Arms and legs stretched out for so long, Ešl remained in position for a while after his bonds were released. Shushluk hurried up to tie him up with ropes twisted into different knots, but Sauron raised a hand and waited.
Ešl swallowed, wishing that his tears would dry soon despite that it was windless here.
"Sinda of the Girdle?" Sauron's voice was smooth behind him, "Turn around, so I may see you."
Ešl lowered his head before he faced Sauron again. Though Sinda, and accustomed to leafy forests, he was untrained and could not see as clearly as others could. Therefore, Sauron's expression went unnoticed, perhaps for the better.
"Now follow me."
Shushluk hurried forward.
Ešl hesitated; he bit his lip, feeling the unwelcome tears welling up again. He wanted to live, true, but he did not wish to become an orc out of sight, with an elven overlord of Angband. There was something in that fair one's visage that was made to startle.
Furthermore, he suspected that he would march beside the places where his friends were placed.
Against his will then, he moved, as invisible ropes curled up along his waist. The dark figure of Sauron was strangely bright in front of him.
Ešl fell once, but Shushluk held him up, by his will or another's neither knew.
Sauron lead them throughout the courtyard back to his room.
The Calaquendi's stares seared across Ešl's skin in mixtures of pity and pain, and once, someone called out in Sindarin. He had lifted his head at the voice, but met Sauron's eyes instead- silver, like stars and moon.
"Walk beside me." Sauron said, and opened his arms in invitation.
Silmaril incarnate. The tear stained face came close, tangled hair framing aquiline features and wind drunken cheeks. The handsome eyes had closed when he wrapped his arms around the naked limbs; but that did not matter, Sauron had found that black had been ruined; it reminded him of a certain room and a certain balrog's fires.
The doors of white marble and silver marked the abode of Gorthaur the Cruel. Ešl really cried when his feet dragged across the threshold. The stories from his dreams, and other's dream tore through his consciousness in a hurtling flood.
Soft fingers fluttered on his face, and he felt himself carried.
The smooth skin, alarmed yet satisfied Sauron at the same time. Once upon a time perhaps, he would have broken, or stained it without a second thought because it was what commanded of him- for the greater good. Yet there were no greater good now, not when Melkor wore that crown and punished him for wanting it so badly that cruelty must be turned to single minded ruthlessness, which was without reason, and inadaptable.
The tall tower Sauron took Ešl was empty, the Quarters, others had named it. A fallacious foresight built it. At first, Melkor thought that Feanor would join him there and together they would fell Eru from His heavens.
The top of the tower was never complete, so it appeared as if two spires rose from one, yet inside it was furnished with every luxury commendable even in Aman.
Aman, where one sleeps on soft beds without trouble, Sauron laughed, as he gently put Ešl down on one.
The instant seemed to focus onto the single being lying there, naked and angrily tearful, his face barely visible through elegant fingers.
Something struck Sauron. "What was your trade?" He asked.
The calluses on the forefinger and thumb were unmistakable, yet the boy carried no bow.
Ešl lowered his arm and try to draw himself taller on the bed. Sauron smiled at the movement.
"Artist." Ešl answered, pitifully proud.
Sauron lifted an eyebrow and a dim figment of a fantastical Noldo face rushed through his mind.
"Of?"
"Wood and stone."
"You do not work metals."
There was no answer that time. Ešl remembered that he was not allowed not suppose to speak when captured, ever.
"You are in my bed." Sauron reminded him.
As soon as the words left, he knew they should not have, because Ešl bit his lip and closed his eyes again. His whole body began to tremble as he curled himself on his side, presenting his back.
Shushluk walked forward in trepidation.
"Milord," It ventured, and tried to stand straighter as Sauron ignored him, "I was told this morning..."
He sank to his knees as a stabbing pain shot through his joints, his bones stung with familiar sharp needles. He remember what they look like, long as a forearm, and thinner than a thread. They weaved through bones like needles through cloth. Where? When?
Sauron glowered. How dare he?! He swept to where Ešl lay, as still as marble, soot-covered marble, then to Shushluk, "Go draw the water."
The orc fled to the bathroom.
"Stand up." Sauron said, "Or I will carry you."
He counted, waiting for Ešl to bolt, but the elf did not. He sat up, eyes still closed, on the side of the bed and almost jumped at the touch of the carpet: soft as fleece on his bare feet, and wonderfully warm.
"I'm Annatar." Sauron told Ešl, who shot him a rather unelven look. But used to orcs, Ešl's expression seemed as adorable as the cooing Simarils that begged to be touched.
Not a Silmaril exactly, Sauron realized, when the Elf stood and walked. Something similar, less divinely intoned, a more palpable light, though not a blessed one.
"I do not like fire." Ešl said, as he lowered himself into the warm water, preferring to keep his eyes on Annatar then Shushluk, who hovered over him like a wraith.
He looked haughtily at the servant of the Dark, as if daring him to say aught else.
The bath seemed fatuous bright, elegant, and faintly facetious, a sweet smell permeated the steam. Weary, he nevertheless tried to keep his muscles from relaxing. He did not expect Annatar to kiss him on the forehead.
Stung, he ducked into the water on instinct, and was dragged out by his hair.
Ešl winced at the pain.
"Stay. Within. My. Sight." Sauron warned, and kissed him again, this time on the cheek, only because Ešl turned his head slightly. Shushluk was useful as he pinned Ešl's arms on the side. "Or I will really listen to Shushluk's words here and do what you think will happen."
He released his hold, and took his gloves off, unveiling his black hand.
A look of horror followed the route of his gloves, as darkened skin revealed inch by inch. The imperishable crystals kept the room in a warm yellow light, and under that light, black seemed brown and burnt.
Ešl lowered his chin again, "I am sorry."
Sauron did not laugh- but the strain almost managed to rupture every cartilage in his fana.
He patted Ešl's head, unwilling to destroy whatever delusion the elf had conjured for himself.
Shushluk had left sometime ago, they were alone in a bright room: Gorthaur was Annatar, and Mordhel the Silmaril Reincarnate found compassion for a vacuous choice. The setting of a Tirion styled bathroom in the middle of Angband was profoundly appropriate
"I have learned to live with it." Sauron said, and argued fiercely with himself for saying it. Serving the Master of Lies does not mean that a Maia of Aule's following spoke half-truths, of falsehoods, not necessarily at least.
"You look tired," Ešl ventured at length, confounded, yet being young, comfortable with relief of any sort, he clung to Annatar as a fading hope, "There's dust on your face. Should I wipe it off?"
Guilty, Sauron declined. He hated that he loved, and loved even more the fact he hated the quandary because this was purely for his won.
"I will sit here until you finish, Ešl," He said.
The bathtub was large, and dipped low in the risen ground. Annatar stretched himself on the side and watched as Ešl found the tap emitting a perfume smelling faintly of pine.
Smooth skin and sleek muscles, not yet old enough for wiry strength, Annatar wondered if he should not keep Ešl here; he could, trap him in an eternal mist that made the fair form sparkle in a thousand rainbows. Unfortunately, that would not be right. He would not still be alive as he should.
He remembered the Silmarils again. What other liquid substance would Silmarils exude when touched by one as he, but tears. That time, he had been too hurt to notice.
Annater dipped a hand lazily into the pool, and brushed Ešl's skin, from the shoulder blades to small of the back. The elf moved away slightly.
"Turn around, Ešl." He melted his voice into the softest tones, "There are bruises on you that needs tending."
Ešl looked down at himself. "I am fine." He answered.
Sauron sighed as thin shafts of moonlight chose to strike silver sparks off Ešl at that moment. "I just do not like to see flesh worried in my house." He whispered, letting a broken edge creep into his words.
Cautiously, Ešl turns and faced Annatar, whose head was downcast. An image of Annatar's face flickered in his mind, and Ešl found in the memory of that face suddenly something more than elven, Light Elf then, he thought. He had not seen many, but the eyes were the same, bright and piercing, unsettling. He approached, but as Annatar made no proverbial movement, so he did not stop until his knees were almost touching the sides. The scents in the room were intoxicating and there were no windows, he realized, merely thin slivers of glass dotting the higher places on the walls. Mayhap Annatar wanted stars, came the absent thought.
Behind the liquid fall of his hair, Annatar was temporarily bewildered. He looked up, and found Ešl staring at the walls. Stars, of course, Elbereth, would you ever be the temptress...
Reaching out a finger, he touched Ešl's nose, lips, chins, shoulders, then down his arms and his chest. Yellow bruises faded as skin mended. Ešl looked at him with a heartbreaking expression of gratitude and suspicion.
Finding a sponge by his hand, Annatar soaked it, and smoothed it down the same living path his finger had took, this time unbroken. Muscles rippled beneath the sponge. He stopped at the notch at the hipbone, but only briefly, before wetting his sleeve, and emerging his entire arm in to follow tracing the outer, then inner thighs till the knees.
Ešl's breathing hitched slightly, warring behind the command to "stay still" every time someone served you and "whatever the enemy does, do the contrary because it's going to cause pain faster if you fall".
"I think you can come out now." Annatar said, "There were more down the back of your legs." He was careful not to mention the orcs, or how they kicked, and threw stones.
Still puzzled, Ešl stepped out of the bath, and found Annatar merely sitting a bit further on the platform of the bath. He took a towel and quickly tied it around his middle.
Annatar started at the feet, going up till he encountered the fringe of the towel, then he bid Ešl to turn around, and went up the back of the legs again.
Without a word, Annatar took the towel off when he met it again. Ešl's hand clenched, and unclenched by his sides, unsure whether he could, or should, knock Annatar unconscious and run out naked into a courtyard of courtyard of orcs.
Orcs...but before he could continue the thought, Annatar's question chased it away.
"How old are you?" The tender points of touch had turned into caresses, from his buttocks to his calves. It felt wonderfully relaxing.
"As old as the sun." Ešl answered, and nearly fell headlong into the water when he felt something wet and warm slightly nibbling at the top of thigh.
It moved from one hip to the other, the slightly pressure oddly pleasant.
Annatar was enjoying himself as Ešl swayed on his feet when soft hands started stroking his inner legs. Standing up, Annatar pulled Ešl toward him. The eyes were filled with wonderment, and the fair face was flushed.
He seemed to crumple into a heap as Annatar wrapped him into a towel and carried him again.
"You are very bright, Dark Elf," Annatar said, before softly kissing the parted lips, "Like the Silmarils, metronomes of Arda." For you are a maker as well
"But they were merely bones, they do not yield as flesh does." Ešl's nude form lay prone onto of the cambric sheets, pliable as Annatar sat beside him, still only delicately touching him.
A whimpering sound emerged from Ešl's throat, as finally Annatar kissed him, slightly harder than before, his tongue brushing the upper lip as they parted.
There was an urge to devour as Ešl's own bewildered, yet hungry eyes and face told him, the mouth broke into lips. Sauron licked down the long column of throat to the hollow there, before moving down to the chest, beautifully pale and unbroken.
Tears of light tastes like honey, and Annatar felt as if the clean skin curved beneath him, wrapping him in its absolution- curious tableau, Eru's creature still. He breathed hotly on one nipple until it became rigid breath it.
Fierce fingers grasped at his shoulders, but Ešl was silent still though breaths became harsher. Divine torture then, Annatar thought as the elf's eyes dilated.
The impulses were uncontrollable, the very perfection of the elf writhing beneath banished every futile deed he had ever dared. This time he would not be claimed by the illusion of temptations. The flash of eyes was a mere mirage compared to the tousled innocence of one who had known only what- stories, other people's words.
Kisses that burned his own mouth, and touches that scorched his own fingers were imparted onto Ešl's untried flesh.
Through the desperation of thoughts and sense all enmeshed, a thousand violent natural shocks spun through Ešl's body until he felt like drowning and flying at the same time. Entangled in only, merely, sensations that he could not see.
Fingers moved stroking his hands, flowing to his chest, to his stomach, then down his flanks. Tremors shook his thighs as silky strands swept down his legs.
He had looked up at the sun once, though someone told him not to. It nearly burned his eyes, so many stars in one. He saw it again suddenly, and the same feeling, tasting faintly of guilt and triumph, the slender tendrils in a brilliant haze briefly brushed him. And yet, the feeling of inexplicable wrong drifted to oblivion as he felt himself strung like a tightened bow.
Notwithstanding his own desires that were merely of his flesh after all, Sauron indulged in the yielding of his own choices. He made sure Ešl did not snap, keeping him on the skirts of consciousness so that each real touch only bloomed into more pleasure upon that shapely form.
"Sleep even a never ending night," Annatar breathed into one ear and kissed his way down again. The handsome black eyes were open, it's lashes beaded in silver tears. It was pleading for something, arms already fallen away onto the sheets, ponderously heavy. Fervent kisses, hundreds and thousands of them placed upon his skin stirred senses unimagined, and then melted together them together onto lips already slightly swollen. "And I will not let you go.
They could not be jealous, they would never know. He could never condemn him, for he found his own.
--
In the end, morning found Ešl, the dawn's rosy fingers curling around his form.
He rolled over and blinked twice before sitting up, quite naked, and quite alone.
Lethargy suppressed the surprise of its existence. For once, he could not remember something he wished.
But he remembered he saw eyes in his dreams, many eyes, familiar and strange eyes, some brighter, some even darker than his, carried by scintillating birds that vanished and reappeared even as they flew. For some imperative reason, he hurried after them because his not good enough in the terrible darkness. At length be came to a mirror standing skewed in of a dimly lit cave, and as he ran past, chasing a pair of amber yet shaped like his, he glanced at it and was not himself as remembered from liquid pools of the mountains springs, nor from the wine that the court of Doriath drunk. The astonished shape of the mouth seemed crueler at the edges, sharper, like a cold blade.
A stray lock of hair fell in front of his face, and as he reached up to push it away, his fingers inadvertently brushed dry lips. Heat flared up on his cheeks.
Ešl sank down into the pillows, and covered himself with the sheets.
Lying supine there, with the faint light drifting in through the pink cambric, his skin was sanguine tinted of reddish shadows and he did not wish to see it.
"I am turning into an orc." Ešl said to himself, then again, louder, and louder until he almost screamed. The muffled sound rang inside Sauron's quarters
It didn't matter anymore whether he kept silent. He was not even questioned. No one escaped.
There was a tale he heard once while eavesdropping in the kitchen, trying to pilfer some honey-cakes. It told that within darkness, you see what you wished, though none of it was real. All the beauty and the ugliness were mere illusions- and every time you believed, the darkness chews a bit of you off until there was nothing left. Then, you become part of the darkness yourself, because only the body died, taken away piece by piece, and we are more than bodies.
Remember the taste of honey cakes, remember the scent of Nellas's hair, remember the melodies Daeron made, and remember Menegroth of a thousand caves, remember the captains whom he adored. Ešl felt himself slipping away as morning melted into afternoon then night, dimming the light in his cave.
"Dress," Someone said, "I am taking you to the workshops.
Ešl stayed still. By remaining here, at least, he would be Ešl, kin and Cupbearer to Thingol a while longer, resisting to his last breath the horrors he learnt as an child. His bed in Menegroth was just as large, and just as soft. It would be good to die in his own life.
His fingers nearly broke as someone yanked his pink cover away. He stared a bit forlornly at his empty fingers. He always liked them, they were slender and shapely and people kissed them quite often because they were so lovely.
Sauron looked exasperatedly at the elf staring past him through those hands with no sign of compliance. The vacant gaze bothered him, a bit too akin to breaking.
"I am not going to eat you, and I would not give you clothes if they are going to be torn off you again.
"You would perhaps like that," Ešl murmured, "I have never read anything concerning it, but it does not mean it does not happen. In Menegroth we
"In Menegroth people run around with no clothes on," Sauron finished for him, "Very well, but I wish you to dress therefore you will, and I promise you that you would live to see the next dawn.
He threw down a pile of gray into Ešl's lap.
"I would not have orcs tramping in here again, but I can take you out and let them dress you there.
MannersÉmannersÉborn and bredÉEšl muttered his thanks.
--