DS 12: Cry in Sorrow

So I might have named this after the  FF4 song of the same name I had on repeat as I drew this and did the writey bit....  That's what happens when it's late at night and you can't think of a proper title...  In other news I was able to play around with how I wanted to draw the Ainur in their naked spirit form.  No fiddly bits but dammit there will be useless nipples and belly buttons....

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Melkor felt a need to roll his eyes, unbelieving of Eru’s ability to always be so damnably ambiguous. Some things simply did not change. He shook his head at his creator, sneering at him with focused contempt enough to cause his trembling Maia to look aside in unease despite not being the one it was fixated at.  A greater part of him took pleasure knowing he could cause Mairon to react so timidly without even trying.  It was as it should be and always had been.  Should his mind and body remain intact after Eru finally accomplished what he came to do, he would be sure to reinforce this quality in him… he’d start by finishing what Eru had interrupted.  The fall from the balcony would have rid Mairon of his body but he could just as easily tear it away with a mere flick of his wrist if he so chose.  What he gave back to the man he could take away.  Mairon did not need it to learn what he should have instilled in the damned Maia to begin with – fear.  Pure fear that was not diluted with any form of emotional attachment or fondness. That had been Melkor’s mistake… How much further could he have come with his ideals without that infuriatingly devoted creature following on his heels?  He had been so foolish to let himself feel… to still feel.

He chanced letting his eyes fall away from Eru to look Mairon over.  He ignored the part of him – the terribly weak part of him - that wanted only to call him over and embrace him. Melkor quickly cast that feeling aside just as Mairon peeked out from behind his hair to catch his eyes.  The Maia’s eyes were sickly in hue, their once vibrant shade of Verdigris green little more than white.  However they lit up just as brightly as they were at their most brilliant when their eyes met, glinting with a similar light that used to fill them during the far more intimate moments they used to share.  It was almost as if the man had just been gifted with something he’d desperately wanted, not that Melkor could begin to fathom what that might have been. The Vala was quick to look back to Eru’s impassive mask, quelling the residual desire that Mairon’s always far too expressive eyes were invoking in him.  Shoving aside a long played out memory of his Maia calling him ‘Master’ for the first time in a secluded purple hued forest, Melkor directed his attention back to Eru. He wanted to end this. Quickly. 

“If you will not take my life then what is it that you intend to take?”  Impatiently he waited for an answer. The Father of All did not respond, instead he gently pushed Mairon forward as if he wished the man to reunite with his master before he made his declaration.  A thick eyebrow rose as Melkor watched Mairon look uncertainly back at Eru before starting to inch timidly forward.  He snorted when the man’s foot caught on the discarded ornament that he’d tore from his armor earlier, stumbling to his knees as the metal face skidded toward Melkor.  He could moreso feel than see Mairon’s embarrassment which was hidden away behind his pale hair as he picked himself back up and made his way to stand just before him.  Respectful as ever, Mairon kept his head bowed low and eyes lowered.

“Sorry, Master.”  

Though Melkor thought it most appropriate the apology was for Mairon’s pathetic show of decrepitude it felt as if the whispered words were an apology for far broader reasons, covering a multitude of short-comings that the Maia perceived of himself.  Part of Melkor, far larger than he wanted to admit, called himself an utter fool for ignoring Mairon’s pain in that moment. What rationale was there at all to simply ignoring him or treating him with cruelty when it had been he who had looked for the Maia and not the reverse? Mairon had all of wailed that question at him and Eru had taunted him with the exact same one… but Melkor simply could not admit the truth.  How could he justify his hate for Mairon if he admitted that he had desired to have his Maia back at his side just as much as he desired to see the Valar quake in fear at his return?  How could he justify his blame of the man or anything he’d done to Mairon then?  He could not… it was simply easier to pretend otherwise and welcome having another to blame for his fall.  No matter of the conflicting emotions it wrought in him.

Melkor caught himself starting to reach out for Mairon with the stray intent to try and ease him but quickly dropped his hand.  Angry at himself for nearly giving into the irritating whisper in his head that begged him to cast aside his misplaced ire; he started to channel it at Mairon.  A biting insult was already building on his tongue but it evaporated immediately, the man jerking in surprise when a spray of blood covered his face and chest.  The loud winds seemed to cease for the moment, the world becoming far too quiet to be normal as Melkor stared up into two very horrified eyes still rimmed red with fresh tears.

“M-Melkor?”  Mairon rasped out, dropping the typical ‘Master’ he almost always addressed him as.      

Melkor gaped with wide dark eyes as Mairon’s eyes dropped down to stare in shock at the hand that had torn clean through the skin, muscle, and bone of his body.  Within the flaming hand was clasped his unnaturally beating heart, the dripping organ beginning to discolor with the purple and blue hue of death. Mairon’s bottom lip trembled, a thin line of blood seeping out the corner of his mouth as he lifted a shaky hand toward the twisted cavity of his destroyed chest in macabre curiosity. Whether consciously or not, the hand changed direction and reached for Melkor but stopped when Eru’s hand closed forcefully around his heart, crushing the trembling organ into a bloody pulp of gore.

The pitched scream that tore from Mairon’s throat lasted only moments but it was enough the agonizing sound would be forever seared into Melkor’s memory.  Eru’s blood dripping hand ripped back, the Maia’s tangible form evaporated into nothingness just as his naked spirit was wrenched from it. Melkor heard something metallic hit the ground but paid the minute sound no mind, too enrapt in watching the overly distressed spirit try to reach out for him as it fought uselessly against Eru’s hold.  Melkor’s heart dropped, his body prickling intensely with the need to rise and intervene as Eru held the thrashing Maia up and took hold of the flickering light at the core of his spirit – the one thing that represented his continued existence and life – and crushed it out just as he had the man’s mortal heart. Mairon’s muffled screams were silenced as soon as the light was snuffed out, his spirit shattering into a spray of twinkling lights.

Melkor stared in complete shock at Eru, all prior thoughts of remorselessness for Mairon evaporating just as quickly as the twinkling lights that represented what was left of the Maiar’s being.  He wasn’t immediately able to react.  He was simply…numb.  Wiping away Mairon’s blood that was still dripping down his face, he rubbed it between his fingers as he tried to comprehend that the blood’s owner was no more. Looking down he saw Mairon’s broken golden earrings lying on the still blood stained ground but more importantly he saw his ring.  He slowly, carefully, picked the cracked onyx ring up that his Maia had held onto as if it meant life itself.  He looked the bloody trinket over as the initial numbness he was feeling gave way to the most intense anger and anguish he had ever felt. 

‘Did he mean so little that only silence is your response to his death?  I would th-’

Eru’s sentence cut off as the one time ornament that adorned Melkor’s armor smashed into his porcelain false face.  The connecting force snapped his head back as each of his masks fractured in unison, the entire world around shuddering violently, the very black mountains around Melkor’s fortress shifting as others crumbled to coincide with the wound against the Father of All.  Eru did not react immediately to his lasting scar as Melkor appeared at his side and yanked him down, slamming his fist into his splintered mask to cause further damage as he snarled unintelligible insults at him.  The attack on Eru was short lived, much to Melkor’s dismay.  He hissed angrily as Eru’s hand closed around his face and yanked him away.

‘So it seems my gift actually did mean something to you after all.’  Eru mused; the being’s disembodied hand dragging the wrathful Vala back into his throne room as he followed leisurely behind.  Pausing at where both Sanwë and Enyalië were still lying twitching on the stone floor, he picked both the listless serpents up in his free hand before pushing past the black drapery to rejoin the kicking and screaming Melkor.

“Take what you freely gave!?” Melkor’s snarled, ripping uselessly at the flaming hand that held him down as Eru floated over to him, “You have given me nothing and have taken everything from me now!  You did not give me Mairon!  I was the one that found him! I-“

‘Found what I allowed you to find.’ Eru corrected, dropping the serpents to the ground to be forgotten momentarily and slamming Melkor into the seat of his grand throne.  Something shuttered to life in the shadows, a muffled howl echoing in the chamber but it was ignored.  With the wave of Eru’s free hand, one of the stone figures that was carved into Melkor’s throne broke free with Eru’s gifted sentience and dug its hands into Melkor’s throat to hold him so that Eru no longer had to.  ‘You did not simply stumble across Mairon because of happenchance; you found a being I had intended to be yours from his conception. Just as all your kin have another meant to complete their existence so too did I envision you to have one to serve the same purpose. I am regretful that I did not put more effort into his making to ensure he would be able to counterbalance your darker qualities and not simply be corrupt by your charisma and tantalizing ideology.’   

Eru paused and cast a look aside as another bemoaned howl filled the room, finding the source to be one Melkor’s horrible creations.  The thing was dragging its still not completely formed body toward him and the Vala, perhaps sensing Melkor’s possible peril. Bloodshot yellowed eyes glared out from a sunken featureless face, it’s skinless torso melding into a scraggly matted mess of hair and partially formed organs which drug sickeningly along the ground behind it. ‘’Is this what your dark thoughts are capable of creating?’  Eru asked, though it was obvious he was not looking for an answer and had merely stated a fact.  When the beast reached Eru and dug a black hand into his cloak he immediately seized the writhing creature with one hand and used the other to grab the mess of organs and hair, ripping them away so all the already formed innards tore out of the things body with it. Eru tossed aside the convulsing beast, done making a silent but apparent point to Melkor before he returned to his original topic. ‘In truth, I believe only if I created another in the same fashion as you would you ever be counterbalanced but I will never again do this. Tainted by you or not, Mairon still served some of his intended purpose.’

“To love me?” Melkor bitterly snapped, feeling no amount of pity for his murdered fledgling creation but plenty of anger at Eru’s obvious show of superiority over him.

‘To love you. To serve you. To support you.  To always be there for you even if you were not.’  Eru replied in flippant fashion, taking the dead monsters entrails and carefully looping them around the throne as he used them to bind Melkor to his throne, ‘Even you, Melkor, are capable of love.  You sprang just as much from that vein of my thought as from the rest of them.  Your love is merely skewed by your ambitions and easy for you to ignore… but was it so easy to ignore when he was there?’

“He destroyed me.” Melkor refuted weakly, unwilling to admit to Eru aloud that he had feelings for Mairon either in the past or in that moment.  Especially if what his creator said was the truth… if Eru had always intended for Mairon to be his it felt like a slap in the face that he had, in some way, played right into Eru’s will.

‘You destroyed yourself.’ Eru sternly countered, swiping his hand in front of his face so the fractured mask of wrath replaced the more complacent mask that was previously there. ‘It was your fears and short fallings which you chose to ignore that led to your inevitable destruction. Not even Mairon’s mistakes made under your shadow could have influenced this.  The blame is on your head alone.  To finally have a bit of humility would do you good.’

Melkor bit his tongue, unable to come up with a suitable response to Eru’s words.  He knew it was true but it did not mean he wanted to acknowledge it so instead he simply glared at the Father of All as the being picked Sanwë up from the ground.  He experimentally flexed his arms and legs against the blood slick tendons and tissue that held him down, finding what should have tore free with ease held him just as strongly as Angainor did.  The discovery just added to the misery of the situation.

‘Your insatiable want of knowledge and corrupt thoughts have always been the burden you’ve worn around your neck.’ Eru announced, wrapping Sanwë’s long body around Melkor’s shoulders before he forced the quietly hissing serpent’s mouth open and then forced it to close atop its own tail.  As soon as the beast that represented his thoughts was locked in place Melkor grunted, feeling as if the painful weight of the world was currently crushing down upon him. ‘You shall suffer this burden during this imprisonment.’  Not yet done, Eru plucked Enyalië from the ground and offered it to the statue that had not yet released its hold on Melkor’s neck.  One stone hand remained on his throat, forcing Melkor’s face up uncomfortably as the other hand closed around the base Enyalië’s head and held the screaming serpent over the Vala’s face.  One of its fingers moved to gouge inside the serpent’s mouth to keep the beast from closing it.  Eru took hold of the serpent’s mouth and forced it open wider to bare its venomous teeth completely.  ‘And in the shadows of your fortress you will remain alone and bound with the pain of your memories of him as company. The venom will not scar you but it shall feel as if your flesh is being eaten away with every drop…’

Melkor, forced as he was by the sentient statue’s grip on his neck, stared up at the venom that was slowly seeping down Enyalië’s teeth.  It would not be long before the first drop would drip down.  The poetic justice of Eru’s decided punishment for him was not lost on him. At all.  Truly, it was a worse punishment than true death could ever be.  Bound in pain with only the sting of his memories of Mairon to haunt him for an undetermined amount of time.  With only Mairon’s phantom death wail to ring a thousand times over in his ears to remind him of what was lost…

“How would Manwë, or those other equally inferior Valar, feel to know you have only bound me but not just done away with your mistake?”  Melkor bitterly asked, struggling to try and move his face to escape the drop of venom that was beginning to break away from the suspended serpent’s teeth.  He winced when it began to drip, squeezing his eyes shut as he steeled himself to feel the pain that was meant to come.  He heard the hiss of acid eating away at flesh but felt nothing.  Cracking his eyes open he blinked in surprise to see Eru’s hand held over his face to block the drip.  

‘Even the most dazzling of crystals have dark flaws in their cuts.  It is these flaws that add to the overall beauty of the crystal.  You are my mistake, Melkor, but you are – I now know - the necessary mistake.  Even darkness is necessary in a world of light.’

“But you will gladly chasten that darkness that you think is oh so necessary?  You are a hypocrite, father.” Melkor mocked, uncaring if he earned himself anything else of Eru’s judgment.  There was little more that could be done at this point that could hurt him.

‘There are times when even I feel a need to deal out a long overdue chastening.  Nessa didn’t deserve to carry the burden of witnessing her beloved’s head tossed at her feet and Mairon…”  Eru paused briefly before continuing, ‘he made his mistakes and carried on your dark legacy before his downfall. I have long forgiven him and he has paid for it ironically by your hand. I could have done nothing worse to punish him than the suffering you put him through.  To suffer the loss of love is a terrible fate.  Even for one who was so cruel in your name.  He did not deserve to be trapped suffering your hate for simply loving you. It was all he had left to his name and he was, for the first time in ages, serving the pure purpose he was made for.’  

Eru’s hand turned so it was palm down and Melkor could see that Mairon’s ring was held in Eru’s fingers. Lifting up his hand, Eru placed the cracked onyx ring around one of Enyalië’s fangs so that Melkor would have to look at the gleaming trinket that was still stained with Mairon’s blood.  A slow bleeding pain ebbed into his veins to have to see it and he knew the pain would only grow worse with time enough to truly reflect on it.  And he would.  He had only time now.  To truly realize and know what he lost, too little to late as it were, it only brought a deeper fury and emptiness that he hadn’t dreamt possible after the Void.  For Eru Ilúvatar to dare take Mairon away from him so indefinitely and then throw it in his face… there would be consequences.  Dire ones.  All would suffer for Eru’s mistake.  For now he was confined but it would not last forever.  His imprisonments never did.

 ‘With nothing but time trickling through your fingers as you wait for this purgatory to end, you may well realize just what you forfeited because of your pride.  You could have had someone at your side willing to catch that serpent’s venom.’  Finished, Eru began to back away but he paused when Melkor addressed him.

“You led me to find the Secret Fire in the Void… didn’t you?”

Eru’s hand flashed before his face so that his fractured smiling mask of contentment stared out at the constrained Melkor from beneath his hood.  ‘You will only ever find that of which I let you, Melkor…’

“You are as flawed in thought as you claim I to be in that case…” Melkor sneered, watching the building drop of venom begin its break from his serpent’s fang, “Then you also know these binds will not hold me forever.”

‘They were never meant to.’ Eru replied matter-of-factly as he turned away from Melkor, his form starting to dissipate.

“...this world has outlived its usefulness.”  Melkor announced in a deadly quiet voice that all of foreshadowed his eventual intent.

‘Perhaps it has…’  Eru replied vaguely as the venom splashed onto Melkor’s face, fading into naught as Melkor’s agonizing and wrathful screams began to echo through the black fortress.

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So what have we learned?  Melkor was a damned idiot who should have gotten his head out of his ass a lot earlier in the game than now.  Eru is fucking terrifying, aloof as fuck and willing to get his hands dirty. Ragnarök, I mean  Dagor Dagorath starts when Loki’s, I mean Melkor’s imprisonment by Eru ends. ....And Mairon never had a goddamn chance since I planned his death from the beginning.  I should have made it more brutal though... I’m not satisfied unless there’s blood and a lot of it.   Not sure how this is meant to be Angbang when I brutally kill off the ‘Ang’ part of Angbang?  Bah. I’m SURE i’ll make it work somehow...  >:[ 



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Ultimately this is some sort of AU angbang art series called 'The Different Story' that follows a silly story idea I've had mulling around in my head for a while. Previous picture in the series here:


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Tumblr: lae-rae-the-spoony-bard.tumblr…

_{Mairon and Eru(c) Tolkien
Design (c) me}