A Song Amidst His Torment by Elrond's Library  

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18

Maitimo sells some information.

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“They were made of old in Valinor, and neither wind nor water could quench them, and when they were unhooded they sent forth a clear blue light from a flame imprisoned in white crystal.” (Unfinished Tales, Of Tuor and his coming to Gondolin)

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The door was unlocked. 

The door was ajar. 

Maitimo studiously ignored it until he put his daughter down for a nap, tucking her into the basket that was her bed, though she was quickly outgrowing it. She was growing so fast, much faster than an Elda would, her cheerful demeanor a brightness that had been sorely missing in his life. 

In the secret spaces of his heart, he had named his daughter in his own tongue. Whispered in the dark and shrouded cavern of his bed, a secret spoken to uncomprehending ears. Muinalumbel, his Lumbelincë, who peered up at him with trusting eyes that shifted color with her mood – cornflower blue, blood red, sea-snail purple, watery lavender. She who called him “Atya,” and chattered at him in a broken mix of Quenya and Sindarin, and preferred his arms to Mairon’s, and smiled so often he teased that her face would be permanently frozen in a grin. 

He had not expected to care for her.

He had not expected to love her.

But the feelings had arisen in the last few years since her begetting, a bone-deep attachment to his child. He knew it was a weakness, that it opened up a vulnerability, another avenue for Mairon to exploit, but he could not help it. It was worth it, to spend his energy caring for her, protecting her. Teaching her. The Eldar loved and delighted in children, it wasn’t his fault.

He sang her to sleep, low and sweet. His heart ached as he brushed her obsidian-dark hair back from her relaxed and open face. 

Normally he would take these moments of quiet to sleep himself, or clean, or sew, or stare absently at the uneven ceiling until Mairon came back or Muinalumbel woke, whichever came first. 

Now, though, he stared at the door, the door open just a sliver. Cold air gusted through the hairline crack, like the mountain was breathing, deep and slow. 

Could he?

Would he dare?

Did he dare abandon Lumbelincë and try to escape this place?

He had no plan, in any case. He had no clothes to ward off the cold, only the thinnest of slippers to cover his feet, no food or cloak or disguise or anything to increase his chances of making it to the gates.

Or was it just an honest mistake?

He touched the door, fingertips brushing the edges, barely believing the truth before his eyes. He started to pry it open, slow and tentative, intending to at least look outside –

When the door opened. Mairon stood on the other side, familiar golden eyes peering out expressionlessly from his wolf fana, thick fur as black as pitch. The light from the hearth fire reflected off of it with an iridescent sheen, oily greens and purples. He was massive, intimidating, his shoulders level with Maitimo’s and built with muscles that rippled menacingly under his pelt. 

Maitimo dropped like a stone to kneel at the Maia’s feet, pressing his forehead into the stone floor. His braids fell over his shoulders, exposing the back of his neck to Mairon’s teeth. Vulnerable. Deferential. 

He knew Mairon would have been angry if he had left the apartments. He knew it would invite punishment. So he made himself small, simpering and cowering like the weak-willed petitioners of Finwë’s court. His pride was to be deployed only sparingly – it was easier to grovel, a language Mairon expected and responded predictably to. 

Mairon’s voice in this fana was still eerily akin to that of his elf-like fana, smooth and melodious. A wolf’s jaw should not be able to form the phonemes of Sindarin … and yet.

“Nelyafinwë,” Mairon said. “What is this?” He pushed his nose under Maitimo’s shoulder, urging him up onto his heels.

“I just …” Maitimo shook his head, keeping his eyes lowered. “You forgot to lock us away when you left, earlier.”

Mairon made a wordless rumble, deep in his chest. “And you thought to test the bounds of your home?”

Mairon’s apartments could never be home. Maitimo’s home was Tirion, his own townhouse and Haru Finwë’s estates and Nerdanel’s sprawling mansion in the valley below Aulë’s Halls. All of which were lost to him. Home was wherever his brothers were. Home was with Findekáno.

Better to be truthful. Mairon still seemed able to smell lies, could still sting him behind his eyes when he caught one.

“Yes, my Lord,” Maitimo whispered. “I just … wanted to see.”

Mairon snapped his jaws next to Maitimo’s ear, making him flinch. He slipped past Maitimo into the main room of the apartment, leaving the door wide open.

When he spoke again, it was in the tenor of his elf fana. “Close the door, Nelyafinwë, but look well, if you must.”

Maitimo kept his eyes downcast, reaching with one hand to close the door. He dare not look down that shadowy hall – he could tell this was one of Mairon’s little tests, of loyalty, of control, of fear. The door settled noiselessly in its frame, and Mairon whistled, a note of Song that made the lock turn, vibrating under Maitimo’s lingering fingers.

He felt Mairon’s fingers run over the crown of his head, fingers tracing the intricate braids Maitimo had adorned himself with that day. Mairon had no reference for Noldorin braiding, the meanings behind the patterns. He had felt bold, earlier. Findekáno’s marriage braid lay under his right ear where it had always lain before the Darkening – marriage braids were customarily on the left side, with the space under the right ear reserved for melotorni, or especially close familial bonds.

Findekáno had been technically all three in turn – cousin, then melotorni, then husband – so it had never been questioned. Everyone had known they were close. They just didn’t realize how close.

In retrospect, Maitimo suspected Finwë had known, or guessed. But if he had known, he had never said, just smiled invitingly whenever Maitimo brought up Findekáno’s exploits, whenever the pair sat together at banquets, or stood at the edges of parties, laughing over glasses of wine. And they had been so careful.

His hair had recovered from the distressing thinning his pregnancy had caused, for the most part. At the least, he was not pulling away more than a few strands when he finger-combed it out now, and the braids protected it from being tugged by tiny, curious hands.

Now that marriage braid was a comfort, a small reminder that things had not always been as they were now.

Mairon left his hand resting atop his head. “Good, little Ñoldóran,” he murmured, and laid a feather-light kiss upon his forehead. Maitimo let out a shuddering breath. “Thuringwethil is asleep?”

“Yes, my Lord.”

He hummed, cold hands trailing down to cup Maitimo’s jaw. “I believe I have need of you. If you would oblige, dearest Nelyafinwë?”

Mairon had not touched him in years. But that did not mean Mairon’s fana stopped shifting feminine, an undesired outcome on one of their parts. And Maitimo … perhaps did not desire Mairon’s touch, exactly but …

Maitimo nodded, leaning into Mairon’s hand. “As you wish, my Lord.”

And so with a deep breath to steady himself, he lifted a hand to keep Mairon’s in place. He took Mairon’s thumb into his mouth, sucking on the still-burnt finger briefly, before moving on to kissing his palm and then taking his first two fingers into his mouth, tongue swirling around the digits as he would a cock.

Mairon hummed appreciatively, thrusting them in and out of Maitimo’s pliant mouth. Maitimo chased them, swallowing suggestively, working them over, taking them deep inside him.

He eventually pulled his fingers free, cupping Maitimo’s jaw again, smearing saliva over his cheek and into his hair. “Come. No sense in doing this in the doorway, yes?”

So Maitimo followed Mairon down what Maitimo had long considered Mairon’s wing of the apartments. At the end of the hall was the surgery, fastidiously locked after Maitimo’s attempt to destroy himself. But before that was a series of doors – study, bedroom, workshop. Mairon led them into the bedroom, which mirrored his own, except that Mairon’s was perfectly neat, basically unused. The bedside table had a thin layer of dust coating its surface.

Ainur didn’t need to sleep, after all.

“Undress,” Mairon ordered curtly, gesturing to the bed as he loosened the ties of his own surcoat. Maitimo was in no hurry to comply, so he took his time with the buttons on his robe, and the ties of his pants, and carefully lifted his shirt so as to not muss his braids overmuch. He ignored Mairon’s impatient gaze as he precisely folded his garments into perfect squares, stacking them on the dusty armchair in the corner.

His hands did not shake. This was a familiar routine for them, even if several years had passed, and Maitimo’s body had changed since, and this was a new place.

Only then did he throw back the coverlet and ease himself upon the bed. Dust swirled in the air, following the currents, illuminated by Mairon’s own luminescence.

Acquiescence might earn him supplies, to better care for his daughter. Or himself. So he laid back, arms raised above his head, and parted his thighs, and let Mairon take his pleasure as he willed.

He had expected the rush of pleasure, the release of tension, the syrup-sweet slowness of heightened lust, the loosening of inhibition, the genuine desire when Mairon knelt between his thighs and thrust into him.

Instead, it made him quail, and shudder, and itch to get away.

Nothing but friction, dry and uncomfortable.

He shouldn’t have expected such a thing. The oath he had sworn that brought about those feelings had been fulfilled when Muinalumbel had been born.

So this is what this would have been, had he not sworn.

Determined, he kept himself limp and pliant. He turned his face away, hid in the crook of his elbow, and bit his own forearm to keep his lips from forming a refusal that would only get himself in trouble.

Mairon said nothing as he continued to thrust into Maitimo, but he was sure Mairon knew how little Maitimo was enjoying this.

Mairon came with a sigh, and relaxed with a feather-light caress down Maitimo’s soft chest and fleshy abdomen as he knelt between Maitimo’s thighs, slowly softening cock still sheathed inside him.

Maitimo shuddered, letting out a slow breath.

“You’re crying,” Mairon remarked, cold hands resting on Maitimo’s knees, gently holding him in place.

Maitimo shook his head, wiping away the incriminating wetness with the heels of his hands. “It’s just the dust,” he muttered, voice cracking.

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“I believe I have something of value to you, my Lord, beyond my uses in the bedroom,” Maitimo said suddenly over a game of arantyalmë, some months later.

“Oh?” Mairon leaned forward to move a foot soldier out of danger of being captured by Maitimo’s Seer. He sounded almost absent-minded, distracted. They both were, watching little Thuringwethil in between moves as she attempted to command her limbs into some semblance of standing on her feet. It wasn’t particularly successful, yet, but progress was being made.

“An exchange? I’d like to ask for something in return.”

Golden eyes flicked to his briefly. “That depends on what you’re asking for, and whether it is in my power to grant you.”

Maitimo took a deep breath, steeling himself. “I’d ask for a cessation of our bedplay, until Thuringwethil’s twenty-fifth Begetting day.”

If it were possible for Mairon’s eyebrows to disappear into his hairline, they would have in that moment. Then he frowned. “What could you possible have to bargain with that is that valuable, after all this time?”

Maitimo shrugged, affecting nonchalance. He moved a castle as he said, “Light.”

“Light,” Mairon repeated, scoffing.

“A flame, yes, that never goes out, and needs no fuel to light it once bound in crystal.”

That got his attention. His hand, ash-black and quartz-pale, hovered over the board. “Unquenchable fire?”

“Indeed.”

Maitimo waited, willing the gamble to bear fruit. He had overheard Mairon grumbling in the past months about Angband’s dwindling supply of candles and torches. His brothers – Tyelkormo most likely – had managed to strike this tiny blow to Angband's economy, in systemically removing or destroying orc-managed apiaries in the south and east, and thus beeswax in all its myriad uses would be unattainable for some time. 

He suspected his brothers, and not the denizens of Doriath or any of the other populations of Avari in Beleriand because, in accordance with Makalaurë’s agreement with Mairon, no orc had been harmed.

They had not given up on him. 

“You can make this?” Mairon finally asked, eyes bright with curiosity and … hunger.

“Yes,” Maitimo said, keeping his face carefully neutral. Internally, though, he exalted. “For my price, I can give you the schematics, and the relevant Song.”

Mairon finally leaned back, smiling. “Thuringwethil’s tenth Begetting day.” 

The counteroffer was not unexpected. Twenty-one years would be too close to the end of their agreement for Maitimo to be of any further use to Mairon. By contrast, her tenth Begetting day would buy him six years of peace, for Muinalumbel was fast approaching her fourth. 

Nothing in Angband came for free, and Maitimo knew that agreement to this would mean Mairon would begin the slow slide into femininity he so hated, as Melkor’s husband. 

The body that changes without control or consent was a prison, wretched carrion carried heavily as time inexorably grew up and out on branches of disgust and self-loathing. 

But would Mairon’s need, as the professed Lord of Angband, be great enough to sacrifice himself?

“Fifteenth.” 

“Thirteenth.”

Maitimo smiled, bowing at the waist. “As you say, my Lord.”

Thuringwethil made a soft noise of surprise, drawing both of their attention. She had managed to get to her feet, but with too much momentum behind her efforts, had fallen back into sitting. “Ada,” she chanted. “Ada, Ada.”

Mairon smiled softly, indulgently. “Good job, Thuringwethil.” He turned back to Maitimo. “Nine years, then.”

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Chapter End Notes

Muinalumbel (secret gloom woman) - Thank you to Shihali on the SWG Discord for the linguistic help in translating Thuringwethil’s name into Quenya.