Red Fire, Black Blood

*******

They say that to be evil is to be human. But I am not human. They say that I fell from my precipice, mighty and glorious, to the festering stench of rotting flesh and bloody death. But I did not fall. They say that I violated the older Children, torturing them in chambers of smoke, fire and evil, ripping out hair and heart, smearing, tainting, poisoning. But I did not create anything that did not already exist.

They still do not see.

Manwë resigns himself to eternal passivity, secure in Taniquetil’s height. Still fools, all of them.

One saw through the disguise. One. Fated prince, too proud, too vain to attain the glory that he was capable of. I offered him what he would not get from anywhere else, and he refused. Smote in fire, heady with the passion of his fatal spirit – he died.

Another victory.

Red haired Quendi…..

My blood still boils at the thought.

So perfect. So beautiful. So……invincible.

Just like his father.

Of course, defeat was inevitable. They came, my witless kin, their tails at last removed from between their legs, with their white banners and their detestable radiance. They shouted their war cries – quite loud for ones so tame – killed, slaughtered and mauled with anger in their eyes and grief in their hearts. For even then, they were stupid enough to feel pity.

They could not kill me. No one can.

The prophecy awaits. I will emerge once more with my sword and my crown and my blood.

Then, they shall run.

But I went with them, captor but still not vanquished. For one is never defeated if his legend can still strike fear in the hearts of millions by the mere mention of name. But I went with them, and endured that pathetic excuse for a trial and came to this place. Perhaps Time felt that I had had enough experience, and needed to train another.

But the memory of one who escaped is still not erased.

I should have made you one of my own. Yrch, in your tongue. Even Gorthaur would have been humbled in the face of your terror.

No.

What you did to yourself far exceeded what even I could have done.

Witless, one-handed Quendi warlord, fleeing from his mind and his soul, steeping himself in a curse that would bring nothing but complete destruction of body and spirit. Such a pretty picture it was – the vermillion of the fire, the crimson of your blood, the red of your hair, the gold of your crest. Such a fatal colour.

Passion does not befit the Eldar.

And you had passion. 

But you did not know how to control it. That made you even more foolish than your madman father.

I told you that.

Oh, the lie was worth being able to witness the blood fury in your grey eyes, rimmed with helpless pain and stifled screams.

Your emotion makes you different from him. He knew how to release it in private, miles away from the searching stares of others, in his iron forge, swathed by the mists of smoke and flame. Shards of broken glass and jewel were the result, glittering on the floor of the workshop, shards of dreams realized and shattered for their sheer perfection by their maker. A strange one, Fëanor was. A living contradiction.

Did you have such a release?

You showed it. And that was your downfall.

You are in Mandos, trapped in your own underworld. I am here, enclosed in someone else’s. Yet there shall be a day when we stride out, and combat once more. Who will win then?

Not you, certainly.

But you shall be remembered, even respected for what you did. Your lover freed you, but he doomed your fate. You asked for death, and he gave you what you detested – life. Did he understand your nightmares, maimed one? Did he hold you in the night and whisper comfort? Did his death wrench the last vestiges of soul from your withered heart?

The heart. What a wonderful invention for torture.

I must thank Eru for creating it the next time I meet him.

You asked for death while you sang on my peak. What a beautiful song….holding the wealth of the tears that never rolled down your sunken cheeks. Death – that you pleaded for, and never received. Death – that he got. But then, Findekano was always more fortunate than you.

We spoke long, you and I. But now, the more I think of it, I spoke, and you listened.

You listened with your eyes, pools of dreaded storms, holding within all the hate that you would not mouth. You listened with your body, that bore the marks of your silence. You listened with those wonderfully pointed ears, trained to catch even the faintest murmur.

The fires danced below you, and you spent all your time staring into them. What did you see? Did you see your end – wreathed in madness and self destruction? Did you see yourself with the sword, waltzing among armies, administering the peace of death to those thousands of innocents who felt the steel of your blade? Did you hear my words and feel my whip, reliving the torment that I relished?

I unleashed every torture on you. And you still walked.

What a pair we made in the fire, Russandol.

Red. Black.

Black. Red.

********

From the Silmarillion’s ‘Of the Voyage of Earendil and the War of Wrath’, we see that Morgoth isn’t actually dead. He is trapped in the Void, whose doors are guarded by Earendil.

Maitimo/Russandol – names for Maedhros.

********

A/N – The Fic That Sprung From Nowhere. 

Do read and tell me what you thought, even if you want to plead with me to stop writing vague rambles. ;)

All comments/criticims/suggestions can be mailed to just_sphinx@yahoo.com . Many thanks!