The first moonrise by yletylyf

---

Exchange

---

Maitimo thought about it for a long time. It was, on its face, not unreasonable. A Maia who wanted stories about his family and his home that he had left, and could never return to? If true, it was a fair trade, exchanging one type of comfort for another. Maitimo could not conceive of a way such stories could harm his brethren; as he had told Mairon, the stories were hardly a secret.

Rather the opposite. The doings of Fëanáro were infamous.

Maitimo might draw the line at describing any specific plans for war, or sharing the wording of the dreadful oath they had all sworn, or the characters and strengths and weaknesses of his brothers or the Eldar as a whole—or his own—but that did not seem to be what was asked.

And in return, Maitimo itched to have answers to his questions, intelligence that he could bring back to his brothers when he escaped. The map of Beleriand and the answers about what the inhabitants of the fortress ate—that was already important, useful information. If he learned anything more about the logistics and structure of the Enemy, he would be very pleased with every morsel.

He acknowledged to himself that he wanted to do it. The tactic of being kind to him shouldn't have worked, he shouldn't have let it work, but it was better to face the truth than deny it: it had worked. Mairon was all charm and smiles and little kindnesses and he phrased what he wanted in terms that hit close to home.

Maitimo, too, would love stories of Aman right now. What was his mother doing and thinking? His brothers' wives, his cousins, the rest of the family he'd left behind—he would kill to hear news of them in this moment, to hear that they were well and safe.

It was such a small request, in terms of what it would cost Maitimo to grant it, and the motivation behind the request was so very relatable.

Mairon, as it turned out, gave him a lot of time to think about it. So much time. Maitimo began to suspect that Mairon hoped for boredom and loneliness to do a little of the work of softening Maitimo. Parwë was ready enough to supply what was asked, but he was not sociable, and he never stayed to talk after he brought or cleared food.

Maitimo's back slowly continued to heal, and he finally asked Parwë for a shirt. He was provided with one that soft and silky, and felt as comfortable on his back as he suspected anything could. The fit was not quite right, but it was not too far off. It fit his girth just fine but not the entire length of his torso. Maitimo supposed that was what he got for being considerably taller than average.

Maitimo slept less, and spent more time restlessly pacing the room. He stretched and did exercises and slowly worked the skin of his back into flexibility. He stared out of the windows as long as he could tolerate the cold—which was a long time; he was determined not to go soft in his captivity—though the view never changed. The plains remained empty of friend or foe. Any activity going on in Beleriand was far to the south. He stared at the map and the drawings and schemes many times. He sat by the harp for many hours, brushing his fingers along it wistfully, but he did not know whether Elven song in Angband counted as 'provoking' Morgoth or not.

It was in this position that Mairon entered the room again, after his lengthy absence: he found Maitimo with a hand on top of the harp, his eyes closed, and his mind far away.

"You can play it, if you like."

Maitimo jumped at the sound of voice; once again he had not heard Mairon enter the room. He snatched his hand off the harp and looked around at Mairon, before processing his words.

"I—I did not know whether that would provoke him," Maitimo explained, awkwardly. This was not how he'd planned on starting his next conversation with Mairon.

"I don't think so," Mairon said. "Not if I've requested song." Then he tilted his head to the side, and added: "Oh, do refrain from singing about Varda or the stars."

Maitimo laughed. "Most of the songs of my people are about the stars!"

"Well, it is your risk to take," Mairon said, his tone very polite.

Maitimo laughed again, but he sat down on a stool by the harp and drew his fingers across the strings, and his heart was so glad that he did not care about the stars just now. He bent forward, and picked out a light, cheerful tune, and started singing.

He sang of the beauty of Valinor, the happiness of those who dwelt there, under the light of the trees, and the birds and the beasts and the bounty of the fields and the beauty of the mountains. He sang his love for his family and his home, and mourned those he had lost—either to death or to the separation of the ocean. He lost himself in song, and did not stop until the pads of his fingers started bleeding and his voice was raw.

He sucked on his fingers to ease the stinging, and looked up. Mairon was stretched out on the bed, looking relaxed and pleased. There was no sign he had provoked the wrath of Morgoth.

"You have slightly more talent than the other elves I've known," Mairon told him. "The Avari. Not, of course, comparable to some of the Ainur."

"Of course," Maitimo murmured, not remotely offended. He was no great bard, and he knew it; he had always been built for war, even in the very Noontide of Valinor. "Do you play?"

"Yes, of course, though I am no more talented than you," Mairon said with a laugh. "I am a builder, a smith, a master of craft. I left the singing to those with more leisure to devote to it."

"It is strange to think of any servant of Mor—Melkor as enjoying music," Maitimo mused.

"Don't be absurd," Mairon said, a bit sharply. "Did you not know the Ainur originally sang the world into being? All of us, together."

"I—yes, that is part of our tales," Maitimo agreed cautiously. "I suppose I had not taken it to be so... literal."

"It was very literally music," Mairon said crossly, and Maitimo understood that he had given offense.

He judged it unsafe to attempt to apologize.

"How long have I been here?" Maitimo asked, changing the subject. "Is there any news of the war?"

Mairon propped his head up on his hands and looked at Maitimo. He did not answer directly. "How do the elves measure time?" he asked instead.

"By the flowering of the Two Trees... at least while we were in Valinor, and while they existed."

Mairon sat up very suddenly on hearing this. "While they existed?" he repeated, his voice sharp.

"Yes," Maitimo said slowly, staring at Mairon. "Yes, they... did he tell you nothing of what he did in Valinor?"

"Melkor? No. I have not asked. That would be very provoking. 'Yes, my lord, do tell me all about your three ages of captivity at the hands of your brother'," Mairon said, in a slightly higher, singsong voice.

Maitimo laughed, despite himself.

"He destroyed the Two Trees?" Mairon continued in a normal voice, comprehending instantly. "They are gone?"

Maitimo nodded.

"Wow," Mairon said. He did not seem to have anything else to say. He and Maitimo stared at each other for a while. Then Mairon blinked, and drew a deep breath. "All right, hmm, measuring time. Do the elves not know how to tell time by the movement of the stars?"

"Of course we know," Maitimo retorted, stung. "But I am no astronomer. And the stars up here are strange."

"You are no healer, you are no astronomer, and you are no great bard—what is your claim to fame, eldest son of Fëanáro?"

"I have turned out to be rather good at killing," Maitimo said mildly.

"What a claim to fame," Mairon murmured. He pushed himself up off the bed, and gestured to the door. "Walk with me," he instructed. "Wait, put some boots on first. The stone floors are extremely cold."

"I do not have my boots," Maitimo pointed out, amused.

Mairon grumbled something. He disappeared, and came back with what were indeed Maitimo's own boots that he had been wearing when captured. Maitimo slid them on his feet and laced them up gratefully, then stood. Mairon handed him a heavy cloak, which he accepted and swung around his shoulders.

He followed as Mairon went through the door, which opened instantly at his touch. Maitimo interpreted this as some sort of sorcery, as it had never done that when he touched it.

The stone corridors outside the room were indeed very, very cold. The shock of leaving the warm room was great. His breath misted in the air. He pulled his cloak more tightly around him, and walked faster.

They traveled down the hall, found a spiraling staircase, and mounted it. It was not a long journey; Mairon opened another door, entered a large circular room, and stopped.

The walls were mostly windows, and had no shutters. A sharp and bitter wind tore through the tower. There was a round, bronze display in the center of the room. Maitimo approached and peered at it. It was a celestial map.

"I built this when Angband was new," Mairon explained. "It is no longer accurate, thanks to Varda's meddling with the stars when the elves awoke, but I have not had time to fix it. Some points are still correct."

Maitimo stared at it for a long time before he recognized familiar stars—ones that had been low on the horizon in Valinor, where they lived at the Girdle of Arda. Up here, so far north, they were more central.

Even though he was not an astronomer, Maitimo knew well enough how to use a celestial map. He scanned it for stars he recognized, and chose Alenwë. He picked up the astrolabe that was lying on top of the display, and stepped to the windows. He sighted Alenwë to the south, measured its position, and went back to check it with the display.

"This tells me what, exactly?" Maitimo asked, a finger on one of the dials that rotated around the display. The celestial maps he had seen were for learning and singing about the stars rather than tracking time.

"The number of degrees the star has traveled across the sky in the course of one rotation," Mairon answered. "You can then convert the degrees into Valian days, if you know the mathematics of it."

"Not useful for answering my question, unless I know the position of this star when I entered the fortress," Maitimo pointed out.

"I have marked it here," Mairon said, pointing at a notch on the same dial with a very small black marking on it.

"Why?" Maitimo asked, still bewildered by Mairon's interest in him.

"One day I will find a scribe to write about this war," Mairon said with a smile. "I like stories, in case you hadn't realized."

Maitimo bent over the display and counted the number of notches between the black mark and his current calculation. Every fifth notch was slightly longer, and every twentieth notch even more so, making the count easy. "There are two hundred and twelve degrees in between these. What does that mean?"

"That the star is... mmm... a bit over halfway through a single rotation. One rotation is 360 degrees."

"And how does this convert into Valian days?"

"One rotation of a star equals roughly a hundred and four Valian days, or a little more; the difference is not important at this scale. So... you have been here sixty-one Valian days, measured by the flowering of the Two Trees."

For some reason, this information was comforting. He had not been here that long. There was still plenty of time for him to get information and escape without worrying his brothers overmuch.

"You came up with all these calculations?" he asked, marveling at the work and craft involved.

"The Ainur came up with them working together," Mairon corrected. "After we decided, for some unfathomable reason, to care about measuring the passage of time. Perhaps it was in expectation of the coming of your kind."

"May I keep this?" Maitimo asked, tightening his fingers around the astrolabe. Now that this information was in his head, this was all he needed to track Alenwë. As long as he did not lose count of the total number of rotations.

Mairon looked at it for a long while.

"All right," he finally said. "Let it be noted that I have been very generous with you in exchange for nothing as of yet."

"Yes, yes," Maitimo said in a clipped manner, but his mood was still light. "It is bitterly cold up here, shall we return to the warmth for the stories?"

"The cold is nothing to me," Mairon said, "but if you would prefer it, then certainly."

"I would strongly prefer it," Maitimo said, for he was shivering in the thin clothing underneath the cloak.

Mairon led them back downstairs, and again needed only to lay his hand on the door for it to spring open. There was a tray of food and strong drink on the table, and Maitimo fell to it eagerly, as it had been a while since the last one.

Mairon sat on the bed again. He drew his legs up on the bed and crossed them, and rested his hands on his knees. He gave Maitimo a bright, expectant look.

"Well," Maitimo mumbled over the food, "I was born in Aman, in Tirion upon Túna, to Fëanáro and Nerdanel of the Noldor."

"What is Tirion upon Túna?"

And so his stories started with an explanation of the various Elven dwelling places, all of which apparently post-dated Mairon's departure from Valinor by quite some time. Maitimo described them at length, and the various tribes of the Eldar, as well as each tribe's particular relationship with certain of the Ainur. He talked most about the Noldor: about his grandfather, and his father, and his half-uncles and cousins and their children. He went into detail about his grandfather's two marriages and all the problems that caused.

This conversation took a long time, and Maitimo was nodding off to sleep while Mairon prodded him with questions and clarifications. Eventually, he slumped over onto the table and passed out without warning.

When he woke, he discovered that Mairon had removed his boots and arranged him to lie comfortably on his side on the divan. Mairon had a small lyre and was humming softly on the bed.

"Sorry," Mairon said, stopping instantly. "Did I wake you? You were sleeping through it soundly before."

"I suppose so," Maitimo said, yawning, "but it is quite all right. Where were we?"

"I want to hear about Melkor," Mairon directed, instead of answering.

And so Maitimo told it all: the long peace while Melkor was chained in the Halls of Mandos, the pardon of Manwë, the direction to stay in Valmar, the subsequent disregard of it. How Melkor walked the streets of Tirion pretending friendship, how the Noldor were eager for knowledge, and how susceptible it made them to Melkor's tactics. Maitimo attempted to be diplomatic in his use of language, without taking sides or casting judgment, but he was very detailed in the precise things that Melkor said and did, and their effect.

He described how Melkor started them in the smithying of weapons, bright swords and axes and spears. Mairon was intensely interested in this, and asked for many details concerning this art, but it was not Maitimo's expertise, and he suspected his answers were unsatisfying.

They moved onto the disagreements surrounding the Silmarils, and words of rebellion against the Valar, and Fëanáro drawing his sword on his brother in the very house of their father, the High King. Then came the judgment of the Valar, the unsuccessful hunt for Melkor, and the banishment of Fëanáro from Tirion.

"I have only heard stories of what happened in Tirion after that," Maitimo said apologetically. "For Fëanáro's sons all went with him."

"Why? You were not held at fault for your father's sins, were you?"

"No. It was because we loved him," Maitimo said simply. "Grandfather came with us as well."

"Hmm," Mairon said neutrally. "Well, what happened next?"

Maitimo told of how Melkor came to Formenos and tried to convince Fëanáro to work together, and Fëanáro rejected him, insulting him and shutting the door on the single most powerful being in Arda.

Mairon seemed to find that story very funny. For that matter, Maitimo too thought it was hilarious. His father, whatever else anyone could say about him, had style. Maitimo wished he were half the son his father had deserved.

Maitimo then moved onto the festival, the feast that emptied the streets of Valmar and Tirion. Maitimo had not attended, but he knew very well what had happened there: Melkor attacked with Ungoliant, who consumed the Two Trees; the Valar appealed to Fëanáro for the Silmarils, which he refused, not knowing it was by that point beyond his power to grant. For Melkor had come, in his mightiness and his darkness, with the most wretched of creatures to ever walk the earth, to assault Fëanáro's fortress of Formenos.

"Grandfather was the only one to stand against him," Maitimo said, sorrow and regret and bitterness bringing tears to his eyes as no other part of this story had done. "The rest of us fled. When our sight returned and our hearts beat again, we found him slain before the doors, and all our jewels gone, the Silmarils among them."

Maitimo finished the story: Melkor's flight to Middle-earth, Fëanáro's decision to follow him and go to war, the divisions among the Noldor which ensued. He bluntly told the story of the kinslaying at Alqualondë and sailing north and burning the ships after their arrival at Losgar.

Mairon appeared to view these events as much ado about nothing. He displayed and expressed no empathy for the slain, whether it be Maitimo's proud, brave grandfather or the innocent Teleri of Alqualondë.

Nor did he touch upon any subject Maitimo had silently vowed to keep from him. He did not press for details about the war and troop numbers and movements of the Noldor after burning the ships and marching into Mithrim. He had no interest at all in which of Maitimo's brothers or cousins were dearest to his heart, a line of questioning Maitimo had feared above all.

Dear Findekáno! Maitimo's greatest comfort here was thinking of him secure from Melkor's wrath in Valinor. But Maitimo nonetheless did not put it past Melkor to work his evil on that fair continent even after leaving it, and he desperately needed his captors to remain unaware of this particular weakness in Maitimo's emotional armor.

But Mairon simply changed the subject, inquiring about the lore and knowledge of the Eldar on everything from weaponry to herbs to stonework.

Maitimo drew and explained the symbols of Tingwar, which Mairon grasped right away and admired greatly, and Maitimo did not hide his pride in his father's work. Maitimo drew the numbers and symbols they used for calculation and mathematics, and shared everything they knew about the Ainur and the celestial skies and the beasts and plants of Arda. He discussed his travels up and down the continent of Valinor and all that he had seen and done, and the years spent in the halls of Aulë. He spoke a little of the knowledge that Aulë had imparted to the Noldor that Fëanáro had developed and refined and improved in his own forges, although he could not be as helpful as Mairon wished: the secret of the making of the Silmarils was known to Fëanáro alone, and had died with him.

Everything Mairon lacked in empathy was made up by in his intelligence. He was an extremely quick learner, and had a bright, quick mind, full of probing, fascinating questions and thoughts and points of debate. He loved to hear the songs of Maitimo's people, which Maitimo loved to sing. They laughed together over some of Maitimo's more awful compositions. It became a game, where they would vie to compose worse and worse songs about the deeds of Fëanáro and the Silmarils on the harp and the lyre.

 

It required a vast number of Maitimo's sleep cycles (Mairon appeared to need no sleep whatsoever) to satisfy his curiosity. Maitimo lost count of them. Mairon left only occasionally when his duties called him elsewhere. Parwë's attentions to Maitimo's comfort increased: the quality of the food abruptly improved again, and Parwë caused a line of orcs to haul up warm water to allow him to bathe. Parwë somehow fashioned or obtained warm clothing that fit Maitimo snugly and flexibly; it was good work. The jewels Maitimo had been wearing at the time of his capture were returned, and Parwë helped braid them into his hair again after every bath. Maitimo tried very hard not to let on how desperately he cared about them.

His days were full and satisfying, and when he thought to measure the stars again, he found to his shock that Alenwë had sailed more than a full rotation since he last measured, meaning he had to add a hundred and twenty Valian days to his count of time here, for a total of one hundred and eighty-one.

As he stood at the windows and digested this realization, he was struck by a feeling that his brothers had decided to give up on him. The plains of Ard-galen remained lifeless and empty. They were not marching on Angband with banners flying and swords gleaming and demanding his release.

Maitimo supposed they had decided they were not strong enough to do such a thing yet, and it would only end for them as it had ended for Fëanáro and Maitimo. Which was probably true and quite sensible, Maitimo told himself very firmly, and put down the astrolabe.

But after that, he went on the offensive with Mairon.

"How is it that your name is a Quenya word?" Maitimo asked abruptly. The admirable, but it did not make sense that one of the Ainur who had never interacted with elves in Valinor bore such a name.

"It is a translation of the original name in Valarin," Mairon answered readily, with no sign that he was annoyed Maitimo had started asking the questions. "The Avari did not care for the sounds of Valarin, and so I translated the name for them to use."

The Avari and the Noldor apparently had this in common!

"And Melkor's name, too?"

"Yes, also a translation of the Valarin."

"I see," Maitimo said. The same must have been true for all of the Valar, who had names in their original tongue but adopted Quenya names for the sake of the elves.

Then he launched back into the topic of how this fortress in barren mountains and the cold wastes of the north worked.

Mairon, it turned out, was pleased to show him. Maitimo put on his new clothes and his boots and the warm cloak again and received a tour of Angband, or at least parts of it.

Angband was enormous. It was hall after hall and courtyard after courtyard, not even counting everything that must have lain under the surface. Mairon led him to a courtyard somewhere in the north of the fortress that was a startling contrast to the rest of the bleakness of this place: it was shimming with a warm light.

Mairon opened an oversized door and they stepped into a different world. The air was warm and moist. Maitimo beheld oak trees, and flowering plants and vines, and his boots trod on green grass. Bees and butterflies swarmed about, and he heard the chattering of squirrels and the music of crickets. His heart in his throat from the sort of beauty he had never thought to see again on this continent held in stasis, Maitimo followed Mairon down the paths that wandered through this place.

"There is your wheat and your barley," Mairon said, his voice laced with amusement, pointing them out. "And you've noticed the honeybees. Actually, I have planted a willow since your arrival. Come look."

Mairon led him to a young willow sapling, which was bright green and slender and gorgeous. Maitimo wanted to fall to his knees and cry before it.

He resisted. "It's very beautiful," he said instead, and meant it.

"Willows grow in a vale called Nan-tathren, in southern Beleriand, at the confluence of the rivers Narog and Sirion. They are under the Sleep of Yavanna, so it is unwise to take too many, but I deemed this small sapling to be transplantable."

"The Sleep of Yavanna!" Maitimo murmured in wonder. "So that is why everything here is so... dormant. Another story I did not realize was quite literal."

"Yes, that is why. Everything began growing when Illuin and Ormal lit Arda, but Yavanna put it all to sleep when the lamps were destroyed, so that everything might not wither and die."

"And you are actually trying... not to plunder things that will never regrow under the Sleep?" Maitimo asked, somewhat skeptically.

"Mmm," Mairon said. His eyes were distant for a while. Then he refocused and shrugged. "Well, to an extent. I care a little bit. Melkor does not at all."

"What powers all this light here?"

"Me, obviously," Mairon said, amused again. "With a little help from Melkor. The deer, I confess, we hunt around the outskirts of Doriath, which is the only place in Middle-earth they can be found awake in sustainable numbers. A great many other supplies we, ah, liberated from trade routes between Doriath and the Falas, such as canvas or any other woven textile you will find here. I believe that answers all your questions?"

"Where do you get the water from?"

"We have plenty of fresh water flowing through Angband from rainwater and ice-melt on nearby peaks," Mairon said. "It is no trouble to reroute it where we want. It is much more trouble to heat it, unless Melkor or I do it. We have no readily available wood, and collecting dried cave plants or peat or dung is labor intensive."

"Hmm," Maitimo said thoughtfully.

"I know what you're thinking," Mairon said, his smile wide and knowing. "You are thinking this place is a central weakness of our fortress and ought to be a main target in an attack. I will have you know that this is luxury, designed and constructed and grown entirely by me because the Avari and I enjoy such things. Do not confuse it with survival. Melkor would be very content to ignore all of this and feed his troops algae and cave fish and crickets, which they evolved to consume. All of this thrives underneath the mountains and cannot be touched without going through this entire stronghold. They could march and fight on any of it forever. They are also not opposed to cannibalism, though it is a last resort.

"This," he emphasized, gesturing around them, "is all mere indulgence on his part for me."

"Why show me at all, though?"

"It is not like you will get the opportunity to tell anyone about it," Mairon said callously, reminding Maitimo all over again that they were enemies, they were not friends, and Maitimo did not like him.

"And," Mairon added, his tone morphing instantly with a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes charmingly, "it gratifies me to show someone who appreciates it as I do."

Well, it surprised Maitimo not at all that Melkor would have no appreciation for greenery and growing things and small creatures like honeybees.

As though his thoughts had summoned this very being, the door to this courtyard suddenly flew open with a bang. Maitimo flinched as a presence of very great dread entered the area and sapped all the beauty out of it.

Melkor was still striding around in what looked like exactly the same chainmail Maitimo had seen him wearing last. And he still wore that cursed iron crown with the Silmarils on his brow, their presence a weak attempt to shine through the darkness of his being.

As he approached, Maitimo was able to discern the expression on the Dark Lord's face. He looked sullen and petulant. Maitimo quailed a little, trying to shrink into himself and become smaller.

"I have not seen you in ages," the fearsome Dark Lord said to Mairon, with something that could have been described as an actual pout. "And then I go looking for you to find you here, in this horrible place, with him."

Melkor didn't look at Maitimo as he spoke, as though Maitimo were simply too far beneath him to merit any notice.

"This place is not horrible," Mairon said, his tone lightly chiding. He reached out and took Melkor's hand in his, sliding it out of a gauntlet and entwining their fingers together. "I built it, and I like it, so you mustn't call it names."

Melkor sighed, and took a step towards Mairon. He wrapped his free arm around him and pulled them together, burying his head in his hair.

"I'm a little tired of this elf taking all your time," Melkor said, his voice low and gentle.

Maitimo was frozen still, and did not want to move even a finger, lest that draw Melkor's attention. Instead, he tried very hard to disappear by sheer force of will. Unfortunately, it did not work.

"He won't any longer," Mairon promised, his voice a little muffled, crushed as he was against Melkor's chainmail. "Come upstairs with me?"

"All right," Melkor said, his voice still shockingly gentle. He released Mairon from what must have been a terribly forceful grip, and hand-in-hand, the two of them crossed the garden and exited the door back into the fortress without a glance backwards.

Standing there suddenly alone, Maitimo was overcome with a very bad feeling about what that bed in Mairon's chamber was for, given that Mairon did not ever seem to sleep.

He rather wanted to bend over and be violently sick, but he stood still and took deep breaths, taking in the good wholesome smell of real, healthy dirt, and the fragrance of the willow, and the ill feeling passed.

Maitimo had not the slightest wish to find out what was happening upstairs, so he stayed in the gardens until someone came for him. It was a very pleasant place to pass the time; he wondered the rows of plants and tended to them if they seemed to need anything. He marveled at length over the beauty of growing things in this dreadful place. He found the little diverted stream of water that Mairon referenced, and it was clean and refreshing. He slept when he needed it, and did not mark the passage of time.

Eventually, Parwë came for him. "Do you need help finding your way?" he asked in a delicate tone. "Or are you waiting for permission to leave?"

"It is not clear to me what freedom I have to roam," Maitimo answered honestly enough, although it was only the partial truth. He was hiding until he knew that it was safe to return upstairs.

"Very little," Parwë said dryly. "But no one would protest if you went back to Lord Mairon's chambers on your own."

"I did not think I had access to that door," Maitimo said, which was also true enough.

"Oh," Parwë said, as though he hadn't realized. "Yes. I forgot it is locked now. Shall I escort you there?"

"Thank you," Maitimo said, scrupulously polite.

The room upstairs was empty. Maitimo was tired, and he laid down on the divan to sleep. The final thought running through his head was gratitude that he had never touched that bed.

 

Mairon's visits dramatically dropped in frequency after that. Maitimo complained to Parwë that he was bored, deeming Parwë unlikely to invent some torment to 'entertain' him. He turned out to be right. Rather kindly, Parwë offered the opportunity to help with some of his own duties around the fortress. Although there should have been some discomfort in the idea of helping the enemy, Maitimo leapt at the opportunity to learn more about the fortress.

Parwë took him through the maze of Angband into the ground floor of a low building somewhere in the western part of the fortress.

"This is where we live," Parwë said, entering a long, low room that looked like a combination of a common room and a kitchen. A few other elves were sitting around a table, and those rose when Maitimo entered.

"This is my wife, Salya, and my son, Pagûl," Parwë said, gesturing at two of the elves. "And these are Makwë, and Rúmmë, and Mínwë. The others must be out busy with their duties."

Maitimo greeted them with a polite nod, doing his absolute best to conceal the shock he felt in discovering that Angband elves had families.

"I've been so curious about you," Pagûl said, and Maitimo wondered how young he was. He seemed very fresh-faced and eager. His ancient Quenya was a little harder to understand than his father's. "Is it true you're from Valinor? I didn't even realize that was a real place."

Parwë laughed, and left Maitimo to get to know the other elves. Pagûl was very friendly, but the others were merely polite, clearly disinclined to be friends. Not that he was inclined to be friends with them either.

Maitimo learned that not all of them were among the eldest elves, or those who had been lost to their kin at Cuiviénen. Many of them had encountered Mairon somewhere in Middle-earth during the chaining of Melkor, and only recently come to Angband and met Melkor for the first time. Pagûl had been born somewhere far to the southeast. He attempted to explain all the geography to Maitimo, but it was difficult to follow with absolutely no frame of reference.

Their living quarters were not as luxurious as Mairon's chamber; they slept on cots of reeds and ate fish and algae. Maitimo's standard of living in this fortress as a captive had been much higher than theirs. Nonetheless, when given the option, Maitimo elected to join the Avari in their quarters, finding more to keep his mind busy here.

Parwë turned out to be in need of someone who could write and do sums. Maitimo helped Parwë count, track, and supervise inventory of nearly everything stockpiled in the fortress and all goods that entered it—weapons and raw iron; furs and leather; feathers and wool felt and papyri; food from caves and food stolen from the Sindar; jewels and beads and precious metals and other items either traded or stolen from the eastern mountains where dwarves lived (Maitimo never got a satisfying description of a dwarf); massive building blocks of stone; wood and other flammable materials of the sort Mairon had described.

It was not clear what was leaving the fortress in exchange for all these goods, and Maitimo rather suspected that Angband's trading partners might not be voluntary partners at all. Not all the goods seemed replaceable, either—if most of the horses on the continent were asleep, for example, leather must have been extraordinarily valuable.

He slowly learned his way around the above-ground maze, and penetrated very shallowly into the depths of the place. The only area he had to avoid was near the front gates; when he approached them, the orcs became hostile and threatened him with their spears. One of the Avari had to come intercede to prevent Maitimo from coming to harm.

It was another thing he filed away carefully for future reference. He wondered whether a group of orcs was really enough to stop him if he wanted to escape. It also slowly became clear to him that there was some way out to the north—a few spies who thought they were being very secretive and clever sometimes came and left that direction. Not that he had any particular plan to escape for the time being. He relished everything he was learning here.

He worked with Mairon a little in forging swords and other weapons, but Mairon's smithying skills far exceeded his own, and Mairon soon lost patience with him and sent him away from the forges.

He abandoned the making of swords and instead drew Mairon into learning to fight with them, which was apparently not a skill the Maia had ever cultivated—Maitimo rather suspected he had never heard of or seen a sword before the arrival of Fëanáro's host out of the west. Maitimo's swordplay was vastly superior, although he tried to focus on teaching and not just beating up on his opponent because it was fun.

It was a lot of fun, though.

He only got himself into trouble once.

He palmed a very small knife, smaller than the size of his hand, and slipped it into his trousers when he thought Mairon was not looking. He almost got away with it, he thought. He finished their sparring session just as he always did, with a recap of all the moves and parries of the session. He chatted lightly with Mairon about the related moves of the most talented sword wielders he'd seen in Valinor (though anyone would have counted Maitimo himself among this group), and then turned to leave the room.

Mairon moved faster than he'd ever seen anyone move in his life. Mairon was suddenly between him and the door, looming over him and snarling in his face.

"What do you plan to do with it?" he sneered. "Will you attack Parwë or the other Avari who have been kind to you? Slay an orc or two that absolutely no one will miss? Do you imagine you can hurt me with it?"

Maitimo froze. Mairon took a step back and spread his arms wide, displaying his bare chest. He'd removed his shirt to spar, and had not put it back on. "Go on," he said. "Try it. I will show you exactly how futile it is to attack an Ainu."

Maitimo stared at him steadily for one second, then made up his mind. Faster than the blink of an eye, Maitimo drew the knife from its hiding place and drove its blade into Mairon's breast, right over the heart, sinking it as deeply as it would go.

Mairon laughed. Maitimo let go of the handle and stepped back, leaving it buried in the flesh. Mairon grabbed the knife and drew it out of his chest, his laughter tinged with an edge of madness. Blood gushed out of his chest, but as Maitimo watched, the flow of blood ceased and the skin knit itself back up until it appeared smooth and untouched. There was no evidence that anything had happened... save the blood splattered everywhere.

"We are immortal, ageless spirits," Mairon snarled, his laughter disappearing abruptly. "We wear bodies only to interact with mortals. They are raiment, do you understand? You cannot hurt us."

Maitimo stood very still and breathed very shallowly, in and out of his nose. He watched Mairon warily, every muscle tense, whether to fight or flee he did not know.

Mairon threw the knife on the ground, gave him a look of utter contempt, and stalked out of the room. Maitimo was left alone in the armory, with an array of weapons and no one to supervise him. But he shuddered, and did not quite dare to take any of them again after that display.

"But why does Melkor wear all that chainmail, then?" Maitimo asked bewilderedly to the empty room.

 

Mairon and Maitimo both politely pretended like that episode never happened.

Maitimo begged the use of some parchment for writing out a tale of years in Valinor, in conjunction with Mairon and the notes he had made on his celestial map. It was an intense task, occupying much of Maitimo's time and engendering many debates. In the end, they had a rough chronology that could never have been mistaken for the work of a true Elven scribe.

All the time he was busy with the doings and logistics of the fortress, Maitimo had no news of the war whatsoever. The Ard-galen lay silent and unchanged each time he looked. Melkor plundered the goods of Beleriand seemingly without resistance. Maitimo could not understand why his brothers were not moving.

Then again, Maitimo lived in a fortress with the Silmarils and had yet made no move to take them. The oath burned in his veins every time he encountered Melkor in person—which, to be sure, was not very often. He simply did not know what to do. He could wait, and plot, and keep the oath asleep for the time being, but he knew that sooner or later it would drive him to do something suicidal in an assault on Melkor's person.

His only hope was in stealing back the jewels, rather than slaying Melkor, but he had never seen Melkor without the iron crown on his head. He wondered idly, before he could help himself, whether Melkor wore it even while lying in pleasure with Mairon, then shuddered and tried very hard to make himself think about something else. Anything else.

Mairon continued to invite him up to his comfortable chambers to sing and play the harp on occasion, where he mostly did not encounter Melkor. There was, yet again, only one time it happened.

Maitimo and Mairon were playing together, composing another song about the making of the Silmarils, for no reason other than that Maitimo wished to, and Mairon was in the habit of indulging him when it came to song.

Maitimo's fingers were fumbling for the right note to select next when the door opened, and as always, Maitimo felt the dreadful presence before he turned and saw it with his eyes.

"I am tired of your singing about Fëanáro's great deeds," Melkor declared. He threw himself on the bed where Mairon was sitting. His body was very long, and barely fit on the bed even sprawled diagonally. He was still wearing the exact same chainmail and the iron crown.

The Silmarils made Maitimo's skin itch, but he did not move, his fingers frozen on the harp strings.

"Sing about his defeat instead," Melkor ordered.

Whether this was addressed to Maitimo or Mairon or both, Maitimo could not tell.

"Hmm," Mairon said thoughtfully, while Maitimo continued to sit frozen. Mairon settled back to curl into Melkor's side, still holding the lyre in his lap. He strummed a hand down the thin ends of the strings with a soft smile, his eyes very far away.

Then Mairon started a new song, the notes low and slow and sonorous. He sang a few lines about the kinslaying, Fëanáro's betrayal of his own kind, and then rhymed them with a line about the desertion of his own brother and the burning of the ships. He stuttered a little when he got to the Dagor-nuin-Giliath, which had been a clear loss for Melkor, but eventually picked out a theme of terror and dread, weaving a tale of a great dark enemy who descended on shores that were not his, seeking to burn them or conquer them for his own.

Mairon stumbled again after this, searching for a rhyming couplet to end the story of Fëanáro's victory, and Maitimo could not really help it: he supplied one and picked out the right notes on the harp.

He had been there, after all, and Mairon had not.

Mairon seized on the couplet and moved on. He spoke of the cloud of dread and terror, approaching the gates of his home, and Fëanáro was rendered an awful spirit of fey madness. Then the chord of the song changed; it lifted and lightened and the spirits of shadow and fire arrived as heroes, rallying in defense of their home and their beloved lord.

Maitimo was accompanying him now, picking out a series of notes to give more range and depth to Mairon's lyre.

The spirits of shadow and fire fought long and fiercely against the dreadful foe, and they were wearied and would have faltered, but the spirit of their beloved lord arrived and uplifted them, rallying them, and in the final hour the greatest of the fire spirits smote the enemy to the ground, from which he never rose again.

The song continued, singing of the greatness and praise of the lord who gave life and joy to his people and the lands, and as it finished, Maitimo abruptly realized it was a love song from Mairon to Melkor as much as it was a war song about the defeat of Fëanáro.

His fingers fell away from the harp, and he fled from the room rather than stay and learn the answer to his question about whether Melkor really wore that iron crown in every single moment.

---

Chapter End Notes

sixty-one Valian days = seven months, for the modern readers. A star rotation is roughly one year, although Sauron is not measuring degrees by reference to the sun (which would be a division by 365.26, the average number of solar days in a year). These calculations were made before the sun existed and thus an even division of 360 degrees was chosen instead. But thinking of one degree as one day is awfully close. Per Tolkien, 3.5 solar days (or here, degrees) equals 1 Valian day.

Also, look, I know the earth was supposed to be flat at this point. Stars moved for the same reasons the sun and moon later do around a flat earth, I guess.