Withered Lilies
The girl's eyebrow rose and bold amusement curled across her lips. "Take me as a prisoner to Mordor, if that's your wish, my lord. But give me leave, Tar-Mairon…" The princess conspiratorially stood on her toes straining for his pointed ear, still too far above her. Her voice lowered, silky smooth, and her grey eyes flickered with wicked mirth.
Half amused and half irritated Tar-Mairon's, bowed his golden head, in shared conspiracy. But inside he imagined casting her from the balcony. "I'll see to it that Gorgoroth becomes a rose garden."
He laughed then, bitter and derisive. "Pray tell, why I should want that, Ar-Ephelazra."
"You're an artist. The desire to be surrounded by beauty is inherent." She answered with a shrug. "In this we're not so different. Only the media that we use." Her smile was, softer then. Genuine. She looked away, gazing out, across the stunning vista of white towers, swaying green trees, and boiling clouds in the pale blue sky.
"If not a rose garden, perhaps fragrant wisteria to hang at your window?"
Tar-Mairon chuckled. "I think not."
"Perhaps something beautiful then? Deceptively, manipulatively, and terribly beautiful?" She asked. "But perilous to those who disrespect it, or those mishandle it-?"
"Disrespectful? Like yourself, princess?" His voice was quiet, amusement and curling at his lip. But his golden eyes, glimmered with something dark, and for a fleeting moment she looked away.
"Even so," she conceded quietly. "But would not such a flower be more appealing? Something with the power to save, and the power to destroy, but stands tall, regal, fair, and seemingly innocent? Would a garden of flowers such as these, serve a befitting compromise?"
His eyes glinted as he stared down at her. "What manner of flowers are these?"
"Taxonomists call them Superb Glory, and they are indigenous to Far-Harad. Across Arda they are called Glory Lilies. The locals know them as Flame Lilies, for their fiery hues and the manner in which their petals ripple and rise like flames. Higher and higher, nearly glowing in their vibrance, until dying- not by browning and wilting, but by dimming like cooling embers."
Ar-Ephelazra reached for the vase, plucking one such vibrant flower from the water, and raising it for him to see. She tilted her head, looking at him, something knowing and taunting in her eyes.
"I've heard tell the people plant gardens full of them in honour of their fire god."
Boldly she rose to the balls of her feet, and daringly, slid the beautiful gold and crimson flower behind his ear. His eyes narrowed.
"I prefer to think of it, as the deadly beauty that it is. The perfect means by which to remember, that a wolf in sheep's wool is still a wolf."
Tar-Mairon snatched her wrist as she withdrew. "It is a bold and daring sheep that would come so close to a predator's jaws." His grip was not painful, nor was it particularly tight, but she knew from experience it was immovable, and unbreakable. Suspended as she was, she dared to meet his gaze, and his eyes burned like fire.
"Perhaps, when I have died, you'll tell your flock of beguiled sheep that the deceased shall be served with a sweet orange sauce? Assuming you should see fit to grace me with even a passing mention in one of your sermons, of course."
He lowered her wrist, releasing her. "Dear princess, you have grown very bold." His voice was a deathly whisper.
In defiance or stupidity, she raised her chin, refusing to be cowed, even when she could clearly see the fangs behind the amiable smile. "To have dealings with you I have had to. If it displeases you, perhaps you should have given more thought to the consequences of your facilities and exploits."
With a snarl he grabbed her, and she hung rigid and terrified, before pride and anger yanked her by the neck. "If it troubles you so, then exercise your capacity to change it." His fingers dug, painfully into her arms, and the mocking, false air of amiability splinted and fell like shards of glass. But so had hers and they hovered, teetering as their dangerous game turned truly perilous.
"We are here now, by your hand," she added, calmer, but possibly suicidal. "And, my lord, you know this."
Abruptly he burst into laughter. Stiffly, and hardly daring to breathe, she remained in his grasp, startled by the sudden shift in humour. His fingers slid from her upper arms, and still he laughed.
It gently died, and Tar-Mairon's eyes were gleaming, but unreadable when he met her uncertain gaze. His smirk though, was positively frightening, and she swallowed, fighting back the urge to step away from him.
The dying sun through highlights of red and orange in golden hair, and the flower nestled behind his ear burned. He was beautiful, and he was terrible: the contrast so painfully obvious in that moment, she was left floundering.
"To Mordor I will take you, if you wish it." He gently pulled the flower from his hair, and his gold eyes flickered down to the beautiful bloom pinched between his fingers. "Though I fear you shall not enjoy it."
Scoffing the princess turned away. "No. But you might." Fear and anger cooled, leaving her apathetic, if not brazen. "At the very least you'll have yet more fire to name yourself god of."
"That was not my doing." Tar-Mairon's voice was whimsical. "The people of Far-Harad, heard tales of my citadel in Rhûn from traders. It was surrounded by fire, and upon seeing it, they who named me such…and seeing many of the evils that plagued the land cast screaming, therein, only reinforced the misnomer."
Ar-Ephelazra's ebony brow rose, and turned to him, absently sweeping her plaited hair from her shoulder. "Evils? From what did the men of Rhûn you to save them from?"
The Maia hummed, and the flower twirled in his fingers, as his head turned. "Morgoth's former servants, were not kind. Their ruinous ambitions and squabbles cost the lands economically, ecologically, and politically. I came. I built. I summoned them to my side, but they did not wish to be my vassals, and I had not expected as much. Patience and mercy spent, I tore them from their pitiful keeps, broke their delicate thrones, and choked them with their pretty little crowns."
"You-?"
Tar-Mairon's expression was nostalgic, his smile genuine, but sickly with cruel amusement. "These great lords among Melkor's folk, made hovels from themselves throughout the south and east, and I realized I could not drive them out, if I remained in my fortress, so I departed Rhûn, giving up my claim to the land, and built for myself a fortress greater in Mordor, where no men dwelt. This they saw as an act of pure altruism, and I confess I never disabused them of the notion." He was smiling at the flower in his fingers. "The fortress, still stands majestic and the fires about it burn as they ever did, but it has been many a year since I have travelled thither, and stepped within its gates. It is used now as a place of negation and reprieve by diplomats. Though for a time, one Rhûn's greatest kings, Khamûl made it his abode."
His eyes met hers, and his lip curled into something mocking. "Have I shocked you Little Lamb?" Tar-Mairon turned to face her fully. The sunset flickered in his brilliant hair. "I suppose, it's reasonable. After all it would be of no benefit, if the Westernesse acknowledged the good done by their enemy. It's hard to paint someone as a villain when paying homage to their heroism."
He bent until they were almost at eye level, and she swallowed, wishing he'd back away. His voice was honey, his eyes were like perfect golden coins, and his hair was like the sun. The flower in his hand twirled lazily, as he stared at her.
In her chest, Ar-Ephelazra's heart was pounding. Its thudding beat rang in her ears, deafening, and she bit her lip, hating the flush of heat that rose to her cheeks. Again he was bating her, beckoning her, tempting her, and it was so hard to resist. Forget Glory Lilies! Tar-Mairon was far more insidious! She took a faltering step back, desperate for space, and his smile became all the sweeter and patronizingly sympathetic.
"What say you, Highness?" His fingers grazed her cheek.
For a moment she stood as a statue, frozen without the ability to speak or think. His fingers dusted stray ebony strands curling at her ear, and the flower shifted, reappearing as a spot of living flame in her peripheral vision. Deftly he slipped it behind her ear as she had put it behind his, the gesture equally mocking, but for different reasons.
Swallowing, Numenor's princess narrowed her eyes, and scraped her pride into a shield before herself. If this was the game he wished to play, so be it. Carefully she tamped down the butterflies in her stomach, and ignored the harsh throbbing pulse in her throat.
"You are, as the flower that now rests in my hair. Glorious, superb, and lethal. Capable of easing pain and suffering, but equally capable of inflicting it, if not more prone to doing so."
Inhaling to collect her wits she continued. "Its roots look irrefutably like potatoes, and its seeds like small kidney beans. It teases every sense of perception to lure in its victims, and to defend itself, just as you do, Lord."
Tar-Mairon withdrew and they stood, simply staring at each other, her trying to read him, while having no idea what he could possibly find of interest in her eyes, when he had learned long ago all he could have wished to know. Silence like treacle spread between them, heavy and weighted, and becoming increasingly uncomfortable.
With great care, she reached for the flower, fearful of harming it, only to freeze as Tar-Mairon's hand moved as if to reach for her.
"Tar-Mairon?"
"Tis nothing." He looked away. "There's something I must see to."
Taking that as her cue to leave, Ar-Ephelazra removed the flower and returned it to its vase. Almost happily its yellow, red, and orange brethren seemed to part for it, and inwardly she smiled. Truly they were beautiful flowers.
"Shall I look for you at dinner?" She asked quietly, not looking away from the exquisite blossoms on their pale green stems.
"Of course." Tar-Mairon's voice swept of over her, with a hint of emotion she couldn't identify. Wonderingly she looked up at him. "It's a poor and hungry wolf that risks its prey to chance and the voracity of others."
Ar-Ephelazra laughed, unsure what it was exactly that amused her so. Perhaps it was the possible glint of amusement in his brilliant golden eyes, or maybe it was something in the way that he had said it.
Grinning, she dipped her head. "Sometimes I think thee, may be a shepherd yet." Without waiting for his response she departed, and Tar-Mairon frowned after her.
Was he not?
His eyes fell to the vase, the fiery blossoms, burning on their green stems, every single one, from bud to aged and worn out blossom looking like little flames. It was he conceded, a fitting flower, and Gorgoroth's arid plateau, set ablaze by a field of living flames could have been beautiful, if it were not where his armies sheltered themselves from Orodruin's terrible fury.
Besides, Mordor was much too cold, for a plat acclimated to Far-Harad's blazing sun. But he did wonder, if he were allow himself temporary loss of sense and wit; granting her leave, if his little bride-to-be would have proven brazen enough to try.
~/~
The lilies clinging to their trellis were brown and withered, stricken by lack of water and neglect. Curled up, Featho was nestled beside the massive, but shallow planter. His warm resting on the ceramic rim, and his pudgy little face, hidden from view and buried in the crook of his arm.
The Lord of Mordor looked from his son and back to the fading plants that not so long were alight with flames of their own making. But there was nothing now, save their dry brittle stems, and the tubers, only good now for the extraction of their poison.
Without his wife's care they had withered, and in that moment something in his chest tightened, and everything in his stomach curdled, as his eyes fell to the child, and instead of boy of flesh and blood, he saw withered decaying sinews hanging sagging limp and grey from brittle bones.
"Frum-ob Stroh!" He snatched the boy from the ground. "Get those out of here! Get them out! Now!" He shuddered, clutching his son to his chest, trying to rid himself of that image. But it was there festering, and with it a horrid question raised its ugly head.
'Would he fade like the plants without his mother's care?'
"No, no, no." He moaned, stiffening abruptly when he felt how still the boy was in his arms. Ice rocketed along his spine, horror and fear escaping as nothing more than a gasp. His heart thudded as he stood, suddenly terrified by what he may have been cradling to his chest: his warm living son of flesh and blood, or the skeletal grey remains of what his boy had been.
Heart in his throat he forced himself to look down and see, only sag in relief as he met the gaze of grey eyes, clear, focused, and bright.
"Featho, Little Wolf, did you touch those plants?" He grasped one of the boy's hands, searching his nails and tiny fingers for dirt.
'It was not real. It was not.'
"No." The boy's answered softly.
The Lord of Mordor, took the boy's other hand, and inspected its tiny digits and creases for dirt too.
"Father, you're shaking." Worry saturated the child's voice, and he fingers held tight to his hand after the Lord of Mordor tried to release him. "Father-"
"Promise me, you'll never touch them."
The Eye shifter, and Dark found whom he wished.
"I promise."
It was a promise the boy would keep, as the Lord of Mordor quietly commanded his servants rid the tower of all his wife's plants. They were dead, their beauty spent, and as for the Fire Lilies; their poison would be extracted and stored against the day it should be needed.
Author's Note: So chapters four and five are going swimmingly, and I've delved into chapter six…so…you know whenever I can sort out chapter three, things'll be good. ROTFLOL
The irony hurts. And Frum-ob Stroh is a rough translation of Featho's name in Black Speech. Yeah…anyways.
