Title: Giver of Gifts
Author: Mirabehn
Fandom: Shakespeare/Silmarillion crossover
Rating: Hard R. Be warned.
Characters, pairing: Macbeth/Annatar (aka Sauron)
Disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be.
Archive: Go for it. Just let me know first.
Warnings/spoilers: Slash. Darkness. Implied rape.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Fluffymormegil for requesting this, and to Ixwin for some very helpful comments/betaing.
Feedback: Would be fab. :)
Notes: I'm assuming familiarity with Macbeth, at the least. Familiarity with The Silmarillion is rather less important, though obviously a plus.
He came to me in the darkness, on the first night of the MacDonwald campaign. I heard no sound, not the wind flapping against my tent nor the horses stamping on the hard ground, nor the shouts of fearful men in a troubled sleep.
He came like the nightfall, like death, and his eyes were golden.
"I am Annatar. I am the giver of gifts," he said. "On you I shall bestow the glories of this earth, for I love you.
"Tell me, Thane of Glamis. What do you wish me to do for you? What in all the world do you most desire?"
And then he laid me down upon my bed, and trapped me there, and when he entered me, I wept. And when he had finished he took a little of my soul away. But I would not tell him what I most desired in all the world.
When he came to me on the second night I wept again. But this time it was not for pain, and when he left my body I begged him not to, and he took a little of my soul away. But still I would not tell him what I most desired in all the world.
When he came to me on the third night I kissed him full on the lips as he wrapped me in his arms, long after the act itself, long in sleep until the morning. And I wept with joy that he did so, and he took a little of my soul away. But still I would not tell him what I most desired in all the world.
On the fourth night, I told him. "You. I desire you," I said. And then I knew that my soul was his.
But he laughed, and kissed my face. "This is only a dream, and this body of mine only a shadow I have spun in the darkness. You do not desire me. But now I know what it is you truly wish for more than anything else that is or may be, even though you do not know it yet. And that is what I shall give to you."
And he returned my soul, though it was not quite as it had been. And I lay in his arms until morning was long past, and yet the dawn did not break, and then long into the next night, long until cockcrow on the sixth day. And many times I let him take his pleasure, and the more did I rejoice for he was beautiful beyond the words of man or woman. Beautiful as a soldier is, a mighty warrior, but his hands were fine as a maiden's and upon one finger he wore a ring.
But when the cock crew he said we must part. "When shall we two meet again?" I asked, and tears wetted my face for the last time in life.
"Never," he smiled. "But I shall serve you, and I shall send my emissaries to you. And they shall greet you after a hard battle, and then you shall know them, and know that I am your lover and that I shall not abandon you."
And he kissed me, like Judas in the garden. And then he left me. And I put on my armour and fought and won a war for the king I would come to murder.