Dear Companion by AdmirableMonster  

Eönwë slept and thought he dreamed. In the dream, he was back in Valinor, walking along a winding cliff up to the forge of Aulë. It was empty when he entered, and all the bellows were still, the ashes black, the forges cold. He heard footsteps behind him and turned.

Mairon stood there, dressed in the form of an Elda, with red-gold hair spilling from his head like molten metal. Upon his form was a simple white robe, and his eyes flickered, as always, with bright flame. When he saw Eonwë’s eyes upon him, he went to one knee and bowed his head.

“Why have you come here?” Eönwë demanded. He had meant to sound commanding, like the herald of great Manwë that he was, but his voice was thin, perhaps pleading, and more like the plaintive cry of a lonely bird.

“Well, I have lost.” Mairon shrugged. “I have lost, and I am weary, so I have come to surrender.”

“Why…garbed like this?”

“Do you not like this form?” Mairon’s large eyes blinked, and he fluttered his lashes. “I have others, but I thought you did so love the Children. At least—these Children. Perhaps I was wrong, for you abandoned them long enough to my master’s tender mercies.”

A shiver of something unpleasant wormed its way down Eonwë’s back. Ever had it been so, Mairon putting voice to Eonwë’s own muddled internal fears. And Mairon had always been so much more eloquent that even now, even knowing what he had become, it was hard for Eönwë to shrug off the bite in his words. “They have made their choices,” he said; then, with some fresh anger, “And you may judge Manwë, I suppose, but you cannot judge me for remaining loyal to my master, when you are nothing but a traitor.”

A queer, twisted smile played across those lips. “And here you are giving me permission to judge your master.” Mairon stood and walked across the forge to him, and fire seemed to follow in his wake.

“This is what you deem surrender?” Eönwë demanded, shaking off his desire to rise to the bait. “To come here and taunt me and twist my words?”

“I have offered you no resistance,” Mairon pointed out. “If you have not seen fit to test the truth of my words of surrender, I can hardly be blamed for that.”

“Test them?” Eönwë echoed. 

Mairon bowed his head. “You have not yet punished me,” he shrugged.

“Punished…you?” He had become a cuckoo, it seemed, always repeated the last thing that was said.

“I failed,” Mairon said, a tiny frown appearing between his eyes. “And did you not punish my master, when he failed?”

“I did—nn, I did nothing,” Eönwë said, not quite certain why he was protesting, once again, his own distance from the actions of the Valar. Mairon looked young, in this form, young and vulnerable, but Eönwë knew of all that he had done. Or perhaps he did not know of it all, which would be worse. He could not treat Mairon as if he were still the mercurial companion from Valinor. But at the same time, he could not—do whatever it was Mairon seemed to expect him to do.

He reached out a hand, slowly, brushing it through sleek red hair. Mairon’s eyes fluttered again, but the motion seemed less deliberate this time, somehow. He turned his face into Eonwë’s hand, and Eönwë could feel the heat and thrum of his eäla, contained beneath his fana, contained beneath this glamered imitation of an Elda’s hröa.

“What will you do with me?” Mairon asked, softly, his voice thick, “now that I come to you like this?” and Eönwë did not know. He wished so strongly that this were not the dream, that all the long years that lay between their parting as companions in Valinor were instead. Or perhaps it was not a dream, for the flickering firelight that Mairon brought with him might be illuminating the insides of Eonwë’s tent in Beleriand, rather than the silent forges of Aulë, clogged with ash and abandoned. Perhaps, in a way, it was both.

Eonwë’s hand on Mairon’s face rippled as his own eäla strained at its containing vessel. Feathers sprouted along the back of it, and dark flesh turned to pebbled yellow as his talons emerged from the tips of his fingers. It hurt, as it always had, for he knew no way other than to shred one fana to create another, and red beaded around the edges of the claws. Mairon made a soft, almost sorry little noise, and then he licked delicately at the blood, like a cat.

“What are you doing?” Eönwë demanded, his voice strange and raucous, less like a Maia’s than a beast’s.

“Will you not hurt me now?” Mairon sighed, stepping into him, so hot, too hot, in his arms. It had been a very long time since he had held Aulë’s Maia like this, so long ago that it was before the Trees, even, had sprouted.

“You—wish me to hurt you? For your wickedness?” Eönwë said, slowly, trying to understand.

Mairon cocked his head. “For my failure,” he crooned. “For my failure, dear featherbrain, for I forged myself anew again and again, and I did not do it well enough. And I have failed, yet again, so deeply and so thoroughly I have none left to chastise me.”

Eönwë did not understand his words, or perhaps he did not want to. Perhaps he wanted to pretend that they were still in the safety of the new world, and Mairon was just his dear, queer, twisty companion. If he wished to be hurt, well, pain was an interesting sensation for some, Eönwë supposed. If he tried very hard, it might be the truth. If he tried very hard, could he make it into the truth? Could he make it close enough to the truth to bring Mairon back to him?

He turned Mairon about and pushed him down upon the nest Eönwë had made of his blankets and some other trinkets he kept about him here.

“What a simple featherbrain you are,” Mairon said, his voice dark and laughing, letting his white robe pool loosely around his waist, and Eönwë drew a claw carefully down the back of one shoulder. Mairon’s form ripped; golden fluid dripped slowly from the wound. He gasped, too, and shuddered; the glamer slipped, and Eönwë glimpsed banded metallic whorls before it rippled back into place.

“Please,” Mairon whispered, and his head fell forward, the ends of his red-gold hair turning coal-black. “More.”

Half mindlessly, he stroked his hand across Mairon’s back, then repeated the motion, digging in his claws. Mairon sobbed and writhed, and more molten gold trickled down his white back, leaving rounded metallic trails in its wake. “Look at me,” Eönwë said, trying to sound commanding. He wasn’t certain if it worked. “Look at me.”

Mairon rolled over onto his injured back, tangling himself up in his robe. Eönwë reached for it and shredded it, leaving the other Maia surrounded by thin ribbons of white cloth, but otherwise naked. Gold from his injuries bled across the scraps and the bed beneath, hardening into something dull and matte even as Eönwë watched. His chest heaved; when Eönwë looked into his eyes, one of them seemed to show a milky spiderweb crack across it; Mairon blinked and smirked and it was gone.

“Pattern me,” he murmured. “Engrave me, mark me, whatever you will.” Eonwë’s head snapped back as he felt the power and desire boiling inside of him, and he groaned softly as he felt the wings sprouting haphazardly along his back, two large ones to match the feathers covering his arms, and a number of smaller ones as well, all of them beating restlessly at the air. Mairon caught at them, sinking his fingers into fistfuls of feathers, and it hurt and didn’t hurt at the same time. Eönwë buried his face in the hot smooth junction of Mairon’s neck, licking at it as Mairon began to move his fana against Eonwë’s.

This part he remembered from their couplings long ago, that it was pleasureful to fill and be filled—not that Mairon had ever filled anyone else, as far as Eönwë knew. Mairon was quick enough to beg for something else inside him, though, as he was doing now, clinging to Eonwë’s neck and murmuring low, desperate pleas. Eönwë thought there was some reason that he shouldn’t, but this was a dream, or like one, at any rate, or perhaps it wasn’t a dream at all, but he still wanted it anyway, so—

The air rippled and moved around them, and Mairon cried out in earnest as Eönwë pushed into him. He was slick and hot inside, tight and almost hard, and Eönwë gasped, pulling him closer, feeling his claws tear that paper-thin glamered flesh that Mairon wore across his true form. Eönwë dug the claws in harder, needing to holding him still, for they were falling, wheeling, through the air above—it could not be Valinor, it must be Beleriand, though Eönwë had little mind to spare for landmarks—his claws scraped against something hard, and Mairon squealed and sobbed.

He furled his wings about them, no matter that it should not be possible to bend them as he was doing, to shield Mairon on all sides with soft feathers. He had wanted to shield him like this when he had heard—when they had all heard—when their dear companion went missing from Aulë’s forges, and at first they thought he had been taken. 

But he had not been taken. He had gone of his own free will. And he had returned only when he had lost, when he had failed, when he knew he could no longer hope to stand against the Valar. Eönwë bit Mairon’s shoulder, his beak unexpectedly sheering through metal. Mairon did not cry out this time, but only made a soft noise like a cat or a steam-kettle hissing.

They were rutting wildly, air rushing past them, and Eönwë could feel that strange tight sensation inside himself that started and drew him onwards to the climax, but it felt different this time—urgent, overwhelming, not tender, not safe. They were not friends. They were not companions. And yet Mairon was writhing in his arms, burning and crying out his name, his sharp fingers—too many, too many—scratching and tearing at feathers and plucking them out. It hurt, it hurt, and Eönwë thrilled to it, to this coupling that was almost a fight instead.

It was almost too soon that he felt himself shuddering and spilling, and it went on and on, with Mairon’s walls tight around him, almost holding him inside. Eönwë cried out, thin and high, and tasted metal and oil on his tongue. The air was still, now, and they were on the nest in his tent. Mairon lay beneath him, legs tight about Eonwë’s waist, breathing hard. 

His glamer was shredded, and beneath it his true fana showed plainly at last. Eönwë remembered what he had looked like in Valinor, fire springing from a smooth figure made all of polished brass, with two liquid-crystal eyes laughing from his hollow face. In form, he was very like an Elf, but with flesh of bright metal and flames instead of hair springing from his scalp. 

Now—his flesh was not one continuous metal, but separated by jagged grain boundaries filled with sparkling gold. From one patch to the next barely even seemed to be made of the same substance. There was silver metal on his stomach, gold-red metal along his thigh—the place where Eönwë had put his beak was a dull matte black, and it had sheared up beneath in delicate, paper-thin layers. Molten gold dribbled from the ragged hole. Over his chest was a hard, transparent, crystalline band and inside it Eönwë could see his heart pumping, a strange, clockwork apparatus in the center. Drawing in a breath of something that was half horror and half awe, he drew a claw across, wondering—was it glass or diamond? Would Mairon shatter at a touch?

He did not, but only blinked at Eönwë, a little sluggish.

“What has he done to you?” Eönwë breathed. Mairon cocked his head to one side, then looked down at himself.

“Oh,” he laughed. “Why, this is all my own doing, sweet featherbrain. As I was, I was no longer useful to Him, when He returned, so I took it upon myself to forge myself anew. Are not the flaws striking? Are not they beautiful?”

He seemed—childish. Eager to please. “But you are broken all over,” Eönwë said, hearing his own voice tremble.

“Aye, and mended quite expertly, do you not think so?” The smile faded as Mairon looked at his expression. “Is…is it not pleasing enough?” There was a low, fearful, pleading tone in his voice.

His hair was no longer flame, Eönwë realized; it was thin black threads that pooled behind his head, glowing red as his agitation grew. “I—it’s—but why?” Eönwë blurted, knowing it was the wrong thing to say but not knowing what the right thing was.

“I couldn’t be perfect, so I made myself better,” Mairon replied, sounding a little dreamy. “I learned how to find beauty in the breaking and the marring.” He stroked bone-thin, needlesharp fingers across Eonwë’s cheek, and Eönwë shuddered at the touch. Several feathers floated to the ground, neatly severed.

“Mairon,” he murmured helplessly. “Why didst thou leave?”

A shuttered, stubborn look flared in those still-crystal eyes, the one that had not changed and the one that was shattered across with that spiderweb crack. “No matter what I did, it was not enough to get Aulë to see me,” Mairon retorted. “So I went with one who did. At—at first.”

“But we all loved thee,” Eönwë said, hopelessly, helplessly. “Everyone loved thee. Aulë was so proud of thee, all of us knew it—”

“Do not taunt me,” Mairon whispered, gold flooding his eyes and trickling down his cheeks. “He was not proud. He reprimanded me, time and time again, for daring too much, for reaching too far. Or for not reaching far enough. It was never right. Not once did he ever—” Mairon’s voice shook, and he tried to pull away.

Eönwë grabbed his shoulder and pinned him in place. “He never told thee?” he whispered. “By Eru, Mairon, I was not a Maia of Aulë, and I knew that thou were his most precious one. If I knew, how couldst thou not?”

“You are mocking me,” Mairon said, then went still. “It is your right, as the victor,” he murmured. “I did not expect such a cruel punishment, but it is, of course, your right.”

“Mairon…” Eonwë’s voice cracked. He knew everything that Mairon had done. He knew he was no sweet, innocent fool. He knew that, even now, Mairon could be fooling him, for he was not so wise as to be able to know the difference or resist. And yet Eonwë’s many wings fluttered with distress, and he could not still them; his claws appeared and vanished, and he could not keep them away.

Something made him kiss Mairon again, slow this time, running his hands across the welter of jagged edges that formed his whole fana. Mairon tilted his hips up, and made soft, pleased noises, like a cat purring. He had spoken of mending, Eönwë thought distractedly, as he kissed Mairon’s transparent chest above his beating heart, but what lay between them was so badly broken he had no idea how it might be healed.

He kissed down Mairon’s heaving stomach, then his thighs, and Mairon made a soft, strained noise. Eönwë looked up to see he had one arm flung across his face and golden tears were leaking out of his eyes again. “Mairon?” he said worriedly.

Mairon shook his head, and Eönwë was sure he was trying not to beg. “Do you want more?” he asked. It seemed to be the only thing Mairon was willing to tell him.

“You do not know how to treat a prisoner, it seems,” Mairon croaked. “It does not matter what I want.”

“But it does.” Eönwë put a hand upon his thigh. “Oh, Mairon, it always has.”

A laugh and a shrug. “Very well, I’ll play your game, featherbrain,” Mairon murmured. “Yes, I want more. Will you give me more? Will you give me your mouth, or will you deny me it?” He chucked, a little mournfully. “It is your right.”

Eönwë did not know what to say to that, so instead, he knelt and put his mouth between Mairon’s legs. He was soft there today, soft and slick. Eönwë had tasted him many different ways when they were young; they felt different, but they all felt like contained fire. Now that fire threatened to break from its containment, and Mairon quivered beneath Eonwë’s tongue.

He explored the Maia slowly, dropping soft kisses interspersed with moving his mouth and licking in long stripes. Mairon moaned and shuddered and writhed, and Eönwë spread his thighs open and held him like that, relentlessly burying his mouth inside. “Aaaaah—Eönwë—Eon—mmm—please—please—”

Eönwë hummed and let just a touch of teeth scrape across the slick heat. Mairon’s hips bucked, and he cried out, high and desperate. Eönwë turned for a moment to kiss his thigh and then returned to his task, letting his tongue delve a little deeper inside.

“Please,” Mairon wept. “Don’t stop, I’m so close, I’m so close, I’m—”

He really did seem to think Eönwë was about to stop, to leave him panting and writhing and begging on the painful brink of his own climax. Eönwë reached up and let the feathers of his arms flutter against Mairon’s patchwork flesh. Then he pressed deeper, licking gently over and over again until Mairon’s thighs slammed together about his head and he tightened up, trembling and shuddering all over.

As Mairon slowly slumped down, Eönwë crawled up the pallet, throwing his arm across his erstwhile friend. “It’s all right,” he murmured. “It’s all right. I’ll see that you’re taken care of. I’ll see that you’re—you’re mended. Properly.” He ran his hand gently across those poor jagged scar-like cracks.

Mairon’s eyes opened slowly, and there was something dark in them that Eönwë did not like. “…properly?” he echoed.

“Without the scars,” Eönwë said, awkwardly. “You’ll be better. You won’t be hurt anymore, Mairon.”

He had said the wrong thing. He could see it immediately. He did not quite know what it was that he had said wrong, but he had never understood Mairon, and he understood him even less now, no matter that he cared for him almost desperately.

Slowly, Mairon sat up, and he drew his glamer about him, the glory and fragmented beauty of his fana vanishing beneath smooth, unmarred skin. He was naked, still, but plain, his fire hidden, almost damped. He almost appeared to be in a trance as he rose and went over to the front of the tent, drawing it back. “You would mend me as the Valar have mended Beleriand,” he said, and Eönwë could not tell if his voice was steady or if it trembled.

“What do you mean?” he asked. He rose from his own place with feathers falling lightly like leaves all about him, following Mairon over to where he was gesturing out across the landscape. It had changed, and Eönwë wondered if he dreamed again, for there was water where there had been land, a sea with surface as still as glass. It seemed like the kind of vision Irmo might send, and he did not remember waking—but then he did not remember sleeping, either.

“The Valar, it seems, have but one method of mending,” Mairon murmured softly, “and that is to destroy and remake entire. If they bother with the remaking at all.”

“What?” Eönwë echoed, and when Mairon turned back, there was a dangerous glint in his eyes.

“I will forgive you,” Mairon said, “because I think you still do not understand, and I think, now, that I truly believe you are that kind and that stupid.”

“What?” It was all he could seem to say. He felt as if he were drowning, struggling against the weight of his own waterlogged feathers dragging him down. Mairon reached out and caressed his face with the tips of those slim fingers.

“I would have returned with you to Valinor, Eönwë, and then what? You would not have mended me, you have said so. And the Valar know only one way to restore that which they deem beautiful.” He waved a hand across the still waters. “I am in no mood to be destroyed, to have another creature rooted in my ashes. Oh, dear featherbrain, do you not see? I am not the dear companion who left you once, but no more is he dead. If I returned with you, he would die, and so would I.” He took Eonwë’s hand. “All that lies between us lies in the past. The future is broken and terrible, but my scars will remain.” His face split in a suddenly dark smile. “And so will yours.”

Eönwë had no time to react as Mairon struck him across the face with those needle-sharp fingers. He cried out in pain, staggering backwards, with blood blinding him. By the time he had regained his stance, the tent was empty once more. His face and eyes were stinging, but he ran to the front of the tent and looked out.

There was nothing there, save only the far still waters that stretched out to the horizon. They did not seem to be a dream after all.

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