not love, but worship.
( series on ao3 )
About.
Not Love, But Worship is really just a fancy way of saying how I explore headcanon for the thousands of years that stretch across the life of Sauron. Or Mairon.
It is a fanfic series of the Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien, following the fall of Mairon into Sauron, the Akallabeth and the fall of Numenor, and ultimately the fall of Sauron himself. It can be considered Alternate Universe as I do not comply with LOTR Game-related lore on language and Nazgul names.
The series focuses on character-exploration and worldbuilding. The plot drives itself mostly, as necessary, as the ultimate end is predetermined: Sauron will corrupt the Numenoreans, be destroyed when the island falls, lose the ring in the War of the Last Alliance, and ultimately be defeated by a Hobbit and his friends. There are several subplots to spice up the general story because of this.
The point, here, is not ‘where does this end’, but ‘how have we gotten here’, ‘what have we lost along the way’, and ‘what do we plan to do next?’
Currently, the ongoing arc belief. is undergoing heavy editing and rewrite. The first version has been deleted and a new one of the same name is up with new content.
All explicit / NSFW / sex scenes are relegated to separate works and will not appear in the main fic itself, though it may be alluded to.
like stone unto stone.
melkor asks the hard questions. mairon gives the hard answers.
the line they walk between life and death does not exist on the mortal planes. so too their concerns, and misgivings.
( set some time after mairon returns from the fall of tol sirion. )
we count love on our tongues.
read here or @ ao3
a meeting between the lord of mordor and the merah of illahm. the beginnings of a tale. a tale of love, and not worship.
( set some 20-odd years before the events of belief. )
ring it in.
3254 second age. a southron new year’s celebration with a bit of a twist. the twist being mairon.
( he that wants for a god who is not a god, and a god who spends his days among mortals. )
belief.
History will speak of the march of Ar-Pharazôn, and how quickly he crossed the distance between Umbar and Mordor to cow the Dark Lord beneath his hand.
It will not mention how many days Sauron ignored them and made them sit outside the Black Gates before paying them any heed at all.
( the akallabeth, of sorts. the dark lord of mordor plays at house and destroys an island. indirectly. probably. probably indirectly, that is. the island is definitely destroyed. or is well on its way to being destructed. )