Chapter Text
The world used to be so grand.
There is a strange nostalgia that overcomes him as that thought slips into his head. Here, alone in this dimly lit room, surrounded by bookshelves upon bookshelves stacked to the brim with scrolls of brittle parchment, Mairon finds his gaze on the page before him slipping.
Or, perhaps more accurately, he is the one who is slipping.
He sucks in a breath and puts the feathered quill pen in his hand back to the parchment, finishing out the last few sentences carefully before shifting it to the side to let the fresh ink dry. As his pen dips into the inkwell, his other hand is already reaching for a new paper to lay before him. His eyes scan over the words-a proposed treaty-before he sets the pen down anew, scratching out entire sections of the wording with extreme prejudice and writing notes in the margins.
Treaty is not exactly the correct word here. Officially, yes, the document lying before him is a proposal for an alliance between his ever-expanding kingdom and some small mannish settlement. He pauses here briefly, his free hand unfurling a map to confirm the settlement is in the correct place before he continues marking down corrections.
Unofficially, both he and the author of this treaty are aware that Mairon’s patience is as thin as his armies grand. He is willing to negotiate, naturally, but in the event discussions draw out he is equally as likely to simply burn the kingdom off the map with a company of orcs. The treaty is a farce. The terms are his and his alone. Anything beyond that is merely an extension of his goodwill, and a way to attempt to avoid undue casualties to the might of his army.
Yes, the world used to be so grand.
Mairon can feel his thoughts drifting and he allows them to wander, even as his pen scratches corrections into the treaty.
He remembers staring down at the tiny, scaly, ugly creature at his feet for the first time that Melkor was so proud of. ”Dragons,” he had called them when he produced them with a flourish. Mairon had fixed him with a look that he had barked out in laughter at.
”Yavanna made lizards already,” Mairon had informed him dryly in response, and Melkor’s delight quickly evaporated with a huff of annoyance. He had stomped around and raged for years after, trying to explain how they were different. ”So they are lizards but bigger,” Mairon had replied when Glaurung grew to such a size that it towered over even the largest of his wolves. ”Why do they need to breathe fire? We have Balrogs,” he had insisted with a pointed look towards the charred ends of Melkor’s sleeves. Melkor had pouted at that, but several hundred years later when Ancalagon the Black hatched from his egg, Mairon had looked at the wings upon his back, considered it, and then nodded in approval.
His hand sets the edited treaty to the side, at the same time drawing up a fresh parchment to create a new, fresh copy of the document to return to the kingdom. He’ll keep the edited copy as a record for himself to avoid pasting parchment.
He recalls staring across the forge at Celebrimbor, watching him work. The sound of the hammer falling upon gold and silver was relaxing enough to dull him enough until his eyes slipped closed, head resting upon one arm resting carefully, the elbow of which was balanced on the corner of a small, stone table.
“Sleeping, Annatar?” Celebrimbor had asked quietly after a few minutes, his voice barely a whisper above the noises of the forge. Ever ignorant to the fact that Mairon could do no such thing.
“No,” Mairon replied, finding humor in the fact Celebrimbor took such care to keep his words quiet when his arms continued to mold the ore into fine jewelries with the rhythmic, loud clang of the hammer. As if a few quietly spoken words would somehow rouse him from sleep where the crash of metal on metal failed. He did not open his eyes though. “Merely listening.”
Things feel so mundane. Dull and lackluster, and with each scratch of his pen Mairon feels himself digging a rut into the ground, like the wheels of a wagon drawn across the same path over and over. A familiar path that each day he feels drawn deeper into, over and over and over again.
Mairon is not even certain what he is doing anymore. World domination, he reminds himself blandly, feels himself falling back into the wagon rut all over again. Why? Because it needs to be fixed. And the paperwork? Well… He stares down at it, hand still moving across the page even as he tries to think of a proper justification.
“MASTER!”
There are two bangs in rapid succession. The first, when Angmar charges into the room without any trace of grace, dignity or composure befitting his station, throwing the door open so fast that it cracks against the adjacent wall. The second, when Mairon casts Angmar back into the hallway so quickly that his back smashes against the far wall. Mairon pins him there with a deft bit of magic, several inches off the ground, the stone of the far wall groaning under the onslaught. A few chunks of rock already broke free with the initial crash, and rain to the ground in a cloud of dust.
Mairon himself has not moved from where he is seated. His eyes remain glued to the parchment in front of him, staring at the words he carefully wrote out with a steady hand which devolve into a massive, irregular line of ink which was drawn across the length of the page in his surprise. There’s a small hole, even, where the tip of his quill caught on the parchment and dragged the page until it tore.
What a waste he thinks, quashing the fury inside of him quickly. He’ll have to redo the entire page from the top. The thought tempts him to set the parchment and Angmar both ablaze, but unfortunately they’re both more useful to him whole. The paper as a reference and Angmar…as a doorstop, perhaps.
The idea crosses his mind that perhaps he should just delegate the entire stack to Angmar as punishment, but he banishes the thought just as quickly as it arises. Angmar’s handwriting is, simply put, atrocious. Having him do anything involving paperwork only doubles the work since he’ll eventually have to either settle for rewriting the notes himself, or delegate it further with someone with a tolerance for paperwork.
A quiet, pained cough from behind him alerts him to the fact he still has Angmar pinned against the wall outside. Ah, right. Mairon’s lips quirk into the barest hint of a frown before he composes himself and sweeps out of his chair. His hand briefly brushes on the ornately carved metal, dragging across the cool surface as he prowls across the room and out into the hallway.
“Angmar,” He calls out sweetly, and a cruel satisfaction rises inside him when the once-king shifts and averts his gaze away. Oh good, he is aware he’s done something wrong. Mairon lets him squirm there in silence a moment longer before he continues, asking, “Are you a child?”
“No...?”
“Truly? You sound uncertain."
“No, master, I am not a child.” Angmar’s words seem somewhat strained by the pressure on his chest and, like the very good lord that he is, Mairon relaxes his hold just a little. Not enough to drop him, of course, because if he let him go now he would scuttle away and no lesson would be learnt.
“Really?” Mairon asks, head inclining slightly to one side. “Are you an orc, then? A troll, perhaps?”
“No, master."
“Curious,” Mairon says, pretending to fuss over these answers, as if he cannot quite make sense of them. “Curious indeed, because while you certainly do not look like a child, nor an orc or troll, you find it perfectly reasonable to run about my halls, shouting and stomping about like one. So I ask again-are you certain?”
“My apologies, master."
Mairon considers him for a few moments before he finally relents and releases his hold on Angmar, letting him drop to his feet. He stumbles briefly before he catches himself, though he falls to his knees anyway in a low bow. Mairon regards him for a moment before he sighs. He has no real interest in tormenting his servants like this. He did not induct them into his service through use of fear, and-influence of the ring or not-he would not keep them loyal through excessive force.
Still, the mess with the parchment has left him frustrated and his nerves frazzled, especially because he knows this entire ordeal was likely over something trivial, like a request for a new horse or a new sword, or requests to learn more about the magics and history of the world. He does not even need to hear Angmar say it. Had it been important, the moment he was apprehended he would have apologized and explained what was so urgent instead of growing silent and guilty in that silence. He stares down at Angmar before turning away with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“Clear your mess,” Mairon orders, pointing towards the pile of rubble at the ground, then at the cracked wall. He does not wait for Angmar to respond, instead stalking back inside his workroom and drawing the door shut, locking himself back in the dark with only the blissful silence as company.
And the paperwork.
Ah.
….
A few moments pass before the scratching of his quill resumes.
-----
“I saw Angmar in the hall, my Lord.”
Mairon releases a sigh, as it seems he is destined to be ever interrupted, and turns to face Khamul the flattest expression he can muster.
“Yes, he does live here.”
The laugh in turn does little to smooth over Mairon’s nerves and he stares at Khamul until the man manages to reign himself in and wave off the last few chuckles with a hand.
"Yes, I suppose he does. He-more so than the others-lives in your shadow and follows at your heels like a dog.”
“Dogs are useful,” Mairon replies, his tone as flat as his expression and when the laugh returns he turns back towards his work. Why did he put up with the likes of Men again? It almost makes him want to mourn what might have been. Elves would have been much less trouble, certainly. Except his mind drifts to Feanor and his ilk and his nose scrunches up slightly. That would be monstrous, and the idea of having to deal with servants like that for all of eternity would be probably be enough to consider scrapping the entire ring project just to be rid of them.
“Oh yes,” he can hear Khamul continue even as he turns his attention back to the papers in front of him. He shuffles through them for a moment-taxes, taxes, battle report, notice of surrender, taxes, trade agreement- he pulls that one out of the stack and places it on top-taxes, taxes. Nothing too urgent, fortunately.
Who thought that world domination would be so bland?
Not Melkor, a treasonous part of his brain chimes in, because even during the better times Mairon was STILL stuck doing reports.
“…And wouldn’t you agree?”
“Wouldn’t you agree…” Mairon repeats, his voice trailing off in warning as his eyes glance up at Khamul once again, fixing him with a withering gaze. Careful, that look warns, Do not be so familiar with me. But his tone is mostly because he hasn’t been paying attention to whatever it was Khamul was saying in the first place, and not because he was actually offended in any real capacity.
“Wouldn’t you agree, my lord?” Khamul acquiesces with a grin and a curtsey, and as much as Mairon wants to snap at him for being cheeky the banter leaves him feeling oddly wistful.
“Make yourself useful,” Mairon says instead of reprimanding him or answering whatever question he had asked in the first place, and pushes a stack of papers towards him. Khamul has far better handwriting than Angmar.
“Of course, my lord,” Khamul replies as he sweeps the the papers off of his desk and finds a seat nearby at a smaller, plainer desk. There are several such desks in the room, though most have spent their time gathering dust as few of the Nine have the patience or steady hand required for paperwork. Scholars, Mairon mourns, not for the first time. I should have selected scholars. What use are once-kings?.
Hindsight, hindsight.
One argues he still could select scholars. On the next conquest take care to spare the libraries and the archives, to snatch up a number of Men from within to inflict wretched paperwork upon them instead. More vocal members of the Nazgul have likened the grueling hours of writing to torture in the past, so he could very well just fill the dungeons with a few dozen Men and have them do the work.
The scratching of his quill on the parchment slows for just a moment.
Hm. Delegate, delegate.
No, Mairon eventually decides as his quill resumes its scraping at a regular pace, because the paperwork would still find its way back into his hands one way or another. If not completing it himself, ensuring that it was correct. Furthermore, putting it in the responsibility of prisoners of war meant they would require screenings and teachings until they could replicate his words well enough, and an hour of his time is worth at least twenty in the time of Men.
Perhaps, if he was going for world destruction he could toss the piles of parchment to the winds and simply set the world ablaze until all of Arda was smoldering ash beneath his feet. But, alas, this was a much more cautious game he was playing and it required subtly, grace and, unfortunately, paperwork.
His mind grows silent as he resumes the tedious, familiar work.