Smith of Nargathrond by Lipstick

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Chapter 4

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“I did always wonder how Celegorm expected to survive his wedding night,” said Finduilas.

“Really,” said Maedhros, “I wondered if he sustained a head injury on the flight to Nargathrond.”

“He did not,” said Tyelpe.

“I would say,” said Finduilas, “if your plan is to lie naked beside one of the most powerful beings in Middle-earth, it would only be prudent to have that creature’s permission first.”

“It was the oath,” said Tyelpe.

Maedhros raised an eyebrow.

“There was nothing in the Oath in regards to kidnapping.”

Tyelpe stared into the void to his left; torn veils of darkness, swirling down to oblivion.

“He knew it could not be fulfilled,” said Tyelpe, “He despaired, and it corrupted him.”

“I have to say, he did not look despairing to me, nor did he sound it when he sent Finrod to his doom,” said Gelmir.

“Do you presume to know my father better than I do myself?”

There was silence. Tyelpe thought he had encountered silence before, while out in the wilds or deep beneath the earth. That was not silence, something had always hummed or scratched, a blade of grass had turned, the air had moved in a breath of wind.

The silence of Mandos was the silence of stones. It was the silence of petrification, where nothing could move and nothing would stir. It was a silence you could drown in and never speak again.

“You loved your father,” said Maedhros.

“How could you not?” said Tyelpe.

“I managed it a few times,” said Maedhros.

“And yet the belief still holds,” said Gwindor, “that an elf who has been held captive by Morgoth has lost something of his elven nature, as if the dark lord may drive holes in his soul that will always await the summons of their evil master.”

“That is untrue,” said Maedhros, “Evil can be done by any elf.”

“I suppose you would know,” said Gwindor.

“Still, it is chilly comfort to know we shall always be suspect even if Námo sees fit to rehouse us,” said Gelmir.

“We are Fëanorians,” said Maedhros, waving a hand at Tyelpe, “that is the least of our problems.”

*

Tyelpe had felt slightly out of sorts for several days after his trip to Anghabar. It was hard to put a finger on the feeling of it, other than a general sense of restlessness and a heaviness in his limbs. It passed soon enough.

“You stopped moping?” Rôg looked at Tyelpe who was curled up in bed around a draughtboard and was busy sketching without thought for the sheets.

“I did just get blown up,” said Tyelpe.

“I think Turgon was less pleased with Lord Maeglin’s heroics than he had expected, especially when I brought up the memories of the mysterious sickness that haunted the ore caves. We had Lord Maeglin quite flustered. Turgon has demanded a royal inquiry and a list of safety recommendations. Although fortunately, he has agreed to the opening of the mine again.”

Tyelpe continued to sketch. He had been busy adding the haulage system into his sketches for Maeglin’s finished machine.

“So I take it that is the end of Maeglin passing his designs on to the House of the Hammer?”

“Probably,” said Rôg, pulling up a chair beside Tyelpe’s bed. “I had not thought of that.”

“It is just as well I haven’t been malingering then,” said Tyelpe. “I am quite well, I just needed to see clearly. If I had started to work at the forge other shapes would have clouded my mind. What do you think of this?”

Rôg stared at the sketch and whistled.

“How does it work?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” Tyelpe sucked the end of his quill thoughtfully. “I saw sketches once from the Longbeard Palace out in the east of a great waterwheel that was used to turn a crank in the fashion that the crank turns here, but as you can see from the equations at the bottom, you would need the river Siron in spate to power this.” Tyelpe twisted his braid through his fingers. “Rôg, where do we get out charcoal from?”

“We submit a request for an amount each year to the palace and are then granted a much smaller quantity in the Kings Accounting. We drink wine and complain about it, but that is how scarce goods are shared out – and there are no forests in the White City.”

“And can anyone read the Kings Accounting?”

“I am sure Lady Idril could.”

“Then suggest Lady Idril looks over what Lord Maeglin has been requesting.  This peiriant must consume something to give it power.”

Rôg raised a quizzical eyebrow.

“A peiriant Enerdhil?”

“It is a dwarven term for when elves attempt mechanics. Apparently, it comes from the first mess of wheels proudly displayed to a group of dwarves by its elvish creator: Behold! The peiriant! The dwarves fell about laughing and have thought it the greatest jest ever since.”

“And now Maeglin has made one.”

“No, Maeglin has made one which works.”

*

Tyelpe was like a rat with a flea. He found himself avoiding the forge until Rôg scolded him, but his attention would not hold. His mind would not wind down to the soothing, stubborn rhythm of hammer on anvil. He was as jumpy as needles and pins which led to a stroke of his hammer nearly splitting his thumb.

Banished from the smithy, Tyelpe paced barefoot about his room, laying out Maeglin’s plans, walking over the plans. Kneeling over a detail and rising to smooth out a kink or a poor connection in his own image of the final machine. He was in a fury; a truly Fëanorian fury of sleepless nights and ragged braids. He was Maglor wrestling an evoked feeling out of dry words, he was Ambarussa on the hunt, he was Maedhros driving orcs before him with fire in his eyes and a left handed blade.

He was the one who was lost; black-scaled and sooty, bringing the tang of metal and the scratchy smell of smoke into his bedroom, come to kiss him goodnight before he returned to the fury of a three-day session at the forge.

Still he could not read the design.

Rôg scolded him that he would sicken again and found himself on the receiving end of Tyelpe’s temper:

“I shall not sicken. You do not know of what the Children of Fëanor are truly made.”

“I know they are made of elf,” said Rôg unmoved, “And if this one does not eat something soon he shall be expounding his wisdom to Mandos.”

Tyelpe stood in the midst of the parchments that he had laid out over the study floor like a carpet and laughed. To his ears he sounded half-crazed.

“I dare not go in the kitchens. The cook is still angry with me for taking his stove apart.”

“You have shadows beneath your eyes and you look like a hedgehog.”

“I meant to say, you do not know my people. The ones amongst who I was raised. We do not let go of a challenge.”

Rôg bent down and retrieved a small band of gold from among the parchment.

“Is this yours?”

Tyelpe put his hand to his ruined hair.

“It is not the piece I am missing though.”

“What is the name for them anyway these – toggles?”

“I call them clasps.”

Tyelpe took the band as graciously as he could. He needed Rôg to stop talking. He needed time to think. He ran his hand over his face.

“I am sorry. Listen to me, I am everything I must not be if I am to read this riddle.”

“Come on,” said the enormous elf, “You are the colour of ash. Sit down and tell me what you must not be.”

“That is just what I mean.” Tyelpe felt as if his very bones were shaking with the desire to keep in motion. “I am being secretive, when I should seek the wisdom of others, I am being furious when I know I should be calm. But I only know one way to be.”

“What troubles you, Smith of Nargathrond, in what you read in the designs?”

“What bothers elves about the dwarves,” Tyelpe smiled. “That no-one quite knows from whence they got the spark of life.”

“Maybe Lady Idril will have some luck in finding what Maeglin feeds his strange creation.”

“Maybe,” thought Tyelpe, picking at a grey fingernail. “Although Maeglin has the whole belly of the mountain at his disposal and may well need nothing from the King.”

“You know fire needs air as well as fuel to burn bright. You need to rest your mind on something other than lines of ink.” Rôg threw Tyelpe his cloak.  “If you cannot sit still, go and walk in the gardens until the winter sun sets.”

*

“And those were the words that sealed my doom,” said Tyelpe, feeling a memory of a pinch around his mouth that would have been a half-smile “Uncle, may I ask an impertinent question?”

“When have you ever held yourself back before?” said Maedhros.

“Was it true about you and Uncle Fingon?”

Maedhros laughed.

“You are asking if we were bound as lovers as well as crazed adventurers and kinslaying eldest sons of feuding families. That is impertinent, and it is truly none of your business.”

“Such bonds were not unheard of,” said Finduilas, “although they were rarely spoken of. In my wardrobe, I once found my chief seamstress naked and engaged in an act of love with Nelleth my lute player. When I questioned them about it afterwards they stated they had discovered their love in Valinor much as other couples do, and except for having to exercise some creativity in achieving the physical act of union, they felt themselves no different to any other elven pair.”

“Nelleth and Ithilwen?” said Gelmir, “I thought everybody knew that.”

“I did not,” said Tyelpe.

“Might I ask an impertinent question?” said Maedhros. “Why is this of interest to you, Tyelpe?”

“Because I argued with a dwarf once. He thought I had marred his doors.”

Tyelpe felt the word happy again, bubbling up like a spring through stony mountainside, wrestling with the golden-ringed fingers for the meaning it once held.

“Which was more than fair, because in truth, I had.” Tyelpe smiled, “You were there uncle, the shining star of the House of Fëanor, the stricken anvil of Durin’s folk, the Two Trees of Valinor, I put all I had loved into that work, into my dream and when they were finished I showed off my work, flushed with pride in the moonlight.”

“Was not the stricken anvil the sign of Rôg’s house too?” said Maedhros.

“So it was,” said Tyelpe. “The dwarf was my good friend Narvi, who had started to wail:”

- You have ruined them!

“At first I could not think what he meant, for even I knew the work was beautiful, from the Fëanorian silver-blue light trapped inside the mithril to the curved archway adorned with words of friendship in Tengwar.”

- Durin’s hammer! Never trust an Elf with a work of importance.

“Narvi stood and stared, rending his beard in rage. I followed his gaze to the silvery words which had transfixed him.”

  Ennyn Durin Aran Moria

The ghostly elves shivered.

“So once you had insulted Durin as King of the Black-void, did he take his axe to you?” asked Gwindor.

“It was close,” said Tyelpe. “At first I tried to dissemble, saying the doors were meant for elven use, and that was the name of Khazâd-dûm in the elven tongue. Narvi continued to tear his beard.”

-  None that are welcome here. My doors Shorty; my life’s work -.

- My love. I loved the darkness once, the black-pit, for it was what I saw in the eyes that still hold my heart.

- You have not spoken of this before.

- It is not after the manner of dwarves to discuss their hearts’ inner secrets.

“To my relief Narvi took his hands from his beard. Sensing that a truce had been called, I continued:”

- It comes to something, when a dwarf would shun the darkness. Is it not you who is always telling me you mistrust the golden light?

- The light is fine. It is the owner I mistrust. He wants your soul, Shorty, you mark my words.

- Well he cannot have it. Did you not hear me? It is already taken by another.

- Somehow I cannot see that stopping him.

- I do not think I am going to get a tombstone Narvi. In our secret light, I would all that I had loved be remembered here.

- Of course you are not going to get a tombstone, you are a bloody elf, you go on and on until the levelling of the mountains.

- I have seen the leveling of mountains.

- Well there we are then. Leave an elf in the moonlight for ten minutes and you get no sense from them. Come on, let us get inside and we shall say nothing more on it.

“So you loved him,” said Maedhros, “This unwilling spirit of nightshade and the deep forest.”

“Yes,” said Tyelpe, “He thought I had terribly poor taste.”

“Did he return your love?” asked Finduilas.

“I do not think he knew how,” said Tyelpe, then paused. “I am being unfair, he did love me.”

“You sound very sure of that for such a slippery creature,” said Gwindor.

“Slippery as elm-bark,” Tyelpe said, “Cool as pines, secret as the heart of the forest.”

“Go on,” said Gwindor, “We do love a good love story.”

“It ended very badly,” said Tyelpe.

“They usually do,” said Gwindor.

*

Tyelpe paced about the garden, although he barely noticed the trees. He was scrolling through his fathers’ book of equations, of the horses needed to turn a winch, of the volume of water needed to turn a millstone. He remembered sitting beside his father as they scratched in the unknown numbers, combined equations, painstakingly chipped away until the figures were revealed. Once they had an answer his father would flip the pages of the book and Tyelpe would squeal in delight as the numbers broke free of their sums and danced through mid-air.

“It is good that you are back in your feet, Enerdhil.”

Tyelpe returned to late-afternoon Gondolin and a slight headache above his right eye. Maeglin was standing a little way up the path from him, with his back to the sunset and his face in shadow.

“It is good to see Anghabar is working again, Lord Maeglin.”

Maeglin stepped towards him, bringing his sharp, black eyes into view. Animal eyes, thought Tyelpe, eyes of a creature that is hunted, that scurries through the undergrowth.

“That is not the impression you gave in your report.”

“To the contrary – did you not read the passage where I commented very favorably on the strength of the walls, the construction of the tunnels and the judicious use of pit-props, referencing the three Khazâdrim mining disasters and the oral tradition of mine safety that has developed following them?”

They were now stood facing each other, Maeglin with his back to the bright city, Tyelpe wincing slightly as the low sun leveled with his eyes, sending blinding rays around Maeglin’s dark form.

“You went into greater detail about the explosion.”

“It does rather stick in the mind.”

“It is standard practice for the dispersal of flammable hazes.”

He is angry, thought Tyelpe. He is hiding it well, but that bloodless skin keeps no secrets and there was a slight flush along his cheekbones. Tyelpe felt strangely pleased to have angered the other elf, payment in full, he thought, for all the discomfiture you have given me.

“Standard practice can always be improved on.”

“So my Lord Turgon thinks. He was quite taken by your proposal for a ventilation system. I can only hope it is as effective as my method.”

“Rôg informed me that you would consider it on my head were the system to fail.”

Maeglin turned aside, lowering his head.

“I have lost elves to the Nîd-naur,” Maeglin drew level to Tyelpe, “I am a miner, not some lordling who had an extended jaunt to the Naugrim. I live my life underground and value the lives of the elves who work alongside me. I trust my methods to keep them safe.”

“Very well,” said Tyelpe, “As you will. So, to what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?”

“Lord Rôg has some old designs of mine that I would like to study again.”

Tyelpe turned and fell into step beside Maeglin.

“Your peiriant?”

Maeglin lifted his head and looked hard into Tyelpe’s face.

“Where did you learn that word?”

“On my little holiday to Nogrod,” said Tyelpe airily. He found having the upper hand in a conversation with Maeglin a very cheering turn of events. He lifted his head higher, letting his replaced clasps flash in the sun. “How did you become familiar with it?”

“That is no concern of yours.”

“But I can see you are familiar with the style of Nogrod. Studying your designs was almost like being back there.”

“So Rôg has let you study the designs.”

“Of course. I am his under-smith and so I am the one he consults with on realising any complicated work.” Tyelpe smiled a very Curufin-the-Crafty smile. “Besides you know this or you would not be asking for them back.”

They reached the Hall of Blacksmiths. Tyelpe was feeling wondrously daring, cherishing a hope that if prodded in the right way, Maeglin may let slip the clue he needed. He led Maeglin directly to the cluttered study that had become his quarters, and was pleased to see Maeglin’s eyes widen as he took in the arrangement of plans on the floor.

Tyelpe watched the flush of anger drain from Maeglin’s face as he took in his own sketched projections of Maeglin’s machine.

“There is one thing I know,” he said coldly, “there is one thing of use that I brought out of Nan Elmoth, one thing that can make me shine. And you, Smith of Nargathrond would take it from me.”

“Nonsense,” said Tyelpe, “I have no desire to take anything from anybody. You have a skill unlike anything I have seen before.” Tyelpe looked at Maeglin who was staring blankly at the sketches. He looked very young, and very sad. “I just – for various reasons – happen to be very skilled myself. Surely we would achieve more working together than trying to compete against each other in the dark.”

Maeglin looked up. For a moment he stood dead still, jet black eyes staring into nothingness. He took one step forward and pushed the rough leather of his glove across Tyelpe’s face, leant down and kissed him like a maiden.

The soft smack as their dry lips met echoed through Tyelpe’s head. The mouth against his was warm, intriguing; Tyelpe was just reaching out his tongue to explore further when it was withdrawn.

His lips tingled from the contact. He felt the in-rush of blood; his skin warming as if it were readying itself for touch.  He sensed something swooping, down-falling, like a hammer striking upon the anvil of the earth.

  And doom fell on Tinúviel.

Or as the Khazâdrim say, Mahal brings down his hammer and the world is riven.

Maeglin was getting up to go, which was no good at all. He was almost at the doorway when Tyelpe caught his wrist, causing static to crackle and snap at his fingertips. Maeglin jumped, but Tyelpe felt calm. They were both blacksmiths, it was oddly natural that their bodies should strike sparks.

“Wait!”

His voice sounded thick. Maeglin looked at his trapped hand and then up into Tyelpe’s face. Tyelpe cupped the back of Maeglin’s head with his hand and pulled him into a kiss.

This kiss was longer, more familiar. Tyelpe shut his eyes and let his tongue languidly explore Maeglin, running over the roof of his mouth, stroking against his tongue until they twined together, gasping into each other’s mouths.

He ran his fingers roughly through Maeglin’s sleek, ink-black hair; he caressed the crest of a hip-bone as it rose from the waistband of Maeglin’s breeches, gently stroking the shadow between bone and smooth skin. Maeglin panted and flinched, turning his body so their hips pressed together hard.

They stared at each other in shock, lips still moist and swollen from the kiss. Tyelpe reached up and stroked his Maeglin’s lip gently; calming him as if he were a wild animal, calming himself.

“We are aroused,” said Tyelpe, moving their hips together experimentally. He laughed. “I do not know what I was expecting to happen.”

Our bodies act as if we were any other couple, thought Tyelpe, desiring physical union to consolidate our –

“I do not know what to do,” said Maeglin, the edge of fear in his voice sending a rush of blood down to Tyelpe’s crotch. He wrapped his arms around the other, pulling their bodies desperately together as they kissed, Tyelpe discovering he could gain relief by pushing his arousal hard against Maeglin’s.

“I want to see you naked. I want to touch you and kiss you on your body. You know how to do that?”

“This door does not lock,” hissed Maeglin, breaking the kiss to stare black-eyedly at the door. “Someone could walk in at any moment.”

Maeglin looked dazed. Tyelpe whispered into his ear.

“I need to taste your skin. I do not care if it sends the whole city gossiping.”

“My chambers lock.”

Maeglin had stilled in Tyelpe’s arms; he seemed frozen. Tyelpe released him and he straightened out his disarranged clothes. Tyelpe noted with satisfaction the flush on his cheekbones remained.

“I shall bring your plans back this evening, and we shall discuss the matter further.”

Maeglin nodded. Tyelpe kissed his cheek.

“It will be alright. It will be good, I promise.”

*

Tyelpe looked at the pale-grey remnants of elves gathered before him, leaning forward bright-eyed and twitchy with curiosity.

“That was a very brief courtship,” said Gwindor.

“There seemed no point in drawing it out. We had no families to consult, no others that bound us. We were as free to lie together as the first-woken elves in the wildwood.”

“Except Maeglin was doomed to die in Gondolin and his spirit wonder as a houseless Avari.”

“I was not thinking of that at the time,” said Tyelpe.

“Thank Eru you were not in Nargathrond when that mortal twit showed up or there would have been two of you mooning after that accursed dolt.”

Gwindor looked as though he was heaving a sigh, even though he was no longer in need of breath.

“Brother -,” said Gelmir, resting a ghostly arm on his shoulder.

“You sound just like him,” said Tyelpe.“In truth, after five hundred years I thought I had become as the Khazâdrim masters; they find deep love in friendship and their life is lived through that which they make. I craved the fire in the blood of a new creation and suffered the dismal heartbreak of a design that cruelly fails. I did not see the use of the unstable bonds that joined the flesh of lovers, although I supposed I might have wanted children one day.

“So I am assuming you two magicians of mechanics managed to work out which piston thrust into which cylinder,” Maedhros silvery eyebrow hovered upwards.

“Maeglin would say nothing of the designs,” said Tyelpe coolly, “even though we became lovers.”

They did not need to know the details. They did not need to know of the tender awkwardness of the first time they were naked together. They did not need to know that Tyelpe let his Fëanorian curiosity run wild, until he could smell Maeglin on his fingers and taste him muskily in his mouth.

They did not need to know Maeglin was shamed by his blue skin. Instinctively, Tyelpe had reached out to touch the thick swirls beneath his collar bone. Maeglin knocked his hand away. My father’s marks, he had said, I did not ask for them. It was between them that Tyelpe had felt Maeglin’s pulse beat hard through his skin as he touched him, read the spike of terror that sometimes over-rode desire. They did not need to know Maeglin had been afraid.

He never accused Maeglin of fear, for he knew that would be disastrous. Yet he knew Maeglin knew he was aware of it, it seeped wordlessly out of the black eyes that stared at him as he worked his hand over the tip of Maeglin’s cock, biting his lip at the skill with which the other controlled his arousal.

  You know but are not afraid.

They did not need to know how he had taken Maeglin’s hands and put them on his most intimate places, spread his legs and encouraged him to explore between them, the strange uncharted territory beneath his ball sack and down to his arsehole.

They did not need to know Maeglin seemed less fearful touching another’s body. Neither did they need to know the pleasure Tyelpe felt watching Maeglin explore his hidden places, noting which points caused Tyelpe’s cock to twitch and his hips to buck. He watched Maeglin observing his flushed and aching flesh as if he were determining the qualities of a new alloy, pushing his finger against Tyelpe’s quivering arsehole with Ñoldorin curiosity shining brightly from his eyes.

He is less afraid when his hands are on my body, thought Tyelpe, then Maeglin’s finger slipped within his arse, down through the ring of muscle to stroke deep inside his body.

They did not need to know that Tyelpe went into a near-trance when he was touched there, deadly calm and painfully aroused. That he had sat up as Maeglin continued to stroke him, clenching rhythmically around his lover’s finger, drowning Maeglin in open mouthed kisses so that he may share the taste of this restful bliss and the burning ache coiled at the base of my spine.

The skin on Maeglin’s cheek was flushed red with passion, but his skin was singing with fear and a little shame. Tyelpe sensed they were powerfully close, he felt as if his fëa had come loose from his hröa and was pushing softly against Maeglin. He kissed the pale elf’s cheek.

“By Eru and Varda, maker of the stars, please fuck me.”

They did not need to know how utterly devoid of grace it had been. That they had used some kind of burn-ointment that made the room stink of camphor. That Tyelpe had knelt before Maeglin and kissed the rod that would impale him, suckled it as hard as iron. That it had taken Maeglin three attempts to enter him and that he came hard inside Tyelpe within minutes.

They did not need to know how achingly tender Tyelpe had felt towards Maeglin as he collapsed onto his chest, stunned and shaking from the experience of orgasm. He stoked Maeglin’s back gently as he came back to himself, shifting Maeglin slightly so he could watch Tyelpe lazily stroke his own arousal. Maeglin had made some muttered murmur of defeat and Tyelpe had softly laughed into his hair. Did you forge a blade perfectly at your first attempt?

Maeglin had looked lost. Tyelpe suddenly remembered that the elf beside him was from Nan Elmoth, and Eru only knows how he was made to learn his craft.

Maeglin had kept his dark eyes fixed on Tyelpe’s hand teasing at his cockhead, muttering that Enerdhil sounded like a dwarf.

Tyelpe had smiled and said, I learnt a lot from dwarves.

But it had been his crafty father who had told him the secret of love and patience, the gentle secret that accomplishes great art.

Tyelpe had carded his fingers roughly through Maeglin’s black hair, raven black, as if he would sweat blue ink from the darkness of it. Maeglin’s body felt slack from orgasm, but Tyelpe was still taut as a bow-string. He had nosed down to Maeglin’s neck and nibbled him into alertness. Kiss me, touch me, make me come.

And so it went, until the sparrows chirped their morning chorus, and they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

“Tyelpe?” said Maedhros.

“I apologise,” said Tyelpe, “I must have drifted off.”

“Pleasant memories?” said Gwindor, rolling his eyes.

“Yes they were,” said Tyelpe, “I had forgotten I had them. I had forgotten what it was like when something good happened to me.”

“Was not Maeglin-,” said Maedhros.

“- The Moriquendi who wanted to sleep with the Princess. Yes. He saw marriage to Idril as acceptance, – the banishment of Eöl from his history. He would belong in Gondolin at last. He desired this very much, and with very little hope, although he had no love for her bodily.”

“She was a Ñoldo,” said Finduilas, “She would not willingly bind to one who did not love her.”

“Yes,” said Tyelpe, “She knew of his desire and she despised him for it. She saw him as one who saw her as an object, a silmaril, to be plucked from Turgon’s court and paraded in victory.”

“Besides, from Tyelpe’s smiles it seems that Maeglin is very much bound to him,” said Gelmir

“Maeglin was not raised under Ñoldorin laws and customs,” said Tyelpe.

“The bond still holds,” said Gelmir.

“I was going to say,” said Maedhros, “was not Maeglin the traitor of Gondolin?”

“Yes,” said Tyelpe, “That was true, he was captured and broken into a willing servant of Morgoth.”

“The cuinagorthrim,” said Maedhros, “The living dead, the ones that crawl.”

Gelmir shuddered.

“Yes,” said Tyelpe, “I guess that now.”

“For those who did not make it to Angband?” said Finduilas

“The cuinagorthrim were our worst fear,” said Gwindor, “They were as hröa from whom the spirit had departed. The ones who sat down and waited quietly for death. They had no fear of beatings; they did not care for warmth or food. They were the terminal stage of Angband’s degradation and the orcs would to cut them down like dead leaves from a tree.”

Tyelpe smiled. “Your worst fear.”

“Yes,” said Gwindor, “I do not see why you find it so amusing.”

Tyelpe laughed. The other elves were looking as though he were a quendë possessed.

“Your worst fear, the gaoler in the shadows, the sorrow of the Ñoldor,” he paused, trying to contain the laughter that was still threatening to burst out of him. “Stand forth, Lord Maeglin – I would recognise your sulks anywhere.”

Nothing happened. The four other silver figures continued to stare at Tyelpe, who was now on his feet, standing before the impenetrable dark.

Tyelpe’s laughter rang hard and shrill on the silent stones of Mandos, the cold walls of the Halls of Waiting echoed with his beautiful, crazed, Fëanorian laughter.

“It is just the darkness,” said Gwindor softly.

Tyelpe shook his head as if he were working his brains loose.

“Come out of the darkness, Lord Maeglin,” said Tyelpe, “causing terror to tormented souls is beneath you.”

The silence that fell in after Tyelpe’s laughter was thick as porridge. Noise fell dead against the flagstones; Tyelpe should have heard his heartbeat, should have heard his breathing, but in the dead world of Mandos, fear travels unaccompanied.

There was one minute of this perfect silence. The vortex swirled as empty as the void, and then at its heart, something coalesced, inky coils merged and twisted into the shape of an elf, more smoke than silver, a wispy black outline around a fëa as pale as chalk.

The shadow hovered in the void for a moment and then stepped forward onto the flagstones before Tyelpe.

“Welcome to the ward of the Ñ-specials, Maeglin Lómion,” said Maedhros. “You have been expected for some time.”

---

Chapter End Notes

This owes a lot to alackofghosts characterisations of Celebrimbor and Maeglin, and their first kiss is taken right from one of her illustrations. Tyelpe's interest in Maeglin's hip bone can also be seen here