ji-indur from tumblr requested something about the Nine.
Hope you like it, sweetheart!
A part of my "giving away fics" event on tumblr.
Orginally published on AO3 - 2017-02-05
When your master calls you don't waste time. You don't finish your work, but insted drop it and run to your liege's side to see how you can please him, how you can fulfil his wishes. Your pleasure, your desires and fears are not important anymore.
The vile power hammered into the rings makes sure you're obedient, even if you don't want to be. It makes sure you know where your loyalty lays. You cannot take a step off the narrow path of utter obedience. His iron will breaks your defences in a blink of an eye.
You hear his voice: "Come to me, serve me."
And you instantly forget about the thing you were doing, about your desires and fears. You're on your way before the realization of this fact comes to your mind. There aren't "not now, master", "let me finish", "can you call someone else, you always call me". There is no room for hesitation. There will never be. Whatever you do is not important. Only his will is. It always will be. You don't remember those times it wasn't.
The ring on your finger makes sure you remember your place and purpose.
***'
Nine shadows appeared in the throne room, under the piercing gaze of eyes like fire. Sauron sat comfortably on his throne, his favourite crossbow resting on his lap, as he was observing his slaves approach him. In the stillness of the chamber he could hear not only their footsteps, but also the faint sound of fabric of their clothes against their skin. He frowned upon seeing his slaves dressed in colors of their homelands under their black cloaks.
"My liege, I await thy command," they spoke in one voice. Or rather in a chorus of nine different voices, some deep, some high, some soft. The Dark Lord's gaze swept across the straight line of nine of his slaves kneeling before him. Their eyes were burning in their pale faces.
Two held unrolled scrolls in their hands - a sign that the call had reached them when they were in the library, reading. One held a naked blade, curved like a crescent moon. The fourth's long hair were falling on his back, partially braided. Sauron needed just one glance to guess where his servants had been before coming to him.
As he spoke his orders, his voice deeper than depths of underworld, he was thinking that they had so much to lose before becoming entirely his wraiths. They were still wearing flesh, requiring food and rest, clothes and other things. They were still showing traces of their personalities, of their humanity. But he was patient, he could wait for their change. He could sit and observe how their personalities burn away, how they lose those traits making them stand out among the rest. He could watch their differences, their will vanish.
"Come to me," spoke one voice, soft like a prayer, like a whisper of a lover, like hiss of a snake preparing to impale its fangs in flesh of its prey.
""My liege, I await thy command," replied the voice of nine shadows, united in one desire, following only one master, desiring one thing and not being aware that there once were other desires, other goals, other longings. That there were other things within them than madness. There was no hesitation, no second thought, no feeling of loss, of lack of something very important to their existence. The voices of the shadows were drained of will and awareness of their differences, their past, their own thoughts.
Sauron looked at his creations and smiles faintly.
There was only obedience.
There never would be anything else.