Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/9100816.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Major_Character_Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage, Graphic_Depictions_Of
      Violence
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      The_Silmarillion_and_other_histories_of_Middle-Earth_-_J._R._R._Tolkien
  Relationship:
      Annatar/Khimil, Annatar/OC, Annatar/Celebrimbor_|_Telperinquar
  Character:
      Annatar_(Tolkien), Khimil_(OC), Celebrimbor_|_Telperinquar
  Additional Tags:
      Gaslighting, Dissociation, Cognitive_Dissonance, Underage_Sex, (in_Elven
      years)_(like_that_makes_anything_any_better), Child_Abuse, Sexual_Abuse,
      Abuse_of_Authority, dipping_my_toe_into_the_waters_of_hell_and_deciding_I
      like_the_temperature, Unreliable_Narrator, hella_unreliable_narrator,
      LaCE_compliant, Torture, Aftermath_of_Torture, in_as_grim_a_manner_as_the
      tags_above_suggest
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-12-29 Words: 3862
****** Amidst the Sea ******
by RaisingCaiin
Summary
     It is not so hard, in the end, to slip past the laughable wardens of
     old Námo, and to liberate but one of the many spirits in that Vala’s
     questionable care.
     It is much harder, it turns out, to take matters from there.
     Especially when the spirit that one attempts to bring back to life is
     always so damnably certain that he knows better.
Notes
     100% motivated by this_conversation, in which Siadea opened my eyes
     and then very kindly acceded to my muse's demands for satisfaction
     If you haven't read "Across_the_Sea" yet, I highly recommend
     backpedaling to read that first! A) because it's a stunning concept,
     and told from a muuuuch better PoV, and B) because this will make so
     much more sense afterward. Oh and also C), because then you won't be
     left with this ending. . .
     It should go without saying, but for this fic especially - please
     heed the tags!
See the end of the work for more notes
  This work was inspired by
      Across_the_Sea by Siadea
It is not so hard, in the end, to slip past the laughable wardens of old Námo,
and to liberate but one of the many spirits in that Vala’s questionable care.
It is much harder, as it turns out, to then trammel said spirit to the vessel
he had chosen for it – a Mannish child, five or so years of age, selected for
its smooth skin and wide eyes, its body’s promises of future height and
strength.
Instead, the liberated spirit simply flees. Celebrimbor, it seems, is
determined to be as difficult in his second life as he had been in his first. 
Mairon cannot help but smile at this (a small and private thing that he has
always saved for his beloved), even though it seems that this stubbornness
means he must now chase Celebrimbor’s wayward fëa across Middle-earth.
Sighing, he takes the Mannish child down to the palace kitchens.
“What are we to do with him, Tar-Mairon?”
As if he cares what use they put the boy to. “Outfit him and train him as you
see fit. He will stay here now.”
The head cook, a stout woman with red cheeks, dares to speak again even though
he has given his instructions and the conversation is done. “We will not – we
will not eat him, Tar-Mairon?”
Mairon – cannot even fathom the necessity of this question. “Why in this fair
world do you imagine we would do that?”
But at least she has the grace to stutter an apology for speaking out of turn.
“I-I. . .”
She runs her domain efficiently, so he does not stop her heart. She tries his
patience, though, so he does wave away her consciousness and let her slump in a
boneless heap beside the great stone hearth. Her twittering subordinates do not
seem to think they should tend her bloody head wound while he looks on, so he
turns on his heel with a sigh and hopes that his departure will bring them to
their senses. Somewhere behind him the Mannish child starts to wail.  
Honestly, the barbarism of Men knows no bounds. Eating children – Void, he
could cry for the stupidity of it. One eats of game, and cattle, and fowl, and
fish, and even then, only when such creatures are past their ability to
procreate and spawn a suitably hardy new generation of breeders and studs.
Properly nurtured, children will grow to be servants, or soldiers, or
sacrifices, or lovers.  One does not waste the potential of children by eating
them. 
                                     ~ ~ ~
As predicted, he eventually finds the vessel that Celebrimbor’s fëa had
evidently preferred on the shores of Middle-earth. His love has spurned him
(again) in favor of being reborn to a couple of Silvan elves who toil on the
outskirts of the latest Númenórean colony.
He surveys the pitiable homestead and sighs. Of course Celebrimbor’s inflated
sense of humility would lead him to be born to subsistence farmers who raise
more rock than grain. 
No matter. At least he has found him.
When he manages to drag the admission out of the parents, he learns that their
offspring – Celebrimbor’s chosen receptacle – is all of ten years old. A child,
by Elvish standards – an adult near grown, by Mannish ones.  A few more hours
gains him the child’s name – Mírdir. “Jewel of a child.” Droll, and fitting,
but useless.
By nightfall, he still has not managed to learn where they have hidden the
child, or how they knew he was coming. He is out of practice in dealing with
the Eldar, even such debased stock as these Silvans. His touch has become too
soft, among the Secondborn: he has grown over-careful, as his Númenórean
subjects tend to reach their breaking point so soon after their bending.
He adjusts.
“I will tear your mate limb from limb before your eyes,” he tells the female.
She bares what remain of her teeth at him and laughs to his face.
He reassesses. Obviously it is not the female who is the weak link of the pair.
“I will strip her naked and bind her arms behind her back, then turn her out
into the streets of Armenelos. You will not have heard of Armenelos, but it is
a great city of Men, and of late, its people grow restless. I have taught the
king’s subjects all I can of respect, and restraint, and propriety, but I am
never sure how much of my teaching they retain. Your pretty woman would be an
opportunity for me to see.”
The female seems to realize that her mate will break, and rushes to control her
losses while she still can. “Swear you will not harm Mírdir!”
Oh, for the love of Middle-earth. . . “I would never harm him. He is the other
half of my soul.” Not precisely, but the poetry of the thought is unexpectedly
warming.
And still she screams at him. Beside her, her mate sobs and sobs. “Swear on the
Fire, the ever-Flame that made the world! Swear you will let no harm come to
him, by your hand or anyone else’s!”
And again with the assumptions that he would hurt a child without due cause
against it or its kin! The degenerate remnants of the Eldar have become near as
barbaric as their Secondborn brethren. “So I swear, wretch, although any being
alive would tell you that the sacred Mystery is properly called the Flame
Imperishable. Tell me where I might find the child!”
No living creature should retain the ability to speak after feeling the flames
of his wrath, but he restrains his rage: he needs her answer. So still she
gasps on, though her mate beside her now is dead. “Swear. . . on the Void. . .
he will not. . . come to harm. . . by thought. . . or inaction. . .”
Despite himself, Mairon admires the preciseness of her thinking under pressure.
Just for that, he decides, he will let her die after all.
“I so swear. Where is he?”
“On. . . your master. . .”
“I have no master, wench.” He wrenches her head up by her chin. “Still. I swear
upon the one who once thought that he was.” His hand is sullied further as what
is left of skin and sinew and bone alike crumble to ash at his touch. “Good
enough for you, finally?”
Each syllable is punctuated by another touch to her face. He puts no force into
them, deals her no further blows, but every stroke is agony without death, soot
without fire, heat without radiance. “Where. Is. The. Child?”   
There is a small sound behind him, and Mairon turns. An Elf-child stands in the
doorway, and by the tear-tracks running down its chubby face, has been standing
there for some time.
Its wretched progenitors dismissed, Mairon kneels before his lover.
“Celebrimbor?”
The Elf-child tries to peer around him. “Naneth?”
It is immediately apparent that Celebrimbor has buried himself, and very deeply
indeed: has become, in all essence, an actual child. It is fascinating, and
frustrating, and oh so very like his stubborn love that Mairon could weep for
the sheer joy of finding him again.
The development of the Firstborn mind at this stage is something of a mystery
to him – and one that, suddenly, he looks forward to studying – but Mairon
imagines that this Elf-child will likely remember its parents for some years,
until he has laid down enough new memory tracks to overlay the ones it has
constructed featuring its progenitors. So Mairon lays a hand to its forehead,
and, with a soothing motion, wipes away its memory tracks for the last rising
of the Sun – enough time to smooth away the sight of charred bodies and stark
bones, but that is all. Any more, and he hazards damage to its body and
Celebrimbor within it. This is not a risk he is not willing to take, especially
not when there are other methods: less dangerous and more tried, but equally
effective. He will have to be this one’s beloved, and master, and mentor, and
homemaker, before he can retake his rightful place as its lover and lord.
He sighs. The things he does to demonstrate his devotion. 
“I am Tar-Mairon, little one. And you will be coming with me.”
                                     ~ ~ ~
He calls the child Khimil. He finds he cannot quite use his lover’s proper name
yet.
(He refuses to even entertain the notion of calling the child Tyelperinquar.
That cursed name had only been revealed to him a short while before the end,
and its entrance into his time with Celebrimbor had marked the transition into
a stunning week of false intimacy – and then several years of pointless
distance before its bearer’s senseless death. Mairon will not use it, or its
even more noxious diminutive, ever again.)
In fulfillment of his earlier realization that he must be many things to this
child, Mairon ensures that Khimil receives only the best of what Numenór has to
offer. He furnishes a luxurious suite for it, and cycles through caretakers
until he finds an old nurse who looks about as unlike its dam as possible.
(Although the eventual discovery that the crone is telling Mairon’s child
revisionist myths of the Eldar and Valar is maddening, and Mairon resolves that
he will care for Khimil himself from that day forward.)
(Happily, Khimil gives no sign of grief when Mairon orders the old nurse burnt
in the very next day’s sacrifices.)
After that initial mistake, Mairon also makes certain to give the child a
proper education in addition to a warm, stable home life. He brings Khimil with
him to all functions held in Melkor’s name, teaching him the respect and
deference that he had so often lacked in his former life; he furnishes the
child with all the age-appropriate implements of his former trade, waiting with
soft fondness for his lover to rediscover the joys of craft.
And even when their second life together is not perfect, Mairon is patient.
When Khimil cries at the necessary rites of blood in Melkor’s temple, Mairon
indulgently permits him to take only the smallest bites of the sacrificed
flesh, and even pretends not to know that Khimil will later induce retching to
rid his pitiably small stomach of the meat. He simply holds the sobbing child,
and wipes away its sweat, and heals the acid damage accrued over time to its
teeth.
When Khimil takes to the forge dutifully, rather than with the joy of his
previous life, Mairon takes care to offer the same amount of praise and wonder
at his abilities, and will don even the most lopsided token with every
semblance of pride and gratitude. He does not even straighten the chains or
refine the jewels he is gifted with, and he will publicly silence any who even
looks askance at the crooked pieces.
When Khimil cringes at his disciplinings, Mairon ensures that he explains the
necessity and relative easiness of every punishment. It is important that the
child understand why it was chastised and how much worse the correction would
have been had it not been undertaken by Mairon, who cares for him so.
Mairon does not understand why his love still feels the need to act out such
rebellions, but he has long since accepted that these small mutinies are part
and parcel of who Celebrimbor is. And at least he is doing far less self-
destructive things with that character flaw, this time around.
                                     ~ ~ ~
Mairon has always taken joy in teaching, and instructing the one who will
become (grow into? re-become?) his lover is an especial pleasure.
“Repeat to me the properties of Song.”
“ ‘It encompasses all notes, but is itself One. It takes all forms, and itself
retains none. It surpasses all properties, but itself does not overcome.’ "
Tapping his right foot at the end of every clause, Khimil singsongs his way
through the list. Another matter seems to occupy the forefront of his mind.
Mairon decides to test him on this, rather than on his lessons. “Whatever your
concern, I cannot help you address it if I know not what it is.” But he does
not name Khimil’s trouble, instead choosing to wait and see if the child will
be able to guess how his mentor knew he was distracted.
Khimil’s eyes blink as, Mairon imagines, he reviews his own behavior for the
signs that betrayed him. Eventually he settles on his tapping foot, and stills
it, guiltily. Mairon rewards him with a gentle smile, illustrating that he is
not displeased: after all, Khimil himself was able to identify the behavior and
correct it.
“Very good.”
Khimil gives him a small, shy smile in return, and Mairon is filled with a rush
of affection – and, oddly enough, for the child itself as it is now, not just
for the Celebrimbor he will become.  
 “So.” He decides to test Khimil’s obedience in another way: he asks for the
truth aloud, rather than tapping for admittance at the gates of the child’s
mind. “What is troubling you?”
Khimil will not meet his gaze. Although this is a serious lapse of etiquette,
Mairon allows it this once, sensing that the question is serious – and all the
more reason to praise the boy’s growing ability to articulate himself, rather
than leave the truths unsaid and waiting for Mairon to pick from his mind.
(Another bad habit from his previous life that Mairon is helping him to
outgrow.)
"Did I have another name once?" Khimil asks.  
Oh. Oh dear one, you certainly did. . . But Mairon remains placid. As the
reincarnation of a spirit freed from the Halls, Khimil’s dreams are unique: in
them, he re-experiences Celebrimbor’s life. Though he does not have time to
stand watch over Khimil’s sleep every night, (precious as the boy is to him)
Mairon has seen Khimil dream of Elves who must be Celebrimbor’s own birth-kin,
and of the founding of Eregion. Annatar has not made his appearance yet.
But Mairon finds that he is curious, all the same, of what Khimil has most
recently learned of himself. Of Celebrimbor.
“Did you dream of another name?” In response to this question, Khimil nods.
"Tell me."
The child takes a deep breath and finally raises its gaze to meet his eyes, and
Mairon waits – not anxiously, but with anticipation – for it to reveal that it
remembers his true name. But instead, Khimil stumbles over a handful of
detested syllables. “Ty- elpay? Ty-ell-perin-kar. Something like that.” The
child turns to him, fretful, and Mairon has all he can do to force a smile.
After all, Khimil has done nothing wrong. Celebrimbor has done nothing wrong.
In the end, all that went wrong came down to the cursed spirit that answered to
that abhorred name.
“Does that sound like a name, my dear?” Mairon even manages a gentle laugh as
he says this.
 “No, Tar-Mairon,” Khimil admits, looking away again.
“There you have it, then. Khimil, look at me! Good boy. But make sure you tell
me if you have another dream about it, darling one.”
He knows Khimil will dream of Annatar, someday. He intends to stop the dreams
there, by whatever means necessary. No point in having Celebrimbor – for he
clings to the hope that Celebrimbor remains a specter within the child,
somewhere, even as every other indicator has begun to point to Khimil being a
different person entirely (no Void NO he cannot think of that, will not think
of that) – make the same old mistake and try to push him away again.
                                     ~ ~ ~
“That is a pretty tune, sweet one.” Indeed, the little harmony is stirring,
even when rendered in Khimil’s juvenile humming. And yet.
“Where did you hear it?” Mairon has not heard it before. He is not best pleased
that something has managed to reach Khimil without his knowledge. He is pleased
still less when Khimil starts, as if he had not been expecting his mentor to
overhear him.
“I, ah. . . “ Mairon can almost see the moment when Khimil decides it best not
to lie to him. He rewards the child with a smile all the same, letting him know
that he saw that moment of indecision. Khimil gulps. “I overheard it on the
ship.”
The child had only been on board the wretched craft for two days - hardly long
enough for him to be infected with information that Mairon has not assessed
first. “Sing it for me.”
Khimil does not hesitate or question him. Good boy. “You’d best keep watch /
You’d best not cry. . .”
In the end, the song is pleasing enough: a six-note melody with a simple
refrain. The verses detail how the listener should behave with decency and
compassion: the refrain reminds the listener that authority figures will always
know when one does not.
Apparently it is a children’s song from down near Rómenna. Apparently it is
about him, Tar-Mairon, as a just arbiter who rewards fealty and punishes
disobedience.
Apparently, one of the sailors had held Khimil as he cried in fear when the
ship was brought being back to port, and, thinking his fear was a fear of
Mairon himself, had taught the boy a ditty that the Man’s own children liked in
order to try and calm him.
Apparently, the Men of Numenór do not usually sing the full version.
Apparently, they tend to substitute smaller sins that Tar-Mairon will catch –
the theft of sweets or the breaking of siblings’ toys – rather than lull their
children to sleep with the story of how Celebrimbor Curufinwion concealed the
Three Elven Rings unto his very death.
Luckily, Khimil cannot grasp the utter lies that the one version contains. But
when the child has been sent to bed, Mairon gives orders that the families of
that particular sailor, out to the third degree of relatives by marriage, are
to be located and brought to Armenelos within the fortnight for the sacrifices.
The Man himself is long since dead – by Mairon’ s own hand, of course.
                                     ~ ~ ~ 
Annatar first features in Khimil’s dreams when the boy is forty or so - not yet
quite at his majority, but no longer a child in full. His chest has developed;
his muscles, lengthened; his voice, deepened. Mairon observes these changes
with anticipatory pleasure.
He waits for Khimil to question him about the flame-eyed stranger who has begun
to breeze through his dreams, but the boy is silent and withdrawn. He watches
the priests with a hunted look, and Mairon can feel his eyes follow him
whenever the boy knows his back is turned.
He cannot imagine what has the silly dear worried.
Then, one night, the Annatar of Khimil’s dreams kisses Celebrimbor, and,
laughing, tumbles them both to the floor right there.
It is – an interesting and completely inaccurate reconstruction of what
actually happened. It almost makes Mairon chuckle, just watching it.
Celebrimbor’s shade remembers himself as far more sophisticated – and,
strangely of all things, submissive? – than he actually had been. But still,
the dream’s existence is most heartening.
Afterwards, Mairon waits for Khimil to come to him.
With swift-decreasing patience.
Two nights he waits. Two nights of recollecting how Celebrimbor had pressed the
first kiss to Annatar’s lips, swift and chaste and trembling at his own
audacity; two nights of remembering how Annatar’s swift smile and a hand to the
back of the Noldo’s head, pulling him back in, had assured Celebrimbor that his
attentions were utterly welcomed. Two nights of recalling how Celebrimbor had
pressed Annatar down into the well-worn sheets of the Noldo’s own bed.
Two nights of mounting hunger.
When he realizes that Khimil will not come to him, Mairon goes to him instead.
As he pushes the boy onto his back, Mairon realizes that the feeling roiling
deep within his gut might best be characterized as betrayal. Again, Celebrimbor
has failed him. Again, Celebrimbor has withheld himself.
Again. Again. Again.
Powerless, Mairon bites into Khimil’s neck.
(Not that the boy would know what a lover’s nip is, or that as one of the
Eldar, any violation could be his road away from the life that Mairon has given
back to him.) (Not that Mairon would ever, ever violate him, or that Khimil is
aware of this particular quirk in the nature of the Firstborn. This particular
knowledge has been kept well away from him.)
(Mairon knows it would only cause him undue distress.)
He bites again. Beneath him, Khimil stiffens, but the boy neither cries out nor
expresses any objection. Still, the Voids-damned Valar are the worst of
pedants, and Mairon will not see his pet project sent hurtling back to the
Halls of the dead on a simple technicality. So he bites and pets and croons
until Khimil gives one short, sharp cry begging for completion, and then, only
then, does Mairon loosen his hand.
Their bond is consummated.
(Khimil breathes deep and easy in his sleep, afterwards. Mairon has avoided
that pitfall, then.)
                                     ~ ~ ~
Khimil is sitting up in bed when Mairon bursts into his chambers. He is naked,
as Mairon always prefers him - but he does not look up at his lord, as Mairon
has always demanded.
“Are we all going to die?” He is gazing at the end of the sumptuous, four-post
bed as he asks. He sounds utterly dispassionate.
“We are not.” And yet Mairon has seen the Sea, all in a single great wave,
rising up in the distance: if it continues to grow, and gain momentum, it will
blot out the sky by the time it reaches Numenór. “Get up. Get your robes. Come
with me.”
“I’ll have to kill the rabbits first.”
Damn the boy, damn his hide, and damn the Void-cursed beasts he has taken to
breeding! “We have no time, Khimil!” Mairon is at the bedside now, and reaching
out to take the boy’s hand
But Khimil pulls away, and the roads of his mind do not open. “I don’t see why
I should be afraid,” he says softly, still speaking to thin air.
Because he will die, Mairon could tell the boy who is his paramour. (Not his
lover, he has come to accept: just a biddable and well-trained body that may or
may not hold his lover’s spirit, dormant somewhere deep enough to elude
Mairon’s considerable reach.) (Not that he plans to stop trying: so long as
Khimil still breathes, Celebrimbor lingers.)
Or, more pressingly: because he may not reach Námo this time, if he dies. Who
is to say that the Valar will receive one of their pets again, if it has
imprinted on the wrong god in the meantime?   
But Mairon does not say any of this, for Khimil will not die. (And even if he
does, Mairon has not lost any ground. Indeed, he has even gained some: he now
knows to use an empty vessel the next time he frees Celebrimbor, and to stay
with his lover at all times in order to thwart the world's various attempts to
turn the Elf against him.)
But for now. . .
“Good,” Mairon says, instead. “For you need not be afraid, now or ever. There
is nothing to fear, my sweet one.”
He has finally caught Khimil’s shaking hand, and is pressing it to his lips,
when the wave hits.
 
End Notes
     indulge me a sec after all that, but - Siadea has been a delight
     throughout this whole thing! I mean, she was totally awesome about me
     running away with Khimil in the first place, and then there were some
     amazing conversations about the background of "Across the Sea" that
     left me gaping in awe, and THENNNNN she beta-read the whole thing.
     AND offered tons of tips on the LaCE compliance. Just. . .
     A million thanks <333
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