A/N: Second part of this chapter, and a smackdown for the Gary Stu.

Well, of course. Lúthien is involved.


The Game of the Gods, 32

"Why are you here?"

Morgoth glared. Fëanor and his sons had remained standing- uselessly, Morgoth thought- next to the Walls of the World, and so he dared to stand up to Lúthien. There was always the chance that she would crumple and cry, in the same way that there was always a chance Eru would forgive him. At least no one would see if he cowered again. "Because I can't wait to see you lose."

Lúthien looked at him patiently. "Admit it, Morgoth. You wanted me. Badly."

"Not my fault," said Morgoth. "Look at you."

"Yes, everyone sees my beauty," said Lúthien, with a sigh, walking past the Gardens of Lórien and towards the sound of loud giggling. Morgoth actually wasn't sure he wanted to see the woman whom Steel could charm. "Or my choice to give up my immortality. No one seems to remember that I had to convince the man I loved to live, die twice, dance and sing before two Valar, run away from my parents and stand before them-"

"Yes, I know you're a heroine!" snapped Morgoth. "I didn't need the full recitation."

"You'll get whatever I choose to hand out," said Lúthien, stepping past a corner of the Gardens full of singing nightingales. "I am not happy about being summoned back like this, and I think that I should get rid of this Stu as soon as possible."

"It won't be easy," Morgoth warned her.

Lúthien halted and gave him a glance that made Morgoth flinch in a way that even Fëanor's glances didn't. Fëanor was mad, at bottom, and that was reflected in his eyes. Lúthien just looked incredibly tired of having to clean up other people's messes. It reminded Morgoth of nothing so much as the way that Eru had looked at him when he began to sing his competing themes.

"Do you think," Lúthien asked, "that anything I have done is easy?"

"Well-" Morgoth began.

Lúthien snorted at him, and walked towards Steel. He was sitting at a wrought iron table that he had obviously conjured using his magic, and was leaning across it to flirt with the woman on the other side.

"And your eyes," he was saying at the moment, "your eyes are too lovely for weeping! Surely they should be bright and gazing into mine with the love and adoration that I know is in you."

The woman giggling on the other side of the table, to Morgoth's horror, was Nienna.

"Do you really think," the Valië asked, looking down and blushing, "do you really think that you can see my inner Ainu?"

Steel clasped her hand and touched her cheek. "More clearly," he said with fervent admiration, "than I have ever seen anyone's inner Ainu before."

Morgoth couldn't keep from laughing aloud at that. "He's never seen anyone's inner Ainu before," he said, when Nienna glared at him, and Steel rose slowly to his feet, clapping his robotic arms together.

"How do you know, Morgoth?" he asked, and then stopped as he caught sight of Lúthien. "Hel-lo," he said, and grinned. "Sweet little thing, aren't you?"

Morgoth glanced at Lúthien. He thought she would do the same thing she had done with him, and start singing to enchant Steel. Of course, she didn't have the Silmaril or Beren to drive her this time, and Gary Stus were invincible to women if they turned their real charm on them, so perhaps she was going to do a worse job of it. Morgoth was looking forward to that. Perhaps if someone else had come to defeat Steel, he wouldn't have been, but Lúthien was and always had been an obnoxious little girl.

"I am not a sweet little thing," said Lúthien. "And you have a woman behind you who was listening to you with great attention."

"It doesn't matter," said Steel, gazing at her with rapt attention. He didn't see Nienna's frown, of course, but then, he had his back to the Valië. "Nothing matters, my dear, except you."

Lúthien smiled, a smile with a sharp edge that would have revealed her true nature to Morgoth the moment he saw it, if she had smiled that way when he first met her. "How wrong you are," she murmured. "Arda matters. I am here to see that you shall not destroy it."

"Oh, come on," said Steel, reaching out and laying a friendly hand on her shoulder. "A pretty little thing like you?"

Lúthien looked up at him, and her eyes narrowed.

Morgoth inched backwards.

"Hands off," said Lúthien, her teeth snapping shut on the words. Steel jumped and took his hand from her shoulder, and then looked disgusted with himself.

"I like a girl with spirit," he said.

"I like men who vow to go into danger for me, and then agree that they should have let me come along in the first place," said Lúthien.

Steel blinked. "Well, I'm sure something could be arranged," he said. "What kind of thing would you like?"

Lúthien smiled. "Nothing you could give me. My husband and son are gone from the world, and the Silmaril that once burned on my breast is now in the hand of another and no longer my desire. I have passed beyond you, and there is nothing that you could have done to charm me, even had we met in the days of my youth."

Steel blinked at her for a moment longer. Then he said, "Want to watch me do this?" and grew to the size of Tulkas before shrinking back down again.

"No," said Lúthien calmly.

"You were speaking pretty words to me," huffed Nienna, coming around the corner of the wrought iron table. "And you told me that you liked it I wasn't married, that only maidens appealed to you!"

"Beauty, most of all," said Steel. "And spirit." He was still staring in fascination at Lúthien. "There must be something that I could do to impress you."

"Nothing."

Morgoth shook his head. What in the world was Lúthien doing? It would have been an easy matter for her to flirt with and charm Steel, and then get him to go into the Void, or something similar. Instead, she seemed content to stand around and bandy words with him.

Of course, I am forgetting that Gary Stus are invincible. Morgoth smiled. And forgetting that if I win, evil will have conquered in Arda. He settled down to watch the rest of the contest with a little more cheerfulness.

"But there must be something," said Steel. "I could pluck the sun and moon out of the sky for you, if that's what you wanted."

"I don't want that," said Lúthien. "What would I do with the sun and the moon? One would burn Arda to ashes, and the other would pursue the sun with his hopeless love."

Steel blinked helplessly for a few moments. Then he choked out, "But it would be cool."

Morgoth smirked, then stopped. Was he actually smirking to see his Stu in distress? Was he actually approving of what Lúthien was doing?

Oh, Eru, I am converting to the side of the Valar! No! Back, good thoughts!

"I don't care about cool," said Lúthien, pronouncing the last word as if it were a small dead thing that had somehow fallen into her mouth. "What matters most is that I am already married, and dead, and came back to the world so that I might defeat you. Now, are you going to be defeated?"

"See?" Nienna asked, tugging at Steel's arm. "She's already married, and dead. I, on the other hand, am not married, and can't die."

Steel shrugged Nienna's hand off, still concentrating on Lúthien. "I suppose there's nothing I can say to convince you of how much I want you?"

Lúthien shrugged. "You could probably convince me. I have seen that you are drawn to beauty. But I have a husband whom I love very much."

"No woman can resist me, though," said Steel.

"Why not? Grandiose ambitions, leers that are nearly as badly hidden as Morgoth's-"

"Hey!" Morgoth objected.

"They were too, Morgoth, and you know it," snapped Lúthien, without even looking at him. "You've been leering at me since I came back into the world. As I was saying to your Stu, I can easily resist them. Fëanor gripped with lust for the Silmarils is infinitely more attractive."

Nienna stared at Lúthien. "You have odd standards of attractiveness," she said at last.

Steel ignored the Valië, stamping his foot. "You have to be attracted to me! Every woman is! It's a rule!"

Lúthien shrugged. "Sorry. Not for beautiful half-Maiar, half-Elves who chose a mortal life." She paused. "Or perhaps I should say not for the beautiful half-Maia, half-Elf who chose a mortal life." She smiled cheerfully. "Since there aren't any others like me in Arda."

"No one else like you?" Steel choked. "But there must be other fish in the sea- there's always other fish in the sea-"

"I don't see what fish have to do with it," said Lúthien, "but you won't find anyone else like me. Oh, yes, there was Arwen, but she didn't have to go through half the things I went through. And she's already married, too," she added, as Steel turned and glanced longingly towards Middle-earth.

Steel shook his head. "There must be someone who would have me, babe, even if you won't."

Lúthien arched her brows. "I don't see what children have to do with it, either."

"This- you can't do this to me!" Steel howled.

Nienna tugged at his arm. "I'm here! I'm here! I experienced a bonding between us that was so deep and complete that I think my inner Ainu recognized your inner Ainu. I think that we should-"

"I'm a Gary Stu," said Steel, as if checking something. "That means that no woman can resist me if I really want her."

Lúthien just looked at him.

"But you're resisting me," Steel went on. "And I really want you."

Lúthien continued to just look at him.

"The contradiction- the contradiction-" Steel moaned, and then abruptly exploded in a messy splash of body parts that, of course, coated Morgoth while not touching Lúthien. Nienna wound up cuddling Steel's liver for a moment, then dropped it and ran towards Mandos, wailing.

"At least that started her on her natural course of grief again," Lúthien murmured, and turned and walked towards Ekkaia.

Morgoth followed her, a little dazed. "Lúthien?" he asked on the way there.

"What?"

"Could you have done that to me? Made me cease to exist, just by creating some contradiction between your resisting me and my wanting you?"

Lúthien glanced at him and snorted. "Perhaps I could have, but you were already deeply invested in your lust for the Silmarils, and you could have them. If they could object, then perhaps Arda could have been rid of all its problems."

Morgoth mumbled something- even he didn't know what it was- and continued walking with her towards the Walls of the World.

They heard the shouting quite a long way off. Morgoth flinched, suddenly remembering that two slots in the box, and not just one, had been empty.

Lúthien just shook her head and kept walking. "Not my problem, not my problem," she was muttering under her breath over and over. Because Morgoth didn't want to run in front of Lúthien- and because he wasn't entirely sure if he would run towards the sound or away- he walked at her side perforce.

One of the shouters was Varda, Morgoth realized as he listened. She seemed to be saying something about a crazy, insane, idiotic idea that was never going to work. Thus it made sense that the other shouter, when he could get a word in edgewise, was Fëanor.

"It will so work," he said. "When have any of my ideas not worked?"

"Perhaps when you thought you could keep the Silmarils for yourself without consequence?" Varda screamed. "Or when you thought it was a good idea to swear a stupid unbreakable oath and rebel against the Powers of the World and kill other Elves for the sake of boats?"

"Besides that."

"It's not going to work! You're crazy!"

They came in sight of the Walls of the World then, and Lúthien shook her head and vanished into them. "Rest, and peace, at last," she was murmuring.

Morgoth almost wished he could go with her.

He moved up carefully beside Varda, who was yelling so hard that light was blazing from her again. "What's the matter?" he asked.

Varda didn't hear him, or didn't care that he had spoken. "Insane idiotic psychotic neurotic disturbed Elf!" she yelled at Fëanor. "It's not going to work, and I will stop you right now."

"Um, Varda-" said Morgoth, watching Fëanor. The Elf was smiling, his eyes fever-bright, and bouncing something small up and down in his hand.

"It's just a question, isn't it?" Fëanor asked. "Just a little question."

"You will never get a chance to ask it!" Varda promised, still at the top of her lungs, and lunged at him.

Morgoth tried to catch her too late.

Fëanor laughed aloud, whispered, "This should bring the attention I want," and cast the Sue forward.



Next chapter: the last one, and Fëanor's plan comes spiraling out.