouldn't. Go wait in Celebrían’s room until I’m done.”

“Why?” Mairon asks in genuine puzzlement. “It’s nothing that I haven’t seen before.”

A flush creeps up the Uruk’s deathly pallor, “The honest answer is that I don’t want you here, but the more practical one is that Celebrían was raised to think it improper for strangers to bare themselves to one another. She’s going to have questions if she wakes and finds you in here.”

“And…?” Mairon presses, confused once again about why it would matter.

“I’m already going to have to participate in one difficult conversation today,” Adar says, rubbing his hand over his face tiredly, “Do you want to explain intercourse to a seven-year-old?”

“Intercourse?” Mairon snorts. “Is that what you called it with Gothmog?”

“You’re the master experimenter,” Adar snaps, “one would think you would appreciate the use of the proper term.”

“I am also a wordsmith. However, your point is well-taken.” As amusing as it would be to watch his Neidragh stumble through an explanation about physical drives, the last thing that Mairon wants is to waste time. Celebrían seems curious enough (another trait she inherited from him?) without adding to it.

With that, he leaves Adar to his bathing and bypasses the child’s room in favor of Adar’s. Inside, he finds Celebrían still sleeping soundly and swathed in blankets up to her chin. He deliberates the benefits of waking her, but immediately dismisses the notion, because he probably won’t receive a better opportunity to prowl about the Uruk’s sanctum unchecked.

Unfortunately, this room is far less interesting. There is a rocking chair in one corner, a desk with a few household items that look as if they are mid-repair. The other corner is home to a clothes chest containing nothing surprising. A passably forged sword hangs on the wall, probably to keep it out of a child’s reach. There are several paintings, presumably done by Celebrían, that depict a dark-haired figure holding hands with a small pale-haired one. For a moment, the bizarre image of these pictures plastered over the walls of Barad-dur comes into his head, and he isn’t sure whether to be amused or scornful.

Mairon quietly approaches the bed and peers underneath, but the area is bare. From his place on the floor, he can see that there is something stuffed between the grating of the bedframe and the mattress. Very carefully, he lifts the cumbersome cushion and pulls out the journal that had been in Celebrían’s room the night before. Adar would not have hidden it without reason. He manages to get through three pages when he hears footsteps approach. It prompts him to slide the book back in place just before the Uruk enters with a thunderous expression.

“What are you doing in here?” he hisses, practically bowling over Mairon in his haste to check Celebrían.

“Am I not meant to be observing her?” Mairon poses the question lightly.

Eyes narrowing, his companion begins, “I told you to—”

“Ada?” Celebrían sleepily calls from under the covers. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, little one,” the Uruk covers his distress smoothly, “We just wanted to come in and wish you a happy essecarmë.”

“Thank you!” Celebrían cries in excitement. She bounds onto the floor and then immediately yelps at the cold air that assaults her.

Adar nabs a blanket and wraps it around her, “I’ve filled the bath. Mairon was gracious enough to make it nice and warm for you.”

Glaring, Mairon turns to acquiesce, if only because he can acknowledge the need for the child’s general cleanliness. He walks into the front of the house with a put-upon sigh as he melts the snow in the tub until the water steams.

Celebrían enters the room with Adar on her heels. The Uruk places towels and a set of warm-looking clothes on a chair before he steers Mairon out of the room as he calls over his shoulder, “Don’t forget to rinse the soap out of your hair thoroughly. You don’t want to get your head wet twice in this cold.”

“Alright,” she cheerfully replies.

They stand in the hallway, and with nothing else to do, Mairon crowds the Moriondor against a wall. Surprised, Adar gasps, “What—”

“I think we should have a discussion about the comment that you made about Gothmog,” Mairon says pointedly.

“Oh, for—why do you care? The last time that we saw one another, you were orchestrating my death,” Adar replies. It’s obvious that their proximity is affecting him, but the Uruk isn’t reacting in the ways that Mairon is used to seeing. There's no longing, only the desperate look of a trapped animal.

“That does not detract from the fact that no other may lay their hands upon you,” Mairon replies, holding Adar’s gaze intently. “Do you think that I would have let anyone else kill you? You are mine in both living and dying.”

“I don’t recall your hands holding the blades,” Adar snaps.

“No, but it was my will that guided them,” Mairon answers.

“You are hardly in a place to judge,” Adar argues, “I am raising living proof that you have had other lovers. I doubt you limited yourself to Galadriel, either. From what I know of your tastes, I suspect that you slithered your way into Celebrimbor’s bed too.”

“They belonged to me.” It is an explanation in and of itself. “Gothmog was enough of a fool to challenge me in this, so I ask you again. Did you give yourself to him?”

Closing his eyes, Adar leans back, as if in great pain. A suspicion rears in Mairon’s thoughts, making him fractionally ease off when he adds, “If he…forced the issue, I will not be angry.”

Not at Adar, in any case. Not for that. Though he may have to hunt down the remains of the Balrog’s ëala, scattered on the winds, and make him wish that he were capable of true death for daring to touch what belongs to Sauron.

“Despite his many offers, I never cohabitated with Gothmog,” Adar tells him. “You were, and remain, the only one.”

“Why does that admission make you look so miserable?” Mairon noses at his throat in a way that used to make Adar melt. “You were good at giving me what I needed. Is it the form? I can change it back to what you were used to bedding. My hair is the same. I remember your preference for the color.”

Mairon hasn’t forgotten Adar’s betrayal, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have his body. It’s been so long since he has been touched. The last had been Tyelpë, and his dear smith had been too tender for certain indulgences.

“Stop,” Adar begs.

“Why?” Mairon takes the Uruk’s hand and brings it up to his throat. “You’ve been angry at me. Don’t you want the opportunity to punish me?”

“Not like this,” Adar says, he looks terror-struck. “It isn’t right.”

Raising a brow in affront, Mairon leans down to his ear to whisper a pointed question, “Do you think that you have a choice?”

“You would force me again,” Adar comments, not defiantly, but sadly.

What did he mean by ‘again’? Mairon is no Melkor in these matters. Is it possible that Adar discovered Sauron’s role in the spawning of the Orcs? But even then, he hadn’t participated.

He hadn’t.

Dwelling alongside Celebrimbor in his thoughts, the image of Galadriel rises, and spits an angry accusation, ‘Do you really think I would have consented if I had known? Lieutenant of the Great Foe and slayer of my brother? My poor daughter sprang from a grievous origin. I bless Adar for sheltering her from it.’

‘Some part of you suspected my identity,’ Mairon snaps back.

‘Sauron the Deceiver crafted a faulty disguise?’ Galadriel mocks, ‘How shocking.’

Before he can formulate a response to either the dead or the living, a small voice calls, “I’m done!”

Adar practically flees into the front room.

Once Mairon has composed himself, he follows and sees Adar inspecting his charge’s hair. Though his hands shake, his voice is steady when he declares, “I don’t see any spots that you missed.”

Celebrían smiles proudly and picks up a comb to start working through her damp locks. Adar hauls the wash-basin to the door, where the path they had broken earlier stands already partially refilled with snow, and tips it out. Then he stands it up on its side and rolls it into a corner to rest against a wall. That done, he turns to the girl and asks, “Shall we eat? Or do you wish to open your gifts first?”

“Presents!” Celebrían cries gleefully, she rushes towards the dining table and bounces restlessly in her chair. “I want to save yours, Medhion’s, and Oreth’s for last.”

Dutifully, Adar sets aside three wrapped bundles from the small pile. Mairon is amused to note that the girl disembowels those parcels with a speed and precision that the executioners of Angband would have envied.

Most of what the child receives are useful gifts. Clothes (though none as fine as her cloak), shoes, a few hair ribbons, and a small box of pins for her braids. Those presents devoured, she makes her way to the last coveted three. The first of these is a set of brightly colored inks. Celebrían exclaims over them enthusiastically, “One of them is pink! Do you think Ammë would like me to write to her with it? Ohhh, this one is shiny!”

“I’m sure that your mother would love either one,” Adar assures her. “If you want to use them today, you should keep these bottles in the kitchen where it’s warm, or they might freeze.”

Agreeing, the child hands them over to him, and he places them on the mantle above the fire.

Giddily, Celebrían pulls at the strings of the second to reveal a tiny figurine of an Elf, carved in silver. The nîs is caught mid-dance, with one leg poised to take her next step. “So pretty!”

“Medhion told me that if you crank the bottom this way,” he picks it up and demonstrates, “she has a secret waiting to be revealed.”

He places the figure back on the table, and the top turns, making the dancer move with it. Celebrían insists on watching it five times and looks more enraptured with every successive twirl.

“May I?” Mairon asks, holding his hand out. The girl readily obeys, and he looks it over with a crafter’s eye, letting it do its wearysome trick in his palm.

Really, he doesn’t know what she is so excited about. He can already spot a mistake. If he lets her live, he makes a mental note to make her a better one and melt this for scrap. Eventually, he hands it back and offers, “This is…adequate.”

Adar gives him a sardonic look at his remark and hands over the last package, saying, “Mine is not as impressive as Medhion's, but Arradiel had some fabric left over from making your cloak.”

Nestled in the package is a pair of blood-red gloves with white fur lining the edges and the sigil of Finarfin worked into the backs with gold thread. “This symbol stands for your mother’s house. You’ll have to be careful about wearing them around other people, but I thought you might like to have a piece of her that you can keep close.”

Glassy-eyed, Celebrían throws her arms around the Uruk in heartfelt gratitude, and Adar returns the embrace. Eventually, she slips down to the floor and announces that she is fetching her cloak, because she wants to wear them together. Before she can leave, Mairon says, “When you return, there is something that we need to talk about.”

Once she is gone, Adar turns to him and pleads, “It’s her nameday. Why don’t you wait until tomorrow? It cannot hurt.”

“No, I have waited long enough,” Mairon says firmly. “If you don’t tell her, then I will, but I imagine that you would be kinder in going about it. Besides, you said that you didn’t know exactly when Galadriel gave birth, or when she named her. The day might have already passed.”

With a grieved expression, Adar waits for Celebrían to reenter. He spares a moment to admire her in her coat and gloves, but coaxes her to take them off, lest they become stained. Then he guides her to a chair and sits her upon his knee. For a long moment, he struggles for words. Eventually, he settles on asking, “Little one, do you remember when Nyēni had her babies?”

Nervously, she looks out the window, where the world has been reduced to shades of white, “Are the goats going to be alright in the cold?”

Why is Adar talking about animal husbandry? Celebrían is obviously confused by her guardian’s solemnity when speaking about livestock, and Mairon shares in her bafflement. Is this some sort of delaying tactic? He is just about to inject himself into the conversation when Adar answers, “They’ll be fine. I took care of them this morning. Right now, I need you to remember. There was a question that you posed to me on that day.”

Celebrían looks upward in concentration. “I think I asked how the babies got in her stomach. You said I had to wait a hundred years before I could ask again.”

Mairon doesn’t bother to disguise his snort. How nice to see that Adar hadn’t completely changed over the years. He still turns into an utter prude when someone tries to have a blunt discussion about sex.

“The situation has altered,” Adar draws the last word out uncomfortably. “You know that most people have a mother, even if they sometimes have to go to Mandos.”

She gives a solemn nod in response.

“Do you understand what role fathers play in having children?” Adar presses.

Does Adar not remember whether he told her? Who else would have? Unless it was one of the Elves in the village? Perhaps one of those who gave her gifts?

Celebrían replies as if she is concerned that her father doesn’t know. “They help take care of the babies.”

“That’s true, a good father always takes care of his children,” Adar agrees, and darts an accusatory glance at Mairon, “but there is something else. They usually help the mother make the babies.”

“How?” Celebrían immediately asks.

Blushing up to the roots of his hair, Adar stumbles over his answer, “That’s…not important. What you need to know is that a child cannot be conceived without at least two parents.”

“Okay,” Celebrían dwells upon this new information for a while. Finally, she adds, “Then you and Ammë did the thing that makes babies and had me.”

Mairon grits his teeth at the insinuation, no matter how innocently expressed.

Galadriel comments, almost conversationally. ‘Neither of you can compare to my husband. However, if I knew the truth of things back then, and were made to pick between you. I would have chosen Adar. He is fit to father my daughter in ways that you can never hope to match. I wouldn’t wish her to be other than what she is, but I do lament that my choices will bring her so much pain.’

‘You’re lying,’ Sauron accuses. ‘You wouldn’t pick him, Elrond, or even your precious Celeborn.’

“No,” Adar says, and Mairon is so intently focused on his internal debate with Galadriel that for a disjointed moment he thinks the Uruk has somehow overheard, before he continues, “I didn’t make you with your mother.”

Frowning, Celebrían asks, “But you just said that you need two parents. I don’t understand.”

Desperately, holding her face between his hands, Adar tells her, “I raised you, I protected you, and have nurtured you. I love you more than I will ever have words to express. However, I was not the one to bring you into existence."

Deeming this the most opportune moment to enter the conversation. Mairon steps forward and says, “I am your sire.”

Celebrían displays neither horror nor joy. Every time she tries to speak, no sound comes out of her throat. Adar pulls her close and rests his cheek on the top of her head. The proximity seems to loosen her tongue. She tilts her chin upwards and asks tremulously, “You’re not my Ada?”

Naturally, Adar has indoctrinated the child to such an extent that her first concern is for the person who stole her. Tears fill her eyes, and the Uruk hurriedly soothes her, “The most important thing that makes someone a father is the love that he gives to his children. Blood relation is a small concern in comparison. You believe me when I say that I love you? Do you not?”

The girl throws her arms around Adar as proof of her belief. After an over-indulgence of weeping on both sides, Celebrían rambles uncertainly, “Why—no, I mean, where—no, that’s not right either—”

“Breathe,” Adar reminds her, rocking her in his arms.

“I don’t know how to say it without sounding mean.” Celebrían sends Mairon a tremulous look and smooths a non-existent crease in her clothing.

“It’s alright, you can speak freely. He won’t be angry or offended by your honesty.” The Uruk sends him a glare as if to warn him against such actions.

Mairon huffs in annoyance. As if a waist-high elfling could voice anything that would actually upset him. “I would rather you raise your questions now than pepper me with them throughout the day.”

Her fingers reflexively twitch—a clear sign of frayed nerves that Adar should have trained out of her. “Why did you stay away? Did you not want to see me?”

For a long beat, Mairon debates his reply. The answers are simple enough, but tone will be important. Kneeling to meet her at eye-level, Mairon tells her seriously, “I knew nothing of your birth. If I had, I would have insisted on collecting you.”

Whether he would have let her live is dubious, but there is no need for such observations at this time. His answer takes her by surprise, but she is a clever little thing (naturally so, considering her blood) and immediately questions, “Why didn’t anyone tell you?” Did Ada not know who…”, she trails off and looks at him in confusion. “I don’t know what to call you.”

Truthfully, Mairon had not considered that point of etiquette either. With a stab of pain, he recalls that Aulë had wanted to be called father, but eventually changed his mind when it came to using the familial term while crafting. Even as he claimed to welcome the input of others, the hypocrite never could stand to be referred to as an equal in the forge.

Seeing an opportunity to annoy Adar, he says, “Heru”.

“Lord?” Celebrían translates hesitantly. Behind her, Adar stiffens, but in the midst of her curiosity, she misses his reaction.“You’re a lord?”

“Indeed, I am.” Better to have her acknowledge that from the beginning. “As I recall, Adar was also called Lord Father not so long ago.”

Celebrían gapes in shock at her guardian. Her voice is high-pitched and startled as she repeats, “You’re a lord?”

Pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers, the Uruk tiredly answers, “At one time, but I’m not anymore, and I don’t want you calling him that either. For now, you can use the name Mairon.”

“You have no right to dictate how I interact with her,” Mairon snarls in outrage. He's itching to release a burst of power.

“Galadriel left her to my care,” Adar snaps. “She dreaded the possibility that you would find Celebrían.”

Obviously overwhelmed by the onslaught of so many revelations and frightened at the thunderous anger that surrounds her, Celebrían latches onto the only thing that she can in the chaos. “Why didn’t Ammë want me to meet him?”

Immediately, Adar gentles his words and abandons the argument to gather her into his arms. “Little one, there isn’t an easy way to tell you this—if it were up to me, you never would have to learn it.”

In the face of her solemn expression, he falters and fumbles for the correct words. “I once told you that people can have many names.”

“Yes,” she frowns at his apparent non-sequiter. “You said that your friend Maedhros had four and that my mother had two: Galadriel and Artanis.”

“Three,” Mairon corrects. Adar stares at him in bafflement, clearly questioning his reasons for interrupting such an important conversation with trivialities. He isn’t delaying. He isn’t. Mairon is making sure that the facts are straight. “She was also called Nerwen.”

“Man-maiden?” Celebrían translates. “Who gave her that name? It makes no sense!”

“You would have to question your grandmother for her reasons,” Mairon offers with a shrug.

“The point is,” Adar interrupts tightly, “that Mairon himself has other names—he is also called Sauron.”

With the truth finally revealed, he expected a more extreme reaction, but Celebrían is calm. “That’s alright. I don’t mind.”

Both Mairon and Adar blink at her. Eventually, the Uruk asks, “Did you hear what I said?”

“Of course,” she replies. “It’s not his fault. Nobody can help what they are called, but I can see why you don’t use it every day; it must be hard to share a name with the Dark Lord.”

Making a helpless noise, Adar tightens his arms around her. “There is only one Sauron.”

Her lightheartedness immediately dissipates. “But Mairon is my sire.”

“I did say that.” He combs his fingers through her hair.

“Ada, I think you’re caught in a memory again.” She takes his hand between her own and rubs small circles into his scarred skin. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.”

“Dearest, I’m fine,” he assures her.

Her innocent confusion is unbearable. Mairon wants to kill them both and leave this mess behind him, or sling Celebrían over one shoulder and brave the storm, or break Adar’s jaw before he can continue. For one insane moment, he feels the impulse to weep. Heedless of his turmoil, his daughter continues her worried examination of her guardian. “No, you’re confused. Do you need to lie down?”

Adar clasps her around the shoulders.”I’m perfectly well.”

Can she really not comprehend what they are trying to tell her? Mairon inspects her features and sees the apprehension. She’s desperately trying to flee from the truth and not letting herself see it.

“Celebrían, I need you to listen to me,” Adar tells her firmly. When she ducks her head, he releases one of her arms to force her to meet his gaze; the Uruk has tears streaming down his cheeks. “Mairon is Sauron.”

The quiet that follows is so profound that even the storm seems to hold its breath. Adar, torn between the urge to embrace her and fear that she will reject him, lets his hand fall from her chin. Celebrían is still, saying nothing for an unbearably long time, then she releases a tiny whimper. “That can’t be true."

Ever so gently, Adar asks, “Why not?”

“Sauron hurt you,” she stares beseechingly at the only father she has ever known, as if he can somehow remove this terrible knowledge. “Sauron killed my mother.”

Unable to contain himself any longer, Mairon howls at the Uruk, “You told her that?”

His response confirms her fears, and Celebrían pales. She convulses once, and then twice. Adar swiftly picks up his charge and darts towards the window. He just manages to get her head outside and to pull back her hair before she purges. With nothing in her stomach, she heaves up bile onto the same place that Adar had dug up the snow for a bath only a few hours ago.

‘My clever flame,’ the memory of Melkor whispers in his head. ‘Every year that she wants to celebrate, she will be forced to think of you instead.’

That’s right, he forgot that it is Celebrían’s nameday.

‘You didn’t forget,’ his master comments. ‘I seem to recall that you always enjoyed doing something special with Maedhros to commemorate the occasion.’

It isn’t the same. Mairon's fingers twitch restlessly.

‘Of course it is! What better way to punish both mother and child?’ Melkor prods. ‘The first for abandoning you and both of them for their theft? Wherever she might be in Mandos, Artanis must be racked with regret.’

Galadriel’s theft had been obvious, but what did Celebrían take? They had only just met.

‘Your disingenuousness is not becoming,’ his master scolds. Mairon smothers the urge to flinch at the rebuke. ‘Did you not acknowledge that she stole a spark from your ëala? Did she not abscond with your playthings? Your pet and your golden lady might still be at your side had she not been born.’

Once she has finished being sick, Adar balances her on one hip, brings her to the kitchen, and has her rinse out her mouth before sinking into a chair near the fire. “It’s hard, I know it’s so hard.”

The girl hooks her arms around his neck and locks her knees around his torso. Adar seamlessly adjusts to support her, and it dawns on Mairon that they have probably embraced this way countless times for the move to be so instinctive. The Uruk’s face softens with love, and Celebrían clings to him in utter trust. Something twists in Mairon’s chest. These two are firmly embedded in each other’s hearts. Neither of them is looking in his direction. Indeed, he thinks that they have entirely forgotten him.

Angry (even when he’s not entirely sure why he is so enraged), Mairon interrupts their communion by emphatically stating, “Now that everything is out in the open, we have much to discuss. Chief of which is why you,” he points at Adar, “felt the need to lie to Celebrían about her mother’s death.”

Both figures appear nonplussed. Adar is the first to recover and indulges in a look of incredulity. “Are you really accusing me of deceit? I told her that her mother received a mortal wound, and she was smart enough to figure out who must have delivered it.”

“I did no such thing. Galadriel could have come to me. If she had joined me, I would have saved her.” Mairon snaps.

Celebrían stares at him, and her gaze takes some of the fire out of Mairon. Squirming to face him, her expression is grave as she asks, “Are you going to kill my Ada?”

Weighing his words carefully, he replies, “No, I don’t think that I will.”

Honesty, he hasn’t decided what to do with Adar, but the Uruk isn’t her sire. Mairon can say with certainty that he isn’t about to snuff out his own life. Unconvinced, Adar shakes his head behind Celebrían’s back, but doesn’t speak.

Trembling, she whimpers, “Do you promise?”

Schooling his features into solemnity, he says, “I promise.”

“Thank you.” A hint of color returns to Celebrían’s cheeks, and she sags back against Adar’s chest in boneless relief. “You can kill me now.”

“What?”

“Why would you think—”

“If you’re not here to hurt Ada,” she interrupts, “then I figured that you must mean to kill me instead.”

Adar and his loose lips. Mairon ought to sew them shut as a reminder of discretion. “I don’t want to kill you.”

At least, not until he has had the chance to observe her.

“Oh,” she says, not relieved, not grateful, just utterly blank. As if she truly hadn’t expected to survive and is numbly surprised to find herself still among the living. “I don’t understand. What do you want?”

“To get to know you,” Mairon answers simply.

“Oh,” she repeats. Before she can continue, she sways with exhaustion, prompting Adar to shift her weight on his lap. “I don’t feel good.”

After spending untold eons as Melkor’s chief torturer, Mairon recognizes the symptoms well. “You’re in shock.”

Lips going blue with cold, she shivers violently. Through chattering teeth, she manages to get out, “What’s happening to m-m-me?”

“Your body is redirecting blood flow from your skin and extremities to vital organs to prioritize survival.” He’s proud to be able to inform her of this; it had taken years of experimentation on Elven prisoners to unlock the secrets of their bodies.

“Wh-Wh-What?” Celebrían stammers as Adar refastens the cloak that he had draped on the back of the chair.

“It means that the blood in your body has moved and isn’t keeping you warm the way that it usually does,” Adar explains.

With a huff, Mairon grudgingly lets the simplistic answer pass. Examining her intently, he advises, “You’ll need to lay her down. Make sure that you elevate her legs and feet slightly, but don’t give her any food or water. She’ll end up getting sick again.”

Surprisingly, Adar doesn’t argue. He promptly picks up his charge and walks to his bedroom. Mairon trails behind them only to be met with a door slammed in his face. Affronted, but unwilling to set back Celebrían’s recovery (he predicts that it’s already going to waste the rest of the day without a fight with Adar to disturb her further), he shamelessly spies through the walls.

As the Uruk slips a pillow beneath her feet and pulls the blankets up, Celebrían whispers, “Is he really my father?”

Flinching, Adar rasps, “Yes.”

Seeming to ponder that, the girl watches him fuss over her. “Am I ugly?”

“Of course you aren’t!” Adar protests. “What would make you think something like that?”

“Ugly on the inside.” She smoothes a wrinkle in the blanket as she tries to explain, “Like when you pick an apple, and it looks fine, but when you take a bite, it’s all brown and mushy. Am I rotten because of him?”

The horrible mixture of grief and fear makes Mairon’s fana spasm uncomfortably. A wave of seething anger follows in its wake with a welcome burst of heat. He is of the Ainur who sang the world into existence. He is the most admired of Aulë’s children students. There is no better lineage in Middle Earth or Valinor to possess.

“You are the loveliest person that I have ever known,” Adar tells her firmly. “Inside and out.”

“Should I be angry at him?” The question makes Adar stiffen, but she continues heedlessly. “I mean, I am angry, but I’m confused about it.”

“That’s alright,” he places a comforting hand on the top of her head and smoothes his thumb back and forth against her temple, “you don’t have to know. Whatever emotions you feel will not be wrong.”

“I’ll hate him for you,” she offers. It’s a pattern that is familiar to Mairon. How often had Melkor demanded hate in exchange for love? Frequently enough that he can recognize Celebrían’s sincerity and determination. Not that his master had ever done as much with his greatest lieutenant. Such tactics were only necessary with his lesser vassals. With Mairon, there had been no need. So different from the constant sacrifice that characterized his relationship with Aulë.

There is an extremely long pause, and Mairon is already compiling a list of grievances about broken pacts when Adar replies, “I don’t want you to do that for me.”

“Why?” Celebrían voices the same question that is ringing through Mairon’s head. It makes no sense. Adar just passed on a prime opportunity to balance the scales in his own favor.

“Because you shouldn't be forced to feel anything. I know exactly what it is like to be placed in that situation, and I would not give you such grief. If you hate him, let it be for yourself.” He leans down until the two are a handsbreadth apart and continues with difficulty, as if the words were agonizing to utter. “If you love him, that is your decision too, and I will never rebuke you for it. You can carry both feelings for him, or neither. It’s entirely up to you. Do you understand?”

Despite the blanket, the girl shivers. “I think so.”

“Good.” Adar retrieves a fur from his closet and drapes it over her. “Would you like to rest?”

“Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”

“Of course,” the Uruk promises. He doesn’t move from his seat on the side of the bed until long after she has passed into dreams.

Holding the breath that he technically does not need, Mairon contemplates what he has just heard. He wants to storm in and shake answers out of Adar. What did he mean when he said that he had forced himself to express emotions that he had not felt? For whom had he been playacting? Surely not, Mairon. It is impossible that his Neidragh had feigned those moments that they had shared.

Noiselessly, Adar slips out of the room. He is unsurprised to see Mairon at the doorway. “You were listening.”

Neglecting to provide a blatantly obvious answer, Mairon instead crowds into the space between them and demands, “Were you telling the truth?”

“The only lies that I ever tell to Celebrían are those of omission, and I never particularly relish them. Unlike some people that I could name. There’s hardly a call for me to do that anymore,” he answers flatly. “Precisely why are you upset?”

“What makes you think that I am?” Mairon bristles at the implication. Offended that the Uruk had accurately read him.

“Your fingers are twitching, and you always used to twist your rings when you were nervous in the past.” Adar gestures towards the appendages, which are indeed wiggling traitorously. Self-conscious, Mairon wonders why he had never noticed, but doesn’t have much time to contemplate it before the Uruk adds, “Celebrían fidgets when she is troubled.”

“Yes, I know,” Mairon says. It was something that he had criticized not long ago. At least, he hadn’t voiced his disapproval, or he would be dealing with accusations of hypocrisy in the midst of his embarrassment.

Almost amused, the Uruk quirks a lip and steps around him. “If you are done spying on me, I need to make something for Celebrían to eat. She didn’t have breakfast, and she is going to be famished when she wakes.”

Mairon grabs the Uruk by the shoulder, using his forearm, and pins him against the opposite wall as he snaps, “Stay where you are, I want you to admit to your lies.”

“Is this one of those ‘takes one to know one’ situations?” Adar fires back. Then, after closing his eyes and indulging in a lengthy inhale, he forces himself to be more measured. “What exactly am I supposed to have misled you about in the private conversation that I had with my daughter?”

“She is not yours,” Mairon hisses hotly, feeling the compulsion to correct him on the point, even when he is enraged, “and you know very well what I mean. Why did you say that you faked your feelings for me?”

The question startles Adar into an honest reply, “I wasn’t lying.”

“No,” Mairon denies flatly. “If you hadn’t cared about me, you would have encouraged Celebrían to reject me in there.”

Trembling with anger, Adar breaks out of the hold with a powerful shove and shouts, “Nienna’s mercy, not everything is about you! I’m afraid of what effects such hate will have on Celebrían’s spirit. If I had allowed myself to be selfish, I would have her loathe you as much as her mother did. Not that I was at all misleading her. Do you have any idea how many times I forced myself to pretend that I desired you?”

Nearly everything in the Uruk’s reply was calculated to enrage Sauron. From the swearing by the name of an Ainu other than himself, to the jibe that Galadriel had hated him, and finally that awful implication that he hadn’t been wanted. He feels used, and that is completely unacceptable. He fumbles for a justification, “What happened at Forodwaith made you upset. Neither of us was at our best in that place.”

“Forodwaith? Try Angband,” Adar fires back, “and even in Utumno, there were moments when all I wished was for you to take your hands off of me.”

“I don’t believe you.” The petulant words are wretched from Sauron’s throat before he can actually think about his reply. He’s fully aware that he sounds like he is the same age as Celebrían, but at the moment, his feelings are too raw to allow him to be calculating. “You have always been hungry for the affection that I gave you. There is simply no way that you could have been deceiving me from the beginning. Clever as you are, you never have been that devious.”

“You’re right,” Adar agrees, and he looks terribly sad as he says it. “I loved you. Of course I did. Yet that does not mean that I always wanted you. Fear and pain were always intermixed with love.”

“Is that all?” Mairon reaches out and nuzzles his Neidragh from behind. Really, he should punish Adar for worrying him, but he’s just so relieved to find that it was all a misunderstanding. “That’s normal. How did you come to believe that fear and love are separate states? I suppose it’s my own fault. I was too gentle with you at first.”

“Not the kind of fear that I’m speaking about.” Adar wrenches himself away. “The recent years have given me time to reflect, and I can say with certainty that when I was afraid of you, I didn’t welcome your advances. I don’t know what Morgoth did to you to make you think otherwise, but it most definitely is not normal.”

Mairon doesn’t want to hear it. Nothing had been done to him. Melkor had freed him; he had shown him how utterly caged he had once been. If that revelation required fear and pain—what of it? Had he not become greater in recompense? Yet memories of his master linger. It couldn’t be the same.

Without another word, Mairon spins on his heel and storms out of the house. His skin is a living flame, and the winds and snows melt in the face of his fury. Out in the woods, he starts felling trees with his bare hands for the sheer satisfaction of making something die. He wants to scream as Melkor had after being attacked by Ungoliant. Instead, he is reduced to shattering bark for hours without cessation. When the bark proves inadequate, he starts slamming his fists into the ground relentlessly.

‘Ai, my love. I am truly sorry,’ Tyelpë mourns, ‘it is a bitter thing to realize that someone that you care about never wanted you. I wouldn’t have wished it on you.”

“You think that didn’t desire you?” Mairon pauses in his destruction long enough to pose the question aloud with a pang. “I always did, even when you were defiant and driving me to madness with your stubbornness. Indeed, I would not have been so angry if I had been indifferent.”

‘What was I to think, Annatar?’ Celebrimbor chides him gently. ‘You were torturing me for the rings. Is it so strange for me to believe that they were all that you ever wanted? That I died convinced you cared for the works and not he that forged them?’

Mairon desperately needs to believe that Tyelpërinquar had not gone to the Halls of the Dead thinking himself unloved. “I cherished the hands as dearly as what they made.”

‘What if I had not been the grandson of Fëanor?’ Tyelpë pointedly asks. ‘Would you still have been drawn to me if I had been a painter or a poet instead of a smith? Would you still have sought me out if I had nothing you wanted to steal?’

“That isn’t fair! Without your craft, you would not be yourself, but an entirely different person.” Mairon protests. “I’ll prove it to you. Once Middle Earth has been set to rights, I’ll find some way to fetch you from Mandos, and I will require nothing but your presence. You will see how much I value you.”

‘What if I do not choose to go?’ Celebrimbor asks simply, like he already knows the answer.

“Is it really such a burden to love me that you would pick darkness and death over a life spent at my side?”

‘Is Middle Earth really so terrible as it is? What of your daughter? Is she not proof of all that is good and wholesome in these lands? What kind of future will you provide for her?’

“A better world,” Mairon snaps, words harsh and defensive. “A greater one.”

‘Will you make her bow to you as well?’

This is a sore point for Celebrimbor. Young as he had been, he could still remember when his grandfather stopped viewing his sons as his children and started treating them as vassals from whom loyalty could be demanded, instead of sought.

When he doesn’t answer, the memory of Tyelpë retreats and refuses to resurface.

Mairon devotes the remainder of his time outside, pouring his rage upon the land.

________________________

End Part 1

A couple of things. The apparitions of Morgoth, Galadriel, and Celebrimbor aren’t ghosts. Nor are they meant to be evidence of a split personality. They’re manifestations of truths that Sauron can’t bear to voice. He is such a complicated character. As I said, he is absolutely terrible at self-awareness and introspection. As I was writing, I realized that the only way I could wring honesty out of Sauron was to have him manifest truth using the voices of people that he has loved.

I went back and forth about what Sauron’s reaction to Celebrían would be like. We all know he can be greedy about things that belong to him, but he also loves order and being the smartest person in the room. Having a surprise-baby bombshell dropped on him is not only extremely chaotic but also probably makes him feel like an idiot. Ultimately, I settled on uncertainty. Hence, there are back-and-forth thoughts about keeping her alive. Decisive person that Sauron is, it’s driving him nuts that he can’t settle on a decision.

#adar rings of power #celebrían #sauron #little red riding hood

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Éowyn is a cat