Bearer of Chiaroscuro by AdmirableMonster

taur-nu-fuin: never laugh at live dragons

The forest was bleak and dark.  Even leaning upon his stave, Mairon found his breath heaving in his lungs, and a wet morning fog was not making it easier.  The fog itself stank of damp and decay, choking his lungs.  He shivered violently, feeling a layer of corrosion growing across his metal form, tarnishing the polished patches of his true form.  Too fast, he thought—the thoughts sluggish.

He coughed, eyes watering, and coughed again.  He was wading through knee high sludgy water, and the weeds seemed to reach up and clutch at his thighs.  Mairon had to stop, suddenly—

—His hands upon Mairon’s thighs, opening him up, Mairon taking it, the cold whisper in his ear, won’t you, won’t you, for me, Little Flame, not saying ‘no’ because he cannot deny Him but not saying ‘yes’ because it isn’t possible, he has formed his fana carefully, and he cannot, he cannot—inside, inside—heavy weight upon his thighs, upon his chest—

and he was gasping for breath, coughing and choking, on his knees in the mud, with a foul smell rising all around.

“Well, well, well,” whispered a wet-sounding sort of voice.  The reeds standing in the mud rustled, and a pair of green-yellow eyes glowed at him.  Mairon’s vision blurred, and he choked.  A long toothy snout poked out of the reeds, decorated with spongy fruiting bodies.  “It has been a long time since you have set foot here, Lord of Tol-in-Gaurhoth.”  The nostrils flared, and cold mist rose from them.  The stench intensified.  Mairon coughed again, half-seizing up, and felt the two scraps of life inside him crying out in distress.

“Stop,” he snarled.

“Oh?”  The dragon raised its head and snapped its jaws.  “First in your madness, you draw me from the murk, and then you abandon me, and now you desire to command me?  I think not, Lord.”  

He reached for his connection to the forest, but, to his dismay, he could find nothing.  The creeping corrosion grew across his skin, and he felt numb and cut off from all power.  “I am the greatest of the Maiar,” he croaked.

“I do not care,” the dragon said.  It breathed again.  Mairon’s head spun.  The children wailed, and all he could think of to do was to channel strength towards them, humming in a low voice as he tried to call upon the ancient Song.  It burned his throat and mouth, and golden blood dripped from his lips to splash into the ugly black water below.  

The dragon laughed.  “I will enjoy watching you die by inches,” it whispered.

And then there was fire, fire flaring all around him, the heat of it burning away the heavy patina forming on his limbs and weighing him down, that had been eating right into the spirit-flesh of his true form.  Mairon screamed, but strength was returning to him.  A great fiery hammer swung downwards and would have crushed the dragon’s skull if it had not pulled back with the impossible swiftness of a snake.  It spat something ugly and yellow and retreated, disappearing into the reeds with barely a ripple.

Hands caught at Mairon’s back, lifting him up and cradling him.  “You fool,” said Gothmog’s voice.  “Could you not, for once in your life, have asked for help?”

Mairon thought he must faint from the pain and the fear, but the two little souls were settling again, crying more out of plaintive reaction than out of continued anguish.  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped.  “Put me down.”

“You’ll fall over if I do that,” Gothmog pointed out mildly.

“I can walk.”

“I do not think you can, actually.”

Mairon went quiet for a moment.  “Gothmog,” he said urgently.  “Thou must return.  I cannot make thee a traitor to Him.  What I have done is bad enough, but if thou shouldst follow me—”

The sturdy balrog sighed and then, to his surprise, actually reached out and tweaked his nose.  “I have always followed thee,” he replied, in defiance of all decorum.