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Prologue found here --> DS: Prologue

This is part one of 'The Different Story'. Technically. Anyways my beta hasn't finished rehashing my written bits... but I'll go ahead and just slap on my original writey bit and switch it out whenever she's done. I've become retardedly self-conscious (ok, MORE self-conscious) since getting someone to edit my stuff but I guess so long as any given person gets the gist of what I'm trying to write it's ok... maybe? I dunno.

I missed inking DS panels so dang much I had to do another even if technically there are already TWO others for this one chapter. Anyways these two pics are within this chapter, at least in essence. Honestly I couldn't rationalize Mairon wearing clothing if he were little more than a spirit... spirits don't wear clothes. That's the difference between drawing something for the purpose of nonsensical lovely art or writing something and not making it ridiculous. So this picture is how Mairon would actually appear - just a naked ass spirit who is insane as hell.

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Part 1:
It was gone. Everything. Everything Mairon had done. Everything he had worked so long and so hard to accomplish. All his clever schemes. All his wonderfully twisted designs that had come to fruition through so much blood, sweat, and tears, even if it was not always his own. His beautiful ring that had held so much of his power – his very being! - within its deceptively simple oval band. Gone. Like sands through his fingers it had slipped away, never to be reclaimed again. He had been marred before when he’d simply lost his ring but now it was destroyed and he was left as not even a faint shadow of his former self. He was nothing. Less than nothing. And why?   All because of a group of altruistic interlopers that could not leave well enough alone and accept their fate. A better fate than any of them could ever have dreamt possible! They were not worthy to live without his order. His shadow. His dictation. They needed him! They needed him to be their overlord, to hold their useless lives within his hands to control and do with as he saw fit. They were nothing and he was everything. He knew what was best for them all. Why had that been so hard to accept? Why??

But no longer… No longer. Never again. He was cast down unjustly and they celebrated his shadow’s dissipation. And who had done this? What great army had taken him down? None. He was undone by a hobbit. A hobbit! How could he have been destroyed by a hobbit of all creatures? Some little sniveling thing that was even less than a human was. He didn’t understand… He didn’t understand. It made no sense. But so little made sense. His mind had long since cracked and shattered into a million tiny pieces that he couldn’t ever hope to collect and fit back together on his own. Too long ago the grace of true sanity was lost to Mairon. Surely – surely! – those cracks in his sanity must have started at the end of the War of Wrath when more than a battle had been lost… So. Much. More.

How long had it been since his defeat? He could not even begin to recall. He had been too deranged and angered afterwards to even bother with something as frivolous as keeping track of the years that drug on after his fall. He had been nothing more than a vengeful wrath-filled wraith that tried viciously to let everyone know he still existed. Defeated he was, but dead he was not. But without a body or ability to mend his wretched spirit it was all for naught. He was damned to the purgatory of a changing world that he could only watch but never influence. Years drug into decades, decades turned into centuries, centuries fell away into ages that numbered beyond even those that had spanned his rule of Middle-Earth. The very foundation of the earth shifted and the landscape shifted with it. Portions of Middle-Earth broke away to become scattered islands, the earth’s crust crushed together beneath the seas to raise new lands above its surface, and others still were drawn beneath Ulmo’s waters to return again to his watery domain. Men rose to power, the elves became elusive, and all the beasts of darkness were scattered to the edges of the earth to give way to the ages of peace, broken up occasionally by petty squabbles between the free peoples of all races.

Mairon held onto his rage as long as he could as the world moved on without him, his name falling away into obscure legend that mother’s would use to frighten their misbehaving children, but even it was eventually taken from him. Once it burned out he was left with only the cold ash of empty despair that stemmed from his power forever lost, dismal existence, and inability to live up to the high set goals of his predecessor. He had tried. Oh, how hard Mairon had tried, but it hadn’t been enough. He wasn’t… he wasn’t Melkor. He could never even begin to compare to him in his opinion. He might have left his scars on the world but they were but ripples in comparison to the violent waves his master had wrought during his rule. No one could ever live up to the dark splendor that his beautiful dark one had possessed. His master. His better. His God. His sole reason for existing and the very reason his mind had dwindled into madness… All because they took him away and threw him out of his life. A piece of him had died the day Melkor had been viciously executed and his chained spirit hurled into the Void, effectively separating him from the one thing that had meant everything to him. How could he have hoped to retained his sanity to suffer this loss? He couldn’t have when he had loved him so…

Was it any wonder that with nothing but his abysmal despair to keep him company that he would begin to look back to memories that fell during his far flung past? He found no irony in the fact that his most cherished memories were those that spanned an age when he was not his own master but only a mere servant to another. Strange, was it not? That he had been happiest falling to his knees in worship of another than he had been with others falling to their knees in praise of him? But there had been so much more meaning to his life in that time when he had kneeled at the feet of his temperamental master, either delighting in praising gentle touches against his cheek that came in the wake of victory achieved or suffering his deserved verbal lashings marked by either his own or his master’s failures. More often than not it was praise though. His master could be cruel but it was a streak that he had typically and elegantly skirted where most others suffered its full fury. Not to say he had not suffered a misstep or two in his dance to find himself suffering the terrible wrath of his master’s scorn and hand… but still Mairon missed the days of that dance.

Oh, how Mairon missed Melkor… He had been everything to him. More than just the Dark Power who had shown him the error of the Ainur’s ways. More than just a mere master who had introduced him to a curious world of darkness. Melkor had been so much more to him and he had offered the man everything he could to make his dreams of claiming Arda for himself come to fruition; His council, his skills, his knowledge of the world beneath the physical, and his strength that he allowed the other to wield as he saw fit. He had proved his singular devotion to him in so many ways that went far beyond strategizing or the battlefield, ultimately earning himself the snide remarks of enemies and allies alike, but what could he have expected? Nothing. They could never have understood his deep-set love for his master so why should he have tried to explain it to them? In the end it was only ever his master’s opinion that had mattered to him and no others, so he never felt there to be a sound enough reason to try and explain himself. Ever.

So he had let the dogs have their bones to gnaw on and grouse over and he had, time after time, allowed himself to be pulled into his master’s bed where he bent to his will and bared more than just his body to him. Mairon had bared the answer to a one-time riddle; his heart, given unto his master in a myriad of ways. Through his adoring lips, kissing along the arrested scars of the man’s battle hardened body in an attempt to lessen the pain and ill-ease they caused their bearer. By caressing his master’s hair as he stretched himself out over the man’s ever cold body, offering him all the warmth and soothing words he could in a bid to ease his Dark Lord’s troubled mind. Through feeding into his master’s vanity and need to be in control, begging for him to fill him with his greatness until he was left with neither wit or feeling body over. And finally, offering his master what he delighted in the most; the last sliver of innocence Mairon had left to him which would only reemerge once his master had pushed him beyond his threshold of endurance, leaving him just as vulnerable as he had been the night Melkor had taken him fully for the first time. It had not mattered how spent his master was when his fragility presented itself, the man would always throw himself upon him as a beast and he would suffer through until his master would grace him with the sound of his song to ease his frightened cries.

There were so many wonderful memories Mairon had of his long lost master of whom he loved and who had come to love him in return. He had never known love like poison that burned just as painfully as a fire but it had been wonderful. It had also been just as frightening but it had been worth it, if only because he had been allowed to get close and offer his total affection to the one person that he felt he belonged. That he still belonged, no matter of Melkor’s absence. It was an absence he never forgot and it was this absence that was even able to poison his memories which had offered him some small comfort after his ruin. His thoughts became consumed by his master until his miseries of his fall from power became singular into the one brought about by the man’s prevailing absence.

Where once Mairon had tried to lash out at the evolving world he now only screamed with a voice that carried no sound, calling desperately for his master to return and bring with him his dark love that would be his salvation. He roamed the world’s unfamiliar terrain on feet he no longer possessed, his sanity – if it could even be called that any longer – devolving further to a point of blind hysteria as he lamented his master, returning to those places where great fortresses of the Dark Power once stood. Though he could shed no tears he still wept. Though he had no voice he still cried. Though he had no body he still tried to curl into the places where he remembered his master’s chambers to be. Mindlessly, he watched the sun’s ascension and decision across the sky a million times over until his already failing sight left him to become near blind, the frame of time meaning nothing to him until he finally gave up his wont to stalk the vacant grounds that once teemed with dark-born activity. Instead, he followed Arien’s blazing aura that burned him to look toward, suffering the pain so he could follow her light to the place where his master had been cast. It was how he finally came to occupy one of the small islands that had once been a part of the whole of Middle-Earth, his favored one floating just to the South of the Door of Night and the closet to the gateway. He had not the courage to approach the gateway itself though, fearing the guardian that oversaw it just as much as he feared the shimmering portal itself.

He remained on the island, continuing his unending grief as all his senses slowly began to leave him in silent darkness. He was not the least bit surprised when at last he heard a silent summons piercing through his near deaf ears, though it was the one summons he dreaded to hear, coming from none other than Manwë himself. Mairon had heard it before, after his crippling defeat and the destruction of Mordor, but he had ignored and fled from it, too intent on his wrath to consider heeding it. But now here it was again; Manwë’s call for him to return to Aman and to his feet so that he could be judged as was expected of him. Terrible fear arose in him to feel his grotesque shade of a body prickle from the sensation of eyes looking upon him, not needing his mind intact to know they were the far-seeing blue ones of Manwë. Despite the call and feel of the high king’s eyes on him Mairon refused to heed any of it, fear far outweighing his recognition of his accountability. He fled again from it, taking to wallowing in his misery in the darkest depths of the island’s groves, dreading the repercussions of his continued resistance and nursing the festering wound of his wanting heart.

On occasion Mairon would abandon the island to hide elsewhere when he became aware of a voice calling to him, the voice sounding too similar to Aulë’s to not fill him with terror. With nothing but memories of his former master viciously slandering his name and glaring at him with broiling anger after he had openly declared his allegiance to Melkor, Mairon could not imagine any other reason for the blacksmith to seek him out except to drag him back to his judgment, perhaps to even reprimand him himself. With such acute fear of his one-time master he always hid away during these times until the sound of Aulë crying his name faded away entirely and he felt it safe enough to return to his haunt of the Southern island. It was after suffering yet another visit of this ghost of his past that Mairon found himself in his current circumstance; clinging to the shadows of a small grotto, lamenting and warbling nonsensically long after Arien had disappeared beyond the Void’s ingress and Tilion had awaken to begin his cycle of night.

He did not know another had presented itself until he felt more than saw a towering figure lean over his spectral form of writhing shadows. Mairon’s limited vision did not allow for him to see this stranger clearly to judge whether it was of the ilk of men or elves or something else altogether, but he could tell they were garbed in dark shaded clothing and possessed a face so strikingly pallid in color it alit oddly when it caught the moon’s light. Honestly, the face gave him the impression that it might be a reflective mask rather than a face at all and at times he could just make out two other white splotches, hinting perhaps there was more than just the one face. To know this person was so close to him and very much aware of his presence fear was the first emotion to rise in him. The only reason he could surmise for them to come was because of the Valar, the kings and queens surely tiring of his refusal to acknowledge their calls and sending this person to collect him to bring back to the land he once called home. No more wishing to return to them now than before, Mairon attempted to flee but his flagging spirit did not listen to his desire to move no matter how desperately he willed it to. With no way to either defend himself or strike out at the other he was completely vulnerable to the mysterious figure and he did all he could; pull the whisps of his misshapen spirit as close to himself as he could, hoping the other would just leave him to his miserable madness.

Mairon expected the worst as the person bent over him and he felt a hand take hold of the blackened heart of his spirit; the thought emerging that maybe this creature was not a servant of the Valar but perhaps of Eru himself, sent with the purpose to finally end his existence. Rather than crush it the hand caressed the dim and barely pulsing spark and Mairon’s shade quivered. He found extraordinary pleasure and bliss at the soothing touch that was very reminiscent of the spiritual touches he used to receive from Melkor, those touches given when mere pleasures of the flesh were not enough to satisfy his master. Whether any other would believe it or not, even his dark borne master had desired the deeper connection that their physical bodies were incapable of allowing and in this moment Mairon could almost pretend it was his dark one’s hand stroking his heart of hearts and not a mere stranger…

Startling out of the induced hallucination of Melkor entwining his marrow deep within his own, Mairon became aware of a warmth that alit in his center, that warmth seeping out to the rest of his being. It was pleasant, not too unlike the prickling of a healers soothing magic but it went far deeper than the spells and enchantments of a healer. No healer, no matter of their prowess, could ever penetrate his naked spirit but this did and it felt… wonderful. Quick as the healing touch came it was gone though, the stranger gone with it to leave Mairon to himself again. He was aware of the return of some of his lost sight but his strength was just as non-existent as before and his mind still in shambles. He didn’t understand what the strange being had done to him until he finally noticed a stark difference in his form, or rather the possession of one. He was still with neither heft nor lift and completely incapable of interacting with the physical plane, but where before he had been only a deformed shade he now held the ethereal form he once had whenever he had chosen to shed his flesh.

For several long moments Mairon marveled at the return of something he’d thought long lost, lifting a translucent hand and waving it back and forth in front of his face to take a near child-like amusement in. He repeated the action with his left hand but stopped when he noticed that it was not as in tact as its twin, the ring finger of the hand nothing more than a stump where a complete finger should have been. He laughed dementedly, wriggling the stump as he saw the twisted humor in both the fact he was missing a finger where once his ring of power should have graced it, and it being the finger that was tied so closely in with the sacrament of marriage. With such poetic irony dripping of this one malformation to his naked spirit Mairon was now certain the stranger had been sent by none other than Eru. Even the Father of All had a sense of humor it seemed.

Mairon ceased his cackling over Eru’s cosmic joke, his mood dropping back into depression as his thoughts shifted back to those of his master by way of his missing finger and the subtle jab of what he served as to his master. In some respects at least. Feeling a sudden and intense urge arise in him, he spirited himself through the woods until he reached the shores of the island to look longingly out upon the Door of Night in the distance. Without even a thought of the fear that had kept him from approaching before, he dashed over the waters that could not drag his unearthly form down, touching upon the buildup of earth and rock that had collected around the gateway to form a lovely islet of sorts. He paused when he saw the portal’s three faced guardian, the metal made titan standing far taller than he had realized it to be, he not even as tall as its armored knees. Mairon warily eyed the titan and the gleaming blade it had held out in front of itself, the sword’s edge dug into the ground in rest. The metal creature stood eerily still, its faces staring blankly out to the North, East, and South but not toward the Door of Night itself. When the creature offered no resistance to his presence, truly seeming as if it were without life at all, he moved cautiously around it to approach the shimmering gateway that it was guardian to.

Stepping up to the twisted obsidian pillars which his spirit eyes perceived, the pillars rising high overhead, Mairon passed beneath the small lip that overhung it and sunk to his knees before the gaping maw of the Void. He stared into the black abyss, the blackness rippling lightly with an occasional glimmer of what could have been confused as stars shining through before being engulfed again in nothing. How many times had he watched Arien disappear with the sun and its vessel through this veil of black? How many times had he been tempted to try and follow after her with the intent of trying to reunite with his lost master? Many times. Too many times. Too many times of wanting but always being held back by his fear of what lay behind the shuddering blackness… But maybe… maybe now was the time? What else did he have left to do?

Lifting a hand slowly - carefully – Mairon reached toward the quivering wall of black until his fingers were very nearly grazing its surface but his fear of the nothingness bubbled up to the brim of his consciousness and he jerked it back. Looking away from the portal with the shame of being unable to even just touch the entrance of his master’s prison, he focused on a statue made in the likeness of Arien, the statue’s back to him as she held up a glowing lamp to represent the light of the sun. He glanced over to the carved effigy of the sun's opposite, Tilion, who held an arm up along the Void’s edge, before he looked back to the black maw. Pushing back against the blind-fear that screeched at him to leave the hellish place that could be his prison too, he tried again. Leaning forward with one spectral hand on the ground, he reached up toward the blackness and brushed his fingertips across its surface. Immediately the wall of black came to life despite his intangible touch, ripples of white pearl pulling to the surface and spreading out in dizzying circles from the place where he touched it. Fear forgotten in the discovery of the eerie yet lovely reaction, Mairon brushed his fingers atop it again and again to enjoy the spectacle with a simple-minded delight.

After dragging his hand across the surface multiple times in abstract patterns that caused more ripples of dancing white, laughing giddily with each revolution of his hand across it, Mairon became more brazen and pressed his hand harder against the wall of black. Despite the pressure against it the Void’s entrance did not breach, the surface only dipping inward. Finding annoyance in this, he tried again with more force but was met with the same result; the black veil only recessing inward and not allowing a breach. Becoming frantic at the unwelcome discovery he threw himself forward to try and force himself through but was only knocked back. He repeatedly tried to force himself into the veil of darkness but over and over he was forbidden entrance until he finally stopped throwing himself against the unyielding barrier. Mairon wailed angrily, clasping his hands over his head and rocking back and forth erratically as the terrible truth sunk in.

How cruel… How cruel! The Void would not accept him. It would not even allow him to try and seek out his master beyond its maw. The notion was a foolish one for it was not certain he would even have been able to find his master in the vast nothingness beyond. He might only have succeeded in imprisoning himself with unfathomable leagues of nothingness to serve as walls between he and Melkor… but he wasn’t even going to be granted the grace of trying. Could he have passed the Void’s entrance he would have taken comfort in knowing he had tried to return to his master, even if it had been a failure that left him floating in darkness.   But… he wasn’t even going to be given that chance which left him with the harsh truth; He was truly forbidden from returning to Melkor’s side. Even within the Void.

Mairon’s angry and animalistic screams cut off into wild laughter at the cruel discovery which then turned into sobs that brought phantom tears to slide down his face. He wept long and hard before the essential resting place of his lost master until he was at last forced to crawl out of sight when Arien rushed through the rippling gateway with her blazing charge to signal another night had come to the world. Whether she knew it or not, she only made Mairon’s misery worse by her unwitting show of her ability to do something he was unable that garnered her his jealousy. Slowly he crept back to the portal and seated himself before it again to stare dumbly at before a stray thought come upon him, bore from his delusional and unsound mind. Leaning forward with wide crazed eyes and one hand seated on the ground to steady himself, he reached high above his head to brush a finger against the wall of black to send a ripple of pearls trembling out away from his touch.

“Master?” He repeated the grazing of fingers against the Void’s entrance, “Master? Can you hear me? Can you? Can you hear me on the other side, master?”

Even if he were not deaf he would have only heard silence to be his answer. Mairon continued to call out to Melkor in hopes of hearing his master respond until his mind began to fabricate the false sound of his master’s full-toned voice calling back. For long spans of time, only broken by the need to hide away from Arien returning with the sun, he kept himself set in front of the Void, speaking with his fantasized master. He spoke ceaselessly, sometimes nonsensically and sometimes with clarity. Whenever he was not mindlessly chattering in words that were less words and more garbled sounds he would apologize for being unable to save Melkor from his fate or lament his inability to live up to his master’s dark glory. While other times he would beseech Melkor to return and grant him his sorely missed affections and caresses or whisper over and over how much he loved Melkor and only wished to hold him in his arms again. Mairon would have stayed babbling madly before the Door of Night forever if not for the guardian.

The day came when the metal titan shuddered back to life, turning one of its faces to look upon him with black hollowed eyes. Mairon fearfully fled once the titan raised its weapon in warning, stealing back to his island and its concealing forest. If the sorrow of being chased from his master’s holding place was not enough he was immediately assailed with the return of Aulë which sent him into hiding among the forest’s shadows. He watched with dreading eyes as the smith appeared through the brush, passing near to him with a lantern held high to light the intense darkness that the thick woods cast. He could not hear him but Mairon knew Aulë was calling for him as he always did, but he refused to approach the other. All he could think was that it was just a trick… a trick to lure him back so that he could be shamed and humiliated and then cast into Mandos’ halls where he would suffer the judge’s steely eyes. What other fate awaited him when the Void had made it clear he was not welcome within it? Even if he was he doubted Manwë would have allowed him to be cast out of the world and back into his master’s arms…

Mairon warily watched Aulë until, at last, the man moved on elsewhere and only when he could no longer see the glow of the lantern did he emerge from the shadows.   With no reason or motivation to move further and unable to return to the Door of Night, he laid himself on the ground and simply watched the glimpse of the sky between the leaves overhead shift from dark to light and back to dark again. He watched it a handful of times before he shut out the world entirely from his limited senses, effectively becoming all of deaf, dumb, and blind to it all.

He perceived little to nothing that happened to the world as it moved forward but Mairon thought the very foundation of the earth quaked at least once, the violent tremors enough to rouse him slightly from his stupor. He ultimately ignored the occurrence. The earth shook on occasion, did it not? It was normal even if the intensity of that one was not. Perhaps the world was merely tired of all the creatures that infested its earthy skin and was finally trying to shake them off. Mairon would not blame it if it did. Forgetting the quake and its tremors, Mairon returned to his daze that was only broken up by his soured memories of his absent master. He held onto them and tried to find comfort in them but it was impossible to anymore with the fact that he knew the man to be gone and he left to suffer the absence eternally. No memory, no matter how wonderful, could ever erase that dismal fact… and Mairon began to wish his spirit to wither. He wanted it to wither into nothing so he could be granted a true death and not the false mortal one. He thought… he thought he’d heard mention of it by some of his kin or was he thinking of only the elves that could wither in such a way? Perhaps his memories were only confused…? He felt as if he was withering as it was… maybe if he simply willed it with every part of his being he would cease to live and no longer have to suffer this world or his fate…

‘…Dearling...?’

Mairon stirred to the age old endearment whispered into his mind, vaguely aware of someone settling on their knees behind him and hands sliding beneath his head to lift it carefully into a lap. There was a brief odd feeling that came over his naked form – a sensation of gravity affecting him - but it was replaced by the sensation of a thick mane of hair falling over him to tickle his right arm and chest. He fluttered his eyes open to see the blurry form of someone leaned over him. He blinked several more times until his vision cleared enough to finally see it was a man. Mairon smiled slightly, finding the stranger to look familiar. So very familiar… who was he? Someone? No one?

Two black eyes dotted with gilt pupils narrowed in irritation, the man’s hands tightening to a point of discomfort for Mairon. The man looked as if he wanted to say something, his mouth parting slightly but only a raspy breath passed his lips. Curious, Mairon lifted one of his hands from where it previously rested with the other along his middle and reached toward one of the stranger’s hands. For some reason he could not shake the sense of déjà vu that this person brought out in him… Why? He’d never met him. Or maybe he had? Was this person one of those that had stood against him during his dark reign? Or maybe it was one of the innumerable Maiar he used to interact with before he’d fled from Aman? No… it was just the man’s appearance. He looked so very similar to his lost master, that was all. But his master was gone and this was just a stranger that had stumbled upon him.

“You remind me…” The whispy sound of his own resonating voice, cracking with too many thousands of years of disuse, touched Mairon’s ears as he stroked the stranger’s hot hand. It wasn’t cold like his master’s hands had been. He did not pay any mind to the fact he had spoken aloud in a way that only one with a physical being could. “…You remind me of someone who sang to me so very long ago.” The stranger’s eyes widened slightly but he remained silent, allowing Mairon to ask him a half-mad question. “Will you…? Will you sing for me too?” As soon as he asked his question the other looked aside with a grimace. The former expression of irritation shifted to one of confusion which dueled with a third of anger. The man seemed rather conflicted about something and Mairon was unable to grasp why. He thought of asking the man to leave but he wasn’t given the chance, the stranger immediately sliding a hand beneath him so he could pull his listless frame into his arms before standing up. Mairon quietly murmured his resistance as he felt himself carried far away from where he wanted to stay, as close to his master’s prison as possible. The other did not heed his wont to not leave though, instead pulling Mairon closer to his near infernally hot body and letting his cloak fall over him to shield his weak eyes from the moon’s brilliant light as they emerged from the forest’s canopy.

“I can’t leave my master.” Mairon insisted, puzzling over why he felt so tired. He’d not felt such a feeling of exhaustion since he’d had a body that could feel it… “Please, take me back.” He tugged at a large tassel that led up into a fur drape that disappeared over the man’s shoulder to lie overtop his dark mantle. His request was ignored, leading him to fret mildly as the stranger approached the island’s shores. All he could think was that this person was taking him back to Aman… yet that still wasn’t half as hurtful as the notion that he was taking him away from the Door of Night and away from his Master. “I do not want to return to Manwë. Take me back to the shades of the forest!”

“I am not taking you to Manwë.” The man’s voice was akin to the dark smooth timbre of his master’s but it was different. It was more gravelly and strained in its modulation than Melkor’s ever was. Despite the difference it was similar enough to make Mairon wish desperately for the man to take him back to the place where he could be as close to his master’s side as was possible. “My master… my master is near here. Please, do not take me away from him. I can’t leave him… Take me back!”

‘Sleep.’ The silent command worked just as intensely as if it were the woven spell of dormancy conjured up by a seasoned sorcerer. Mairon lamented pitifully when his eyes became too heavy to keep open, his hand latching onto the facial molding adorned with gems that was inset into the man’s armored chest plate. He held tightly onto the adornment as if he thought the feel of the cold metal beneath his hand would stay off the desire to rest but his grip slipped just as his consciousness slipped. Mairon quietly murmured his favored term of ‘dark one’ that he used to call his master once upon a time ago; just barely aware of the stranger’s body tensing at the endearment before he was ignorant of the world outside himself.

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Mairon and Eru (c) Tolkien
Designs (c) Meh

Description
Prologue found here --> DS: Prologue

This is part one of 'The Different Story'. Technically. Anyways my beta hasn't finished rehashing my written bits... but I'll go ahead and just slap on my original writey bit and switch it out whenever she's done. I've become retardedly self-conscious (ok, MORE self-conscious) since getting someone to edit my stuff but I guess so long as any given person gets the gist of what I'm trying to write it's ok... maybe? I dunno.

I missed inking DS panels so dang much I had to do another even if technically there are already TWO others for this one chapter. Anyways these two pics are within this chapter, at least in essence. Honestly I couldn't rationalize Mairon wearing clothing if he were little more than a spirit... spirits don't wear clothes. That's the difference between drawing something for the purpose of nonsensical lovely art or writing something and not making it ridiculous. So this picture is how Mairon would actually appear - just a naked ass spirit who is insane as hell.

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Part 1:
It was gone. Everything. Everything Mairon had done. Everything he had worked so long and so hard to accomplish. All his clever schemes. All his wonderfully twisted designs that had come to fruition through so much blood, sweat, and tears, even if it was not always his own. His beautiful ring that had held so much of his power – his very being! - within its deceptively simple oval band. Gone. Like sands through his fingers it had slipped away, never to be reclaimed again. He had been marred before when he’d simply lost his ring but now it was destroyed and he was left as not even a faint shadow of his former self. He was nothing. Less than nothing. And why?   All because of a group of altruistic interlopers that could not leave well enough alone and accept their fate. A better fate than any of them could ever have dreamt possible! They were not worthy to live without his order. His shadow. His dictation. They needed him! They needed him to be their overlord, to hold their useless lives within his hands to control and do with as he saw fit. They were nothing and he was everything. He knew what was best for them all. Why had that been so hard to accept? Why??

But no longer… No longer. Never again. He was cast down unjustly and they celebrated his shadow’s dissipation. And who had done this? What great army had taken him down? None. He was undone by a hobbit. A hobbit! How could he have been destroyed by a hobbit of all creatures? Some little sniveling thing that was even less than a human was. He didn’t understand… He didn’t understand. It made no sense. But so little made sense. His mind had long since cracked and shattered into a million tiny pieces that he couldn’t ever hope to collect and fit back together on his own. Too long ago the grace of true sanity was lost to Mairon. Surely – surely! – those cracks in his sanity must have started at the end of the War of Wrath when more than a battle had been lost… So. Much. More.

How long had it been since his defeat? He could not even begin to recall. He had been too deranged and angered afterwards to even bother with something as frivolous as keeping track of the years that drug on after his fall. He had been nothing more than a vengeful wrath-filled wraith that tried viciously to let everyone know he still existed. Defeated he was, but dead he was not. But without a body or ability to mend his wretched spirit it was all for naught. He was damned to the purgatory of a changing world that he could only watch but never influence. Years drug into decades, decades turned into centuries, centuries fell away into ages that numbered beyond even those that had spanned his rule of Middle-Earth. The very foundation of the earth shifted and the landscape shifted with it. Portions of Middle-Earth broke away to become scattered islands, the earth’s crust crushed together beneath the seas to raise new lands above its surface, and others still were drawn beneath Ulmo’s waters to return again to his watery domain. Men rose to power, the elves became elusive, and all the beasts of darkness were scattered to the edges of the earth to give way to the ages of peace, broken up occasionally by petty squabbles between the free peoples of all races.

Mairon held onto his rage as long as he could as the world moved on without him, his name falling away into obscure legend that mother’s would use to frighten their misbehaving children, but even it was eventually taken from him. Once it burned out he was left with only the cold ash of empty despair that stemmed from his power forever lost, dismal existence, and inability to live up to the high set goals of his predecessor. He had tried. Oh, how hard Mairon had tried, but it hadn’t been enough. He wasn’t… he wasn’t Melkor. He could never even begin to compare to him in his opinion. He might have left his scars on the world but they were but ripples in comparison to the violent waves his master had wrought during his rule. No one could ever live up to the dark splendor that his beautiful dark one had possessed. His master. His better. His God. His sole reason for existing and the very reason his mind had dwindled into madness… All because they took him away and threw him out of his life. A piece of him had died the day Melkor had been viciously executed and his chained spirit hurled into the Void, effectively separating him from the one thing that had meant everything to him. How could he have hoped to retained his sanity to suffer this loss? He couldn’t have when he had loved him so…

Was it any wonder that with nothing but his abysmal despair to keep him company that he would begin to look back to memories that fell during his far flung past? He found no irony in the fact that his most cherished memories were those that spanned an age when he was not his own master but only a mere servant to another. Strange, was it not? That he had been happiest falling to his knees in worship of another than he had been with others falling to their knees in praise of him? But there had been so much more meaning to his life in that time when he had kneeled at the feet of his temperamental master, either delighting in praising gentle touches against his cheek that came in the wake of victory achieved or suffering his deserved verbal lashings marked by either his own or his master’s failures. More often than not it was praise though. His master could be cruel but it was a streak that he had typically and elegantly skirted where most others suffered its full fury. Not to say he had not suffered a misstep or two in his dance to find himself suffering the terrible wrath of his master’s scorn and hand… but still Mairon missed the days of that dance.

Oh, how Mairon missed Melkor… He had been everything to him. More than just the Dark Power who had shown him the error of the Ainur’s ways. More than just a mere master who had introduced him to a curious world of darkness. Melkor had been so much more to him and he had offered the man everything he could to make his dreams of claiming Arda for himself come to fruition; His council, his skills, his knowledge of the world beneath the physical, and his strength that he allowed the other to wield as he saw fit. He had proved his singular devotion to him in so many ways that went far beyond strategizing or the battlefield, ultimately earning himself the snide remarks of enemies and allies alike, but what could he have expected? Nothing. They could never have understood his deep-set love for his master so why should he have tried to explain it to them? In the end it was only ever his master’s opinion that had mattered to him and no others, so he never felt there to be a sound enough reason to try and explain himself. Ever.

So he had let the dogs have their bones to gnaw on and grouse over and he had, time after time, allowed himself to be pulled into his master’s bed where he bent to his will and bared more than just his body to him. Mairon had bared the answer to a one-time riddle; his heart, given unto his master in a myriad of ways. Through his adoring lips, kissing along the arrested scars of the man’s battle hardened body in an attempt to lessen the pain and ill-ease they caused their bearer. By caressing his master’s hair as he stretched himself out over the man’s ever cold body, offering him all the warmth and soothing words he could in a bid to ease his Dark Lord’s troubled mind. Through feeding into his master’s vanity and need to be in control, begging for him to fill him with his greatness until he was left with neither wit or feeling body over. And finally, offering his master what he delighted in the most; the last sliver of innocence Mairon had left to him which would only reemerge once his master had pushed him beyond his threshold of endurance, leaving him just as vulnerable as he had been the night Melkor had taken him fully for the first time. It had not mattered how spent his master was when his fragility presented itself, the man would always throw himself upon him as a beast and he would suffer through until his master would grace him with the sound of his song to ease his frightened cries.

There were so many wonderful memories Mairon had of his long lost master of whom he loved and who had come to love him in return. He had never known love like poison that burned just as painfully as a fire but it had been wonderful. It had also been just as frightening but it had been worth it, if only because he had been allowed to get close and offer his total affection to the one person that he felt he belonged. That he still belonged, no matter of Melkor’s absence. It was an absence he never forgot and it was this absence that was even able to poison his memories which had offered him some small comfort after his ruin. His thoughts became consumed by his master until his miseries of his fall from power became singular into the one brought about by the man’s prevailing absence.

Where once Mairon had tried to lash out at the evolving world he now only screamed with a voice that carried no sound, calling desperately for his master to return and bring with him his dark love that would be his salvation. He roamed the world’s unfamiliar terrain on feet he no longer possessed, his sanity – if it could even be called that any longer – devolving further to a point of blind hysteria as he lamented his master, returning to those places where great fortresses of the Dark Power once stood. Though he could shed no tears he still wept. Though he had no voice he still cried. Though he had no body he still tried to curl into the places where he remembered his master’s chambers to be. Mindlessly, he watched the sun’s ascension and decision across the sky a million times over until his already failing sight left him to become near blind, the frame of time meaning nothing to him until he finally gave up his wont to stalk the vacant grounds that once teemed with dark-born activity. Instead, he followed Arien’s blazing aura that burned him to look toward, suffering the pain so he could follow her light to the place where his master had been cast. It was how he finally came to occupy one of the small islands that had once been a part of the whole of Middle-Earth, his favored one floating just to the South of the Door of Night and the closet to the gateway. He had not the courage to approach the gateway itself though, fearing the guardian that oversaw it just as much as he feared the shimmering portal itself.

He remained on the island, continuing his unending grief as all his senses slowly began to leave him in silent darkness. He was not the least bit surprised when at last he heard a silent summons piercing through his near deaf ears, though it was the one summons he dreaded to hear, coming from none other than Manwë himself. Mairon had heard it before, after his crippling defeat and the destruction of Mordor, but he had ignored and fled from it, too intent on his wrath to consider heeding it. But now here it was again; Manwë’s call for him to return to Aman and to his feet so that he could be judged as was expected of him. Terrible fear arose in him to feel his grotesque shade of a body prickle from the sensation of eyes looking upon him, not needing his mind intact to know they were the far-seeing blue ones of Manwë. Despite the call and feel of the high king’s eyes on him Mairon refused to heed any of it, fear far outweighing his recognition of his accountability. He fled again from it, taking to wallowing in his misery in the darkest depths of the island’s groves, dreading the repercussions of his continued resistance and nursing the festering wound of his wanting heart.

On occasion Mairon would abandon the island to hide elsewhere when he became aware of a voice calling to him, the voice sounding too similar to Aulë’s to not fill him with terror. With nothing but memories of his former master viciously slandering his name and glaring at him with broiling anger after he had openly declared his allegiance to Melkor, Mairon could not imagine any other reason for the blacksmith to seek him out except to drag him back to his judgment, perhaps to even reprimand him himself. With such acute fear of his one-time master he always hid away during these times until the sound of Aulë crying his name faded away entirely and he felt it safe enough to return to his haunt of the Southern island. It was after suffering yet another visit of this ghost of his past that Mairon found himself in his current circumstance; clinging to the shadows of a small grotto, lamenting and warbling nonsensically long after Arien had disappeared beyond the Void’s ingress and Tilion had awaken to begin his cycle of night.

He did not know another had presented itself until he felt more than saw a towering figure lean over his spectral form of writhing shadows. Mairon’s limited vision did not allow for him to see this stranger clearly to judge whether it was of the ilk of men or elves or something else altogether, but he could tell they were garbed in dark shaded clothing and possessed a face so strikingly pallid in color it alit oddly when it caught the moon’s light. Honestly, the face gave him the impression that it might be a reflective mask rather than a face at all and at times he could just make out two other white splotches, hinting perhaps there was more than just the one face. To know this person was so close to him and very much aware of his presence fear was the first emotion to rise in him. The only reason he could surmise for them to come was because of the Valar, the kings and queens surely tiring of his refusal to acknowledge their calls and sending this person to collect him to bring back to the land he once called home. No more wishing to return to them now than before, Mairon attempted to flee but his flagging spirit did not listen to his desire to move no matter how desperately he willed it to. With no way to either defend himself or strike out at the other he was completely vulnerable to the mysterious figure and he did all he could; pull the whisps of his misshapen spirit as close to himself as he could, hoping the other would just leave him to his miserable madness.

Mairon expected the worst as the person bent over him and he felt a hand take hold of the blackened heart of his spirit; the thought emerging that maybe this creature was not a servant of the Valar but perhaps of Eru himself, sent with the purpose to finally end his existence. Rather than crush it the hand caressed the dim and barely pulsing spark and Mairon’s shade quivered. He found extraordinary pleasure and bliss at the soothing touch that was very reminiscent of the spiritual touches he used to receive from Melkor, those touches given when mere pleasures of the flesh were not enough to satisfy his master. Whether any other would believe it or not, even his dark borne master had desired the deeper connection that their physical bodies were incapable of allowing and in this moment Mairon could almost pretend it was his dark one’s hand stroking his heart of hearts and not a mere stranger…

Startling out of the induced hallucination of Melkor entwining his marrow deep within his own, Mairon became aware of a warmth that alit in his center, that warmth seeping out to the rest of his being. It was pleasant, not too unlike the prickling of a healers soothing magic but it went far deeper than the spells and enchantments of a healer. No healer, no matter of their prowess, could ever penetrate his naked spirit but this did and it felt… wonderful. Quick as the healing touch came it was gone though, the stranger gone with it to leave Mairon to himself again. He was aware of the return of some of his lost sight but his strength was just as non-existent as before and his mind still in shambles. He didn’t understand what the strange being had done to him until he finally noticed a stark difference in his form, or rather the possession of one. He was still with neither heft nor lift and completely incapable of interacting with the physical plane, but where before he had been only a deformed shade he now held the ethereal form he once had whenever he had chosen to shed his flesh.

For several long moments Mairon marveled at the return of something he’d thought long lost, lifting a translucent hand and waving it back and forth in front of his face to take a near child-like amusement in. He repeated the action with his left hand but stopped when he noticed that it was not as in tact as its twin, the ring finger of the hand nothing more than a stump where a complete finger should have been. He laughed dementedly, wriggling the stump as he saw the twisted humor in both the fact he was missing a finger where once his ring of power should have graced it, and it being the finger that was tied so closely in with the sacrament of marriage. With such poetic irony dripping of this one malformation to his naked spirit Mairon was now certain the stranger had been sent by none other than Eru. Even the Father of All had a sense of humor it seemed.

Mairon ceased his cackling over Eru’s cosmic joke, his mood dropping back into depression as his thoughts shifted back to those of his master by way of his missing finger and the subtle jab of what he served as to his master. In some respects at least. Feeling a sudden and intense urge arise in him, he spirited himself through the woods until he reached the shores of the island to look longingly out upon the Door of Night in the distance. Without even a thought of the fear that had kept him from approaching before, he dashed over the waters that could not drag his unearthly form down, touching upon the buildup of earth and rock that had collected around the gateway to form a lovely islet of sorts. He paused when he saw the portal’s three faced guardian, the metal made titan standing far taller than he had realized it to be, he not even as tall as its armored knees. Mairon warily eyed the titan and the gleaming blade it had held out in front of itself, the sword’s edge dug into the ground in rest. The metal creature stood eerily still, its faces staring blankly out to the North, East, and South but not toward the Door of Night itself. When the creature offered no resistance to his presence, truly seeming as if it were without life at all, he moved cautiously around it to approach the shimmering gateway that it was guardian to.

Stepping up to the twisted obsidian pillars which his spirit eyes perceived, the pillars rising high overhead, Mairon passed beneath the small lip that overhung it and sunk to his knees before the gaping maw of the Void. He stared into the black abyss, the blackness rippling lightly with an occasional glimmer of what could have been confused as stars shining through before being engulfed again in nothing. How many times had he watched Arien disappear with the sun and its vessel through this veil of black? How many times had he been tempted to try and follow after her with the intent of trying to reunite with his lost master? Many times. Too many times. Too many times of wanting but always being held back by his fear of what lay behind the shuddering blackness… But maybe… maybe now was the time? What else did he have left to do?

Lifting a hand slowly - carefully – Mairon reached toward the quivering wall of black until his fingers were very nearly grazing its surface but his fear of the nothingness bubbled up to the brim of his consciousness and he jerked it back. Looking away from the portal with the shame of being unable to even just touch the entrance of his master’s prison, he focused on a statue made in the likeness of Arien, the statue’s back to him as she held up a glowing lamp to represent the light of the sun. He glanced over to the carved effigy of the sun's opposite, Tilion, who held an arm up along the Void’s edge, before he looked back to the black maw. Pushing back against the blind-fear that screeched at him to leave the hellish place that could be his prison too, he tried again. Leaning forward with one spectral hand on the ground, he reached up toward the blackness and brushed his fingertips across its surface. Immediately the wall of black came to life despite his intangible touch, ripples of white pearl pulling to the surface and spreading out in dizzying circles from the place where he touched it. Fear forgotten in the discovery of the eerie yet lovely reaction, Mairon brushed his fingers atop it again and again to enjoy the spectacle with a simple-minded delight.

After dragging his hand across the surface multiple times in abstract patterns that caused more ripples of dancing white, laughing giddily with each revolution of his hand across it, Mairon became more brazen and pressed his hand harder against the wall of black. Despite the pressure against it the Void’s entrance did not breach, the surface only dipping inward. Finding annoyance in this, he tried again with more force but was met with the same result; the black veil only recessing inward and not allowing a breach. Becoming frantic at the unwelcome discovery he threw himself forward to try and force himself through but was only knocked back. He repeatedly tried to force himself into the veil of darkness but over and over he was forbidden entrance until he finally stopped throwing himself against the unyielding barrier. Mairon wailed angrily, clasping his hands over his head and rocking back and forth erratically as the terrible truth sunk in.

How cruel… How cruel! The Void would not accept him. It would not even allow him to try and seek out his master beyond its maw. The notion was a foolish one for it was not certain he would even have been able to find his master in the vast nothingness beyond. He might only have succeeded in imprisoning himself with unfathomable leagues of nothingness to serve as walls between he and Melkor… but he wasn’t even going to be granted the grace of trying. Could he have passed the Void’s entrance he would have taken comfort in knowing he had tried to return to his master, even if it had been a failure that left him floating in darkness.   But… he wasn’t even going to be given that chance which left him with the harsh truth; He was truly forbidden from returning to Melkor’s side. Even within the Void.

Mairon’s angry and animalistic screams cut off into wild laughter at the cruel discovery which then turned into sobs that brought phantom tears to slide down his face. He wept long and hard before the essential resting place of his lost master until he was at last forced to crawl out of sight when Arien rushed through the rippling gateway with her blazing charge to signal another night had come to the world. Whether she knew it or not, she only made Mairon’s misery worse by her unwitting show of her ability to do something he was unable that garnered her his jealousy. Slowly he crept back to the portal and seated himself before it again to stare dumbly at before a stray thought come upon him, bore from his delusional and unsound mind. Leaning forward with wide crazed eyes and one hand seated on the ground to steady himself, he reached high above his head to brush a finger against the wall of black to send a ripple of pearls trembling out away from his touch.

“Master?” He repeated the grazing of fingers against the Void’s entrance, “Master? Can you hear me? Can you? Can you hear me on the other side, master?”

Even if he were not deaf he would have only heard silence to be his answer. Mairon continued to call out to Melkor in hopes of hearing his master respond until his mind began to fabricate the false sound of his master’s full-toned voice calling back. For long spans of time, only broken by the need to hide away from Arien returning with the sun, he kept himself set in front of the Void, speaking with his fantasized master. He spoke ceaselessly, sometimes nonsensically and sometimes with clarity. Whenever he was not mindlessly chattering in words that were less words and more garbled sounds he would apologize for being unable to save Melkor from his fate or lament his inability to live up to his master’s dark glory. While other times he would beseech Melkor to return and grant him his sorely missed affections and caresses or whisper over and over how much he loved Melkor and only wished to hold him in his arms again. Mairon would have stayed babbling madly before the Door of Night forever if not for the guardian.

The day came when the metal titan shuddered back to life, turning one of its faces to look upon him with black hollowed eyes. Mairon fearfully fled once the titan raised its weapon in warning, stealing back to his island and its concealing forest. If the sorrow of being chased from his master’s holding place was not enough he was immediately assailed with the return of Aulë which sent him into hiding among the forest’s shadows. He watched with dreading eyes as the smith appeared through the brush, passing near to him with a lantern held high to light the intense darkness that the thick woods cast. He could not hear him but Mairon knew Aulë was calling for him as he always did, but he refused to approach the other. All he could think was that it was just a trick… a trick to lure him back so that he could be shamed and humiliated and then cast into Mandos’ halls where he would suffer the judge’s steely eyes. What other fate awaited him when the Void had made it clear he was not welcome within it? Even if he was he doubted Manwë would have allowed him to be cast out of the world and back into his master’s arms…

Mairon warily watched Aulë until, at last, the man moved on elsewhere and only when he could no longer see the glow of the lantern did he emerge from the shadows.   With no reason or motivation to move further and unable to return to the Door of Night, he laid himself on the ground and simply watched the glimpse of the sky between the leaves overhead shift from dark to light and back to dark again. He watched it a handful of times before he shut out the world entirely from his limited senses, effectively becoming all of deaf, dumb, and blind to it all.

He perceived little to nothing that happened to the world as it moved forward but Mairon thought the very foundation of the earth quaked at least once, the violent tremors enough to rouse him slightly from his stupor. He ultimately ignored the occurrence. The earth shook on occasion, did it not? It was normal even if the intensity of that one was not. Perhaps the world was merely tired of all the creatures that infested its earthy skin and was finally trying to shake them off. Mairon would not blame it if it did. Forgetting the quake and its tremors, Mairon returned to his daze that was only broken up by his soured memories of his absent master. He held onto them and tried to find comfort in them but it was impossible to anymore with the fact that he knew the man to be gone and he left to suffer the absence eternally. No memory, no matter how wonderful, could ever erase that dismal fact… and Mairon began to wish his spirit to wither. He wanted it to wither into nothing so he could be granted a true death and not the false mortal one. He thought… he thought he’d heard mention of it by some of his kin or was he thinking of only the elves that could wither in such a way? Perhaps his memories were only confused…? He felt as if he was withering as it was… maybe if he simply willed it with every part of his being he would cease to live and no longer have to suffer this world or his fate…

‘…Dearling...?’

Mairon stirred to the age old endearment whispered into his mind, vaguely aware of someone settling on their knees behind him and hands sliding beneath his head to lift it carefully into a lap. There was a brief odd feeling that came over his naked form – a sensation of gravity affecting him - but it was replaced by the sensation of a thick mane of hair falling over him to tickle his right arm and chest. He fluttered his eyes open to see the blurry form of someone leaned over him. He blinked several more times until his vision cleared enough to finally see it was a man. Mairon smiled slightly, finding the stranger to look familiar. So very familiar… who was he? Someone? No one?

Two black eyes dotted with gilt pupils narrowed in irritation, the man’s hands tightening to a point of discomfort for Mairon. The man looked as if he wanted to say something, his mouth parting slightly but only a raspy breath passed his lips. Curious, Mairon lifted one of his hands from where it previously rested with the other along his middle and reached toward one of the stranger’s hands. For some reason he could not shake the sense of déjà vu that this person brought out in him… Why? He’d never met him. Or maybe he had? Was this person one of those that had stood against him during his dark reign? Or maybe it was one of the innumerable Maiar he used to interact with before he’d fled from Aman? No… it was just the man’s appearance. He looked so very similar to his lost master, that was all. But his master was gone and this was just a stranger that had stumbled upon him.

“You remind me…” The whispy sound of his own resonating voice, cracking with too many thousands of years of disuse, touched Mairon’s ears as he stroked the stranger’s hot hand. It wasn’t cold like his master’s hands had been. He did not pay any mind to the fact he had spoken aloud in a way that only one with a physical being could. “…You remind me of someone who sang to me so very long ago.” The stranger’s eyes widened slightly but he remained silent, allowing Mairon to ask him a half-mad question. “Will you…? Will you sing for me too?” As soon as he asked his question the other looked aside with a grimace. The former expression of irritation shifted to one of confusion which dueled with a third of anger. The man seemed rather conflicted about something and Mairon was unable to grasp why. He thought of asking the man to leave but he wasn’t given the chance, the stranger immediately sliding a hand beneath him so he could pull his listless frame into his arms before standing up. Mairon quietly murmured his resistance as he felt himself carried far away from where he wanted to stay, as close to his master’s prison as possible. The other did not heed his wont to not leave though, instead pulling Mairon closer to his near infernally hot body and letting his cloak fall over him to shield his weak eyes from the moon’s brilliant light as they emerged from the forest’s canopy.

“I can’t leave my master.” Mairon insisted, puzzling over why he felt so tired. He’d not felt such a feeling of exhaustion since he’d had a body that could feel it… “Please, take me back.” He tugged at a large tassel that led up into a fur drape that disappeared over the man’s shoulder to lie overtop his dark mantle. His request was ignored, leading him to fret mildly as the stranger approached the island’s shores. All he could think was that this person was taking him back to Aman… yet that still wasn’t half as hurtful as the notion that he was taking him away from the Door of Night and away from his Master. “I do not want to return to Manwë. Take me back to the shades of the forest!”

“I am not taking you to Manwë.” The man’s voice was akin to the dark smooth timbre of his master’s but it was different. It was more gravelly and strained in its modulation than Melkor’s ever was. Despite the difference it was similar enough to make Mairon wish desperately for the man to take him back to the place where he could be as close to his master’s side as was possible. “My master… my master is near here. Please, do not take me away from him. I can’t leave him… Take me back!”

‘Sleep.’ The silent command worked just as intensely as if it were the woven spell of dormancy conjured up by a seasoned sorcerer. Mairon lamented pitifully when his eyes became too heavy to keep open, his hand latching onto the facial molding adorned with gems that was inset into the man’s armored chest plate. He held tightly onto the adornment as if he thought the feel of the cold metal beneath his hand would stay off the desire to rest but his grip slipped just as his consciousness slipped. Mairon quietly murmured his favored term of ‘dark one’ that he used to call his master once upon a time ago; just barely aware of the stranger’s body tensing at the endearment before he was ignorant of the world outside himself.

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Mairon and Eru (c) Tolkien
Designs (c) Meh