A Song Amidst His Torment by Elrond's Library  

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20

Maitimo makes an attempt to gain his freedom.

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Three more years passed in peace. Relatively comfortable peace, for Angband. 

Mairon kept his word. He did not touch him. He allowed Maitimo to teach Muinalumbel all that he knew. He kept them fed. He stayed present and attentive to his daughter when his duties could spare him. 

And yet, she was no fool. She saw far more than she said. 

“Atya?” she asked, a compendium of flora and fauna on the floor before her. She herself was stretched out before the hearth fire on her stomach, head resting in her hands, her velvet-soft wings splayed in relaxation down her back and sides. They would not be strong enough to bear her for many years to come, and making dresses to accommodate her form was its own unique challenge. 

“Lumbelincë,” Maitimo said, putting his embroidery down in his lap to give her his full attention.

“Do you ever think I’ll be able to actually see the world outside of Ada’s apartments?”

Maitimo shrugged, affecting nonchalance, but inwardly his heart was falling. “When he thinks you’re ready. Probably not for some time yet, though.”

“Do you …” She paused, then shifted into a tailor’s seat, leaving the book at her side. She brushed her braids, long and healthy, back and away from her face. “What do you think he’ll do to you, then, when it’s time?”

Dispose of me, some despairing corner of his mind shouted. Remove me from the game, and descend upon my people with whips in the hands of Shadow and flame. And their conflict would turn this land to ash and smoke and corpses, thousands and thousands of corpses. 

“I have no idea.”

“He shouldn’t treat you the way he does. It isn’t right. Or just.”

Maitimo scoffs, a laugh so full of disbelief and agreement and absolutely no humor whatsoever. “It is … this is the way of things. I accepted Mairon’s attention and designs, and in turn he may treat me as he wills.” A shrug. “What power I have is in what I can sell, and I have very little to bargain with anymore.” He paused. “Línemírë would remind us both of the limitations of power, were she here.” 

She frowned, thinking. Her fingers tapped against her thumb rhythmically, as they always did as she ordered her thoughts. “I bought you safety.”

Maitimo nodded ruefully, sighing. “A few blessed years. If … if things had proceeded according to my design, I would not be here at all. And neither would you know me as your Atar.” She likely wouldn’t exist at all, but saying that to anyone, much less your own child, would just be cruel. 

Muinalumbel hummed. “You have thirty years before Ada might let you go.”

Maitimo nodded. “Twenty-eight,” he corrected absently. “But only if my brother is willing to give Mairon what he wants, which …” Again, he shrugged. “I cannot allow myself that hope.”

“What if …” and again, she paused, fingers tapping. She glanced behind her, at the door, then opened their bond, minds touching in ósanwë. He could feel her nerves, trepidation seeming to make even her mental voice trip over her words. “What if you could leave this place? Go back to the lake, and your brothers?”

He could barely hold back the rush of longing. But … “Even if I could, what about you?”

Her face fell, eyes changing from bright cornflower blue to nearly pure black. She sat for a long moment. Maitimo could detect the edges of her thoughts, turmoil frothing like waves against the high cliffs. And then, a tentative whisper. “I’d rather see you safely away from this, if it were in my power. Even if it upsets the balance of power for your people and ours. Even if Ada were angry with me. Even … even if Melkor-father was wrathful.”

He breathed through the flinch of her mention of Melkor, of her adoption of the way Maiar spoke about their sworn Vala. But she was permaia, and while she was not sworn to Melkor as a Melkondur, as Mairon was, it was only a matter of time. And yet, this seed of empathy, of protectiveness, of defiance, even, was certainly all Maitimo’s influence. 

“You would rather stay?” He had no idea how he would introduce her to his brothers, let alone the host of the Noldor, even if such a thing were possible.

“The Song has its plans for me here.” She smiled, wrapping his fëa in the mental equivalent of a hug. “And who am I to disregard the Theme? But if you have a chance to escape, I think you should take it, and don’t worry about me.”

“Why these thoughts of spiriting me from this place?” Maitimo allowed his curiosity-confusion to surface into the space between their minds, but kept his sorrow at the thought of parting hidden. Some things could not be her burden. 

“Haven’t you noticed?” Muinalumbel looked back at the door. “It’s been happening more often, whenever he leaves in a rush, Melkor-father screaming in his head. He’s forgotten to lock the door again.” 

Maitimo cut himself from their bond, emotions too raw and desperate to be filtered.

Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, Maitimo cursed Mairon as an idiot and fool. It had been Mairon’s foolishness that had led to his attempt to flee his body, gifting him the visions that he was haunted by and comforted by in equal measure. 

And then the sensible part of his fëa took over, and he began to scheme.

Be bold, be steadfast, be vicious. Survive, child of Finwë.

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Lumbelincë smiled up at Maitimo, bright and cheerful, even as her eyes were dark with shadows of fear. She slipped something small into the bag in her hands, that she had carefully stitched out of scraps and Sung over, preservation and luck and goodwill in every seam. 

Maitimo leaned down to kiss the crown of her head, lingering in the affection swelling in his heart. 

No words were needed, what needed to be said had already been said, in word and deed and fëa all. 

She pressed the bag, full of wrapped fruit and a fresh loaf of bread into his hand. “Go. May Eru in Their mercy guide your steps.”

Maitimo put on a brave smile, a half-quirk of his lips. “Thank you, Shadow.”

And without looking back, he strode into the shadowy hall that led away from Mairon’s apartments. 

Twenty-three years he had been languishing in Angband.

If all went well, year twenty-four would never occur.

Maitimo’s heart was in his throat as he slowly descended, keeping to the shadows. His bright hair he hid in the folds of his stolen cloak, moving quickly and purposefully even though he had no idea how to get to the gates, or some side entrance, or something, something, anything that would let him onto the plains to the south. But even getting to the wastelands of the north would be acceptable, for it was out of this place, out of Angband and he would be free.

Fëanorian lamps winked, blue and bright, at every intersection of dark and undulating tunnels. Nothing was even, every wall and ceiling and floor was as a frozen wave, narrowing and widening in rhythmic turn. Plenty of space to hide in the shadows.

He could already imagine Makalaurë’s face, the surprise and indignation of it, then his easy smiles. 

He wanted to let Tyelkormo fold him in a hug with too much force behind it. 

Carnistir wouldn’t want to be touched, but Maitimo could imagine the look of relief in his dark eyes.

Curufinwë might act aloof in public, but he knew that if he did make it out, his brother would find him to both yell and cry.

And Ambarussa. Maitimo wasn’t sure if they would accept touch, even now, if they lived. He didn’t know if they did. Ambarussa’s burns had been so awful. But in the quiet parts of his heart, he let himself hope.

Something rolled over his foot. A familiar metal automaton, small as a mouse and just as fast, dark and blending into the shadows. It squeaked as it passed, and disappeared into the next shadow.

He ducked into a side tunnel, breath coming ragged with fear. But he kept moving, always moving. It felt good, in a way, to stretch his stride, to move. 

Keep going. 

Keep moving.

Survive.

A flash of gold in the distance had him freezing in his tracks, anxiously looking for escape. 

He turned away, into a tunnel that was still angling down. Wider, busier. Maitimo followed on silent feet, eyes downcast and shoulders hunched, a group of Orcs who paid him no notice at all. 

Then Mairon’s voice far off, commanding and stern. Not directed at him, but he still abandoned this tunnel with his heart pounding in his ears, gut clenching uncomfortably with nausea. 

This tunnel was angled back up the mountain, but Maitimo was resigned to the possibility of wandering in circles until he found his way out. He had no map, no sense of how Angband was laid out. This was a place of chaos, organized nonsensically, and he was sure that only those who had free rein of the fortress would be able to move through Angband with confidence. 

So up and around and down and around and up again did he wander. 

And everywhere he turned, the familiar flash of golden hair, always spilling like a waterfall over Mairon’s back, free as ever from braid and ornamentation.

Hours passed before he realized the pattern. 

He was being herded.

Mairon knew.

Mairon knew and was playing with him, like a cat who has a mouse cornered and instead of putting the poor thing out of its misery, keeps it there, staring up at the jaws of its death until its tiny heart gives out from the stress and it falls, dead, without the cat needing to bloody its claws at all.

“Fuck,” Maitimo cursed under his breath. “Varda Elentári, if it is true you hear the lamentations of the prisoners of Beleriand, now would be a great time to extend your mercy. Fuck.”

But, of course, no mercy could be extended to him, damned and Doomed kinslayer he was, who had sold all and had now squandered his fortune in one fell swoop.

Maitimo realized he had been guided back to Mairon’s doorstep, the plain and unassuming door he had stepped through hours before appearing at the end of the long hallway, when the wolf overtook him.

He hit the ground hard, breath knocked out of his lungs with the suddenness of a book snapping shut. He let go of Lumbelincë’s bag in a vain attempt to brace himself as his elbows and knees knocked against the hard, cold floor, his stolen supplies spilling haphazardly from the top.

Maitimo tried to free himself, scrabbling against the weight pinning his shoulders down. Any motion of resistance just further pushed him against the stone; his elbows collapsed, his knees bent so he was in a parody of a bow in full obeisance. Maitimo whimpered, eyes shut against the tears that threatened to blind him regardless.

Mairon’s jaws clacked against Maitimo’s ear, which twitched away, pinning back against his skull. “You fool,” Mairon whispered, harsh. “After all I’ve done for you. You are by far my most troublesome charge.” He paused, then reared back and pulled harshly at the cloak, momentarily choking Maitimo where the ties met until the fabric tore under Mairon’s teeth. Maitimo never had a chance to respond, throat constricted as it was, though what even could he say in response? He had no defense, caught by his captor where he should not be.

Claws tore at the rest of Maitimo’s clothes, shredding the wool of his robes and the linen of his shirt and the skin of his back and thighs underneath it all. Maitimo cried out, hröa unused to the sweet sharpness of his skin parting under the ministrations of lash or knife, or talon, in this case.

Mairon’s jaws suddenly closed over his right shoulder, and Maitimo could feel, visceral and grating, Mairon’s teeth scraping against his collarbone.

But it wasn’t until he felt Mairon’s cock at his entrance that he realized why Mairon held him in place so.

“No!” Maitimo screamed, sobbing, begging. “Mairon! Please, my Lord, no! No!”

Mairon sheathed himself inside Maitimo with a grunt, dry and harsh. Mairon’s cock was longer and wider in his wolf-fana, which shouldn’t have surprised Maitimo but did anyway, in the quiet part of his mind that noted details like that even as the rest of his mind cringed and screamed.

Maitimo sobbed, his face pressed into the cold floor, eyes half-open, vision blurry with tears and staring at the door, wishing he had never stepped foot outside it.

And even as he panted and screamed under Mairon’s attentions, his body betrayed him. Arousal, hateful and offensive, pooled in his gut, slick easing the way of the intrusion, his cock slowly hardening.

His fëa thrashed against the bounds of his hröa, seeking to free itself and escape this torment and violation of the flesh. But Fëanáro’s Oath flared suddenly to life after lying dormant for decades, a strangling vine that wrapped around his fëa as a constricting snake and held his fëa tight in its embrace.

Memories of Míriel’s whispering vision floated and bobbed as flotsam against the rhythmic, inexorable pounding between his thighs. “Your Oaths will not allow your fëa to escape your hröa as mine did, child of my grief, unless the hröa is destroyed. Completely. Utterly.”

And there was no hope of utter destruction, not like this, not here.

With a groan and a shudder, Mairon pushed deep, the base of his cock swelling and stretching Maitimo almost to the limit of his flesh, then stilled. It reminded him, so some extent, albeit distantly, of the stretch of Lumbelincë’s crowning. 

And then Mairon began to hum, an altogether too familiar Song that plucked Maitimo’s fëa out of the binding of Fëanáro’s Oath and twisted it, swirling and focusing it to the space between his hips to meet his seed and create something new. Maitimo shouted in horror, a wordless but not voiceless protest, and renewed his futile effort to move, to get away, to escape. Mairon simply tightened his jaws, humming louder to overwhelm the discordant note of Maitimo’s screams. 

A spark, a bright spot inside him heralded the arrival of a new permaia into the world. 

And still Mairon did not release him. His knot stayed swelled, aching, and his jaws stayed in embedded in Maitimo’s shoulder, as they both breathed deeply – Mairon panting, Maitimo in shock and sobbing.

Something, some disturbance in the air, or in his fëa, or something, had Maitimo peering under wet eyelashes at the door to Mairon’s apartments, which had opened sometime between the start of Mairon’s punishment and this moment. Thuringwethil’s crimson eyes met his, bloody tears falling down her cheeks. “Don’t watch,” he whispered, voice broken, hoping she would hear him and heed him. 

And in the space between shuddering breaths, he blinked, and she was gone. 

Mairon began to hum again, Singing the same tune as always. And Maitimo froze at the implication, before renewing his protests in earnest as Mairon forced his fëa to accept yet another permaia child into himself.

The second spark settled next to the first.

Twins.

The stretching lessened by slow degrees, and Mairon was eventually able to ease himself out and away from Maitimo’s broken body. He unhooked his jaws from Maitimo’s shoulder, almost gently before stepping to the side, where Maitimo could see the jet-black fur of Mairon’s fana, streaked shiny with Maitimo’s blood. 

Maitimo stayed there, unmoving on the ground, shuddering in shock and cold both, tears falling steadily. Exhaustion, physical and spiritual both, gnawed at him, making his limbs heavy and slow to respond. 

Within the space of a blink, Mairon’s fana folded on itself, and he stood now on two feet, his elf-form elegant and unruffled. His voice, when it came, was smooth and even. “Nelyafinwë, what the fuck were you thinking you would accomplish with a stunt like that?”

Maitimo did not answer, focusing instead on straightening his back to sit on his heels. Everything ached. His legs felt numb; he honestly wasn’t sure he’d be able to walk like this. 

“No matter,” Mairon muttered, looking disgusted. “What’s done is done.” He glanced up, at the shadows behind Maitimo and scowled. Swiftly, he gathered the contents of Maitimo’s bag then picked Maitimo up off the ground – perhaps coming to the same conclusion that Maitimo’s legs could not be trusted to bear him – and carried him into the main room of the apartment over his shoulder, kicking it shut behind him. A sharp whistle preceded the turning of the lock.

Maitimo could muster no scrap of pride to protest being slung over Mairon’s shoulder like a sack of flour. He hung there, tears falling in endless streams, fluid clogging and building uncomfortable pressure in his nose as Mairon moved, wordlessly letting the sack fall to the floor with a soft thud. 

Maitimo was eventually righted, Mairon seating him on the edge of his familiar bathtub. Maitimo stared, straight ahead and blank, as Mairon set the water to fill the bath, stripped off the remains of Maitimo’s tattered clothes – tearing what he could not remove easily – and knelt to remove Maitimo’s shoes. 

Movement caught Maitimo’s eye, and again he met Thuringwethil’s eyes as she peered through an open door to gaze upon his ruin. Blood was smeared on her cheeks, on her hands, where she had tried to wipe away her tears. Fresh ones still fell, silently. He did not open their bond. He could not. It was distant and far away and vague as the form of trees through mist. 

Mairon broke their mutual stare by lifting Maitimo’s legs and depositing him into the hot water of the bath with a splash. The water stung on his open wounds, but the heat was soothing. He closed his eyes, bowing his head despite the shooting pain from his shoulder.

“Thuringwethil, come here,” Mairon commanded. Maitimo twitched an ear to catch the near-silent footfalls of his daughter as she approached. “Did you know he was planning to leave us?”

Thuringwethil, Eru preserve her, lied, voice quiet but firm. “No, Ada.”

Mairon huffed a laugh, unamused. “You’ll have to be more convincing than that, girl. It was your Song in the stitching in the bag he was carrying. Try again.”

“I know he wished to leave,” she said, firm and implacable. “I do not blame him, Ada.” All of ten years and already challenging her sire so. Some part of Maitimo, distant and able to feel more than numbness, was proud of this display of spine. Another small part of him wished Thuringwethil away from seeing him like this, protective of his daughter. But they was the smallest parts of him in that moment. His mind had retreated; he would float through whatever else Mairon wished to do to his hröa. He could not defend his daughter too. 

Helpless. Hopeless. Broken.

Mairon hummed, considering. “Much too Noldor by half, girl. Troublesome and stubborn. Surely you know better by know not to cross me?”

Thuringwethil was silent.

“Go get Nelyafinwë’s scissors and come back,” Mairon said. In the quiet moment between her leaving and returning, Mairon leaned close, whispering in Maitimo’s ear, “Don’t think I’ll let you raise my boys with the same freedom as I’ve given you with her. I will not have this breed of disobedience continue past this moment.”

Maitimo gasped, shuddering.

Thuringwethil returned, and Mairon stood, leaving Maitimo alone for the time being. He heard Thuringwethil gasp, and the sound of scissors sheering through something. But Maitimo was too numb, and sore, to turn and look at what Mairon had done. By the time Maitimo started to twitch into action, Mairon was already talking. 

“That was for lying to me.” A pause. “And for helping him, you will do the same to him.”

Thuringwethil balked. “I won’t.”

“You will. Or your wings are next.”

Maitimo shuddered. “It’s okay,” he whispered through numb lips, eyes still closed. “Whatever it is, Shadow, it’s okay.”

Another long pause. Then he felt Thuringwethil’s hand brush through his hair, pulling its length out of the bath.

Oh.

As Thuringwethil worked, carefully cutting his hair so it stopped about midway down his neck, he wasn’t sure if the sorrow he felt was for himself, for having his hair cut yet again, or for her, having to enact such a violence against her father, and never having had her own hair cut before. Her braids had fallen down to her thighs, pin straight and sleek and obsidian-black. 

She hesitated, running her small fingers down the last braid – his marriage braid, on the wrong side – then pulled it taut and cut it. 

Maitimo flinched. 

“Good,” Mairon said, and Maitimo could hear the satisfied purr underpinning his voice. “When you’re both done feeling sorry for yourselves, you can join me for a game of arantyalmë and we can put all this … unpleasantness behind us.”