Light. It hurts. Can't turn it of. It hurts. Where is the darkness he has once foud within him? No, he has never been a spirit of darkness but of fire. Fire that enhances the shadows around him – strengthens them, makes them deeper. Where is that darkness now? It hurts. It hurts!

Steps... Somebody!

"Turn it off..."

"We thought it better for you to not wake up alone in the dark."

"Turn it off," he yells, his voice hoarse. Speaking hurts too.

Now, the light is dimmed, but at least it doesn't cut Mairon's consciousness anymore. Doesn't shred his very soul.

Immediately, his mind takes over again and with it... Memories!

Angband in ruins. Ancalagon cast from the sky and Melkor- Melkor!

Not now! Later! Where is he? A cell. The light. The figure before it.

"He knows exactly where he is.

"Eonwe."

"You were gravely wounded," that gentle, calm, melodic voice that makes him want to curl and cover his ears. Makes him want to burn the speaker in a tornado of flames, "we treated your injuries as best we could."

Still, he remembers pain. Something piercing his shoulder. Hitting his back. Cutting his face. Pain, pain, pain!

It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter how well his lord has taught him to endure pain. Because everything beyond fighting it would hurt even more. Because emptiness is always worse than pain.

"How kind of you to stitch me up," he hisses, "after you ripped me into pieces."

Compassion in Eonwe's face. Pity.

Mairon wants to cut it out of there with a dull blade.

"We shouldn't have allowed him to take you."

They shouldn't have... Ha! Hahahahaha...

He would have laughed, had there been anything left in him that was capable of laughter.

But, the Maia gives him a look one would give a child that got lost in the woods: "I'm sorry, Mairon," he almost sings in that voice that vibrates with power, but not really. It's the kind of force that drips like water from a cave's walls, that slowly wraps itself around one's consciousness like a warm bath. Before it freezes and captures you in a mantle of piercing ice.

"We should have noticed,"

He thinks of Almaren.

"what he did to you before it was to late."

Of Melkor and his forges of metal and of mind,

"We should have done something."

He thinks of armies shattering at the snap of his finger.

"Should have saved you from him and-"

"STOP IT!"

The tent shakes and Eonwe flinches back. For a second he stares at Mairon in horror who has erupted in a blaze of fire. It feels good – oh so good- to have the fire and heat and sheer anger rushing through his veins. Suddenly, he feels powerful at seeing Eonwe cower before his inferno of wrath.

He shall know how it feels to be helpless. To know pain.

"Don't you dare," he hisses, red eyes piercing into Eonwe's blue ones like dagges, "don't you dare and pretend I was one of your dumb little sheep!"

Carefully, deliberately, he opens his consciousness, wraps it around the herold's, all but drags him towards his to see...

Pride...

Ambition...

Power...

"Isn't that what everyone is to you," he mocks, "pitifully stupid. Unable to comprehend what is so clear to high and mighty Eonwe?" His voice shakes with disdain as the Maia's consciousness practically kneels before him, "those poor souls, so desperately in need of the guidance of Manwe's favourite pet with his wisdom and his pity."

He had always loved it. Digging words into a victim's soul was like sinking his claws into elvish flesh just deeper – oh, so much deeper. He can't wait to get hold of something to rip out.

A flash of hurt in Eonwe's consciousness.

A familiar satisfaction in Mairon's.

Guilt, regret, shame...

Glory.

"We can help you, Mairon. You don't have to live under his influence forever. He can't hurt you anymore," even now the bastard fights back. Even now he refuses to understand it. He never even tried and Mairon's wrath erupts in another wave.

"IT WAS MY CHOICE!"

He gives up on mind tricks. Gives up on all care and art and subtlety. His anger washes over Eonwe like a wildfire.

"Don't you dare and treat me like a child that got lost when I chose him," he starts trembling and Eonwe slowly rises to his feet, "it was my decision, mine," the flames around him flicker uneasily. "Don't you dare pity me," he growls, "don't you dare mock me pretending that I chose wrong!" He closes his consciousness of again, concealing those feelings from Eonwe. He will never understand – won't even try to understand – and they are Mairon's.

"Don't you dare take these years away from me!"

They are his, his, his...

"I was happy!"

They are all he has left now.

"I was happy..."

He breaks. His consciousness falls apart, fractures into pieces and he doesn't know – can't find them anymore. Can't fix what has been broken, can't order what has been blown up in chaos. Can't bring back-

The flames die out and he starts sobbing, not even realizing how, of all things, this is what seems to get to Eonwe. He doesn't see the Maia looking at him with a shade of disgust underneath the expression of pity, before he leaves the tent silently.

He doesn't take the light with him and it pierces Mairon's eyes and soul, slipping into the cracks of his shattered consciousness and cutting him open from the inside.

For reasons I've become continuously more invested in the character of Mairon over the past weeks and it was very interesting to deepdive into his mind once again. This is a rather old sketch I adapted slightly and finaly got to finish and there isn't really much more to say about it. Currently working on aother Mairon and a qpr-Russingon post-Thangorodrim Oneshot. Let's see, if I get to finish any of them and which one first.