Chapter Text
Cold, Aule thought as he watched the firelight dance against Mairon’s back. He’s cold. Was it the war that did that to him? Or was it always there, and I just didn’t see it?
Mairon held no hammer, worked no anvil, and honed no tools. He stoked no fire and shaped no metal. He did not even seem to register Aule’s presence. He simply stood in the empty workspace and stared at these things, the trappings of his age-old trade, while the last of the embers died. They never quite went out entirely, not when Aule was manifest in his own hall; the forges were a place of perpetual warmth. But the way his apprentice stood motionless in the cradle of that warmth made Aule imagine that a chill had entered the room.
His apprentice. After three ages, he still could not stop himself from using the term. Yavannah would chide him for it. His wife was the heart of all green and growing things, and growth meant progression. A seed that stagnates in the earth cannot bloom , she’d told him, and he’d tried to find it in his heart to leave Mairon there, in the figurative earth where his wife supposed all his scars lay. Leave his memory to fade so that he, the patron spirit of all things created by hand, could turn his attention to those that needed it most. Those still under his guidance.
But he never could, and then suddenly three ages had passed and the Valar were scraping fragments of Mairon back together from the four corners of the earth to reforge him in the heart of the Mahanaxar, and Yavannah had not brought it up again.
Time was trivial in Valinor, but enough of it had passed that Mairon’s presence in the forge no longer surprised the students. He had stepped out of the Circle of Doom red and vibrant, with threads of molten light in place of the ring finger on his left hand, and with Manwe’s blessing he had been returned to Aule’s domain. There he stood and watched the apprentices at their work, or wandered through the isles of ceramics and gold figurines cooling on the display tables, or stared out the windows. Rumor had it that he’d been seen actually working the forge on one or two late evenings, but no new projects had ever displayed themselves in the shop and, well, red hair tied up in a bun was awfully common among the Maiar who frequented Aule’s complex at night. They’d assumed, as they grew accustomed to his hovering presence, that he simply needed time to readjust. He had recently been ripped apart at the seams, after all. And stolen off to the darkness long before that.
Poor thing. So much promise. So much potential. Or so Aule had heard them say. They’d stopped whispering in his presence after the first few centuries of Mairon’s absence, perhaps assuming their hushed comments were no longer such sensitive material in the ears of his former master. Aule had never had the heart to respond.
Mairon. His robe was velvet, rippling wine-dark in the firelight like so many glinting rubies, and his hair tumbled like molten steel down his shoulders in an array of curls, but beneath the surface of him the ashes were cold. And he’d been so quiet. From the moment he’d stepped down from the seat of the Powers of Arda, freshly molded in the glory of what the Valar’s magic could restore to him, he had said not a single word. Not even a sigh. They’d all thought it was a cause for respectful pity, and had given him their distance. Feeling chilled and anxious -- and restless for reasons he had not yet shared with anyone -- Aule stepped softly into the room.
“Mairon,” he said, by way of greeting. Forced casualness. A question straining to be asked.
Mairon did not answer. With his back to the forges, he stared out the window, watching the rays of the sun slide from lazy afternoon into tepid evening. Aule stepped closer, folding his great burly arms across his chest, and stared out the window as well.
“Some of the apprentices have been talking,” he said. “The newer ones. A few of the older ones as well. There’ve been stories going ‘round, from what I hear. About you. Seems they’re hoping your being here means you might start working again. Short memories on some things, longer on others, I s’pose.”
Mairon did not answer.
“Yavannah sends her regards,” Aule tried. “She missed you, I think. Wouldn’t ever say it out loud -- you know how she is -- but still.”
Mairon did not answer.
“...Mairon.”
Mairon did not answer.
Aule sighed, a great billowing sigh like the breath of a bellows, and stepped back. Left stranded in the quiet, he began to browse the collection of items Mairon had selected to stare at this evening. A pair of tongs, black with soot. A wax mold for a chain link. A pair of thick gloves. A pile of new hinges. An apron, half-folded and hanging off the workbench. Aule frowned and picked it up to straighten its wrinkles and hang it properly by the door. Mairon’s silence branded the space between every heavy footstep.
Aule hung the careless apprentice’s apron, turned to face the Maia, and studied him long and hard.
“The others think you were tricked,” he said, his voice a low roll like the suggestion of thunder over a distant meadow. “That you were duped. Warped. That he bent you out of shape, like a piece of hot iron. That it wasn’t your fault. But you’re too smart for that.”
His footsteps started up again, bringing him slowly back to the window. “I don’t think that’s true,” he said to Mairon’s motionless back. “Is it?”
“You’d be the first to believe it,” said Mairon.
Hearing the Maia’s voice gave Aule something of a head rush. This was the first time he’d heard that silvery tone since the age of Almaren. How familiar it was, despite all that had passed! He mastered himself quickly, careful not to broadcast his hopefulness to the room at large.
After all, this was still Sauron the Abhorred standing in his forge.
“Why did you leave?” the forgemaster kept his tone neutral. Mairon glanced at him -- a single golden flash of iris -- and returned his gaze to the window, saying nothing. “Mairon?”
“Nothing I could say would make you understand if you don’t already.”
“Try.” Aule gestured to the empty forge. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”
Mairon did not answer. The shadows in the courtyard outside lengthened, deepening to violet. Aule watched him until the stars came out. Nighttime grew thick throughout the room. Behind him, the glowing goals simmered down to a faint blush of red in the dark.
“I will be here every evening,” he said to his apprentice’s silhouette. “And I will ask you the same question. You may choose to answer it someday, or you may choose never to answer it. But I will never stop asking. Goodnight, Mairon.” Uprooting himself from his post at Mairon’s shoulder, he took his leave. The heavy oaken doors swung shut on his retreating steps, leaving Mairon alone.
Mairon did not answer the next day, nor the day after that, nor three or four or five days after. For a century and a half he did not answer, and slowly Aule learned not to expect him to. Yet every night he came to Mairon through the oaken doors, stood by the window and asked the question. He was consistent, if nothing else. Occasionally after asking, he would sit and speak to Mairon at length, telling him of the passing of the days, the workings of the heavens and earth, the great mines in the north of the realm and the new works being crafted. He recounted the migration of the Ainur from Almaren to Valinor and the rebuilding of Aule’s forges there. He carried Yavannah’s messages, told Mairon of the hopes and ambitions of his newest apprentices, and reported the comings and goings of the Powers. He shared his opinions, his analyses, his optimism, his misgivings. It became routine: finish the work of the day, dismiss the students, dine with his wife, return to the forge, talk to Mairon, and leave again. Throughout it all, Mairon never answered. He didn’t even seem to notice, or care about, the forgemaster’s presence. Whether Aule came or went, spoke or was silent, Mairon’s indifference was an absolute bordering on law.
It was on the night of the accident that Aule finally found he had nothing to say. They hadn’t meant any harm by it; many of Lord Manwe’s spirits were simple creatures, carefree and joyful, tumbling about at the tops of mountains where their freedom of movement was greatest. But a late summer storm over Tirion had sucked cool air down from the high reaches, bringing a slew of wind spirits with it, and a tower that Aule’s apprentices had been eagerly constructing was toppled down the hillside. Namo had assured Aule that his forge Maiar would reform whole and unharmed, but some of them had been so young. New arrivals to Arda, small and humble among spirits, still learning how to formulate themselves. It might be half a millenium before he would see them again.
The collapse had been visible from the forge balconies. The students at work there had rushed to the windows, crowding the very space where Mairon now stood and uttering small symphonies of dismay. Aule himself had been away in the north mines, overseeing the excavation of a new branch. By the time he’d sensed his people’s distress and flown back to the forges in a fiery wind, it had been too late. The damage had been done.
“I should have been there,” he whispered to the forge. His whisper settled in the corners of the room like dust, thick and heavy. At the window, Mairon’s shadow stretched thin through the empty silence of the afternoon.
“The children died first,” said Mairon’s voice.
Aule lifted his head. The Maia’s back was still turned to him. He was so still that Aule almost wondered if he’d imagined the utterance. But as he watched, one of Mairon’s hands -- the one with tendrils of woven light in place of his ring finger -- wandered to the nearest object on the workbench, a tong handle, and clenched softly around it. Aule, seated across the room, shifted to face him more fully.
“I’d thought to put them in the safest place,” Mairon continued, voice flat and blank as a clean work desk. “The old, the injured, the sick. Those too young to work or fight. I made them a citadel and built my tower atop it, so I could see anything and everything that approached us. I made it so that nothing could ever reach them. But when the tower began to fall, I could hear them screaming below me. Every second of it, I heard them. Down to the very last.”
Aule stood up and approached the window. Mairon’s eyes stared ahead, shining and golden, slitted pupils wide in response to something only Mairon could see. But there was no panic in his fair face -- only an immense emptiness.
“I thought I had made every provision for them,” Mairon said in that same blank voice. “I refused to make the same mistakes we’d made before. I put protocols in place so that were I to weaken, or fall into madness, they would continue on without me. I stored away reservoirs of magic for them, to be used only in emergency or in the event that I could no longer reliably lead them. I built walls and havens and instructed the people in their cultivation. I raised every city on stable ground, free of faults. I taught them to build so that no impact from any angle could break their walls. Excepting from the very top.” The magic woven about Mairon’s left hand pulsed red and swollen. “I created a whole landmass dedicated to safeguarding the weakest of my people, and the one thing that still killed them was me.”
“We never heard any stories of children beyond the mountains,” Aule said quietly.
“Of course you didn’t. Tales of war are rarely without agenda.”
“So you suggest that all the reports of all the Noldor and the Beleriand elves were falsified? That’s quite the accusation.”
Now Mairon turned to look at him fully, and his eyes glowed with disdain. It was faint, but it was the most emotion he’d displayed since his reformation. “Do you know the size of a population required to maintain an army?” he said.
“It was never my realm,” said Aule.
“Allow me to educate you for a change, then. For every unit of infantry combatants, one requires support elements such as scouts and snipers, medical aid, clothing, arms, ammunition, food, and kit repair access. The medical staff must be well trained, with access to mentors and resources, and the material elements of the unit must be farmed and manufactured, as well as transported, which itself requires bodies and resources. The centers of farming and manufacture from which these things come require sufficient populations in which to be built, which means one must have access to engineers, architects, miners, craftsmen, mathematicians, biologists, farmers, livestock and hands to tend it, waste management, hard labor, and food and supplies with which to feed, house and care for all of the above. All things considered, we may estimate that a well-supplied army of any given size counts for only four to seven percent of the total population of a province, assuming the province in question is not under heavy duress at the time of estimation. And all of these biologically-constructed individuals require a natural and relatively easy means of reproducing themselves. So yes, forgemaster, there were children beyond the Black Gate. I assure you, I had far more civilians under my care than I did combatants.”
For a time Aule was quiet. The little flicker of fire in Mairon’s eyes faded and died, and he turned away to resume his vigil. How different he was, thought Aule, watching the last of the evening light leave his hair. The silvery voice he’d thought he recognized was in truth steelier, darker, heavier than Aule remembered it. Soft in ways it had once been sharp, and iron-spined in places it had once fluttered. Some dire necessity had stripped away its superfluous edges and polished it to an iron rod. A small part of Aule wanted to respect the change. The greater part of him feared it, mostly because he did not understand why it had come to be.
“Why did you leave?” he said, once again.
The indifference fell again over Mairon’s face like a mask, and he did not answer. Instead he drew his robe closer about his shoulders and turned to the door. “Goodnight, Aule,” he said, and disappeared into the oncoming night. Aule remained for a long time on the bench in the dark, his great broad shoulders hunched, his head bowed heavy in thought.