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The flames ascend voraciously toward the heavens, coiling into elongated fingers and concentric rings of smoke.
The air is suffused with the acrid scent of incinerated flesh and incense, a vain oblation to an impotent deity, incapable of intercession, either for these wretched beings or for himself. I stand aloof, observing yet another worthless soul consumed by the relentless conflagration atop the Meneltarma.
It does not stir me. Not in the slightest. These smoldering, futile human remains. Their torment is remote, insignificant.
I have borne witness to suffering of far greater refinement.
I close my eyes, and within the abyss behind them, I discern him.
There was a time when I was formless, devoid of substance, a sheer will that seethed, lamented, and yearned. I was tethered to nothing—untamed and unshaped—a tempest bereft of an eye.
And then, there was him.
"Your ostentatious control is but a fool’s deception. Even ensnared within your dominion, you shall never truly claim me,"
Ah, Celebrimbor.
I could no more restrain myself than a river could command its own cessation.
He was fire and ferocity incarnate, reckless and obstinate beyond reason. Where I seethed, he burned with equal intensity. Where I aspired, he too yearned for something loftier, something forever beyond my grasp. He was resplendent, unyielding, brilliant.
A mere elf... yet so much more.
I loved him for that. And for that, I destroyed him.
And by destroying him, I revealed a flaw within myself: lack of dominion.
Control is power. Order is strength. To rule is to be absolute. One must hold mastery over oneself.
I, who shaped the will of others as if they were molten metal. I, who bent empires and kings as easily as the forge bends iron. I despoiled perfection and paraded it as a banner.
Even now, after his body was reduced to ruin, he remains. Watching me. Waiting. In the edge of my vision, as a shadow. In the weight of silence. In the iron forge, now inert. In the memory of silver eyes that perceived me not as a god, nor a sovereign, but as something diminished. Something undeserving. Something lesser.
Beneath his gaze, I was naught.
The wind veers, bearing the sour stench of immolated flesh. My eyes open and I also pray for this impotent deity but it is of no consequence.