Title: He (1/3)
Author: So Fyren Says
Author's Email: seeming_fey@hotmail.com
Pairing: Sauron(Annatar)/Gothmog, Sauron(Annatar)/Eöl
Rating: R
Summary: The story of Sauron and Eol under the shadow of Feanor.
Disclaimer: The characters and the setting belong to Prof. J.R.R Tolkien.
Warning: Questionable consent.
Authors Note: This story is based on the following passage in HoME XI, p 320:
“But [the title of dark elf] was also sometimes applied to Elves captured by
Morgoth and enslaved and then released to do mischief among the elves. I think
this latter idea should be taken up. It would explain much about Eol and his
smithcraft." All other speculations are based upon the Silmarillion and
assortment of HOME passages.

Feedback is appreciated and questions concerning the story shall be answered.

0-0-0

The Silmarils pulse, and Sauron is fascinated.

He would touch them as his master lies asleep on his throne, 'cept his master
never sleeps.

And the Silmarils, as sure as they are alive to make imperishable crystal change
shape, so they would slip from his hands.

He expects blood, some sort of liquid that would mar him if he but touches them.
This troubles him little; his rooms in Angband are washed in fluids less pure:
newer, and older, than these.

Nevertheless, his whole form quavered. Not in pleasure of anticipation, nor in
bathing himself within it. A different sort, one that makes him feel as if he is
the victim.

Yet, he wants to touch them, so very badly, if just for a moment's hope.

Hope?

Sauron shakes his head, and tries to remember the meaning of the word. He
cannot. The light beats before him, so close, so close; he sees his gauntleted
hand reaching to touch it, hovering near master's brow.

Sauron's face, elven fair, his garb, as night, as blood from the torture
chambers, his eyes fills with the Light from the Two Trees. Blessed light.

And Melkor is awake. He sees, but he stirs himself not, letting his High Captain
come. The Silmarils do their work for him.

What is a servant of his if they cannot be tempted?

-=-=

"We followed, my brother, you and I," He paused, "And we cannot regret."

Angband was dark: its plants obsidian, its fires jet ebony. Only the Silmarils
are bright, Gorthaur thought, and caressed his own naked brow.

"No?" Gothmog asked. He wore the fana as one of the Eldar of the very form he
had only today destroyed. He had found it very beautiful, unsettling. And as
such, he was taught, it could be sinister, "Of course we can regret, but it is
not going to do much. It did nothing for the wee ones that screamed for their
father."

Feanor's mouth never smiled so cruelly, and his voice was never so sordid. The
sough of fire laughed around him; oddly befitting, memories said.

Gorthaur could not resist touching Gothmog's face then. Indeed, he thinks he
would have wished to kiss it if it was only less.... evil.

"True, it did nothing for them. Therefore we cannot." His fingers brushed
through the Noldor dark hair, "Where is the freedom Melkor promised us?" He
asked lightly, leaned close, and wished that he could feel a breath.

"Freedom is slavery," Gothmog replied, and laughed, incongruously bright, "For
others."

"We have our own places." He patted Gorthaur absently, "As our Lord has his, for
he alone wills the ultimate freedom for all. We have ours, do you not wear a
parody of their slain king to battle and still do? So high, we Maiar are free to
choose...."

There was no reply. Silence. Gorthaur whispered, but what he whispered should
not be said.

For a brief moment, Gothmog's eyes flashed, but Gorthaur found it becoming in
that visage, and for an instant, saw something more.

He would have loved to meet their maker, his craftsman’s life cried, and
perhaps, even to serve him.

The chamber does not have shadows: not here, not so deep underground, not as in
the Great Hall where the Light went through the walls. Touch, smell, hearing,
and taste alone guided.

And mockeries always tasted sweet; they were what could be: molded, altered,
with none of the labors of creating and all the elegance of a worthy idleness.
The press of lips then tongue followed its ancient course. A perverse pleasure
rippled a pleasant tension through the deep tunnels as shapes found each other
and consummated their profanity.

-=-=

Melkor laughed, hearing their pleas.

His captains' pleasure had not left him unaffected, or his dear trinkets cold.

They strained against him, pushing; faster and faster they rubbed against his
skin, melting the ice and snow upon his crown.

The frenzied rhythm, wonderfully wild, took his mind to places where he would
not otherwise see. He needed it, so adorable in its futility, in its illusion.

Nothing passes in his fortress he did not know, be it the tiniest whimper or the
fleetest thought as light fingers, imitation to its last whorl, skimmed across
skin that was kin in His thought.

Closing his eyes with darkness for his veil, the weight of the Silmarils
lessened, but their cries increased. They were but children, after all, and wise
as only children could be wise- as alarm to their elders.

They see as he does, and so young, knows naught but to react. The rhythm of Arda
seemed to slow as the Silmarils struggled, morphing almost imperceptibly and
very eager to escape their set. One, the last made, felt the black metal around
it finally fade- its strength gone in the fight. The stone leapt, expecting air,
and fell back in horror, grasped by tiny clawing, gold and iron tendrils...Where
is air?

Melkor was amused. These three knew him so, loves him, and guards him as jealous
children.

"We are a fine team, for love to be thus."

They quieted, and keening sobs rose.

"Bid me my sorcerer and captain."

Immediately, they came, adjusting their eyes the further they leave that dark
chamber where they slept, and learned something they would not speak.

He came into his presence: immaculate, high-collared, and pale. A gash bled from
shoulder to thigh.

He came into their presence: ruffled, a bit bruised, but alive.

They recoiled. In their light, it's not him at all. Someone lied. They all did.
Accusingly, they looked at each other.

"My high captains verily," Melkor said, "To outrage Valar, Maiar, and Eldar by
fulfilling their laws, stanching through HIS impulses even when it's merely
bodies that did the deed."

Gothmog and Gorthaur trembled. They were glad afterwards, when the need was
satiated. Gorthaur had looked so adoringly at Gothmog that the Capt. of Balrogs
would have been tranquil if not it would ruin the fana he wore, the true fea of
Feanor could tear him.

"What would thought do then, I wonder..." Melkor pondered.

Deep beneath the ground, the desecration delighted him, but he was not foolish.
His fire could not be brought again to this world through parody, but if one
believed enough...

Melkor indicated the Silmarils.

"Gorthaur, you wanted to touch them."

Gorthaur looked up.

"Touch it."

He wanted it, yet being commanded to do so seemed ill fitting, he did not wish
it at all suddenly, and yet Melkor's every word is a command. Still, the Light,
they shone into his eyes.

Each step, he felt himself disintegrating, floating into essence, drawn by their
pulse. He stood so close.

Too close. Music, songs to calm, to sleep, lullabies, sank into noise.

Screaming, they shrank away.

"They do not like me." Gorthaur said to himself, disappointed.

The voice came from out of the void, "It does not matter. Touch it! You want
to."

And he did, the softest touch upon those jewels. It was not so long ago that he
does not remember what consecration did. They could curse; he was already
cursed.

Climbing down, feet touched the ground, and his head was bowed as he stood at
the foot of the dais. They were beautiful as untamed beauty be yet better
because they were conscious. A tear edged toward the brim.

It was a while until he looked up again. Melkor's eyes were closed, and thin
rivulets of blood streamed down the terrible face.

"You are bleeding, milord." Gorthaur ventured.

"It was worth it." Morgoth smiled blankly, his voice, "Black Hand, my
disobedient child." He closed his eyes as Sauron, neither child nor disobedient
to his own, screamed, for in place of the fair hand of the Noldo King, it was
black, as stone, as the mud he had first shaped once upon a time.

-=-=

All the torture chambers are on the surface of Utumno.

The sun shines upon the rough metal of the instruments, and upon the gleaming
skins.

He had been here for a very long time, true infinity, the chief torturer.

He was powerful, he had not died. He did not crumple before countless eyes,
countless pleading looks.

They come already broken, battered, maimed, even dead- poor children. Those last
he sent into the dark, to remind those kept there of where they were, and who
they were; then slowly, their eyes would film over, and they would not be able
to see save by hearing and smell- the strict necessities of a soldier.

Sauron did not like death, nor did he treasure the dark save that one time, when
he saw the brief flash of light and lunged for it.

In a life previous, he knew each piece of it, and longed to hold them in his
hand. Then Melkor came and showed him that a series of light and dark would
allow him to scrutinize the properties and formation closely. For a time, it was
true, until the dark took over, and appeared twice as many as the light. Dark
was simple, complete, absolute, with no variance, Morgoth told him.

Yet he will never like the complete darkness, darkness did nothing for him, it
drives him to constant chaos- orcs were made in the dark- but so did light,
apparently, at least, pure light. His left hand weighed heavy, the soft gold
glove of heavy velvet did nothing to conceal the blackness beneath- a reminder
against his future transgressions, if he dared any.

It would be good when he dared, when he completed, stanched his appetite, if he
ever does. He had half-heartedly wished that the Maker's fea would be stronger
enough to find his fana and inhabit it as if it was his own. Half-heartedly,
because he knew he would not be able to let him go, and it would kill him by
ripping through him when it discovered itself within his embrace. Would it be
worth it, he wondered, to meet him, to hold him, to ask him, to thank him for
finding the rhythm of Arda within light...and be banished to the eternal void
afterwards. He wondered if he knew his name.

Polished smooth, the paths in the large square was of white marble, and
separated each patch of square shaped ashen ground from the next: perfect
squares, carefully placed so that blood and pieces of the body would not
splatter beyond the bordering road.

“Milord.”

He glanced down, and briefly closed his eyes. He hated orcs, no matter how many
he saw, no matter what part he played in their making. Their forms appeared
ridiculously undisciplined, lacking all symmetry.

“What?”

He liked his peace- the systematic manners of the place- this mathematical art
of bending strengths, each method its own equation.

“They broke my claw.” The iron thing was mangled, shredded to pieces.

And the torture chambers were usually silent, at least, for a time. The
Moriquendi did not scream much, they mutter, they curse. But the Calaquendi- for
a people so bright and fell, they were painfully easy to provoke any reaction.

“Get it fixed.”

“They can’t.”

“His eyes broke it.”

It was not uncommon, however, for their ridiculously fierce gazes to break the
metal and wood used on them. There was still a confounding difference between
Aman Paradise and Arda Marred.

“Get a new one then.”

The small orcs scurried to keep up with his strides.

“The officer said my term is not up yet.” The small orc continued miserably,
looking up at him with obscenely deep and large eyes.

“And I just started. I didn't know...” He said, what should be pitiful, but only
seemed annoying.

“Stop then.”

“Stop?”

They stopped at the orc's station.

Small black stones crackled beneath his boots as he walked toward the vertical
green stone, embedded firmly in the ground.

Sauron stood close to the ruined body upon it, feeling the faint breaths, and
the acrid scents of mutilated flesh. Where is the purity of form now? He wanted
to ask, and then laugh at the answer; he always wanted to ask...

Gray eyes within a swollen face saw him and spat.

"You know Him." Hoarse voice made its way through injured jaw and punctured
chest. The iron collar around the Noldo's neck, stabled by two sharp prongs, had
a deep scratch. It would need to be replaced....

"So do you. And now what?" Sauron questioned, and smiled, knowing that there was
no more strength in that body to answer. He turned to the tentative orc nearby,
still holding the mangled claw.

"Stop. And staunch his wounds. Take them to my master, and clean this place up.
Enough as it is."

"My claw..." The orc faltered.

"It will be replaced, leave it in the ground."

He left, for he saw others waited by the gate, as always, in two perfect
columns, their backed turned to the scenes behind. They would still shudder when
they saw spectacles of his art, yet would become crueler with age, came the
thought unbidden, as Sauron perceived a tall figure standing amongst them,
walking forward quite determinedly.

A rope around his neck, and others around parts of person impeded his progress.
At the sight of the Sorcerer, he stood his ground, his face set: eyes
beautifully and utterly black.

Oh yes, Moriquendi, they have many vague stories about him....

The Elf looked very young, perhaps he still believes many of those tales, and
made up more for himself…

"You did not fight?" Sauron lifted a questioning eyebrow at the calm Elf in
front of him. Their eyes met levelly, and there was naught but a faint scratch
on his cheek.

"I see there is not point of struggle. They surprised me. They broke my weapons,
and I guess," There the Elf paused, unsure why he was speaking, "Chance says
that I would have a better chance of living if I can see, the fellow there," His
bound hand pointed sideways, "He had a poker near my eyes."

Sauron felt himself smile.

"You are very wise."

-=-=

"You see," Sauron said, as they came to the empty square, "You actually believe
it."

He came to stand in front of the slab of stone, its newly washed surface
effervescent in the noon sun.

There was no trace of its previous occupant, and the manacles hung limply along
the sides.

It was so simple a devise to have broken so many. Merely restraint, restraint to
a wall of most precious jade, iridescent green, color of growing, living things.

The end on an iron claw jutted out from a mound pebbles like an obscene claw.
Sauron bent down and wondered briefly at the small orc that left it there, as if
he did not wish others to accidentally to step on the sharp tines at the head
and hurt themselves.

He turned around to see the Elf gazing at him with something that he seldom
encountered now, though he should. Most had come too battered to care. But
within the grim set of the youth’s face was also curiosity. The mingled look of
horror and fascination amused Gorthaur.

“Do you know who did this?” He held up the claw.

The elf said nothing. The gravity of the situation had finally settled perhaps.
Already, rough -scaled hands hand pulled the ropes around his ankles, arms, and
neck taut. His throat flexed convulsively, already reddened.

“A Light elf, he broke it with his eyes.”

Sauron caressed the broken middle claw, forming it anew, and that point slightly
sharper than the others.

“Have you seen their eyes?”

Black eyes looked at him with pure desperation as orcs ripped and cut clothes
apart, careful to avoid to skin, which they should not touch, on Melkor’s
orders- who preferred all things absolute- including injuries. The torn tunic,
leggings, and boots fell around his feet, and the eyes seemed to threaten tears.

It occurred to Sauron then that this particular one was indeed, very young, as
he circled the figure, perhaps nearly as young as the sun, to have no scars.

“You will,” He continued, ignoring the furious stare, “They saw the Trees, and
so they are never weaponless- even their stare can rent metal. Unlike you,
Mordhel, and all Mordhil in Enor- make of Arda Marred, no ships to bear you
anymore- to paradise, to the gods you worship.”

With a wave of his hand, the orcs within the square grew still, and paused their
efforts to pull the elf to the rock, its surface worn smooth, but redoubled
efforts do not move statues.

“Why did you surrender? Would it not perhaps be no chance of living,” Sauron
swept his hand across the gruesome horizon, “No chance at all. Why did you not
fight, and perhaps led them to blind, even kill you. You would not suffer as
much, or shall suffer.” His voice was soft, and he would have an answer.

“I will be deceiving myself, and it would be cowardly to die, to fade, with full
consciousness.”

Sauron fell silent. He had allied to Melkor of the Other Music. He stood still
for a moment.

“I trust you do not scream when hurt. I do not appreciate noise.”

The elf drew himself taller- his lessons in Menegroth now full applicable to
life.

“We were taught not to,” A pained look passed as a shadow across his face, “Ever
since we could speak.”

“I am glad.” Sauron said, “I trust the Sindar and the Avari. They make good
spies and miners, for they do not worry the earth here,” He continued wistfully,
“The Light ones, on the other hand, wonderful warriors, wonderful handlers-
possessing a refreshing creative facility.” He pointed to one of the orcs that
held the elf in place.

“Captain of the Scouts, squire to one of their lords. Craftsman of course, he
crafted his own skin, and other’s skins.”

He pointed to another.

“Tracker of Doriath.”

Then another. Then another…

“Cupbearer to Thingol, captured after his first battle, or perhaps, skirmish
would be more accurate,” Sauron mocked, “For you only just encountered them, and
by yourself as well.”

"Ele..." The elf closed his eyes. The air of Angband felt oddly cool on his
burning skin.

Sauron approached, and spoke into the elven ear, sharper than the Calaquendi
sort, yet of the same fine make. Sometimes, he wondered if Eru made his children
temptations on purpose, all that beauty bound in one fea and hroa- and would not
that make Him the greater deceiver for offering what could not be had: true to
the nature of temptations- the urge to have mere emptiness.

"I have met her you know." Sauron breathed into that ear, suppressing the urge
to bite it and see it bleed. He laid a hand on the Elf’s bare shoulder instead,
feeling the solid and smooth flesh under his hand. It pleased him.

"Tell me something." the Elf spoke, a disconcerting light in his eyes as he
stared straight ahead, past checkered layout of the Courtyard of Gorthaur, "Is
she beautiful as we sing?"

Perhaps it was pity that stirred in him then, later he would argue that it was
just an eccentric cruelty. But Sauron answered.

"Yes."

"Oh." The youth smiled, ever so briefly, and all his youth, all that is proudly
elven in him gleamed like fierce diamonds.

They closed quickly upon him then, smooth iron and steel chains in hand to
replace the rough ropes. And Sauron walked away, the sound of struggle curled
with others, and faded behind his steps.

Melkor’s orders.

-=-=

Sauron could not sleep in his chambers. He did not need to sleep; yet, he
desired it then, and he could not.

Summoned, he had entered the throne room, and lowered his gaze quickly, avoiding
the Silmarils.

Melkor wanted a storm from him. Melkor wanted more arts. Melkor wanted twisted
bodies to do his bidding, and he wanted them quickly- any way possible.

Somehow, the image of the young elf kept rising into his mind.

Twisted bodies, ugly things. He was an apprentice of Aule; he created beauty. He
was Maia; he sang, hating alterations. He wanted Middle Earth so he may give it
layout. Mountain here, lake here, forests there, a fair city in concentric
circles- marvelous geometry. Melkor seemed understanding, the desire to have
things to his will.

He gave the orcs to the captains, batches at a time. The day he led those things
to battle would be the day he was no longer himself, Sauron thought.

Is she beautiful as we sing?

Oh.

Is she beautiful…

Beauty…

The faith of it…

Everything else is true then…

He provided what, comfort?

He could not forget the Elf’s face. Perhaps it was the fault of the Silmarils;
they tend to burn his mind after a while in their presence. Reminding him…

They were bright as he remembered. But not more merely bright, they confound his
mind, inserting broken figments, like jotted lines in the strange red notebook
of his fleshly heart.
..
Melkor warned him, not to interfere. He warned himself, not to interfere.

It’s efficient. The system is efficient. He will be made an orc before the next
day.  So why did he wish to see him again?

Silmaril reincarnate, the thought came suddenly: unmarred, unblemished, and
young enough to know little more than fear and other’s opinions and presume
their passions as his rightful, at some future time.

Very fair, and of course, fairer than any others he had seen for a long time.
Gothmog did not count… Sauron let the thought trail off, dressed, and went to
find the source of his complaint.

The twilight would have filled the sky rife with stars if they were not in
Melkor’s domain. Here, the skies were clouded.

Though eyes may differ, however, all Elves glow, some greater, some less.

Sauron felt himself hurrying. He would not be hurt yet, not until the morning
anyways, but all those around him would be. They had found, a very long time
ago, that breaking the body immediately does not do much, and lengthens the
process instead; rather, the sufferings of others around them effect more
deeply, and makes them malleable. The elf should not be hurt.

Sweat shimmered on the naked back, and the elf had his forehead against the
rock. Stretched spread-eagle, he was yet unhurt, though stray pebbles from
nearby had left several bruises.

All around, the contorting bodies of several Light Elves chatted rhythmically of
twisted tendons and torn flesh.

The small orc Sauron had seen in the morning sat at the right corner of the
square. At the Lord’s approach, he stood up quickly.

“Shushluk, excuse me sir. We had not begin yet because the captain asked the
lieutenant and he said that we were not suppose to do anything, and this being a
curious thing that the elf had no wounds to pick I was just suppose to sit and
guard him until the dawn, so please do not hurt me.” Shushluk cowered into the
corner after that, and Sauron paid him no attention.

He stood behind the elf, and placed one pale hand at the nape.

“What is your name?”

There was no answer of course.

“Tell me and I will let you down.” He whispered.

They had laughed at him, and then some came…. carried and struggling…past his
side…eyes widened when they saw him…, his arm was broken because they were
searching for him and followed the tracks. Now they are going to die because of
him, and if he escape…there is nothing more…

“Eöl.” It was said softly, so soft that Sauron had to strain to hear.

Sauron stroked the dampened black hair then caressed the naked back, pausing
mid-spine. In the darkness of the night in Angband, he could see the tears from
the day finally falling at night.

Still lightly touching the dark hair, he spoke to the hesitating Shushluk.

“Give him to me.”

-=-=

Arms and legs stretched up for so long, Eöl remained in position for a while
after his bonds were released. Shushluk hurried up to tie him up with ropes
twisted into different knots, but Sauron raised a hand and waited.

Eöl swallowed, wishing that his tears would dry soon despite that it was
windless here.

"Sinda of the Girdle?" Sauron's voice was smooth behind him, "Turn around, so I
may see you."

Eöl lowered his head before he faced Sauron again. Though Sinda, and accustomed
to leafy forests, he was untrained and could not see as clearly as others could.
Therefore, Sauron's expression went unnoticed, perhaps for the better.

"Now follow me."

Shushluk hurried forward.

Eöl hesitated; he bit his lip, feeling the unwelcome tears welling up again. He
wanted to live, true, but he did not wish to become an orc out of sight, with an
elven overlord of Angband. There was something in that fair one's visage that
was made to startle.

Furthermore, he suspected that he would march beside the places where his
friends were placed.

Against his will then, he moved, as invisible ropes curled up along his waist.
The dark figure of Sauron was strangely bright in front of him.

Eöl fell once, but Shushluk held him up, by his will or another’s neither knew.

Sauron lead them throughout the courtyard back to his room.

The Calaquendi's stares seared across Eöl’s skin in mixtures of pity and pain,
and once, someone called out in Sindarin. He had lifted his head at the voice,
but met Sauron's eyes instead- silver, like stars and moon.

"Walk beside me." Sauron said, and opened his arms in invitation.

Silmaril incarnate. The tear stained face came close, tangled hair framing
aquiline features and wind drunken cheeks. The handsome eyes had closed when he
wrapped his arms around the naked limbs; but that did not matter, Sauron had
found that black had been ruined; it reminded him of a certain room and a
certain balrog's fires.

The doors of white marble and silver marked the abode of Gorthaur the Cruel. Eöl
really cried when his feet dragged across the threshold. The stories from his
dreams, and other’s dream tore through his consciousness in a hurtling flood.

Soft fingers fluttered on his face, and he felt himself carried.

The smooth skin, alarmed yet satisfied Sauron at the same time. Once upon a time
perhaps, he would have broken, or stained it without a second thought because it
was what commanded of him- for the greater good. Yet there were no greater good
now, not when Melkor wore that crown and punished him for wanting it so badly
that cruelty must be turned to single minded ruthlessness, which was without
reason, and inadaptable.

The tall tower Sauron took Eöl was empty, the Quarters, others had named it. A
fallacious foresight built it. At first, Melkor thought that Feanor would join
him there and together they would fell Eru from His heavens.

The top of the tower was never complete, so it appeared as if two spires rose
from one, yet inside it was furnished with every luxury commendable even in
Aman.

Aman, where one sleeps on soft beds without trouble, Sauron laughed, as he
gently put Eöl down on one.

The instant seemed to focus onto the single being lying there, naked and angrily
tearful, his face barely visible through elegant fingers.

Something struck Sauron. "What was your trade?" He asked.

The calluses on the forefinger and thumb were unmistakable, yet the boy carried
no bow.

Eöl lowered his arm and try to draw himself taller on the bed. Sauron smiled at
the movement.

"Artist." Eöl answered, pitifully proud.

Sauron lifted an eyebrow and a dim figment of a fantastical Noldo face rushed
through his mind.

"Of?"

"Wood and stone."

"You do not work metals."

There was no answer that time. Eöl remembered that he was not allowed not
suppose to speak when captured, ever.

"You are in my bed." Sauron reminded him.

As soon as the words left, he knew they should not have, because Eöl bit his lip
and closed his eyes again. His whole body began to tremble as he curled himself
on his side, presenting his back.

Shushluk walked forward in trepidation.

"Milord," It ventured, and tried to stand straighter as Sauron ignored him, "I
was told this morning..."

He sank to his knees as a stabbing pain shot through his joints, his bones stung
with familiar sharp needles. He remember what they look like, long as a forearm,
and thinner than a thread. They weaved through bones like needles through cloth.
Where? When?

Sauron glowered. How dare he?! He swept to where Eöl lay, as still as marble,
soot-covered marble, then to Shushluk, “Go draw the water."

The orc fled to the bathroom.

"Stand up." Sauron said, "Or I *will* carry you."

He counted, waiting for Eöl to bolt, but the elf did not. He sat up, eyes still
closed, on the side of the bed and almost jumped at the touch of the carpet:
soft as fleece on his bare feet, and wonderfully warm.

"I'm Annatar." Sauron told Eöl, who shot him a rather unelven look. But used to
orcs, Eöl's expression seemed as adorable as the cooing Simarils that begged to
be touched.

Not a Silmaril exactly, Sauron realized, when the Elf stood and walked.
Something similar, less divinely intoned, a more palpable light, though not a
blessed one.

"I do not like fire." Eöl said, as he lowered himself into the warm water,
preferring to keep his eyes on Annatar then Shushluk, who hovered over him like
a wraith.

He looked haughtily at the servant of the Dark, as if daring him to say aught
else.

The bath seemed fatuous bright, elegant, and faintly facetious, a sweet smell
permeated the steam. Weary, he nevertheless tried to keep his muscles from
relaxing. He did not expect Annatar to kiss him on the forehead.

Stung, he ducked into the water on instinct, and was dragged out by his hair.

Eöl winced at the pain.

"Stay. Within. My. Sight." Sauron warned, and kissed him again, this time on the
cheek, only because Eöl turned his head slightly. Shushluk was useful as he
pinned Eöl's arms on the side. "Or I will really listen to Shushluk's words here
and do what you think will happen."

He released his hold, and took his gloves off, unveiling his black hand.

A look of horror followed the route of his gloves, as darkened skin revealed
inch by inch. The imperishable crystals kept the room in a warm yellow light,
and under that light, black seemed brown and burnt.

Eöl lowered his chin again, "I am sorry."

Sauron did not laugh- but the strain almost managed to rupture every cartilage
in his fana.

He patted Eöl's head, unwilling to destroy whatever delusion the elf had
conjured for himself.

Shushluk had left sometime ago, they were alone in a bright room: Gorthaur was
Annatar, and Mordhel the Silmaril Reincarnate found compassion for a vacuous
choice. The setting of a Tirion styled bathroom in the middle of Angband was
profoundly appropriate

"I have learned to live with it." Sauron said, and argued fiercely with himself
for saying it. Serving the Master of Lies does not mean that a Maia of Aule's
following spoke half-truths, of falsehoods, not necessarily at least.

"You look tired," Eöl ventured at length, confounded, yet being young,
comfortable with relief of any sort, he clung to Annatar as a fading hope,
"There's dust on your face. Should I wipe it off?"

Guilty, Sauron declined. He hated that he loved, and loved even more the fact he
hated the quandary because this was purely for his won.

"I will sit here until you finish, Eöl," He said.

The bathtub was large, and dipped low in the risen ground. Annatar stretched
himself on the side and watched as Eöl found the tap emitting a perfume smelling
faintly of pine.

Smooth skin and sleek muscles, not yet old enough for wiry strength, Annatar
wondered if he should not keep Eöl here; he could, trap him in an eternal mist
that made the fair form sparkle in a thousand rainbows. Unfortunately, that
would not be right. He would not still be alive as he should.

He remembered the Silmarils again. What other liquid substance would Silmarils
exude when touched by one as he, but tears. That time, he had been too hurt to
notice.

Annater dipped a hand lazily into the pool, and brushed Eöl's skin, from the
shoulder blades to small of the back. The elf moved away slightly.

"Turn around, Eöl." He melted his voice into the softest tones, "There are
bruises on you that needs tending."

Eöl looked down at himself. "I am fine." He answered.

Sauron sighed as thin shafts of moonlight chose to strike silver sparks off Eöl
at that moment. "I just do not like to see flesh worried in my house." He
whispered, letting a broken edge creep into his words.

Cautiously, Eöl turns and faced Annatar, whose head was downcast. An image of
Annatar's face flickered in his mind, and Eöl found in the memory of that face
suddenly something more than elven, Light Elf then, he thought. He had not seen
many, but the eyes were the same, bright and piercing, unsettling. He
approached, but as Annatar made no proverbial movement, so he did not stop until
his knees were almost touching the sides. The scents in the room were
intoxicating and there were no windows, he realized, merely thin slivers of
glass dotting the higher places on the walls. Mayhap Annatar wanted stars, came
the absent thought.

Behind the liquid fall of his hair, Annatar was temporarily bewildered. He
looked up, and found Eöl staring at the walls. Stars, of course, Elbereth, would
you ever be the temptress...

Reaching out a finger, he touched Eöl's nose, lips, chins, shoulders, then down
his arms and his chest. Yellow bruises faded as skin mended. Eöl looked at him
with a heartbreaking expression of gratitude and suspicion.

Finding a sponge by his hand, Annatar soaked it, and smoothed it down the same
living path his finger had took, this time unbroken. Muscles rippled beneath the
sponge. He stopped at the notch at the hipbone, but only briefly, before wetting
his sleeve, and emerging his entire arm in to follow tracing the outer, then
inner thighs till the knees.

Eöl's breathing hitched slightly, warring behind the command to “stay still”
every time someone served you and “whatever the enemy does, do the contrary
because it’s going to cause pain faster if you fall”.

"I think you can come out now." Annatar said, "There were more down the back of
your legs." He was careful not to mention the orcs, or how they kicked, and
threw stones.

Still puzzled, Eöl stepped out of the bath, and found Annatar merely sitting a
bit further on the platform of the bath. He took a towel and quickly tied it
around his middle.

Annatar started at the feet, going up till he encountered the fringe of the
towel, then he bid Eöl to turn around, and went up the back of the legs again.

Without a word, Annatar took the towel off when he met it again. Eöl's hand
clenched, and unclenched by his sides, unsure whether he could, or should, knock
Annatar unconscious and run out naked into a courtyard of courtyard of orcs.

Orcs...but before he could continue the thought, Annatar's question chased it
away.

"How old are you?" The tender points of touch had turned into caresses, from his
buttocks to his calves. It felt wonderfully relaxing.

"As old as the sun." Eöl answered, and nearly fell headlong into the water when
he felt something wet and warm slightly nibbling at the top of thigh.

It moved from one hip to the other, the slightly pressure oddly pleasant.

Annatar was enjoying himself as Eöl swayed on his feet when soft hands started
stroking his inner legs. Standing up, Annatar pulled Eöl toward him. The eyes
were filled with wonderment, and the fair face was flushed.

He seemed to crumple into a heap as Annatar wrapped him into a towel and carried
him again.

"You are very bright, Dark Elf," Annatar said, before softly kissing the parted
lips, "Like the Silmarils, metronomes of Arda." For you are a maker as well…

"But they were merely bones, they do not yield as flesh does." Eöl's nude form
lay prone onto of the cambric sheets, pliable as Annatar sat beside him, still
only delicately touching him.

A whimpering sound emerged from Eöl's throat, as finally Annatar kissed him,
slightly harder than before, his tongue brushing the upper lip as they parted.

There was an urge to devour as Eöl's own bewildered, yet hungry eyes and face
told him, the mouth broke into lips. Sauron licked down the long column of
throat to the hollow there, before moving down to the chest, beautifully pale
and unbroken.

Tears of light tastes like honey, and Annatar felt as if the clean skin curved
beneath him, wrapping him in its absolution- curious tableau, Eru's creature
still. He breath hotly on one nipple until it became rigid breath it.

Fierce fingers grasped at his shoulders, but Eöl was silent still though breaths
became harsher. Divine torture then, Annatar thought as the elf’s eyes dilated.

The impulses were uncontrollable, the very perfection of the elf writhing
beneath banished every futile deed he had ever dared. This time he would not be
claimed by the illusion of temptations. The flash of eyes was a mere mirage
compared to the tousled innocence of one who had known only what- stories, other
people’s words.

Kisses that burned his own mouth, and touches that scorched his own fingers were
imparted onto Eöl's untried flesh.

Through the desperation of thoughts and sense all enmeshed, a thousand violent
natural shocks spun through Eöl’s body until he felt like drowning and flying at
the same time. Entangled in only, merely, sensations that he could not see.

Fingers moved stroking his hands, flowing to his chest, to his stomach, then
down his flanks. Tremors shook his thighs as silky strands swept down his legs.

He had looked up at the sun once, though someone told him not to. It nearly
burned his eyes, so many stars in one. He saw it again suddenly, and the same
feeling, tasting faintly of guilt and triumph, the slender tendrils in a
brilliant haze briefly brushed him. And yet, the feeling of inexplicable wrong
drifted to oblivion as he felt himself strung like a tightened bow.

Notwithstanding his own desires that were merely of his flesh after all, Sauron
indulged in the yielding of his own choices. He made sure Eöl did not snap,
keeping him on the skirts of consciousness so that each real touch only bloomed
into more pleasure upon that shapely form.

“Sleep even a never ending night,” Annatar breathed into one ear and kissed his
way down again. The handsome black eyes were open, it’s lashes beaded in silver
tears. It was pleading for something, arms already fallen away onto the sheets,
ponderously heavy. Fervent kisses, hundreds and thousands of them placed upon
his skin stirred senses unimagined, and then melted together them together onto
lips already slightly swollen. “And I will not let you go.”

They could not be jealous, they would never know. He could never condemn him,
for he found his own.

-=-=

In the end, morning found Eöl, the dawn’s rosy fingers curling around his form.

He rolled over and blinked twice before sitting up, quite naked, and quite
alone.

Lethargy suppressed the surprise of its existence. For once, he could not
remember something he wished.

But he remembered he saw eyes in his dreams, many eyes, familiar and strange
eyes, some brighter, some even darker than his, carried by scintillating birds
that vanished and reappeared even as they flew. For some imperative reason, he
hurried after them because his not good enough in the terrible darkness. At
length be came to a mirror standing skewed in of a dimly lit cave, and as he ran
past, chasing a pair of amber yet shaped like his, he glanced at it and was not
himself as remembered from liquid pools of the mountains springs, nor from the
wine that the court of Doriath drunk. The astonished shape of the mouth seemed
crueler at the edges, sharper, like a cold blade.

A stray lock of hair fell in front of his face, and as he reached up to push it
away, his fingers inadvertently brushed dry lips. Heat flared up on his cheeks.

Eöl sank down into the pillows, and covered himself with the sheets.

Lying supine there, with the faint light drifting in through the pink cambric,
his skin was sanguine tinted of reddish shadows and he did not wish to see it.

“I am turning into an orc.” Eöl said to himself, then again, louder, and louder
until he almost screamed. The muffled sound rang inside Sauron’s quarters

It didn’t matter anymore whether he kept silent. He was not even questioned. No
one escaped.

There was a tale he heard once while eavesdropping in the kitchen, trying to
pilfer some honey-cakes. It told that within darkness, you see what you wished,
though none of it was real. All the beauty and the ugliness were mere illusions-
and every time you believed, the darkness chews a bit of you off until there was
nothing left. Then, you become part of the darkness yourself, because only the
body died, taken away piece by piece, and we are more than bodies.

Remember the taste of honey cakes, remember the scent of Nellas’s hair, remember
the melodies Daeron made, and remember Menegroth of a thousand caves, remember
the captains whom he adored. Eöl felt himself slipping away as morning melted
into afternoon then night, dimming the light in his cave.

“Dress,” Someone said, “I am taking you to the workshops.”

Eöl stayed still. By remaining here, at least, he would be Eöl, kin and
Cupbearer to Thingol a while longer, resisting to his last breath the horrors he
learnt as an child. His bed in Menegroth was just as large, and just as soft. It
would be good to die in his own life.

His fingers nearly broke as someone yanked his pink cover away. He stared a bit
forlornly at his empty fingers. He always liked them, they were slender and
shapely and people kissed them quite often because they were so lovely.

Sauron looked exasperatedly at the elf staring past him through those hands with
no sign of compliance. The vacant gaze bothered him, a bit too akin to breaking.

“I am not going to eat you, and I would not give you clothes if they are going
to be torn off you again.”

“You would perhaps like that,” Eöl murmured, “I have never read anything
concerning it, but it does not mean it does not happen. In Menegroth we”

“In Menegroth people run around with no clothes on,” Sauron finished for him,
“Very well, but I wish you to dress therefore you will, and I promise you that
you would live to see the next dawn.”

He threw down a pile of gray into Eöl’s lap.

“I would not have orcs tramping in here again, but I can take you out and let
them dress you there.”

Manners…manners…born and bred…Eöl muttered his thanks.

-=-=

The company he knew he kept prevented him from opening his mouth and smile with
happiness glazed.

A secret wish: if a workshop could ever be clean, therefore new, then Eöl would
claim it as his- impossibly impractical in Doriath. And Sauron knew from the way
the elf was trailing one finger over everything with a dreaming expression on
his face instead of being stoic and bearing himself haughtily in front of his
captor.

“I will teach you metal craft, and you will learn it.”

In the flush of excitement and familiarity with the shape of the chisel in his
hand, the boy busied himself in choosing a small block of burl wood. Eöl tilted
his head, and a small braid wondered down his neck.

“Why?” He asked nonchalantly, biting his lips as he tried to find a stylus while
he mentally gauged the depth needed.

“Why will you learn it, or why I will teach it to you,” Annatar paused, and hand
it him one, “Or why metal craft?” Eöl caressed a soft cloth of velvet lying upon
a stack of its identical twins and froze suddenly as if a dream turned cold.

Sauron opened a door, and the rush lights within blazed, setting an inner room
alight.

There was furnace, though unused, with stores of coke and coal standing within
silver inlaid scuttles beside the anvil. Cakes of wax stood high on a table.

“I will not make weapons for you, nor instruments of my destruction.” He said,
looking at the rake and the peen hammers that hung on the wall.

“Very well, make instruments of your pleasures then.”

“They say too much pleasure corrupts.” Stupid, he thought to himself and noticed
the slithers of a warm orange light had organized itself into perfect circles on
the floor.

Sauron bowed slightly, and stepped closer, obscuring one of them.

“Whatever you wish, Eöl. This place is yours when I am not here.”

In another brief and mad, moment, Eöl considered taking a poker, or perhaps a
hammer, and escape. This time, at least, he was dressed. He could even take
Annatar hostage, he would tell the orc to let him and every elf leave, and then
what would he do with Annatar? He could leave him here, and Annatar would be
punished, as he deserved. Yet knowing this, Eöl was indignant if he fell as low
as the orc he would become…

“Not today though, I have matters to attend to. Stay or leave here as you like.”

Annatar’s voice startled him from the temporary reverie. Eöl’s fine face had
clouds chased shadows and blushes across the almost transparent skin, a very
beautiful study- vaguely sentimental, just enough to be romantic, and prone to
the maudlin madness that took Feanor.

Pleased to observe him under a more indifferent illumination that cared not for
the moods of Angband’s lords, Annatar marveled at the play of light on Eöl’s
brow, his eyes, and his young lips: as old as Anor, as were all the Sindarin who
desired the silver fires of starlight more than anything else. They did not
count years, or the stars, preferring to stay beneath their light asleep in
their waking dreams if only circumstances allow. Like him, Sauron thought,
almost too much. What wouldn’t he give to have thoughts into physicality without
the stinging pain of toil. He looked at Eöl again, whose attention had wondered,
with his very young artist eyes,  confusion, wonder and curiosity still
entangled. Everything.

Shuffling lightly as he walked toward the door, he smiled at Eöl with a singular
sweetness that startled the elf, and left.

Then Eöl realized that Annatar never answered the question. And in his heart he
knew all would be all right if he only knew why. And yet, one would consist
another, and then another..an infinite series of questions…infinite twisting
bodies outside this tower where he slept a night and half the day away in a bed
as good as his own.

He did not want to think.

A piece of wood, barely as large as his hand took shape beneath the tapping of
the chisel, and Eöl painted it: yellow beak, body of blue and silver hued wings.
A slant of sunlight fell across the one natural eye and made the wooden grains
appear as gold.

With one hand holding the small bird, the elf walked toward the windows. These
were larger here though he would still not be able to climb out, and standing
behind them, he could feel the cool air, akin to the feel standing in a tall
tree. Outside, the clouds bled purple and red; he could not see the ground.

Once again, a sense of helplessness assailed him, along with all the
apprehensions of the inevitable. He knew, or he could imagine, what would happen
to him. Despite all the promises Annatar could make, all the comforts he offered
him(and denied to others), they were nonsense- merely play on words. Fair forms
and manners could still serve as vassals to lies.

Picking up an iron nail, his hand scraped against the frame as he dropped it
into the pool of clouds and must below. When he heard nothing in return, he
sang.

Every Sinda possessed the ability, they have been in here a long time after all,
and within the Girdle, where life and joy reigned, every child had played under
the twilight with everything in the shadows as playmates. Eöl sang of Doriath of
the sweet smelling night-flowers, of the majesty revealed of Menegroth for the
first time in the morning, the leafy forests, and the soft touch of rain, the
dews upon the leaves that were as rainbow pearls…..Anyone, anyone for help. If
he had a rope, he could climb out. Angband ends where he was: the stench at the
gates was not here- the slight darkening of the sky was not here.

And out of the distance, something flew closer.

Eöl kept singing, his breast rose and fell a little faster, watching the bird
flying toward him. He could see it, and knew that the bird was not a creature
from the shadows, for its eyes were bright, and it flew with an unusual grace.

Each feather on the wing became visible before it disappeared.

The shock left Eöl speechless. He squeezed half of his shoulder out of the round
window and looked left to right, then up. He thought it might have dropped, so
looked down, and saw the clouds as before, though darkening with twilight.

Nothing.

And it simply could not be an illusion, right? Not that…

Ignoring the pain on his shoulder, he leaned against a shelf and slid down, full
with weariness and grief. Almost weeping, yet not quite, for he had cried all
his tears away on the bed.

With a cry of rage, he stabbed the chisel into the wall. It made a small dent.

The air thinned, and Eöl opened his mouth to breathe. He stood up and took a
hammer, striking it full force against the wall. There was little sound, but the
wall broke slightly under it. He swung it again, and the concavity widened. By
the fourth time, it was the size of a hand. At the eighth, it remained the same
as it were the seventh.

He picked up the small effigy of the bird and stuck in his pocket before walking
out.

Eöl rang the hammer against the outer edge of the entire floor: one bedroom, one
workroom, and some impenetrable locked doors, which he tried just in case.

The stalwart partitions refused to give way, and seemed to mock him. Plaster and
paint fell as his hope went up, then all would just come to a stop no matter
what he tried.

With the lighting of the first crystal and the last sign of Anor disappearing
from within the tower, Annatar was back, and stood with a smirk on his face in
front of his elf, who was panting slightly with exertion, holding his knees in
front of himself.

“You cannot expect me to stay here.” Eöl said, glancing up.

-=-=

“No,” Sauron said, “I do not expect it, because you will go to the bathroom and
clean yourself up,” He walked closer, and bent down to that defiant face till
their noses were almost touching, “I trust that you have exercised enough for
one day.”

The elf was livid, and yet the two faint blooms of anger were clear visible.
With Sauron so close to him, he could neither stand nor shift his gaze. There
was something strangely, horribly, tangible in Annatar’s presence, as if all the
air around him suddenly disappeared and pressed thick like a shroud near his
body so he felt its weight.

"You have no authority over me," Eöl said, and his eyes would have twisted metal
if he had seen the lights, “And I must make an attempt, let me go.”

"But you ARE mine, and therefore…” with a sudden movement, he grasped both of
Eöl’s wrists, lifted, and locked them against the wall, wrenching a cry out of
the elf, “My hospitality is here for you to accept,” Sauron continued amiably,
ignoring the distorting expression, “Did you think, even once, that you would
leave those gates once you entered? But you wanted to live, did you not? And I
gave you that…I am not your enemy, Eöl.” One hand on the wrists, the other
stroked the boy’s head, from hair to cheekbone, lingering a bit to touch the
fringe of the dark lashes. Noldor dark, Sauron noted with a certain
satisfaction.

Eöl turned his face away at the touch though it did nothing to still it. He
spoke in a whisper to the far end of the room.

"Because you spared my life when it is you who are taking it in the first
place?"

To his surprise, he felt himself freed; at least, his hands. Annatar still stood
too close for him to move properly so that his hands remained above his head
even with nothing holding onto them.

"No, because you have nowhere else to go." Sauron answered, and stepped back,
watching blood smearing as Eöl rubbed his wrists: blood from the elf’s palm, not
his wrists.

“I can go home,” Eöl said, “I have been planning to go home you know.” He
smiled, but it was a weak smile, one from habit, an abortive smile, as the elf
remembered to whom he was speaking.

Yet, he followed Sauron to the bathroom, where the waiting lukewarm water and
the scented oils brought up terrific memories. He looked at Annatar, almost
pleadingly, every sense of helplessness betrayed in his face and trembling
fingers as he disrobed. He knew what was terrible in that fair face now, it came
to him as Annatar laid a fresh suit of clothes on the bench nearby; he had
looked up at him with mirth, and a certain disturbing appreciation in the gray
eyes. It was the awesome power radiated from the strange lord of orcs, a power
far beyond what glimpses he had of the Light Elves. For the first time, he
wondered at the “sort” of Annatar.

Sauron watched, almost contemplatively, as Eöl stepped up, and sank into the
water. Running his hands along the floral carved sides of the bath, Sauron
paused briefly, and noted teardrops falling into the water.

“Don’t cry,” He said softly, “There are no windows here.” And did not understand
why he spoke, though Eöl did, for he stiffened in waiting.

With a sigh, Sauron tore himself away from the view and left. He held Eöl’s
bird-figurine in his hand as he stood outside waiting, sentinel and goaler.

They all want. The nature of the artists: hold their own, guard their own,
jealously. He would give it back to him.

Eöl’s hands were bleeding again, when he came out still vaguely damp and
smelling of autumn leaves, though he tried to conceal them behind his back in
tightly clenched fists.

“Do you want it back?” Sauron asked, and held the painted bird, wings open, in
his hand.

“Yes.”

“Take it.”

“You can keep it.”

“And why would I want it?” He watched Eöl lower his head, and said more gently,
“Let me look at your hands. The walls in the bathroom do not take kindly to
climbing I take it.”

“No.” Those startling black eyes burned anew, and biting his lip, Eöl reached
out and took it by the wing, so that blood would not harm the paint. He did not
protest when Annatar’s fingers wrapped around his hand, when the wounds closed
with a stinging sensation, or when he led him to a small fountain in the
entryway and had him there on one of the many soft benches that lay around it-
rendering the his body and senses to useless ecstasy.

“I am very poor,” Eöl said earnestly, sitting on the bed afterwards, nightshirt
slipping off one white shoulder, “For I am dead though my fea cannot go do
Mandos where happy memories dwell, imprisonment being as irrevocable as death.”

“Is Mandos not a prison, is your memory not prison Eöl? Why then, do you fight
so…” Then, without waiting for an answer, Annatar lightly pressed his lips to
Eöl’s forehead for a chaste kiss, "Goodnight, poor elf, I will teach you metal
craft tomorrow."

Graceful in all his angles and curves arranged in natural art, Eöl was utterly
relaxed even as thoughts become ponderously heavy when a soft scent invaded his
mind, driving all else away.

He would lie in slumber, without dreams.

And yet..and yet..Sauron marveled, musing upon the selfishness and the
generosity of the artist within him, tracing the point of an ear as Eöl slept,
tender eyelids closed- just because, we can never let them go.

-=-=

Even when Tilion’s chariot traverses the skies, bringing faint memories with its
silver edge, cruel perhaps, to some, the work in Melkor’s corner of Beleriand
continued.

We gave you everything. Everything was mad, everything a choice- fate torn
asunder from the fea of the Elves from the notes of the music. As Gothmog
remarked once, we gave them what they what otherwise would not be able to see.

Personally, however, as Sauron walked with the balrog, the image and feel of Eöl
vivid within his mind still, he thought that beauty is a high price to pay for
stupidity. Those renewed had trouble even learning to walk properly. But then,
perhaps they die before they could walk without the craven slouched form, fast
as they may be compared to other beasts, still too slow for the captains’
liking.

Passing a chamber of murk, Gothmog stopped, and spoke.

“Why do you wear this form, why do you not wear the other one, the one you
preferred?”

Sauron shrugged thick velvet clad shoulders; “I do not wish to sully it by
coming down here.” It was true; his face was now grimy with oil and dust that
clung to his skin like small parasites.

“Or perhaps you wish it to keep it for whatever you are having in the Quarters.”

He had not thought of that, and laughed at the suggestion. Flames licked warm
around his soft boots as Gothmog came to stand in front of him.

“Who is it?” He lowered his voice, “What is it?”

“My amusement, not yours, dear balrog. Once is not forever.”

The red eyes narrowed, and in the darkness, a dark tint of green glared through.
Then, abruptly, shadows swung aside again without a sound, and they moved on in
the depth.

At length Gothmog started, and halted again at the entrance of the cave, where
the moon came through in a misty light.

“He is leaving Them here.” He said, and the slight emphasis on the word sent a
jolt through Sauron’s arm to his fingers. His hands clenched spasmodically.

“For..,”

“The Second Children of Iluvatar, awakened in Hildorien. He is going after
them.”

Others were coming behind him, and reluctantly, they moved to the outer border
of the board so that the muffled screams would not disturb their whispers. The
ragged hedges beside them filtered the broken view of a dark stream.

“You would be in charge, Gorthaur, of all of Angband. Milord.” Gothmog nodded,
almost imperceptible.

Sauron scoffed, wishing for the graceful defiance of his elf.

“And somehow I was not privy to this?”

“Our Lord knew you were otherwise occupied with more important matters,”
Ventured Gothmog, “We conversed during the latest parlay with the Feanorions-
they are desperate, and the Second Children would not be suspect even later on
when our Lord succeeds in his stealth.” There was no question of “if”.

“Second Children?” Sauron asked, and suddenly heard a faint resonance in the
air.

“So Thuringwethil tells,” Gothmog added sotto voce, “They fear the night.” He
came closer until they walked abreast, shoulders touching slightly.

And for some strange reason, Sauron thought about Eöl, his young and strong
body, helpless as a sleeping figure in the dark room, and worried.

Gothmog was Feanor again when his breath touched Gorthaur’s neck, but Sauron did
not see, and parted ways with him at a crossroad.

-=-=

Days pass like years in Angband, and minutes longer, especially when the stomach
grumbled for what nourishment it could procure from the irritatingly small
morsels of fruit.

Annatar sat by the bed with an expression that could be taken for contrition if
not for the subtle shade of excitement around the corners of his mouth. He held
a plate in one hand, and the other was sticky with the juice of passionfruits.
Eöl eyed both the sweet wrinkled purple rinds and the golden Annatar
suspiciously though he ate without protest. Three days without food did not
allow hunger to invade his flesh, but there were other things that made him
uneasy, the persistent odd tingling, not yet pain, every time the other’s skin
touched his for example.

“There are marmosets in Doriath,” He said between swallows, and as his host
seemed to take no notice, continued, “My friend has one, it sleeps in her room
and eats at her table,” He glanced sidelong at Annatar, “Quite unaided.”

“But you are not a marmoset are you?” Eöl’s tongue slipped out and touched one
of Sauron’s fingertips, withdrawing quickly.

“No,” The elf replied, “But the farmers also keep sheep and feed them flagons of
wine before slaughtering them.” He put a hand up to wipe away the liquid at his
chin.

“Let me,” Sauron interrupted and dabbed Eöl’s lips, disregarding the thoughtful
look on that young face and said: “I am not giving you wine however.”

“Unfortunately.”

Sauron arched an eyebrow and paused his motions.

“Wine and elves do not do so well together, and I would not give it to one so
newly came of mere physical age, Sindarin or Telerin natural propensity or no.”

“So you feed me like I’m a child,” Eöl insisted, and his fingers clenched on the
bed sheets, “An elven marmoset, a pet…” He glared at the silver eyes that
appeared too bright during the day fell silent, contemplating at the vivid
luster within those orbs.

A treasure, Sauron added mentally, mine, and nonchalantly washed his hands in a
basin nearby. Wiping them dry with a towel, he turned around and whispered in
Eöl’s ear, pressing himself close so the boy seemed to lie down again in his
effort to avoid the contact.

“You need to keep your strengths up if you want to continue in your strange
whickering. I do not wish you to faint while standing near the forge fire.”
Sauron said, and slightly licked the side of the face, right over a sharp
cheekbone.

“I do not like fire, and I was not laughing..” Eöl said, and sighed: having a
vague memory that he said it before. The touch was not enough to entice, but it
was very very warm.

Two arms went under his and held him in a tight embrace and he was hauled
upwards into a sitting position.

“Reason?” Annatar asked, and divested Eöl of his nightshirt before commencing to
dress him with the elf sitting partly in his lap.

“They burn.”

“That would be the point I suspect. But hopefully not you, so I’ll be teaching
you how to stoke one, to manage one so that its sough listens to your will.”

“Must you? I do not wish to learn.” Eöl’s eyes widened, and his fair face was
screwed to such an expression of utter misery that Sauron laughed. A sudden
glimpse of the elf doing the same many times before and succeeding in the face
of grim elven lords came to his mind.

He bent down and kissed Eöl’s down turned mouth, bringing one hand to stroke the
dark hair.

“You must, this is an art of forging metals.”

Sauron lowered his voice, tying a golden belt around the middle of the tunic,
“Do you not claim to be an artist?”

It was unfair, he knew, but when had anything been fair when it came to him. One
thing he had learned in his long sojourn since the first bar resounded in the
world, fairness is the limiting ideal of the perfection of thought; therefore,
it does not exist. After all, why did Morgoth aim to stray from Iluvatar’s tunes
which called to existence everything- Ea!- it was unfair…

Look to the origin for the purpose.

A faint demurring from the remarkable living treasure caught his corporeal eyes
and Sauron’s thoughts were lost as they turned from the irrevocably gloomy
pondering of his choice to one who is almost wholly innocent of it all -so lost
and focused at the same time- like Feanor Feanaro Curufinwe Finwion Mirielion
artist warrior living fire…

And it was so very foolish to see fire in one and not all the others. The
Moriquendi’s eyes were filled with that divine fire, indeed, he did not even to
peer closely to see it even in this brilliantly Valinor colored room. They were
fools, to know nothing of potential, to recognize nothing that slight tempering
and refining could accomplish.

“Eöl, come with me.”

The elf stood and though his face was set in grim lines, the slight excitement
in his step and the tremulous curiosity of  his eyes he was too young and of the
wrong kind to conceal.

Of the same stamp certainly, to survive all this.

“Perhaps you are a memento left to the darkness, an evolutionary equivalent in a
sense, though younger, so much younger.” Sauron mused, hands placed quite firmly
upon the other’s shoulders, very aware of the sudden tensing of muscles.

“And why should you be tense?”

“Because you should know that I am going because I have nowhere else to go.” The
amused tone made him release his hold, and he was far more contented watching
the form moving freely, darting surreptitious looks at their surrounding.

The walls seemed healed and bore no trace of the battering they had before. Eöl
noted as they walked past and entered the gleaming forge. Its immaculate
appearance was still faintly disturbing, more so because he wish to be the one
to render it into a different state, and in his opinion, a far more suitable
one.

At length, amidst the flare of heat and orange shadows, it was his turn. Oil and
water hissed in a barrel beside him.

There was no choice, Eöl reminded himself.

“Imitate you?”

“Imitate,” Annatar narrowed his eyes, and a confusion nestled itself into his
features before quickly chased away by the more familiar strange idleness, “Yes,
of course, imitate.”

Something was clearly troubling the other, Eöl paid it no heed. The leather
apron was thick and seemed to weigh him down, as much as the gloves though with
an effort, he managed to insert the iron into that mess of light, and uncovered
a triumph there as the heat seemed so very close, almost consuming him in its
embrace.

The heart of the fire is not empty, though it is the hottest there: ash and
coke, ambers aglow.

A damp layer of sweat clung to his body, and his muscles ached with joy as he
brought the hammer down the softened metal. A pain wrought his sinews aflame as
he found a sympathetic friend in his loneliness. Entirely shot with lingering
shadows, he and fire both, turning to each other, all-exploring.

Curiously, Sauron felt no more than a spectator as Eöl worked, the grand
aesthetic of the scene charmed him to such that he melted into spirit, forsaking
his tissues as Eöl forgot about him.

Annatar did not touch Eöl again that night, or any of the nights that Eöl
labored in the forge.

He let him sleep, and watched his slumber, finding respite in the gentle rise
and fall of the pale chest and the gradual shaping of flesh beneath the covers.

-=-=

He left again, leaving Eöl to his own musings, and food enow.

Everything he wanted, everything except the sight of the stars around him. They
were framed and seemed to hang, sometimes precariously upon the high walls as if
liable to fall.

The softest and most elaborate fabric clothed him, the daintiest dish fed him,
and still there was no wine. But he hardly cared anymore.

He had a chain. It was long and strong, and it was complete, with all the
contraptions he thought would be necessary for his venture. His secret.

The terrors of the entryway had faded into oblivion; an even more ardent emotion
replaced it. As Eöl lifted his eyes, hopefully at the silver handles and its
locks, he sighed, the sound mixing with the merry bubbling of the fountain
behind him.

Difficulties of unlocking the doors came to him even after his fear lost itself.
Annatar had a key, that much he knew, but the other never slept and despite all
the smithcraft he had endowed upon him, he had not been taught how to bend and
place light into glass yet.

Sometimes in nights, out of some perverse pleasure, Annatar would show it to
him, detailing all the slight etches and notches upon the apparently smooth
metal body and the secret of each facet upon the crystal at its end, promising
that one day, he could be able to create a replica. What irony- to create a
replica for his freedom. Wrestling for it had proved futile and the indignity
had gotten to such a point that he broke down and wept after perhaps the twelfth
time.

The tears had burned down his face, but so had the words. Annatar never showed
it to him afterwards. He had stood up and left without a word, leaving him
there, alone and forlorn upon thick carpet.

Eöl realized that Annatar did not know what he was doing when the latter
returned several days after in the morning and kissed him until he fell into a
swoon after bidding him “Happy conception day”.

Time does not exist here, and whatever was said, it was. The immeasurable
strength, the mystery surrounding the Dark Lord was of little importance if he
could not escape, escape to the sounds that must be ringing, singing outside.
Everything was always so silent here save for himself.

The building was almost alive, if he closed his eyes, it would repair itself.
Three days and he had stared at the window, daring it to fix the broken frames
and the bits of plaster, which it did not.

Annatar did not return this time.

Securing one end, and so sure that there is freedom in the other side, Eöl swung
himself out and began his descent. Out!

The wind whipped around him and clouds swirled so that there was a sensation of
flying. He could neither see his hands in their holds nor the form of the walls.

What a wonderfully cloudy day, he thought to himself and indulged in the thought
of being rained upon. Droplets of moisture clung to his face and hair from the
clouds, and from a distance, he could see an eagle coming closer.

It swerved away from him, but that did not matter. Squinting slightly, he could
see hills and even mountains rising tall in the distance, their verdant only a
little marred by the clouds he was forced to see through. Notwithstanding, the
snowy caps beckoned him, like so many bright torches showing him the way home.
Menegroth, Menegroth are beneath those rocks…

Once a long time ago, he was lost with Nellas in the forests. There had been
bright torches light outside his house, marking a blazing trail. They followed
it and arrived home before even Beleg could reach them.

Eöl smiled at the memory. The images of his family and friends, their thankful
expressions mixed with exasperation. Justly scolded afterwards, yet he was happy
to be home. It had been cold in the forests where even glowing night flowers
took on a menacing face when they had been afraid.

They would be happy to see him again. He does not remember how long he had been
away, but the first night he laid on that bed, he wanted to go home, away from
the confounding place where his fate was orc.

Each step more hurried, each leagues completed faster. Then he stood on air.

He stamped his feet, thinking it was ice beneath his feet, some evil weather
working against him. Locking his ankles on the chain, he dangled upside down and
his own startled face stared back at him.

The surface was cool beneath his touch, and it was silver, unmistakably silvery:
his own form and the sky reflecting in its view. The hum of the metal as he
knocked against it showed itself to be impenetrable. Desperate, his heart
fiercely pounding, thinking there was still a chance, he turned his head, still
inverted and found a slant in the view that seemed strange. It appeared that a
curl here and a line there were out of place, fractured.

His legs gave way, and he fell sideways, crashing against the hard plane. Bits
of ice, for there was ice in the clouds, bit into his cheek and it stung.

“Elbereth Gilthoniel…..” Eöl cried, standing upon the mirror glass, ignoring the
pain, straining to see the hills and see the ground seemingly so near,
“Elbereth!”

When no answer came, he knew then, o how he knew. Everything.

Gritting his teeth, he climbed back up again, his hands almost slippery with
blood.

He will not die, but now he wished to. Then, not in the clouds, not in front of
that dead deceiver at least.

Numb, he struggled upwards, the distance surprisingly short, as if the very
walls reduced in height to receive him into themselves again.

When later in the day Annatar returned, he found Eöl crestfallen, buried in the
pillows and blankets.

Laying a gentle hand on the heaving shoulders, Annatar sat himself down.

“It’s a mirror trick. All of it. The hills, and the skies, and the flying things
in the air…” Each muffled sound a blow.

A terrible face, bruised and bleeding greeted him.

“I am not going to be turned into an orc am I?” Eöl whispered fearfully, another
plea in his voice.

Sauron looked down into eyes terrifyingly empty.

“No.” He answered, and reached a hand to touch the elf. Eöl shrunk away and
curled into the farthest corner beneath the canopy.

Annatar retreated, leaving the room, leaving the tower, into the ground he went

What was amiss in those eyes? Sauron turned his eyes to the eyeless roof of his
dark cavern.

Stars.

Now Sauron knew, in his deepest heart, Eöl is beginning to fade. He was afraid,
because the thought hurt.

-=-=

Of Hildorien little is spoken.

But now Melkor spoke of it.

And he is going, leaving to seduce the newly awaken Second Children.

“Why?”

“Why?”

“Why?”

The voice echoed in the hall, pierced by the light, incongruously loud, even
though it might have been just thought.

“Allies.” Gothmog answered, the foresight strong in him, “Great allies. We shall
not regret it.”

“They are weak, newly born.”

Gothmog quirked a smile in his Feanor form, he scarcely do without it now,
finding special pleasure in the shocked stares as he paraded within Sauron’s
domain.

“Ah, but the potential, and they are so anchored in their hroa. Mortals,” He
chewed the word carefully, considering the flavor, “They have an indomitable
life force in them in order to survive, and they can never fade even if we do
the most despicable things upon their bodies. In part, stronger than elves,
though not as hardy at the first glance.”

Sauron refused to look at him.

“The Sons of Feanor wishes another parlay,” He entreated the figure upon the
dark throne, “And they are full of artifice, there had been heavy losses.”

Gothmog shuffled back, his handsome mouth twisting into a sneer. He turned to
Sauron.

“We lose theirs and win theirs, do you know that sorcerer, the progenitor of all
that.”

“And as a parent, suppose I should be hurt by that accumulating toll…” Sauron
replied, “What do creatures of wild do when their young are hurt?”

Clearly confused, the Captain of the Balrogs turned his head and implored his
father.

“I am leaving.” Melkor declared again, the resonance of his tone deafening.

Rushing forward, Sauron knelt down and placed his hands upon the black iron
greaves.

“No!”

He stared at nothing.

“Gothmog shall die, at my command.” Sauron muttered.

“I am leaving.” Melkor said again, hardly more than a whisper, to him.

“Yes milord.”

Thuringwethil flew as a shadow passed the archway and reluctantly Sauron left
his place by Melkor’s feet.

Melkor plucked at his iron crown, tearing at it with great talon-like fingers,
the Silmarils’ light a blessed arc in the air.

It was the second year of the First Age.

Annatar is Lord of Angband, and all the Silmarils are entrusted to his care.

But as he held them within his hands, they were silent.

-=-=

The tepid water slid down, leaving the broken skin behind, making each line more
vivid so that the smallest cuts appeared as fatal gashes of color.

He bathed the grime and blood away from him, but not the bruises nor the various
small wounds.

Eöl refused to allow him to mend the crisscrossed injuries, shallow and deep
that marred his skin.

“It does not matter anyways.” He said, watching the ragged lines turning black
from the invisible poison in the air, “I am going.”

“No you are not.” The vehemence shocked Sauron, but the words were true,
specious voice and face be damned.

“How would you stop me?” Asked Eöl coldly, looking away. All over, he hurt; as
if a thousand cold needles were working his flesh, and acid were poured onto his
joints from the inside.

The light, soft as it was, make him want to shut his eyes. However, the
explosions of colours don’t end, painfully dizzying in their iridescence. And
all the colors were cold, blue and white and terrible green. His entire body was
sore, as if his fea decided that the hroa is not worth it anymore and was
straining for flight, rather unsuccessfully, like him.

It had been possible before.

“You would stop yourself. The virtue of you being here would do that for me.”
The words were so soft that it eased into the addled scheme of that stormy mass
of lights and half-lights and echoed within it.

Someone held him, and he was floating, wrapped deep in the rich fur of
something. A million little hairs tickled him against his pain, and dimly, he
could feel the shape of his naked body.

“I want to fly.” He said, the words harsh, grating against his raw throat. Maybe
he should not have screamed for Elbereth so loudly, or for Eru. He had strayed
into the wrong music, drifting in from some unfinished measure into a violent
change of mood.

The visage of Annatar was as it ever was: handsome, impassive, almost lazy, the
effect spoiled by the hard eyes carrying an enameled quality. He turned his face
away from the sight.

Red, orange, yellow and variant shades in between; the warmth of the corridor
struck and burned his vision, and tears refused to come and blur it. A cool hand
descended and touched his brow while his head ached, pounded upon by blunt metal
tines.

“Does it always hurt so much?” Eöl asked, before everything fell, “Before Mandos
claims us?”

Annatar’s head lowered to peer at the luminescent skin and the damp curls of
hair that tangled upon the perspiring forehead. The air of Angband holds the
Black Breath, every space suffused with it, and now Eöl refused for his injuries
to close.

Dying, dying…

The idea occurred that the elf would eventually venture escape. The consequence
were always unpredictable, and he had failed to consider. Sauron saw the brief
flicker of light within Eöl’s eyes before they were quenched. Sounds roared
within his ears, the crashing of tides against cliffs and he remembered that the
nature He gave them, not even his children could know, just like His, His will,
His music, still solely his.

The lips had parted, emitting faint puffs of breaths, too faint.

“It depends upon the manner.” He answered.

Tightening his hold as the blank black eyes fluttered shut again, the long
lashes resting so peacefully, Annatar tread upon wind and stairs, mixed matter
in his swiftness.

He never knew elves could fade like this, he had never seen it. He heard of how
Miriel laid down her life in sleep, he knew the Quendi tenets and limits, he
witnessed failed experiments of his hand, but he has never seen it.

Never seen it because it never mattered before, there had been always more.

Symmetry was never so appalling as it was in that moment. It went against his
very nature to find it so. The perfection of spirit he thought he had attained
crumbled, and maybe only crumbled because he was Maiar, and furthermore, a Maia
who took part in Melkor’s rambling tune.

Up the winding stairways, banisters exquisitely carved, he took him on top the
unfinished towers with the half-completed roof. The rocks and broken pavement
crunched beneath his feet. Kicking the loose stones apart, he knelt, and
arranged the drape better to shield the elf from the fierce winds.

“I am going to show you the stars,” He soothed the figure within his embrace,
“You want to see them.”

In the vague haze, Eöl heard the mellifluous voice. Straining eyelids to open,
yet all he felt, all he saw, was a great cold.

Live or die: death was ever an abstract, like what would happen if one became
lost outside the girdle.

The skies were dark, but Annatar promised he would see the stars. Then, surely
he could appeal again.

-=-=

The dusty silver of the moon scattered on Eöl exposed face, glinting off skin
and hair, casting gossamer threads of light into the night.

Quivering with those visits from Irmo, fitful dreams ran tremulous within Eöl’s,
mind manifesting in the agitation of his limbs, wrapped as they were firmly
within the thick fur.

The somber heavens loomed over them like a great shroud and only the edge of the
crescent moon was visible. As Annatar beheld the high winds on the roofless
tower and the unrelenting thick clouds that stormed in the firmament, he heard
voices culling wanderers.

Then the body within his arms stilled, and against his chest, the other’s
heartbeat slowed as if into a drugged sleep. Furrowing his brow, Sauron turned
and inspected the sleeping face that hovered, on the edge of two lives, overly
vivacious for one or the other. And beneath that haphazard wavering, uneasiness
of sleep lay like a pall upon the mist toned features that attempted to avert
his feathery touch. The serrations on the forehead and the cheeks had began to
heal, light pink lines draped across Eöl’s flesh like many little silk strands
taking measure of each line and slope of the face.

A world that consisted only of the shape within his arms, of the wonderfully
curved mouth, the sculpted nose, and the dark lashes came into view and drifted
off again, as sudden as it came, and all the world was dread, frozen as the
million tiny icy crystals that echoed the sound of the winds within their clear
bodies.

Even as he traced Eöl’s face again with his eyes, a shudder in him for each
breath, small icy rocks plummeted down, cutting the healing skin. A thin rivulet
of blood, black in the silver shadows flowed into the slightly parted mouth.

Annatar looked up, the stones beating down upon his shoulders and face, their
sharp, sudden weights ringing through his senses.

Hail.

Clear white and gray, some melting upon contact, leaving droplets of water
behind while others crashed and exploded like glass, covered the ground like
some arcane, softer, snow, smelling faintly of a great weariness- vaguely
bitter.

He held the passive figure and moved toward where the granite flagstones were
unbroken and the marble pillars raised tall and unblemished. The rafters were
done though unfilled, parts of the roof were unadorned while others retained
frescoes that saw the weathering of time and the vengeance of Valar’s domain.

Sporadically, Eöl would draw a sharp intake of air but otherwise, he slept,
dreamt, and what those dreams were Sauron dared not to guess. A brief flash of
jagged rocks left a rough horror within his heart and he would not think
anymore.

With a quiet strength, suddenly uncanny, he lowered the elf onto the ground.
Sauron arranged the cloak better closed and bends his head above Eöl, shielding
him, feeling the tiny fists upon his head and shoulders.

Manwe’s powers still do not infringe upon the border of this corner of
Bereliand, claimed before time, so Sauron drew the elements around and gathered
the fabric of the air into a tighter weave beneath Eöl till it was as stone.
Then, he tugged at the tendrils floating ubiquitous in Angband, and broken from
their confines, they moved, carrying them along the way toward the empty sky.

Stepping upon invisible steps with an invisible pedestal of air before him,
higher and higher, passing the hail and the rain, Sauron felt the ground
shrinking beneath them as they entered the clouds, heavy spray that parted at
the subtlest touch.

And why…

Perhaps he worshipped him…gestured as an offering to the stars…

Upon the rigid surface of the air, images ran in his mind and fonder his heart
grew as a silence enclosed them in the air, above all the mortal and immortal
cries that haunted his nature no matter where he goes. He heard only Eöl’s
breath, Eöl’s heart, Eöl’s voice that whispered jumbled syllables in his dreams.

Surely it was too terrible, this complacency in the frozen sky, and surely too
mad. The colors of the clouds swirls frozen, as if they were blind etchings for
spectator delight. Blank darkness stared pitiless and Eöl was nestled within,
almost entirely still.

They rose higher into the sky, the invisible stairs building, sturdy beneath his
form, but there was still no hint of stars visible even as the air cooled.

Frost attached them to Eöl's hair; Annatar brushed them away from his fingers.
They gathered on his brow, so his kisses melted them, washing away the blood
that had gathered on his face.

The brief moment of horror passed, that terrible foresight of seeing him lying
broken and dead alone in the wilderness where none could reach. But there were
still no stars, and Eöl's lips had become pale, almost pale as his face. Sauron
kissed those lips, and placed his hot tongue inside the unresponsive mouth.

Hands gently rubbed the precious bundle, slipping inside and meeting satin skin.
There, they massaged, stroked and caressed, movements rendered half desperate
between worry and unstoppable pleasure. In some half-dazed state, the entire
mantle fell open and draped across the boundaries of Sauron's magic.

The clouds thinned, the reddish shade of Helluin adding to the hard glitter of
the moon, fell across their faces. Shifting until he lay on his side, yet still
pressing Eöl's body close, Annatar murmurred into a delicate ear.  Presently,
the light of the imminent Calarcirya reflected in the black eyes.

"Do you see? Do you see? You wished for this..."

The flesh under his fingers was beautiful to touch, its utter reality ravishment
in itself. Abruptly, Eöl's eyes met his after a while: familiar spirit,
dissimilar gaze.

"I wished," He paused, his voice barely audible, "Would I have everything I
wish?”

How do you ask me this, Annatar thought, as his palm drifted down the naked
form, the muscles tightening and loosening under every touch, when you lie
within my arms?

"Yes." He answered. In the lofty air, our phantasmagoric imagery sublime...

Eöl laughed, softly, in his own way, though his present companion had never
heard it before, therefore unable to detect the weary edge, "Why am I here?"

An errant wisp of hair flew down to his eyes, but the wind lifted it, and
another hand came to tuck it behind his ear, and then stroking the skin from the
point to the tender joint between shoulder and neck.

"For being an artist, for being Mordhel, for being a manner of unnatural
perfection." A smile curved Sauron's mouth, "For having an eternally kissable
mouth, for your dark locks and dark eyes, still unspoiled and untainted. So
young, dear Eöl..." He had lain on top of Eöl, one of his knees nudging the
other's legs open, and kneeling, pulled the elf to sit upright against his
chest, glad to hear the rhythmic beat of the heart against his own.

“You know, seeing stars is different from being able to think that you can snare
one.” Eöl said, almost fey with joy at seeing them, gently, insistently moving
away. But he clutched tightly at Annatar’s form when he realized where they
were.

“Do you want one?” Annatar asked, leaned forward, and kissed the tender skin
above the collarbone, one palm splayed against the naked back lest the elf
should tumble down, disappearing into Angband beneath, and the other stroking
the smooth chest, moving down.

“I want,” Eöl swallowed, “To see the light of the stars whenever I wish.” He bit
his lip to stifle a groan and a bitterness broken forth from his still tender
lip.

“As you wish.” Sauron replied at length, fascinated with the enraptured
expression of the other as it cried upwards to Varda’s canvas.

Blood dripped through the clouds from the abrasions from the ice and they
hovered in the air as frozen crystals, faceted pink diamonds.

Below, Gothmog saw the unnatural dews, the brief flashes of wind-swept bodies,
and for one sudden absurd moment, he wished his wings were more than shadow.

-=-=

The casing stars twinkled with mischievous fierceness, throwing sharp rays
through the abjuring clouds. He opened his mouth and closed his eyes, wishing to
swallow the moment even if it may taste of cold bitter air. Failing that, in the
imprint of the night behind his eyelids he could fancy thin needles of light
striking his skin, for which’s nakedness he was inexplicably glad.

Gasping once, ever so softly, amidst the revelry of being bathed in that flood
of thoughts and sensations mingled into one, he felt the touch of a fingertip on
his arm, then an entire hand. A hot breath on his neck drew him back. Sauron
trailed the finger up the arm to rest on the cusp of his ear, brushing away a
flake of ice. Eöl shuddered as it slid down his shoulders down his back followed
by a hand that smoothed its path until it reached his waist.

It was warmer now, the elf realized, he had been so cold, and so oddly formless
that he felt he would fall apart if not for the tiny hairs that pricked his
skin, but now his neck hurt from staring up for so long. If he just looked
ahead, he could pretend that he was alone, merely sitting on a treetop and
gazing outward into the distant night.

There was a particular tree he loved, he sat there at times, wondering what was
out of Doriath, whether any of the stories he heard in the squares were true.
The noon sun hurts his eyes but upon the daybreak he would be there, letting the
dew damp his garments as he climbed the thick boughs. And how he loved mists, he
could pretend he sat in the sky, with stars almost near enough to touch.

The memory pulled at the strings around his heart. It was not merely home he
longed for now, and it hurts that he did not know what.

“Stop.” He whispered, but a poor tear spilled over and hung precariously at the
edge of one eye.

Annatar considered himself kind, never cruel, those were other people’s words.
Eöl had lowered his head, a mass of shadowy hair falling and hiding his face.

“Lie down.” Annatar soothed, warring with a terrible desire that welled up
within the depth of his being at seeing the elf so grieved.

The stars were torn from Eöl sight, melting into patches of color as he was
pushed back into the fur again with Annatar’s cool shirt pressed closely above.
The clasps dug into his skin while the studs of the buttons at the collar seemed
wanting to pierce it.

He lay very still, very confused, and a bit afraid. Then the weight was gone.
The warmth at his side and across his chest told him that he was embraced,
rather tightly against Annatar’s body.

Turning his head, he saw a gleam in the other’s eye before feeling a heat
flaring running down his side after a caressing hand.

“There we go again,” Eöl thought, a bit sulkily, the mood manifesting in a pout
that disappeared under moist, supple lips covering his mouth without a sound,
tugging all the air out of his lungs.

But it was wonderful to be kissed like this, when did not need to think and the
other clearly enjoyed it. Sauron gloated for a while afterwards as the elf
gasped happily for air, watching the flushed cheeks and the swollen lips, the
fresh cut opened and bleeding oozing a horrible attraction. Half lidded dark
eyes beneath the thick lashes seemed so passionately oblivious that he averted
his eyes to roam across the graceful planes that were Eöl’s flesh. Pure and
untouched by any other being, the muscles were slight and shapely beneath his
hand and yet they yielded so easily.

Scarcely a hair’s breadth away from being able to touch it with the lines of his
lips, he fancied he could taste the delicacy of Eöl’s loveliness in the heat
exuding from the fair skin. Smiling, he dipped a tongue into the hollow the
elf’s throat and proceeded to cover the graceful neck with darting kisses, each
pulse of blood precious beneath.

Clothing were discarded and thrown down the sky in a swirling path. The velvet
cloak fluttered as they hovered entwined high in the air, concealed by the heavy
clouds that hung dark and foreboding from a distance.

Eöl hands touched the golden head that careened down his chest in the company of
lips and tongue, sending edges of pleasure glimmering through his quickening
blood.

“Comely like a star,” Annatar said, caressing and stroking the top of Eol’s
thighs until they parted of their own accord, quivering slightly, “How kind of
him to make you immortal..”

His mouth traveled down Eöl’s loins and rested against the smooth skin between
his legs, kissing and nipping until bruises began to bloom on the tender
surface. The slightest touch of tongue against the soft tissue between his
thighs provoked a moan and a tremor that ran down the length of the elf’s body.
Another, and Eöl was arching up desperately, the taut muscles of the torso
fiercely visible, straining against the hands around his slender hips.

Planting a series of careful kisses across the lean stomach, Annatar trailed
them up to the perfect expanse of the chest, and swiped his tongue across the
rims of muscle while incoherent words and sounds babbled forth.

Smitten with the heated flesh, the almost passionate embrace as Eöl’s hands ran
down his back, his own fingers exploring each line of the delectable body he
made possible. And tasting it, biting one shoulder, his teeth broke through in
the moment alongside a keening cry. He pulled himself up against the beguiling
throat, dizzy with the soft scents in the other’s hair, clean and cool,
whispered an apology before nibbling on the lobe of one ear. He traced the
tapering delicate edge with his face and felt the soft pointed end against his
cheek as his hands danced and stroked across the collarbone, lips following to
the juncture of the neck and shoulder and sketching upwards to the awaiting
lips.

The dark eyes, darker than the night, were wide and looked at him with inky
fire, made elaborate by the starlight’s reflection, and Annatar was struck
suddenly by Eöl’s beauty, how fragile it was though he knew it would never fade.
The air sank beneath their weight, made malleable by his will.

Eöl remembered they were in the sky as he peered into the riddling eyes of
Annatar. The long hairs of their fur-covered bed were tangled within his fingers
as his veins tinged with the tides that threatened to engulf and drown him in
yawning pleasure.

Darkness had fallen even deeper, like an elegant dream that coils forever in his
mind, and the gleaming stars were fading before his sight.

Intolerable touches painted him all over with small aches and fires. The light
brushes, the sweet promises of lingering kisses pulled at him as if he were
being taken to even smaller pieces. In the vagaries of his wondering mind, he
did not he exist, so featherlike the caresses were.

“Do you love me?” He asked, eyes shut, the mutiny of colors far from reassuring
as Annatar bent and caressed one tender eyelid, his dark hand stark contrast to
the exquisite pallor, as if the elf had never seen the sun.

“What?”

Distracted, all movements ceased and the night stretched around them. The
paleness of a finger, resting on his white wrist, the soft corner of a smiling
mouth became uncomfortable, heartbreakingly poignant.

“I am not going to be turned into an orc. I am to have everything I want…”

His voice pared into a groan. He wanted a name for it.

“Do you want me to love you?” Annatar asked, knowing that his answer could be
snatched by the wind. Yet the heights had fallen silent, waiting.

Eöl tucked the temptation into the depth of his mind.

“No.”

Annatar winced.

“Well then.” He commented.

“But can we go north? I want to.” Eöl insisted, and leaned forward and bestowed
a kiss on the side of Sauron’s mouth.

Annatar withdrew slightly and shied away from another. Seeing the hope in the
elf’s face, his muscles was suffused with a mysterious pain that had nothing to
do with his body’s waning passion, he was far too unused to fana perhaps.

“Home.” He said, and rolled onto his back, holding one of the Eöl hands against
his chest.

“Home.” The elf agreed, and Annatar could not bear to hear it anymore. Something
was going to break.

“Pity Manwe does not love you then.”

He felt the hand clench in his palm, the knuckles smooth and standing in sharp
relief against gentle furrows. Tentatively, he traced them and in idle thought,
learned that Eöl would never be able to hold a fist easily, so slender and long
the fingers were. There had been a sharp intake of breath, but now all was
silence. From the corner of his eyes, he could see the movement of the elf’s
breathing.

The night had quieted around them and his words rang incongruously clear as he
continued softly.

“We would not be welcomed. Not this way, not that far. No one enters the high
air of Arda without the permission of the Valar. No one confronts an Ainu in
their own demesne, the Music had laid down borders for such things before time.”

And you will not let me die, knowing that that the temptation to live is too
great that we could not turn away from what is in our nature, Eöl thought.

I cannot go back.

“And this is not Arda.” He said, each word sharpening focus until he fancied
that he could see into the morning sun at a coming time.

“This is a dream.”

Of course, a dream, and he could see everything so clearly, himself in the naked
embrace of a Maia, in the heavens of Angband beyond the rules of the Music. Eöl
opened his mouth to laugh, but found that no sound came, so he said instead:
“And no one leaves a dream unchanged.”

A long caress drifted down his person, glancing wisps, tracing the contours of
his body with tantalizing haziness. Tendrils of dark hair, russet blonde in the
day trailed down his collarbone pursued by soft kisses that tickled all the
same. Eöl’s cooling skin warmed quickly as the firm and unnatural mass of the
Maia rested briefly, always only briefly upon his bare breast. In that passing
moment, he struggled, awkwardly shoving and twisting until a cautious kiss
quieted him, his neck cradled helplessly arching back.

The fey gales, growing loud to his heedless ears, pushed and shifted, and in a
blur of motions, air rushed beside him and out of him. As incendiary fingertips
ran down the length of his thighs, circling inward and leaving merging blazes in
its wake, Eöl rolled out of Annatar’s embrace with a strangled gasp, snatched
out of the comforting cradle.

It did not hurt when he fell, indeed, his descent slowed as the clouds began to
thicken but an icicle broke against his neck, and there was a sudden streak of
pain, vanishing even as it came yet the arrest of movement sent him into shock.
Immersed in a shallow blanket of spray, the unforgiving pools of water gathered
in the valley of his back. Eöl stared downwards, and saw the pitch beneath the
graying clouds, the illusory of Arda, he thought distractedly, shaky from the
chill.

Two strong hands turned Eöl around, and an embrace in the eddying air thawed the
winter that had culled around him.

“I wish to see your face.” Annatar explained, sliding his hand in the starlit
hair and rubbing down Eöl’s back as they pressed close together, “We would see
the dawn here.” He dipped his head to blow warm breaths at the tapering ear,
drawing the ends into his mouth, provoking an unsteady rhythm of moans until he
trembled silently, his face turned into Eöl’s neck and all too sensible of the
downy skin there that stretched marvelously across the pale pulsating throat.

He lapped at the blood on the fresh wound, its iron tang desperately fine.
Reckless, Sauron moved toward the supple lips before slipping his hand down to
the tumescence between Eöl’s opening legs. Mouths yielding against the other,
Eöl felt the thrum of pleasure as the other’s body became impassioned, meeting
his own, their smooth skins sliding against the other in an increasingly
frenzied rhythm, close and clinging tightly.

In the end, the lone impulse of delight, seeing the elf flushed satisfied,
breathing deeply and reclining suspended in the sky beside him with eyes only
for the violent stars, made Annatar vaguely uneasy. It was entirely too
appropriate somehow, and he had not had the feeling in a long time, and knowing
it, he chuckled deep within himself.

-=-=

The next time Eöl left with his consciousness from the wandering paths, the
pneumatic pillows delicately cushioned his face and the sheets were a tender
presence upon his naked skin. Then he discovered that everything was not all
right after a night’s sleep. He turned onto his back, his muscles riddled with
small agonies, sore with loneliness perhaps. From the arcs in his feet to the
arcs within his ears, a curious sensation resonated within him as if he was
hollow.

The world was full and he was hollow, and the knowledge was suddenly bright and
clear. The silence around him told him so and he wanted it gone as he stared at
the ceiling of the smoothest and mind numbing white. He wondered how it would
look for anyone who would chance to see him lying there while the wide shafts of
the light struck bars of shadows on the carved bedposts. But there, his train of
thoughts stopped: of course, no one ever sees, other than Annatar, who would
sometime pretend that he did not see and at other times look at him with such an
intensity that he found his eyes burning as he met the gaze. The sun would rise,
and he would lose that mad game, closing his eyes and watching the dance of
bright dots behind the fallen darkness instead.

The red curtains of the bed fluttered easily in the wind that even now, smelled
of a sunlit ground. Eöl breathed. A whiff of that and he imagined himself as
hard as impervious glass. Less, he would collapse from the silence.

In memory’s haunting, the ghostly scenes and people flashed before him, their
voices echoless silvery bells.

Yet, the old nights had mingled with newer ones, for the stars had moved. He
dreamt of Annatar, his face and his voice and his hands.

Too fascinated and horrified not to remember- the brush of words against his
face and the brush of lips against his neck- Eöl existed because of them, and it
was terrifying. He could be transparent, formless, gone for all the others but
not to the Maia who would perhaps love him if he wished.

He was very aware. Each shade of color, every curve and angle of the disarrayed
bedclothes, and every sound, except there were none save his own breathing and
beat, beckoned and tempted, crying with the comfort of dreams.

And such a dream... Dreams, he learnt while a small child, were what the world
should be. The glance at the setting sun caused his stomach to contract until it
hurt, and the bright orange creeping ever closer on the bed made him shudder.
This was not how it should be, surely. The sun does not change its path but it
was already hopelessly entangled in the memories the first time he found himself
within the black gates. And what did he see there? Eöl closed his eyes and
buried himself deeper into the blankets. Beautiful beatific past no longer just
his own, and the thought filled him with a loathing he never imagined possible.

Even loathing was pointless.

Furious, he threw back the covers that had been previously tucked under his
chin. Parts of it pooled on the floor but he paid them no attention as he pulled
on clothes that he had to learn to wear: tunics with ornate clasps, low collared
shirts with no fastening at all, belts made of links of silver and gold, and
thin light shoes that turned at the ankle. He felt formless in the loose
clothing, walking felt like parading.

There was no past. He wandered the halls. There were no mirrors, so he could not
even trace his features to the faces in his memory. When Eöl looked into pools
of water, the spray of the fountains disturbed the image.

It bothered him that he never realized it before. He had no mementos. As he
passed the workshops, he cursed Annatar for being the sole reminder. Eöl, he
called him, the Sinda of dark eyes and dark hair, who was not yet full grown as
the Light Elves would count it…

“I am here. I am flesh,” He repeated to himself, but found that he could not say
his name in the litany, “I have father and mother, I am a son. I have friends…”
His voice trailed off, then a little while later, he whispered in little voice,
afraid, “They still know me,” half a query.

Water within basins of marble does not answer. It bubbled on merrily.

Mindless, he headed for the stairways he saw in a turn of a dream in which he
fell down again when reaching the last step, the stages smoothing over.

He found them, as he saw, and it was different. Eöl leapt over the fallen stones
nimbly, climbing when needed, and quite determinedly, quite, only slightly in
trepidation, stepped onto the last stair, and with a burgeoning relief, found it
sturdy beneath his weight.

Out from under the bartizan, it was the sun, and it was the currents of air. He
could not breathe, his heart having stopped his throat. So close to the sky, he
wanted nothing of it, except perhaps for Anar to reach down and catch him as he
stood in the middle of the dilapidated field of stone.

Walking precariously along the edge of the unfinished battlements, his shirt
flapping in the wind, Eöl attempted to look down upon Angband, the sun beating
warmth down his shoulders. Standing taller than all the others, the roofs of the
watchtowers, he fancied he could also see the red points of the spears. But
beyond that, merely clouds. The grounds were invisible. Extending his sight into
the distance, rapt, he saw a small shining glare coming close, a cluster of
stars moving across the land.

And out of the corner of his vision, something caught his eye. Scarcely knowing
what he was doing, Eöl picked it up and beheld a piece of tracery- a dazzling
vibrancy of colors that mimicked… light?

-=-=

TBC