by Detergent
Mau became a fixture in Iármírië's life. He went everywhere with her, riding on her shoulder while he was still small and then on her shoulders or pacing at her side when he grew into an adult. The orcs began to recognise him soon after he came to live with her, which was both good and bad: She knew that one of the cowards would attempt to harm Mau or worse out of spite and the undead could not be trusted near him whatsoever. She kept him on her person when he was small for his protection and brought him everywhere because she could not bear to be parted with him and she also did not trust the captives not to poison him or something equally horrible as a gesture of defiance.
From the time he was small, she began making him tiny suits of armour. Taking a kitten into battle wasn't very practical but he was obedient for a cat and she couldn't bear to leave him behind. Of course, he made a new target for the Eldar but she could deal with them. They were straightforward in their hatred of her but the orcs and undead, the captives, while more familiar, also had more opportunity to harm him. After he became an adult, she took him into her workshop and measured him, from nose to tail-tip and all points in between. She had scraps of metal left from the magnificent chain she had wrought for herself. These she took and melted down again and spent long hours drawing into wire thinner than a baby's hair, spending still more time fashioning the wire into rings and weaving the rings together into a Mau-sized suit of chain. She made him leather guards for his back and his chest. He tried them on with little complaint and found himself rewarded with kisses and bacon. She also made him boots with wicked claws he could extend and retract by using his own so he could defend himself if they were momentarily parted.
Some time after Mau had received his suit of armour, Melkor called Iármírië into his throne room. She never set eyes on his private rooms and he but rarely came to hers, though sometimes he liked to go out and watch an orc be thrown to the undead to be ripped apart. His lover had been in even more evidence lately so that Iármírië had taken to wearing the mask that covered her from neck to cheek whenever Melkor summoned her. She had nabbed one of the crystal flasks of scent from the glut that often appeared in her bathroom, dabbing some of the perfume onto the cloth against Sauron's stink. It was odd, she thought, as always, that Melkor, who seemed utterly fastidious in his personal cleanliness, could not smell it. Or, perhaps, she thought, as she answered her sire's summons, he liked it. She cringed at that and Mau nuzzled her cheek from his perch across her shoulders.
Sauron sat on a low, beautifully upholstered stool at Melkor's side. She gritted her teeth and bowed to them both as Mau leapt down to the floor and sat in front of her. He knew had to behave but his ears were slightly laid back until she was permitted to rise again by a wave of Melkor's hand, whereupon he leapt up and draped himself across her shoulders once more. She wanted to praise him and tell him how good he was but she did not, instead, she addressed the Dark Lord, inquiring of his health, and wishing him victory over his enemies.
"I am well. You may greet My Darling"
Then, putting one fist behind her back so neither of them would see her dig her nails into her palm out of disgust and pure frustration, Melkor's creation gave a more shallow bow to his lover. "I hope this day finds you well, Belovéd One of my sire," she made her voice smooth but not necessarily sweet, gouging half-moons into her palm.
"I am, I am. Thank you for your well-wishes, Pinnacle of my Belovéd's Creation," he addressed her, his amber eyes lingering on her face for a moment before he turned his head and gave Melkor a long, fond look.
"I have a gift for you, Iármírië," Melkor began after he tore his eyes away from his lover's face.
"A gift, sire?" she unwillingly spoke in her shock- Melkor had never given her anything without strings attached; he had not given her anything he had not first caused her to earn.
"Indeed. I have been very pleased with the projects I have assigned you, especially my Veil of Tears," he began, recalling to her the fabric of brilliants and mithril he had demanded she design and weave for him to enhance his hair, the cloth of metal and gems created from the spoils of war. " The education I have given you through my prisoners well becomes you. You have enough skill and so Sauron has agreed that he will undertake to teach you in the arts of gem-craft and ring-making."
Iármírië forced a smile into her gaze. She did not want to learn anything Sauron knew and besides, she could turn a ring if she wanted to, not that she ever felt the need. She could facet gems- the Veil of Tears proved that: She had spent days upon days re-faceting the jewels Melkor had demanded the orcs bring him from the bodies of the Eldar they had conquered so that the stones would shine and catch the light with unrivalled splendour. This was the first she had heard of Sauron's supposed talent at ring-craft and gem-craft and while she wasn't sceptical, she found herself wondering why she was being 'gifted' with his mentorship now.
"I am a lord of many gifts, Iármírië, and I can elevate your skill and teach you crafts that few know and fewer may master," the red-haired man practically sang to her. In a rumble almost too quiet to hear, Mau growled next to her ear.
"You will accept the gift. Most kill for such an opportunity," Melkor stated flatly, bobbing two fingers at her. Without her consent, the gift was accepted.
"Of course, sire," she sweetened her voice and bowed like it was what she wanted most in the world. What she wanted was for Sauron to forget his offer, her existence, to forget Melkor as well, and for his stink to be gone forever from the stronghold. If they could give her anything, they could have changed the past so she could, after hearing the latest craft she'd been bidden to take up, have taken herself to the stillroom and thrown herself into Niquissë's lap to rage over the complete lack of control she had over her life. She wanted to be petted. She so wanted to watch Niquissë stare down the Dark Lord once more as if he were something she'd picked up on the sole of her slipper, beautifully defiant. "Do you want her to learn all of my craft or not?" she could still hear her nana throw the words at Melkor after one of his many threats to Niquissë's life. Even the Dark One had backed down before Niquissë, for a time. She wished she had learned the art of defiance from her nana but she never had. Iármírië had to obey.
"You may return to your quarters," her sire waved her away, so she bowed, Mau performed his double leap, and she retreated several steps before turning her back on the couple. She thought she heard a hummed exclamation as she strode down the obsidian hall.
That night while she scrubbed the day off in her great tub as Mau who preening his orange fur beside her on the rim of the basin she told the cat- "I don't like where this is going, Mau-Mau." Her companion stopped preening and cocked his head, listening intently to her voice. "This is the same as when one of the undead pretends to be docile to get an orc to let its guard down so it can come in and snap! Claw out the orc's eyes or bite it, rend it apart. I think Sauron wants to take a bite out of me," she remarked and at the hated name, Mau flattened his ears back and yowled softly.
"I agree. I don't like him. He's... his sweetness is filth. I don't like it. I don't want to make rings and I don't need to cut gems in whatever manner he believes I need to but there's no getting out of it, is there. The Dark Lord has decided to put another facet on me and I've no choice but to obey. I don't have anything to hold over him to make him reconsider."
Mau stood up and stretched a paw out to her and pawed at the air until she moved close enough for him to place his pink pads on her cheek. "Thank you Mau-Mau. I almost wish Melkor would bring another captive to teach me... but then I'd have to kill them when I outgrow them and I'm tired of that. And I have no choice but to outgrow their teaching, do I? Fah, I wish I was still young; it never used to bother me, executing mentors. I haven't had a mentor in a long while. And I highly doubt that the Dark Lord would be pleased if I tried to kill Sauron Honeycake, should I manage to out-skill him."
Mau grunted as if in agreement.
"I miss Niquissë. You should have met her; you would have liked each other."
She got out of the tub and dried herself off. She turned down her covers and Mau curled up against her shoulder and rested his face against her cheek and they drifted off to sleep.
Sauron arrived at the stronghold every day after breakfast, which, thankfully, she never had to take with him. She would be commanded to the workshop with its forges and trappings, bars of wax and tubs of plaster, the grinding wheels, the water baths, to stand at his side, holding her breath against his stink as he would show her this skill or that, relentlessly demanding that she practice over and over until he was satisfied with her results. He would have her melt small ingots of metal or draw rods from them, teaching her the words to put sorcery into the metal at every step of the task. He showed her how to focus her will and to put that too into her craft. Though she despised him and his oily manner, the way he stood too close to her and breathed his instructions into her ear, she did enjoy turning metal into a finished product.
He showed her how to incise metal with the graver in such a way that whatever she wrote or drew glowed with power. When she inevitably nicked herself engraving one of his assignments into a bar as practice, he had lifted her hand and dressed her fingers himself with a piece of crimson silk torn from the sleeveless tunic he wore beneath his black leather apron. When they parted for luncheon, she had marched into Niquissë's stillroom- the one Iarmírië had taken over- removed the strip of silk he had used and scrubbed out the cut with spirits of wine and put her own salve on it along with a clean strip of linen, then she had reluctantly placed the strip of silk on top of it all. Niquissë had instilled in her that anything smelling as Sauron did was rotten to the core, a carrier of plague and death, and should be scrubbed away cleanly. She had been worried she'd get an infection from Sauron's ministrations.
Mau would sit in the workshop at a safe distance from both Sauron and the fires and supervise Iármírië's education. Now and again, she caught Sauron shooting a vexed look at the cat, who would lay on a high shelf, his eyes slit and tail languidly fluttering as if disapproving of Sauron's existence. Once, greatly daring, Sauron had even tried to stroke Mau's head but Mau growled and turned away from him and farted, which, Iármírië had reflected, the scent of was much more preferable to the aroma her mentor still gave off after all of this time. Sauron gagged and shot Mau a look of disgust and Mau simply shook his tail at him and leapt out of reach.
It was when Sauron began teaching Iármírië the art of magically-infusing existing gems that he started becoming insufferable and to make matters worse, it seemed he knew what he was doing, insofar as leaning into her while she sat at the grinding wheel or placing an unwanted hand upon her shoulder as she infused and engraved whatever stone he had brought her as that week's lesson. She would try to position herself so as to cause him difficulty in leaning his body against her but it seemed he was shameless, although he pretended nothing was happening. One day, in particular, he kneaded her shoulders as she tried to keep her tool steady, engraving a difficult and time-consuming incantation into a topaz as she had been instructed. She felt one finger on her skin, then another where her tunic began, then another, until his entire hand rested on her shoulder and he began stroking her body beneath the cloth. Suddenly, something crashed behind them and Sauron jumped, snatching his hand from her as he spun around to see what had happened. Mau was sitting on one of the shelves where the engraving mounts and stands were kept and a large stand now lay in several pieces on the floor. The cat looked pure hatred at Sauron and sat neatly on his paws, tail quivering in anger.
"You should leave this destructive beast in your room when you join me for your lessons from now on," he spat, bending to gather up the mess.
"He is usually well-behaved," she mock-apologised, thanking Mau with her eyes for finding a way to get Sauron's hands off of her. "It's likely he just wanted a different place to lay. I can repair the stand tonight."
"No need," her unwanted mentor sighed, dumping the stand into the refuse bin. "New equipment is easily gotten. And besides, you are outgrowing these tools. You are nearly ready for the next step- I will show you how to make a gem using sorcery, your will, and words. There are other ingredients, however, the main three are as I have stated."
Outgrowing? Does this mean I can kill you and you'll stop putting your nasty, reeking hands on me?
"But first, you should make a master's piece in natural gems," He came around to the front of her and knelt so their faces were level. She did not care for the look in his amber eyes- greedy and full of a questionable fire that made her feel tainted.
"What stone will you bring me to carve? What metal?"
Sauron laughed. "I'll bring you nothing. You'll have to choose your own materials."
"Very well," she conceded, trying to lean away from his breath. "I will ask my sire for what I need."
"And I will give you nought," Melkor's deep voice spoke from the doorway where he had stood, unnoticed by mentor and apprentice, watching their exchange. "You will find your gem and your metals with the Eldar. I am creating a new form of orc and I need fodder and so you will bring me what I seek. I will allow you to take what you require for your master's piece from the spoils of war if you bring me enough captives."
Iármírië sighed and tilted her head so that her hair hid her expression. She had felt uneasy regarding her sire's continued harassment of the Eldar ever since she had come of age and worse about it still since she had acquired Mau. She understood full well that she would do whatever Melkor asked of her, however, as of late the resentment had begun to uncoil in her belly as he left her with his lover and his lover licked his lips at her and touched her unbidden. Yes, she still craved the Dark Lord's praise as children crave the praise of their fathers but Melkor withheld nearly all approval, preferring that Sauron's oily praises be the only approval she heard. Why did he even want her to be taught these skills if he never expressed one word of pleasure or reproach to her? She always praised Mau when he learned a new trick; she praised him simply for existing.
"A new form of orc?" Sauron asked his lover who leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, watching him and his creation.
"I need a stronger army. I need orcs with fortitude, less cowardly, less stupid. The Eldar are gaining strength and I must stay several steps ahead if I am to attain my goal. Ever since... the rebellion..." Here he pressed his lips together and scowled.
"It was a terrible loss," commented his darling.
"It is a garment of thorns," Melkor agreed tightly, his eyes on Iármírië who looked back guilelessly. What was he getting at? There had been a rebellion; some fodder had escaped; it evidently still niggled him. He had enacted new rules to keep the fodder from organizing. He'd told her that much and it was all she needed to know. It was, he had given her to understand, some years ago, why her mentors must die after she surpassed them- They became useless then and they might get ideas from associating with her, rebellious ideas.
Melkor continued to stare at Iármírië. "Sire? You will send your new creations to kill the White Blaze?" She dared use the title of the leader of the rebellion.
"He will perish and you will hold your tongue from speaking about that one, is that understood? I will make an example of that one in time."
She bowed her head. He had bridled with his usual vitriol at the mention of the leader of the fodder rebellion, even though the Dark Lord had explained to her in the past that a particularly charismatic and warlike Eldar had broken himself free of the stronghold's dungeons and had taken several more of his prime fodder with him. And, after Niquissë had died, Melkor had endowed her with a succession of captured mentors to create in her a guardian and weapon against such a happening in the future. However, he mostly used her to contain the orcs and to control the undead. He had not sent her on a mission by herself to sow chaos by assassinating any lone Eldar, though she had been rigorously trained for it all the same. He kept her separate from the Eldar captives but for a handful of those he used to do menial tasks about the stronghold and he never kept the same captives about the living areas for very long- He didn't want them becoming familiar with her. He had her trained so thoroughly that if there ever came a time when she faced the White Blaze, he knew she would destroy him in the Dark Lord's name for the glory and revenge of Melkor.
Iármírië was dismissed so Melkor and Sauron could discuss the Dark Lord's plans for a new race of orcs. At least, that's what she chose to believe as she hurried down the hallway, glad to put her back to them.