#the silmarillion fanfic

[saintstars]

Touch became a second language to them. Not more than any another close friendship might have even though both knew there were other things going on below the surface. They walked arm in arm around the garden. Sat leaning against each other on benches and sofas. When it had become late at night Indis would lead Nerdanel to the door like she had done that first time.

Have you read @oakenting’s gorgeous Nerdis fanfic yet?

[hobbitwrangler]

out of the water, cold and blue

Prompt: Númenor for @tolkienhorrorweek day 7

Summary: As the seas grow restless, Elendil feels a presence drawing near. He is less and less sure that it is friendly.

Character(s): Tar-Míriel & Elendil

Rating: T

Word count: 4.8k

Warning(s): body horror

Elendil could have wept for joy when he realised that he was being haunted. It had begun with small things. Hearing a voice in the whisper of the waves at dusk, a voice that his servants assured him, eyes darting meaningfully at each other, was not there. Familiar music seemed to rise with the sighing of the wind, as if just beyond the next cove the old palace minstrels of his youth played on, before ever Ar-Pharazôn first thought himself worthy of infamy and renown. The past, he thought, standing upon the balcony outside his chambers, nagging at the edges of his mind, reaching out to him through the veil. A deep, yearning ache ran through him, standing before the night and the wind, listening to those sounds calling from the darkened sea. And yet it was all easily dismissed. Men hear many things on the sea wind, both imagined and best avoided. 

Then there had been that feeling, walking along the sea shore, clambering over the rocks in search of what he did not know, that just at the edge of his vision someone was following him. Nimble feet leaping silently from barnacled rock to barnacled rock, never slipping on seaweed or slime, hands fluttering like butterflies in the cool, sharp air. He had said nothing this time, had let the phantom follow him. If it were a conjuring of his imagination it was best left alone and if it were not, maybe his silence would encourage it forth, like an animal which retreats into its den at the sound of Man’s approach but can be lured into the light if one feigns disinterest. It was so familiar, not in the way of someone that is known but something that is cherished, loved, home. He thought it was his wife, poor fool. He wondered if she hid from him because she thought he would be afraid of her, but for those few precious days of delirium, of imagining that he saw Mirima's face reflected in the rockpools as he walked, there had never been a man more happy to be haunted than Elendil. He would wonder afterwards whether there had been something sinister to it all, to the whispering voice and the music and the shadow on the edge of his mind, a malice that he had missed in his desire to hold onto someone long slipped from his grasp. Or maybe he had not missed it. Maybe he had not cared, had only reached for the feeling of home, neglecting to remember that the home in question was a dark, dead thing, fallen into the unforgiving depths and weighed down with the screaming of the doomed.

AO3 link - lovely dividers by @saradika-graphics

[searchingforserendipity25]

Daeron/Maglor "...because the world is ending"? 😚

Hi @polutrope <3 This one one has been living in my docs as Daemags date night (the night to end all nights) for a month. Here it is at last!

The Night to End All Nights

Daeron had been deep into the roadless deserts, when Arien fell - her last blazing sunset had lit the dunes with dreadful beauty, rose sand purples and a red redder than red.

Then, the quiet. Handfuls of stars, snuffed out one after another.

He made his way onwards. Once, the land had not been desert; once, there had been paths of cobblestones paved with sound craft, and there had been chariots, carriages, riders and companies making their ways from glorious cities whose names were lost in the dust, removed from the world entirely, if not for Daeron's memory.

Daeron lived much in memory, now. There the dry well, there the empty streets of the empty city. Here, a deep-rooted peach tree had grown, where only a gray husk remained - he had gathered wild fruits from its generous boughs, shared them with an old enemy in the shelter of its shade, licked the juices from his fingertips and wrist and mouth until he shook as finely as the green leaves in the summer breeze.

Wherever he passed the land groaned with its own undoing.

Beleriand had been thus ruined, in its moribund years; but this was a ravaging wasting sickness, not a wound upon Arda to be solved with the amputation of one continent or another. Above and around and in all places a hundred, a thousand birds flew madly, till they dropped exhausted upon the last grass of the last spring.

The matter of the sky splintered and rained down great boulders of iron that shook and shattered the earth, smoldering with a fell fire, all the hard stone of the mountain ranges shaking and shaking like a single fevered body, bound up in strange resonances of power. One fell near enough to him that the raised dust clung to his lungs and fouled his throat for a time: and then Daeron grew afraid, for a time, shaken from the clear, beautiful rage against Morgoth into fright.

The cough passed, slowly.

The very air grew colder, made cruel without the sun. The waters grew wilder, without the moon; and all creatures grew despairing and violent, in the absence of starlight.

Still: Daeron went onwards. There was a great epilogue to judge - he was not a light-hearted critic, but he did intend to be there at the end, and at the start as well.

And he had an appointment to keep. They had agreed on this, a long time ago, and Daeron for his part was determined to cross crevasses as needed not to be the faithless one.

He had not thought Maglor would fail to be there. Not truly, in any case - not this time.

The land leaned towards the gaping of the world, its old longing for water calling out so starkly it was almost a song. This place had been full of life, once: a lake with many small islands, many new-made voices raised in song rippling the waters.

All the little water that remained reflected only darkness above, darkness around. Not enough remained of the waters of Cuiviénen to be drunk. Daeron’s torch lit it like the flare of a false moon, fading as passed it by.

It was quite beautiful, in its way. All things were unraveling to Song at last: the last fields of grass clinging to the cliff-side called out a rustling wind-song even as they turned to ash, glorious a rush of Music with the memory of the seed’s patience in winter and the growing rush of spring turning to the conflagration of summer.

Daeron closed his eyes. Did he weep, at the beauty of it? He could not sing. It was not time, yet; his voice curled thick and urgent in his aching throat, waiting.

They met at the very edge of the shoreline, where the whitewater rush of the shattered Encircling Sea broke into the gaping maw of the Void. The fall was very steep, the precipice very high, taller than any tower ever wrought. The sound of the water was an unnerving, slithering quiet, for it fell through fogs and mists; and the fall had no end.

A single raised light flickered, there where crumbling stone and air met, but the burned hand that held it up did not flinch from the licking slants of wind-swept fire.

“You are late,” Maglor said, chin raised. His voice, too, was less splendid than it might have been. Certainly less proud. Daeron’s heart turned in his chest, treacherously fond. “And I see you have not even brought any wine, either.”

“It was your turn to bring the wine,” Daeron pointed out. His words rasped in his throat a little, at the start. “I brought it last time."

"Forgive me! If it is any consolation," Maglor said. "I crossed the lands where the marketplace where those sweet bean pastries you loved once stood. Alas! Nought but ruins remain. There, here, everywhere! I had half a mind to start without you."

"That is well enough," Daeron said. He felt a little drunk already, dizzy with terror and Maglor's proximity.

His face caught the torch light, his eyes very bright. Maglor smiled at him. It was an effort - he could see the ancient grief moving in his face, a depth like the strata of the earth being pressed away to make room for it.

They had met on appointed dates two dozen times altogether. By the white piers of Belfalas or the moors of Arnor, sharing the same flask under the vibrant stars of Rhûn’s fields. Brushing knuckles; pressing their mouth’s where a touch had been, in the indulgent absurdity of second-hand lovemaking between two ancient creatures.

They had met. Not many times, but often enough; and always at the parting, regardless of how sweet or how bitter it might be, there was the renewed promise. We shall meet at the end! Even when it had been said in contempt and fury, and the end of the world not long enough to suit the day’s rage.

It passed, the anger. When one lived as long as they did, it grew very difficult to cleave to anything for very long. Grief was a habit, and singing duty and care and craft; all the rest passed and thinned as mist in the sun. Until they met again - until they met each other, and all colours grew bright, the winds colder, the summers gentler.

Daeron waved it away, lightly, light-hearted. O, he felt mad, trapped against the great maw of the black night - but a strange thing very like a laugh trembled on his throat.

"I know I shall! That is not my concern. I knew you would not start without me,” Daeron said. "I could not doubt it. And yet I am glad that I was late; I could not know how much of gladness remained, before I saw your light in the dark, waiting."

“Then I am glad," Maglor said, and the salt that clung to his hair prickled Daeron's nose when he neared. "Though it was a cold wait, and the journey colder still. You give me too much credit. For once! But I could not tarry. There was nowhere else to walk to, nor any other place I could wish to be."

“It is quite beautiful,” Daeron said, looking upon the cliffside. His eyes strained to see the scant starlight reflecting on the distant spray, silvering the night for brief instants. “In its way.”

“The sea was more beautiful,” Maglor said. "Its white sands and silver pebbles gleaming, and the black basalt sand of the Western islands. Gone, all gone! Now we are islanders only, the Encircling Sea the only sea; and its waters fall beyond reaching. I miss the sea-that-was, though it never did thank me for my company."

The mountains were gone. The fallow fields, and the valleys with their crumbling walls left abandoned in long lost days - the great cities of Men, one empire after another devoured by a greater and most ancient greed.

They had seen many kingdoms rise and fall together, over time; but there had been a constancy in that, not this absence of voices and wills, this death-bound silence.

It had not been often that they had wandered together for long. That was a thing neither of them could withstand easily - not they, minstrels to the dead, whose last elegiac duties were not suited to company. Their paths diverged, coming apart to come together again, and there had been joy too with every bitter parting. But they had agreed on this, under the light of the stars, Ages ago. Cuiviénen, at the end of all things - this much, at least, when the time came, at the end.

Daeron laid a hand on his cheek, and felt the warmth of it with a dizzying desire. So it would be this, then, he thought. The last touch; the last kiss, soft as a balm, a vertiginous fall into an embrace from a height no lesser than the sundered face of the breaking world. Daeron held him close with fierce hands, chased the stains of bitter soot on Maglor’s heeks with his mouth, tangled his fingers in braidless curls as dark as the night.

The last, the last! His eyes stung. Daeron was greedy, at the last, covetous with love as had ever been his vice, slow to relinquish. Love renewed all things, even grief; though the grief of Arda's fall had seeped into him into a killing drought, and no more tears remained in him to be shed.

The Music murmured its own last notes, a soundless song of mingled joy and despair.

More despair, at the end, and Daeron had feared, feared, feared it tremendous, more than the Starkinder's defeat or the death of all fruiting trees. Wandering alone in the lightless dark, voice failing and nothing listening, he had thought on the Theme and feared there would not be enough of joy, in the end - had judged his purpose beyond himself, all of Melian's careful and wise tutelage wasted and worn through.

So it had been, in solitude.

"Sweet Daeron. Forgive me,” Maglor said once more, sighing against his neck. His solid warmth was no greater than the flame's, wavering much as Daeron wavered on his feet. "I bring no gifts, and my might is diminished. The melody is yours, if you like. It is not wine, but it might suit your tastes as well, or better."

"It shall be," Daeron said. He knew it as he spoke, and almost laughed for how clear it was to him; he gripped Maglor's hand tightly. "But not mine alone, I judge; for are we not both singers of laments? One last paeon, then: and let not all things that were good and great and terrible fall unremembered, while there is breath with which to sing them."

Above them and around them the last stars went pale, and weary, and dead. The two torches flared, faded, lost the last of their fire.

Then, the quiet. Daeron stepped back. Raised a hand, to mark the time.

It was very easy, after all, to sing together at the end of all things: easy as summer, even in the dark.

[flameunquenched]

wrote a little sauron ficlet mostly to try to get him to pipe down in my head so that i could write LITERALLY ANY OTHER CHARACTER. it failed. so i threw it at @silmarillisms as a present. then she made me post it on ao3. so i did.

there's some angbang if you squint. like a lot. like a whole lot.

[blueflipflops]

Have you ever read a really good fic then looked up the author's other works and lo and behold a treasure trove of fics that are exactly your kind of shit? Because god that is what euphoria feels like. I love you random fic writers i unexpectedly find

[kazz-brekker]

tolkien's tendency to leave women off of family trees is annoying to me not just because it's an overall trend in fantasy novels that i wish wasn't a thing (to quote arya stark, the woman is important too!) but also because i desperately need to know who celebrimbor's mom was and which elf lady made the bold yet fantastically bad decision to marry into the house of feanor.

[ylieke]

"And Melkor entered his realm. And the Dark bowed before its Lord, and came apart in the light of Silmarilli. The creatures of the night prostrated themselves on the ground in hopes that they would be spared and his heavy gaze wouldn’t fall on them. Sauron bowed low, pinned down by the terror that like a cape was draped over the Fallen Vala. He relinquished all the power he held in his absence and laid it for him, as a servant must." An illistraion for the "Play with fire" fanfic by @eternal-fear

[sandmoer]

“Sorry… my city can no longer provide shelter for a creature as beautiful as you. ”

A rare respite from two years of torture.

[whovianofmidgard]

I've heard of preferences both ways as well as dislikes over which is better from ao3 users: have a one-shot collection in a multi-chap format or put one-shots into a series for fics in the same verse/connected storyline. So I place the question before y'all

Edit: I see some of the replies say but this poll is NOT about collections with multi fandom works. That's a discussion for some other time. This poll is specifically for fics that take place in the same fic narrative/AU. Please keep that in mind

Please reblog for reach

[thewickedspinster]

Of Eternity (Thranduil x Reader)

pairing: Thranduil x F!Reader

synopsis: Thranduil and Y/N know each other from what seems like a past life; one that both would rather forget. Once secret lovers, hidden from the prying eyes of the Elvenking's court, the two elves' disagreements became too much, their opinions too divided. Y/N departed for Rivendell and sought shelter with her friend, Elrond. But when the Elvenking of Mirkwood comes to parlay with the Lord of Rivendell, he once again meets Y/N, and someone else who looks awfully familiar...

warnings: afab!Reader, pregnancy, elf children, war

Tathrenion = son of one willow-made

requested by @starlight5cat

Of Eternity

In Rivendell, the seasons turned as flowers bloomed; with a sudden burst of color against the greys of winter. They came and went quickly for elvenkind, rising and eddying like the tide, and with them came new wonders and sounds, new flavors. Song.

Y/N could hardly remember a time when her life was not dictated by these rhythms, when time was so magnified as to hear her own heartbeat, to watch the sunlight catch upon a dewdrop. Though, it was not so long ago she was in a place where seasons hardly touched, where time stood still and light lingered in honeyed moments. Where her breath raced in her body, and youth stretched into eternity. Where naïveté was all too familiar.

Here, she had more responsibility. Here, she was unequivocally welcome. When she had fled the confines of her life before in Mirkwood, where she had been daughter of a Ñoldor house descended from Fingolfin, and gone westward into the Misty Mountains, she had only hoped her old friend, Elrond, would grant her sanctuary. He welcomed her with open arms. Here, she sat on his council of advisors. Here, life was warm and full of light once more.

For a short time of twenty-odd years, there was peace east of the Misty Mountains. Though her cousin Galadriel could not believe it, it had appeared the dark servant of Morgoth named Sauron had been vanquished. The grey elves lived in peace with the sons of Durin and helped the wayward man, but kept to their forests and their mountains. All had seemed well, and with the protection of the haven of Rivendell, the darkness of old seemed unable to touch her.

Such comforts cannot last. Not so long as Morgoth and his fell creations plagued Arda.

As soon as word reached Rivendell of a darkness fallen upon southern Mirkwood, Elrond sought Y/N's counsel.

"You know the eastern forests well," Elrond said softly, guiding them both down towards the river. Water fell in a gentle curtain of silver ahead, glinting in the moonlight. "What sort of evil could cause these things?"

The pair ducked behind the waterfall, and the sound of rushing water hushed their voices. There hidden was an alcove, large enough for a small group, with cushions surrounding the burnt-out embers of a fire. Elrond had come here often in the early days of ruling Rivendell, and when Y/N had arrived, had brought her here in her most vulnerable moments.

"The Elvenking's Halls are to the north, but in my many wanderings, I went south," she answered, settling on the floor alongside Elrond. "Mirkwood is vast and its creatures untold, but I have never seen anything that would produce this sort of rot."

Elrond hummed, deep in thought. Elven and human messengers alike had been passing along rumors of dark creatures in the southern Mirkwood, things that walked on more than four legs, with slavering maws and the stench of evil surrounding them. Elves who more often ventured south returned with harrowing stories of voices, of song coming from the dark trees. The canopies had grown so thick that sunlight hardly reached the ground. Some had even reported sightings of Orcs.

"You know what this means," Y/N said, interrupting Elrond's reverie. "Galadriel was right. She was always right. We cannot know that Sauron is vanquished. We burned no body. Isildur brought no head. Only the Silmaril."

"There are no credible rumors of Morgoth's creatures, Y/N."

"There are," she insisted. "They have started calling this force 'The Necromancer.' This is no coincidence, Elrond. All evil in these lands comes back to Sauron. To Morgoth. So long as their discord remains, none of the children of Eru are safe."

Beyond his red head, with his noble face, the silvered water fell in sheets, dulling to a gentle sheaving. Waiting. When he raised his gaze, he said, "What would you have me do?"

Galadriel would have them go to war. Though she had grown less brash since the last age, she had grown no less desperate for Sauron's defeat. But Rivendell was a haven, a place of peace for wandering elves. She could not see amassing forces and marching to Mirkwood unaided. Besides, it was not Elrond's territory to march on.

"You know exactly what you must do, my friend," she said at last.

"You do not like him."

"What of it?"

"He is the reason you fled your home."

It was true enough, though it still gave Y/N pause. Mirkwood had been a home for long centuries, it was true. But before that, she had known the lushness of Beleriand, and the glory of Númenor. She would always be a wanderer. But the Elvenking of Mirkwood brought with him memories too fresh to be painless.

"He is the lord of Mirkwood, and should you wish to do anything at all about this rising evil, you must first confer with him," she said firmly. "Invite him here. Invite his entire court. They will leave Prince Legolas to guard the north, but Thranduil will come."

"I would have you by my side upon his reception."

Y/N caught the glimmer of ancient mischief in Elrond's eyes, and offered him a faint smile in return. "It would be an honor."

~~~

Word came within a fortnight that the Elvenking's party would embark on the Elf-path by the full moon. This gave the people of Rivendell little time to prepare, but showed Elrond and his council how dire circumstances were in Mirkwood.

As Y/N stood at Elrond's side on the dais before the sweeping steps to the city, she knew that in this matter, as all others, that Thranduil would be stubborn, cunning, and seemingly omniscient. It was in his power as king to appear so to his people. But Y/N, he could not fool. She and Elrond would simply need maneuver with tact, to force Thranduil into showing his hand.

In the distance, the royal traveling party rounded a bend and came into view, the Elvenking in his raiment of grey and silver astride his great antlered steed. From here, Y/N could feel his piercing gaze upon them, focusing on her at the Lord of Rivendell's side. Robed in rich, dark green against Elrond's golden raiment, Y/N stood tall. A circlet of gold sat upon her brow, and in it, an opal enshrined. Befitting of her station, she stood to Elrond's left, his wife Celebrían to his right.

Y/N had known true fear in the face of evil, yet facing the Elvenking of Mirkwood after these twenty years turned her chest cold. She could never fear him - she knew him too well, but that was just the problem. They shared a deep past of friendship, of love, forbidden though it may have been. And pain, at the last. Since their parting, she had, for the first time, lived many secrets that she kept from him still.

The party finally arrived at the dais, the great reindeer's feet clapping against the stone as thunder. The Elvenking dismounted, stepped before Elrond, and inclined his head.

"Lord Elrond of Rivendell, you honor me with your great hospitality," he said formally, the Sindarin tongue rolling like quicksilver from his mouth. "And Lady Celebrían, thank you for welcoming my host into your household."

Elrond, Y/N, and the council assembled bowed to the king.

"We are pleased you answered our invitation," Elrond replied, his tone, as ever, one of deliberate lightness, as if he knew something no one else did. "How long shall you stay?"

"A week," Thranduil said shortly. Finally, finally, his silvered eyes shifted to Y/N. She breathed in deeply. "There are matters to attend to in Mirkwood."

"I do hope Prince Legolas is well," she said softly, smoothly.

Thranduil looked momentarily surprised she'd spoken, his eyebrows drawing together at the sound of her voice. "He is taking to his responsibilities well."

A moment of silence passed. The river roared below. Then, Celebrían was taking gesturing towards the king, leading him away into the great wood house of Rivendell.

Formal greetings complete, the rest of the crowd quickly dispersed, and elves moved swiftly in preparation for the feast prepared in the king's honor. Soon, only Elrond and Y/N remained. She watched the sun setting over the vale, eyes fixed on the rushing waters surrounding.

"Will you tell him?" Elrond asked, voice so quiet only she could hear.

"How could I?" Y/N whispered. She felt her fingers tremble.

"It is unfair to -"

"You shall not tell me what is fair or unfair, Elrond," Y/N whirled, suddenly furious. "You know not what it is to have my fears."

Elrond held up his hands. "I only wish to say that truths are better spoken. Deception is the chaos-sower."

"It will put him in danger."

"It will give him power."

"A curse," she hissed. "A bounty upon his head."

"Or a crown."

She stared at her friend, stunned. "You do not mean that."

Elrond only watched her in return.

With no words left between them, Y/N turned and disappeared into the house, bracing herself for the week to come.

~~~

It was the fourth day of the accursed sessions of counsel, and Thranduil had still not admitted there being any disturbance in Mirkwood. He spoke on matters of trade, of agriculture, of relations with Khazad-Dûn, but nothing of the murmurs from the Sutherlands.

Y/N was beginning to lose her patience.

Elrond, blessedly, had more of it to spare. Ever the diplomat, he listened to Thranduil's concerns and complaints of their relations, and constructed plans to fix them. Ever the master of compromise, he kept Rivendell's secrecy and best interests at heard. Ever the more patient of the two, he kept prodding the Elvenking towards revealing his secrets, to no avail.

Y/N sat, posture relaxed, around the dais at the center of Elrond's pubic chambers. The elves around her deliberated, debated, while she kept her mouth closed. As Elrond's chief advisor, her primary duty was to listen. She interjected when Elrond looked to her, and when someone said something entirely ludicrous. Elves tended to take a laboriously long time to come to any sort of agreement in politics, and were reasonable to the point of boredom. Y/N's engagement had thus far been minimal, though she heard all.

They had turned to the topic of weapons, and of Rivendell's protection. They were inching closer to the topic at hand, but she knew Thranduil had a deep well of patience, particularly when it came to dealing with elves. The high noon sun blazed down on the white marble.

"How have you fared in the training of your ranks?" Thranduil inquired, sipping at a goblet of honeywine.

"The archers excel, under the tutelage of Sindarin masters," Elrond said. "The swordsmen, under that of the Ñoldor. Khazad-Dûn has agreed to provide us with weapon designs, and with materials to forge them. Durin is all too happy to help an old friend."

Thranduil scoffed lightly into his cup. "Old friend, indeed."

Y/N sat up straighter at the tone, the scoff. She had heard it many times. "Prince Durin has provided us with an excellent relationship over the years. He is a close friend to Rivendell."

Thranduil looked at her, through her, in her. Before her mind's eye flashed his face, poised over her, abed. Soft candlelight shone from beyond his features, and his face was softened into the loveliest of smiles. Gone in an instant.

Just then, lithe footsteps from just inside, and bursting from behind the curtains came three elven children, small and laughing. A maid reached out, trying to snatch them by their tunics, but too late. They sprinted into the circle, and straight up to Elrond.

"Father, we would like to go the Gates," one boy panted. Elrohir.

"Apologies, Father," the other interjected, suddenly serious. Elladan, his twin. "I told him not to come."

"Our swordmaster is at the Gates, and asked us to join him," the third explained. Y/N sat forward, staring down at the boys.

"Tathrenion," she said severely, hiding the quake to her voice, "you know not to enter this chamber when Lord Elrond is taking counsel."

The third boy, unlike the other two, with (Y/HC) hair and striking grey eyes, paled, bowing to Y/N. Even when he straightened, he kept his eyes averted. "Forgive me, Mother. Elladan and Elrohir wished to go, and I wished to accompany them."

It was only then, as the boys turned to glance around at the present company, that Elrond spoke.

"You are in the presence of Thranduil, Elvenking of Mirkwood."

Shuffling, with a soft gasp from Elrohir, the three boys bowed low to the king. Thranduil said nothing for a moment. Instead of on the children, his eyes were pinned on Y/N, wide with unbridled shock. When he finally did look at the boys, at the one called Tathrenion, he found his own eyes staring back, steady and calm.

Thranduil stood abruptly, setting down his goblet. He opened his mouth, closed it, then said, "We shall eat. Elrond, you shall decide what to do with your sons."

He swept off the dais, out of view, and Y/N was left staring at the spot he once occupied.

"Go after him," Elrond murmured to her, leaning close.

"Tathrenion-"

"Leave the child to me." And an unspoken promise to keep her son safe.

Y/N was up in an instant, following in Thranduil's wake as quickly as possible. But he was moving fast, and kept dodging out of sight, around corners that he did not know. Servants moved out of the way as Y/N passed through an adjoining kitchen at a sprint, intercepting Thranduil as he rounded the corner into the next room.

She caught him by his elbow as he tried to pull from her grasp, but she held firm.

"Thranduil," she said. "Stop. Just... Stop. And listen."

His rage made his jaw tight, his brows drawn low. "I will not stand here and listen to you when you have -"

"I had to leave," she interrupted, holding his gaze unflinchingly. "I could not be your concubine, Thranduil. I would not."

He scoffed, that same sound he made when he thought someone foolish. Beneath him. It hadn't started this way, but as they fell deeper into each other, he'd started scoffing at her the same way. It was part of what drove Y/N away from Mirkwood. "You were not a concubine, Y/N."

"Then tell me what I was to you."

Thranduil bent lower, so their faces were inches apart. "You know exactly what you were to me."

"I know that I was not your wife." And that was venom in her tone, sour and deadly.

A shadow passed over his features. "You were everything she was not."

"And that makes me whore to a king."

"You have never been a whore!" He shouted.

The surrounding house went quiet. Y/N trembled, fingertips numb.

"Tathrenion is your son," she said lowly, practically hissing into his mouth. "Your son, Thranduil. Our place in Rivendell is of your doing. You never recognized what it was to be in my place, with no guarantee of my safety in your court."

"I always would have protected the both of you."

Tears gathered in her eyes. "Our love felt increasingly fragile. I doubted that it even existed any longer. Had we been found out, I doubted you would protect me from exile."

Thranduil was quiet. The house had moved on from his sharp outburst, exhaling as his anger passed. Y/N's grip loosened on his tunic, her truth spoken. But her touch lingered.

"Did you know?" He murmured hoarsely.

"Not when I left your halls. Not until I reached the Misty Mountains."

"And all... went well? With the birth?"

Elven births were rare, and dangerous for mother and child. "Blessedly, Elrond's midwives and healers some of the most gifted, and I healed swiftly. He was born squalling."

He loosed a soft breath, and some of the tension left his features. He had always been beautiful, but it was when he was away from prying eyes that he truly became ethereal. Radiant. Himself.

"You should always have been in Mirkwood, with me." She just looked up at him. "I am sorry, my Y/N. I never meant to make you afraid."

"It is safer for both of us away from you and Legolas."

Thranduil snorted. "My son has proven impertinent. And lacking the character to succeed me."

"He will mature," she said softly. "He is young still."

"He will have to fight soon."

"Then this Necromancer..."

"Is a threat. Whatever darkness lurks in the south of my lands, it is dangerous and spreading."

"Tell Elrond," she urged. "He wishes to aid any fight against Morgoth's darkness in these lands."

"My forces are strong."

"They will be stronger with Rivendell's. Don't let your pride cloud your judgement."

At that, a small smile graced his mouth. "That has always been your advice for me."

"It will always stand. Unless you change."

"Would you come home?"

The question surprised her. "You would have us? So soon after the death of your wife?"

"I would have your company," he said. "And I would have my son raised by the both of us."

Y/N did not have an answer, and she was about to say as much when a smaller voice said, "I would like to go to Mirkwood."

Y/N whipped around, and found young Tathrenion standing behind them. She took a large step away from Thranduil, then lowered herself to her son's level, steeling herself.

"What did Lord Elrond tell you and the twins?" She asked.

"He said we may go to the Gates, but I decided to stay behind." Tathrenion peered past Y/N, to the Elvenking. "I wished to speak with you."

Thranduil could hardly stomach looking at his son's face, the very reflection of his own, untouched by age yet full of a strange wisdom. "Speak, child."

"I know little of why my mother left your kingdom, but I know she has done everything since for my sake. Please, do not ply her with false hopes. If you invite us to Mirkwood, you pledge to keep her safe."

"And you," Thranduil answered immediately. "I will protect you both, and welcome you into my household in places of honor."

Y/N was speechless, her throat swollen around pride for her young son.

"I know you not, Your Majesty, but I would like to," said Tathrenion simply.

Thranduil smiled.

Y/N sent him on his way, leaving her alone once again with the Elvenking. This time, he reached out to her, and against logic, she stepped into him, leaning into his fingers upon her cheek. She had longed for his touch, his kiss, his steadfastness ever since she left the forest. Leaving Mirkwood had been one of the hardest decisions of her long life.

"Let us think about this," she whispered. "And let these diplomatic matters be done first. Speak to Elrond in earnest."

"I will wait for your return to my side, Y/N," he murmured. "I have been waiting since the moment you left."

~~~

Dappled sunlight shone down upon the glade, lighting the page Y/N read. It was a letter, signed in Elrond's familiar hand, detailing the phalanxes marching towards Mirkwood. They would join Thranduil's army in patrolling for evil in the south, just as they had hoped.

Amongst the trees, a young boy laughed, and an older one hollered. Legolas was nearly fully mature, but had taken to playing with his younger half-brother in earnest. Together, they romped through the forest, and Tathrenion adored having someone elder to look up to and learn from. He excelled in archery, now, thanks to Legolas's tutelage.

A hand wrapped around her arm, pulling her backwards, and she fell upon Thranduil's chest. He was stretched upon the grass, feline at ease. She luxuriated in the feel of his body against hers, in his fingers in her unbound hair. In his mouth, pressed to her shoulder.

She had refused to take him to bed since her return, but she had begun to let him back into her heart. He had honored his word, and the loss of his wife had left him in need of comfort, in need of counsel and a tender hand.

Besides that, over honeywine in the candlelight one night in Rivendell, he had finally told her he loved her. Words were the playthings of elves, and though they meant little to some, they meant everything to Y/N. She opened up visions of the future that had ere been clouded.

"Of what do you think, my love?" Thranduil breathed against her skin.

She came back to the dampness of the grass beneath them, the golden green of the canopy above, the laughter of her son in the distance. The warmth of her king at her back.

She smiled. "Eternity."

[edennill]

edit: vague warning for... slightly weird/positive explorations of mortality? I feel like a non-zero number of my fics should come with this label.

***

reasons elros became mortal:

i. Ever since he was a child, there was sometimes, at the very deepest reaches of the night, a longing that threatened to swallow him whole.

ii. Elrond handles the charred edges of philosophical texts by candlelight, and Elros looks over his shoulder and is struck with a flash by the way he is looking for something that doesn't seem to exist in the world. His brother doesn't like to hear him speak of it, but they whisper about it in the night, days they are both at camp and share a bed against the harsh northern cold, and there is a togetherness in those moments that mere wondering cannot break.

iii. His people need him, don't they — those bright-spirted, brightly-burning, strong-willed remnants of three tribes, four, maybe more, whom war has formed into one. He doesn't know when they became his, but they are, and he will not forsake them.

iv. All the Vanyarin commanders would stop saying that at fourty-two he is still a child. Hopefully.

v. He could not stand it if he had discovered everything there was to see in the world and found the last path into mystery closed.

vi. There was a young soldier, a boy almost, with such very wide open eyes as he watched him die on his command and he'd like to say sorry one day.

vii. He has not yet been asked if Maglor and Maedhros mistreated him by a mortal stranger instead of a greeting.

viii. Conversely, no mortal has yet offered him whispered help in disposing of Gil-galad.

ix. That little girl of four or so in a dress of pale Telerin sailcloth who pressed what must have been the last wildflower in all of Beleriand into his hand.

x. Her great-grandmother who fed him broth and said he reminded her of her sons when they were younger.

xi. He'd be able to tell lightbulb jokes about elves.

reasons elros almost didn't become mortal:

i. Elrond.

[saintstars]

Findis voted most likely to slap Feanor for bullying her brothers, Lalwen most likely to hold her back

[hobbitwrangler]

Trick or treat! 🎃

Sorry for taking so long to respond to this, my response has been sitting in my drafts for weeks waiting for me to just spellcheck the damn thing but finally I have done it and here it is!💚

One day, but not today

Elros/Elros' wife | G | 3k | AO3

Idhrenwen had woken with greater energy than normal that morning, and had immediately strategised how best to take advantage of it. She had told her maids that she wished to have breakfast with her grandchildren, ignoring the sceptical looks that they exchanged. It annoyed her sometimes, the way that people would exchange glances and whispers as if she were not capable of noticing, nevermind that her eyesight and her hearing were not what they once were. Yet she refused to let it grate on her nerves, and so she had enjoyed her breakfast with her grandchildren. Elros had been gone already at that point, risen to complete who knew what business. He had always kept strange hours, and Idhrenwen was long accustomed to it, so she set to questioning the grandchildren about their latest adventures, letting herself bask in their simple troubles and their youthful faces and their bright eyes. After breakfast, she had roped Tindómiel into walking about the gardens with her, listening to her speak of her studies and absorbing the scent of the blooming roses all about them. That had been more tiring than she expected, and she had allowed herself a nap after that, waking up to discover with relief that she still had the urge to do more. By that time the news of her sudden burst of energy had reached her husband and when she was departing her chambers she found herself face to face with Tar-Minyatur himself.

He came to a halt directly beside her as she closed the door to her chambers, and she wondered if he had timed his arrival for exactly the moment that she would be awake and upright. Tall and unwearied, he towered above his subjects, even those ever-taller younger generations. When they married, Idhrenwen had begun wearing heeled shoes but in recent years they hurt her feet too much and she was forced to contend with craning her neck again. "Where did you spring from?" she asked, beginning to walk in no particular direction.

He fell into step beside her, arms folded innocently behind his back. "I hear you have been doing the rounds today," he remarked, ignoring her question.

Ah well, she could tell by the simple tunic and the well-worn boots that he had been outside, likely occupied by practical rather than official duties.She fixed her eyes on the faint line of dirt beneath his scrubbed clean nails rather than see the look of faint concern that she knew he wore. They both knew what that burst of energy meant in the sick and the old. "Hardly," she said lightly, brushing one mottled hand over his own. "I managed a few conversations with the grandchildren and I pestered our daughter for a while."

"I heard," said Elros, and she heard that fond, slanted smile in his voice. "She was very pleased at your pestering."

"Good," said Idhrenwen. It niggled sometimes, the feeling that she was an aged burden, weighing down a family whose elven blood rendered them so strong and beautiful and unmarred by the passage of time. The enchanted, faery beauty that surrounded the royal family always fell apart somewhat when she appeared, an old woman, out of place among beings cast in the mould of the Eldar. She was worried about being left behind sometimes, although there was little time for such thoughts now. You will not be left behind, she thought wryly, you will simply leave.

Elros hummed to himself, and she wondered if he could hear her thoughts. He likely could. He had the habit of answering questions that she was sure she had never asked, consoling her for worries that she had never expressed. "Well, how do you feel about a more relaxing afternoon?"

"How so?" she asked, finally tilting her head back to catch a glimpse of his face.

He smiled down at her, eyes the grey of a peaceful sea, captivating in a way that no mortal’s should be. "Come watch the birds with me."

And so here they were, her seated on a soft cushion for her aching joints and him seated on the flat stones of the riverside. It was a warm afternoon, the effect of the sun softened by the shade of the trees and a soft breeze moving through the woods. Elros had insisted that this area of woodland near the palace be preserved and, in deference to their new king’s elf-strange ways, his people had obliged.

He sat beside her, alert and watching, his eyes scanning the woodland and the river below for any sign of life, his notebook open on his lap to take note of anything to remark upon. He had spotted a kingfisher nest when they first arrived and had been occupied for a while, watching the parents feed their young, before his attention was drawn by a heron, which had appeared to watch them with a somewhat suspicious look in its eye.

“How many of those do you think you have by now?” Idhrenwen asked, gesturing at the notebook.

Elros took a moment to refocus on what she had said, before tilting his head in thought. The sunlight filtered down to bathe him in warm light, shining on his long, black hair, his face, with its strong nose and bright eyes seeming only stranger and more beautiful. He looked exactly as he had upon their first meeting, a creature just on the other side of mortality, fair and strange and young. She, on the other hand, could have been another woman. Long ago her russet hair had faded to white strands, curls lost to age. Her face had shrivelled and her body had shrunk, rheumatism and other ills freezing her joints. "Your eyes are the same," Elros would tell her, smiling as he brushed her hair and helped her prepare for bed at night. “River-water under sunlight.”

“Oh, there must be at least one hundred,” said Elros lightly. “They shall take a while to catalogue, certainly, but imagine the picture they shall paint of these lands and all that dwells here!”

Idhrenwen smiled to herself at that. Elros was not afraid of the world about him, not even wolves or bears gave him pause; indeed she suspected that much fear, of death, of foes, of the terrors of life, had been burned from him long before she met him. “There is beauty in this world, no matter how briefly its colours show,” he had told her once, when they still barely knew each other. “And I intend to see it, to make it bloom again, another year, if I can.”

She would have thought one who loved beautiful things would have remained with the elves - indeed she had told him so - but he had only shaken his head. “Simply because a thing lasts does not make it beautiful. The age of a thing does not give it meaning.”

Elros’ voice brought her out of her musings, lively with delight. “Not just a picture of these lands either,” he remarked, holding up the notebook so that she could better see it. 

He had flipped back a few pages to show a drawing eclipsing his notes on squirrel populations. It was a drawing of Tindómiel, smiling her father’s smile, pearls gleaming in her hair. “And look …” He flipped back a few more pages to reveal another drawing. An old woman bent down beside a small boy, arm extended to point something out to him. Me and Aulendil, she realised, recognising the curious look on the boy’s round face. Yes, it truly was her; that wrinkled face, that hooked nose, those embroidered robes and heavy earrings.

“You are making me look awfully callous, guren mell,” she remarked, tugging affectionately at the soft material of his tunic. “All of my notebooks contain nothing but cold facts. What shall they say of the Queen’s heart?”

Elros laughed, a sound so merry that she thought the trees would dance. “They shall say that it was full of the ancient wisdom of her people and the great legends of Men, while her husband wandered in the woods and made his little scribbles.”

That was not true, and they both knew it. As was his way, Elros had thrown his all into his chosen people, into their safety, their strength, their wellbeing. That Númenor stood as it did today, that Armenelos gleamed so brightly in the setting sun, that they were a whole, united people despite all that had befallen them before their journey here, that was all due to him. There was a reason that they had chosen him as their king and it was because they loved him, as he loved them. 

It was hard to remember, sometimes, whether she had loved him first as a king or as a husband, and she had long since given up trying to decide. It was impossible not to love him, she thought, and she was sure, after hundreds of years, that it was not simply the first flush of ardour talking. How could one not love a person so full of life? She had thought it was because of his elf-blood at first, that the glow of immortality must still hang about him. Yet she had met elves since then, and now she was certain that it was simply Elros, and he was indefatigably alive.

Unlike you.

“You know I still wonder that it is real,” she heard herself say. “All that I have been since I was born. That we are here. That I am Queen Nolwendë of the an island born out of the sea. That I have lived so long and seen so much that my mother would never believe …”

“You suit it,” said Elros. "Being a creature out of legend."

She would have doubted him, in the early years. Despite all her bravado, she would have doubted him. She knew some had thought her impudent, out of her depth, attempting to make that strange, beloved almost-Man her own. She had not truly known then, what it would mean, would never have visualised herself as she was now, living in a great palace, her clothes heavy with finery and the weight of her position. She had been caught up in it all, in the heady strangeness of new life and new beginnings and the weight of all that was to be remembered and all that was to be built and all that was to come. And yet even if you had known, you’d have been too stubborn not to forge ahead anyway. And maybe that was why they both sat here, enjoying the forest's calm, because they had both been stubborn enough to try.

Elros’ gaze had wandered to the riverbank, where two otters were splashing in the shallows, chittering and squabbling until they caught his scent. They tilted their heads to one side, looking at him with bright curious eyes. They did not seem afraid of him, rather mildly curious. Maybe they smelled the blood of the Eldar in him or, even fainter, that of Melian.

“It’s like a story,” Idhrenwen remarked to herself.

Elros looked up at her again, inclining his head to indicate that she should continue. “How many stories do you think there are from the dark years, about faery kings stealing fair maidens?”

“I don’t know,” said Elros, meeting her gaze squarely and with an impudence that none of her grandchildren would ever dare display, and sliding into Taliska. “Tell me, Wise Rune of the House of Hador.”

She attempted to slap him, but he caught her wrist, his grip warm and firm as he laughed. “I meant no insult,” he protested, grinning as he reached to grasp her other hand. “Please do tell me, wise one.”

“I have told you it before,” Idhrenwen chided, leaning closer and trying not to smile. “In fact, I remember I began to tell it to you on our wedding night and you would not let me finish.”

“Because I could sense that it had a sad ending,” said Elros firmly, “and I will not have anything to do with that sort of thing.”

There was a long pause. In the silence, Idhrenwen could hear the sighing of the trees, the gentle music of a thrush, mingling with the soothing whisper of the river. It was just like all those years ago, the two of them wandering beneath the trees, her recounting the tales of her ancestors as he helped her across a chattering stream, him attempting to explain the difference between Noldorin and Sindarin jewellery fashions while they gathered herbs, both sitting in silence and enjoying the humming delight of simply being next to each other, watching the sun paint the sky anew. It was easier, within the white walls and intricate comfort of the palace, to withdraw into their ceremonial roles, to hide behind the day-to-day of living and not face the winding inevitability of time.

I will not see the season’s end. They both knew it, but he refused to say it, staring in silence at the river. She knew he did not wish to speak of it. After all, they had spent so many hours discussing it when they were young, huddled beneath the cover of the trees as it rained above them, her knees touching his as they attempted, with minds still so young, to wrestle with the question of his version of mortality. She could remember those moments so vividly, and thanked the Valar that her mind remained clear even if her body was so diminished. She could smell it, the rain on the damp earth, the scent of tree sap and autumn, could feel his hands grasping hers, his thumb rubbing gently against her skin. For all his choice, she thought, looking at the fair being before her, caught between Elf and Man, scarcely changed since those rainy afternoons beneath the pines, he might as well be immortal as far as I am concerned.

Enough. They had had their conversations about all this, and now that it was close, it seemed Elros could not face it. That worried her. She worried what would become of him when she died and all the hypotheticals that they had discussed beneath the pines became real as salt sting in the eyes.

She reached her hand to touch his shoulder, still solid and strong beneath her thin fingers. As if sensing what was to come, he inclined his head, those soft grey eyes taking her in as the breeze cast a strand of black hair across his face. It was loosening in the wind, rogue strands rippling and tangling in the silver and pearl earrings with which he adorned his ears. A gift from Tindómiel, she remembered.

"One day," said Idhrenwen gently, "I am going to die."

They were heavy words, and yet it felt strangely liberating to say them, to hear them mingle with the soft sounds of the river and the forest. I said it, and the sun did not cease to shine.

Elros’ eyes became heavier, his one hand grasping her wrist as the other held hers tightly. "Yes,” he said softly. “But not today."

Yes. But not today. And he was mortal, she realised then. One day, I will die, but not today. Today, I am alive, and I can smell the earth beneath the sun. A pointless defiance in the face of death. It is coming. But it has not come yet. Maybe that was what mortal life was then, a defiant shout into the ungrateful silence. Echoing. She wished to speak then, to point out that while it might not be today, it would come, and swiftly. And yet it was pointless. He had weighed this all up before, had decided, had made the choice of Lúthien. And then he had married her, had chosen to lose her even as he took her unto himself.

"And when you do die,” Elros continued, not breaking her gaze, his voice still gentle and warm as the caress of his thumb against her skin, “I will carry you in my heart until the day I go to follow you and find you among our forefathers and our friends."

And there it was. For all his youth and his elfen beauty and his eyes of things from beyond the sea, he would follow her. It will be just like when we were young, when I led you to the hidden temple and you fell behind. She could remember that so clearly, standing upon the crest of the hill, heart thudding at the thought of showing him what only the wise women of her people knew (and yet what did it matter, they were leaving anyway soon), taunting him for being bested by mortal kind.

"I am sorry I must leave you so soon," she told him, freeing her hand so that she could run it through his hair, soft and warmed by the sun.

Elros smiled a little, caught between tenderness and sorrow. "I am sorry I must follow you so tardily."

That made her smile then, despite the pricking behind her eyes. They had both heard of elves fading after the deaths of their beloveds but, no matter how it would hurt, how he would mourn, he would linger, to look after their people, to watch their children and grandchildren grow up, to count the kingfisher’s children, seated in a row open a tree branch. "You always did take the long way around."

"Always,” he laughed. “But I will go to you with gladness."

"Good,” said Idhrenwen firmly, cupping his face as she met his gaze, ever-strange and more familiar than her own reflection. “I will be patient. So long as you look after the birds and the otters while I am gone."

Elros smiled, inclining his head and planting a kiss on the knuckles of the hand he grasped. "Whatever my Queen would wish," he said, and Idhrenwen felt the sun bathe her in adoring warmth.

ask box trick-or-treat - lovely dividers by @saradika-graphics

[pursuitseternal]

Hello my partner-in-crime!

Could I pretty please have Sauron x Reader with prompt number 7: "Can you feel how much I want you?"

Love you! ❤️😘

“𝕿𝖔 𝕭𝖊 𝕽𝖊𝖒𝖆𝖉𝖊…”

First Age Sauron x f!Reader | Dead Dove | 3.7K

Summary: There is no hope in Angband, in the dungeons of the Dark Vala…. But there is the Servant. Sauron.

A master craftsman and artist, forever seeking perfection, obsessed with creating his own beauty, and yet a victim of torment by his master that twists his sense of creativity to something vile and precious only to him.

CW: Dead dove: Do Not Eat, graphic violence, torture porn, bondage, temperature play, forge sex, corruption, marking branding biting, mind breaking, mind control, body worship, First Age Sauron, if evil why (literally) hot

Ao3 link | Tolkien Masterlist

You can see your breath, hear your heart beating slower and slower with each passing hour. Languishing. A slow death. A painful death. A merciless one that meant to break you without hope.

There is no hope in Angband.

Even the floors here are ice. Not even prison rats scurry around your cell. Your pointed ears have long grown deaf to the noises of the dungeon, numb from the icy chill of this evil frozen North. The chains on your neck and wrists have long since frozen to your skin. Death will be a relief, you sigh, when once again you’ll see the shores of Valinor and find comfort in the Halls of Mandos.

That thought makes your heart warm just enough to last a few more beats. But then you hear them—footsteps—lighter than Orc, more graceful than Balrog… and your body stiffens as you hear that sound on the icy air.

Humming. Music. Means one thing. Ainur.

Please not the Dark Lord, you beg to divine forces too far away to hear you. Your pleas have fallen on deaf ears. But you hope not this time.

“Do not fear,” that voice croons from the shadows. His presence seems to instantly thaw your extremities, warmth seeping in where there had only been cold for so, so long. You see eyes and movement in the darkness, but from his stature and bearing, you know it’s not the Lord of Angband…

It is the Servant.

His gaze is sharp, eyes darting over your crumpled mess of a body nearly frozen to the floor. His hair is bright; reds like blood and oranges like flames hang in long waves down his back and shoulders. His voice seems to tickle right in your ear, even at this distance, even as he stalks closer towards the bars of your cell. “Do not fear, I’m here to free you.”

“Wh-what?” You croak, the truth of those words do not deceive you, no matter how much you long for them to be true.

Those lips twitch as with a wave of his hand, the iron door swings open, the groaning hinges echoing against stone. “Well,” he suddenly sounds sharp, exacting, “free you from your cell, Elf. You are by no means free, not in body or in will, nor will you ever be again.”

Reality smacks you, your chest constricting.

“The Dark Lord has no need of such a small, frail Elf like you,” he strides in, grasping your chin in fingers impossibly hot. His touch sears like the fires of the forge, the stink of brimstone and smoke fill your nose. “You’d make a weak, pathetic Orc.” Then he shoves you by your face back to the ground at his feet. Your manacled hands catch yourself just in time to keep your nose from smashing against stone.

“Fortunately, what is unfit to serve the Master is deemed worthy of his Servant,” that voice returns to such silken, lilting tones, and you look into his face. His bright brown eyes rake over you, assessing and evaluating your worth, as if you were a precious gem examined for the flaws in your cut.

Those eyes, the more you stare into them, the brighter they seem to shine, a mix of golden browns that bubble and simmer with flame. You see them, the ripples of his power that creep beneath this disguise of a mortal form. “Come,” he orders you, those frozen irons and chains melting from your skin to clatter on the floor around you. “There is much work to be done.”

His grip on your wrist tightens, and you realize with certainty that his skin is hot… flushed and searing you by touch alone. It would frighten you, if it wasn’t for the sense of reprieve it gives from the biting cold that has settled in your bones from your imprisonment. If anything, you draw your scantily clad body closer to his, seeking that thawing sensation…his black robes barely brush your flesh, The bared skin of your arms, even patches of your torso where your gown has shredded to rags with violence and time crave to be nearer.

It feels so… good. After so long in the cold alone, to feel another’s touch, it makes you melt. He guides you through the dark, and even though your jaw aches from that fleeting ferocity in your cell, you can’t help but wish for more warmth shared against your skin.

The memory should terrify you but… it doesn’t. Your mind only remembers how good those fingers felt, their warmth, their command…

And you crave more against your better judgment. You would call it hope, but there is no hope in Angband. No hope. Only craving. As if you know that the only thing that awaits you is fire and blissful burning.

Shadows deepen as you walk, those brown-orange eyes flicker at you beside him as you both ascend the darkened stairs. That scent of smoke and ashen stone that clings to his skin suffocates you. Your frail lungs burn with every inhale, and as you reach the ascent, you see why.

No ice prison, he’s brought you to a massive forge. Torches burn and flicker, but no light is brighter than the gaping maw of a furnace. Orange flame reflects in his eye as he scans you. Grip deathly tight on your wrist, he leads you with graceful movements… lithe and sinuous. Like a snake.

Like a predator stalking his prey.

The faintest of smiles turns his full lips, and he stops you beside a great metal anvil… wide and long and big enough for any great creation. You recall the tales of such things from those of your kind who had come from Valinor, from the workshops of Aulë himself, or of Fëanor and his descendants.

It is on this warm, dark metal that he effortlessly lifts you up to seat you. Its surface is roughened with divets and grooves, the scars of the Servant’s work spanning its face. That relaxing heat creeps through the skin of your ass and climbs your spine until you feel a smile stretch on your cracked lips.

His fingers wander their soothing touch over your collarbone, the slightest push guides you to lay back on the heated anvil. You stare into the ceiling, seeing only the gathering darkness offset by rippling steam and flickering light. His touch continues to dance on your chest, tracing the parts of you where starvation has prodded your bones towards the surface.

And that sharp face, that handsome face, smiles… so warmly. “The Dark Lord insists that we each are forged in the shadows, that what has once been bathed in the light is made anew in the dark. Morgoth’s way is to maim… to ruin and torture and kill the light of beings he drafts into his service…”

You see a flicker behind his eyes, a memory of his own past perhaps, you surmise. A recollection none too pleasant as it darkens his gaze and stiffens the corners of his smiling lips.

Then, he turns that smile down upon you, spread so perfectly on his anvil. “But such is not my way. I am no jailer or executioner. I am an artisan, a craftsman of greatest skill, and I shall make you anew, my treasure.”

His fingers trace your gaunt face, warming it, caressing the spots that have grown stiff and lined with fear. His voice is dulcet, sweet and singsong as he purrs down, and you want nothing more than to feel those full, smirking lips on your skin and taste the sweet promises that drip from his tongue. Before you even realize your need, before you can name your inner burning as desire, two words fall from your panting mouth. “My Lord…” you whisper.

And the Servant smiles. It’s radiant, a flash of brightness in his eye and a brilliance to his grin. But he tuts his tongue, chiding you for the youthful creation you are. “Tsk, none of that. I am no Dark Lord. I am called many things… Admirable, Abominable… Gorthaur… Sauron…”

His hands come to rest at the top of your throat, a slight pressure around your neck as his thumb traces your lower lip.

“But you, my treasure, you shall call me by one simple word…. Hîr.”

Master.

Your breath catches in your burning lungs, your tongue already noiselessly testing out the syllable as it dances at its tip.

His reddish brows arch, pleased at your submission as he can see every little twitch of your mouth.

“You are a rare beauty,” he whispers, “the undiluted blessing of the One shines in the skin of the Elves, their eyes still bright with the memory of the Two Trees…”

He peers into yours, almost wistful, as if he longs to catch a glimpse of that Starlight to capture for his own. Sauron lowers his mouth, hovering just out of reach of your own lips. The scent of his forge is so strong, you can taste it, you are lost in the wash of his singeing breath on your face. “Hîr,” you obediently rasp, arching off the anvil to catch his lips.

And he lets you, lips and tongue so overwhelmingly warm, there is no sensation in your body other than his mouth as he devours.

Wave after wave of his mouth on yours, you fail to sense the snaking of chains around your arms and legs until they have chinched themselves bitingly hard into your flesh. Then you panic, your heart thundering no longer from pure arousal, but that wild rhythm of racing fear. You tug at them, fight them, and with one last desperate plea, you beg for Manwë, Varda… Eru himself to hear you.

But there is no rescue, no whisper of a reply to your prayers.

There is only Sauron’s shimmering toothy smile in the dark as his eyes dance over your form… spread so perfectly for him to work with. “Do you know, my treasure, why I’ve loathed the beauty of the Elves? Eru chose to bless you, to gift your kind the wisdom and graces first given only to me, to my kind… and you squander them. You cannot fathom, cannot see the greater purpose such power could serve.”

He’s pacing between your body and his tools, spread so evenly and orderly beside him. A long iron brand in his grip, he sticks it in the opening of the furnace.

The hissing of metal heating makes you shiver. Makes your skin crawl.

Fingers pull away the rest of your rags, baring every bit of your taut skin to his flickering gaze. “You are beautiful, but it is shallow, it is false. And I, my treasure, will purify you. I’ll remake you in my image and likeness, a thing of incomparable radiance ....” You whine as his hands wrap their warmth around your breasts. “You now are a thing to be admired… as I once was,” he croons down at you, pulling your ass to the edge of the anvil, your chain impossibly tight around your arms, breaking you in their unyielding hold as your legs hang down precariously.

Those lips press searing kisses down your neck, over the places where your mortal heart is thundering. His eyes flash up at you, and in that moment, you swear you see the reflection of the furnace beside you. Or perhaps it is more… the power that lies barely concealed in this handsome, sensual form. Those full lips wrap around one nipple, then the other, an inferno drummed up at his call races through your veins.

It is agony, hot and wild, that courses in your flesh. Never would one of your kind be so… wanton. Lust feeds your form, every bit of your skin wants to be touched… and the more he caresses your breasts and trails his mouth lower over the hollow of your belly, the less you care if that contact is pleasure… or pain.

They are one under his command, your mind purrs to your reason. Every thought reduces to the mere sensation of his mouth, his hands that press now between your spread thighs. The moment his tongue touches you, parting your folds to taste you, an unholy sound tears from your lips. Flames pulse through your veins, every lick and swirl of his tongue draws ungodly ecstacy. You weep for the feeling, the overwhelming waves of pleasure he coaxes from your nearly-broken body as if he drew your very soul, your fëa, to the surface.

Words tumble from your lips, nonsensical and varied in language until it is one word over and over again. You rasp it, cry it, scream it as he brings you right to the edge of your climax… Hîr… Hîr… Master.

His laughter tickles your flesh and your mind all at once, the sensation of his presence in your skull and his tongue in your walls throws you into oblivion. Your climax slams into you, all fire and heat and tension as he withdraws from you in that moment of bliss. Your chain grows impossibly tighter as you convulse on the metal beneath you, and for a split second, you wonder where he has gone….

At first you think it’s the ice of your prison again that slices through the warm pool of pleasure in your belly. But then, you open your eyes… it is not ice but white hot fire on your skin as his brand marks your inner thigh. The hissing, the steam, the scent of charming flesh takes over your pleasure, stealing it from your body. And all the while, he smirks down from between your soaked thighs. Orange hair catches the glow of the brand as he lifts it, a satisfied glint in the flames of his own gaze.

Fear races down your nerves, every corner of your being screams at you to fight, to run and resist… the pain almost breaks through those tendrils of shadow that have woven into your senses. And now, as you inhale, you can smell it.

Death. Ashen and purifying. You see him, eyes ringed in flame and breath blackened like smoke… your heart could burst from your need to resist…

Until you feel his hands on your skin again, that warmth somehow driving the dread back into the recesses of your mind.

That teasing touch traces the prongs of his mark, three of them, ugly and deformed, a perversion of the pronged crown that rests on the Dark Lord, the Dark Vala’s head.

Your body shakes with the shock of pain, even as he presses his lips to kiss that angry flesh. “Ninya,” he whispers against it. Mine.

The pain intensifies as he removes his touch, the euphoria of your climax dulling to leave you with only the searing agony he’s caused in its wake. “Mine, and like me, you shall be remade from admirable to abominable… and I will always possess you.”

The sound of liquid swirls in glass, the soft tapping of a brush against its rim… he stands over you, eyes roaming your bared form and lingering on the places he deems most worthy… or is it unworthy?

“The light of the Valar still shines too brightly on your skin, so soft almost like pearls of the Sea… it too shall have to be remade,” he rasps. The black bottle in his hand coming closer, the wooden brush wiping the excess fluid before he brings it to your legs.

The bite of acid eats at your skin, burning you, tearing you inside out. That music in his voice invades your mind, warping the pain into a warm sort of pleasure. Every drip of acid on your flesh as he paints higher and higher… your thighs, your belly… it shifts into that hot coil of need roiling behind your navel.

He doesn’t slather you, he’s not destroying you… it’s painstaking and exact the way he draws into your skin, making it burn and hiss and bubble anew. Remaking. Whirls and swirls and swipes in the precise places his critical eye deems worthy.

It’s agony… blissful agony… Every scream from your throat breaks into a moan. The perversion of your pain into bliss brings a drugged sort of grin to your face. The grin of a fool.

He sets the brush back inside the bottle, his hand tracing the rises and valleys of your face, your sharpened cheekbones, the hollows of your cheeks. His fingers dance on your wincing face, warm and burning, a herald of the pain you know he’s about to inflict. Your heart will surely explode, and your death might just be the final offering you make… But then, he cups your cheek, fingers laced in the mess of your long and knotted hair.

“Don’t be afraid, my treasure. You are being oh so brave… oh so valiant as you are remade.” His kiss instantly numbs your pain and slows your heart, the torture of resistance in your mind instantly silenced. That coil of need flames anew as his hand wanders back over your mound, dipping that addictive touch into your slick.

You gasp, eyes rolled back, spine arching off the anvil’s metal. Then you look into his face, the abyss of fire and darkness behind his eyes sucks you inside, lost to anything but the sensations of his fingers that tease you and torture you in a different way. A more pleasing way.

His fingers slide so easily, playing you like an instrument in his grasp. Your moans are the melody of his composing, the bucking of your hips keeps a steady rhythm, one perfectly timed to the thrust of his fingers. His mouth on yours once more, the biting of his teeth on your lips, the growls of his own pleasure in his throat form a counterpoint so intoxicating, there is nothing left but the music of him finger fucking you.

All that pain that is bound in your nerves and coiled in your belly bursts… white hot and violent as you come. Then, you scream until your voice cracks, until your vocal chords are fried from the force and volume he demands from your spent form.

“Good, my treasure…” he rasps against your lips as they fall silent. “Ninya… you’ve done so well,” he purrs into your pointed ear as the world grows dark to your vision, as your body gives in and falls unconscious. Those little praises bring a twisted smile to your face as you drift into oblivion. “When you wake, you’ll be mine alone, mine forever… the most beautiful abomination I have yet crafted…”

And the final sensation to pierce through the veil of your slumber is the sting of acid on your forehead and cheek… the flicker of pain plunging you completely into the darkness at long last.

There is no hope in Angband… There is also no time. Only darkness and craving. Hunger and satisfaction.

Pain. And pleasure.

It’s a lesson you are taught nightly, at least you assume it’s nightly… whenever it is that Sauron returns to his chambers where you are kept sequestered away. The chains from his forge are gone, replaced with elegant links of gold and gem-entrusted trappings that hang on your frame. Your hands fiddle with them, where they drape down your arms in layers, where they sweep over your bare skin to your middle.

You’ve long forgotten the feeling of clothes. There is only the bed and your elegant chains, the heat of his touch and the sting of his biting teeth and burning brand and lashing whips.

You wish that your memories would dim… that the burden of your elven heritage would forsake you as easily as that fair, starkissed body you once called your own. Tears prick your eyes, your own fingers steadily tracing your once soft skin, touch dancing over blade scars and the rough ridges of his burning… the brands of his possession forever glaring at you from your thighs, not unlike those ghostly flickering eyes that haunt you each day… whether Sauron visits you or not.

“Mairaza…” the whisper brushes your mind before it settles in your ear. “My precious…” you’ve learned his new tongue… this speech he’s created for his servants, for you.

The warmth of his body seeps into you from behind, that scent of fire, of ash and smoke and forge excites you now… it conjures that swirl of damp heat in your cunt. Already you grit your teeth, craving in excess, hungering for more. The thin chains of gold and jewels clink and jingle as those calloused hands caress your body. He lingers over his marks, the scars of his pleasure-pain that have molded you into his own creation.

“Can you feel it, Mairaza, can you feel how much I want you?”

You clench around nothingness, hoping beyond hope that he fills you soon and grants you release this time.

Soft words of his own invented tongue purr inside your brain, praising your scars, the healed-over bubbles of flesh from that day he claimed you…

Sauron turns you, your attention lost in the bottomless depth of his eyes as those magical fingers caress the scars that curve in serpentine shapes over your cheeks. “Beautiful, so beautiful,” he rasps. “Can you feel how much I want you, body and soul?” his lips whisper against your own. “Can you feel how much you are mine, Ninya?”

The words do not come to you outloud; they flood your very being, racing to your awareness down the tether that binds you to him.

That taste of his mouth swallows you whole, and there is nothing left of hope and peace. All that remains is the fire of lust and the darkness of desire. You cannot escape, nor would you seek to anymore. No lies or deception are required any longer, for you feel his want and crave his attentions…

He is always in your mind, his marks always on your body… his greatest creation. For now.

A gift to @myfavouritelunatic for her ask, for @marimosalad for betaing and inspired by @ogyscrypt and his masterpiece of a nsfw audio you should totally check out… Link on Reddit

[rhosmeinir]

Fic drop! And now for something completely different: please enjoy my debut Rings of Power fic NOT IDLY FALL, a little angsty-hopeful oneshot inspired by the ever wonderful @camilleflyingrotten 's glorious art (used with permission).

[likesdoodling]

This is one of my one of my favourite scenes from The Harrowing by Chthonion-

This fic has taken over my brain. I will probably be back to normal eventually. Probably. In case it's unclear, we've got Celebrimbor, Finrod, Frodo, and Annatar (Sauron).

:D

I would highly recommend this fic btw, it's like a second chance/villain redemption fic, and it is really fun to watch Sauron struggle- *ahem* "Come to grips with how to be a 'good' person" and all the hilarity that entails. And feelings. And all that cool stuff.

:D:D

(I don't know how to link things btw- if I did I would)