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thyras · 3 days ago

Text

→ of mourning & loss (bonus chapter)

PAIRING → mairon | annatar | sauron x female!elf!reader

WORD COUNT → 6.2k words

SERIES → of sauron & the moriquendi

WARNINGS → grief, loss, angst, dad!sauron

SUMMARY → face to face with her father for the first time in years, aerilaya confronts him about her mother.

AUTHORS NOTE → so this has a spoiler in it for the next chapter, but I never planned for this to be the ending of the story, but it was one of the possibilities. just going to post it anyways as I think we all kinda knew where i was going with their story. the next chapter is taking longer than i thought so i hope this holds y'all over till then.

masterlist // series playlist // mood board

Aerilaya pressed the tip of her blade against his throat, the steel cool and unyielding against his unnatural skin. Her emerald eyes blazed with fury, burning like embers stoked by years of pain. She had not seen him in all that time, yet here he was—a specter of the man she once knew.

He had been radiant once, his icy blue eyes and elven grace masking the darkness that had always lurked beneath. Now, that mask had fallen away. His eyes, once bright and piercing, were nothing more than endless voids, hollow and cruel. His skin, once kissed by moonlight, had been leeched of all warmth, pale as bone. Whatever remnants of the man she had once trusted, even loved, had long since rotted away.

Aerilaya’s fingers tightened around the hilt of her blade, steady despite the storm of emotions surging within her. He swept his gaze over her, unbothered by the threat of death lingering at his throat. His brow arched slightly, amusement flickering in his darkened eyes, mocking her.

“I was not expecting you,” he mused, his voice smooth but edged with something sinister. His gaze flickered to the silver chain around her neck, where a jewel shimmered, pulsing with an ethereal glow. The flames of the burning ruins around them danced upon its surface, casting fragmented reflections in the suffocating night.

For a brief moment, silence stretched between them—an aching, suffocating thing, heavy with all that had been lost. Then, he smiled. “But it warms my heart to see you, Aerilaya.”

His voice was velvety, almost tender, yet it slithered through the air like a serpent coiling around her. That smile—sickly sweet, a mockery of affection—curved his lips, sending a shiver down her spine.

Aerilaya’s heart pounded in her chest, a war drum beating against her ribs.

“I had hoped to see my daughter once more.”

The words struck her like a dagger, sharp and merciless. Daughter. The title, once sacred, now dripped with something tainted, something wrong. He was no father to her—not anymore.

Her grip on the hilt tightened, fury swallowing hesitation. She pressed the blade harder against his throat, her resolve unwavering. A dark liquid oozed from the tip where steel bit into flesh, thick and viscous, unnatural. It dripped to the ground, sizzling softly against the scorched earth, staining it like ink spilled upon an ancient parchment.

Yet still, he did not flinch. Instead, his smile widened. “You truly are the spitting image of your mother.”

Aerilaya’s face hardened, but the words struck deep, an invisible wound reopened with cruel precision. He spoke of her so freely, as if his hands were not stained with the grief that had driven her to despair. As if he had not been the one who shattered her beyond repair.

A sharp ache settled in Aerilaya’s chest, tightening like a vice around her ribs. She could still remember the way her mother had wept—silent, broken—until sorrow became too great a burden to bear. In her darkest hour, she had whispered her final plea to Nienna, the Lady of Mercy. And Nienna, ever compassionate, had answered.

She had gathered her fëa into her arms, cradling her as a mother would, and guided her into the halls of Mandos, where pain and longing no longer reached. There, at last, she had found peace. A peace Aerilaya had never been granted.

Her grip on the blade never wavered, but something burned behind her emerald eyes—rage, grief, and the unyielding weight of all she had lost.

“You speak so freely of her, snake," Aerilaya spat, her voice sharp as the blade at his throat. "But you were the cause of her pain. Her torture.”

The words trembled on the edge of grief and fury, a storm barely restrained. Her chest ached, her throat burned, but she refused to let the tears fall. Not before him. Not before the one who had shattered her mother beyond repair.

She searched his face, waiting—hoping—for something. A flicker of regret, a shadow of guilt, anything to betray that he was not as hollow as he seemed. But there was nothing. His expression remained untouched, carved from something colder than stone, a mockery of what he had once been.

Her fingers tightened around the hilt, knuckles whitening.

"Do you feel nothing?" she whispered, the question slipping past her lips before she could stop it.

Still, he did not answer.

And that silence was an answer all its own.

Aerilaya's jaw tightened, her emerald eyes narrowing as she stared into the abyss of his gaze. The silence stretched between them, thick with centuries of pain and betrayal, an unspoken chasm neither could cross.

"Nothing," she echoed, her voice barely more than a breath, fragile yet unyielding. "You truly are lost."

A low chuckle rumbled from his throat, but there was no warmth in it—only something hollow, twisted.

"I feel things, Aerilaya," he murmured, his voice smooth as silk, yet frayed at the edges. "I feel the pain of your mother’s absence."

Before she could react, he moved. A sudden shift, swift as a shadow, knocking her back a step as he rose to his full height. He loomed over her now, his presence suffocating, his darkened eyes locked onto hers.

“I ache,” he continued, his voice quieter now, almost wistful. “Because she left this world and went where I could never follow.”

Aerilaya’s breath hitched, her grip tightening on the hilt of her blade. She had spent years imagining what she would say to him if ever they stood face to face again. But the words she had prepared, the accusations, the fury—they faltered against the quiet agony laced beneath his tone.

"You could have followed," she whispered, her voice breaking against the weight of the truth. “You could have gone with her, if only you had listened.”

For the first time, something flickered in his expression—a ghost of something lost. But it was gone just as quickly, swallowed by the darkness he had long since embraced.

Aerilaya had only come to understand the truth of her father’s origins after Erynwyn and Elrond had told her. Her mother had never spoken of it, never uttered a word that might taint the image of the man Aerilaya had once loved with all her being. He had been her anchor, the guiding star by which she measured all others, the standard to which she held the world.

But those days were long gone.

Gone were the stories of a time before creatures roamed this land, before Arda had even settled into its first breath of life. Gone was the father who had once smiled so effortlessly in her mother’s presence, whose very light had radiated for her alone. Aerilaya had spent her life longing for that kind of love—to feel the unshakable bond of two souls woven together by fate itself.

To share in the beauty of Ages spent side by side. To fill them with warmth, happiness, and the promise of a child born of that sacred union.

But her mother had known the truth long before Aerilaya had. She had known that he would never change. That no matter how much light he tried to grasp, the shadow had already claimed him. It had consumed him so entirely that even his choice to live in the light had been a deception.

His greatest deception.

And it had been her mother’s last straw. The last fragile piece of love she had clung to had been smothered by the darkness he had embraced.

Elrond had told Aerilaya that after Eregion fell, her mother had been little more than a shadow of herself—heartbroken, laced with grief. Yet she had endured. She had carried on for Aerilaya’s sake, laying the foundations for her daughter to know only the light.

To ensure that Aerilaya would never fall as he had.

She had taught her to wield her gifts only for virtue, for the betterment of the world. Her power over the elements, particularly over beasts and the living things of the earth, was proof of Yavanna’s blessing. But it was in rare moments of great need that she was granted something more—a gift beyond even her mother’s teachings.

A gift of the stars.

A light so pure it could blot out the deepest shadow. A force that turned any darkened beast or figure from her path. A gift of protection from Varda herself—a preservation of the grace and radiance her mother had instilled within her.

A light that would never bow to the darkness.

Aerilaya's fingers unconsciously ghosted over the jewel resting against her breastbone, feeling its warmth pulse in time with her heartbeat. It was a piece of her mother, a lingering ember of her love and sacrifice, shining defiantly against the darkness that sought to swallow it whole. The silver chain and the gem it held had been forged by none other than the very man before her—the one she once called father. He had created it for her mother when they wed, binding light and shadow together in a union that had long since crumbled into ruin.

Sauron’s eyes followed the movement, a flicker of something passing over his features—hunger, longing, perhaps even possession.

Even now, he wished to claim that piece of her. To seize the last remnant of what had once been his, of the light that had drawn him in, ensnared him in the promise of redemption. The light that, for a fleeting moment, had made him yearn to walk a different path.

But that moment had passed.

Now, he coveted it for what it could do—for the power it held, for what it might grant him. His desire was no longer for the love it once symbolized, but for how he could twist it to serve his will.

Aerilaya’s fingers curled protectively around the jewel, her grip tightening as its warmth pulsed against her palm, steady and resolute. She met Sauron’s gaze, unflinching.

"You cannot have it," she said, her voice low and fierce. "This light was never meant for you."

A shadow passed over Sauron's face, his features contorting, shifting into something cruel and insatiable. "Oh, but it was, Aerilaya," he murmured, his voice like a silken snare. "It was always meant for me. Do you not see? Eru himself wove us into existence together—light and shadow, twined in a harmony that could never be broken."

He stepped forward, slow and deliberate, his presence thick and suffocating. Aerilaya tensed, her blade rising between them in silent warning.

But Sauron paid it no heed. His gaze remained fixed on the jewel at her throat, as though it called to him in ways neither steel nor words could deter.

"I forged that jewel for her," he continued, his voice dipping into something almost reverent. "In a light as pure as Aman itself. It holds a part of me, just as it holds a part of your mother."

His fingers, cold and relentless, reached toward it, seeking to reclaim what he had lost.

Aerilaya jerked back, her grip on the jewel tightening until it burned against her skin. A shudder ran down her spine as his voice slithered closer, each syllable a whispered ghost of a past she refused to acknowledge.

"I vowed to her that night," he murmured, a glint of something dangerous in his darkened eyes. "That she would never be parted from me. Never again."

But she had been.

By her own will.

By the mercy of the Valar.

And Aerilaya would not let him defile that mercy now.

“Let her be at peace. Let her know the light of Aman, for she has suffered too long.”

Aerilaya’s voice wavered, but her resolve did not. Tears spilled down her cheeks in silent streams, tracing paths of grief across her flawless skin. She did not try to stop them. Not now. Not when she was pleading for the one who had given her life, for the mother who had borne the weight of love and loss alike.

“Let her have those memories, those pieces of you that she now finds comfort in. Let her be as she was when we were a family—happy, joyous, full of life.”

Sauron's expression flickered—an unreadable shift in his ever-darkened gaze. A shadow of something long buried, some fractured remnant of a feeling he had once known.

For the briefest moment, he seemed to waver.

“Peace,” he echoed, the word slipping from his lips as though he had never spoken it before, never tasted its meaning. His eyes drifted past Aerilaya, unfocused, searching for something unseen beyond the charred ruins that surrounded them. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost distant.

“Do you think she sits in the gardens of Lórien, basking in the light of the Two Trees? That she walks among Melian and the others, free from the burdens of this world?” A bitter smile twisted his lips. “Or does she wander the Halls of Mandos, reliving every moment of her life—every joy, every sorrow?”

His voice, once cold steel, turned to something quieter, something raw.

“Does she remember the warmth of my embrace? The nights we spent whispering dreams to one another? Or has she cast it all away, erased me from her memory as though I never existed?”

Aerilaya’s fingers tightened around the hilt of her sword, her knuckles white with fury.

“You have no right to speak of her,” she hissed, her voice trembling under the weight of barely contained rage. “No right to wonder about her fate when you were the one who drove her to it.”

Sauron’s gaze snapped back to her, the softness vanishing, swallowed whole by something dark and violent.

“I loved her,” he growled, his voice laced with something dangerously close to pain. “More than you could ever understand.”

Aerilaya’s breath hitched, her grief and anger coiling into something sharp, something merciless.

“Love?” she spat the word like venom. “You know nothing of love. You twisted it, tainted it until it was nothing but a weapon in your hands—”

Before she could finish, his hands shot forward, gripping her wrists with an ironclad hold.

The blade fell from her grasp.

The world around them wavered.

And then—

Darkness.

A shift in time, in space. The cold ruins, the fire, the pain—they were gone.

Aerilaya gasped as the world pulled her under, not into blackness, but into something else.

A memory.

One that still lived in the fractured, dying ember of the man he used to be.

Aerilaya blinked, disoriented by the sudden shift. The charred ruins, the suffocating heat of fire and smoke—all of it was gone. In its place, a garden stretched before her, bathed in soft, ethereal light. The air was sweet with the scent of night-blooming flowers, their delicate petals glowing beneath the silver radiance of the stars. A gentle breeze whispered through the towering trees, their silver leaves rustling like a distant melody.

She knew this place, though she did not remember it being as such.

Eregion.

Not as it lay now in ruin, but as it had been in its prime—before shadow and flame had ravaged its beauty, before betrayal had sunk its fangs into the heart of all that was good.

A melodic laugh drifted through the air, light and carefree, like the chiming of distant bells. Aerilaya’s heart clenched as she turned toward the sound. Beneath an archway of intertwined vines and starlit blossoms, she saw her mother.

She was radiant.

Her hair cascaded down her back like liquid starlight, shimmering with an ethereal glow. Her eyes, bright with love and joy, reflected the very light of the stars. She wore a flowing gown of deep cerulean, silver embroidery catching the light like woven constellations. The sight of her, untouched by sorrow, unhardened by grief, stole the breath from Aerilaya’s lungs.

She had never seen her mother like this—so full of life, so unburdened.

And then she saw him.

He stepped into view, his movements fluid and assured, his presence commanding without effort. His arm slipped around her mother’s waist, drawing her close with effortless familiarity. Aerilaya's breath hitched as she gazed upon the face of the man her father had once been.

Mairon.

His eyes—clear and piercing, like the sky over the sea—held no trace of the darkness that would later consume him. They shone with something Aerilaya had never known from him: unguarded devotion. His smile, free of cruelty or cunning, was warm and genuine as he looked upon the woman in his arms.

"Mairon," her mother whispered, reaching up to caress his cheek.

The name struck Aerilaya like a physical blow. Mairon. Not Sauron. Not the monster he had become. But the being he had once been—the one her mother had loved.

She watched, transfixed, as Mairon leaned into her mother’s touch, his eyes closing briefly, as if savoring the warmth of her palm against his skin. When he opened them again, they burned with an intensity that stole even the breath from memory itself.

“My love,” he murmured, his voice a low caress, rich with devotion. “Divine.”

His fingers traced the curve of her cheek before coming to rest upon the jewel at her breastbone—the same jewel that now hung around Aerilaya’s own neck, years later. In this memory, the gem pulsed with a gentle, living light, as though it breathed in tandem with their love.

“Do you remember the day I gave this to you?” Mairon asked, his thumb gliding over its smooth surface.

Her mother smiled, and the sheer beauty of it made Aerilaya’s heart ache. It was a smile untouched by sorrow, unmarred by regret—a sight she scarcely remembered.

Mairon’s gaze drifted downward, his expression softening further as his hand ghosted over the gentle swell of her mother’s stomach. Beneath the flowing fabric, Aerilaya lay, not yet born, cradled in warmth and light.

“My greatest inspiration,” her mother whispered, placing her hand over his. “My light in the darkness. May you wear this, so I am never truly parted from you.”

Her eyes sparkled against his soft gaze, and for a moment, they stood together—whole, unbroken, untouched by the tragedy yet to come.

Aerilaya felt her knees weaken beneath her as she watched.

For the first time in her life, she saw them as they had been.

Before the fall. Before the lies. Before everything was lost.

The vision shattered like fragile glass, dissolving into the acrid air of the present. Aerilaya gasped as the scent of sweet night-blooming flowers faded, replaced by the stench of smoke and ruin. The warmth of a life that once was—one she had never known—slipped through her fingers like sand, leaving only the cold weight of reality.

Sauron—no, Mairon—stood before her, his grip on her wrists loosening. His eyes, no longer the piercing blue of the vision but fathomless voids, searched her face. For a fleeting moment, he seemed unsure, untethered. A man caught between past and present.

"Do you see now?" he whispered, his voice rough, raw with something Aerilaya couldn't name. "Do you understand what was lost?"

Her breath came in ragged gasps, her mind struggling to reconcile the man she had just seen with the being before her. The father who had held her mother so tenderly, who had spoken with devotion, who had placed a reverent hand on the swell of her stomach—where had he gone?

Was he ever truly there?

"I..." she began, but the words caught in her throat. For a moment, the monster before her was gone, replaced by a ghost—a shadow of what could have been. "I see what was," she finally said, her voice wavering. "What you chose to throw away."

Sauron's grip tightened, his fingers pressing into her skin like iron shackles. His eyes darkened, pain flashing behind them before twisting into anger.

"I did not throw it away," he hissed. "It was taken from me."

Aerilaya wrenched free, stumbling back, her hand flying to the jewel at her throat. The warmth of it pulsed against her skin, steady, grounding.

"No," she said, her voice gathering strength. "You chose this path. You chose darkness over her—over us. You deceived her, even when she begged you to turn back."

She swallowed hard, her grief sharp-edged and burning. Then, her eyes locked onto his, ablaze with a fire that once—perhaps—mirrored his own.

"You killed her," Aerilaya whispered, the words laced with quiet fury. "You killed her with grief and sorrow."

Sauron's face contorted, a storm of emotion flickering across his features. For the briefest moment, he looked almost—human. Vulnerable. Lost.

But then, as swiftly as it had come, the moment passed. The mask of cruelty slid back into place.

"You speak of things you do not understand, child," he snarled, his voice like distant thunder. "The choices I made were necessary. The power I sought—it was all for her, for us."

Aerilaya shook her head, tears burning her vision. "No," she whispered. "It was for you. Always for you."

She stepped back, her hand clutching the jewel as its warmth pulsed stronger, as if responding to the storm raging between them.

"She loved you," Aerilaya continued, her voice trembling with the weight of truth. "She believed in you—until the very end. But you twisted that love into something unrecognizable."

Sauron's eyes darkened, a tempest brewing within their depths. For a heartbeat, Aerilaya saw something fracture—a glimpse of the man from the vision, the one her mother had loved, the one who had once spoken her name with reverence.

But it vanished just as quickly, swallowed whole by the abyss.

"You know nothing of what transpired," he snarled, taking a slow, menacing step forward. "Nothing of the choices I was forced to make. Of the sacrifices—"

"Sacrifices?" Aerilaya’s voice sharpened, cutting through the air like a blade. "What did you sacrifice, truly?" Her eyes burned with accusation. "Your conscience?"

Sauron recoiled, his expression flashing with something that might have been pain. A wound long buried, suddenly laid bare.

But then, just as quickly, he recovered. His features hardened into a cold mask of fury.

"You dare speak to me of sacrifice?" he hissed, his voice low, dangerous. "I, who have given everything for the greater order of this world?"

He advanced, his presence suffocating, shadows pooling at his feet like a tide of darkness.

"I offered her the world, Aerilaya," he continued, his voice thick with conviction. "A place where she could walk unshackled by the burden of the Morgoth’s curse. We could have been a family still." His expression twisted, anger warring with something dangerously close to longing. "She threw it away."

Aerilaya did not move. Her heart pounded in her chest, but she stood her ground.

"She wanted none of that," she retorted, her voice steel despite the tremor in her breath. "She wanted you. The real you. Not this..." she gestured at him, her voice thick with sorrow and rage, "this twisted shadow you've become."

For a moment—just a moment—his mask cracked. The glimmer of something human, something aching, flickered behind his darkened gaze.

But then it was gone. Replaced by cold certainty.

"Mairon died long ago," he said, his tone eerily calm. "And even if your mother still saw good in me, it would have never been enough for her."

He sighed, almost as if speaking to himself now.

"She doubted me at every turn," he murmured, his eyes dark, distant. "Held onto petty notions of the being I once was. Redemption is not earned through love. It is earned through peace. Through order."

Aerilaya's heart clenched, a storm of emotions surging through her—grief, fury, pity.

"You still don't understand," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Sauron’s eyes snapped back to her, narrowing into dark slits of fury. "What don’t I understand, child?" he hissed, his voice low, dangerous—a blade hidden in shadow.

Aerilaya stood firm, though the weight of centuries pressed down upon her shoulders. The chasm of loss and betrayal stretched wide between them, yet she did not waver. Her emerald eyes burned with an unyielding fire, one that would not be swallowed by darkness.

"Love," she said simply. The word hung between them, quiet yet powerful.

Sauron scoffed, but there was something in the way his jaw tensed, in the way his hands curled into fists at his sides—something that betrayed him.

Aerilaya pressed on.

"True love doesn’t seek to change or control," she continued, her voice steady despite the tremor in her heart. "It accepts. It nurtures. It grows."

Her fingers curled protectively around the jewel at her throat, its warmth a steady pulse against her skin, as if her mother’s spirit stirred within it.

"She saw the light in you," Aerilaya said, her voice softening. "Even when you couldn’t see it yourself. She believed in you. She chose to believe that the goodness in you had not been completely consumed by shadow."

Sauron’s expression twisted, his features contorting under the weight of something unspoken.

For a fleeting moment, she saw it—the ghost of the man from the vision. Mairon, standing beneath starlit blossoms, his clear blue eyes alight with devotion, his hands cradling her mother with reverence.

His mask cracked.

Pain flickered across his face, raw and unguarded. His lips parted as if to speak, but no words came.

Then—the moment passed.

A flicker of grief. Then fury.

Sauron’s face hardened, his expression twisting into a snarl of denial, of defiance. His eyes burned with something dark and unrelenting, swallowing whatever brief weakness had surfaced.

"You speak as if love is some divine force," he spat, his voice laced with venom. "Some unshakable power that bends the will of all who encounter it. But love is fragile, Aerilaya. It is fleeting. It fails."

His gaze darkened further, shadows coiling around him like living things.

"And when it fails," he whispered, stepping closer, his voice dangerously low, "it is nothing more than a weapon. A tool to shackle and blind those foolish enough to believe in it."

Aerilaya’s breath caught in her throat, but she refused to step back.

"That’s where you’re wrong," she said, her voice like tempered steel. "Love is not weakness. It is not a weapon. It is the one thing the shadow will never understand."

Sauron's expression flickered—an almost imperceptible hesitation. But then his fury returned, colder than ice, hotter than flame.

"Then you are just as blind as she was," he said.

Aerilaya’s grip on the jewel tightened.

"And you," she whispered, "are more lost than I ever imagined."

For a moment, silence stretched between them, heavy with everything unsaid.

The silence stretched between them, heavy and suffocating, thick with all that had been lost. Aerilaya’s words lingered in the air like a final judgment, reverberating through the shattered ruins around them. For a heartbeat, Sauron remained still, his face carved into an unreadable mask.

Then—he moved.

Faster than a striking viper, his hand shot out, reaching for the jewel at Aerilaya’s throat. His fingers, cold as iron, grazed the silver chain, but she was faster.

With the reflexes honed by centuries of battle and bitter expectation, she twisted away, her grip closing protectively around the gem.

"No," she breathed, her voice barely more than a whisper—yet filled with unyielding resolve.

Sauron’s eyes ignited with fury, but beneath it, something flickered—something darker, rawer. Desperation. Or perhaps—longing.

His gaze burned into hers, his presence suffocating, his form wreathed in shifting shadows.

"Give it to me," he snarled, stalking forward with slow, deliberate steps, a predator cornering its prey. "It was never meant for you."

Aerilaya stood her ground, her heart hammering, but her grip did not falter. She could feel the warmth of the jewel pulsing against her palm, steady, unwavering—a heartbeat not her own.

"This was hers," she said, her voice a quiet storm. "It was forged for her—by you. You cannot take back what was freely given."

Sauron’s face twisted, his expression unreadable, torn between anger and something far more dangerous.

"I forged it," he murmured, his voice low and almost reverent. "I shaped it with my own hands, with light I captured in the fires of my own making. It carries a piece of her—and a piece of me. It belongs to me as much as it ever did to her."

Aerilaya’s fingers tightened around the jewel.

"And yet, she chose to give it to me."

A muscle in Sauron’s jaw tensed. His fingers flexed at his sides, as if struggling to contain himself.

"She is gone," he said at last, his voice quieter now, but no less sharp. "Clutching that trinket will not bring her back."

Aerilaya’s breath shuddered through her, but she lifted her chin, emerald eyes locking onto his with unwavering defiance.

"No," she said, "but it will keep you from defiling what remains of her light."

For a fraction of a second, something flickered in his expression—a shadow of the man from the vision. A sliver of grief, buried so deep beneath centuries of cruelty that it barely existed anymore.

But then, just as quickly, it was gone.

Sauron’s face twisted into a snarl, his eyes darkening into fathomless voids. The air thickened, pressing against Aerilaya like an unseen force, the very atmosphere trembling under the weight of his wrath. Shadows coiled at his feet like living things, writhing, shifting, reaching—hungry.

"You speak of defiling her light?" he hissed, his voice a blade honed to cut deep. "I sought to build altars in her name, for all to revere her as I did. To worship even one like you."

He took a step forward, his presence suffocating, his movements slow and deliberate.

Aerilaya did not move.

Then, to her surprise, he reached for her.

His hand, cold yet impossibly gentle, lifted toward her cheek. She did not flinch.

For this moment alone, she allowed it.

His fingertips brushed her skin, a ghost of a touch—something that might have once been tender, but now felt like a whisper from the past.

"You are as beautiful as Lúthien herself," he murmured, his voice softer now, almost reverent. "A flame of eternal light, carved by the hands that shaped you—the hands of a Moriquendi and a Maia."

Aerilaya’s breath caught, not from fear, but from the weight of the truth in his words. She had always known her lineage, but to hear him speak of it—to acknowledge it, to honor it—felt like standing at the precipice of something ancient and powerful.

But she would not be swayed.

She reached up, her own hand closing around his wrist—not in acceptance, but in restraint.

"You speak of worship," she said, her voice steady, unshaken. "But worship is not love."

His expression flickered, a crack in the stone.

"You claim to have honored her," she continued, her emerald eyes burning. "Yet you destroyed all that she held dear. You claim to have loved her, yet you twisted that love into a cage. And when she could not live within it—you let her die."

A shadow passed over his face, something dark and deep and aching.

His fingers twitched against her cheek—then withdrew.

"You think you know love," he whispered, his voice barely more than breath. "But love is a force far older than you, Aerilaya. Older than even I.” He paused. “I never meant for any of this, never meant to drive her away. I only did as I saw fit.”

The silence between them stretched, thick with centuries of grief and regret. His words had settled between them like the final toll of a bell, reverberating through the shattered remnants of all they had lost.

Sauron—Mairon—stood before her, no longer the unshakable force she had always known him to be. His expression, once so meticulously controlled, had fractured. His shoulders, which had borne the weight of ages, sagged as if the truth she had spoken had finally sunk its fangs into his very soul.

And yet, his eyes—once dark voids of hunger and fury—now shimmered with something Aerilaya had never expected to see.

Tears.

"You're right," he whispered, his voice raw, brittle as glass. "I lied to myself. I twisted the truth until I could no longer see it."

His eyes drifted past her, lost in the ghosts of what had been. "I loved her," he continued, his voice breaking under the weight of the admission. "More than anything in this world or beyond it. But I was afraid."

Aerilaya’s breath caught in her throat. She had never imagined she would hear such words from him, the being she had spent a century despising, the one she had blamed for all her mother’s suffering.

"Afraid of what?" she asked softly, hardly daring to believe this moment of vulnerability.

Sauron's gaze remained distant, unfocused, as if he could still see her mother standing before him, radiant in her love.

"Of losing her," he murmured. "Of being unworthy of her light. I thought... if I could reshape the world, make it perfect, then perhaps..."

His voice faltered, dissolving into silence. He looked lost—adrift in memories of what could have been.

Aerilaya swallowed against the lump in her throat. Despite everything—despite the devastation he had wrought, despite the choices he had made—she ached for him. For the father she had never truly known, the man who had once cradled her in reverent hands, who had adored her mother beyond reason.

"But you did lose her," Aerilaya whispered. "By trying to control her, to reshape her world, you pushed her away."

Sauron's eyes snapped back to hers, a storm raging behind them. "I never meant—" he began, but the words faltered, as if they no longer held weight.

For a long moment, the air between them was thick with everything unsaid, everything too late to change.

Then, slowly, hesitantly, Sauron reached out.

His fingers trembled as they hovered near the jewel at Aerilaya's throat—the very last remnant of her mother, the final link to a love long buried beneath centuries of ruin.

"May I?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

Aerilaya hesitated. Her instincts screamed to refuse, to pull away, to protect this piece of her mother from the very man who had driven her to despair.

But then she saw it—the vulnerability in his gaze, the unspoken plea buried beneath the weight of all his sins.

Slowly, she nodded.

His fingers brushed against the jewel, and in an instant, it pulsed with a brilliant, ethereal light. A warmth unlike anything Aerilaya had ever felt surged through her, spreading from the gem and wrapping around her like an embrace. A love so pure, so fierce, it stole the breath from her lungs.

Sauron gasped softly, his eyes widening in something like awe.

"She’s still here," he murmured, his voice thick with wonder and grief. "After all this time..."

His fingers lingered on the jewel, and for the first time in all her years, Aerilaya saw the impossible.

A single tear slipped down his cheek.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice breaking. "I'm so sorry."

The words hung in the air between them, fragile and raw. A confession years too late, yet filled with a depth of pain Aerilaya had never known he was capable of.

Her hand moved of its own accord, covering his where it rested on the jewel. Its warmth pulsed beneath their joined fingers, a steady heartbeat of light and memory.

"She loved you," Aerilaya said softly, her own tears falling freely now. "Even at the end. Even when it broke her heart."

Sauron's eyes met hers, and for the first time, she saw the full depth of his torment—centuries of longing, of regret, of sorrow so vast it threatened to consume him whole.

How long had he endured, shackled by the choices he had made? How many times had he dreamed of her mother, only to wake in the darkness of his own making? How much had it destroyed him to know she had chosen peace over him?

Aerilaya saw him now—not as the tyrant, not as the Dark Lord, not as the shadow looming over Middle-earth.

But as a man.

A man who had once held everything—and lost it all.

Her grip on the jewel tightened, and she took a shaky breath.

"Is this what you wanted?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Sauron blinked, his brow furrowing. "...What?"

"This," she gestured around them—the ruin, the darkness, the power that weighed so heavily upon him. "Did it bring you what you wanted? Did it ever fill the emptiness?"

A muscle in Sauron’s jaw twitched. He looked away, but not before she saw it—the hesitation, the doubt.

The answer was there, unspoken.

And for the first time, Aerilaya saw it.

He did not know.

For all his centuries of conquest, for all his hunger for dominion, he did not know if it had ever been worth it.

And that was the greatest tragedy of all.

#sauron x reader #sauron #annatar x reader #annatar #trop fic #rings of power fic #the rings of power

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