when things break bad...

[ldfsh]

Bad End AU Meme

Sometimes you want a fix-it AU. You want everyone to live, to be happy, to find love, so on and so forth. You want the bad guy to lose early, for victory and triumph. Those are great things. Those are happy things. But sometimes terrible things happen to good people and you want to get catharsis through making some characters suffer. We understand. We really do. Sometimes no one wins. Sometimes the villain wins. Sometimes even if the heroes win everything is for naught. Sometimes, things just don't end happily.

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It's getting there.

[holdshisown]

All the fight goes out of him then. Sauron will never let him go, not now, not ever and there is no Fingon to come to take him away on the back of an eagle anymore. There is only him and his old tormentor locked in a mockery of an embrace with the darkness of Angband awaiting him. Fighting was useless by this point so why even try?

"Liar... there is no such thing as safety." He doubts there ever had been. Perhaps the notion of it had been nothing more than a comforting fairytale.

It's almost enough to make him laugh, if not for the silmaril he'd be dead by now. Is there no end to the misery his fathers works will bring him? "It's not your's to take..." And still he can't let it go, even after all that it had cost him.

Lost and hopeless he let's himself be led away without putting up a fight, weeping softly and soundlessly. Clutching the silmaril close to his chest, even though it burns like a red-hot iron in his hand, determined to keep it as long as he can.

It was my turn to have a rough work week

[admirability]

"Oh, but there is. And I'll keep you safe, Nelyo. You won't come to harm again."

"No, it isn't mine to take." He doesn't want it. He wonders if it's a good thing, to be spared the craving for the silmaril. Instead, as a Maia and a smith, he feels bitterly envious of Fëanor's skill. He wants not to have this beautiful thing, but to make a beautiful thing—its equal or better. Maybe that's the spell this jewel casts over him. An aching longing to create....

"It is my master's, and I take it for him." He smiles to hear the Elf weeping. After years in Angband, he had never broken like this, and his sobs are sweet music, like his lord's. "But you can hold it for now, as I have no wish to." He doesn't need his hands burned as Melkor's were, although he'll be very careful to watch for any signs of rebellion or recalcitrance from his captive. Like all of Melkor's Maiar, he's suspicious, steeped in Melkor's own mistrust.

It's fine, no worries!

[holdshisown]

"Sometimes I think you actually believe your own lies... we both know there will be no end to the harm that I will suffer there."

His fathers works had that effect on people, it awakened greed and jealousy in them that knew no bounds. Even he himself was not immune to it, though he hated the things almost as much as he coveted them. It had become a symbol for everything he'd lost, his brothers, Fingon even his father, whom he come to hate as well. Letting it go would be like losing all of them all over again.

"It doesn't belong to him either." He shudders at the thought of facing Morgoth again, there is nothing in life that scares him more than that. "Please don't..." The plaintive cry escapes him involuntarily but he's so broken now that he can't help to beg. Please don't take me to him! He want's to cry, anything but that! But he knows it will only fall on deaf ears so he keeps quiet and follow his captor with a resignation that's bordering on despair.

[admirability]

"Sometimes I think you'll never realize when I'm speaking in jest. But you will be saved from your foolish urges to destroy your hröa." Obviously, Mairon had no real care for the state of Maedhros' body, but death would take his fëa out of Melkor's reach. Surely Melkor would be glad to have him back, if not as glad as he would be to regain a Silmaril.

"Oh, but it does belong to him. As all things do. You included, Son of Fëanor. He rules this land now, or have you forgotten? You and your people are his thralls." It feels good to say that. All of this pleases him deeply. Mairon has not yet completed his journey back into his lord's favor, following his shameful defeat on Tol-in-Gaurhoth. Obtaining a silmaril for Melkor will return him to his rightful place at Melkor's side, his most trusted lieutenant.

When Maedhros begs, Mairon only laughs, amused, and leads him onward. Tentatively, he reaches out for Maedhros' mind with his own. He can influence the minds of most Men and many Elves and Dwarves, but Maedhros had always resisted him with his impressive mental power. It had been irritating. Now, Maedhros seems so much weaker, so pathetic. He might be vulnerable mentally as well as physically.

[holdshisown]

"I don't want to be saved!" He wanted to be free, free of the weight of his broken and useless hröa as well as the gaping wound that was the remnants of his fëa. Maedhros wished for nothing more than to be unmade completely and the Eternal Darkness sounded enough like that for him to seek it out wholeheartedly. "Least of all from that!"

What can he say to that? The Valar came to late for it to be anything but truth now, though less out of any inherent right of Morgoth's as it is an inability of everyone else to oppose him with any success. But still... it feels wrong to even think about it in that way, the children of Eru were made to be free after all.

There was a time when the walls around his mind was a steel wall, seamless and without a single crack where an enemy could seep into. But that was a long time ago, now there are cracks and holes aplenty to exploit the defenses to irregular to do him any good. His mind recoils and bucks wildly, like a wild horse trying to throw off an unwelcome rider. "Get out!" He shrieks in horror, the violation of Sauron touching his mind too much for him to bear.

[admirability]

"Do you think I care what you want, Noldo? Surely you don't. You know me better than that. We're old friends." He laughed, holding Maedhros closer, as he continued to keep his tight grip on the Elven hand that grasped the Silmaril, the brightest prize.

Ah... Mairon could feel the weakness in Maedhros' mind as it began to succumb to his touch. It was like a once-great fortress just beginning to crumble. Apply the right pressure, and its walls would fall. He drew back, but only slightly, only to draw it out. "Oh, you don't like that? I can hardly begin to heal your fëa without coming into contact with it. Maybe you'd prefer the ministrations of my master. He'd be glad to see to your care." At least, Melkor would enjoy that as long as Maedhros continued to interest him.

Mairon had no real interest in healing Maedhros, but if the eldest son of Fëanor truly was weakening, he could glean some amusement twisting and torturing his soul. Perhaps he could force it into the body of a werewolf, or some other monster—if Melkor permitted it.

[holdshisown]

"Of course I don't. I know you care for no one but yourself." He shivers with such violence in that hold that it almost seem that his soul is trying to shake off his own body to escape Sauron.

He can feel the nauseating feeling of another prescence slithering across the edges of his mind, probing at the weaknesses lazily. When he feels it retreat it brings him no comfort because now Sauron knows how easy it will be to break his meager shielding and he will not keep that knowledge from his master when they arrive. "No! No, please not that! Anything but that!" He can't even stand the thought of Morgoth entering his mind.

Wathever they decided to do with him, now that he was completely at their mercy, he was sure it would be much worse than the last time he was taken to Angband.