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An Angband headcanon
Angband is designed to be horrific, an abomination of architecture and iron that just looks plain wrong to any incarnate except orcs. It’s a twisting labyrinth of Escher-esque horrors -a contorting mess that would make anyone violently sick if they tried to map it out if they were anything less than a maiar.
Everything in Angband is horrific. Everything except him.
Mairon is beautiful. A single spot of beauty and order in the Iron Hells.
And that draws the elves to him. And they can’t help it. Really they can’t. But he makes something in their hindbrains scream safety in the midst of all the chaos. All they have to do to stay near him is follow his rules. And of course, if the rules get broken, punishment follows.
Its kinder for him to punish them than abandon them to the endless twisting corridors to be picked off by orcs and... other things.
He lets them stay near him, lets them have important roles in his experiments, lets them be useful to him down in the mines.
And they love him for it.
They are not elves anymore... They have the eyes of corpses. But they are nor Orcs. Because Orcs do not take our children when we lock our food up. And although they look like the fair Eldar, they always sing off-key
was in a conversation was @outofangband and we started discussing the concept of Not Elves- too elvish to be orcs, but to different to be elves. Mostly escaped thralls from Angband who came back different, or failed to adapt to life outside the fortress. They are always hungry. And they are always searching for food.
Agriculture in Angband
Elves are good with plants. They always have been- one of the first things they learnt at Cuivienen was how to sing to plants to yield their fruits. Ever have they been in tune with nature and the world around them.
And this is so useful for Angband,
Elves adore nature; everything from the smallest fungi to the largest tree. They cannot help but want to live among it. And Angband needs food for its army.
Being transferred to Agriculture is the ultimate goal for the elves of Angband. If they could just be better, more obedient, more productive, more loyal, then they have a slim chance of being able to be among nature again. Oh, they know it wouldn't really change anything about their situation, but it would make everything so much more bearable. They could live with it. They would put up with anything to be among nature again. They would do anything. And they do.
Angband has a remarkably docile agricultural sector.
Bred in captivity
It is soon discovered that it takes effort to breed elves in Angband.
Orcs breed like rats, and Maiar and Balrogs can’t properly die, and thus don’t really need to be replaced.
But elves come with problems.
No matter how many threats Mairon makes, no matter the methods he uses, he cannot get results. And he tries mostly everything. Melkor wants more elf-slaves, wants the freedom to kill them without decreasing their already dwindling stock.
So, Mairon tries something new.
There are rooms in the upper levels of Angband. Rooms populated by elves taken in early childhood so they do not know the world outside. They are weavers and spinners- nothing like the toiling labour of other captives. They are treated well; kept away from the worst parts of the fortress, and especially from other elves. They are kept happy.
And if the price of this is giving up their children to their masters, well. Its not like they know any better.
So, I had a horrible horrible idea of Morgoth catching wind of the remaining Feanorions now having possession of the remaining heirs of Luthien and managing to bring them all into Angband.
So now Maedhros is doubting whether he was ever rescued in the first place, Maglor has completely resigned himself to eternal torment, and Elrond and Elros have grown up in Angband under the thumb of Sauron and Morgoth.
I’m probably going to use this to explore the workings of Angband and how growing up there would effect E&E. And also how it would mess up Maedhros and Maglor even more.
A diagram of the some of the more common injuries among the elves of Angband. Longer explanation under the cut.
Elves working under Sauron directly often work either as healers or lab assistants or both, and that means they have to wash their hands a lot. This is done with soap with large amounts of caustic soda (lye) because Sauron 1. enjoys cleanliness 2. enjoys watching them wince as they do it.
Weavers/textile workers only develop calluses because they need to be kept happy so they can breed to supply more elves.
Agricultural workers get larger rations because agricultural work is not only physically demanding, its a reward for especially loyal elves, so extra rations are part of their ‘reward’ (they still aren't enough though). Because of the higher risk of infection, overseers are only allowed to use blunt force trauma as a punishment so there isn't a high turn-over rate.
Mining is the lowest position an elf can hold, and so comes with a variety of health problems. Overseers are authorised to whip/beat them, or break bones if they want to. Elves often develop severe lung conditions from toxic fumes or inhaling dust, and its very common to die that way. Miners are also intentionally denied water and food, so dying of dehydration or starvation is also common. It’s also the norm for miners to develop muscular/skeletal issues,
most overseers do not target the legs- an elf can work more with a bad arm than a bad leg.
None of this applies to elves in the throne room. They exist purely at Morgoth’s whim.
The finished portrait of the Angband au
They look almost exactly like Luthien
They look almost exactly like Luthien.
Their jaw shape is slightly different, and the slant of their noses is just a bit off, but those are such trivial things.
They've known it since they first arrived in Angband- their first view of the Lieutenant was his face contorted in a terrifying mask of rage as he snarled at Elros. They are half-convinced the only reason he didn't slay them then and there was that Maglor tripped and revealed there were two instead of one.
Throughout their childhood in the weaving room Maglor is their primary teacher. He tells them of the crimes his brothers have committed against their family, compares them to Luthien in both appearance and temperament. When the Lieutenant takes them away to supplement their education he tells them of Tol-in-Gaurhoth and the witch and her hound that threw him down and stole his lands.
He takes their tiny hands and makes them swear to never do anything like that against him or His Highness. They cry out in horror that they would never do such a thing, and the Lieutenant lets them throw themselves into his waiting arms.
His Highness likes that they look like Luthien. He’s never tried anything untoward, but he likes to pat them on the head and call them Luthienlie when they do something good. It feels vaguely paternal, and they aren't particularly averse to it.
Luthien was good at singing, and to the Lietenant’s joy so are they. He and Maglor teach them Song, how to bring an elf the purest joy, how to make them insensate with terror. They can cast down walls, will rivers to a rage. Elros incorporates it into his work in agriculture- sings crops to a greater yield many times more than normal, sings animals into docility for the slaughter. Elrond learns how to sing the flesh off to get the internal structures of a body before singing everything back together, and how to burn out infection from a wound.
They’re often brought to see new prisoners, along with Maglor and Maedhros.
The Noldor cry out to the feanorions to help them. Maglor cringes behind the lieutenant’s skirts while Maedhros shouts and swears at the maia.
When the Sindar see the twins their faces fall in despair and resignation.
They look almost exactly like Luthien.
They think they had a good childhood
They think they had a good childhood. They don’t remember much of the Before; Elrond thinks he can remember their mother’s smile, Elros thinks she never smiled at them at all.
Maglor smiled at them. Elrond remembers him having a smile as bright as a forge-light, no matter how much his arms shook or his skin seemed to pull. He was the one who gave them lessons in arithmetic, made sure they knew all their letters.
He was always very strict on pronunciation. They never did understand why.
The weaving room was nice. It was quiet and the elves who lived there were kind, if slightly obsessed with their work. Maglor would play for them on the harp, fingers bleeding as he went though the history of his people over and over again.
Maglor would be Gone sometimes. The one time Elros asked him why, he smiled at him, ruffled his hair, and told him not to worry.
“Do you remember the bad things I did? Well, His Highness and the Lieutenant are punishing me for it. That’s what happens to bad people, you see.”
In hindsight he probably shouldn't have said that to children.
The Lieutenant visited them often. Sometimes he would just watch as Maglor played for them, eyes gleaming with a fey light. Other times he would bring them small gifts- sweets and shiny things and soft stuffed animals. Or he would teach them himself, voice rising in Song with Maglor’s accompaniment while they tried to copy him with shaking notes. They liked that the best because he would laugh and hug them and throw them into the air as they shrieked in delight whenever they were successful.
They saw His Highness once a month- the same time they saw Maedhros. They all had dinner on a monthly basis. Elrond and Elros made a game of trying to steal the meat off each other’s plates, the Lieutenant chuckling and occasionally surrendering his own if he was in a good mood.
They didn’t steal off Maglor’s plate. The one time Elrond had he almost vomited it was so over-salted. Maedhros never had nearly enough food to steal in the first place, and the very idea of trying to steal from His Highness made them feel sick.
His Highness was always nice to them, always interested in what they wanted to say. Better than Maedhros, who would always try and stop them eating, who would scream at Maglor and the Lieutenant and even His Highness. But Maedhros would also tell the best stories about his brothers, so he was alright.
They think they had a good childhood.
They might have been lesser, once.
They might have been lesser, once. In a time filled with blurry memories and bright sunshine. In a land adjacent, where they were never beset by orcs, never dragged into the deep and the dark, never forgot the sight of light and stars.
But that was nothing more than a dream to be clutched at in their darkest, most shameful moments.
They learn Song at the knees of the greatest elven minstrel, a forge-maia that could rival Eonwe in might, and the Dread-power Mighty Arising. They learn to Sing with the voices of the long-dead and not-yet-born, too many voices and not enough throats. Their skin cracks like a feathery mantle and their eyes flash with the predatory instincts of one who knows they are untouchable.
They eat better than most. Their teeth have sharpened in Angband and they have learnt how to use them. They sing their nails sharper and harder until they can claw and rip and tear. Their fingers pop and twist and bend as they stalk the labyrinthine hallways.
Angband’s uncanny architecture has no effect on them. They grow up running around the halls; guided by a scratching in the base of their skull that blurs and warps their vision until the corridors re-align and set themselves in front of them in a neat ordered fashion. They learn to hide in the shadows while they do this; other elves dislike the many eyes they have to open, and orcs are not like the Lieutenant and His Highness and treat them like all the others.
They try not to get angry anymore. The last time they did, Elrond was angry at an obstinate patient and in his rage he sang their joints out as their bones cracked to the marrow and blood flowed like an oil spill. Something inside him sang with the thrill of the kill, prey crushed in the maw of a predator.
The Lieutenant had clutched him close and stroked his hair as Elrond sobbed into his chest.
It wouldn't have happened in another life. In another life his first kill would have been a rabbit that he and his brother had hunted. Maedhros would have congratulated them and Maglor would have skinned and cooked it for them all. In another life they didn’t know they could be anything other than elves, didn't know how to properly sing.
In another world they didn’t know what the Lieutenant’s voice sounded like as he sang to them, didn’t know how to creep along the edges of the shadows, didn’t know the sound of their fingers and neck cracking as they shifted their bone structure.
They might have been lesser, once.
The orcs of Angband
Orcish society summed up in one word would be complicated.
It’s a system based on honour- honour of your ancestors, honour you bring upon your family with your productivity and the quality of your service, honour bestowed upon you by The Lieutenant and His Highness.
But it’s also a system heavily divided by blood. How closely are you related to the progenitors? is it in your direct bloodline or is it so distant to be inconsequential? How long has it been since His Highness touched your blood?
There is not an emphasis on war per se, more an emphasis on productivity. His Highness and The Lieutenant have given your family and your blood a function, a duty to perform; whether that be to serve as warriors or making shoes. It is glorious to die in battle, of course it is. But it is also glorious to say you were the smith behind the sword that smote hundreds of elves, that you were the one to train the wargs that made men weep and wail in fear, that you made the shoes that enabled the troops to walk hundreds of miles to give aid to the front lines.
A war cannot be fought with soldiers alone. A mantra they are taught from youth. You can insult another for disobedience, for being to slow in training, for complaining about food. But you do not insult an orc’s craft, you do not call their line of work redundant, and you do not insinuate that one is lesser for not being a warrior. To do so is to bring dishonour on your own blood for His Highness and The Lieutenant have deemed that craft necessary and who are you to disagree with them?
Elves are considered lesser. Well, of course they are. They have not had His Highness’ gifts, they fight him when he attempts to improve them, and they dare to fight him over his rightful property. Some pity them, for they are obviously ignorant and deceived. They wouldn’t help slaves, of course they wouldn’t, they still fought His Highness. Others despise elves- have lost family, lovers, battalions, and have no sympathy left for the crawling cringing things when they return. They deserve everything and more besides.
Men are worse. They die quicker than both Orcs and Elves, and are less fun besides. Worse, there are more of them in Angband, scuttling too and fro akin to so many cockroaches. They breed fast at least. If ever someone gets angry it is entirely acceptable to take it out on man-slaves. They are not permitted to kill the elves because they cannot be easily replaced. Men breed like rats. A dead one is easily replaced.
He has his own secrets
He has his own secrets.
It’s not as if he enjoys it, like he relishes the idea of having to hide things from his brother, but Elrond has always felt just a bit too deeply and there’s no telling what he’d do if he knew.
(it wouldn’t even be on purpose, he knows, but Elrond would bottle it up and up until he burst, and he is far to close to the Lieutenant, either by way of Maglor or his job, and there is no way Elros could ever lie to either of them. They’ve done too much for him, he couldn’t stand it.)
There’s a small hollow just behind his room. The crack to reach it is only about a finger’s width wide, but he can sing himself into it easily enough. It’s maybe three steps wide and he has to hunch over because the ceiling is just too low, but it’s all his. All his and no-one else knows about it and no-one else can bother him in it.
Because the Lieutenant may dote on him and his brother, and Maglor may cosset them far more than they really need, but sometimes he just can’t stand it. He knows Elrond enjoys it, his brother has always been horribly scared that he would be left behind alone and unloved, and he can’t begrudge his brother anything, so he smiles and puts up with it.
(He wants to blame their mother, their mother who was far too young, who still carried the horror of seeing her mother and father die, and could not help it if she called them the wrong names when she felt so alone, who thought the Feanorions mad enough to follow her and dash themselves on the cliffs below and spare her sons. He can’t bring himself too.)
In his room he hides things away. The rags of a co-worker who fell victim to necrosis, the lucky necklace of one of the men who helped till the fields until his body collapsed under him. An old blanket he thinks came from the havens. Nothing awful, nothing seditious, just... things he would rather remember. Because he loves Elrond, and Maglor, and Maedhros, and the Lieutenant, and His Highness, but he knows deep down he is not quite like them, that he may Sing as sweetly as his brother, but they are inherently not the same and there are some times he just wants to be alone and sink into his thoughts. And if all the things he’s collected help him, well, it’s not exactly like anyone was using them.
(And if sometimes he sits in his hollow and dreams of a future without the Lieutenant and His Highness, a future where he has grown old and grey and his twin looks over him still gleaming with youth and he smiles as tears steam down Elrond’s face as he takes one long laborious breath and bids him a a final farewell, well. That’s his private dream. If he wishes beyond anything to experience the vibrancy of life without becoming worn down and world weary as time becomes meaningless, he doesn’t have to tell anyone. It would only upset them anyway to know. They would be happier in ignorance.)
He has his own secrets.
A gift for @outofangband on their birthday! Melkor inspecting his captive, inspired by their amazing writing of Maedhros’ time in Angband