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for you to play. - sauron x oc & morgoth x sauron 🔥
the precarious misadventures of the dark lord & his dark lady. - sauron x oc one-shot collection🔥
hollowed ground. - martanis 🔥
↝ the precarious misadventures of the dark lord & his dark lady. | moonlight
❯ PAIRINGS - sauron | mairon x f!human!oc
❯ UNIVERSE - heiress au
❯ WARNINGS - mentions of difficult pregnancy
❯ SUMMARY - Against all odds, Sabina falls pregnant with the Dark Lord's child. But it is not as easy as they both hoped. So Mairon sends her back to Mordor in hopes he can protect her from the dangers that live in the Numenorean court and from herself if he can help it.
masterlist
He did not know how long he had been staring. He only knew he could not look away. Sabina stood upon the balcony, bathed in moonlight, her silver-white hair spilling over her shoulders like starlight caught in silk. The soft night made her seem almost unreal, all pale radiance and fragile breath, as one hand smoothed the gossamer fabric of her nightgown over the swell of her stomach. Life, growing in a place where neither of them had dared to hope it could.
Mairon leaned against the doorframe, silent and still, watching the rise and fall of her breath. Centuries ago, when he had given her a piece of his fëa, he had promised her it would heal what had been wounded. He had sworn it would mend what time and suffering had tried to steal from her.
And it had. Not wholly. Not without cost. But enough. Enough to grant them this impossible thing. This shared life. This deeper kind of love neither of them had believed they would ever be allowed to hold. But such gifts never came without consequence. Half-Maia pregnancies were long, unnatural things for mortal bodies to endure. Grueling. Hungry. Demanding more than flesh and blood were meant to give. Even with a piece of his fëa sustaining her, it was not enough to carry both Sabina and the child without a price.
She hid it from him as best she could. Mairon knew that. He saw the pallor beneath her skin. The faint tremor in her hands when she thought he was not looking. The way her strength waned more swiftly with each passing day, as though the child within her drew not only nourishment from her body, but light from her very spirit. Each day brought her nearer to a threshold from which there might be no return. Such burdens had been meant for the Firstborn to endure, not the Edain. Not her. And yet, somewhere deep in Mairon’s being, beneath fear and anger and all the sharp edges of his will, he knew she would endure. She always had.
Even if endurance meant separation. Even if it meant sending her away from him. He would try to survive without her. He had done so before. But some days would be harder than others. As they always had been.
“Mairon?” Her voice, soft as silk, broke through the quiet of their bedchamber. He blinked, drawn back into himself, and a faint smile touched his mouth. Sabina turned from the balcony, pushing a loose strand of white hair behind her ear as she cradled the underside of her belly. Her crystalline blue eyes shone in the moonlight, too bright and too tired all at once.
Mairon pushed away from the doorframe and crossed the room to her. She met him halfway. His arms came around her with careful reverence, as though she were something sacred and breakable. Her hands slid up the front of his robes, fingers curling into the dark fabric, and when he bent to her, she rose to meet him. Their lips touched. She tasted as she always had, like the first breath of spring after a long winter, sweet and clean with the faintest trace of morning frost. Mairon cupped her face gently, thumbs brushing along her cheeks, while her hands tightened in his robes as though she feared he might vanish if she loosened her grip.
This would be the last night he would hold her for a long while. Tomorrow, she would sail back to Middle-earth. Back to Barad-dûr. Back to healers who understood what grew within her. Back to guards who would watch every corridor. Back to rooms prepared for her comfort, her safety, her confinement. Not here, in Númenor, where too many eyes watched and too few knew what she truly carried.
Every fiber of his being screamed at him to go with her. But his work in Númenor was not finished. Not yet.
Mairon drew back just enough to nuzzle his nose against hers. One of his hands lowered to rest upon the swell of her stomach. As if in answer, a light thud pressed against his palm. A soft laugh escaped him before he could stop it. Sabina’s expression softened. He kissed her again, deeper this time, gathering her closer as carefully as he could. She arched into him, her fingers slipping into the red strands at the nape of his neck, holding him there, pulling him into the warmth of her. When he finally pulled back, another quiet chuckle left him. His forehead rested against hers while they breathed together in the stillness.
“I want to stay,” she whispered against his lips.
His thumbs stroked her cheeks. “I know you do.”
“Then let me.”
“You are safer at home.”
Sabina’s fingers tightened against the back of his neck, keeping his forehead pressed to hers. “Home is where you are, my love. It always has been.”
Mairon closed his eyes for a moment. The words struck deeper than she knew. His hand moved again over her stomach, and the child shifted beneath his palm, pressing a small foot or hand into him. He gave a soft, disbelieving laugh, filled with wonder despite himself. Sabina covered his hand with hers and nuzzled his nose with her own.
“You are vulnerable,” he breathed.
“And I can hold my own.”
His mouth curved faintly. “I know, little dove. Better than most.” His gaze lowered to where their hands rested together. “But you carry something precious to me. To us. I would rather you be where you are safest.”
“So, locked in a tower and kept apart from you.” The softness between them fractured, and Mairon stilled. Sabina pulled back, her fingers still clenched in his robes. Her eyes, bright a moment before, hardened with hurt. “Is that what safety means now?”
His jaw tightened. “That is not what I said.”
“It is what you mean.”
“You know I would never keep you prisoner.”
A bitter laugh escaped her. “Wouldn’t you?”
Mairon reached for her chin, but she turned away before his fingers could settle there.
“You are free to leave whenever you wish,” he said, quieter now.
Sabina rolled her eyes and stepped out of his arms. The absence of her struck him instantly, cold and sharp. She crossed the room to the half-packed trunk near the foot of their bed and began gathering the last of her things with trembling hands.
“I doubt that, Mairon.”
His expression darkened, not in anger at her, but at the wound beneath her words. “Sabina.”
“No.” She shoved a folded robe into the trunk with more force than necessary. “Do not say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I am being unreasonable. Like I am some fragile, hysterical thing that cannot see what is happening around me.” Her hand moved protectively over her belly before settling beneath it. “I know what I am to you when you are afraid.” Mairon went very still. Sabina’s voice dropped, but the pain in it cut sharper for the quiet. “Your trapped little dove. Your pretty thing in a gilded cage. Useful when I please you. Hidden away when I do not.”
“That is not true.”
“Isn’t it?” She did not turn to face him. She kept packing, each movement brisk and uneven. “You are sending me away. You speak of safety, of healers, of protection, but you will remain here. You will not even see me before they are born.”
His throat tightened. “I have work to complete here.”
“You always say that.”
He said nothing.
Sabina’s hands paused over the trunk. “You always say that when you want me out of your presence because I have displeased you.” Her voice trembled, and this time she could not quite hide it. “So do not begin trying to convince me that I have imagined it.”
Mairon crossed the room to her. Slowly. Carefully. As though approaching a wounded creature who might bolt if he moved too quickly. He reached for her shoulders. She shook him off.
“Do not.”
His hand fell back to his side. “Then enlighten me,” he said softly. “Tell me what you believe you have done.”
Sabina drew in a breath, but it shuddered on the way out. For a moment, she stared down at the folded linen beneath her hands. Then she turned to him. Her eyes were wet.
“You are afraid,” she whispered. “And when you are afraid, you punish the thing that made you feel it.” The words struck him harder than any blade could have. Mairon did not move. Sabina’s face twisted, not with anger now, but grief. “I did not mean for this to happen. I did not mean to become a weakness you had to hide away. I did not mean to make you choose between whatever game you are playing here and the life we made together.”
His voice came low. “You are not a weakness.”
“Then why does it feel as though you are ashamed of me?”
His eyes flashed. “Ashamed?”
“Of this.” She touched her stomach. “Of me. Of the fact that I am mortal enough for this to kill me.”
Mairon’s composure cracked. He stepped closer, his face pale with something more terrible than anger. “Do not say that.”
“It is true.”
“No.”
“Mairon—”
“No.” His voice broke on the word, and that silenced her more effectively than any command. He swallowed hard, his gaze fixed on her belly before lifting to her face. “I am not ashamed of you. I have never been ashamed of you. I am terrified.”
The confession hung between them. Sabina’s lips parted. Mairon looked away as though the admission itself had cost him. When he spoke again, his voice was quieter, stripped bare of its usual control.
“I can command armies. I can bend stone and flame. I can shape kingdoms, break kings, and make the proudest of Men kneel if I wish it.” His hand curled at his side. “And yet I cannot look at you in pain and make it stop.”
Sabina’s anger faltered.
“I cannot force your body to bear what it was never meant to bear. I cannot reach into the future and ensure that you will survive it. I cannot place myself between you and this danger.” His eyes burned as they met hers again. “And I hate it.”
Her throat bobbed.
“That is why I am sending you home,” he said. “Not because you have displeased me. Not because I wish to be rid of you. Not because you are useful to me only when you are obedient.” His voice lowered. “Because if I keep you here beside me simply because I cannot bear to let you go, and something happens to you, I will never forgive myself.”
Sabina’s breath trembled. The silence that followed was heavy.
Then she looked down, her hand smoothing over the curve of her belly. “You should have said that.”
“I know.”
“You should have trusted me with your fear.”
His mouth tightened faintly. “I have never been skilled at fear.”
“No,” she said, her voice softening with a sad little smile. “You tend to dress it up as command.”
A faint, reluctant breath of laughter left him. Then he reached for her again, slowly enough that she could refuse him. This time, she did not. His hands settled at her waist, careful and reverent. Sabina stepped into him, resting her forehead against his chest. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Mairon bowed over her, his cheek pressing into her hair as his arms closed around her.
“I do not want to leave you,” she whispered.
His eyes shut. “I do not want you to go.”
“Then come with me.”
The words were simple. Devastating. For one suspended heartbeat, he let himself imagine it. Sailing with her beneath the stars. Returning to the dark towers and guarded chambers of the land that was his. Watching over her himself. Being there when the child came into the world. Holding her hand. Hearing that first cry. Knowing she had lived. Then Númenor rose in his mind. The king. The court. The temple yet unmade. The slow corruption of an island already rotting from within. The work unfinished.
He exhaled against her hair. “I cannot.”
Sabina stiffened, but she did not pull away.
“I know,” she whispered.
The grief in her voice nearly undid him. Mairon lowered one hand to her stomach again. The child shifted beneath his touch, slower this time, as though lulled by the nearness of them both.
“I will come back to you,” he said.
Sabina tipped her head up, searching his face. “Promise me.”
His thumb brushed along her cheek. “I promise.”
“No, Mairon.” Her fingers curled into his robes again. “Do not promise me as a lord. Do not promise me as a Maia. Promise me as my husband.”
Something in him softened. He bent and pressed his lips to her brow. “I promise you as your husband,” he murmured. “I will come back to you. I will see you before our child is born, if there is any power in this world that allows it.”
Her eyes closed, and a tear slipped down her cheek. He kissed it away. Sabina gave a shaky breath, then leaned up and kissed him. It was not like before. Not hungry, not urgent, but aching. A kiss built from fear, forgiveness, and the cruel knowledge of morning waiting just beyond the dark. When she pulled back, her hand covered his over her stomach.
“You had better,” she whispered. “Because if I must endure this without you, I reserve the right to be furious with you for the next age.”
Mairon laughed softly, though there was pain beneath it. “I would expect nothing less.”
Her mouth trembled into a faint smile. He gathered her closer, one arm around her back and the other beneath her belly, supporting the weight she no longer had the strength to bear alone. Sabina let him guide her away from the trunk and toward the bed.
“The rest can wait,” he said.
“For once, you are telling me to leave something unfinished?”
“For tonight,” he murmured, easing her down onto the mattress, “there is nothing in all the world more important than you.”
Sabina looked up at him, moonlight silvering her hair across the pillows.
“And tomorrow?”
Mairon lowered himself beside her, drawing her carefully into the shelter of his body.
Tomorrow, she would leave. Tomorrow, he would remain. Tomorrow, the sea would divide them, and all his power would not make it easier to bear. But tonight, her hand found his. Tonight, their child moved beneath his palm. Tonight, Sabina tucked herself against him as though she could memorize the shape of his warmth.
Mairon pressed his mouth to her temple. “Tomorrow,” he whispered, “I will still love you.” Sabina’s fingers tightened around his. “And I will still come home to you,” he finished.
He closed his eyes and held her through the long hours of the night, listening to her breathe, committing each fragile sound to memory as though memory alone might keep him from breaking when dawn finally came.
Hello all you lovely Haladriel/Saurondriel people! We have a summer event coming up that you can take part in, conceived by the wonderful geographygem! Saurondriel Summer Week will run July 27th - August 2nd, and there are two prompts a day to pick from, plus a bonus list! ☀️🏖️🌊🎆🥾🏕️🌄🍦🚗
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❯ PAIRINGS - mairon | sauron x artanis | galadriel
❯ WORD COUNT - 3.4k words
❯ WARNINGS - none
❯ SUMMARY - Artanis, Princess of the Noldor had no intentions of marriage, content in her life amongst the walls of Tirion. But that all changes when she is summoned to Máhanaxar to be used as a bargaining chip and punishment for one corrupted Maia.
She must marry the one they called Sauron in order to help prove that he seeks redemption truthfully. But she thwarts her new husband at every chance she gets, even though his punishment's could spell her own demise.
But that's not what she fears the most—it's her intense attraction to the corrupted Maia. A being wrapped in so much mystery and darkness turns out to be tender and kind beneath the shadows that haunt him. Over time Artanis begins to question herself and her morals as she grows undeniably closer to the Maia. But one lingering thought remains, she can't help but ever wonder why he even chose her in the first place.
masterlist
Days bled quietly into weeks. The spring harvest came and went in a golden blur of motion and sun-warmed soil. Then time softened, settling into a gentler rhythm, one measured not in court summons or strained silences, but in the steady cycle of the Pastures. Work in the fields. Seeds pressed carefully into living earth. Long hours beneath Laurelin’s glow with soil beneath my nails and wind against my skin. Evenings in Yavanna’s greenhouse, where green things breathed softly around us. And always—the journal. At first the entries came sharp and restless, ink pressed too firmly into the page. But as the seasons turned, the words began to flow more easily. One book filled. Then another. And another still. Before long, a small row of them lived upon the narrow bookshelf in my chambers.
Years passed. Then more. The seasons slipped by like whispers of wind through tall grain, so gradual I scarcely noticed the passing until I paused long enough to look back. Somewhere along the way, the tight constriction that had once lived beneath my ribs began to loosen.
Not vanish. Never that. But ease.
The looming dread I once felt at the thought of facing Mairon again softened with each passing harvest. With each quiet morning spent in honest labor. With each page filled in careful ink. And—though I resisted the truth of it for far longer than I cared to admit—something deeper began to stir.
A quiet longing. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But… absence had begun to take shape where anger once burned hottest.
I had not forgiven him. But I was no longer willing to let that night define every breath between us.
Yavanna, of course, noticed. She always did. And as the decades wore on, she lightened my duties with suspicious casualness, granting me longer hours among the flowering beds, or free afternoons to swim in the lake at the estate’s edge. She never remarked upon the change directly. But her knowing smiles grew more frequent.
The letters began around the twentieth year.
At first, only one. Delivered with quiet ceremony by Lótessë, who tried—very politely—not to look curious. Fine parchment. Precise, elegant handwriting across the front. Sealed in deep red wax bearing the unmistakable mark of Aulë’s forge.
Artanis.
I did not open it. Most months after, I simply refused them outright, waving Lótessë away with polite finality. She never pressed, merely inclined her head and left the parcel by my door when I was not looking. Soon enough, a small crate took up permanent residence beside my chambers.
It filled. Slowly. Persistently. Always another letter arriving just when I thought the stream might finally end. I told myself I did not care. Told myself distance was cleaner this way. Told myself many things.
Then one month… no letter came. I noticed immediately. I told myself it was coincidence.
The next month passed.
Still nothing. By the time a full year had gone by in silence, something small and traitorous inside my chest gave a painful twist. He had stopped. Given up.
Is that not what you wanted? The thought came sharp and unwelcome.
Freedom. Distance. Separate lives.
He toiling through his long sentence beneath Aulë’s watchful eye. And I, sowing seeds and pruning flowers in peaceful isolation. Everything exactly as I had once wished.
So why did the quiet feel heavier?
Winter found me restless. The hearth in my chambers burned low and warm, its glow beckoning me toward the chaise beside it. I had already read through my small shelf twice over, and the long evening stretched before me with too much room for thought.
Before I could talk myself out of it, I crossed the room. Lifted the crate and carried it back to the fire. My pulse had begun to misbehave by the time I settled into the cushions. The first letter lay near the top. I hesitated only a moment before lifting it free. My fingers traced the edge of the parchment and then, without quite meaning to, I brought it to my nose.
The reaction was immediate—vetiver, incense, cardamom. And beneath it all the unmistakable lingering warmth of forge-smoke. My heart fluttered traitorously. Memory followed scent with brutal efficiency, strong hands at my waist. Warm breath at my ear. Low, carefully measured words that had once set my nerves alight with equal parts fury and awareness. Heat rushed to my face and then I broke the seal. His handwriting was… beautiful. There was no other word for it. Each stroke of the quill was deliberate—elegant swells and precise curves that spoke of patience and impossible control. It was not the script of a careless being. It was careful. Intentional. Almost… intimate.
I swallowed and began to read.
Dear Artanis,
They have permitted me to write to you. Which is, I admit, a quiet relief. Books and work have proven poor substitutes for proper conversation, and journals do not seem to grant me the freedom to address you as I would prefer.
My breath slowed.
In these past years, I have had more time to think than perhaps at any point in my existence. I am deeply sorry for the pettiness that drove me to harm you. It was beneath me and far more beneath what you deserved.
My fingers tightened slightly on the page.
If I could alter any moment between us, it would be that night. I would not have touched you in anger. I would not have sought such hollow revenge for a slight I can scarcely justify even now.
Heat pricked behind my eyes.
I know I am the last person you would ever willingly bind yourself to. But I have wanted you from the beginning. Ever since—
The line ended. Violently scratched through. Ink pressed so hard it had nearly torn the parchment. My heart stumbled painfully in my chest.
What had he meant to say? The question burned—the same one that had haunted me since Máhanaxar. Why me?
I forced myself to continue. The remainder of the letter softened into quieter things—small recountings of his days beneath Aulë’s supervision, observations about the Elven apprentices in the forges, the mundane rhythm of labor and study.
Domestic, almost. The sort of things married people shared over morning meals. The things we should be sharing with each other. The final line sat alone at the bottom of the second page.
Yours dearest,
Mairon
My heart clenched painfully.
Why did he have to be gentle?
Why could he not simply be monstrous and make this easier?
My fingers drifted unconsciously across the page before I drew the letter slowly to my chest, staring into the flickering hearthlight. Tears slipped quietly down my temples. He had written this so soon after our fight. After everything.
And I—
I had ignored him. For years. For decades.
The realization sat heavy and aching in my chest. Because this was the nature of being bound fëa to fëa. Distance did not sever the thread. It only made its pull more noticeable in the quiet.
I exhaled slowly. Then reached for the next letter.
And the next.
And the next.
Until at last Laurelin’s pale glow began to filter through my open window. The crate had dwindled to a single remaining letter. I held it in my fingers, unmoving. Over the long night, I had read years of careful longing from a being I had scarcely spent more than weeks beside.
It was, terrifying, heartbreaking, and impossible to ignore.
Every letter ended the same way.
Yours dearest, Mairon.
And somehow, with each broken seal, it had grown harder to pretend my heart did not answer.
I broke the seal on the final letter. The difference was immediate. Only a single page slid free into my hands—not the careful, multi-paged correspondence I had grown used to over the long night. The parchment felt lighter. Quieter. Hollow even.
My eyes moved to the top of the page. And stopped.
My dearest
Scratched through. The ink was heavier there, pressed hard enough to leave faint ridges in the parchment. Beneath it—
My darling
Also struck out. Not hastily. Not in anger. Carefully. Deliberately. As though he had sat there for some time, quill hovering, before deciding the words were too much or perhaps not enough.
My throat tightened. It reminded me too sharply of that earlier letter—the one where he had nearly confessed something and then buried it beneath ink. I forced myself to keep reading.
Dear Artanis,
It has been nearly a year since I began writing to you. In all that time, I have not wavered in my pursuit of offering you the apology you deserve nor in the hope that we might someday share this existence with less distance between us.
My fingers curled slightly into the edge of the page.
But it seems you wish to keep us apart.
The words were steady. Controlled. Far too calm.
I believe I have come to accept that, if it is truly what you desire.
Something sharp twisted low beneath my ribs.
We shall be bound in all things but spirit, it seems.
My breath caught. The truth of it rang too close to the quiet ache that had lived at the edge of my fëa for years.
Still…
A faint smear of ink followed the word, as though the quill had paused there.
I will wait for you. As long as it shall take, even until the breaking of this world.
My vision blurred.
I will not surrender the hope that one day you may write to me or that we might stand in the same room again without silence between us.
The hearth cracked softly behind me. I barely heard it.
I miss you, princess.
The letter ended there. No long recounting of his days. No careful domestic details. Only—
Yours dearest,
Mairon
My heart clenched so sharply it almost stole my breath. Tears slipped free, darkening the careful ink where they fell. This had been written nearly a decade ago.
Under other circumstances, ten years would have been nothing to one such as me, a passing breath in the long life of the Eldar.
But now…now it felt like something fragile had been left waiting in the dark far too long. After all these years, he would have watched for a reply. Hoped. Waited. And received nothing.
Guilt—quiet and unwelcome—unfurled slowly through my chest. I wiped at my cheeks with the heel of my hand, but the tightness beneath my ribs refused to ease. Before I could lose my nerve I stood. Crossed the chamber in quick, restless strides. The letter remained clutched carefully in my hand as I lowered myself into the chair at my writing desk. My journal lay open where I had abandoned it days ago, its pages already heavy with years of thoughts I had never meant anyone else to see.
For a long moment, I simply stared at the blank space before me. My pulse was loud in my ears. Then slowly, I tore a single clean page free. The sound seemed far too loud in the quiet room. I smoothed the parchment flat. Dipped the quill. And began to write.
Dear Mairon,
Scratch.
The word carved too sharply across the page. I exhaled through my nose and struck a clean line through it.
Mairon,
Scratch.
I groaned softly and leaned back in my chair, pressing my fingers briefly to my temple. Not that either. Not nearly enough.
The quill rested loosely in my hand as I turned toward the tall window of my chambers. Beyond the glass, the Pastures stretched wide and quiet beneath winter’s slow approach. The once-golden fields lay pale and sleeping, frost beginning to silver the edges of the earth. Even the air had changed—thinner, cooler, carrying the long hush that came when Telperion’s light lingered longer than Laurelin’s with each passing day.
Everything was in a season of waiting. Perhaps I was as well.
I drew a slow breath, straightened, and set the quill once more to parchment.
My dearest Mairon,
Your letters have not gone unread. I imagine that is not the answer you expected after so long a silence, but I will not begin this with falsehood. They have sat beside my door for many years and I have sat beside them in equal stubbornness. If there is blame to be taken for the distance between us, I do not pretend it rests solely on your shoulders.
You asked once why I keep you at arm’s length. I could give you the simple answer, that trust, once fractured, does not mend at the pace you might wish. That what passed between us in those first days left more than pride wounded. Both things are true. But they are not the whole of it. The truth is less tidy. You unsettle me. You did from the moment we met beside the river, and you have continued to do so even in your absence. I have spent many years here in the Pastures convincing myself that distance would quiet whatever thread the Valar saw fit to bind between us. In some ways, it has. In others it has not.
I have read your apologies. I believe you regret what you did. Whether that belief is wisdom or foolishness remains to be seen but it is honest.
You should also know this:
I have not forgiven you.
Not yet.
But neither do I wish to remain forever frozen in the moment of our worst beginning. Yavanna, in her usual gentle persistence, has reminded me more than once that growth rarely occurs in still soil. I am trying to decide what I am willing to let grow.
You wrote that you would wait. I will not ask that of you. An Age is a long time to spend in quiet expectation of another’s heart, and I will not have you chain yourself more tightly than the Valar already have. If you choose patience, let it be your choice, not an obligation you believe I require.
As for whether we shall stand in the same room again without silence between us… that, at least, is no longer impossible.
You may write again, if you wish.
I will answer.
Yours dearest,
Artanis
I set the quill down slowly. Only then did I realize how fast my heart was beating. The letter lay between my hands, the ink still faintly wet in places. For a long moment I simply stared at it, half expecting the words to rearrange themselves into something safer. Something less revealing.
They did not.
Carefully, I folded the parchment and sealed it with my blue wax, pressing my signet into the soft surface with hands that were steadier than I felt. I had sealed many letters in recent years—to my mother, to Finrod—but this one… This one felt different. Final in a way I could not quite name.
When I turned the envelope and wrote Mairon across the front in my elegant, deliberate script, something low in my chest tightened—and then eased. I rose before I could second-guess myself.
I found Lótessë in the greenhouse, half-kneeled among one of the lower beds, patiently pulling winter weeds from the dark soil. The humid air wrapped warmly around my skin as I approached. She looked up at once. I held out the letter.
“Could you have this sent to Aulë’s Mansions?” I asked. Her gaze flicked briefly to the name on the front—perceptive as ever—but she said nothing. Only a gentle, knowing smile touched her mouth as she brushed soil from her hands and accepted the letter.
“Of course, Lady Artanis.” She departed at once.
I stood there a moment longer than necessary, watching until the greenhouse doors closed softly behind her. Then—
I felt it.
That familiar awareness along the edge of my senses. Not him. But close enough to make me turn. Yavanna stood three rows back among the flowering beds, pruning shears resting loosely in her hand. Her smile was warm. Patient. Knowing.
Of course she had noticed. She always did.
Something in my shoulders loosened under her gaze—not embarrassment, not quite relief. Something quieter. Hard-won. Because somewhere in the long, quiet decades of soil and seasons and stubborn reflection, I had stopped letting others define what I was permitted to see. Stopped letting fear alone shape what I felt. I was not naïve enough to call it forgiveness.
Not yet.
But it was… something.
And for the first time since Máhanaxar, the thought no longer filled me with dread. If I must share eternity with another—perhaps it would not be unbearable.
Not if that someone was Mairon.
Our letters stretched across years. What began as careful, measured correspondence softened into something steadier—something intimate. After that first reply, we found a rhythm neither of us named but both obeyed. Each week, without fail, a letter arrived. And each week, I sent one in return. Lótessë became our quiet courier, her knowing smile never faltering as she delivered one parchment and accepted another in the same breath. She never pried. Never asked.
But she noticed. Everyone in the Pastures noticed, I think. My journals—once filled daily with restless ink and self-interrogation — began to gather dust more often than not. The more I wrote to Mairon, the less I needed to untangle myself alone.
I told him truths I had once only dared confide to paper. How the soil felt different in winter. How the lake mirrored Telperion’s light like silver glass. How sometimes, when I walked alone at dusk, I missed the particular weight of his gaze—steady and deliberate—more than I had ever expected.
And he…
He wrote of Laurelin. Of how he remembered the way its warmth caught in my hair. How my skin seemed to hold its glow long after the light had shifted. He described me in such patient, excruciating detail that more than once I had to set the letter aside simply to steady my breath.
Like now.
I sat perched along the broad branch of the great oak near the greenhouse, one leg dangling lazily while I reread the final lines of his most recent letter. His words traced the curve of my shoulder beneath golden light. The arch of my brow when I was irritated. The way my mouth softened when I laughed—though I had never believed he noticed such things. Heat climbed slowly up my neck. I swung my foot idly, attempting to cool my face in the mild afternoon breeze.
“My lady?” The voice drifted up from below. I startled slightly, nearly dropping the parchment. I smoothed it quickly into my lap and peered down. Lótessë stood at the base of the oak, hands folded neatly behind her back, a familiar brightness in her green eyes.
“Yes—forgive me,” I said, schooling my expression though I was certain the flush still lingered.
She tilted her head slightly. “You have a letter from Valimar.”
That was… different. I pushed myself upright and leapt lightly from the branch, landing with practiced ease before stepping toward her. The letter she held was not sealed in red. Not bearing Aulë’s mark. It was heavy cream parchment embossed with gold at the edges. Dark blue wax sealed it. And pressed into that wax—Manwë’s sigil.
My stomach tightened instantly. The air seemed colder around me. I turned the envelope over in my hands once before breaking the seal. The wax cracked cleanly beneath my thumb. Inside, the message was brief. Formal. Unadorned. I was summoned to Valimar once more. No explanation given. No indication of purpose. My pulse began to pound faintly in my ears.
Memories rose too easily—
Máhanaxar.
Chains.
The Ring of Doom.
I swallowed. After all these decades what could they possibly want now?
I folded the letter carefully, far more calmly than I felt, and lifted my gaze toward the distant horizon where Valimar lay beyond rolling land and light.
Somewhere far to the north, beneath Aulë’s stone halls, Mairon would feel this shift in my fëa at the anticipation. Of that, I was certain. And for the first time in many years, anticipation warred not with dread, but with something far more dangerous.
Hope.
Hope that maybe letters would no longer be our future. But golden halls and walks among the gardens like I was beginning to dream about.
