A Song Amidst His Torment by Elrond's Library  

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21

Maitimo recovers, and receives a commission.

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He wasn’t sure how long he stayed curled up in his bed, loosely holding himself as his mind retreated from the world and all its cares.

Muinalumbel often sat with him, head pillowed against her knees, at the opposite end of the bed. She brought her books and read to him, showing him the drawings of plants before describing their properties, what they could be used for, where they might be found. Maitimo saw none of it, heard none of it. Her voice washed over him like the stream flows over its pebbled bed.

The most he could give her was … himself. So when she approached him with dark circles under her eyes and a stomach that howled with hunger, he closed his eyes and let her take what she needed, unflinching as her teeth sank into the yielding flesh of his forearm.

Mairon may be furious with him, with them both, but he came to Maitimo’s room as often as he could, feeding the barely-present children growing, oblivious, with his own ëala as he had done when Maitimo had carried Thuringwethil. After, Mairon would sit with him, running his cold hands over Maitimo’s shortened hair, nails gently scratching his scalp, tracing the shape of his ear, even his jaw and brow.

And Maitimo floated, not reacting. No amount of touching could get him to flick his ear in annoyance, or flinch, or whatever reaction Mairon was looking for.

The blue light of the lamp glowed, unceasingly. He was blind and deaf to the concerns of the world.

For a time, at least.

The infinitesimal small part of him that wanted to live, screaming and thrashing under the heavy blanket of numb horror that threatened to smother it – or maybe just another manifestation of Fëanáro’s Oath – grew. Sound and light and color and sensation came back to him, slow and inexorable and wretched.

Eventually, the discomfort grew to the point where he was forced into action. Levering himself out of bed was a trial. He sat there on the edge in a daze, breathing ragged and unsteady, eyes unfocused and staring, but at least he was upright.

He blinked, and the world sharpened. Muinalumbel stood before him, her small hands raised as if to help him to stand.

“Are you here, Atya?” she murmured, a soft if tired smile raising her cheeks.

Maitimo hummed, throat thick from disuse. “Perhaps.”

Her hair was loose, cascading around her ears to fall, uneven and choppy, at her neck. He reached out to tuck it behind her ear, cupping her cheek. “Sorry, Lumbelincë,” he whispered.

“What for?”

He searched her eyes, but it was honest confusion in her face, not her being obtuse. “That I’ve been … away. And that … you saw.”

Her face fell. Her voice was still soft, gentle, quiet. “We both knew you’d be punished if you were caught. That we both would. If all I’ve lost is hair and a few meals, that’s less than I expected.” Muinalumbel tucked herself against his side, wing extending to press against his back. “Don’t worry about me, Atya.”

He pressed his cheek against the top of her head where it rested on his shoulder. “It’s my duty to worry about you, Lumbelincë.”

She hummed noncommittally, as if she didn’t believe him. Which, fair.

“Come on, Atya. You’ll feel better once you start moving.”

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This second pregnancy progressed much the same as the first, from a physical level. Nausea and fatigue doggedly shadowed him as the months passed. Maitimo spent much of his time listlessly staring at the hearth fire, hoping his sparse meals wouldn’t make an unwanted reappearance.

He was skittish around Mairon, who seemed to act as if nothing had happened at all. He made no reference to Maitimo’s flight, or how he had gotten Maitimo with child again, or the breaking of their earlier agreement. Mairon insisted on normalcy, and Maitimo and Thuringwethil were implicitly expected to match.

The only acknowledgment came in the form of Mairon’s contributions to the children’s spirits, and the time Mairon came to him with what, in any other circumstance, would be considered a commission, an exercise of Maitimo’s craft.

Maitimo had been tracking Mairon’s movements around the apartment under lowered lashes from the couch near the large window that faced south, his back to the wall, waiting to see where the Maia would settle. So when he disappeared down the side of the apartment Maitimo considered Mairon’s wing, he could let himself relax, just a touch. He closed his eyes as another wave of nausea rose and fell. He drifted, fighting his stomach for control.

The other end of the couch dipped, and Maitimo flinched before he could even open his eyes to see Mairon there. He drew his legs up tighter, making himself small under Mairon’s golden eyes.

“Come now, no need for that,” Mairon chided, a loose smile playing on his lips. “Believe me or not, but I’ve no intention of forcing myself on you for a while yet.”

Maitimo pressed his ears back even further. “‘Yet’ implies a further continuance, regardless,” he whispered.

Mairon shrugged, smirking. “Only Eru Ilúvatar knows how the future will reveal itself. It depends, I think, on how my sons develop, and whether your brothers successfully bargain for your release … what is it, twenty-six years hence? I can’t exactly have you walking out of here with my child.”

Maitimo nodded.

“I do have need of you, however,” Mairon continued, and Maitimo’s stomach, already unsettled, clenched. “Or rather, your skills. Your craft.”

Maitimo watched as Mairon reached to the floor, retrieving a bundle of cloth that had been hidden behind the folds of Mairon’s surcoat. It was dark, dyed unevenly so patches were more grey than they were black. Longer than it was wide, the edges raw and fraying. He held it out to Maitimo, single eyebrow raised, so Maitimo was obligated to assume a cross-legged tailor seat to accept the heavy bolt of wool.

“I would have you make for me a banner, with my sigil upon it.” He reached again, this time producing a folded piece of paper. Maitimo took it, knowing without looking what he would see, but unfolded it to look anyway. The Eye stared back up at him, which had once been burned into his chest, and healed by Mairon in those early days. The lines met with upturned curls, the center bisected with a cats eye pupil. He had received that brand once more in the intervening years, he knew, the scar on his shoulder blade raised and puffy.

“As you wish, my Lord,” Maitimo murmured, refolding the paper. “Have you materials?”

Mairon smiled, showing teeth.

He first produced a packet of fresh needles and a small lump of precious beeswax, which he handed over, careful not to touch Maitimo’s skin. Then he reached down to produce a plain bag, which he placed in Maitimo’s lap, atop the bolt of fabric. The top was tied closed with a rough cord, the ends joined together with an unbroken, red wax seal, the Eye staring unblinking from it. Maitimo ran a light touch over the seal, before meeting Mairon’s eyes once again.

He was still smiling. “I didn’t have a purpose for these for a long time, but I am glad now that I saved them. Go on.” He waved a hand, indulgent. “Open it.”

Maitimo broke the seal, careful to catch all the flaking edges of it and piling them on the bolt of grey-black fabric. He loosened the knot, slipping the cord off and setting it aside.

He realized his hands were trembling as he fumbled with revealing the contents. Mairon’s unceasing, almost eager smile was unsettling him.

Laying in neat coils, the ends still tied with brittle bandages stained with age and blood, were his braids. The braids Mairon had taken, after that first time he had been questioned, before the negotiations, before the caves, before the forge, before Maitimo had sold himself to further Mairon’s still inscrutable design.

Centuries of growth and maintenance that had been taken, cut. His pride and his youth and his innocence, gone.

Maitimo lifted one, watching as the strands caught the light of the lamp above him, shimmering copper and fire and gold. Still smooth and soft – on the edge of perception, a Song of preservation in Mairon’s familiar voice.

He counted. Seven thick coils.

“There’s one missing,” Maitimo said, voice cracking. He wiped the tears off his cheeks angrily – he had not noticed their appearance. “Braided differently than the rest.”

“Like the one you used to wear?” Mairon asked, gesturing to his right ear. At Maitimo’s nod, he continued. “I had that one sent to your brothers, to entice them to our meeting by the headwaters of the Sirion.”

“I see.”

“Why was that one different?” Mairon asked, relaxing into the other side of the couch, arms outstretched and languid and far enough away that Maitimo could start to meet Mairon’s eyes without flinching. “It was pretty, to be fair, but would it not break the symmetry, the balance of the rest of the style?”

Maitimo took his time folding down the top of the bag of hair, arranging his thoughts carefully. Mairon could not know Maitimo was not married to a woman; he could still protect Findekáno, despite the distance between Beleriand and Aman. He chose his words carefully. “Sometimes, among my people, patterns of braids may be given, as a gift, an expression of affection, and wearing that pattern in the time after shows affection returned. That pattern was given to me when I wed.”

Mairon hummed. “The Sindar do not have this custom.”

Maitimo nodded. “It started after we entered the Blessed Realm.” As expected, Mairon’s lip curled in distaste.

“So your brothers would have recognized it, since you wore it often, I presume.”

Maitimo nodded. “Since before Melkor left Námo’s care.”

Mairon stared at him, blinked, then burst out laughing. Then, laughter still in his tone, he asked, “Is that what you call it? Námo-father’s care?”

“In polite company, where Ainur might be listening? It was meant to be polite,” Maitimo shook his head. “In private, of course not. Unchained he was, let loose to harass my people. Depending on who you ask, it was willful negligence on the part of the Powers, or else they were deceived.”

Mairon shrugged, scoffing. “Soft, all of them.”

Maitimo made a noncommittal noise, his own feelings on the Valar in Aman mixed at best, even now. He sat with the implication that Mairon might think even his Lord-husband was among the ‘soft’ before breaking the silence. “Did you have a deadline in mind for this project?”

“Ideally before my sons are born. But nothing firm. Take what time you need, dearest. Teach Thuringwethil, even, if you wish.”

She had resisted his efforts to teach her before, but he’d at least ask.

“Where is she, anyway?”

Maitimo shifted, putting the materials on the floor beside him. He’d start it later, alone. “Abed, most likely,” he said, then lifted his voice slightly, calling instead of speaking for the benefit of a farther audience, “or else listening in behind closed doors, sneaky as she may be.”

A pause. Then Thuringwethil stepped out of the shadows of the hall that led to Maitimo’s wing, looking unrepentant as she crossed the room to sit at the low table, facing them both. “You learn all the most interesting things from the shadows,” she said, smiling innocently.

Mairon just stared at her for a long moment. “I could not sense you there, in the Song.”

Thuringwethil smiled, fangs gleaming. “I know yours, Ada,” she said sweetly. “It is a simple matter of shifting to match your Melody. It’s not like you hear yourself; it’s just background noise.”

Mairon frowned, but before he could question this, Thuringwethil started asking her own questions about the history of Angband, and the War of the Powers, and Melkor, and the world outside Mairon’s apartments that she so desperately wanted to see and wouldn’t Mairon let her leave soon?

Surprising them all, perhaps, Mairon did answer, telling how he and Melkor had formed the underground portions of Angband together and the joy of their joint efforts. How Mairon had been relegated to Angband when the Valar engaged Utumno, when he had wanted to be at Melkor’s side, chief of his Maiar and commander of his forces. How Utumno fell, and how he managed to evade the Powers and hide for many, many long years.

And throughout it all, Maitimo listened, and watched Thuringwethil’s bright mind absorb the stories of those who would one day be her people, and ignored how Mairon began absently trickling his ëala into the children slowly growing within him.

A project would focus his mind, give him a task to anchor himself against the numbness, he thought, as the pair talked around him. It had been irresponsible, to abandon Thuringwethil like that, though he knew she blamed him not at all.

And the twins … they had gotten little of his attention and fëa, his mind skittering off the memory of how and why. Thuringwethil may be his daughter, but the twins would be Mairon’s children through and through, undoubtedly.