.

Chapter 18:
Fellow Thralls

Maitimo squeezed his eyes shut as the Orc-speaker yanked him forward with his unrelenting grip on the bonds, snapping Maitimo's arms. He smothered a broken cry at the spike of fire that shot through the joints of his elbows and shoulders. Searing pain shot up his left leg as he hurriedly caught his balance on his lame foot, but several Orcs were there to haul him upright. Again. Push him forward. Keep him moving. The ends of his hair brushed along his neck as he was jolted back and forth. He could feel them. The edges brushing erratically against the base of his neck and tops of his shoulders, many of them catching in the sweat that matted his skin. With every flight of stairs they ascended, the dingy strands flew forward and back like a broken pendulum and he could feel it all over again.

The trill of yips from the torch-bearer ahead was all the warning he had before he was shoved by three pairs of hands into the wall at his left. He grunted as he slammed into it, an expulsion of air bursting from his lips with a brief cry as he landed against his rib. He tried to balance on his one good foot, but the angle was awkward and he collapsed against the ground, shooting his hands out to stop from toppling sideways. He cringed as he pushed himself upright, his body making it quickly known that his left shoulder blade had taken the brunt of the impact. Orc-speech reverberated in the misshapen, low-ceilinged tunnel and he opened his eyes just in time to see the Orc-speaker pushing Orcs aside to approach him, his face as unreadable as ever.

The Orc-speaker reached out and Maitimo glared, gritting his teeth as he slammed both fists against the back of the extended hand in a rapid, swinging arch. The smack echoed in the tunnel, but before the sound could finish ricocheting off the walls, the Orc-speaker rounded up his other hand just as rapidly and slapped Maitimo across the face.

Maitimo's head slammed back against the wall from the force of the strike, his ear ringing, and the whole left side of his face immediately throbbed to life as his head wound once again pounded away. He cringed again with a small yelp breaking from his throat, closing his eyes as nausea briefly washed over him. Valar, not nausea. Not now!

The corners of the Orc-speaker's mouth ticked down, his diaphanous eyes somehow dilating even in the torchlight. He produced a knife, its iron edge glinting. "Fool away if you want to be cut," he growled with a flick of the blade. He reached down, clasping the inflexible rope in his claws and began to hew away at the underside of the rope with the knife. The cold metal brushed against the sensitive skin of the insides of his wrists, contrasted by the hot blood that dribbled down from where the blade nicked once or twice.

The bindings came free with a snap and Maitimo's hands flew to his hair. He heard the rumbling laughter of the Orc-speaker above him as he hunched over and Maitimo's fingers scrabbled at the strands more frantically. His chest tightened as a choked sob knotted up in his throat, mouth falling open as a slight tremble wracked across his lips. He combed his fingers over and over through his hair, the small hitch of his breath coming faster at how quickly his knuckles met empty air. His hair….Oh, Valar, his hair was gone. He pressed his hands against his head, moisture stinging his eyes. It was gone!

"Up!"

Maitimo bit off another wail as his cracked rib was kicked. His hands now flew to his ribcage as he clenched his jaw, waiting for the pain to subside. But before it could, the Orc-speaker grabbed him by the throat and forced him up the wall, back grating along the gritty stone, until he rose to a stand. Maitimo sent him a lethal glare. What, was there not enough hair anymore to grab into his fist? Maitimo bit his tongue, focusing on hobbling on one foot, the left one barely brushing the ground. And his hands, he suddenly realized, wincing at the fire they flared up with now that the blood was rushing back without reprieve. Valar, he could barely bend his fingers!

"Move!" The Orc-speaker clouted him on the back of his head. Maitimo lunged at him but the surrounding Orcs grabbed his arms in vice-like grips before he could, turning him around and forcing him up the next winding stairwell. But the first glimpse of a response finally appeared in the ghastly angles of the Orc-speaker's visage, a look of humored indulgence that suggested that the mere thought that an Elf could dominate him was laughable, especially in his wounded state, and it only made Maitimo fume more when he had to acknowledge that it probably was. The Orc-speaker followed close in his wake, that unholy speech falling from his mouth again. Disgust flitted across Maitimo's face as the Orcs answered, though his heart still pounded a little harder. What were they saying? It had to be about him. What did they say?

Maitimo stumbled up the crooked steps, eyes flying around frantically. Where were they taking him? He could barely see anything in the sparse torchlight. Just as it had been to the Nethermost Hall, they now went up and up. Flight after flight of twisting stairs. Left and right and down a short flight only to go up again. Maitimo's eyes flicked around faster, but all these quarried walls looked the same. Valar, where were they taking him? He squirmed in the grip of the Orcs, twisted away at the feeling of chilly air brushing against his nether regions, but he could not cover himself for all that he wrenched his arms to try. They jerked him onward, but these passages were unending. Curse it all, where were they taking him?

He did not have to wait much longer to find out.

There was light up ahead, bright light that emerged from an opening in the left side of the tunnel. And by the illumination of the crimson glow that far superseded the torch's flickering, Maitimo could now see that the tunnel had widened and grown in height, tapering off in dimensions into the tail of dark tunnel behind him and the yawning abyss of black that ate up the stairs. But Maitimo stared in abject wariness as the light grew in intensity.

For a moment he thought it might have been a campfire, even a brushfire, but this glow of light was far too steady and consistent to bear any resemblance to those things, let alone the bobbing and dancing flames of a torch. His eyes widened as he was forced closer. Valar, what he thought had been a mere opening in the tunnel was in fact a gaping mouth in the rock wall, leading into what was clearly a cavern or an underground pocket, like air bubbles trapped within a body of water. Two tunnels branched off from the cavern's mouth and Maitimo fleetingly thought that if the one he was walking through now went down, maybe the other one went up. Upward. To the surface. To that Tunnel. To outside. But that desperately blossoming hope dwindled into a wave of dejection when he remembered that the Orc-speaker had never led him near this glowing light during their descent to the Nethermost Hall. He was somewhere else.

A blast of heat came from said mouth, so broiling that the stale air of the tunnel shimmered with it where shone the ample light. It reminded Maitimo of his father's forge, of the pulsing heat that came and went in rolling surges when standing in front of the open door. Before he could meditate any further on it, they rounded the bend of the mouth.

There was a barking growl behind him before his arms were released. And he was shoved forward with a powerful thrust to his back.

Maitimo gasped, taken aback by the unexpected shove, which quickly turned into alarm when his foot met nothing but air. There were half a dozen steps in front of him, broad and unevenly hewn from the bedrock, and Maitimo stumbled on the first one. The loss of balance, forced momentum, and having no choice but to take the next step on his lame foot sent him falling completely. He rolled down the rest of the way, the unforgiving stairs feeling like hammers against his body. Maitimo froze, gasping when he came to a stop at the bottom. He bared his teeth, muscles tensing as he absorbed the waves of pain that rolled over him. Valar, it hurt!

Noise dredged his focus up: the humming sound of burning fire that only came from a fierce source of fuel, and quieter sounds he could not identify. And talking. Very un-Orcish talking.

His eyes snapped open and he rose with frenzy to a stand, or what could be misconstrued as a stand. He stood on his right foot, his left foot barely brushing the gritty floor, and leaned on the stairs.

But his eyes widened and shock stole over him.

Elves. Elves littered the cavern, which he realized a moment later to truly be a forge. A massive one. The cavern was domed and wide, so colossal in its vast and rounded heights that he wagered all of his father's house could fit in here and there would still be ample room. It did not have the impeccable curvature of the Nethermost Hall, but rather a bulbous rotundity that stretched to a blunt end where there was another mouth in the wall. Oval and wide, it led into two more caverns, though Maitimo could barely determine their dimensions from here, only that they were open and dark, absent of the fire that floodlit this cavern. This cavern….

Maitimo eyes traveled back and forth, growing wider and his eyebrows drew together. Elves….There had to be at least fifty of them in here. In pairs, some in groups of three, though most moved around the smithy by themselves. But there had to be at least a hundred bloomeries spread throughout the cavern, each reaching and even surpassing the height of an Elf, and they all belched black smoke from their tops despite so vastly outnumbering the Elves monitoring them. Elves moved between and around the clay structures, their steps more staggering than not from how hastily they walked. Most, if not all of their hands and forearms were filthily blackened, and several Elves bore on their backs or dragged behind them deposits of granular rock so black that it could be nothing else but charcoal, all the while others carried another coarse rock shot with flecks of lighter grey or auburn that sparkled under the bloomeries' glowing fires.

Maitimo stared at them, widened eyes flying from one Elf to another, taking in their lithe and sinewy forms and dark manes of hair. His brow creased more deeply as he gave an absent shake of his head in rapidly rising bewilderment. How was this possible? This could not be right. He had witnessed himself all those Noldor die at the appointed place, could still hear their screams and wails as they were slain. But it was not until one of these strange Elves looked at him, and then another and another, that the realization hit him. The realization that these Elves were not Noldor at all.

He stared, his heart seizing up in his chest.

Oh Valar….

Maitimo stumbled back. His eyes were fixated on the Elves as he retreated from them with a hobbled limp, nearly falling over with each step of his left foot. And he did fall, landing with a painful crash on the edge of the lower step. But he rounded the stairs, scooting along the ground with his hands and right leg while one hand scrabbled in search for the wall behind him. His breathing came fast, his hands taking on a perceptible tremble and his heart pounding wildly against his ribcage as his gaze flicked from one face to the next. He reached the wall, bruising his knuckles from how anxiously he groped for it, and he hauled himself back to lean against the rock and its sharp, miniscule ridges, drawing his legs up closer to his body.

Maitimo shook his head, unable to rip his eyes away from them. Blessed stars, these were Moriquendi! Valar, he could recognize them now. They did not house the Light that had been in those three score Noldor. But they did exude that very same fey and numinous aura that they had seen in the Mithrim when first found by them in the rolling hills, a subtle nuance akin to the dark beauty of how a multitude of stars would appear through a wall of mist.

But by all of Arda, just what were Elves of Endórë doing in these caves? Why were they even here? He stared at the bloomeries, at the deposits of minerals so many of them were lugging across the cavern. What were they even smelting? He recalled the name of this underground fortress, recognized now the glinting in some of that rock and knew it had to be iron. But….He shook his head. Just what?

Several of the Elves were looking at him now, discreetly peering around bloomeries or with a subtle turning of their eyes from where they bowed their heads over their work. But one by one they looked and did not look away, some whispering to each other and some doing double takes before their gazes fixated on him. Maitimo swallowed, the dryness of his throat making him double the effort. He drew his legs up closer under the rapt attention of so many, feeling suddenly very aware of his nakedness.

And how he was apparently the only one in such a clothes-less state. All the Moriquendi were clothed, at least in some manner, though their garments were poorer than any he had ever laid sight on, shoddy and looking to carry several yéni worth of wear. They were better suited for what a farmer or a shepherd might don and only as a last resort. Most of their leggings had been torn at the knee and maybe only half actually wore shirts. But even those Elves glistened with sweat just as greatly as those without one, a sheen coat of moisture on their forearms, chests, and in the hollows of their throats. Even from here he could see the streaks of filth along their brows, the fatigue in their faces, though that fatigue was currently overtaken by the visible shock that they were ogling him with. But like him, none of them wore footwear of any kind, all barefoot and he could only imagine how blackened the soles of their feet must be.

Maitimo shifted uncomfortably against the ground, wincing as the grit tore into his buttocks. He wrapped his arms around himself, bringing his legs closer. Curse it all, why did they all stare at him like that?

Someone started to approach him.

One of the Elves had finally stirred himself from his immobilized state. Maitimo's eyes snapped over to the Moriquendë and he shifted to ready himself to leap to a stand, though he did not move more than brace himself against the ground. The Elf was dripping with sweat, his dark hair limp with grime and the delicate structure of his face showing more prominently under his skin than it should have. His tattered shirt was streaked with black, the edges of his leggings fraying.

Maitimo regarded him warily. Sweet Yavanna, the look on the Elf's worn face was so disturbing. It was the same expression he had seen on Telperinquar's face when the child had seen the multitude of white cascades for the first time in that massive cleft of waterfalls they had traversed after departing Losgar. He only remembered the child's particular expression of wonder because it was one of the few things that had made his Atar's mouth briefly tighten into the first ghost of a genuine smile as he took hold of Telperinquar's little hand to pull his stunned grandson forward. And all the while Telperinquar had stared at the waterfalls with his mouth gaping open and the exact same expression that was gracing this Moriquendë's face now. Only there was something more in the Elf's gaze, a hunger or maybe even a longing that he could not place and that made Maitimo shiver. Glancing towards the others, he saw that many of the Elves were regarding him in the same fashion.

He swallowed again.

The Moriquendë stepped closer and Maitimo listed away from him, looking the Elf up and down. The Elf stopped at his reaction but continued to approach after only a moment of hesitation, coming slower this time with a caution in his movement better suited for drawing near to a wounded animal. Though concern now entered the strange Elf's silvery-blue eyes, that same wondrous expression still did not leave his face. Or lessen. Maitimo leaned further away when the Elf came within arm's distance, his eyebrows drawing down over an apprehensive glare. By Aulë, why was he looking at him like that?

The Moriquendë held up his hands, as though assuring him he had no need to fear. Maitimo was briefly distracted by his palms, doing a double take at the blisters that covered them beneath the smears of soot, and he could swear he saw red intermixed with the black along his fingers. The Elf slowly lowered himself to the floor, his thighs quaking as he did and never removing his penetrating gaze from Maitimo as he kneeled down, dark locks falling over his slumped shoulders. Though he looked like he was attempting to relax against his heels, he still leaned forward as if he could not resist to, as if he were battling the temptation to crawl closer to Maitimo than he already had, and that pure expression of disbelieving wonder intensified. Maitimo shifted again, glancing away only to look back, feeling suddenly very much like the cut gems doomed to undergo the thorough inspection of his father's eye. He shifted again.

The Moriquendë looked him up and down and Maitimo fought the urge to cover himself. But the Elf apparently ignored his discomfort because his soft eyes roamed over his skin. Over his ghastly-looking ankle and chafed wrists and the mass of bruises on his ribs, across the ring of discoloration along his throat, passing over his chest, and lastly over his shorn hair with slight amazement to settle on his face. The Elf's eyes were wide, growing wider as he studied Maitimo's own eyes.

Maitimo froze, seriously beginning to question if something was wrong with him.

"Elo!" the Moriquendë breathed. "Ai hanno i elenath od elbereth!" He crawled closer on his knees, that awe-like desperation lighting up his face even more. "Man i eneth dhîn? Tolodh o dor-rodyn, uin belain lennen? Tellinodh edeledog men?"

Maitimo's eyes widened and he stared at him, mouth falling slightly open. He blinked. "Ah…I – ah–" He cleared his throat, working his tongue in his mouth. He took a quick breath. "Ah…I do not speak Mithrimin." He enunciated each word slowly and carefully and nodded in satisfaction after the last syllable, knowing he knew how to correctly say that much in Mithrimin. Valar, it had been one of the first things his father managed to piece together for all of them to say!

The Elf frowned at him, his face scrunching up. "Mithrimin?"

Maitimo stared again. Oh, that was not good. He felt a brief flash of aggravation at the clear suggestion in the Elf's tone that 'Mithrimin' was not what these Moriquendi called their language. But then he remembered that the Mithrim they met in the north hills of Hísilómë had never actually told the Noldor what name they called their tongue. His father had eventually categorized it as Mithrimin simply for the sake of having a name to refer to it with. He cleared his throat again, rolling his lips against each other as he gestured hopelessly in the air. "I do not speak…your…." He faltered again, biting off a curse. Damn all evolution of speech to have happened, how did one say 'language' in this Moriquendi language? He gestured to the Elf and then towards his own mouth. "I do not speak your…your…lambë!" he eventually said, using their Quenya for 'language' with an edge of desperation. Valar, he prayed the word was a cognate like the few they had so far gleaned were. "Lambë! Lambelë! Me. No. You lambë!" he ended emphatically with a sharp gesture towards himself, towards the Elf, and then to his mouth.

The Moriquendë narrowed his eyes, tilting his head. "Lam?" He gestured towards his own mouth.

Maitimo twisted his jaw. Hm. That did sound similar enough. He gave a cautious nod. "Yes."

"Edhellen?"

Maitimo blinked. He gave a tight nod. "Sure."

He spoke that in Quenya, but the Moriquendë clearly had no trouble interpreting his voicing of the single word, for his face scrunched up again. This time with incredulity. "Ú-istodh edhellen?"

Maitimo dropped his head down with an abject sigh, pressing his lips together as he clenched his left hand. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and readying his mouth and brain to try again. Valar, these words did not roll easily off the tongue. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, his head snapped up and he stared at the Elf more intensely. Oh! Edhellen! Edhel! Edhel meant 'Elf'! The Mithrim had constantly referred to them as that, or something like that, until his father and Yánadur and anyone else learnt in the lore of tongues, himself included, had impressed on that strange folk that they were Noldor, and so called the same. And if the rest was a dialectal suffix akin to the likes of their own for a reference to Quenya vernaculars, then that must be the name they gave their language! These Moriquendi had to have simply derived the name of their language from 'Elves' in the same way the Amaneldi derived Quenya from 'Quendi'. He felt a swell of elation at the sudden intuition, though part of him still sighed and rolled his eyes. Valar, it was ridiculous to grow so ecstatic over something so small, especially when he knew his father would have probably dissected it within a moment of hearing it.

Maitimo nodded more enthusiastically this time. "I do not speak…Edhellen." He said the word slowly, wincing at how awful his pronunciation sounded. "I speak Quenya."

The Elf tilted his head the other way. "Quenya?" The word sounded just as mangled on his tongue as Edhellen had on his.

Maitimo nodded again. He tapped his chest, then his mouth. "Me language. Quenya." He then launched into a quick sentence or two in Quenya so that the Moriquendë might hear it himself.

The Elf reared back at the onslaught of words, his face a mask of mild amazement, and Maitimo nodded a little more insistently. "Quenya." He tapped his chest. "I am Maitimo. Maitimo! A Noldo. Noldo. I am a Noldo."

The Moriquendë said nothing at that, but his face took on a look of concentration that silenced Maitimo. He held his breath. Come now, he pled, eyes flicking from one misty blue orb to the other in search of some glimmer, a mere shift in the Elf's expression that suggested he was not coming across as the fool he certainly must sound like.

The Moriquendë blinked several times, a glint appearing in his dim eyes as they narrowed again. "Gold?" he voiced slowly, a suspicious lilt to his tone.

Maitimo made a face. Gold? What in all of Arda was that? And more to the point, how did that have anything to do with 'Noldo'? Maitimo's eyes flicked away from the expectant gaze of the Elf, looking around for inspiration with a frown. But his mind was blank. Quenya did not even have that strange 'g' consonant, at least no words that began with it, and he had not even the first inkling what that might mean in this Edhellen. Maitimo gritted his teeth, suppressing the desire to yell at the Elf. It was not his fault, but Valar, just what did that have to do with a Noldo? Gold. Noldo. Gold. Noldo. His lips moved silently with the two words. Go- His mind lit up. Oh! From the very root Noldor was derived from in the first place! Ngolod, he remembered now. It must have progressed down through the annals of history in this washed out language with little change as the Quenya rendition had. His mind was unwittingly taken back to the bygone memories of his youth, to all the evolution that had occurred during his own early lifetime. It was a cognate after all, he realized with a wave of relief. Or at least he thought so.

He looked again at the Elf. "Yes," he nodded with a slight quaver to his voice. "G-Gold." He made another face. How did they even work that weird sound in their throat? He felt like a frog. "Gold. Elf. Noldo."

The Moriquendë regarded him curiously for a moment before he launched into another spouting of his language so rapidly that Maitimo could not catch even a single word. He turned away with a long breath, collapsing back against the wall with a small grunt of pain, bringing his knees almost to his chest. Valar, why did this Elf speak on as though he would understand? He closed his eyes, bowing his head into his hands as he ran the pads of his fingers back and forth through his roots. A brief swell of horror rose again when he felt the ends of his hair dance along his skin. He heard the Moriquendë falter in his softly spoken Edhellen before falling silent in full, but he just wanted the Elf gone. One moment. He needed just one moment to be alone with himself. One moment to think. Just think.

Fingers brushed along his forearm.

Maitimo jumped, eyes snapping open and muscles going rigid. The Elf quickly withdrew his hand as though burned, holding up both hands again in that same commiserating gesture. But the look of understanding that Maitimo had been hoping for all along was finally there.

Maitimo frowned at him. "What?" He inwardly berated himself, repeating it again in Edhellen.

The Elf did not speak. He only moved his hands in a recognizable gesture to stay put. He then removed his shirt, pulling it over his head with three quick tugs. A broken cry tore from his throat as he did. Maitimo watched him in confusion, but his eyes widened as the Moriquendë's torso was bared in the glow of the fires. His collarbones protruded dangerously and his ribcage was visible even along the center of his chest, but his torso and arms were marked with welts and abrasions. So many of them, with several overlapping. A few gently bled or were hardened with blood, but otherwise his skin appeared to be free of the red substance, though he was so battered along his ribs and stomach with bruises that it was difficult to tell. The Elf fiddled with his shirt, sending muscles along his lithe arms and chest flexing and bulging, and even they stood out too well against the skin. Maitimo's gaze flew over his body, unable to rip his eyes away.

Valar….

The Moriquendë's face contorted with the agony of the cry, but Maitimo could tell he was trying – without success – to suppress it. A twitch of a smile flitted across the Elf's mouth as he held the shirt out towards Maitimo, his hands shaking. He waited expectantly, but Maitimo did not so much as twitch.

"Den mabo," he said quietly, proffering the shirt again. "Den mabo." He pushed the garment towards him until Maitimo grabbed hold of it and the Elf gestured towards Maitimo's waist. "Hamp hammo i rhaw lanc dhîn anlen." He mimicked wrapping around his own waist as he spoke.

Maitimo understood then and his chest tightened as he took the shirt, his lips pressing together as he gazed down at it. The billowing garment looked to be only a few tugs away from tearing apart completely. It was darkened with filth and streaks of soot, stained with the subtle pigment of yellow that came only after an abnormal amount of sweating, and there were spatters of what he knew to be blood along the backside of the shirt. But he clenched it in his fists, thumbs running along the soft weave. Moisture stung the corners of his eyes and he wiped at them furiously, disgusted with himself.

The Moriquendë was still watching him, eyebrows slightly raised in question. Maitimo returned the pitiful attempt at a smile, nodding his gratitude. He opened his mouth to speak.

Bang!

The sound boomed in the cavern and the Elf jumped, the movement so fierce that it sent Maitimo jumping as well. "Boe i gwaen," the Elf tossed his way in a quivering whisper, his face panicked. "Herin i hebodh i dîn dhîn, hîr vaer. Goheno nin an i dhŷl nîn!" He did not wait for a reply before he began moving away with a jittery haste. Maitimo watched the Moriquendë in surprise as the Elf shuffled to a stand, or tried to. His legs quivered fiercely halfway up and he fell back to his knees, but not a heartbeat passed before he began crawling away instead on hands and knees, hurrying over to a deposit of iron ore that lay unattended on the floor not a dozen paces away.

Maitimo frowned at his retreating back, shock stealing over him as he saw the many stripes that crisscrossed over his shoulder blades and down his spine, several that still gleamed with the seeping of fluids. He tore his eyes away, searching instead for the source of the noise that had sounded like a crashing of rocks, but all he could see was that none of the Elves were looking at him anymore. All were moving frantically, some nearly toppling over under the weight of their loads with how fast they hurried. The noise evidently meant something to them. But he saw nothing to cause them to be so panicked. Not even an Orc.

Maitimo's frown deepened, eyes narrowing in sudden suspicion. He glanced behind him at the smithy's mouth, peering through it into the yawning shadows of the forked tunnel. Empty. Where was the Orc-speaker? Where were any of the Orcs for that matter? Even one? He could not see any within the cavern, though if they were nearby otherwise, his ability to sense them was too warped by the overwhelming oppression of Darkness that shrouded every crevice of this place. But he could not see one Orc. Was that normal? That could not be normal.

Maitimo rose from the floor just enough to tie the shirt around his waist, peering around more intently as he did so. But no, not one Orc or any other fell beast of Moringotto was in this smithy. So why did these Moriquendi now act as if there were? This was the first time he felt the thorough absence of the Orc-speaker and part of Maitimo wanted to relish in that personal liberation upon his fëa. But his heart was pounding in his chest, a sense of incredulity rising as he continued to look around the forge. They just left him here? Why would they? What was he supposed to do, and why was the Orc-speaker not here grabbing him by the hair for relinquishing himself to a corner?

Maitimo double-knotted the shirt's sleeves at his hip, ignoring the painful twinge in his left wrist as he looked around in search of that skittish Elf who had given him the garment. The deposit of iron was gone, but he could not see him anywhere in this forest of bloomeries, if the Moriquendë had actually disappeared into them and the many shifting bodies and not just scampered off somewhere else completely.

He collapsed back against the wall, unable to wholly snuff the pang of loneliness that dwarfed him all of the sudden. With one dark-haired Elf after another, no defining braids upon their strands or distinctive apparel upon their backs, he questioned the likelihood of ever being able to locate that Moriquendë again, because for some inexplicable reason, he wanted to. His gaze flicked from one Elf to another, watching how their backs bent and limp hair swayed as they worked the bloomeries, shoveling heaps of charcoal to working the billows while others pounded with mallets at the shingled blooms freshly removed from the furnace, masses that glowed with a pulsing red. Maitimo's eyes widened at how closely their hands hovered near the blistering mass of iron and slag. Valar, if that skittish Elf had even once hammered the sponge iron with the recklessness these Elves were doing it with, it was no wonder his hands had been in the shape they were. Why were they being so foolish?

No, he inwardly rebuked, ripping his eyes away from the Moriquendi. He needed to think. Right now just think. But his eyes flicked back to the Elves, his brow furrowing deeper. Moriquendi….Not Noldor, but Moriquendi. The shock at it riding through his veins was still great, but the disgust at himself for being shocked at all was gradually becoming greater.

Disgust at himself, at his brothers, at every member of their tightly knit councils….No one had ever questioned why Thangorodrim had been given its name in this Moriquendi's Edhellen, not Quenya, when the Noldor were the only Elves Moringotto had yet quarreled with. Or so they had thought. Even when Yánadur had been dissecting the name no one questioned it! Nor had anyone questioned why Orcs spoke their broken words in this particular language, not Quenya, when the Noldor were the only Elves those gnarled beasts had yet been made to speak with. Or so they had thought. He collapsed further against the wall. Past evidence has taught us that you Elves seem to believe fighting your fate will free you from it. So spoke the Orc-speaker before he had tossed him like a limp ragdoll against that boulder, Maitimo now recalled, said rib pulsing its agony as if in response to the dredging of that memory. He had not thought twice on the significance of those words. Nor had he paid deeper thought to when the Orc-speaker spoke of how he headed to the core of Elven bane just before running the poll of that axe into his instep. How he said that Elves were predictable. He had not even wondered how the Maia could have spoken of it so casually if the Noldor were the only Elves he had first dealt with. Bile churned low in his gut and Maitimo crossed his arms over his stomach. Valar, he had not thought twice.

A horn blast sounded.

Maitimo looked up, muscles tensing as the rough note on the Orc-horn was repeated. But not again. Two blows. The noise was not as startling as that unknown slamming of rock had been, for it was a distant blare. From up high. Maitimo frowned as he stared at the ceiling, eyes narrowing as he peered through the smog of black fumes that plumed from the bloomeries to fill the vast heights like clouds. He almost gasped aloud. That ceiling was not even enclosed! The dome of the cavern in fact tapered into what looked like a funnel, an inverted funnel that had to have a diameter of at least fifty paces wide. Maitimo made a face as he studied the hole, flabbergasted as to its purpose. Maybe if the smoke did not clog it up like a chimney he would be able to garner an idea.

Oh. A chimney.

Maitimo was distracted from it as the Moriquendi began to shift in a new manner again and he froze as he watched them stand erect, dropping their loads to the floor, a weary set to their shoulders that made them slouch in a way wholly unbecoming of their lithe forms. Obviously two horn blasts meant something to them because they all collectively began walking towards the forge's mouth. Towards him. Maitimo tensed further, shifting to prepare to rise or move away as they came closer, every pair of eyes quick to turn on him and remain there. They all stared at him. Maitimo listed away from their disturbingly rapt attention that they did not even bother to try and hide. Why did they look at him so? Yes, he had copper hair, an anomaly even in Valinor, but Valar, did that really warrant the astonished, nearly awed regard they were paying to his nude form? He could see their lips moving, could hear their soft mutters and he strained his ears but could recognize none of the words they were mumbling to each other. Though words that sounded like athal and galu and lachend were repeated several times, and even something that sounded like lacheneb and eluthingol among a few. Maitimo frowned at them, but none of those words even remotely resembled anything like the list of similar Quenya he was running through his head.

He crossed his arms tighter over his stomach, fighting the urge to shift away but watched the Moriquendi from the corner of his eye. They were leaving the smithy. Maitimo's frown deepened. Was he supposed to go with him? What was happening?

One Elf slowed on the stairs, stepping closer to Maitimo. He watched him and the Elf came to an abrupt halt when he met his eyes. The dark-haired Elf took half a step back, as if cowered, but he beckoned Maitimo with a sharp gesture of his hand. "Tolo!" he urged, gesturing more fervently towards himself and the Moriquendi filing past him. His face was open and sincere and Maitimo hesitated at the insistence he saw in it. "Tolo! Boe i teli adh men. Avdortho si, hîr nîn!" He gestured more frantically, using both hands now.

Maitimo hesitated, wondering if he should again attempt to communicate, but the Elf's wild gesture spoke for itself well enough. After another brief moment of hesitation he rose from the floor, leaning heavily against the wall as he hobbled on one foot. He moved forward, limping as he put the barest of pressure on his left foot and ascended the stairs in a disgraceful climb, half hopping and half limping with his right hand scrambling for some purchase on the wall. He half expected for the Elf to lend a helping hand, but he only watched Maitimo, following close in his wake as they passed through the mouth. Discomfort wormed through Maitimo as he watched many of the Elves veer away from him, several eyes widening at what he assumed had to be his substantial height, but no one spoke to him. Maitimo nearly grunted in pain with each step, fire shooting up his left leg to settle in his rib, but he managed to keep the pace the Moriquendi set. His eyes flew around as they entered the dark, realizing that they turned at the fork to enter the same tunnel that the Orc-speaker had led him out of.

Oh no, not again. He started to turn around, but the Elves behind him kept him hobbling forward. Valar, he did not want to go back! Did they not know what lay this way?

But then several Orc growls echoed loudly in the tunnel. Many of the Elves began to hustle towards the tunnel's right side, Maitimo being ruthlessly guided with them and, as they rounded the sharp bend, any trickle of light from the forge fires disappeared and Maitimo was plunged into pitch darkness.