Because you are all wonderful Tolkien fans, I will assume that you know the basics. But for a bit of backstory, in the First Age of Middle-earth, Melkor, He Who Arises in Might, later named Morgoth, Black Foe of the World, a Vala whose power was second only to Manwe rebelled against the Valar, and stole the great jewels, the Silmarils, forged by Feanor.

Sauron was (is) a Maiar, a lesser spirit, and was originally in the service of Aule, but was was seduced by Melkor to his cause, and afterwards became his chief lieutenant, overseeing Melkor's forces from their base of Angband far to the north.

At the end of the First Age, the War of Wrath levelled Melkor's forces as the Valar themselves came to challenge him, eventually capturing Melkor and casting him out beyond the bounds of the known world. Sauron was never caught, but arose throughout the Second and Third Ages as but a shadow of his Lord's malevolence, forging the Rings of Power, and fortifying the land of Mordor.

But now, as the dark tower of Barad-dur falls before the Heir of Elendil, what does the lieutenant of Angband truly feel?

(Note: This piece is a bit of a remix of a few Silmarillion fics I have written, so if you like it, check out the originals!)

When The Tower Fell

I've failed you.

Ever you looked to me, your faithful lieutenant, to be with you, advise you, forge your plans from the molten fabric of possibilities and sheathe them in flesh and blooded iron. I was yours, since the first moment I saw you, in another land, another time; some wild, elemental lust awakened and I was yours. A loyalty eternal, undimmed throughout the ages of the world. But for my failure, my weakness.

((You were taken from me and I did nothing but watch))

So I began to forget you, my lord, to lose you in memories half-buried in time-silt, shoved down so deep so they couldn't hurt, they couldn't prick, and fester and breed little maggots of doubt, of guilt that worm, that crawl, that gnaw away with teeth like shards of glass, grating to the bone.

But when those pretenders, those ancient enemies clad in new faces, new bodies, made war on me, marched to my gates and declared their sovereignty with voices thin and cold, mockeries of our foes of old, suddenly I remember. These final gasping moments spill a deluge of memories, those desperate broken moments of us so long ago blaze suddenly anew, like the river long gentle frothed to lethal flood.

((The door splintered from their anger; the hunters bestial, celestial. Their light was burning through the wood.

You screamed at me to go. Half-pleading, your hair was in your eyes, but I could feel them burning. Just go, leave me here.

I had never heard you plead, my lord.

And in that moment, I opened my mouth, one final instant, one moment, to tell you, to shriek at you, to bleed it into you that I couldn't I couldn't just go I can't leave you here, my lord, not alone, not with them, not against their fury and I/

The door ripped open, burst from its hinges. Brackets of metal exploded, peppering you in smoldering iron. They howled, the hunters, eagle cries and the bellow of horns, the quarry cornered. Their discord was almost as yours, my lord, a joyous anger, warped and blistered and divine.))

And even now it aches, it scratches lines of guilt that burn vermilion, the splintered shrapnel of my shame still potent, still puissant.

((In chains you were thrown before the enemy, and I could only watch.

Their touch splits skin from bone.

Their laughter punctures muscle; broiling, frothing in pale ecstasy.

Their light scores through flesh.

And you writhe, back arching crude and raw and broken, and you scream and you scream, and I could do nothing.))

It nearly broke me. I could have shattered into a million bleeding pieces across the stones, brutal haemorrhage of my sins staining us red, but I swallowed my failure, forced it down so deep that it could no longer kill, and I tried, I tried so hard to carry on, to do what you told me in those final shaking moments, a requiem for a lost god. An empire molded from flesh, carved from bone, a realm of chaos exquisite, where mountains cleave asunder and spew their entrails molten and boiling across rivers hollowed to silken dust. The birds would wheel over trees aberrant and coiling and beautiful, over eye sockets void that hungered to see, jaws that lived to snap, to move, to feed. They revel in the bloodlust, creatures of flesh and chitin and bone bay in dread symphony with the drowning of the sun.

I tried so hard, I waited so long, so long for you to come back to me, as you did those millennia before, to declare yourself anew against the radiance of dawn, wreathed in smoke and clots of night, to reign infernal as before.

But you never came back.

And I was left alone.

((Forever the traitor; spat on, cursed, my only crime that I loved you more, I loved you more than them and for my love I was damned.))

And through all the ages passed I began to forget. Maybe I even tried to. Consumed in projects half-remembered yet urgent, muted yet clear, all my mistakes and glories made and won, constantly renewed, re-forged through tumultuous and bloody history. I lost you, my lord, forsaken to depths of memory past hope, past any desire of recall, blurred with time and cares yet edged with guilt, still sharp and raw and bleeding.

((But I think I saw you in my dreams))

Everything was mute. Faded, colourless but you were there in hardblackredwhite ink standing cold and I ran to you and I grabbed you and I shook you but you couldn't hear me, you couldn't see me, you just stared into the milkwhiteblackvoid and I shook you harder, and I hit you, and still you did nothing. And I screamed, thickrawchoking and I sobbed and I pleaded hysterical, you had to come back please say something do something anything instead of this nothing, this blank where you should have been. And then I kissed you. Softly, I push my lips against yours so icypale so stiff, and I grab your jaw and force it open, force my tongue inside your mouth, sliding against your teeth and it tasted like metal.

And you shuddered (crumbled).

And I pulled myself back, surprisedscaredconfused, my hands gripping your shoulders.

My lips were red, dark and viscous clots sticking amongst the crimson.

And you moaned: low, keening, animal distress.

I stared at you and you cracked. Vermilion lines ripped across your face, your body, skin jagged and tight and tearing. Blood was dripping through my fingers, roses bloom visceral, stain your shirt, my hands, run down your arms.

I held you paralyzed, you suddenly limp in my arms and I didn't know, I didn't know what to do (leaking life across the stones) and you twisted and you writhed and you were whimpering (pleasepleasestop) and you were crying and you were gasping and I couldn't help you I couldn't do anything but hold you, hopingpraying that you would say something. You were clawing at your throat, that horridwrenchingbroken keening (stop it please please stop it I can't help you I don't know what to do) and you tore away from me, out of my arms and you whirled and faced me and opened your mouth and for a moment I was hopeful, for a moment I believed and

You spat blood at my feet.

((They had cut out your tongue))

And I shudder awake, heart thudding alive, ((it's not real, it's not real, please don't let this be real)) but you're still gone, and I am here hopeless, pathetic, still clinging to this filthy earth, embroiled in pointless wars with the mewling spawn of greater forebears, a mere husk of what I was, of what I could have been.

((I wish you could give me an ending))

And in these final senseless moments, those fractions of my soul so long ensnared in cursed metal come undone, fall burned and lifeless into the yawning void and all I can do is follow. The towers collapse, sculpted stone thrown down in ruin; my armies scattered, leaderless running feral across the plains to their ultimate destruction, a millennia of craftsmanship decimated in minutes, and I suppose I should care, I suppose I should feel something rather than this vague annoyance, this vague disappointment, but I can't.

I can't.

All I can think about is you.

So long buried that it's knotted up inside, trapped down there in the dark, but it's unraveling and it's throbbing and it's clawing up through me, my weakness, my fault; that all those ages ago I should have stopped them, that I should have done something, anything to help you, I should have saved you, but I couldn't, I couldn't face them so I stood aside, I left you ((I promised you an empire)) and I wish I could scream it, I wish I could burn this entire world to the ground and scrawl it in the ashes, that I failed you, ((but for all I did, for all I made, I tried so hard and it was all for nothing)) you trusted me and I failed.

((And I'm so sorry))

But here at the end of everything, the world slowly fading out into the empty abyss of night, I still remember the way you looked at me, my lord. You had lightning in your eyes; threads of crackling gold that stabbed right through me, and all I could do was gasp in wonder, drenched in that pure, aching beauty. In ages long passed, dappled in the gentle silver light of a land forever lost, under those glimmering stars we were divine. We were free.

And I remember the way you smiled at me.

Here at the end of everything, I just…

I just thought you should know that.

Hope you enjoyed. Reviews are always treasured. xx