Emotions-- A series of vignettes by MisbehavingMaiar

Envy, Sheepishness

Bitter bile and a small betrayal; two small things that will grow. 

ENVY:

Oh to be praised by all for work I have done; to pour my soul into a vessel so perfect, so crystalline, that its beauty could be seen and worshiped... What that my light, my fire, was as revered as the light you borrowed and caught forever. 

The greatest smith the world has ever known, whose fire will never come again into Arda.... Fah.    

How I loathe you.

If only I could convince myself that you are not unique, that you are praised only because they have not the scope of vision to appreciate other works, that I have built towers reaching to heaven of diamond and they were torn down and scattered because they seemed out of place on Eru’s earth— that I am worth the same… no, MORE than you! Worth a thousand of you flimsy, second-comer, spoilt whelp of Aulë! I spit on your works! I hate them! You are perfect and I hate you!

Please. Someone.

Look upon what I have wrought and say it is beautiful, I beg… I beg you.

SHEEPISHNESS: 

"Mairon… what have you done?"

Father held my work in his hands as though it were a dead thing. 

"Something new! ...I thought you would be pleased?" 

"It is a weapon."

"Yes." I replied, for I’d designed it to be so.
"It will be easy to wield and reproduce! I can teach them the conditions of the steel and quenching time, and how to shape the blades to optimize different effects."  

So long I’d labored to perfect its geometry, tapering and beveling precisely, cooling and refireing the steel to the finest increment of time, to insure it was flexible yet strong. The metal had been refolded such that it rippled with a hundred shades of silver, its edge so sharp a falling hair would split upon the blade without slowing in its descent. 

Yet Aulë looked at me with worry. “Why would the Children need such a thing?” 

"Will they not meet with strife?" I asked. "In the Music, I saw battles… I thought, they should have tools for them…"  I had been proud, but now I could not stop my shoulders drooping. 

Father sighed. “Mairon. What you say is true, though I wish it were not so. But this is not the work I tasked you with. Who put this thought into your mind?”

I flinched.
“The work you gave me was not neglected, Master… I swear to you.” 

"Who, Mairon?" He loomed over me, the newly-wrought blade like a twig in his great red hands. "Was it he who I forbade you to speak with?"

"…Yes." My heart trembled with shame. "But the idea was my own! The sword was all my doing, Master, I was not told to forge it by Melkor nor any other!"

I thought this would alleviate Aulë’s displeasure, but the sorrow in his craggy eyes only deepened. “I understand your eagerness to aid the coming Children, but Mairon… does the hallowed task I gave thee, of bringing forth the designs of the One, not satisfy? Must you also build instruments of death on a whim?” 

Head hung, I knelt by my hammer. “I did not mean to anger you Father, I thought you would be pleased that I had created something new and useful… I am sorry!” 

He placed a hand upon my hair and shook his horned head, mane and beard swinging. “I put too much of myself in you. I should have foreseen this. It is I who should be ashamed, not you my child.” 

The words were meant to comfort, but instead they stung. Why should either of us feel ashamed? I thought, and though I was in a habit of sharing all my thoughts with Aulë, I did not share this one. 

It was the first of many.