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“I wish only to be a lighthouse,” says Annatar, smoky and sultry and sweet to Celebrimbor’s ear. “Nothing more.”
“Is that so?”
This sweetness unnerves him. It is nothing like the bluntness of his father and the gentle guidance of his first king. It, too, is nothing like his mother, coaxing in her insistence of Celebrimbor ever exceeding his previous best. It asks Celebrimbor to stay here, and for all his whimsical desires of creation and legacy, he has never been one to remain under threat of force.
Impossible to uproot, too, when he has made a place his home. He will choose to leave it freely, or he will die in it.
Celebrimbor does not have to think hard to know which is which. “Are you?” He asks again, to Annatar’s silence. “Are you, or are you the flame of a far-off pyre, growing ever closer as the winding of the Road drags me toward it?”
“Do not say such a thing.”
“I am certainly free to.”
Annatar’s arm whips out like a snake; his nails sink in deep like a serpent’s teeth. They do not break skin, no, this being has no need for bloody violence when bloodless violence works just as well.
A shame, really. Maybe Celebrimbor would stand more of a chance to resist him—against his love—if there is blood.
But there is none. It is a clean victory, and a concise one at that.
As you wish. Celebrimbor straightens Annatar’s jewelry and does not quite meet his eye. If you are to be the pyre, the other must be the lighthouse to warn of perilous shores.