Emotions-- A series of vignettes by MisbehavingMaiar

Empathy

The fall of a city and a boy; harsh truths and sympathy between monsters.  

"I’m alive." 

The young elf moves brittlely, feeling the crunch of bones displaced in his left leg and hand. His voice is dull; there is no pleasure in this revelation. 

"Yes, you’re alive." Echos a booming voice above.

Maeglin turns on the flagstones and lifts his head, dark hair stuck damply to his brow. There is a great shadow, an umbra in the vague shape of a man, or perhaps a bull with wings, glowing through with bright orange fissures beneath shifting smoke— a balrog, standing with its foot pinning him gently to the earth. And beyond, there stands the Lieutenant of Angband in full armor; towering in the paved city square like a monument to a warrior of legend. 

The sky is red. The once beautiful fountain smokes; its white stones are blasted with soot, smeared with blood. All is woefully quiet. The only elves he sees are not standing, not moving. Somewhere high in the smudged mountain peaks the muffled shriek of a long-throated monster rings. 

Maeglin looks up to the high outer wall, to the uppermost tower of the city with its golden-white stones. He sees no one on the promenade, no one in the court. That was where he’d last seen her.

He remembers the things he said, the way she’d backed away from him while shielding her child, her face stoic and hard as steel. He had tried (he winces now to think of it)... he had tried to grab her by the arm, to force her to come with him, to flee the city until it was safe to return. He’d made her promises of security and love… she’d looked at him and called him ‘traitor’.  

He’d been ready to all but strike her down and drag her with him when Tuor came; they’d fought, and the tower shook beneath them as the dragons attacked below. He’d lost his sword, rushed to retrieve it before it skittered off the unguarded stone plank atop the wall... Then the whole fundament had shuddered beneath his feet. He’d careened sideways and backwards, towards the ledge.

The black sword spun out into the abyss, glinting. His white fingers clutched the rock spout, scrambling, gasping, seeing horror in Idril and Tuor’s eyes. She’d called to him then, and even rushed to grab his hand. But the tower shivered under him, as if it was bucking him off.  His hands suddenly clutched at air. He fell-- 

He fell where his father fell. And that would have been the end of him, but dark talons had yanked him from the air, flaming wings brushing the mountain face and pulling away into the smoke, Maeglin caught dangling like falcon's prey between great claws. He'd struck the rock thrice on the way down before his capture. 

"Idril...?" he swallows, dreading the reply. 

"Gone. With her half-human child in tow. We have not yet found her or her body. But we will." Says Sauron with calm certainty, wiping clean a long blade and replacing it in its sheath. "...Is that not what you wanted?" 

The boy curls around his twisted arm with a shrill quiver in his throat. “Not like this!” He gasps. “Not any of it like this!” 

Sauron's voice is tinged with bland irony. “Your city. Your cousin. Your rivals disinherited. You were eager enough when my Master promised you these things.” 

"You would have tortured me! Killed me! You tricked me… Everything you told me was lies and…and deceptions…" Maeglin's voice trailed off, shaking, his face a grimace slimy with tears. 

"Oh, indeed? Because the prize we delivered was not everything you wanted it to be?" The lieutenant closed the distance between them, standing over the miserable elf lying weeping on the flagstones. 
"This is war. Did you expect them to welcome you with honors after you burned their homes and sacked their city? You cannot be both a conqueror and a hero. Accept that one door closes when the other opens. Then, do what you will.”

"I did NOT. WILL. THIS!” Maeglin wailed. “This massacre, I did not want— I did not think—!”

"No, you did not." Observed the armored maia. 

"Why did you not let me die?" The boy rolls his face into the dust, tears muddying the yellow stone. "That would have been just. That would have been fair. That’s what I deserve.”

There is a silence filled only with whimpering breaths and the far off roar of dragon-fire.
It is broken by the bellowed command “ABOUT FACE”--  and the balrogs and the few orcs making report turn away from the Voice of Angband, standing patiently at the ready. 

With no eyes on him, Sauron kneels carefully, greaves glinting. Unobserved, he pulls the boy off the ground, drawing up the filthy face between gauntleted hands.

“Nothing is fair.” He says, and plants a kiss atop Maeglin’s raven crown. 

Chapter End Notes

*I feel like the tense changes in this chapter are distracting and in need of further editing. Expect an update on this bit later. --Wes