Angband Elrond Au - Tumblr Posts

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.

Current WIP- angband au portrait. I feel like I've sold my soul for next day and a bit to work on this

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.

Sing for me, my Elrond

Peredhels get...hungry in Angband.

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.

He had always been an entertainer

He had always been an entertainer. There was no point to music, no purpose to it if it was kept private. Music was supposed to be shared, to be heard, and he loved being able to provide that, to make people happy.

It had been easy in Valinor. He had been happy. He had large audiences, and fans, and friends that would invite him over to talk about composition and... and then-

and then there had been an oath and blood in the sand and that was when he had first woven Song with intent to harm; telerin eardrums bursting at his screams and his voice weaving terrible fear into their hearts until they were insensate enough for Celegorm to neatly behead them. When they had burnt the boats he rose his voice in Song so it would be quick and realised only too late that he had drowned out his brother’s screams.

There had been no time for song in Beleriand. No time for song, only Song to drive back the enemy and keep his forces going until they collapsed and then force them back to wakefulness again to toll another day. They cursed his name; tried to mutiny many times until the Dagor Bragollach where his song was the only thing that kept their horses ahead of roaring fire.

He lost track of time after that. The blood on his hands was too much and the empty eyes of his fallen brothers followed him always. He swept though Doriath in a daze, barely remembering the fallen until he slept and they returned to torment him.

His remaining brothers didn’t acknowledge him anymore. They couldn’t piece themselves back together, never mind having time for him. When they discovered the Silmaril was in the Havens he had almost wept with joy. It would be over soon, one way or another.

And then he lost another brother and Elwing had ran and he could not bear anymore blood on his hands. He regrets keeping the twins. He was the one the doomed them to the Iron Hells.

He belongs in Angband. He is a monster, a kinslayer. As they take the price of his crimes out of his flesh he dutifully recites the name to every life he has ruined in one way or another. The Lieutenant rips through his head and carefully extracts all his memories of happiness until he’s with nothing but pain and did you leave your victims in a better state? I think not, little jester. The only mercy he is granted is the twins; the twins who shine still, and take joy from his music.

He knows not where Maedhros is. He does not ask. He did not let his victims know if their loved ones were alive and he does not deserve the mercy.

He is scared that his brother will see how quickly he gave in.

He sings in blackspeech now. It tears up his throat and blood wells at his lips as he chokes, but he keeps singing. His audience of orcs jeer and throw their food at him when it isn’t to their liking. He has blasphemed against the Valar and his family so much that the humiliation of it barely registers any more. He sings of his own failures, of Gondolin’s fall, of Fingon’s death, and Finrod’s pitiful attempts to best the Lieutenant. His Highness raises his glass in approval and he knows he will be allowed eat with the twins tonight. He will gorge himself on questionable elf, he knows it’s elf meat and drink stagnant water and the memories of feasts in Valinor will fade. Afterwards, he will give the Lieutenant his pound of flesh for his crimes and then play the harp until blood runs down his arms and his fingers are rubbed raw to the bone.

He always had been an entertainer.