like stone unto stone.

summary:

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.)

“..What?”

Caught off-guard, Mairon forgets to include even the slightest inflection of reverence into his reply.

“You heard me, Lieutenant.” Melkor, to his credit, pays it to mind. “Actually, what are you even doing out here? I don’t recall any of your duties requiring the use of my balcony.”

Mairon considers his words for a moment before he responds.

“…I was racing Thuringwethil up the buttresses.”

“I hope you have a good reason to be doing something like that.”

Given recent events, Melkor does not say. He does not need to. Mairon hears them all the same.

“Did I wake you, Master?” A cursory glance confirms that Melkor is in loose sleepwear, with accommodations made for his hands and the limp in his walk. “My apologies, if I did.”

“It is a sleepless night,” Melkor grunts. “All things considered.”

“Yes,” Mairon agrees. He understands. He is the cause of it, no doubt.

Tonight is milder than most. His master looks tired, more tired than he should, for one who is merely trapped in a mortal shroud. Even a vessel strengthened by the strength of a Vala cannot hold out forever against its own limits.

Mairon looks away. The two remaining Silmarils are bright, and glaring. They mock him for the empty socket in the crown on which they are forced to reside.

His hand twitches. He moves towards the railing, preparing to leap. It is a small distance to the ground, and even smaller to the air. Wings come easy now.

“Still yourself, servant of mine,” says Melkor, and he does. Darkness clings to him like a veil, awaiting flight. He itches for it, and he does not know why. “You have not yet answered my question.”

“Your question bears no meaning,” Mairon says quietly, “and holds no purpose.”

He pauses.

“..It’s a stupid question.”

Melkor lets out a snort. Mairon feels his mouth twitch, but it is short-lived.

“You’ve not spoken to me like that since you became my right hand…. My most trusted aide. My Lieutenant, my Second-in-Command. The number of titles you possess, Mairon, is unfathomable.”

“Digger of Dungeons,” says Mairon, with small humor. “Lord of Wolves. Destroyer of Ill-Made Daggers.”

“I hear your temper is worse than mine, at times.”

“At times.” Mairon’s gaze slides sideways. “You would know.”

Melkor clears his throat. His stance changes to one that is just the slightest bit defensive, yet he says nothing in defense.

There are few who do not know of such incidents within the fortress. Even fewer who would bring them to attention. The Ainur see nothing to discuss, and the yrch and lesser beings learn quickly not to question the authorities of either of their masters.

Melkor is Morgoth, the Black Foe. The enemy of their enemy, their Maker, their Shaper. He moulds mountains with his hands and craters with his feet.

Mairon? Has teeth. And a hunger that he ignores far too often. He is not the Lord of Wolves for nothing.

“Answer me, then, Mairon: with all your gifts, your talents, your titles, how far would you follow me?” When Mairon does not answer, he continues. “What do you profess your loyalty to?”

“As I said before: it is a silly question.”

“No, you said it was a stupid one.”

“It is that, too.” Sighing, Mairon draws the shadows to him, thin as silk. There will be no chance to fly any time soon, not with Melkor so insistent. “Why are you asking me this, Melkor?”

“Your blunder cost me a Silmaril,” Melkor says, blunt, but without much anger. “I believe I have the right to question my own servants, regardless.”

Mairon cannot refute that.

“…What do you mean to ask?” he says instead, quietly. Not demure. His temperament does not allow for demure.

To his credit, the subject does not appear to be pleasant for Melkor either. His master does not speak right away. Mairon looks up from Melkor’s feet in time to catch the minute surprise before it slips away.

“Our brethren wish for my repentance. Manwe wishes for my repentance. To make well the ills between us, to settle this war. To fix what he considers broken.”

Mairon turns away. He looks over the dark and shadowed lands, writhing and churning. Yrch strewn about, their communities carefully maintained and managed so that they do not destroy the ecosystems that they need to survive. Morgoth’s kingdom is sprawling for this reason alone, as are all the Elven clans.

There are pits where coal and metals are dug out. Mines and fissures to supply stone and soil. Trees cleared carefully within the lands, and recklessly beyond it. Nothing is misused or wasted under Mairon’s watch.

He sees nothing that is broken.

“If you were to hear news of my surrender, Lieutenant, what will you do?”

“Do you intend to?”

“If it were to happen—”

“Are you scheming something again, Melkor? Another set of jewels caught your eye? If it is so, I would like to be left out of it.”

“If! –Don’t interrupt me again, I swear on my own name, I’ll—”

Melkor does not continue. His hand is raised, gesturing angrily, charred as it is, but stopped mid-wave when Mairon narrows his eyes at it.

He has teeth.

“I want to know, and you will tell me. What would you do?“

Once, when the world was young, his heart was in the stone. He had an interest in the world, in how it was made, how it was shaped. How mountains rose and fell, how water moved, how the trees grew. How creatures lived, and died.

In Aulë’s care, he did as he wanted, until he wished to do it no more. There were those who thought him stifled, restricted. Forced into menial tasks fit for only the lowest of Maiar, the least of servants. Some did not understand, and others he saw no need to clarify.

Mairon was one of Aulë’s most talented disciples. While Aulë would give them tasks from time to time, Mairon ended up choosing most of his. He delved caves and moved valleys, dug trenches into the oceans, and gouged out a maze of canyons with Ossë’s help. Ossë, who was always more than willing to rage waters through the lands.

Perhaps it had been through Ossë that Melkor found him. All knew by now that Melkor had sought Ossë first, even though he was of water and not of fire, or darkness, or shadows.

Because Mairon was of the earth, the ground, solid, steady rock. He was nothing that Melkor should find interest in. He had strength, but unlike Ossë he did not throw it about with abandon, glorying in its display. If anything, Mairon was one of those who urged Ossë not to be so reckless with it, who worked with him to direct it in a way that would have the greatest effect for their task.

It must have been, then, the time when Ossë sought his help in creating a bit of a storm. It was harmless, in the grand scheme of things. That part of Arda wasn’t being worked on yet, and by the time it was assigned to someone, the upturned stones and trees would have returned to ground, the flooding would recede. The base would be established, and later, the work would be easier.

This was not the problem, he later found.

Neither was it a problem that they had done so without the approval of either of their Valar. Mairon was left much to his own devices, with Aulë’s trust, and Ossë was not restricted so long as he remained within Ulmo’s domain. And they had. No one had been harmed and nothing had been ruined.

Even the flimsy reasoning of going out of order had not made much sense, not until Mairon was paid a visit by Melkor himself.

In retrospect, he wondered whether Ossë had known. Whether Melkor had beguiled Ossë into this display simply to make Mairon’s abilities known, to lure him out from under the watchful eyes of the other Valar.

And he decided that regardless of why and how it happened, the fact remained that Mairon had made a choice. He had not been coerced by Ossë, or infected by his enthusiasm, or tricked by Melkor.

Ossë wanted to get a bit flashy, and knew that disturbing the other Maiar would be unwise. Mairon knew that without someone keeping Ossë in check, he would cause another incident like he had when Melkor first found him. He and Uinen directed all of Ossë’s strength in the most destructively productive way possible, rather than risk a disaster that would take ages to mend.

It was a choice that he stood by then, and if asked whether he would do it again, knowing what that sort of attention it would result in, he would stand by it still.

Just as Ossë cannot regret what he did, neither does Mairon think it wrong. There has never been such a thing as ‘wrong’; only less efficient. Less productive.

Like dwelling on what could have been, what might be, what may have changed.

Like being asked stupid questions about his loyalty.

Like—

“I was assigned to Aulë,” Mairon says, in lieu of a response. “We are of a similar sphere of influence, of power. Though mine is lesser, and thus I became part of his throng.”

He pauses. Melkor’s gaze burns, focused as it is.

“..I was not forced to remain in his service. Neither was I forced to leave his service.”

He would kneel. A servant would kneel, to show his loyalty. The mortals and yrch make a big show of touching the ground on bended knee, in a most blatant show of obeisance.

Melkor, however, has never cared for it much. Mairon remains standing, stiff. As Ainur, they have no display to mean the same thing.

He remains. Standing.

“You tasked me with Angband once, when Utumno fell. When you were hauled away by our brethren, bound in the chains wrought by Aulë himself. I stood here then. I am standing here now.”

Is this not answer enough? he does not ask. It is unfortunately not his decision whether enough is enough. Only whether he is willing to continue proving what need not be proven.

Is he?

“You ask what I would do if you went away again, and I will do as I had then.”

A servant he is, but not servile. Not obsequious. He will not beg for Melkor’s affections, for his trust, though he could, as any of them could. But it is not in his nature to simper and plead, to beguile, unless it was the only means available to him. Pride is not something he quite understands, not yet.

Thankfully, Melkor does appreciate things finer than desperation.

“Is that your answer, then? To be given a task to carry out in my absence?”

“If that is what you wish. What else can I do, if you are taken away?”

“Fight!”

“I would do that regardless.” Mairon gives him a flat look. “Yet you speak of after, do you not? After the fight, after the battles. When you are wrested from us once more, shackled– when you have gone to Aman and given your piece, and made peace. What shall I do then? Would I follow and repent, as you did? This is what you ask, is it not?”

He pauses again. The words churn in his throat before leaving his mouth, a scald on his tongue.

“Shall I wage war against your penance? Shall I take up your fallen banner and stand by those you had taken from your brothers, rally them against the might of Aman and you yourself? Shall I destroy it, all the work we have done in all this time? This kingdom, this land, raze it all to the ground as a show of proof that we have renounced our old ways? It would be a simple enough thing.”

Melkor does not look away. There is no dawning horror, no growing fear, no restless anger, though Mairon knows his words must hurt to be heard as much as they hurt to be said. To think of going against Melkor or dismantling his kingdom– it is painful, in different ways.

Angband and Utumno were culminations of hundreds of years or labor and effort. Thousands, even. Destroying it was as destroying one’s own architectural masterpiece. It would hurt, but without Melkor, the ache would only be a hollow reminder of what once was.

To war with Melkor… he wonders if Melkor could even be capable of it. Whether his master would tear down what he built with his own hands, as proof of his surrender, kill those he once called comrades, his servants. It is an impossible thing to think of.

But one might think it impossible for Beren and Luthien to do what greater creatures could not, and yet they had done it, even at the cost of their own lives. It is not something Mairon would do of his own choosing.

“You?” Melkor begins, incredulous and just short of laughter. “You would think to rise against my power, against that of the Valar? You, and who else? Who would fight beside you?”

“Give me a task,” Mairon says, and hopes he does not sound too prideful, “and I will lead the world against them, if I must.”

“..Have you no fear, Mairon?”

He does. Where once there was none, an inkling of terror has cultured itself, winding around the core of his being. It cautions him against many things, small and irrational, things he would never have thought of before.

It doesn’t feel right, but he does not question it.

“No, no.. of course you do not.” Melkor sighs. Mairon looks at him oddly, remaining still for the hand that brushes knuckles against the swell of his cheek. “We were made different, after all.”

“Not so different.” Mairon looks aside. He does not make any moves to distance himself from his master’s touch. “It is only that I am…”

He considers.

“..Less.”

“Less!” Melkor does laugh this time, a bark of laughter that is both rueful and self-scorning. Mairon feels no hostility in it towards himself. “If anything, it is I who am lessened. Tied to this base form, forced to concede to the physical limitations of this world. Filled with thoughts and ambitions unfitting of a Vala, more mortal than god. What a mockery it is!”

The hand drops and Melkor is leaning against the railing, looking upon his own domain. Mairon sees no truth in lies and flattery, so he says nothing, but comes to stand next to him. Comfort is, thus far, a foreign concept, and an unnecessary one where they are concerned.

“Kosomot is no more.” Melkor does not look at him, so Mairon does not nod. “As is Thuringwethil.”

“…It was a paltry excuse, I admit.” In his haste to come up with a reason for his presence, he had forgotten briefly that Thuringwethil never made it out of the Isle of Werewolves. Curse Beren and Lúthien thrice over. “But you would not have believed anything else I had to say.”

“Oh? You think I am so untrusting of my own Lieutenant? Try me.”

At this, Mairon abandons formalities to scrunch his expression into a frown. He does not think Melkor would not trust his words, but..

“..I ran out of things to do.”

As expected, Melkor does not say anything for a long moment. There is always something to do in Angband, whether it be supervisory or managing stock and inventory. And who else would dare to feed the dragons?

“All of our present stores of materials have been allocated,” he says, going down a list that he has already gone over dozens of times. “We are not expecting any incoming shipments for a few days. The new recruits have just finished their training season. Hunting has been postponed until the weather cools down. I fed the dragons twice because I had forgotten they had been fed already… They ate it anyway, of course. Your beasts are quite gluttonous, Melkor.”

Melkor shakes his head, grinning. “This is the first time I’m hearing this. You truly have nothing to do? So you decided to lurk upon my balcony instead? Why not simply waltz into my room while you’re at it? “

“Your mind was unquiet,” says Mairon, unquietly, “and I sought a distraction from the stillness.”

“A distraction, Mairon?” His master snorts. “Is that all I am to you?”

It is said in jest, and Mairon takes it in jest.

“And for a mere distraction, you would think to war against the Valar with nothing but the lives in your hands… Perhaps I have made a poor choice in lieutenants, to find one so free and reckless.”

Mairon cannot help but smile. It is so very untrue. He is free, yes, but he has never been reckless.

“Do not do such a thing, Mairon.”

The sudden, grave tone pulls him from his humor. Melkor’s hand on his shoulder grounds him there. Keeps him still, keeps him solid. If not for Melkor, Mairon would still be wandering Arda in one form or another, digging his dungeons and chiseling chasms out of marble.

“If Manwe comes with such a force that even I am subdued, that I would even think of repentance, I would not have you lead a futile charge against them.”

“…Is this the task you give me, then?” Mairon draws his chin higher, straight-backed and square-shouldered. His gaze follows the line of Melkor’s hand to his arm, his neck, his jaw. He knows every scar on Melkor’s face. “Melkor, Morgoth, the Dark Lord of All, He Who Arises In Might. Greatest of all the Ainur. My master. You would have me fly from here upon word of your defeat?”

“I would have you live to see my return.”

This time it is Mairon’s hands that come up, first hovering as though he knows not what to do with them. Then, lightly, fingertips dancing along the sides of Melkor’s neck, until finally his palms press against rugged, weathered skin.

When Melkor does this, Mairon had always felt a sense of calm, after the initial strangeness of it.

“Melkor,” he says, and wonders if it brings his master comfort, to touch or be touched. “I cannot die.”

He does not say, how do you know you will return. He does not ask when will you return. He does not speak of how long would you have me wait.

Melkor’s hands tangle in his hair, black as coal and brittle as steel. His brow wrinkles and their foreheads touch. And they breathe, for the sound of their breaths.

Solid and steady, like stone unto stone.