In My End Is My Beginning by Lilith

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Lights Without Beginning, Middle or End

B2MeM Prompt Generator: Creation

Format: Ficlet
Genre: gen, alternate universe
Rating: gen
Warnings: a female Sauron?
Characters: Mairen (Lady!Sauron), Celebrimbor, Original Character

Pairings: that peculiar friendship between Sauron and Celebrimbor

Creator’s Notes: The room Mairen created was inspired by one of Kusama’s infinity rooms. The title refers to Kusama’s descriptions of her own work which plays tricks with perception through repetition of an image. The apprentice was borrowed, with apologies, from Pandemonium’s “The Apprentice.” This verse is ever and always offered in gratitude to those whose work has moved me.

Summary: Mairen has an unusual surprise for Celebrimbor’s begetting day.

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“Should I go?” Tyelperinquar asked. The party celebrating his begetting day had ended. The remainder of the party had left although Mairen was able to hear them winding their slow way to their homes. Their voices were clear and audible in the still night air. Tyelperinquar, of course, remained. He almost always remained, even when Galadriel, as she did tonight, pointedly offered to walk him to his home. Tonight he had begun to help her and Lalaith, the well-named silvan woman who tends her home, tidy. Lalaith had been busy teasing and ordering him around the kitchen, amused that the too-serious master of the Mirdain meekly followed her instructions. She herself said little but she watched him. She watched closely as his clever hands gathered far too many dishes and glasses, and she watched as he carried the wavering stack, pausing once or twice to steady it, to where they would be washed, more than likely on the morrow.

“Should I go?” he asked a second time. “I should, shouldn’t I?

“Yes,” she answered and smiled at the surprise upon his face. She has never encouraged him to go. “But you must wait for me. I have one more surprise for you.”

“Even now?”

“Even so. It wasn’t for the others to see.” She walked closer to him.

“Is this what you’ve been trying to hide for the last several weeks?” He leaned on the counter and looked at her, eyebrows raised.

“Months. It took two for you to notice.”

“I was busy. We both were.” His smile slowly turned embarrassed.

“I know,” she said, laughing, in return. “I did try to hide it.”

Lalaith tutted her opinion. “Go on,” she said. “There’s not much left to do. I’ll have breakfast ready for when you return.”

They wrapped themselves in cloaks and walked quietly and quickly to the halls of the Miretanor. They entered silently. She took his hand and guided him through the halls, down the stairs and into the storage rooms. After they had passed one and then two and then three rooms, she stopped him. “Do you trust me?” she asked.

“Always,” he answered.

“Close your eyes,” she instructed.

“Why? What is it?” His tone held only curiosity.

“I thought you trusted me?”

He laughed and then took her face in his hands, looking at her.

“Wait. Wait, there will be time,” she said, though she laughed and pulled him close, leaning her cheek against his. “I want to show you this.” 

“Very well. I will wait.” She felt his smile against her cheek and heard the curiosity in his voice. She unwound the woven girdle she has worn around her hips and carefully wrapped it around his head, covering his eyes.

“Ah,” he said. “So it is you who does not trust me.”

“Not with this,” she replied. She took his hands carefully in hers and guided him carefully through the remainder of the storage rooms. She told him where to step up and where he needed to step down. She maneuvered him around chests and the many different piles of goods in their way until they reached a small door at the very end of the last hall. She touched her hand to the door and murmured a phrase in her mother tongue. The sound of it, glittering and harsh, caused him to become more alert as he recognized a word of power. The lock clicked open. The door began to move, and she saw another smile upon his face. 

“Eyes closed,” she reminded him.

“You’ve covered them,” he replied.

“Still. I want this to be a surprise.”

She murmured another word. The room suddenly blazed with light. Able to see their surroundings, she guided him past several long and shallow basins of water arranged to all of the floor but the narrow pathway onto which she steered him, pausing only when they had reached the center of the small room. 

“Sit,” she commanded.

“How?” he asked. “And where?”

“Like this,” she replied. She eased him to a seat in a long, thin space between the basins of water. She sat before him. 

“Are your eyes still closed?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered, curiosity and amusement plain in his voice.

“Keep them closed until I tell you to open them.”

“As you wish,” he replied. She spoke another soft word of command. The lights were extinguished. Then she carefully reached behind him and untied the knot fastening her girdle into place. She began to unwind it and to uncover his eyes. He sat very still and quiet as she did so. His eyes were closed and his arms relaxed against his sides. The same small, contented smile played about his lips. 

“Open your eyes,” she said.

He did. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, she whispered a fourth word of command. 

“What is it?”

“Wait,” she said. “You’ll see.” The lights in the room had begun to shine, though softly. 

She watched as he slowly examined the room around him. Long strands of glowing lights, miniature versions of the lamps which his grandfather had invented, upon which he had improved and upon which her apprentice had further improved, hung from the ceiling and rose from the floor. They were arranged in a variety of different configurations, some clustered together and others spaced more widely apart. They are reflected both in the mirrors she had commissioned to line the walls and the ceiling and in the long basins of water stretched out along the floor. The reflections played and built upon one another so that the room itself had become a vast, infinite field of tiny, dazzling lights.

“It’s a field of stars,” he said softly. “It’s as if we sit among the stars.”

“Yes,” she replied. “You said you missed the view of the sky in Valinor, boundless and infinite. I wanted …”

“To recreate the stars? To let us stand among the stars? Ambitious.” Despite the comment, the tone of his voice was tender.

“Once,” she said, “long ago, before the stars were made, we stood in the middle of the darkness and looked at Arda, and it was perfect. I wish I could show you what that was like. This is only a pale imitation of that feeling.”

“This is extraordinary,” he said. “And I have been with you as we created something new. I do not know but I can imagine what that must have been like — to have had every possibility open to you — nothing closed — yet.”

“The lights aren’t my creation,” she said, for he’d come too close to the truth of things.

“I know. Does he know what you’ve done with them?” he said, referring to her apprentice.

“He knows that I commissioned many for a project for you. He helped put them into place. He thought I was very sentimental, but he was very happy when I offered to let him bring his lady here,” she answered. 

“He should be. She will be. They’re a good match, I think,” he answered. Slowly he slid his cloak from his shoulders. He folded it into a small rectangle and set it upon the ground. Then he extended his hand for hers. She removed it from her shoulders. He did not fold it but, instead, spread it into the small pathway between the basins of water. Having finished, he caught her hand in his and pulled her against him. 

“What?” she said, laughing.

“Come,” he said. ‘Come here. With me.” 

He carefully lay down, head pillowed on his cloak and then pulled her down with him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she settled against him, her head resting against his chest. 

“Comfortable?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

He took her hand in his, brought her fingers to his lips and then rested it where she could feel the beat of his heart. 

“Thank you,” he said softly. “I hadn’t imagined something like this could be.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes. Very much.”

“Good,” she replied and stayed with him, watching the play of the light around the room and feeling the weight of his arm across her shoulders, the rhythm of his breath, and the steady beat of his heart under her hand.