#look. i know my early Third Age interpretation of Sauron is probably very Different from the norm but

[hirazuki]

For the flower language writing prompts, would you do thyme for Mairon, please?

Thyme | Courage, Strength | What mercy means

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The winds blow cold along the coast, vague whispers of snow from the high mountains running headlong into the salt spray spewed by a sea that is still black, still writhing, as unsettled as his thoughts.

But not cold enough; not high enough.

It is all painfully mild against the memory of lurching cliffs and burning ice -- a landscape that he would carve out a portion of his very soul to be able to complain about, just one more time, that now lies immeasurable fathoms below his feet.

The death throes of Angband had been violent: a beast crippled and cornered and drowned. Mairon had lingered, despite his orders, to try and get as many out as he could, to try and save what little remained of his wolves, to --

All pointless. Once Melkor had been removed, the water had come. The lower levels stood no chance; the upper levels, a mere ghost of one. Stone; metal; flesh -- all gave way under the pressure, and even dragon-fire was doused.

(He thought that he, too, would be drowned, insofar as an Ainu can -- have his body stripped from him, at the very least; he should have drowned. Instead, he awoke to find himself securely tucked away on this strange new coastline, entirely unharmed, strings of seaweed clinging to his body and the scent of storms upon his skin -- residue, that he has been studiously ignoring.)

Mairon can still hear the screams.

He has no care for elves or men or other creatures that the Valar like to fancy themselves as keeping, but he is -- was, he reminds himself, with bitterness and bite -- a leader of armies, and, as such, knows warfare and all its aspects intimately. The sheer number of casualties the other side has suffered -- including what must have been non-combatants, continent-wide -- has to be exponentially larger than his; staggeringly so.

The Valar finally deigned to interfere in the affairs of those beyond their rose-colored isolation, in order to save these people, presumably.

Mairon cannot help but scoff. His lord, in all his pain and anger and malice, was kinder, in the end.

Is this their idea of mercy?

Is this what they consider an acceptable loss?

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The sea swells and roars as flashes of fire cut across the sky, and the island breaks apart with a sound that shackles his mind to a horror he had thought safely left behind in the previous Age.

As the wave rises, a churning shadow looming at almost the entire height of the Meneltarma where he stands, echoing past mercy bestowed so acutely that it seems he could have been walking the halls of Angband only yesterday, something twists and snaps inside him --

And he laughs.

Mairon -- Tar-Mairon, Zigûr -- laughs at the sight of the chasm opening up before Númenor and at the sound of falling hills that reaches his ears from Aman's distant shore and at the smell of lightning burning the sky and the touch of it that scorches his skin when it strikes at his feet, grazing him, and at the taste of despair in the suffocating air all around; laughs and laughs and laughs, until his laughter is indistinguishable from screaming.

A voice -- female, piercing -- somehow manages to capture and hold his attention, from where it darts and flares like wildfires in high summer.

Tar-Míriel, last Queen of Numenor, bereft of rule and -- soon -- of realm, climbs the final stretch of this so-called Holy Mountain, pulling herself up from its steepness and onto the small ledge at its peak.

He had offered her a ring some days ago, and, in her pride, she had rejected it. That pride seems to have buckled, now, under the fear of the yawning tide that promises to devour them all, man and god alike, and she runs to him, hand outstretched, shouting --

The wave crashes down.

Too late, again, he mourns, a last thought as he is plunged into the sea's cold grasp, water rushing into his nose and mouth and eyes, too far gone from both grace and Middle Earth's coasts for anyone to risk their lord's wrath for his sake this time.

Always, always, he is too late, for the things that matter.

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Firelight flickers across the walls, casting soft shadows all about the room, the smell of damp earth seeping slowly into his sluggish awareness.

He flickers, too, sliding in and out -- of consciousness, of corporeality -- ever-shifting, struggling to stay.

Pain is at his throat; the blood is flowing, freely, running, never stopping, he needs to --

No.

That is not --

That happened long ago. A different forest. A different wound.

Funny -- how he always seems to find refuge in the woods. He should examine that. Had he more energy, he would examine it.

Cold.

He is so cold. Someone -- Khamûl? -- has draped blankets over him, over what purports to be his form, and despite his own weakness to the element, apparently, has set the hearth alight; but neither does any good. It is the fire within, that sputters; almost more ash than flame; almost out.

Khamûl... yes, that is right. Khamûl is here, running the fortress. Allowing him to rest. Has he thanked him? He should thank him.

Papers lie scattered next to him, reports of the world beyond this hilltop that he barely has enough substance to hold in his grasp. Accounts of the kingdoms of old falling to ruin and elves fading to naught more than mist, decrepitude creeping into all things in the wake of the last Age's ending.

Why do they bother, clinging to rusted dreams and corroded glory? A tighter grip will not stop water trickling from one's grasp.

Sail west or fade. How magnanimous of them. How merciful. How hardly a choice.

He had been given such a choice once, too.

And he had stayed. He had stayed, the only one, along with the elves and the men and the orcs, had stayed to --

Why was he bothering, again?

What was he doing?

... He cannot recall.

Tired.

So very tired.

He curls further into the furs and fabric, futilely seeking warmth, and considers closing his eyes and fading quietly alongside this failed world.

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The earth crumbles and collapses, taking orc and beast and tower with it.

As his body falls in one direction, his ëala is wrenched in another, until it rips from form and coherence both: a moment and an eternity of blinding pain, of unmaking, of gold melting and rejoining with fire.

It is gathered up, eventually, from the voiceless agony it has dispersed in, by a pull that it -- he -- has neither the strength nor the means to fight.

Westward, it compels him to fly, like wind unseen, passing over forests and mountains and lakes and the ever-widening stretch of ocean, until he lands -- a displacement of air, a dull shimmer -- before Máhanaxar.

There is nowhere to go but forward.

But, even as he places one foot before the other -- old thoughts newly wrought in washed-out hues -- his mind shutters unequivocally around something he had decided long ago:

If this is what mercy means, he wants none of it.

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This was soooo much fun to write! Thank you sending this in!!! I've been in a creative slump lately, and this was exactly what I needed ♡ Hope you enjoyed it! ^^