Picking Up The Pieces by Grundy

Broken

The torture is more mental/mind games than physical/graphic, but you have been warned.

Read Broken

He’s not sure how long he’s been here, with nothing but his memories for company. It’s far too dark here, in the deepest parts of Angband, for him to have anything like Rana and Vasa or even the stars to help him keep time.

He probably doesn’t want to know, anyway. It’s been long since time had any particular meaning for him. He’s under no illusion why he’s been left his memories – now that his body is so broken that it can no longer register pain, what else is left for Bauglir and his creature Gorthaur to torment him with?

Those memories that might have been a comfort to him are gone, buried so deep he cannot call them up anymore. He does not remember his mother’s face or voice, the songs she had once sung, or even the touch of her hand. Home is gone, as is Doriath, for while he knew that he had been there in his youth, but he cannot recall it, bound up with his mother as it was. It is as if it has all been sponged away, leaving him conscious only of the empty spaces where it ought to have been.

But there are so many other memories, all lovingly left completely intact to remind him of how unworthy of his kin he is, how badly he has failed those dearest to him.

He tried not to whimper as it hit him all over again.

He must keep quiet if he was to remain unnoticed.

---

He was exhausted, utterly spent with the effort to regain some degree of mastery of his hroä.

The longer Gorthaur had worn him like a puppet, the harder it had become to free himself for even a moment. Of late, he has not been able to beat back his tormentor’s will for more than a second or two. For a while, he had been able to force the reunion of fëa and hroä whilst at work in the forge – he had even been able to manage one last work of his own before that too had been taken from him.

Calaliltië was the last thing he would ever make, he had known that even as he had set the name on the blade and put what light and hope he still had to offer into the letters. She will find it someday. Bauglir may twist the Music, but he cannot unmake it entirely.  Even if the Dark One kills her as he has laughingly promised to do, that sword will still play its part in his downfall. The last tengwar on it are a prayer that it do Belegurth as much damage as his grandfather’s Ringil had and more.

But satisfying as that knowledge had been – and it had been sweet, for he had felt Gorthaur’s rage at being unable to hinder him – he wished he had saved some last reserve for the final struggle. He should have seen this coming.

Bauglir’s right hand was using his body to attack his own kin.

His little nephew Eärendil dangled over the edge of the city wall in his hands, yet it was as if he watched it through someone else’s eyes. The boy looked more confused than frightened, certain that his beloved uncle would never let him fall – and indeed, had it been his uncle in control, the child would be in no danger.

But his uncle is a weak, broken thing no longer even close to a match for the dread maia.

The best he can manage is to make his body stumble, react slower than it should, clumsy and unwieldy, as if the puppet’s strings had tangled. That does him no good now, not with his nephew about to be dashed on the rocks as once his father had been, and Itarillë’s panicked screams ringing in his ears.

And then – PAIN.

Gorthaur’s control faltered in his surprise, only a split second, but that was all Lomion needed, all that was required to throw Eärendil to safety, to turn to face Tuor.

After that, any hope of affecting the outcome of the fight was gone forever, for Lomion’s fëa was utterly flattened by the maia’s fury at being both injured and thwarted.

Lomion did not know why Gorthaur or Bauglir should wish the child dead, but it must be for some purpose beyond merely hurting him – they were far too angry for that to be their only goal.

He could feel every blow Tuor landed on his hroä, for Gorthaur’s wrath has if anything only increased. If he cannot kill Itarillë and Eärendil, he will make Lomion pay in blood and misery for that small victory. Gradually, the pain began to lessen, and Lomion understood it was a sign his hroä was weakening, that it could not be long now before the end. He rejoiced at the thought.

He did not think Tuor actually needed to push him, when it came to it. Even animated by the savage will of Gorthaur, an elven body could sustain only so much damage before it would no longer respond. He stumbled, and fell.

As the ground rushed toward him, he felt no fear, only relief.

That was when a veritable tidal wave of malice burst over him.

You think, little fool, that I will allow you to die so easily? It does not end here.

That was the last thing he knew before pain exploded throughout his battered hroä as it met the rocks.

His final coherent thought before the darkness took him was that ada had been right.

---

The next thing he knew, he was being drawn into a vast hall. It was not a part of Angband he recognized, but that signified nothing. He had seen little of Morgoth’s stronghold beyond the inside of the cell where he was kept.

The odd light was off-putting, as was the utter lack of feeling in his body. It seemed Gorthaur had finally overestimated the limits of what he could subject a prisoner to. As broken as he knew himself to be, there should have been pain beyond measure. But he felt nothing – not even the air around him, or the floor below him.

That is, he felt nothing physical. It turned out that he could still feel emotions, for when the Dark Vala suddenly appeared before him and called him by name in a voice that seemed to come from the very depths of Arda, he felt utter and total terror.

Why could he not have died? What foul and unnatural art had Gorthaur used to prevent his fëa fleeing a body so broken? They had been promised that beyond death was at least a hope of mercy and rebirth, and reunion with their kin. Now he had not even that to cling to anymore.

He did not expect it to avail him much, but with nothing left to lose – dignity, pride, and hope were all gone – he fled. He dashed franticly past his captor and let instinct guide him away from the light, down into the deepest, darkest part of the fortress.

Bauglir may boast, but for all his power, he has not forgotten Ungoliant. He feared the dark as much as any of the Children.

Voices called after Lomion, but he recognized their kind – more maiar. They might not be as terrible as Gorthaur – in truth, he did not think any but Bauglir himself could be as terrible as Gorthaur – but he did not wish to find out.

He stopped running only when the deep tunnel he followed dead ended in a darkness so profound he could not even see his hand in front of his face.

And in that comforting concealment, he curled up and silently wept for all that he had lost.

---

For a time, he thought himself safe. He was hidden away, deeper than even orcs would venture without their masters driving them with chain or whip.

Several times he heard voices – sometimes they even contrived to sound fair, as though he would be fooled that the Belain or their loyal servants would ever venture here. Once there was a voice of an elleth whispering to him, bringing with it the memory of stars and trees. He had nearly answered before he remembered that it was one of Gorthaur’s favorite sports to set new captives against older, more damaged ones, the better to toy with them.

He had curled up, rocking himself in the dark. He might have cast through his mind for memories of his mother, but she was the one thing the Enemy had not succeeded in using against him.

Even his One had been turned into a weapon to wound him with, one more tool to break him.

---

“Do you never think about marriage?” Itarillë asked.

They were laying in the grass by one of the more distant streams, almost as far from the city as they could get while still within Tumladen. He had been swimming earlier, but his cousin found the water too chilly and would only dip her feet or wade occasionally.

“Sometimes,” Lomion answered. “It does not seem an immediate concern, though.”

She hissed in exaperation.

“It might be if you would ever wake up to the idea that Rosalmiel is not the only nis in the city who is interested in you, merely the most forward!”

“She is not that forward,” he protested weakly, feeling oddly as though he ought to defend her handmaiden’s honor.

“Yet you are as awkward as an adolescent whenever she tries to flirt with you,” Itarillë sniffed. “If it is not that you consider her too bold-”

“I do not,” Lomion replied firmly, wishing to nip this idea in the bud. “But not having grown up among the Noldor as you did, I am never entirely certain what is acceptable and what is too encouraging. The ways of my father’s people are different, and I do not wish to give false hope, or embarrass your father by behaving in a way that might seem to your people as if I were merely toying with the ladies.”

Itarillë’s pout was magnificent.

“You are so certain that none of the nissi here are for you?” she said in disappointment. “There are elleth among us also, if you would not take a Noldorin bride…”

“It is not that I object to the idea of any of the nissi,” he began soothingly, but his cousin pounced on the hint with the glee of a cat who has finally caught a particularly troublesome mouse.

“You have someone in mind,” she cried, sounding as delighted as if a wedding were imminent.

He covered his face. She was going to be impossible about this, he just knew it.

“It is nothing,” he tried, knowing she was unlikely to be put off.

“Oh? How did you meet this nothing of yours? And where? Do you think she waits for you, though you have been hidden away here and unable to give her any sign?”

He tried silence, but it didn’t last long, for she showed every sign of waiting him out – or worse, for the look on her face gave away that she was considering tickling him until he surrendered the information.

 “I have not met her yet, in point of fact.”

Itarillë’s brows rose toward the heavens.

“Now you have to tell me all,” she said expectantly. “That is far too intriguing – it would be downright mean to hold back!”

He sighed.

“It is a bit embarrassing, really. You’ve heard how mothers may have special insight into the fate of their newborn children?”

She nodded.

“Of course. Several of our kin were given amilessë tercenyë.”

“Ammë did not bestow on me a name of foresight, thank Elbereth for small mercies, but apparently she did have a vision on the day I was born.”

Itarillë looked to be on tenterhooks.

“She told not only my father, but her cousin who had been with her for the birth, that I would marry Galadriel’s daughter.”

Itarillë convulsed with laughter for a moment before she realized he was serious.

“You are not joking?” she spluttered. “But Aunt Artanis – I mean Galadriel? Begetting a child? It seems of all things unlikely.”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know, I think if Morgoth were ever defeated, she might.”

She glanced at him keenly.

“You are not so fanciful as to think that just because your mother said it when you were newly born it must be so.”

Lomion dropped his eyes to the ground for a few moments before answering. Itarillë would not laugh again if he confessed the truth, would she?

“I have also dreamt of her from time to time,” he admitted.

She was all astonishment.

“Truly? What does she look like, this daughter of Artanis and Celeborn?”

The sun, he thought but did not say.

“More Vanyarin or Lindarin than Sindarin,” he replied wryly. “Her hair will be a match for yours easily, and her complexion is definitely from the Amanyar, not the Moriquendi. Anyone might recognize she is Galadriel’s by her height and her expressions, but oddly enough, her face puts me in mind of another.”

“Oh?”

“You are not to laugh, but if I did not know her to be of the Eldar, I would think her kin to Tuor.”

Itarillë’s cheeks darkened slightly at that, but she did not rise to the perceived bait.

“In truth,” Lomion told her, “I find the dreams rather reassuring.”

“How so?” she asked. “For you know as well as I that she has not yet been begotten, which means you can have no hope of marriage for many years yet.”

“That may be true,” Lomion said with a smile, “but that I know her to be my mate with such certainty gives me hope that we will survive beyond leaving Gondolin, and live to see the Enemy defeated.”

Itarillë’s look at that was radiant.

---

Gorthaur had found that memory. Found it, seen the face of Galadriel’s shining daughter, and recognized her for who and what she was.

He had laughed long, and Lomion had known utter dread at the sound.

“Oh, foolish little elf. She will never be yours. This I promise you. It does not matter if it takes an age or more – I will find her and deliver her to my master, and he will destroy her. Congratulations, Maeglin Eölion, you have killed your own mate, just as your father before you. Your refusal to speak when commanded has sealed her fate.”

He had been sifting through his captive’s memories long by that point, poking, prodding, using what he could to cause pain, fear, and doubt.

And ever again, the question was repeated.

“Where is Turukano’s city, slave?”

At first he had focused on the ‘slave’, objecting fiercely that he was no one’s slave, least of all Bauglir’s. He had understood at once how to keep the location hidden. He had locked away all memories of his mother, burying them so deep in his fëa that to reach for them would not just break him, but kill him. Death would be his insurance.

For he had trod the Hidden Way in her company, and had been there but once only in accordance with his uncle’s law. It mattered not that to hide away all knowledge of his mother meant to erase his childhood completely, and most of his youth. His life now began in Gondolin, when Itarillë first smiled at him in delight and offered to show him the city while their parents spoke of what would become of his family now.

---

The memories left to him may be painful, but being alone with his thoughts was no better. It occurred to him when he had not been in the dark very long that it was possible that he had become an orc.

No one knew how exactly they had been made, after all – but his father’s people had known full well that they had been elves in the beginning, taken and turned into a mockery of what they had once been, driven to every form of cruelty and depravity by the will of their master.

Once the question had formed in his mind, he had been relieved to not be able to see himself. He did not know what he would do if he discovered that his pale Sindarin skin had turned grey-brown and mottled as that of the glamhoth. He had no doubt that after his long fall, his face was mutilated enough.

At least he has managed not to be sent out to kill or kidnap his own kind. By hiding himself, he has at least done that much. One less orc to threaten his people. He had no choice but to remain where he was. He may have a will of his own again, but he knew that would be true only so long as Gorthaur and Belegurth did not find him.

He would have prayed for death had he thought it would do any good. But he understood now that with the Doom of the Noldor, even that was hopeless. The Valar would have no pity on a half-Noldo maybe-orc.

---

Far above, in the hall Maeglin had fled from when he first arrived, Nienna took counsel with her brother, who feared that Maeglin Irission would never depart his Halls, for two Ages later he had yet to understand that he was within them