Chapter Text
“You truly are the great deceiver. You can deceive even yourself”.
Celebrimbor - to Annatar
If they were to switch places now, and Ar-Pharazon lay beneath him, helpless and in chains, the king would probably be biting his lip and digging his nails into the skin of his palm. He would be trying to numb one pain with another. But it wouldn't work, not in this case. He would be lost among the different kinds of torment and drown in them.
Sauron is calm. As calm as he can be in such a situation. He doesn't numb the pain with pain. He pinpoints it. The pain is stabbing and blindingly sharp.
Sauron imagines it as a white star, shooting out sharp rays in all directions.
He concentrates on this star and imagines it shrinking. It doesn't help much when the spasms twist his stomach, but he breathes and continues to mentally shrink this star to a tiny point at the entrance to his body. This pain won't become a tide that overwhelms him; he will control it. It's bearable. He can breathe.
The King even showed a little mercy, laying him on his stomach instead of his wounded back. If the word "mercy" is even appropriate when describing the rape of a prisoner of war. Sauron perfectly understands what is happening.
Ar-Pharazon moves forward, and the threads cut through Sauron's lips when he screames through his stitched lips.
Now it feels not like a point, but like a red-hot rod. Worse, he can't concentrate on it or control it, because at some point the pain is too much. A heavy weight presses down on his torn back, the edge of the collar digs into his collarbone, and his lips, which should have gone numb long ago, feel every thread.
He must concentrate on one thing. Sauron tries to breathe evenly and mentally examines the sensations in his back. It's as if a fir tree is crushing him, and a brood of hedgehogs is trampling between the thorny branches. Then the Maia imagines the outlines of the tree and the hedgehogs trembling and merging into one dark, soft something. This is a blanket. And it's not pain, it's just heaviness. He concentrates on this feeling for two minutes, convincing himself it's just heaviness; a numbness gradually spreads down his spine, making it easier to bear.
He doesn't want to think about his lips. He's saving that for last.
The collar is nothing, a slight nuisance.
The pain between his legs is diminishing, diminishing with every passing moment, the Maia convinces himself. And his body believes it; the sensations are no longer sharp and piercing. They are dull, bordering on numbness, and he can control them.
When it's over, he doesn't lie limp. His nerves are focused, his muscles tense just enough to keep breathing and maintain control.
"Why is even such a dark and vile creature immortal, while we are doomed..." The king twirled the shortened strands of the Sauron`s hair around his finger.
If it weren't for those damned threads, the Dark Lord would have smiled. Thank you, Your Majesty, we've finally hit your weak spot.
Ar-Pharazon seems to have no personal grudge against the ruler of Mordor, no animal hatred for the Darkness. It's not hatred at all, but envy of someone else's immortality and eternal youth. He understands that sooner or later he will die, and he takes out his anger on the nearest immortal being. Unfortunately, right now it's Sauron, but if the king is guided correctly… He will do anything to avoid dying.
"Even your blood is black," Ar-Pharazon said with a mixture of disgust and fascination, and Sauron had no time to prepare for what happened next.
The King abruptly inserted his thick, rough fingers into the bleeding body.
It lasted no more than a couple of minutes. Ar-Pharazon soon pulled his fingers out and wiped the black blood on the Maia's hair; but in those minutes, Sauron nearly tore his lips from screaming. Not so much from the pain, but from the suddenness of the new attack, which left him completely defenseless. His nose was stuffy, and he could no longer breathe freely. Worse, the trembling set in, and the pain began to creep in again from all sides, its tentacles probing into every wound.
Sauron concentrated on the king's voice, but it sounded drunken and incoherent. The Maia plucked names and place names from the verbal torrent. Alas, they were of little use without context. Finally, Ar-Pharazon rose heavily. In a strange gesture of mercy, he threw the remains of the cloak over the prisoner. But at the last moment, he staggered drunkenly, bracing himself on the injured back with his hand to steady himself.
"Don't hiss, don't hiss, snake," the king muttered. He gently stroked the Maia's hair.
Sauron, blinking rapidly and trying to breathe, wondered if this was a mocking parody of affection, or if Ar-Pharazon had realized he'd overdone it and was trying to make amends. Not that Sauron needed anyone's compassion, but these details were important for understanding the king's personality and devising a strategy.
When Ar-Pharazon finally left, the Maia rolled onto his side. He breathed very slowly and carefully. If he relaxed and let go of control, everything would collapse and he would be left alone with this horror.
It was as if he were trapped in a house that was about to fall. Everything around you is cracking, and the roof hasn't fallen in yet only because you're holding it up on your shoulders with all your might. Move, and it will collapse, burying you beneath it. But the roof is growing heavier with every second, and you're growing weaker.
Celebrimbor would have told him to let go and cradled the Maia in his arms until he lost consciousness. But he banished Celebrimbor because he didn't need to see this. He could handle it himself.
The collapse began gradually, with a small, nasty tremor. For some reason, it wasn't the bruises and the wounded backside that shot through, but his barely-injured stomach. His insides twisted, and the next second he felt like vomiting.
He'd been lying on his side, and now he was kneeling, his head bowed low. He was gagging, but he couldn't open his mouth—oh, he tried, but the threads held him tight—he'd cut all over his lips, but to no avail. Sauron was suffocating.
His temples pounded. His vision went black.
It seemed like vomit was already flowing from his nose, mixing with the blood.
Nothing bad had happened… nothing bad had happened…
…The memories of Eru's younger children resembled footprints in the sand. The years, like tidal waves, gradually washed away memories, leaving only the deepest ones. But even these gradually faded.
But Eru did not bestow upon the Ainur the gift of death or oblivion. Their memories resembled a closet, where memories were kept unchangeable and inviolable behind thin doors.
Sauron remembered the first dawn of this world, the first rain and the first thunderstorm, the wreath from a timid girl, the first dead and the endless funerals after the First War, the glitter of the Silmarills and Huan's teeth on his neck...
He remembered Melkor well. He remembered his icy eyes, shining with wisdom and sorrow.
He remembered walking, dazed, through the young world, cold white flakes falling from the sky, and the Teacher bending down, molding a snowball, and laughingly throwing it at the Apprentice. He remembered them rolling around in the snow and laughing. The Maiar had no fathers or mothers—they were created as spirits, ready to serve—but Mairon had a Father. Though he called him formally and respectfully—Teacher. Unfortunately Melkor didn't need him as a son.
After Elhë's death (Elhë, Elhë, how could that be?), after the captivity in Valinor, the Teacher was... wounded. Mairon offered consolation.
Time after time, year after year, Melkor's fits of rage and melancholy left him torn apart. Worse still, the Maia`s mind didn't know how to react. His trained body saw the Teacher as an enemy and strove to attack—with sword or magic. But his heart repeatedly reminded him of the snowy dawn, of the wreaths and Elhë's laughter, and Mairon obediently lowered his head, refusing even the thought of disobedience. Moreover, after yet another outburst of aggression, things became easier. The Teacher apologized, the Apprentice assured him everything was fine; they joked and discussed plans again, as before, and a gentle, weak, vulnerable smile blossomed on the Teacher's thin lips...
When Beren and Lúthien took the Silmaril, Mairon's punishment lasted more than a week. It all ended when he died. He never allowed himself to remember that day in detail or figure out what exactly killed his physical form—the festering wounds from Huan's teeth or what came after. Melkor seemed genuinely frightened then. He poured so much power into the Apprentice's spirit that it was able to create a new form in a matter of days.
When the Teacher was defeated, Sauron felt a strange mixture of grief and relief. He still loved the snow. But sometimes, the sweet melancholy was replaced by vague images of hooks, huge charred hands, his own torn body and spirit. Sauron erected a mental barrier between himself and these memories. This didn't happen to me, he convinced himself, until he believed it. Not to me and not to the Teacher. It was so far away and long ago that it was almost unreal.
But the memories themselves lived on; behind a strong mental dam, they remained as vivid, bright, and clear as they had been centuries ago.
Ar-Pharazon broke the dam.
...Sauron was overcome with nausea. He managed to open his mouth, and now blood and bile flowed out, but the thin slit was insufficient, and the vomit came out through his nose. His vision was black, and he couldn't breathe. Enormous hooks pierced his body, and his severed neck burned. It felt like a red-hot poker had been inserted between his legs. Past pain, present pain, and a premonition of the future all mingled. Sauron writhed on the sticky, stinking floor, barely distinguishing reality from memory, tears streaming down his filthy face. He didn't notice them.