Sins Of Our Fathers

by theeventualwinner

Celebrimbor chooses a slippery path when Annatar first announces himself in the realm of Eregion, and it is a path that the Maia does all that he can to grease to its inevitably sticky end. A series tracing the seduction, corruption and fall of an elf lord and his people, and the grim triumph of one smug little Maia. NSFW.

8. Vanagloria

Muted, yellowish light speckled before Celebrimbor's eyes when at last they cracked open. A grimace contorted his face as a hideous pressure throbbed at his temples, nausea lurched up from his stomach and for a while he lay still, tenderly blinking through the film of grime that stuck his eyelids together as slowly he came to himself. Thoughts blurred through his mind like ephemeral little eels, greased and inchoate; something was wrong, he couldn't see, he was hurting, and through an aching jaw he groaned as the pressure upon his temples only seemed to redouble in ferocity with that realisation.

With a tremendous effort of will at last he forced himself to stir; he drew one deep, rancid breath past the cloth gag that pried his jaws awkwardly apart, and though congealed saliva and drying blood coated his tongue in the foul tang of iron, somehow it helped to steady him. Cramped muscles flexed, thin cord bit suddenly into his wrists that were pinioned tightly at his back, and like the pieces of some abhorrent puzzle being slowly crunched together, self-awareness filtered back to him. Upon his side he lay; his injured cheek burned as it pressed into a cold surface beneath him, and a tentative wriggle belied the cloth of a blindfold and the gag tugging at his lips. A far more certain squirm sent his booted foot clanging off something solid below him, spasms of pain raced up his leg, but with their discomfort clarity came that much sharper.

They had stripped him of his armour, that much at least he could tell. The linen of his shirt and breeches itched with dried sweat, the silver circlet he bore was tangled into the mess of his hair, and his head pounded as once more he kicked outwards, as the percussion of metal clashed in his ears. Annatar was there, he remembered, and the breath quickened in his throat as the Maia's vile, beautiful smile danced before his eyes. A shield, his shield, it had gleamed in the Maia's hand; Annatar's eyes had burned and they were wrong, gold and red and terrible, a traitor's eyes, a traitor's smile; and the gutting realisation of his folly crashed back down upon him.

Yet desperately he clamped down upon such perilous thoughts, as vigour trickled back into his limbs he cried out behind his gag, he writhed within his bonds; he would not be held captive in his own city, he would not so ignobly be forgotten, he would not -

"Quiet."

A guttural voice sounded from somewhere beside him, alien and menacing, and the first shiver of fear clove through his rising furore. For if he was made captive, if the Lord of Eregion was taken then surely that was the utmost collapse of his people, and trepidation stole through him at the thought. What had become of his city then, abandoned, crippled; what had they done to the people that he loved, to the things that he adored, to everything that he had failed in his blindness. Yet swiftly such thoughts spun aside; it was not his failure but Annatar's betrayal, it was the Maia's treachery, and viciously he clutched to that justification as anger erupted through his heart.

Hard he kicked against the thing that trammelled him, an indignant cry he squalled behind his gag. Fury hummed in his veins, it ignited within him, it set him ablaze with its wrath and its horror and he slammed his heels into the metal, his shoulders jerked and heaved against the cord about his wrists, the first tremors of panic lent strength to his rage and he screamed through the cloth that bound him. They would not ignore him; this injustice could not be endured, he would sooner be slain than submit to this humiliation meekly, and abandon his city to Annatar's clutches.

Moments later Celebrimbor's struggles were answered: metal creaked above him, air flushed over his skin as something was yanked back, and he had scarcely drawn new breath into his lungs when suddenly he was hauled upwards, clawed hands dug into his shoulders and legs and dragged him out. He grunted in surprise as abruptly he was dropped, his knees slammed into the marble below him, and blinded and bound he scrabbled for one awful, disorientating moment before he was seized once more. Forward they dragged him, his bruised knees slid across the floor until a jerk upon his shoulders pulled him up short.

He struggled and spat as he was relinquished, he reeled in the sudden light as the blindfold and gag were torn from him. The chamber unveiled in its brightness was blinding, so familiar and yet so awfully changed. The marble of his council chamber was despoiled; anger churned in his stomach as he beheld the walls scratched and vandalised, the mithril star upon the floor stripped of its metal and the stained glass windows painted over in crude glyphs and glaring crimson eyes. The high table was broken; its semi-circular top was cloven in two, and maroon stains crusted about its edges. Behind it chairs were strewn, and boxes piled high: chests and crates and immense jars of viscous liquids divulged from the deepest vaults of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain's cellars were flung into one haphazard pile. All were stamped, all were branded with a seal of the Red Eye, bold and accusing; and Celebrimbor seethed as he looked beyond them, as he beheld the dark smears of blood that daubed over wood and glass alike.

It was to the broken aperture of the table that Celebrimbor's gaze finally shifted; to the figure that stood there smirking down at him, and anger roared through Celebrimbor's heart at the loathsome sight. Radiant and victorious the Maia stood, armoured in blackened plate steel, and broken glass crunched in his gauntleted hand. The gemstones that had once shone so brilliantly in the backing of Celebrimbor's lordly chair were gouged out and shattered; their shards tinkled to the floor like deathly little stars and mellifluously the Maia smiled as he let them fall.

And in that dreadful moment silence proved too great a strain; black, ravening fury ignited in Celebrimbor's chest and into the quiet of the hall he spat, "Fuck you, Annatar. Fuck you and horse you fucking rode in on!"

With fey eyes the Maia regarded him, the red that now ringed his golden irises belied only disdain, and a faint smile curled the edge of his handsome lips.

"What have you done?" It was all that Celebrimbor could do not to buckle with the force of the hatred that came clamouring up his throat. "What the fuck have you done?"

"I have cleansed this world of an abhorrence beneath its skies." Annatar's voice was unearthly, at once familiar and yet warped: thicker and richer and swimming with malevolence. Maddeningly calm he stood, secure in his smugness and his victory, and filled with odium Celebrimbor struggled against the bonds that claimed him, until a hefty uruk clapped its hand down upon his shoulder and forced his immobility. "I have razed your squalid city to its foundations, and I have spoiled the stones beneath it. I have claimed what I will, what I am owed for my labours here, and I have left the rest to rot."

"You are owed nothing in these lands!" Celebrimbor growled. "You are nothing but the snivelling ghost of your foul master come slithering from your hole. False I name you, deceiver, hollow-tongued and craven! No thing of mine may you claim, not while I draw breath!"

A strange, almost serene expression drifted over Annatar's face, yet shattered glass crunched between his gauntleted fingers as they curled slowly into a fist. In one languid motion he vaulted down from the ruined dais, he sauntered towards the captive elf, and in the beauty that drenched him there was nothing but guile.

"Come now, Tyelpë," he drawled; and Celebrimbor balked at the sound of his name upon those handsome lips. "There is little need to be hostile, yet I would temper your tongue lest evil befall it."

Motes of dust glimmered in the golden aura about Annatar's shoulders, the Maia's hair fell in honeyed waves about his face as he leaned forward, as smoothly he continued, "Your stores we have searched, and through your house we have hunted, and whilst many a treasure we have accrued, three small things yet elude us. Three rings of your making, my lord, three humble rings that gladly I would accept into my possession. I would have you tell me where they might be found, where they are secluded or to whom they are entrusted, and by this knowledge you might barter yet for your freedom, or for what remains of your city that you care to salvage. Speak reasonably now, let us take counsel together as we once did, and this matter might yet be resolved without undue misfortune."

The audacity of the Maia's demand stole the breath from Celebrimbor's lungs. For a moment he merely blinked, astonishment twisted in his throat and he stifled the sudden urge to laugh, to bark out his disgust and the immutable stubbornness that flared up beneath it. Refusal settled like a leaden weight within his stomach: the locations of the Three he would not yield, even at the end of all things he would thwart Annatar in this, those rings would never be defiled or enthralled; he would see the Maia seething in his spite even should the cost prove dear.

That purpose solidified within him, with fey strength it defined him, and in response he whispered only one thing.

"Liar."

Defiance surged in his heart, and he glared up at Annatar with hatred in his eyes.

"Liar!" he cried. "Take your pretences of mercy elsewhere, for I will not hear them! I would not trust a single word that comes crawling over your faithless lips! You stand their like a proud lord of old, but you are corrupt, Annatar, you are baseless, you make your promises and with the same words you sharpen your knives. I will not aid you in this, not now and not ever. Whine your way back to the heel of your master and grovel for his forgiveness, for I see you now, accursed and friendless, carrion-spawned, and your worthless entreaties do not move me!"

A fell light kindled in Annatar's eyes, the uruk's grip upon his shoulder tightened, but fury steeled Celebrimbor's spirit, and he did not quail as the Maia gazed coldly down upon him.

"You would have seen me crowned once, Tyelpë."

Sorcery crawled over Annatar's armour, the Ring blazed upon his finger, and dreadful was his voice, slicked in such foul seduction. Yet tightly Celebrimbor clung to his anger, the strength of his own convictions would not be so easily swayed, and viciously he spat, "I see you crowned now only in treachery, thick as lice about your skull."

The silence that settled was ghastly. Celebrimbor's heartbeat was too loud in his ears. An awful smile curled over Annatar's lips, serene still he seemed but for the black puissance that crackled its hatred about him, but gently then he reached forward. His armoured fingers scratched over Celebrimbor's injured cheek, but hard the elf gritted his teeth; he would not give Annatar the pleasure of crying out, of flinching, and hatefully he endured the Maia's touch.

"Cruel, isn't it?" Annatar purred, before at last he turned aside. "When all our fickle pretences are stripped away. What dirty things they reveal…"

"You filthy little cu-"

A savage clout across the face sent Celebrimbor reeling; the uruk who grasped him took all too much delight in seeing him splutter as it bellowed, "Respect your master!"

Through bloodied teeth Celebrimbor grimaced, though every muscle in him ached pride forced him to straighten once more, and at Annatar's turned back he hissed, "You are not my master!"

"Am I not?" the Maia mused, before idly turning back about. His corrupt gaze lingered upon the livid mark purpling across the elf's cheek, and cimmerian joy blazed in his heart as reddened saliva glistened upon Celebrimbor's lips. Towards the elf he sauntered once more, with vicious caprice he ripped the silver circlet from Celebrimbor's brow, and for a moment turned it within his fingers.

"Your little crown is so dainty a thing…" He revelled in the scowl that crossed the elf's brows, in the fruitless shakes of his shoulders as he fought against his bonds. "So easily broken."

Coldly Annatar grasped the circlet, he snapped it clean in two and sent the broken pieces clattering to the floor.

"Fuck you…" the elf spat, but dismay rocked then through his heart as an ugly, victorious leer contorted Annatar's features.

With predatory purpose the Maia stalked forward, and in a voice that could have set the mountains themselves blushing in their shame he whispered, "Well, don't we know how much you want to."

The derision in Annatar's voice cut down to the bone. Guilt and fear and horror twisted in Celebrimbor's innards, and drenched in his ignominy he knelt silently then. Breath hissed between his parted, reddened lips; desperately he tried not to gag as betrayal seemed to choke him anew, as the cloying taste of blood grated over his tongue. And for the first time true despair wavered through him, he bowed his head to hide the hot, stupid tears that prickled behind his eyes, and above him Annatar only sneered.

"Take him below," the Maia commanded of the uruk who held him. "Give him to Lommur and his knives, and to Yulvur. Perhaps then his conversation might be made more seemly."

Eagerly the uruk hauled Celebrimbor upwards, and it was only as another seized him also by the opposing shoulder that he found the strength within himself to struggle once more. Desperately he kicked, he bucked in their grip, in every tongue he knew he cursed the Maia to the darkest vaults of the Void as he was dragged away, but Annatar stood unmoved.

Impassively he watched as the elf lord floundered, and as his receding screeches echoed still from the corridor outside, how smugly then he smiled.

The elf would break, one way or another, of that he was certain. Whether by whip or claw or knife or the slow decay of time, the elf's arrogance would be purged, and in screams or tears his secrets would be wrenched forth. On his worthless knees the elf would keen for Annatar's mercy, he would lick his pleas into the Maia's fingers like some shaking dog cowering before the rod, and then might treachery taste all the sweeter.

The elf's cries lingered amid the cloisters of the chamber; obscenities tinged with panic shivered from the walls, and glutted by his own caprice Annatar turned. Back atop the dais he strode, and from the plundered stack of goods at last divested a small lump of powdery, white chemical; a harsh vesicant used typically in the foundering of steel.

His call brought a servile orc scurrying into the hall, and its green eyes gleamed eagerly as it stood at attention before its lord. Languidly Annatar walked back to the main floor, and his heart thrummed with glee as he juggled the chemical in his gloved hand.

"Take this to Yulvur," he commanded of the orc, whose brow furrowed into a frown as Annatar deposited the chemical into its hoary palm. "A gift, for our newest guest."

"M'lord?"

A few caustic flakes Annatar brushed from his gauntlet, and dreadful malice glittered in his eyes as he commanded, "Wash his mouth out with it."

---

Smoke drifted wearily from the stricken city, it smudged in ashen bruises over the sky, and upon the balcony of Celebrimbor's house a glossy raven curled its claws into the quilts of Annatar's sleeve. The great bird tokked softly, it preened its furled wings before settling to a contended perch upon the Maia's arm, and together it and Annatar gazed out over the wounded lands.

The city's lower circles were barren: curtains billowed from smashed, lifeless windows, doors blasted with ash creaked mournfully upon their hinges, and the reek of death clung in the alleys. Ravens and wolves feasted amid bodies strewn where they fell, elves and men alike were left charred and rotting in the streets save where the orcs kicked them aside to make way for their own devices. The main thoroughfares of the city Annatar had ordered made passable, and teams of bellowing trolls had laboured by the shadows of night to haul aside shattered masonry and broken carts to ensure the freedom of the main roads.

At the gates that cleft the upper and lower circles a ceaseless watch was kept, keen eyes spied also upon the lands without, and none were suffered to pass the lands of Hollin save by Annatar's consent. Unwary travellers were snatched from their horses, and even amid the shell of the city survivors might be found: some mewling child shivering in an unbroken cellar, or a fierce maiden clutching her starving babe, or a defiant man still praying to his uncaring gods for salvation. Such prizes were rare, but in the foulest watches of the night, in reeking pits delved into the lowest dungeons of the Elven watchtowers, how succulent they were.

Amid the smaller courtesan's circle Annatar's captains thronged alongside the elite of their companies. Dark banners fluttered from many a crumbling turret or blackened minaret, and amid despoiled arbours and withered fountains the troops revelled in the spoils and industries of war. Plundered goods from the Gwaith-i-Mírdain's halls and from the courtly houses were smelted down and remade; priceless artefacts of slender armour and weaponry were reduced to crude slabs of metal, and from the once-proud halls of Eregion's jewel-wrights poured forth jagged scimitars and the clumsy chain-mail of orcish fashion, strong troll-chains and cruel spurs, and countless other devices of brutish purpose. What was left unmolested of the cellars were raided, the foundries Annatar saw worked night and day, and above the husk of that noble hall, and over the pale marble of Celebrimbor's house Annatar raised his banner in triumph. The Red Eye glared proudly from huge bolts of sable cloth, and under that monstrous gaze all made obeisance to him.

Gluttonous then was the Maia's mood as he gazed out over the city, and righteous, and how perversely then his virtues amused him. So much he had sacrificed for this moment; in dignity, in pride to humble himself and labour at Celebrimbor's whims, to submit himself to the Noldor's sycophantic smiles and their blind, clawing greed; to allow himself to be used, to tolerate the elf lord's repellent advances, to permit even one filthy hand to be laid in lust upon him. Disgust boiled in his blood at the thought, and though such grievances had come to wondrous fruition in the end, resentment of such ignobility simmered in him, and it would not easily be forgotten.

The Ring of Power blazed upon his finger, and the lands of the North fell in tumult as he laid siege to them. Like ravening beasts loosed from their shackles his troops swept across the fells of Eregion, he would scythe through whatever pitiful defences the Quendi sought to rally and sow his terror; proud Gil-galad, shivering Círdan by the waves, Galadriel cloistered in her forests, all would be thrown before him in chains, and gladly he would see them suffer. The Naugrim hid their faces from the sun; as Ost-in-Edhil fell there too withered the tentative alliance between Elves and Dwarves, and contemptuously Annatar regarded their craven, feral ways. Let them delve themselves into the bowels of the earth, he thought, and there they might dig the pits of their own destruction. He would conquer an empire that would make even his master of old seethe with jealousy, an empire of marrow and bone, blood and rot, and he its king in glory and might unchallengeable. Such luxurious thoughts curled within him, and contentedly he lingered upon the balcony, and the raven croaked its foul secrets and to them he hearkened.

A sharp rap upon the chamber doors at last interrupted them, and at his beckon an orc entered. Pliers and hooks hung from its wide belt, knives jostled with twisted, bladed instruments of torment in a stained bandoleer slung across its chest, and neatly Yulvur bowed before its lord.

"The snaga is ready as you ordered, my lord," it snarled, and graciously Annatar nodded. With a nudge of his arm the raven took flight, and as it wheeled away like a swift shadow over the city Annatar turned his attentions to the orc, and the frown that knotted its wiry brows. In its years of service Yulvur had earned high regard; its workrooms deep beneath the dungeons of Barad-dûr yielded only pain, amid monstrous contraptions of iron and leather none were more adept at wringing information from an unwilling prisoner, and Annatar would not lightly discount its good opinion.

"What troubles you, Yulvur?" he asked, not unkindly, as he wandered back through his chambers. A goblet of wine he refreshed from a gilded flagon upon a nearby table, and quickly he drained it as the orc awaited him.

"Your… the snaga is resilient, my lord," it growled reluctantly, and displeasure darkened its slanted eyes. "Many things he screams, but not this. Not what you seek."

"Perhaps then you have been sparing the whip." The Maia's voice was cold; an unpleasant quirk passed over Yulvur's lips, but the orc did not reply, and at its lord's command accompanied him to the dungeons.

The cellars of the house were newly re-shaped in crude mortar and reinforced iron, and to the furthest one Annatar followed his chief torturer, and nodded to the jailor posted outside, before dismissing them to their duties and entering the cell.

Restless torchlight flickered across the cobblestones as the door slammed shut; it illumined only a single chair bolted to the floor at the cell's centre, and its miserable occupant. A week or so had turned since the city had fallen, since Annatar had entrusted his most prized captive to Yulvur's capable hands and Lommur's whittling knives, and certainly they had been valiant in their efforts. Blood oozed from raw whip-wheals that sliced across the elf's shoulders, each shallow breath set dirty bruises and blistered, broken skin undulating across the elf's ribs and naked torso. Bound wrist and ankle to the chair by thick metal restraints, a wide leather collar was clasped also about the elf's neck, and sadistic glee warmed Annatar's heart as he glimpsed just how tightly it was fastened, as he saw the cutting, reddened abrasions that ringed the elf's throat.

Inconsequential at first was the elf's belligerence, he had thought; in the days after the city's fall he had busied himself with the conduct of war, and had left his torturers to their work. Yet as time flowed onwards the elf's stubbornness was beginning to grate, and the first trickle of frustration sent Annatar's fingers twitching for weapons of his own accord.

Menacingly now he stalked forward, and how he delighted as the elf flinched before him.

"Stay the fuck away from me…" The tightness of the collar garbled Celebrimbor's words slightly, the chemical ulcers in his mouth had only just begun to heal and around them he spoke carefully, but defiantly still he raised his head. "Stay away!"

"Manners are so hard to come by in this age…" The sly nonchalance in Annatar's voice set Celebrimbor's skin crawling, he winced as raw flesh grated across his back, for the veiled peril in the Maia's tone sent him instinctively recoiling. Closer still Annatar sauntered, the tilt of his hips was so bitterly familiar, and shame warred with furore in him as sweetly the Maia continued, "Uncle Maitimo was far more polite."

"Fuck you, Annatar." The words bled low and ruthless from Celebrimbor's lips. "Fuck– "

Black puissance crackled through the room, it scratched at the very walls, it scourged through Celebrimbor's veins like white lines of fire clawed beneath his skin. A satisfied smirk rolled over Annatar's lips as the elf jerked and writhed before him, as a thin screech tore from him as for one blinding, agonising moment those horrifying sensations became unbearable, until suddenly they were severed. In his bonds Celebrimbor slumped, desperately he gasped in a lungful of air beneath that strangling collar, but though the aftershocks of pain thudded through him, swiftly he mastered himself. He would not give Annatar the pleasure of seeing him quail, of seeing him cry, he would not do it, and slowly, stubbornly, he raised his chin once more.

The glint in Annatar's eyes was almost admiring, but his tone would have withered leaves upon the branch. "You miscalculate, Tyelperinquar. I do not come to bandy crude words with a wretch like you, and my tolerance of your insurrections grows thin. You will tell me what I wish to know, and you will tell me now. Where are the Three, and to whom are they bestowed?"

Grim laughter gurgled out of Celebrimbor's throat, and gladly he watched the Maia's lips purse.

"I will not barter with some foul grimalkin come skulking from the fens," he retorted. A raw ulcer wept its stinging bile as he spoke, it stained his teeth a watery pink, but still he spat, "You do not frighten me!"

"Oh, Tyelpë…"

Annatar lunged forward; his hand locked about Celebrimbor's left forearm, the Ring pulsed out its evil and from below the Maia's clenched fingers came the sickening crunch of bone, and a moment later Celebrimbor shrieked as agony blazed through him. Desperately, instinctively he bucked forwards, he near shredded the skin from his wrists as he sought to clutch his shattered arm to him, but his bonds would not give an inch, and in vain he flexed back against the chair.

A series of guttural moans bled from behind his gritted teeth, and impassively Annatar watched until at last those frantic noises calmed, and he leant forward once more.

"What I ask of you is so simple, Tyelpë. I desire only that you tell me the whereabouts of these rings. It is information, nothing more, as might be told between friends…" A flirtatious smile rolled over Annatar's lips, and gently he took Celebrimbor by the cheek. Softly he stroked his thumb over the elf's cheekbone, encouragingly he grinned, coyly he tilted his head, but the warmth of his gestures bore only cruel contrast to the venom in his eyes. "For we are in friendly company here, are we not?"

"Fu-"

Puissance erupted through the room; bone ruptured, and a howl of anguish tore from Celebrimbor's throat as his humerus snapped clean in two, as Annatar's sorcery clove it apart. Breath skidded in over his teeth; desperately, helplessly he clenched within his bonds as agony slammed through him. White and pounding, it sent pinpricks of light flashing across his vision, and through gritted teeth he keened as wave after wave of blossoming pain gripped him. For a while Annatar simply beheld him; he glutted in the tendons that corded beneath the elf's skin, the panicked, turgid veins that throbbed in the elf's neck as he arched as far back as he was able. At last the elf's groans subsided, though pain thudded like some obscene drumbeat through him slowly he came back to himself, and Annatar stepped forward once more.

In one languid, sensual motion he knelt between Celebrimbor's spread knees, and so beseechingly, so falsely he blinked upwards.

"The Three, Tyelpë," he murmured, and the lies flowed like honey over his tongue. "They are all that I ask of you, all that I require, and then all of this can go away. All of this pain, all of this hurt, it can be erased. I would see you crowned again, I would see all of this undone, I would kneel before you as I am now and I would worship you up as a king, if only you would yield to me what I desire. Everything, my lord, I would give it all to you, if you would but tell me what I wish to know."

"You…" Celebrimbor breathed, "you can give nothing to me…"

"You did so much to see me smile once," Annatar continued; gently, slyly he ran his hands up Celebrimbor's calves, over the ragged ends of his breeches. His fingers drummed a hollow tune upon the elf's kneecaps. "Would you not see me smile now?"

"Your smile s-sickens me…" Celebrimbor began, but how cruelly his speech fell apart as a gasp rocked over his lips, as Annatar raked his nails up his thighs.

"Does it?" Puissance rolled behind Annatar's words, unnatural lust kindled in Celebrimbor's stomach; it sent humiliation storming through him at its very presence, yet helplessly he looked down. For still sublime Annatar was there kneeling between his legs; wetly, obscenely the Maia's parted lips glistened in the light, and perilous, shameful desire wrenched in Celebrimbor's innards. For how long had he dreamed of it; of Annatar's slender fingers sliding over his sides, of the golden, perfect light in his eyes as they treasured him, of the warmth of his lips as they wrapped all adoring and innocent around his cock, and how cruelly now such a thing was twisted around to taunt him.

A livid flush mottled over Celebrimbor's chest, yet though temptation beckoned to him, cozened him, begged for him, hard he yanked himself away from such horrors. It was a false light, a beguiling lure for the serpent that lurked beyond it; Annatar's beauty was but a mask for the thing that festered inside of it. So much hurt his desires had wreaked already, so much pain had come from lust, his city had burned for it, and a snarl of renewed hatred contorted Celebrimbor's features as he spat, "You cannot have them!"

The next bone was excruciating. A sadistic grin plucked at Annatar's lips as his grip about the elf's right thigh tightened, as puissance sparked upon his fingertips. His power he sent weaving through muscle, sliding through viscera, and layer by excruciating layer he flayed the bone alive. Far, far beyond voluntary control Celebrimbor thrashed; blood splattered to the stones below him as the wheals across his back tore open; it drooled from his wrists as he yanked against the bonds that held him. Ragged, whimpering breaths flickered out of his lungs, and rigid with pain he eventually froze as bone was stripped, was grated away in one unending bout of agony.

Yet through the desperate, visceral noises that tore from him still he gurgled, "You cannot have them… you c-can't –"

A horrific grunt of pain punched through the chamber as Annatar snapped clean through his femur, and suddenly Celebrimbor fell limp in his bonds. His head lolled forwards onto his chest, his bloodshot eyes flickered to a close, and Annatar clicked his tongue in displeasure. Such dramatics were pitiful, he thought darkly, and with practised ease he unfurled his own power, he grasped the elf's fleeing fëa and with a spell in a corrupt, ancient tongue he anchored it once more within the hröa. A moment he waited, and oh how he thrilled in the whimper that spasmed over Celebrimbor's lips as the elf blinked back into a hazy consciousness that brought him no respite.

"Did you think that little trick would save you, sweetling?" Annatar purred; a swell of caprice moved him and he tilted Celebrimbor's chin to plant a delicate, sensual kiss upon his quivering lips. "There will not be so cowardly an escape, not for you."

Annatar's lips were as searing metal pressed into his skin, the Maia trailed a constellation of blistering kisses over his cheeks. Yet through the ache of an injured fëa, through the shock and humiliation that drenched him, still somehow Celebrimbor found the will to resist, and as best as he was able he jerked away from the Maia's caresses.

"Your stubbornness is admirable, Tyelpë" Annatar murmured; the words hovered with sick, shimmering clarity through the air. "Yet I fear that you misplace your resolve."

For how Celebrimbor screeched as his clavicle was broken; the elf's wet, racking sobs punctuated Annatar's entreaties, his threats, his lies. Yet such suffering brought the Maia little succour, save for the glee that he ripped from seeing the elf writhe so exquisitely before him. A howl echoed about the room as Celebrimbor's kneecap was shattered, a desperate spray of watery blood coughed down his chest as the Maia's touch cracked his sternum, yet though the merciful promise of unconsciousness roared in his ears with each new hurt, Annatar's power kept him bound him to a nightmarish awakening.

The edges of the collar jutted hard into Celebrimbor's chin as eventually his head lolled, as stress and exhaustion and pain truly took their toll, but though blood bubbled over his lips, hoarsely, helplessly, frantically still he croaked, "I will not t-tell you…"

"You will, Tyelpë." Annatar's voice was unearthly, and a grimace of utter revulsion twisted across his face as he beheld the broken elf before him. Reluctantly then he loosed his power, puissance flowed from the Ring upon his finger and into the elf's shivering body; it slowly mended what was so callously broken that it might be broken again, it painted over old hurts and sewed the canvas anew for a fresh tapestry of hurts, and Celebrimbor gasped and twitched as those alien sensations scratched through him. "You will tell me, in the end."

"You h-have nothing left," the elf wheezed; relief and shock and numbing adrenaline spiralled through him and he sagged within his restraints, yet still he breathed, "You have nothing…"

Grim, aching victory steeped him as finally Annatar withdrew, as the cell door slammed shut and he was left alone in the darkness. Yet even as the blank oblivion of exhausted sleep claimed him, the Maia's final word haunted his dreams.

"Incorrect."

---

The lands of Eriador withered, and gladly Annatar gave speed to their sickness. Battalions of orcs patrolled the high fells of Eregion, and great companies of uruks marched upon the isolated villages and set them aflame. To the south Tharbad burned; its ramshackle houses and hasty barricades collapsed in great heaps of cinders and rubble, and the Gwathló ran thick with ash and mangled debris. Lond Daer at the river's mouth was besieged; a company under Ratask's cunning command had cut across the desolate Enedwaith to marshal beyond the harbour city's high walls. The fertile farmlands that banked the river they set ablaze and salted, its narrow mouth they dammed and upon it set an impregnable watch, and with hungry eyes and jeering mouths they awaited the city's fall. Minhiriath and Cardolan quailed; their rolling hills groaned with the tramp of iron-shod boots upon them, as Annatar's minions walked with impunity even unto the eastern banks of the Branduin. Yet the river itself they could not cross, for Gil-galad's troops defended the passable meanders at Sarn Ford in great strength of arms, and the vanguard of uruks was not yet strong enough to dare their wrath.

Angmar brooded under an evil mist; the Coldfells of Rhudaur shivered as from Carn Dûm there flowed nothing but ghastly silence and the bitter tang of sorcery, and those who fled the grasping fogs whispered only of terrors amid the hills. The Naugrim of Khazad-dûm, better to name them as the stunted beasts that they were, Annatar thought, cowered behind their gates, and greatly he was pleased by their desertion. Ever he toyed with the Dwarven rings, to the One they were enslaved and into them he leached corruption; he twisted sense to madness, he blinded, he coerced, he made mute what might otherwise have screamed. The Sirannon was dammed in an impassable barricade of rock, Durin's Doors were shut and the Moria Gate barred, and Annatar's heart hummed with delight as they retreated into their caverns and came forth no more. For beyond the Branduin the Quendi were called to marshal; the Falathrim marched with baleen harpoons and forked tridents from Mithlond, the Noldor under Gil-galad trekked southwards clad in bitter wrath and steel, and banners dotted with silver stars unfurled in the wind as their companies swelled.

Such tidings the ravens brought to Ost-in-Edhil; secrets skimmed throughout the north borne by black wings and croaking beaks, and Annatar once more called his captains to assembly. Smoothly tasks were assigned, plots and treacheries were argued and discarded, and as at last consensus was reached, the orcs prepared themselves for war. Knives were whetted anew, crude axes were smelted; the forges of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain were spurred to dark, ceaseless labour until the very stones that cradled them cried out in their agony.

And alone and blind in the darkness below Celebrimbor listened to the grind of stone, to the harsh cry of metal, and for his lands he despaired.

For how long they had left him there, fettered wrist and ankle and leashed to the wall by his collar like some neglected dog, he could not tell. Time seemed to blur into one unending nightmare, punctuated only by screams and silence and the hot flare of pain. Blood sluiced from the abraded, ruined skin at his wrists; scabs cracked and flaked and festered across his back as each tiny breath jostled flesh lacerated down to the bone. Pus and thin, fouled plasma inched over his bruised ribs, filth clung to his thighs; naked they had left him as they cut away what was left of his breeches, yet he dared not cling to himself, he dared not try to wipe himself clean.

He mustn't touch himself, they had said, he was not deserving of such kindness, and as Yulvur's pliers had torn into his skin then perhaps he began to believe them. He mustn't touch himself, he was only a thing for hurting, a thing for abuse; and as he had bucked and screamed and sobbed, as one by excruciating one his fingernails were ripped from him, slowly he began to come apart. Skin was peeled back to expose the raw flesh below, skeins of cartilage were wrested free of their moorings, again and again they did it until there was nothing left but redness, and the spluttering breaths between his tears. Every touch became hateful, as in their spite that had condemned him to the darkness he scarcely dared flex his fingers for the nauseating sensation of squelching, formless flesh; and in the squalor of his cell he would simply curl himself up with his purpose, with his spite, and he would pray for the strength to endure.

Deliriously he would dream, and waken, and dream again, and whether they were phantoms of his own mind or some evil cradling in which the Maia enmeshed him, he did not know, but he shivered as they tore at him all the same. Because Annatar was there; he was grinning, laughing, he was standing above him all vile and golden and beautiful and he was gutting him, he was cooing over his steaming entrails and through the hurt and the redness he was fucking him. And with each hurting press of flesh into flesh in one profane, guttural litany he was murmuring, you love me, my lord, and Celebrimbor moaned beneath him; he didn't, he didn't love him, he didn't want this, he didn't.

But blind, the Maia purred; the grind of his hips was exquisite and Celebrimbor moaned with the hurt of it, plucked out your eyes and left you to stumble, he grunted as Annatar sheathed himself so awfully, so wonderfully inside of him, hollow, hollow, so base a spawn of Fëanaro's line. And in the throes of his madness he rolled his hips into Annatar's touch, he thrust his aching length into the Maia's fingers, a blemish on his legacy, a disgrace, a fuck-thing, unloved, unmourned and his father turned his face from him, his mother wept tears red as rubies and they tinkled to the floor as once more he spread his thighs, as he shivered in Annatar's grip. You love me, the Maia panted, you love me; Annatar blistered it into his skin and how shamefully Celebrimbor arched his back as he came, yes, he groaned, yes, yes, yes, and then everything came apart, Annatar smiled and the world shattered and -

The slam of the cell's door jerked Celebrimbor from a feverish dream, full of leering teeth and obscene moans, and as a ribbon of light spilled across the stained flagstones he cringed away from it. A figure stepped into the room then, tall and imposing and so horrifyingly familiar, and a moan of anguish wormed from his throat. He curled into the corner as far as his leash would allow, though his fingers itched and burned he gripped into himself, and desperately he tried to stifle the squalling panic that raced through his mind as the figure took one menacing step forward.

"N-no," Celebrimbor whimpered; the words tripped over his lips as he cradled his head between his arms, they came in one terrified, uncontrollable bleat. "No, no, no, no, no, please, p-please…"

"Hush now, Tyelpë," a voice purred, a golden voice, a voice that brought only hurt in its wake, and a horrified, half-hysterical choke burst from Celebrimbor's chest. "Unless your time here has graced you with wisdom you might wish to impart?"

"No!" he hiccupped, he mumbled the frantic words into the wasted juncture of his thighs. "N-no… just… just leave me alone. Leave me alone…"

"But you are alone." The Maia's voice was awful; drawling and vindictive, and trapped below it Celebrimbor for a moment quailed. But though the effort of it was painful, desperately he scraped to himself whatever shreds of pride and stubbornness and hatred he had left, he pushed them out before him like a shield. With a colossal effort of will he forced himself to raise his head, and to look Annatar in the eye.

"Though," the Maia said lightly, "I have something to show you. A gift of my own making…"

"I don't w-want your gifts!" Celebrimbor spat, though for all his vehemence, all too clearly Annatar could hear the wavering edge of hysteria in his voice, and how deeply he exulted in it.

At the click of his fingers a leash was passed into his hands by an uruk stationed outside; a tug upon it saw another figure come stumbling through the doorway before Annatar forced them to their knees. About the Maia's palm the leash was slowly twisted, before with cruel purpose Annatar wrenched the captive's head back, and cold horror clawed through Celebrimbor's innards at the bruised face that was revealed in the torchlight.

So gaunt he seemed, muscle and puppy-fat born of years at the anvil were melted away; those lips once so apt to merriment were quirked into a miserable line, those dark eyes once so full of life were glazed in a blank pall of despair as Annatar grasped Corannon's head.

"Do you like him, Tyelpë?"

Acrid bile bubbled up in Celebrimbor's throat, dismay gouged through him as Annatar reached over, as he traced one burning line across his friend's cheekbone. For with passivity that was sickening Corannon just knelt there, though flesh sizzled beneath the Maia's fingers scarcely a tremor of reaction flitted over his face, and that more than anything sent terror spearing through Celebrimbor's heart.

"What a fiery spirit he once was…" Annatar pronounced, viciously he dug his finger into the elf's cheekbone. "But all such things break in the end, don't they?"

A sheen of sweat broke over Corannon's brow, and suddenly the char of flesh became all too much. Repugnance and such clawing, mindless guilt rent through Celebrimbor's very fëa and hoarsely he cried, "Stop! Stop it, p-please…"

"Why?"

With a final twist of his finger Annatar relinquished the elf, who knelt shivering at his feet. The nauseating stench of burned flesh wafted through the chamber, but worse yet were the words that suddenly croaked over Corannon's lips.

"Thank you, my lord."

Annatar's grin was merciless. "For what, pet?"

It felt like someone had sewn Celebrimbor's throat shut with wire as he watched his friend look up, he watched the friend whom he loved most in the world nuzzle his ruined face into Annatar's treacherous hands, as he heard him whimper, "For hurting me, my lord. For… for hurting me, for him."

"What?" Celebrimbor croaked; the implications of Corannon's words shimmered with their awful potential in his mind but savagely he batted them aside, he glared at Annatar with hatred in his eyes. "What have you done?"

"Where are the rings?"

"I don't… I don't know…"

"You do know."

Cold and fey were Annatar's eyes as once more he grasped Corannon by the hair, as slowly he scratched a line of charred flesh down the elf's cheek. And how Celebrimbor gagged as the reek of melted skin assaulted him anew; the rigid clench of tendons in Corannon's neck set him heaving against the chains that held him, he fought and twisted as Annatar tortured his friend before him. He would have torn the very chains from the walls simply to make this end, he would have wrapped his mutilated fingers around Annatar's throat and laughed as he throttled the life from him, but his manacles were forged of brute iron, and the first despairing sob welled up in his throat as all his efforts proved in vain.

"T-thank you, my lord," Corannon gurgled, raw flesh bubbled upon his cheek, and openly Celebrimbor wept as his friend suffered, as guilt lurched up from his stomach and engulfed him.

"Where are the rings, Tyelpë?"

"They're not here," he sobbed, tears bled down his filthy cheeks as he whimpered, "They're not here… I… I'm s-sorry, Corannon, I'm so-… I'm s-sorry… No! No, stop!"

His voice rose to a screech as Annatar's glare hardened, as remorselessly he reached for Corannon once more, but the Maia's fingers closed upon air as Corannon suddenly coughed.

"Why, Tyelpë?" he croaked; and guilt throbbed through Celebrimbor's heart with every horrific word. "Why are you sorry? Annatar… my lord is… is very kind to me. He only punishes me if you hurt him, if you disobey him. But he says it's not your fault; you don't mean to do it, because you're my friend. He says you're just being silly, that you're just playing. But… but then I have to get hurt, because you wanted to play…"

"N-no…"

"He said you hurt him once, Tyelpë. You hurt him, and now he wants to hurt you, to make it fair."

"Stop it!" Desperately Celebrimbor tore against his restraints, skin split and cracked over his back as exhausted muscles strained, as he twisted and cursed, and impassively Annatar looked down upon him.

"It's okay, Tyelpë…" With a click of Annatar's fingers Corannon curled to the Maia's side, and idly Annatar toyed with his hair as he continued, "Annatar is kind to me… He is always gentle, unless… unless you…"

"Fuck you, Annatar." A broken sob hitched through Celebrimbor's chest, and wearily, hopelessly he watched as the Maia stroked Corannon once more, before beckoning to the guard outside, who took hold of the leash and dragged Corannon from the cell. "F-fuck you…"

The ever-present aura that shrouded the Maia seemed almost to chime out its glee as for what seemed like a slow eternity Celebrimbor simply keened out his shame, until at last he gulped, "Why? ...Why are you doing this?"

Annatar did not deign to answer such a miserable question, and an awful clutch of hysteria sizzled in Celebrimbor's throat at the cruelty of his silence. "I th-thought…"

"What?" the Maia said softly. "What did you think?"

"I th-thought… I thought you were my friend… I thought…"

"You thought that you could love me."

The betrayal of it drowned him, and bitterly he wept for his folly, he wept for all the evil that had happened because of it.

"And worse yet," the Maia sneered, "you thought that I could love you. How sweet, Tyelpë… How naïve."

Celebrimbor flinched as the door slammed shut, as Annatar left him with nothing but darkness and guilt and the sour taste of loathing upon his tongue. And in the despairing time that came thereafter, whether it was himself or the Maia that he despised the more for their actions, truly he could not tell.

---

It was not, of course, that Annatar could not guess where the rings were. The morning light dappled down upon Ost-in-Edhil's broken rooftops, a few stray strands of his golden hair drifted like an evanescent crown about his head as he stood upon the highest balcony of the house and absently beheld the activity below.

A thick, black file of orcs marched through the lower circles of the city, they poured from its gates and out into the barren plain beyond, but otherwise occupied were the Maia's thoughts. The counsels of the Ring ever gnawed at him, its dark powers suffused him, his own evil caressed him with all of its seduction and all of its promise, and he opened himself to its embrace. With but the slightest will he could sense the Seven, and the lesser Nine; like bright beacons of flame they blazed within his mind's eye, yet about him there were three smudged blurs also, indistinct and shifting if he should try to grasp them, and these he knew to be the things that eluded him.

To Gil-galad certainly one had been bestowed, he mused, swiping free the crust of frost from the marble balustrade before him and leaning upon it. No matter his ambitions, Celebrimbor was no king of the Noldor, and to slight his sovereign by withholding such a gift would be a grave insult that he could not afford. To Círdan perhaps another had gone, lord of the Teleri who clung like tenacious limpets to Middle-earth's coasts despite the best efforts to exterminate them, or to Oropher, the last remnant of Doriath's nobility squandering himself in a corrupt forest. Though, he thought irksomely, more likely to Galadriel one of the Three had passed; the last accursed member of Finwë's line sent to plague the unhappy world.

Such deductions were easily gleaned, and until war was truly waged they were of little consequence; nay, it was the elf's belligerence that was beginning to wear. Though such vicarious pleasure elated him as the elf screamed, as he writhed and choked in his misery, his brethren marched to the Bruinen in force, and rage had kindled in Annatar's heart at their impudence. Let them come, he had thought, for there he would meet them in battle, with tooth and claw and iron and sorcery his forces would stand triumphant, and he would cripple the lands in his victory. He would see the river gorged with Elven blood until even the foam-capped waves frothed crimson.

In the crisp morning air a large contingent of his troops vacated the city, they readied themselves in a makeshift camp of tents that squatted before Ost-in-Edhil's southern walls for the march that would begin upon the morrow. Yet as he watched their insectile forms spread across the plain, a surge of impatience tugged at Annatar's heart, and below it bubbled only malevolence.

Truly, his tolerance of Celebrimbor's pathetic little mutiny was come to its end.

The creak of the cell door was as a death-knell in Celebrimbor's ears. A spluttering, terrified gasp forced its way up from his lungs, and tightly he curled himself up, he clutched his knees into his scarred chest and he keened as the Maia strode into the room. Shivers flitted through him, his breath clouded white in the narrow space between his knees as tighter still he hunched into himself, his gaunt knuckles bloodless and trembling.

"P-please…" he gasped, the words shook uncontrollably over his lips as instinct condemned him. "Please, Annatar… I… I'm so c-cold…"

"Cold?" The Maia's voice flowed imperiously through the room, and how Celebrimbor quailed to hear it; desperately he bit his lips to stop any more unwise things from slipping over them. He cringed away as Annatar walked forward, as suddenly the Maia knelt beside him; a mewling little cry seeped from him as a lank strand of hair was pushed back from his face. Because suddenly Annatar was there: Annatar was holding him and so lovely he seemed, so gentle and so falsely forgiving, but treacherous was the curl in his voice.

"Oh, Tyelpë," he purred; and though he was not fully armoured, his hands were sheathed in cruel metal gauntlets. They clinked as he stroked the matted hair back from Celebrimbor's haggard face. "We wouldn't want that, now would we?

The scrape of wood across stone and a brutish grunt of exertion sounded from over Annatar's shoulder, and a terrified whimper flickered out of Celebrimbor's throat as softly, almost caringly Annatar unfastened the cutting shackles about his wrists and ankles. The leash fell away from his neck to leave him naked but for his collar, and feebly he wriggled as the Maia's arm slipped about his scabbed shoulders, but the weak protests of cramped, wasted muscles brought him no avail.

Slowly Annatar guided him to his unsteady feet, with such false sincerity he held him, he turned him about. And finally Celebrimbor's gaze fell upon the sturdy wooden bench laid across the once-bare stones, upon the grim line of captains flanking the door whose stern expressions did not quite mask the leer in their eyes; and the dawning horror of what Annatar intended crashed down upon him.

"How about we warm you up, hmm?"

Desperately he fought, he tugged away from Annatar's grip with every ounce of panicked strength that he possessed, but cruelly his efforts failed him. The Maia's grip was as iron claws upon him, Annatar grasped his struggling wrists anew and clamped them in tight cuffs at the small of his back. Fiercely he twisted, he thrashed, stinging adrenaline lent force to his protests but too little, too little as the Maia shoved him forwards and forced him to bend face-down over the bench, as the ring upon his collar was clipped to a bolted fastening upon the bench's head. He kicked and struggled as Annatar grasped his legs, as he wrenched them apart and fastened his ankles to the bench's solid legs, spreading him humiliatingly wide.

Panic scourged through him as slowly Annatar withdrew, he cried and shook as rougher hands grasped him then; his chest and stomach crushed into the splintering wood of the bench as a strong uruk pressed down hard upon his squirming back.

"Please…" he sobbed, "please, please d-don't… please…"

He choked as nails ran up his naked thighs; Annatar's eyes gleamed with a vile light amid the shadows as uncaring hands spread him yet wider, as a barbed tongue licked slowly over his entrance. Piteously Celebrimbor cried; he bucked his hips in refusal as the uruk's foul saliva slickened him, and a grunt of such awful pain and humiliation burst over his lips as two thick fingers breached him. Roughly the uruk manipulated him, each hurting thrust of its fingers forced him to open and with each one he gasped; he clutched to the failing shreds of his defiance, of hatred, of spite and anger and betrayal within him, desperately he clung to them and from them he wrenched the strength of endurance.

But still he struggled as at last that invading pressure withdrew; he panted, he screamed for Annatar to stop as he heard the sinister clink of a belt-buckle behind him. But whether in that moment or not Celebrimbor would truly have broken none could say, and Annatar could not bring himself to care. He only revelled in the filth of the elf's moan as the uruk pressed into him, as with one unrelenting thrust it sheathed itself to the hilt inside of him.

Openly Celebrimbor sobbed as the uruk fucked him, as membranes ripped with the force of each hideous motion; he retched and cried as he felt blood begin to drool down the backs of his thighs. His fingers clenched into sore, helpless fists at the small of his back, each thrust scraped his torso across the coarse wood of the bench, and it was almost some horrific relief as Annatar sauntered forwards once more.

"This may end whenever you wish it to," Annatar murmured; with such awful, false tenderness he wiped the tears from Celebrimbor's cheeks. "All you have to do, sweetling, is tell me what I desire to know."

From what hidden well of fortitude came the abhorrence that swelled through his veins Celebrimbor did not know; he knew only that it gripped him, and though every hurting shred of pride and flesh in him begged for him to submit, defiance yet blazed in him the brighter, and he gasped, "N-no…"

"It would be kinder that way."

"Fuck you!" The breath jerked out of his lungs as the uruk slammed into him, the underside of his own naked length ground agonisingly into the bench below him, but through even that humiliation rebellion glowed in his heart, and fury prickled in his blood. "F-fuck you, Annatar… E-everyone in A-arda knows you r-rode your master's c-cock like some moaning l-little whore…"

Pain ripped across his cheek, blood frothed between his teeth as the Maia's slap sent his head spinning, yet through bubbling crimson he smiled as Annatar's fingers knotted through his hair and wrenched his head upwards.

"What says it then," the Maia snarled, "that you would prostitute your people to come screaming upon mine?"

An incoherent gurgle lurched over Celebrimbor's lips as the uruk reamed him, as suddenly, mortifyingly he felt himself begin to harden with the forcible scrape of his own length across the table.

"Do not bandy coarse words that you have not the wit to fathom," Annatar sneered. "Especially not when your cock is drooling its need across my table."

A moan of humiliation rolled from Celebrimbor's throat; desperately he bucked, he tried to stop the traitorous, unwanted stiffening of flesh, but again he cried out as the uruk's nails stabbed into his hips, and the Maia's smile above him was remorseless.

"How cruel our truths are in their revelation, are they not? All of our secrets, our desires laid bare. Are you warm now, my lord? Warm, and full, and wanting, just like you should be, just like you wished for…"

A whimper of protest curled over Celebrimbor's lips as Annatar ground his burning cheek into the wood beneath him; he shuddered and twitched as the uruk slammed into him, as the Maia abandoned him to its pleasures. But all too soon he felt the ugly spurt of seed up inside of him, the uruk growled out its lust as he suffered below it. With one aching pull at last the uruk slid free of him, and he shuddered with the humiliation of it as he felt it pat him so degradingly upon the arse, as if he were just some wilful steed to be whipped and ridden, and left broken and frightened in its bonds.

His thighs trembled with the strain of his position; a crimson flush mottled down his neck as he dragged against the chains that fettered him, as he felt himself so lewdly torn open and unable to close. The creamy mess of the uruk's seed slowly dripped from him. It painted an obscene collage of fluid across the floor.

"Well, Tyelperinquar," Annatar said coldly from the shadows. "Any wiser words seen fit to grace you?"

"F-fuck you," he gasped; he shuddered as he felt warm, viscous liquid sliding down his thighs, but with every ounce of quivering strength in him he ignored it. "F-fuck…"

An exasperated sigh sounded in his ears; a smattering of crude laughter and the tramp of fresh boots rang behind him, and those simple little noises were like the cracks in the dam that herald the panicking flood. For how quickly the bravado that he clung to was shattered as meaty hands kneaded the sore flesh of his arse, as they caressed him to the captains' jeers; they pinched him, slapped him, ugly laughter sounded in his ears as two thick fingers shoved effortlessly up inside of him.

"No…" he moaned, he squirmed with what frantic little motions that his bonds allowed him as horror reared in his heart. "No… please, p-please… stop… stop…"

At Annatar's gesture the orc captain slid free of him, and quickly the Maia demanded, "The rings. Where are they?"

Something buckled in Celebrimbor's chest: despair warred with pride, they crashed and heaved and tore within him until one proved the greater. Grim purpose sutured him together though his body howled to break apart; he would not betray this, the one last worldly thing that he possessed, he cradled that knowledge within himself and he would not divulge it, he would not betray it, so much Annatar had taken from him but he would not have this. But frantically still the words poured over his lips, they had almost lost all meaning as blindly he repeated them, and he knew that they would condemn him.

"I c-can't… I d-…I don't know… I don't know where they are, I don't know, please, please Annatar, please s-stop…"

"Not good enough, Tyelpë."

And with a force that shoved the breath from his lungs the orc thrust into him. A series of broken, retching sobs gulped over his lips as the orc fucked him, as the captains laughed, as Annatar watched over him with nothing but dispassion.

For how long it went on, for how many of them there were Celebrimbor soon lost count: time and touch seemed to blur into one gruelling eternity, mellifluous and hurting, desperate and futile. He sobbed and groaned as Snagbur slammed into him; hopelessly, instinctively he had twitched as a hot, laving line of welts was bitten into his thighs; he moaned his agony into the wood as a hurting, humiliating climax was wrung from him. His length throbbed in Yulvur's bristled palm as the orc so callously stroked him, as shamefully he spurted his seed into his torturer's fingers, and how the captains' laughter had shattered in his ears as they made him lick himself from Yulvur's palm. And against it all he simply shut his eyes, he prayed that each hurting touch upon him might be the last, he prayed that Annatar would get bored of him, would just let him end, would leave him curled up with his misery and just let him fade away; but with each new horror, each jeer, each slur, each hard thrust of flesh into abused flesh, he felt hope wither in his heart.

And through red-rimmed eyes, through bloodied lips he screamed as they dragged Corannon forwards, he choked and coughed and gagged in his horror as they forced his friend to mount him, to fuck him; guilt and shame smashed through him and it rendered him speechless but for the gulp of each laboured, shaking breath. Blindly Corannon pressed into him; slippery, torn flesh parted once more, and so awfully bleached was his friend's voice as he crooned, "We're only playing Tyelpë. Annatar says it's all right, you deserve it… you deserve it, Tyelpë… we're only playing, but you lost the game…"

The words pounded with a sick, lilting cadence through Celebrimbor's head, he wasn't even sure what he was holding on to anymore as he felt his friend wrenched out of him, slapped, kicked, thank you, my lord, discarded to the floor and there made to bleed; everything was numb and wrong and like drifting through a dream filled with nothing but ashes; he could not remember why he endured, he remembered only that he must. But somewhere in the empty abyss he clutched to that nameless purpose, that lone anchor against the weight of all of that despair, the one thing that seemed to hold him together; the one salvation that might absolve him of his sins, and of all the sins wreaked upon him.

A wet, shuddering gasp clove through his lungs as a hefty uruk spent its seed inside of him; so far beyond all notion of pride or dignity he moaned as its length slid free of him. And for a moment their assault paused, but uncontrollably he trembled in exhaustion and terror as Annatar sauntered back over to him.

"Uncle Maitimo cried too, you know," the Maia purred; so awfully, so possessively he stroked one gauntleted finger across Celebrimbor's cheekbone. "At first. Soon after we had him begging for it, on his knees with wet lips and open thighs and how he came to adore what tender affections we bestowed upon him. And here you are, my lord, moaning like a little slut before me. Would you beg for my affections too, I wonder?"

The breath hissed in over Celebrimbor's lips, and through gritted teeth at last he slurred, "I w-will not beg anything from you…"

"Pity." A fickle silence crackled through the room, caprice plucked its dainty, devastating tune at Annatar's heart, and his eyes gleamed as he murmured, "Then perhaps our little flirtations have reached their end."

Metal crunched before Celebrimbor's flushed cheeks; reticulated lames of steel glinted like bristling silver scales across the back of the Maia's palm as he clenched his gauntleted fists. The look in his eyes was unholy as hard he dragged the pointed tips of his fingers across Celebrimbor's face, as he scored white lines over the elf's shuddering ribs, across his back; he dug reddened furrows into the sore flesh of Celebrimbor's arse as he sauntered to his rear, and the elf whined pitifully beneath him.

"Such an unfortunate name you bear," the Maia sneered, he poised himself between the elf's legs splayed so deliciously before him. Blood trickled through the mess that slicked Celebrimbor's thighs, red drooled through viscous white, and how beautifully the elf clenched in dire anticipation as Annatar dragged a finger through the spill of his captains' seed.

"Tyelperinquar," he purred, "the silver-fist…" Argent light glittered upon the Maia's gauntlets, and Celebrimbor cried out as Annatar's fingers wandered their taunting way towards his abused, gaping entrance.

"D-don't…" he moaned, "no, please, please, no, no d-don't…"

"Atya had a cruel sense of humour, now didn't he?"

With appalling ease Annatar's fingers slipped inside of him, slickened by seed and blood the cold metal ran smoothly, and Celebrimbor could only lie there weeping as once more he was violated. Feebly he twitched as Annatar slipped a third finger up inside of him, and behind it a fourth; he groaned with that invading pressure, with that horrifying sense of fullness, of degradation. Yet the Maia's fingers lay motionless inside of him, his thumb rested mortifyingly upon the curve of his arse, and as the static seconds trickled by that humiliation turned only to dread.

"It did not have to be this way."

Slowly Celebrimbor felt the Maia's fingers curve inside of him, spiked metal pressed against his innards, deeper and harder with each passing instant, and panic bucked through Celebrimbor's heart. With every ounce of his willpower he stifled the instinct to writhe, blank horror shrieked through his mind at what such an action would achieve, and a retch of pain came clawing up his throat as slowly, insistently Annatar's gauntlets impaled him just a little bit further. Terror paralysed him; there was nothing more that could ever be said, and only series of despairing, hysterical whimpers tumbled over his lips as he felt the Maia ready himself.

"I hope your secrets were worth it, Tyelpë."

The shriek that was torn from Celebrimbor's lungs was inhuman; Annatar ripped his hand free in a gout of blood and seed and mutilated strips of flesh. Agony raced through Celebrimbor's exhausted body, he thrashed and retched and sobbed until finally it became all too much, blackness enveloped him into its numbing oblivion, and all too gladly he fell into that empty embrace. Tremors flitted through his unconscious body, blood sluiced to the stones beneath him as every muscle in him fell limp, and from the elf's slumped, befouled form Annatar at last turned, crowned in sick, mellow triumph.

His captains he dismissed, and well sated they departed, save Lommur, who lingered awhile in the doorframe as Annatar carefully unfastened his bloodied gauntlets and set them aside.

"Have care, my lord," the captain growled, as with experienced eyes he appraised the wretched elf left bolted to the table. "The snaga will not live, unless this is your intent. The bleeding is too much. It must be staunched…"

With a disinterested sigh Annatar turned to Celebrimbor's prone form, and summoned to himself a sharp spell of puissance. One finger he touched to the elf's buttock, he branded his spell there in a weal of singed flesh.

"He will live," he said simply, and briskly Lommur nodded in agreement.

Strapped to the bench then they left Celebrimbor to the dark hours of the night. In the merciful grip of unconsciousness he slumbered, and though everything in him yearned for an ending, Annatar's spell scourged through his veins. It tingled in his blood and bade it keep flowing, it aerated ruptured muscles and invigorated flesh that simply longed to collapse; it healed hurts that might otherwise have been fatal and bound them into a torturous existence.

For though the affairs of war drew Annatar's attentions elsewhere, not quite so easily would he relinquish the elf that had defied him so, and a bitter ending played ever upon his mind.

---

The next day, they made him walk.

Rough hands dragged Celebrimbor from a nightmarish sleep, and though his muscles cramped and burned after so long in confinement, though dried fluids flaked down his inner thighs, they hauled him up and made him stand. The city was emptying, his captors snarled, the troops marshalled in force before the walls, and all must follow their lord to war.

Naked and wounded Celebrimbor was pulled into the courtyard, and after so long in darkness even the pallid light that filtered through the thick broil of clouds above him set his eyes watering. Desperately he squinted, he tugged against the bonds that clamped his wrists at the small of his back; he coughed and shuddered as the cold air seared through his lungs. In Yulvur's vice-like grip he whimpered as the orc secured a long leash to his collar, and miserably he watched where it was passed. He swayed as Annatar grasped it, mounted and smirking atop a great warhorse, and with cruel disdain the Maia tied the leash to the cantle of his saddle before turning away, and spurring his horse on down the road.

Through the ruins of his city they forced him to march. He stumbled over stones that once he had called his home, crowned only in his disgrace he was paraded through the city that he loved, and tears of hurt flowed silently down his cheeks. Jeers and catcalls whistled about him, snaga, whore, cruel laughter rained down upon him as he faltered, as his hips ached, as fragile membranes of skin tore and blood began to trickle anew down his thighs.

Desperately he swallowed down the sob that burned in his lungs as each halting step brought him only a new agony, as mockery drowned him, as all that had been destroyed for his pride and his arrogance and his greed was so miserably laid bare, and how fervidly he despised himself for it. It was his fault, all of it, he was too weak, too blind, too stubborn; the weight of his shame engulfed him and beneath it he fell apart. Despairing tears greased the stones beneath his feet, his skinny thighs trembled, and misery clotted in his ribs as a swift yank upon the leash brought him stumbling onwards.

His knees felt like they might buckle beneath him as at last he was pulled through the outer gates, their ornate stonework smashed and ruined. But how thinly then he cried out his horror at the sight that befell him. For before the walls were staked what was left of the nobles of his house, splayed out in hideous array and sickening cruelty. Flies swarmed amid rotted, raw eye-sockets; Gilthariel cradled her festering guts in her arms like a newborn babe, her scarred face branded and torn as she hung by a cruel noose. A great spike erupted from Vëantor's gaping mouth, it clove through his chest, and ragged strands of his auburn hair floated sadly in the reeking waft of the breeze. Atrocities heaped upon atrocities, debasements, mutilations; and Celebrimbor's stomach turned as his eyes fell at last upon Corannon.

His knees crumbled to the merciless grit below him; he keened out his agony as he beheld his friend; the cruel hook that skewered through his lower jaw and arched his neck cruelly backwards, the blood that clotted about its puncture and glistened upon his pale throat. The orcs had left him upon the stake like some grotesque fish left drying upon a line, limply he dangled from the rope bonds that secured him ankle and wrist, and Celebrimbor sobbed his shame into the dirt between his legs as sorrow crashed down upon him.

An iron-shod boot slammed into his ribs, a whip cracked perilously close to his face, but as a retching cough burst over his lips Celebrimbor could give no more; his legs simply would not hold him as shock and pain and utter desolation took their savage toll.

"Get him up," Annatar commanded, and swiftly two uruks stepped forward.

They hauled Celebrimbor upright, hands clamped about the elf's scarred upper arms to support him but even that simple motion proved too much. Celebrimbor's head lolled forward onto his chest, hurt and exhaustion numbed him, they bled the strength from his limbs as the stones below his feet blurred and refocused wildly before his eyes. Limply he hung in the uruks' arms, his shaking legs half-folded and useless beneath him, and the last thing he remembered before the blackness yawned up beneath him was the jostle of the leash upon his collar, and Annatar's evil smile in his eyes.

The hiss of a flare and the tramp of hurried boots thudded in Celebrimbor's ears as days or hours later he drifted back into a bleary consciousness. A ragged moan flickered out of his throat as his eyes slitted open, bodies and shapeless things swirled before him, and so fervently he wished that he had not lived to see the horrors of the dawn.

Upon a wooden stake he was mounted, the device was resting at a gentle slant only a few inches perpendicular to the ground below, and though his muscles cramped and itched, weakly he strained upon it. The crossways beam studded into his upper back, his arms were pinioned awkwardly about it, and his fingers twitched feebly as bonds of cord strangled the life from them. Sturdy leather straps lashed his legs to the main post, and would not give an inch no matter how greatly he heaved against them. A whimper trembled from his throat as even such small efforts were exhausting, and he fell limp as the horrors of what such a thing might portend shimmered in his mind.

And how coldly such horrors were confirmed as his gaze flickered to Annatar kneeling beside him, armoured and beautiful, a coronet of black spires bound about his brow and brutal disdain in his eyes.

Thin, rectangular strips of aluminium metal slid in the Maia's hands; two large jars of translucent liquid were placed neatly at his side, and ignoring the elf's spluttered protests Annatar pressed the metal to the skin of Celebrimbor's chest. A strange pattern he sketched out, and though Celebrimbor squirmed and shook against him sagely he continued, piece by menacing piece paving the metal into the elf's skin.

"What…" Celebrimbor gurgled; the words were scarcely discernable for the thickness of his tongue. "Wh-what are you d-doing?"

Quietly Annatar appraised him, another strip of metal he laid in the continuous circuit forming over the slope of the elf's stomach, and softly he replied, "I am proclaiming my legacy."

"N-no," Celebrimbor moaned, he glanced down at himself and he lurched as he saw what the Maia was doing, he glimpsed but a part of the pattern that Annatar would lay upon him and it terrified him. "P-please," he whimpered, "please, p-please, just leave me alone… just… just let me go…"

"And where would you go?" Dark and rich were Annatar's words, soaked in honey and filled with sleeping venom, and Celebrimbor keened as they clove through him.

"I don't… I d-don't know…"

"Your city is broken," the Maia drawled. "Your brethren are besieged. These lands are mine, for you have betrayed them to me. You bartered your homeland for the blindness of your own greed, and graciously I have accepted what you have sold. There is no place left upon this earth for your miserable kin."

An anguished sob caught in Celebrimbor's throat as those awful truths leached through him, but so tenderly Annatar held him then, the Maia placed the last of the metal in a vertical line upon his sternum and leaned forwards to caress him.

"Shh, my lord, it's all right now. It's all right. Lay such difficult thoughts aside now, hmm?" The sweetness in the Maia's voice was appalling; it was as cloying as the gentle kiss that Annatar placed upon his shivering lips. "You're here, Tyelpë, you're here with me, and I have a gift for you. A repayment for all the favour, for all of the affections that you have shown me throughout these long years."

And how Celebrimbor's eyes widened in horror as Annatar lifted one of the jars beside him, he twisted and struggled in his bonds as carefully the Maia tipped it, as concentrated liquid lye splashed down upon him. It splattered down upon the metal and he screeched as it began to fizz, to bubble, to blacken; Annatar poured more down upon him and he shrieked as it scorched through the metal. A wordless scream ripped out of his throat as Annatar traced the liquid over him; he convulsed as it corroded through his skin, as the stench of liquefying tissues seized him, as the agony of it left him gagging on bile. A murky, reddened silt of skin and fat and ruined tissue sluiced over his chest, and through his pain all too clearly now he saw Annatar's malice unveiled, and his mind reeled with the horror of it.

A brand the Maia had carved out of flesh; a red, weeping eye he burned into Celebrimbor's quailing chest, and how ardently he lusted at the sight of it. The elf jerked and gagged below him, flesh collapsed into wet, blistering burns as the chemical sizzled through his skin, and gluttonously then Annatar purred, "You should be proud, Tyelpë. You wear my mark so prettily…"

A burly orc hurried over as Annatar spoke, with two companions behind it, and quickly they saluted their lord. At Annatar's nod they started forwards; a shrill trumpet blared suddenly in the distance, and at its call a throaty chorus of bugles loosed in reply. Upon the eastern banks of the Bruinen war was come, banners spangled with silver stars were unfurled at the fortified crossing of Sarn Ford, but the Red Eye had not yet answered. Annatar had not yet declared his challenge.

Slowly the orcs hefted up the stake until it stood vertical, and deliriously Celebrimbor moaned as the bonds about him grew tauter still. Stinging blood drooled down his chest; he scarcely had strength left in him to struggle as it burned fresher still, and the sheer degradation of what Annatar intended for him drowned him in its horror.

"Consider it an honour," the Maia purred. "You herald in a new age of this unhappy earth."

The moan that began in Celebrimbor's throat cut off into a muted shriek as an orc arrow suddenly plunged into him, and another, and another; blank shock numbed him as raven-fletched quarrels skewered through his limbs, through his hips, his stomach. Visceral tears trickled down his cheeks as the orcs desecrated him, as the brand across his chest and upper stomach was left so horrifically bare, and as the orcs lifted the stake and brought him forwards through their assembled ranks Annatar was there in step beside him. And in those awful moments he hated the Maia, with abhorrence beyond enduring he hated him, for all the evil that he had done and all that he would do, and perhaps in the madness of his despair still he loved him, and therein was his undoing.

For as they reached the very frontline of the army the Maia reached up to touch him gently, and tenderly he crooned, "I know it hurts, sweetling."

The Red Eye unfurled from the host of banners that sprung up in their wake, drums pounded as the orcs raised him higher, and slowly Annatar unsheathed his knives.

"I know it hurts, but look now. Look upon your brethren, and know how you have betrayed them. Know that they will fall, they will bleed, and scream, and perish in the filth that spawned them, and it will be because of you. Know this, my lord, for here at the end of our friendship I gift it to you, for all of the kindness that you have shown me, and for all of your cruelties."

Bloodied saliva drooled from Celebrimbor's lips; a whimper beyond the gentle veils of sanity tore from him as guilt clove through him anew, and despair shone as white as bone through the ruin of his chest as the orcs staved the stake into the ground. Fell voices cried in his ears, little by little the strength leached from him as he heard the roar of outrage as his brethren spied him, he heard the clamour of their rage and in his shame and his misery he could not bear to look upon them. The sun would bleed into a horizon licked with flames, the mountains would spew out their pain and their ruin as his people fell, and all because of him, all because of his blindness, his weakness, all because he had dared to love another. In anguish and innocence, in tenderness and evil he had loved Annatar, he had loved him so much that it hurt just to look upon him, and as the tumult of battle rode over him at last he shut his eyes.

Desolate tears glittered upon his lashes, breath fluttered through his failing lungs, and though it was craven he felt the life slip from him, and he let himself drift, and he prayed no more for absolution. The bitter crash of steel rung in his ears, and his tears dripped into the weeping, ulcerated wounds over his chest, and at the utmost cataclysm of his kingdom he knew his purpose was made void. The secrets of the Three were null, their resolution crumbled, but there was no magnificence in his sacrifice, there was no righteousness, no pride: his people would come to ruin and it was still by his hand that they were condemned to the slaughter, and how he hated himself for it. His glories were in vain; trembling muscles slackened and he could not raise them, Annatar would glut himself upon the entrails of his kin and he could not prevent it, the lands of Eriador would burn in the war that he had kindled, and the ashes would only taste of his failure.

Red tears trickled down his chest and he could not stop them. He could not even watch as they fell.

For at the end of all things he felt despair and pain take him, and into the aching abyss that reared open before him at last he tipped, and then there was no more.

---

And thus (with not inconsiderable relief) this fic is concluded! I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone who's read it, and survived it, and who has been so encouraging and supportive the entire way through! Without you guys these things would never get written, so really, thank you 3 From the bottom of my heart I hope you've enjoyed it, and I would love to hear what you think of it; all comments are treasured like Melkor's burning lust for the Silmarils :3

So that ends my latest large-scale writing endeavour, but certainly some smaller pieces (and maybe a new Melkor/Sauron series) will emanate from me over the summer!

As always, if you want to come have a chat or anything then .com is the place where you'll find me lurking!

Thank you once again, dear reader, for your time, and see you upon whatever the next literary adventure shall be!