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“Mairon!”
The battlefield was barren of life, corpses of the dead littering the ground like debris after a violent storm. Melkor studied each of them, ignoring a rise of panic as it swelled and diminished. Panic was unnecessary, beneath him - an emotion of mortals, of lesser beings. Instead, he focused on senses as they came: the acrid smell of blood and hot, bent steel; the sight of utter destruction; the feel of empty wind as it brushed across his face. Nothing moved, save ripped fabric of banners and forgotten battle standards in that foul breeze.
“Mairon!” he called again, turning his gaze far around him rather than to the dead under his feet. “Sauron, you fool, answer me!”
His booming voice echoed through the lifeless space and received no response. Gathering himself to continue, Melkor stepped onward, over orcs and elves alike, across scattered armor and weapons spattered with blood. The light was dim and grey, and he let his eyes roam quickly. Colors were the same everywhere he looked, blurring and becoming one whether he saw his own fallen soldier or an enemy. They were all the same now, unlikely kin in death as their souls were taken forward together.
It mattered very little to him.
Fallen. He recalled the word with bitter distaste, fury building in his chest toward the messenger who was now dead on his floor. Fallen so many hours ago in this battle of his own creation, against an enemy who sent an entire portion of their army after his lieutenant with the intention of destroying him merely because they saw the chance. Melkor’s own soldiers did not report this to him until their return back, long after the fierce skirmish was finished, both sides fully retreated for recovery.
He continued his search, pushing down that billow of panic that truly could not have existed, not for him.
A flash of auburn, so out of place against steel and spilled crimson, caught his eye just at the corner of his vision, and he turned abruptly. It was hair from under a crooked helmet, strands fluttering in the wind as it picked up again. Melkor let out a sharp cry, moving forward quickly over bodies still in the way, and rolled this one over onto its back.
“Sauron,” he said clearly, expecting a response to the spoken name now simply due to his presence at his lieutenant’s side, and reached up to remove the helmet completely.
He received no reply and the relief he had felt for such a brief moment faltered. He paused, his hands still on either side of the helmet, and took in a deep dent to the sleek metal plating, going nearly through it. A mace had obviously landed a sharp blow to his head and, judging by the beating the rest of his bloody armor had taken, this was likely only the finishing wound.
What gave him the most concern, however, was the stench of unfamiliar magic overwhelming the scent of Sauron’s own. The panic came again, and this time it did not quell so easily.
“Mairon,” Melkor said again, kneeling beside him and reaching out for the gentle pulse of flame he always assumed to be there. Heat did not rise at his insistent tug, and instead he was only met with chilled inner silence. Motions fast now, he jerked the helmet away, dropping it when hair traveled with the steel, caught in the dent from the inside and pulled indelicately from whatever intricate braids he had worked earlier to be left in a messy, bloody clump against Sauron’s head. He prodded it, appalled, and felt the wound underneath.
“Open your eyes, damn you,” Melkor snarled.
The command had no effect, and he could not restrain himself from lifting Sauron’s shoulders and shaking them, only twice. This accomplished nothing save a brief outlet of frustrations, and Melkor gathered him instead against his bent legs, dirty shoulders now on his thighs. His body was limp and unnaturally cold, where he could feel skin revealed above the chainmail around his neck, and the panic seeped inside and turned to a deep fear that something so precious had been stolen so forcefully from him.
But still, a very small ember of flame was there, smoldering far, far down. If that flame could be cared for, cultivated, returned fully to life -
A sudden movement at the edge of the western field caught Melkor’s attention, and his head snapped up. A figure was walking amongst the dead, almost out of his vision. Her armor was silver and rosy gold, shimmering brightly and reflective of the dim light.
Melkor’s first instinct was to fight, to take revenge and shed blood, and he grabbed Sauron’s own exquisite sword from where it had fallen. The figure, still unrecognizable, paused and turned, finally catching sight of them. Melkor’s hand fisted around the sword, ready to attack should this enemy make any movement to come closer, and he pulled Sauron up higher against him to better hold with one arm.
They stared at one another, across that large space filled with death, and he could feel the weight of the unknown’s gaze heavy across him. The decision needed to come quickly.
But then, so faint he nearly missed it, a breath of air puffed outward across his arm.
“Mairon,” he murmured urgently, the sword going lax as he lowered his gaze to the body against him. The breath did not come again, nor did his eyes open, though when Melkor tossed the weapon down and pressed his fingers to Sauron’s chilled face, that tiny ember was flickering only a bit stronger than it had been, ensconced within the tether of the Maia’s soul. Now was not the time to fight.
“Hold tightly, my flame. We will fly together.”
He looked up again. The figure was there, watching rigidly, and Melkor stood very slowly, taking Sauron with him against his chest in a huddled mass of shining metal, torn flesh, subdued cinders waiting to be rekindled. He stepped back, away from any possible confrontation, and made it clear he was retreating. The other, far across the way, was still as stone for a moment longer before the impasse shifted, and then she turned as well to continue her own search through the dead, a silent acknowledgement that they were both after the same.
No, Melkor did not know panic. He did not accept its presence in his mind. Panic made lesser creatures weak. It led to fear, which then led to chaos. And though he greatly reveled in all of these, he never felt them himself. Oh, no. He caused them in others, laughed as mortals fled before him.
But, perhaps, relief - maybe he could admit in that one very short moment - relief after a sharp peal of dread was a sense he understood far too well.