The moment Lydia awoke, her arms lashed out. Someone was in the room, and in the waking slumber of her deathly sleep, the vampire's mind was just a split second slower than in full wakefulness. It only took her another second to realize who was there.
She rose from her bed, rushing at preternatural speed to wrap her cold arms around him protectively.
He was rocking on himself, muttering incoherent things in Sindarin, incoherent things in Quenya, and her Roman mind was truly more focused on the thoughts than the words. "He's here."
It didn't take much more for her to know.
Annatar.
Sauron.
Here. In this heaven of theirs. Here. In the sacred temple of their love. She wove the Spell gift without thinking, a remnant of the first nights they used to spend together. A net of forgetfulness, of peace, she wove around her lover, her voice sultry and soothing, sensual. "I will not allow him to harm you, my Immortal, my beautiful Immortal," she murmured softly. "We will sail through the centuries, unhindered."
He sagged against her, and said nothing, clinging like a child to his mother. She was undone. She was unhinged.
The following weeks were hell for both of them. During the day, he cowered in her room, away from her deathly sleep. At night, they haunted the forge or their home, and Lydia's mind was ever tense, ever on the look out.
She knew she had nothing on the Maiar. She knew he could undo her with a breath. Worse, she feared that he may have power over her, over her undead body, even if her will, her person detested everything that Annatar was.
He let them in peace for several weeks. Her vigilance lessened. There was little to be done, truly - nothing could resist the will of Sauron.
Celebrimbor was sitting in the room, his head against his knees, looking occasionally at Lydia's sleeping form.
The door opened. He was beautiful, Annatar. Shining. Lydia, in her deathly slumber, did not so much as stir. She was helpless. Had the Maiar wanted to fling the careful shields from the windows, to burn her into oblivion, he could have. He opted not to.
"Come, my love. I have waited too long," Annatar murmured softly, in the velvety, irresistible voice he mastered so well. "You pain me with your resistance. Come. She is dead. We are alive. Come."
Celebrimbor looked at Lydia's body with regret - wanting to go to her, to beg her to wake, yet knowing that if he did, she would stir and maim him, kill him, rather. The idea passed through his mind that perhaps dying at her hands was better than the alternative, but it only flitted. This was Annatar. This was the man he'd loved and trusted for centuries. What was a little story of barely a year with an Ancient? He loved her, true, but was she enough to keep him?
She was not. Annatar's hand clasped around Celebrimbor's wrist, tugging him away from the darkness and into the light. "Come. There is much we must do, my love, and so much for me to make up to you," Sauron murmurs, so tantalizing, so promising. The Elf shivers, but surrenders to the plea, following.
As Annatar left the premises, not the slightest crack of light entered Lydia's darkened abode. He felt that keeping the vampire safe was also keeping his own appearance safe.
In the following nights, Lydia was frantic. She sought her beloved Immortal high and low, but never was he to be found. The forge, where they had made love, where she had fathomed her first works in the spring, was filled with deadly silence. Nowhere in sight was her love to be seen, and his mind was silent.
She flew over land and forest, water and vale, until she gave up, exhausted, sitting on a stone close to a cliff, where she'd once sought death.
It was in the very late hours of the night, those that precede the morning that her friend found her.
"Lydia." Finrod's voice was quiet. "He is lost."
She bit her lip, and looked at him, cheeks still streaked with bloody tears.
"He is not. Not my beloved, no, not Carus, not Amor. My love is not lost, he only wanders until I can find him again."
Finrod said nothing for a while, only felt her grief.
"My sister had a dream," he murmured quietly.
"Your sister hates me," she grunted, scornful and angry.
"My sister sent me to you," he replied in a quiet breath.
Lydia looked up, confused and uncomprehending.
"She knows where he is. Delve into the depths of these caves, and you will find him. Come. I will show you."
As Findaratò Felagund and his friend walked in the darkened spaces, Lydia murmured, softly, "Why?"
Finrod had no explanation for Galadriel's behavior, other than her guilt over Celebrimbor's first death. He gave it, and Lydia was silent.
They walked for several nights, pausing during the day, when Lydia fell to a morbid stupor. Eventually, the cave was found.
"Go, Finrod. I would not have you confront Sauron's wolves again," she murmured fondly. "Go."
He refused, at first. "Let me stay. You may need help taking care of him," he finally said, not quite pleadingly. Lydia was adamant.
He went. Not out of fear, but out of respect for Lydia, and out fo the deep knowledge that this was her battle, and hers alone. In the shadows, he lurked. Who knew what state his cousin would be in?
Lydia's footsteps were inaudible as she tiptoed in the shadows of Sauron's forge. She watched carefully as the heat reverberated the two shapes against the cave's walls. Sauron was touching Celebrimbor's hair. She hated the spectacle. The elf seemed to be entranced, rather than enthralled. In his mind, she saw the confusion, her image and Annatar's doubling as one, Sauron's tortures gone and forgotten.
"Help me make one more ring," Sauron was saying. "Together, we will achieve perfection."
There was eagerness in the way Celebrimbor responded. Desire. Want. Ambition.
i::Do not do this, Carus.::/I She sent word to him from her shadows. i::I am other. I am not him. I rule my own free will. I would not manipulate you to my ends.::/I
Celebrimbor hesitated, a moment, eyes searching. Annatar caught the wind of her presence - suddenly, he seemed, to Lydia, to be so much darker, so much stronger, as he raised a hand to make her come to him. She went.
"So this is your little Edain lover," Annatar told Celebrimbor as Lydia was suspended in the air, between life and death, a slave to Sauron's will. "What shall we do with her, my love?"
Celebrimbor stared, gaping. "Let her go! She has nothing to do with this. Let her go!"
Annatar dropped Lydia, and she suddenly levitated, using her Feather Gift, but now free to resist him as she wished. "Indeed, I have everything to do with this," she said coldly, under her breath, as she focussed the Fire Gift on Sauron's face, preparing to throw at him all that she had. "Let us go, and this will all be forgotten. If not — then may all the gods and Eru have mercy on you." She moved, to place herself between her love and her foe - but was once again stilled, mid-air.
There was very little in the realm of options for Lydia. Very little in the realm of options for Celebrimbor. She was up in the air, and the fires of the forge were much too close for comfort. "Is this your lover, Carus, who now threatens me?" She murmured it almost painedly, but her dead flesh was surrendered to the Necromancer's will.
Celebrimbor's face, so easily schooled to formality, suddenly was filled with pain. "Run, Carus, run. He will not treat you better than I," Lydia said. "Go, go, please.... I could not allow you to suffer again. If you love me, go. Please." Blood was dripping at the side of her mouth.
He left. He hated himself for it, but he loved her, and could not deny her such wishes. He exited the caves, crying tears of anguish and rage, hating Annatar, and every single moment he'd spent with him.
Somewhere in the forge, something collapsed. In a last feat of willpower, Lydia had broken free, and was waging war to Sauron with the desperate energies of a bug, avoiding hits, seeking to sting. Outside the caves, Celebrimbor found Galadriel.
"I am sorry for everything," she murmured. He didn't look at her.
"I misjudged her," she said again. "I am sorry."
Celebrimbor didn't reply anything to this on the way back. His vampire lover was still down there, at the core of the earth. Eru alone knew how long it would take for her to return - she always did, such was the nature of the Ancient. In the meantime, he would be alone.
Again.