A Song Amidst His Torment by Elrond's Library  

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3

Mairon and Maitimo play a game. Maitimo loses.

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“From the Elves of Mithrim the Noldor learned of the power of Elu Thingol, King of Doriath, and the girdle of enchantment that fenced his realm …” (Of the Return of the Noldor, 108)

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Maitimo had lost track of how much time he had spent alone in the dark. The occasional presence bearing a torch passed by the door, light illuminating the barest space between floor and solid steel door, but they were chaotic in their timing.

He heard nothing. He saw nothing. He said nothing.

For lack of anything to do but wait, though for what he could not say, he tended his hair by touch alone. He undid his braids, letting the heavy fall of hair cascade into his lap. Loose like this, the ends would reach his mid-calf when standing, would pool at his feet when wet. Not that many people had ever seen his hair unbraided before, outside his immediate family – the scandal it would cause, in everbright and gossip-laden Tirion! Only … well. Best not to even think about him now. It hurt too much to ruminate on that particular loss; even amidst all the others, that hurt perhaps the worst. He finger combed it in its entirety, taking great care to work as much of the mud and blood out as possible. Deftly he braided the whole mass, carefully twisting the ends of burnt hair into the bulk of tight and even rows. He wrapped the braids around his head, securing them with what few pins he had somehow managed to keep.

A thick crown of copper hair in mocking imitation of the crown of gold he had so briefly inherited.

Despite taking his time, despite working without comb or water or oil, he knew that was only a diversion of a few hours at most. He waited, thinking. He forced the insidious coils of the Oath back from the stranglehold it had taken upon seeing and failing to even touch the Silmarilli, forced it into a seed next to his heart. He thought of his brothers, tried to guess what they would do without him.

And still nothing happened.

He let himself cry, just for a little, for his atar, fey and fell though Fëanáro had been in the end. For not-so-little-anymore Telvo, burned and screaming until the poppy temporarily put him out of his misery, and the slow and winding path of healing he was still on, twin and wife both by his side. For the empty feeling where golden fire used to burn, before loyalty and unwise decisions and distance had banked it; only the barest ember glowed amid the ashes, or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Maitimo did not cry for himself. There didn’t seem much point.

And then, everything happened at once.

Torches and the glowing fana of some fire-Maia blinded him. He was caught in the harsh grasp of orcs, who dragged him hissing and spitting through the narrow halls and undulating passages.

The next few hours passed in a haze of ragged breaths punctuated by brief intervals of blinding agony. He had never felt anything like it, the lightning-swift lash, the blistering heat of iron, the slow-boil ache of clenched muscles and grinding teeth. Maitimo tried to disappear, to form a pocket of distance from his battered and bloodied hröa in his mind, but everything kept dragging his attention back to the present.

The fire-Maia and the orcs and the scarred elf wielding the lash said nothing. Not a word to question, not to taunt, not to attempt to give instruction in a language Maitimo could not understand. Only an eerie silence, punctuated by whatever they managed to wring from Maitimo’s throat.

He just tried to breathe. It had to end eventually.

Maitimo regained consciousness with his knees in a puddle of his own blood, as harsh hands lifted his limp body into a semblance of standing.

They returned him to the same damp room, dragging him again, but only because it was easier to collapse and let his skin drag on the rough ground than it was to attempt to walk.

Darkness swallowed him whole.

He awoke again to find himself tucked under a coarse, heavy blanket that had certainly not been there before. He took a few moments to catalog the condition of his hröa, finding the places that gave him a sharp stabbing pain, as opposed to the whole body ache that was a low-level pervasive sensation. Fingers carefully probed some of his hurts, to find them meticulously bandaged. He blinked, then blinked again, for something, no, someone was illuminating his barren room.

“Nelyafinwë Ñoldóran,” Mairon crooned from the corner. “Welcome back to reality.”

Maitimo tentatively sat up, back and sides screaming as the skin and his bandages shifted. Memories of Telvo’s bandaged form flashed before his eyes, the cracked lips and glassy eyes and swathes of white bandages flecked with red blood and yellow pus. He did not feel much better.

“Lord Mairon,” he croaked, voice breaking around the consonants.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Mairon was, in fact, the source of the light. A gentle steady glow, mostly concentrated around his molten-gold hair which tumbled loose around his shoulders. What he had thought was a natural darkening in his unnaturally pale skin around some of his fingers were actually the remnants of cracked burns, concentrated around the fingertips and radiating towards the palms.

There was something different about the Maia, though he held himself with the same poise and grace that he had in Melkor’s throne room all those days, or maybe weeks, ago. Relaxation, perhaps. Control.

“I have questions for you, Ñoldóran, now that you are awake.”

Maitimo hummed. “I … I would have thought the questions would have come … earlier.”

“During your time with Gorgol?” Mairon shrugged, flicking a lock of hair behind his shoulder. “His methods are brutal, yes, but not conducive to gathering the type of information I will have from you.”

Maitimo blinked.

“You held up very well, by the way.” Mairon stood, dragging his chair with him to the center of the room. “Most would not have remained conscious for nearly as long as you did.”

“Am I … Am I supposed to be pleased, to know that?”

“Proud, maybe.”

Maitimo huffed, then winced. “Do you do this to all your prisoners?”

“No.” Mairon settled in his chair again, mere feet away from Maitimo. “Most don’t need it.”

“What about my people? The ones that came here with me.”

Mairon clicked his tongue, tch, tch. “My turn to ask questions, little Ñoldóran. But,” the Maia smirked. “We can make a little game of it, if you like. A truthful answer from you and in return I can answer a question or I can mend one of your hurts.”

Maitimo slowly eased his weight back, the cool stones a balm against angry, inflamed skin. What did he have to lose? “Ask away.”

Mairon smiled, bearing sharp teeth. “How many Noldor came with you across the sea?”

In Tyelkormo-style literalness, he answered. “The ship I was on held two hundred and fifty-three people, twenty-six horses, and a herd of fourteen sheep. We landed with sixteen though. What has been done with the ten that came here with me?”

Mairon laughed, a full-body spasm of glee. “I’ll have to be more specific, ha! They have been put to work, mining, or in the kitchens. If they survive the first twenty or thirty years, I may take a keener interest, but I have no use for them now. Your brother, Kandafinwë, he’s in charge while you’re with us?”

Maitimo nodded slowly. “Kanafinwë, but yes. What are your plans for me?”

“That depends on how your brother responds to my letter, I think.” Mairon twirled a lock of golden hair around his burnt finger. “What was your relationship with Melkor like, in Aman?”

Maitimo blinked, the question unexpected. “Polite enough. He … he attended court, as a visiting Vala. He and I had a few conversations, a few games of Arantyalmë at small gatherings. Politics over wine and cheese and diversions.” Maitimo huffed. “What is your relationship with him like?”

“He’s my sworn Lord.”

Maitimo felt daring all of a sudden.

“Liar.” The hair-touching, the endearments, the fact that Melkor even listened, stood down when he very easily could have killed Maitimo right there. “That’s not all he is to you.”

“Melkor is my sworn Lord the way Eönwë is sworn to Manwë, or any other Maia sworn to a Vala,” Mairon snapped as he leaned threateningly into Maitimo’s space.

Maitimo, who knew with reasonable certainty that Manwë took certain liberties with Eönwë and High King Ingwë both, subsided, question answered. He raised his hands, palms out. “Peace, Mairon. Forgive me, I did not intend to upset you.”

Mairon snarled, leaning back again. He stared at Maitimo for a long moment before getting up and pacing.

“Ask your question,” Maitimo prompted into the silence.

“Your army’s total numbers, since I wasn’t specific enough before.”

Maitimo nodded. Provoking him again by pointing out that he had not framed it as a question would not serve him now. “I left before a final count of the dead from our last encounter could be reported to me. Before the battle we had around … forty-eight thousand soldiers with us.”

Mairon nodded absently.

“What are you going to ask my brother for?”

Mairon stopped pacing, sat back down. “I haven’t decided yet. A truce, maybe. Ransom, maybe. Are you married?”

Maitimo lied with habitual ease, used to dodging this question from all and sundry. “No. What are–”

Pain lanced through his body, lines of fire burning along every weal and lash-mark. He groaned.

“I told you not to lie to me, Nelyafinwë.” Mairon’s voice had gotten very quiet, and Maitimo stared back incredulously. “Try again.”

That was what he picked up on? All of it had been technically lies, even if the specifics had been true at one point, they were not true now. Maitimo still felt he had a duty to protect his people from their foes. After all, politics was mostly a game of half-truths, and Maitimo was a consummate politician.

Oh. Well. Of course. “Yes” or “no” answers could not contain a half-truth.

“Yes,” Maitimo whispered, and the pain receded just as quickly as it had come. “Yes, I am.”

“I’ll claim another question. Is your wife in Beleriand?”

“No.”

“Unfortunate.”

Maitimo winced as he shifted. “Better to still be on Aman’s shores, than here.”

Mairon shrugged. “Beleriand is beautiful, if you get to know her. Ask.”

He shook his head. “You said you’d heal something, if I wanted.” Mairon nodded, one eyebrow raised in wordless question. Maitimo indicated a section of his chest, bandaged, hiding a brand that still felt like it was burning. “This one.”

Mairon knelt before him, eerily close. He smelled like metal, hot metal from a forge, and smoke. His fingers, burnt but still dexterous, were cool against Maitimo’s skin as the Maia peeled back the cloth with careful, almost gentle attention. Tch, tch. Mairon clicked his tongue as the brand was exposed to the cool air.

“And here I had hoped you’d keep this one,” Mairon smirked. Maitimo glanced away from Mairon’s golden eyes to look at the burnt remnants of his chest. He hadn’t looked before the burning brand had been applied to his skin, and was too delirious to notice its shape during or after.

“It’s my symbol, after all.”

The eye stared back at him, red and swollen and shining. The corners met with upturned curls, the center was bisected with a cat’s eye pupil. Maitimo swallowed down a wave of nausea – not because of the wound, he had seen Telvo’s burns numerous times, held Curvo after their father died, but because of what it meant. He was his own person, he did not belong to this cursed and fallen Maia who looked at him with hunger and malice in his golden, cat-like eyes.

“Heal it. You said you would,” Maitimo said tightly, knowing he sounded like a petulant child and not caring. Memory flickered: Little Artanis, golden curls waving in the breeze, hands on her hips as she stood in front of him, skinned knee barely bleeding. ‘Arakáno pushed me, and he said you could fix it.’ Maitimo chuckled at her imperious mein, and Sang away her hurts. She nodded once as the skin smoothed over, then ran off again. 

Mairon hummed, low in his throat, and the brand slowly disappeared. He clicked his tongue again when it was finished, sitting back on his heels.

Maitimo watched him warily, but politeness, even to his captor, won out. Barely. “Thank you.”

Mairon nodded. He seemed pensive, and he did not say anything for a long moment. When he did speak, he was quieter than before. “What contact have you or your forces had with Elu Thingol or his daughter, Lúthien?”

Maitimo sighed. “Very little. I did not know he had a daughter.”

Another absentminded nod. Mairon did not press him on the vagueness of his answer, and Maitimo was not inclined to say anything more about the failed attempts to rally the Sindar to his cause. He let the silence linger briefly, then started: “I would appreciate another–”

Mairon reached out and tapped Maitimo’s forehead with lightning speed, and the words died in his throat. He tried to frown, and could not. He tried to close his mouth, and could not. He tried to clench his fists, or raise his arms, and could not.

Fear ran up his spine, coiling in his gut, as Mairon stood to loom over him. He tried to follow Mairon’s movements with his eyes, but could not. He felt him pluck out the few pins that remained out of his hair, tucking them into a hidden pocket of his surcoat. Maitimo’s braids fell heavily down his back.

Mairon tore the remnants of his used bandage into strips, still dirty with blood and the clear fluid of scabbing wounds. He bent over Maitimo, occasionally tugging at his braids, but Maitimo could barely guess what was happening. He tried to breathe deeper, to calm himself, but the paralyzation that held him kept him from expanding his chest. Shallow breaths, his sudden lack of movement, and his view obscured entirely by the skirts of Mairon’s floor-length surcoat were not helping the anxiety and fear crawling up his throat.

And then, to his mounting horror, one by one his braids were held tight, then released, their weight disappearing. Mairon stepped back, cut braids dangling from his fists, the bandages holding the braids in their woven shapes below where Mairon had cut them.

Centuries of carefully maintained growth, the thousands and thousands of hours spent brushing and oiling and braiding and styling. His careful cultivation of the admiration of others and the intangible power his hair had conveyed. The blessed feeling of his lover’s hands running through it, grabbing it, pulling it, braiding it for him. How careful he had been on the journey over sea and through battle after battle … it was all for naught.

Gone.

Gone.

It was all gone.

How dare this fallen Maia take this from him!

Maitimo raged, and knew that if he could move, he would not hesitate to throw himself at the Maia, who was calmly twisting the many feet of his copper braids into a manageable bundle.

Mairon smiled, all cat-like satisfaction and arrogance. “Don’t fret, little Ñoldóran. Hair grows back.”

He turned, dragging the chair behind him towards the door. “Get some rest,” he called as he opened the door to his cell. “I’ll return when your brothers want to buy you back from me.”