A Song Amidst His Torment by Elrond's Library  

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19

Maitimo has a moment of peace.

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Warrior Falling, Year 19

Brothers, 

There is too much I cannot say. But I am hale, well-fed. [REDACTED BY ORDER OF LORD MAIRON]. I accumulate new scars. So it goes.

Anything more and my letters will be redacted. Anything less and you will not believe it me who writes. 

As always, my heart aches from missing you all. 

Yours,

Nelyafinwë Ñoldóran

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The years passed, as they were wont to do. 

Lumbelincë was growing so fast. She had taken her time, safe inside him, but now it was as if she was racing to be as tall as him within her first fifteen years, not her first yén. She wouldn’t be his Little Shadow for very long, at this rate. If he had seen her in Valinor, he would expect her to be celebrating her fifteenth year, and instead she was swiftly approaching her seventh. 

Mairon, too, had no explanation for why she was growing as fast as the early crop of rhubarb grown under candlelight. Something about her being a permaia, perhaps. But Mairon did not, or could not, say whether the only other known permaia, Lúthien, daughter of Melian and Elu Thingol, had sprouted up quite this fast. 

But with her accelerated growth came insatiable curiosity, her bright ever-shifting eyes following his hands as he sewed, and drew, and wrote. Muinalumbel soaked up his stories and language with alacrity, quickly mastering all he could tell her of Angband’s dialect of Sindarin, what Black Speech he had picked up, and, of course, Quenya.

Teaching her Quenya was … selfish. He knew, in the long term, that Muinalumbel would find herself in conflict with the Noldor, and even himself should he manage to get out of this place. The strategist that Fëanáro had turned him into could see that keeping her uneducated in the language of his people would be strategic. Anything to keep yet another person ignorant of the Noldor, of their culture and customs and tongue.

Quenya was not the language of this place, and yet.

And yet.

“Atya, why do you never call me Muinalumbel in front of Ada?”

“Because your Ada doesn’t like your Quenya name, Lumbelincë. Sindarin is more useful for you in Angband.”

“But …” She frowned, putting her thoughts in order as she tapped her thumb against each of her fingers in turn. “But you’re teaching me anyways.”

He smiled, soft and sad. “Yes. Why do you think I would do that?”

Maitimo had never lied to her about his position, nor about how and why she had been conceived. She wouldn’t thank him for lying, for doubting her growing intelligence. She saw more than she let on, in the way of quiet children.

In some ways, she reminded him most of a young Carnistir, silent and watchful and blending into the background until his temper could no longer be contained in his chest and he let loose, to the surprise of … most.

“Because … because Quenya is what you grew up speaking. And … and Ada’s not here to tell you no.”

“Clever girl.”

At the praise, she gave him a toothy smile, fangs flashing, her usually somber and grave expression brightening.

Yet another difference from a normal, expected Eldar child – her diet was particularly unique. Akin to dark stories of the Great Journey, of monsters who descended on an unwitting Elda and left them grey and bloodless, lips blue and open in a terrified, soundless scream.

Mairon had named her nature that of a blood-drinker, a vampire, unique in that she had been born to this nature, not created and twisted as they had been in the days of Utumno. He had, as with her growth, no explanation for how this might have come to pass, only that it was.

And so, he collected a new set of scars – thin cuts in parallel lines up his arms and legs, and even smaller, circular puncture scars wherever she could reach. In this, Mairon was helpful as well, allowing her to feed off his blood, with all its Maiarin potency, but he was not consistently in his apartments. The business of ruling Angband kept him away, and so Maitimo opened his veins so she might live.

She was a good child, patient and attentive and quiet, watching and waiting.

But Muinalumbel was a still a child, with a child’s proclivities for mischief, for play.

He came back to the main room, hair damp and unbound from his bath, to find Thuringwethil giggling as she sat, her little wings fluttering uselessly, perched on Mairon’s shoulder as he paced and gamboled about in his wolf-form, her hands clinging to the scruff of his neck.

Maitimo leaned against the door frame, watching with half a smile on his lips. He knew Mairon had seen him standing there, his golden eyes blinking in acknowledgment as he twisted between the yellow couches with graceful ease. “Atya!” Thuringwethil shrieked, high and happy. “Atya, look!” 

“I’m watching, Shadow,” he said, letting the smile grow, his fingers deftly braiding his damp hair to one side in a single, waist-length braid. He’d come back and braid it properly, when it was dry. “You’re nearly as tall as I am.”

“Nobody’s as tall as you, Atya,” she laughed. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

He shrugged, huffing a small laugh. “You never know.” 

Eventually though, Thuringwethil tired of riding on Mairon’s shoulders. Leaning forward, she tugged on one of his ears. “Down, please.”

He sighed, but lowered himself in front of one of the couches, where she could scramble off him easily. Mairon stood, then, with a distinctly wolf-like yip, began to lick and nuzzle at her face, making her giggle and shriek. And then, with a blink and a shiver, Mairon folded in on himself, glossy jet-black fur becoming his just as black surcoat, his ever-perfect golden tresses, his burn-darkened hands deftly lifting Thuringwethil to his hip. 

“Ada!” Thuringwethil wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Shall we try to conquer Nelyafinwë in another round of arantyalmë, Thuringwethil?” Mairon asked, as he settled them both on the floor in front of the low table. “He barely won last time, after all.” 

She nodded, and Maitimo took that as his cue to join them. Facing them, Thuringwethil seated in Mairon’s lap so she appeared to be seated upon a throne made of Mairon’s thighs like the little queen she was, he was struck again by how similar they were. Perhaps not in outward looks, for Thuringwethil was dark where Mairon was golden, but in the attentive, unblinking way they stared at Maitimo as he set up the board. 

Maironiel indeed.

They played quietly for some time, Mairon and Thuringwethil consulting in their strategy silently, their ósanwë obvious in Thuringwethil’s open face.

As was his habit, Mairon broke the silence with an ominous statement. “I have been thinking of your future, Nelyafinwë.”

Maitimo raised an eyebrow, though he kept his eyes downcast and fixed upon the board.

With easy nonchalance Mairon said, “I have been considering the possibility of trying for another child with you.” 

Maitimo’s eyes flicked up even as his ears flicked back, unable to hide his visceral distress at the thought. Mairon had started unbraiding Thuringwethil’s braids, the two Noldorin child-braids that clung to the scalp to keep all the wisps contained and promote healthy growth. She tried to twist to look up at Mairon, but he bent her head back down with his free hand. Her eyes went distant with use of ósanwë, and she wordlessly moved her Queen to take one of Maitimo’s castles. 

“For another child?” Maitimo sounded incredulous, even to his ears. “What’s wrong with Thuringwethil?”

Mairon shrugged. “Nothing is wrong with her, as it were. She is … just not all that I hoped for.” 

“How so? I know you were disappointed she wasn’t a son, but neither of us can control that. If it were possible, I might have at least one sister.”

Mairon snorted, running his hands through half of Thuringwethil’s hair to detangle it. Not that it really needed detangling, Lumbelincë’s hair was soft and silky and well-tended. Maitimo made sure of it. “That is part of it.” Mairon kept his voice light, his tone easy, as his hands worked at undoing the other braid. “My plans for my children will require them to have a strong connection to the Song. Hers is … growing. Steadily. But I think, with some adjustments, you and I might be able to do better.” 

“My Oath to you is fulfilled. There was no mention of subsequent children in the arrangement we three agreed to, us two and Línemírë.”

Mairon leveled him a sharp look. “I am merely offering you an extension to our arrangement, if you like. But thirty more years is a long time, and I doubt I’ll need your services raising Thuringwethil past … oh, probably past her twentieth year, at the rate she is maturing.” 

“You would send me back to the pits.” Maitimo said flatly, not believing it. He had thought he would have more time. That he had used the light to buy him more time. That one child would keep him safe until such time Makalaurë and his brothers could get him the fuck out of this place.

“Oh, nothing so uncouth and simple as that. I can’t have you talking about we’ve done together, after all, and I’d hate to destroy such a pretty and clever tongue as yours.” Mairon shook his head, and began to part Thuringwethil’s hair for whatever style he wished. She was, as always, remarkably patient, but her brow was furrowed in confusion, or thought. Her fingers tapped steadily against her thumb, but she did not speak. “No, no. I’d simply make it more and more difficult for your brothers to hold to our treaty, and then, well, the Theme would play out as it was always meant to.” Mairon paused, letting that sink it. “It’s your choice, dearest Nelyafinwë, as always.”

“Your play, Atya,” Thuringwethil murmured, eyes wide, no doubt picking up on the tension between her parents. 

Maitimo returned his eyes to the board, thoughts reeling. He moved a foot soldier, a play that gave him no advantage, but did not hurt him. 

“You sold me another seven years without such activities, my Lord, in exchange for the lamps.” The lamps which burned, ceaseless and blue-bright, above them even now, replacing the flickering candlelight of the chandeliers. 

“So I did.” Mairon leaned forward, moving his Knight into a position to take one of Maitimo’s foot soldiers. “And to that I hold, an honest exchange. But the world outside these apartments proceeds apace, and decisions must be made. Your decision of where you will spend the second half of your time with us impacts far more than just the three of us sitting here.” 

“And you won’t tell me what the consequences are, of course.”

Mairon smiled, indulgent. “Of course.”

Silence dragged, heavy with the weight of meaning. “Ada?” Thuringwethil asked quietly, leaning back to peer up at Mairon. “Please don’t send Atya away.”

“That’s up to him,” Mairon laid a feather-light kiss to her forehead.

And, because change was frightening, and Thuringwethil’s world was only as large as Mairon’s apartments and Maitimo her only constant, she began to cry, burying her face in Mairon’s softening chest. Red tears dripped, slow and constant and bloody down her face. 

Maitimo glared.

Mairon met his gaze impassively.

He knew exactly what he was doing, saying such things in front of Thuringwethil. A cheap attempt at manipulation.

Unfortunately, it was working. 

“You will not degrade me so in front of her.”

“I would not dare.” 

“You will wait until her thirteenth Begetting day, as agreed.”

“Of course.”

“At which time, and not a moment before, I will swear to you again the same Oath as before.”

“With all its accompanying effects, and a renewal of the promises of my protection. Of course.”

“Then,” Maitimo took a deep breath. “I reserve the right to change my mind until her thirteenth Begetting day. But, tentatively, I … I accept.”