'Thus I take you mine.'
'It burns! Take it away!' Tinwen pulled the chain of the Morglin-Stone as far off her skin as it reached. This was not far enough.
'How can anything burn you, my love? You are made of fire.'
'It is so cold; it was never this cold before! Please take it off!'
'I am sorry, my little one, but I can't. The lock is impossible to open. You see, I mean to keep you for ever.' With these words, Sauron captured her with one arm and with the other fastened a length of chain into the treacherous necklace. Then he chained her to the wall of the chamber of Coimirer.
'These chains are too strong for you to break, and no one will come here to break them for you. You yourself have admitted that none save Melkor, and someone who promised to keep the secret, know where you went from Aman. And my Lord will be pleased to find you safely kept here when he returns.'
'If he returns', Tinwen managed to whisper.
'And how does it help you if he does not? You shall see I can be cruel too. In fact, I think you shall see it very soon... my wife.'
Fire burns. Sometimes it burns your fingers. Sometimes it burns down into ashes. No fire can burn for long in a sealed space. It requires air. Without air fire is not fire. But the heat endures, waiting.
Melkor did return. He gathered his creatures and started fortifying Angamando, raising the Sangororimbë high over it. Sauron welcomed his Master and presented him two gifts. One was a knife of Aul's craft, which Melkor melted, using the iron to fasten Silmarils into his crown. The other was a prisoner.
Tinwen heard the noises of change, but she could not fathom what they meant. Steps hurried to and fro. Tools crafted stone. Heavy things were carried from one place to another. Water splashed. Somewhere, fires rushed to flame. The earth itself was changing and moving, but none of the changes had reached the chamber of Coimirer, now dark and dusty, grave-like.
Until the day Tinwen heard the door being opened and its seals breaking. Someone walked in, but brought no light. The gust of air lighted Tinwen's flames, and she saw a black, hooded shape right in front of her.
'Who are you?' She asked.
'You may call me your lord.' The visitor lowered his hood. Tinwen beheld the Jewels of Feänor, aglow with the living fire of Valinor. Then she saw the face under the iron-crown.
Arien, she who steers the sun, was on one of her first journeys across the heavens. Suddenly she started crying tears of fire. She did not understand the reason for this, until she felt somehow that her smallest sister suffered, was being hurt beyond healing.
A fire of gold had burned down into ashes and the cold ashes had been walked on by filthy feet. Tinwen did not cry. Her entire body was in pain; every limb was like crippled, without strength. She felt old and despaired. Her face was like burned flesh, her hair hanged down in dirty ash-white tangles. She was not even sure if she was alive or dead.
The Maiar are untouched by time. Sometimes, though, they may be aged by worry, pain and sorrow. So was Tinwen, no longer fair, no longer glorious, no longer shining. She walked around her prison as far as the chains would let her. She whispered to the stones in the walls, recalling the light and beauty of Aman beyond the ocean. One day she found a stone that whispered back; a jewel-spirit. Slowly she tore it out of the wall with her bare hands. Then she polished it with the rags of her clothes. Quetondo she called it, the Speaking Stone. It taught her the language of rock, which is slow and few-worded, the tongue of pebbles, which consists of small rolling words, and the speech of monoliths, which is heavy and sharp. And Quetondo told wonderful tales of mountains dancing, continents melting, valleys opening and hills rising.
'I love the fires of the earth', said Tinwen, 'teach me the word to call them to me.'
Quetondo told her the word. She spoke it. The ground tore itself in two, smoke erupted from the crevice, and molten stone came after it. Tinwen was delighted to have light once again. Now she saw Quetondo, a tiny shadow dancing inside its crystal sphere. The fire could not melt Tinwen's chains, but it eased the pain caused by the icy Morglin-Stone.
Melkor felt his throne shaking. He sent his servants to see what was the reason. They reported that the prison-chamber of Tinwen was opened and lava rushed out of it. He told Sauron:
'You have been foolish to capture her so far underground. Find a new place to keep her.'
Tinwen was taken out by valaraukar, who flew her up to a sharp mountaintop of the Sangororimbë. There Sauron chained her. It was a cloudy night, a night of darkness. Sauron was in the shape of a vampire. He touched her face with a clawed hand.
'You should see yourself now, little one. You are nothing any longer!'
'I'm still alive.'
'Soon you'll wish you weren't.' And Sauron drank her blood.
The next morning Anar rose in her glory over the mountaintops. Arien beheld a wretched little figure tied with chains into the mountainside. The figure lifted a hollow-eyed face. There was something familiar in its features…
'Sister?'
'Sister! Help me!' The voice was dry and breathless.
'I cannot. I cannot come down. Oh, Tinwen!'
And Arien the sun-maiden passed over the skies to the West with a message of pleading on her lips. Some on the earth noted that the day felt unusually short, as if the Sun herself had been hurrying.
The next day she came again, with the news that the Eagles of Sorontar would be on their way as soon as she woke them up. But Tinwen was no longer on the mountain. Melkor's guards had heard her converse with Arien and she had been brought back below ground. This time her imprisonment was even more torturing: Tinwen was frozen inside a small glacier. She could not move, but her Maiarin spirit endured and she remained conscious of the suffocating coldness all around her.
Years passed, years of fear and war in Beleriand, years of terror and dark despair in Angband.
But one hour there was that brought hope and eased the suffering of the captives of Angamando. For from the darkest and deepest hall where Morgoth had his throne there drifted a song of beautiful dreams. All that heard it fell asleep, and Tinwen dreamed of Arda under Anar, of flowers rising and children dancing. Her heart found a familiarity in the enchantment; 'Melian's daughter...' she thought. Another dream there was, too; a vision of her own lost sword being broken and then breaking another sword, and of a Younger Child of Ilúvatar taking a Silmaril in his hand. Too soon the dreams drifted away and Tinwen was once again tortured and despaired; even more so now that she had been reminded of lost happiness. Yet in the depths of her heart she rejoiced at Melkor's loss and what shadow of hope she had she put into the Silmaril. Melkor was not invincible...
'Sorontar' is Tolkien's translation for the name of the King of the Eagles, Thorondor.
'Sangororimb' is my translation for the name Thangorodrim.