All the tumblr posts lately have made me really latch onto Annatar/Celebrimbor, so here you go...
There were times when Sauron liked to pretend he was still Annatar. Not Annatar the Deceiver, as he had been named by Elves with deep gray eyes and self-righteous armies, but Annatar, Lord of Gifts, loved, if not by all in Eregion, but the one who mattered.
They were times when Sauron would wish to run his hands up his arms and close his ever-watching eye so he could take a deep breath and hopefully catch the sound of a hammer of tongs, a whiff of smoke and fire. Long ago, he had associated it with his master, the long-captured but never forgotten, not forgotten because sauron ever wanted him to awaken but for fear of what he would do if he did.
No, Sauron did not associate fire and flames with his master any longer. He thought of them and thought of strong arms and soot, of a quick and hard-won smile, of long slow tales of the Eldar Days, as though Sauron did not know the other side of them. He thought of molten metal and worn leather gloves and tough, weathered skin.
Three Rings.
The hurt of it still stung.
He had thought he was trusted, completely. He had thought that Tyelpe had eyes only for him, that their fingers as they created masterpieces of beauty together were meant to be woven together. He had not known that there was another, one with the long blonde hair of the light of Aman. He should have known better.
It was said that many fell to worship her light, her piercing gaze. He'd just never thought Tyelpe would be one of them.
He'd given one of the rings to her. He'd given the other two to the meddling High King, even after all he'd spend a millennia convincing Tyelpe that Gil-galad was wrong, even foolish. That the king had inherited all the brawn and none of the brains of the great Noldorian lords.
But Gil-galad got, not one, but two of them, while Annatar hadn't even known they existed. The betrayal was etched deep. He had always been planning deceit, but how far back did Tyelpe's go?
If Sauron let himself think about that, the pain, the anger, came back, and his wrath was terrible. When he was very angry, he would stop thinking about the betrayal and go back to his millennia of bliss, such a short time in the grand scheme of things, but it was a time entirely his, a time not ruled fire and smoke and lava. It was a time where he, with the right tools, had mastery over the flame instead.
It was only when he was truly feeling ill and horrible that he would allow himself to be Annatar again, to see Tyelpe's hard-won smile, his calloused fingers gripping his own slender ones, his wiry black hair. Then Sauron would revel in the way the sun beat down on them, warming their skin, and the way their lips tasted together, salty like a sea neither of them cared for. He would remember the day he promised himself to Tyelpe in his foolishness, drowning in that rancid pool of emotion the sentimentals called love, and the way Tyelpe's eyes had lit up, eyes normally so dark as they carried the burden of a family's past. He would remember the joy he brought to one man's life.
When the One Ring, the symbol of both Tyelpe's betrayal and his own, was destroyed, it was this that he thought of. Annatar, Lord of Gifts, died with joy in his heart.