ataraxionlogs | come break me down

Entry tags:

come break me down

CHARACTERS: evil husbands + third wheel (mairon, melkor, am)
LOCATION: 018 » 001
WARNINGS: m for m&m. am is a separate warning on his own.
SUMMARY: certain gifts have been received. they're not enjoyed. and then am.
NOTES: several hours after the jump

He is, quite possibly, in distress.

At least, he thinks this is what distress feels like. It isn't much different from when Melkor had been thrown into the Void. The feeling of not understanding, not knowing what to do, or where to go.

Mairon paces the room, agitated and bristling like a wolf on edge, watched by one nervous wyrmling. A sliver of his fea lashes out, involuntarily reaching to find the one creature on this ship he might possibly have any substantial amount of trust in. And just as quickly he pulls it back in, buries it away deep inside. He needs to calm down, he knows. There could be perfectly logical explanations for this. But he has been here hours, pacing, fuming, and he has found no explanations.

He drifts over to the bureau at the foot of his bed, where a shriveled finger and 15 rings glint dully in the dim light, and opens the velvet jewelry box with numbed fingers to show the gold band resting inside it. A quick visit to the forge proved it genuine, revealed the inscription he had carved into its being. How clearly he remembers it-- the heat of the heart of Orodruin, liquid bubbling rock. The weight of it in his hand, the minds he had influenced with it.

Even when he slips it onto his finger again, cool and smooth, he feels nothing. Not a single speck of the power he had put inside. It makes him want to throw it aside, against a wall, away, at someone. But he doesn't. It stays on his hand, clenching and unclenching into a fist, lest he rouse his spirit more. The mild heat does little to help.

He paces again, slower this time, tentatively reaching out with his fea to find Melkor. A quiet, hesitant request for his presence.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Melkor physically whips around where he stands to face the direction the light call had come from... and responds in strength, his fea surging towards the beacon of Mairon's presence like a tide of heat and warmth and heady reassurance. They have been together too long for him not to notice that something is amiss.

He takes the lifts, sprints down the halls, until he is before that familiar door.

"Mairon?" He asks, through it; he does not have the proper permission, he thinks, to open it. He presses one hand to it, as if he could will the damn thing to give way to him.

But it is still a barrier. "Mairon, I am here." The words are useless, redundant; his spirit has already announced himself.

"Come in."

The words don't come right away; but when they do they're spoken softly, just enough for the system to register it as a command.

Mairon has his back to the door, having been in the middle of pacing away from it. He stands there, turning the gold band around on his finger and finding some small amount of comfort in it, still clinging to the surge of Melkor's spirit that had come before. The bit of heat, the feeling of it against his own, letting it wash over him as many times as memory will allow. It's frighteningly effective.

When he does turn around, it's with a stiff and tense movement that only begins to relax after reaching out with more than just a hand to grab hold of whatever he can reach. A hand, an arm, a tendril of Melkor's fea, pressing his forehead to Melkor's shoulder.

"Forgive me for calling to you, master." He doesn't seek comfort often (or at all, to be frank), and it's beginning to feel foolish to seek it now for something like this. "And for the secrets that I keep."

The ship is cruel indeed, he thinks.

Melkor rushed in, his darkness blotting out any light that might have eked into the room about his large frame, and closed the door behind him with his foot. A little too hard; the floor trembled with the violence of it.

And he draws Mairon to him, fea flooding around his servant, warming him, protective and concerned, searching him for sign of hurt or injury. He smooths a burn-scarred hand over Mairon's hair, hugging the maia's form to his own.

"There is nothing to forgive!" He murmurs to his lieutenant, unwilling to release his embrace so quickly. His pulse, which normally beats with reptilian slowness, is galloping in his throat. "Nothing. I am here. Tell me what you will, in your own time." An incredible gesture of patience, from a being with so little to spare. His dark eyes search Mairon's, lips pressed into a thin line.

He feels almost smothered by Melkor's presence that now all but fills the room, small as it is. Yet at the same time, it's a familiar thing. This is how it's always been, being surrounded by Melkor's power, his energy, everywhere in Utumno and Angband-- even the very ground he walked upon held the faintest traces of it, like poisoned groundwater.

There will always be something to ask forgive of, for he who is the servant. But he can only take Melkor's word for it. Believe him for what he says.

Still he lets go and steps away, as reluctant as either of them may be, until only the barest touch between skin and spirit remains.

"Would you hear it from my lips or take it from my mind?"

For Melkor to trust his words to be truth; or for he to trust his master with his thoughts.

The distinction between the two is not lost upon Melkor, who stares at Mairon as his lieutenant, and lover, leans away from him. Melkor does not follow, with skin or with spirit, but considers the maia, growing grave.

"Tell me," he answers quietly.

It's a trust he's not sure he deserves, even after all that's happened, everything they had ever been through in the past. For now he steels himself against impending consequence of his own actions, for all that he is afraid, ashamed, and proud of them.

"After our defeat, I renounced your name." To put it simply, and said in a rush of breath. He gives no reasoning for his actions-- it would only sound like excuses, even to his own mind. Instead he continues on, unable (or refusing) to meet Melkor's eyes anymore. "I wished to repent for my sins, but would not return to Aman. I stayed in Middle-Earth, and did what I could to repair the damage that had been wrought upon her, to atone for what I had done."

What we had done, he doesn't say. I did not continue your work. I defied it, I denied it.

There's more, of course, if his tension and wariness is anything to say of it. But he waits for now, for a moment, to see what his Master's response will be. If it will even be necessary to say the rest, if he will even be able to. Even just speaking of it, thinking of it, brings him back to those days, makes his spirit withdraw from Melkor like a turtle that refuses to come out of its shell. Or a wolf from its den.

Melkor has gone impossibly still. As if his spirit is straining to abandon its shell, to cast the flesh aside. Though there is no movement, Mairon can feel the surge of power swelling all about him, black and choking and... menacing. Menacing in a way that had never before been turned towards the maia.

Melkor's spirit is stained by hues of impossible rage, mount in him slow, and very cold. He has withdrawn the contact of his mind from Mairon with the suddenness of a whiplash. The very air, and light, bend strangely around the physical shape of him.

The fingers of one hand twitch at his side.

"And what then, Mairon?"

His voice has gone low and very dangerous, softly snarling.

Edited 2014-01-11 14:59 (UTC)

What then?

He's no stranger to the empty feeling when Melkor withdraws; the ache that is leaves is not quite so strong as when he was first taken away, a scab peeled rather than a wound salted. It only made Mairon withdraw further, but for all that he wished to close his mind and block Melkor from it, to flee from his danger, he did not.

It only barely stops him from bristling and snarling in return, though there is a soft coldness to it when he continues speaking, an anger towards his own master (once-master?) that he had not felt before. Or hadn't for a very, very long time.

"I sought the aid of the Elves and presented myself as an emissary from Valinor, offering them a chance to transform Middle-Earth into Aman itself." Or so he thought. Looking back now, had that ever been his goal?

(Of course it was. It still is. It must be.)

"With my knowledge and teaching we forged a set of rings imbued with much power, to be given to the Elves themselves. I made for myself a ring with even greater power inside, to command the others and the minds of their wearers, to bend their wills to mine so that I might use them in my atonement."

He gestures briefly, curtly, to the bureau where the replicas are, and then to his own hand where he still turns the band of gold around his finger like a nervous habit. As foolish and wrong as such a thinking may be to others, he hadn't anything wrong of it then, and he doesn't now.

"I wish I had asked you to show me your mind instead," Melkor snarls softly, his mind going sharp all along the edges. "That I might have been able to better assess the quality and form of your betrayal. Deny me, renounce my name- this and many other things I could have borne from you with no ill-will, Mairon. But for you to say that you sought to repair what I had wrought? To undo me?"

He is of the Valar. It begins to show now, all the false mannerisms he has adopted to mimic mortality fading away. His black, unblinking stare could put a serpent to shame, and his hand whips out. Too graceful, too sinuous, as if he is jointed like a snake. He grips Mairon's more slender wrist, lifting the hand between them, though Mairon might struggle. He slides his thumb along the inside of the maia's palm, forcing the fingers to splay. And looks upon the ring.

His lips barely move when he speaks. "To undo ages of my work upon Arda? To recant your vow to join upon my war with Eru, despite the vastness of his cruelty? You would return to the yoke of his purpose?"

The fingers of his other hand move, delicately gripping the ring. He slides it slowly, and with care, from Mairon's finger. "You, who have known me longer, and better, than any other? You, who I trusted in all things? You, to whom I've bound and wound and shared and shaped my spirit around? Not Ungoliant's bite, not the burn of the Silmarils in my hands or upon my brow, not the crushing grip of Tulkas nor the ice of Angainor as it bound me has caused me greater pain than what you inflict upon me now. Even the slow unraveling of the Void was not so distasteful to me, for at least I understood that, and knew to expect it! No, Mairon, from the dawn of my beginning to this moment I have suffered only one greater blow."

"That you would... that you have forsaken my war upon Eru's will."

He holds up the ring between them, between thumb and forefinger. Reverent, the touch very light, as if he understood what Power the thing might once have held. "And this. This the symbol, the artifact that remains of your betrayal. How very like you, Mairon, how very subtle! It does not even need a sharpened edge with which to cut."

"I wish that I had," Mairon hisses in turn. "That you would know then a mind other than your own. I was never loyal to your cause, your purpose."

Only to you and your power, he doesn't say. His grave is deep enough.

Still he does not close his mind off, for what loyalty and trust he has in Melkor still remains. He flinches when Melkor's hand takes his wrist, splays open his hand with but a touch, as he'd done to Mairon's body so many times before, but he does not pull away. The ring glimmers bright and gold, a whisper of energy on its surface where the letters are inscribed and that protect it from harm, but it is otherwise abnormally cold and empty.

His mind is turned, perhaps even his heart, in all the years he'd had to himself. No voice other than his own that would sway his thought, not even when he became himself High Priest of Melkor. Memories he had shoved aside and rare touched upon again, and only with nostalgia when he did.

So he listens in silence, shrewd and sharp as ever, to the pain and betrayal that he hears, that he had once felt and long dealt with. Attempted to deal with. (By withdrawing, rejecting, denying. Repenting.)

It is the lightness of Melkor's touch, his care in removing the ring, and the way that he beholds it that sways Mairon. He is still the High Priest of Melkor. Perhaps he always has been.

"Would you wear it?" Softly, but with surprisingly little animosity now, even as he meets Melkor's gaze unflinchingly. "If it had still the power I put in it, to strengthen your might and command the minds of all Rinbgearers" even the ringmaker himself "would you claim it for your own?"

Melkor listens. But Mairon is no longer privy to the private thoughts, the sentiments which before had been as bare and open to him; the complex and many-layered petals of some dark and deadly flower, which at one time had turned to him as if Mairon were the last source of light in the world. Neatly lain bare for the touch of Mairon's thought to rifle through.

Now Melkor is closed off, his mind armored sharp enough that it will cut whatever touches it. There is only the careful, composed blankness of his physical features to try to read, and they reveal nothing. Even his eyes only reflect Mairon's features.

He turns Mairon's hand, which he holds still, and presses the ring quietly into the palm.

"Only a few breaths ago, Mairon, I would have worn anything your hands had wrought, for no more reason than I found delight in what you fashion. A few breaths ago, I would have thought such a thing of power a gift great enough to humble me. You were dearer to me than any other thing, and I think I would have denied you, knowing what such an offering would cost you."

His hand helped to curl Mairon's fingers around the warm metal.

"I deny you now." He let the touch slip away. His hands fell to his sides. "It is even as you said, Mairon, though I did not guess the depth of the truth you spoke. You know me not. And henceforth, I shall not know you. You severed yourself for ever from me."

He pauses; just a beat, before turning to leave.

Edited 2014-01-11 19:43 (UTC)

It hurts. He thought it would, knew it would, suspected it would, to hear the words that Melkor now speaks. The distress he'd felt earlier is all but gone now, replaced by something more primal, something he hadn't felt towards Melkor in years, in so, so many years.

"It costs me even now, to make such an offer." Not pride or dignity, for these had already given over. But it's said softly, with a tinge of anger and bitterness and emotion that he rarely, if ever, decides to show. And if that isn't enough to get Melkor to turn around, Mairon strides forward, reaches out with his empty hand to pull upon Melkor's shoulder and strike him across the jaw with the other that holds the ring.

That hurts, too.

But in this he cannot seethe, or wallow in his anger. Nearly a thousand years it had taken him to fully reconcile with himself the fact of Melkor's banishment, his defeat, the fact that he would find almost no other Ainur, no other ally but orcs and men of old. Now as he steps away, it's as if none of that had ever happened.

"I do not sever myself from you." Quietly, and with a hollow sort of tremble, never allowing his gaze to stray from the other's form, his face, if he would deign to look back. Even after all these years he had not severed himself from Melkor, not truly. But these are things he can never say.

"Deny me if you will, and know me not, for it is long since I have thought to know myself. But know that I am and will ever be your servant." I will ever be yours. "If you should call, I will answer."

Edited 2014-01-11 21:36 (UTC)

The blow crushes the skin of Melkor's lips against his teeth. It's not a light blow; and Mairon's knuckles come away bloodied. There's a smear of the same darkly red blood on Melkor's mouth.

He straightens from the blow. Slides from Mairon's grip on his shoulder; the maia could grip at handfuls of water with more ease, and Melkor is unnaturally, bonelessly graceful. The physical pain feels somehow good and right; as if at last his body is beginning to reflect even the smallest wounds of his spirit.

Melkor's own hands move slowly. Go to the breast pocket of the jumpsuit, withdrawing something very small, and gleaming. An old token; the pin Mairon had made for him in truly ancient days, when Melkor had been fair and walked freely among his fellows. Something the vala had kept painstakingly untainted. At first, he does so while meeting Mairon's gaze; the calm cracking, until his features are composed of all the furrows and runnels of deep agony. By the end of his movement, he cannot even bear to look upon the familiar face before him.

He set the pin down atop the edge of the bed while flowing again towards the door.

"I loved you."

He says it like a farewell.

He'd already thought he would never see Melkor again, not until the ending of the world. And in seeing his own future, his deaths and defeat, he knew he never would, not in the state that he is. To watch Melkor flow away like this seems only natural, in its unnaturalness, so he shows no anguish. Not even when the pin is placed upon the bed, that he had repaired to working order at his master's behest.

Where in Melkor's service he would have been more free in showing himself, now he hides. He does not close his mind, but he hides, because if he does not he will lie. Like he has been lying these past three Ages, to the point where he can hardly tell if he speaks lies or truths.

But it is Melkor's final words that tear away the blinds. For love is a strange and unruly thing, and he has twisted such an ideal about his fingers to accomplish his own doings. And it is these words that have Mairon reaching out again, not to grab this time but to push, grab a fistful of the black jumpsuit and shove Melkor against the door with a desperation he has not known for thousands of years. A warrior he is not, but never has he been slight of strength.

"Is this how you will leave? Again?" Mairon speaks in a hiss this time as well, in their own mother tongue. For a moment his fea lashes out, reaches, seeks-- but stops short and retreats, unwilling and unable and undaring. But he does not let go, and he does not let up.

"For three Ages I believed you gone forever-- is that such a treachery? Should I have kept my secrets in fear, as I did this past month? Should I have continued pretending that nothing was wrong, that nothing had changed, should I have deceived you as I deceived the world since your banishment? I wish now that I had, Deceiver that I am!"

Edited 2014-01-11 23:58 (UTC)

Melkor hisses in real pain, when the blind shove forces his shoulder and back against the wall. The still-healing wound Harry had patched complaining, stretching wide again where the recent, shower-softened scab breaks beneath the fabric of his clothing.

Mairon's strength seems more vast than it is, for how little Melkor struggles or resists. There is a fey, half-maddened light in his dark eyes.

"I have only ever been true to my desires, Mairon," he said, very slowly. "Whether whim and flighting fancy or long-borne, desperate want. It is not wrong by nature that you should do the same for yourself: fulfill your wants. I understand it so well, Mairon, that I cannot even raise my hand against you."

"But this reveals to me, and it should to you, that though you would serve me... we are at odds. At impossible odds. And after so long spend believing you and I stood together in all things, yes, it is a betrayal. A thousand different other things might have been said or done between us, Mairon: possibilities incalculable. But this is the moment we are left with." He stares Mairon down, his own fea still armored and removed, unknowable.

"This is the moment we must move forward from. I cannot reconcile us, and still be what I am. Not without lying to you in turn, not without using you to the last. Not without being as pitiless and cruel to you as I am to all other things. Let all of Eru Iluvatar's creations decry me as Morgoth until the end of all things, if I cannot succeed against our maker: it will have been worth it, every moment, if I can win even small victory against him."

"But not you. In you, with you- and you alone!- I have hid the last, best parts of me. I will not let myself become Morgoth to you too. To be sundered is the lesser evil."

Edited 2014-01-12 00:38 (UTC)

"Do not tell me to do such a thing." It's said with more fear than anger, enough that he overlooks the fact that Melkor is still injured and healing. "In my time here I have known where that path leads, I have seen, and I choose rather to follow you than to die by those terms, by these very parts you say you have left in me!"

Though it frightens him more than a little, it feels also like a weight off his shoulders. Of this, of this future, potential or certain, he has spoken to no one, in jest or in truth. Fate is Fate, that is what he has always believed, even in his attempt to defy it.

He doesn't give himself a chance to calm down too much-- he should, probably. It's not often that he speaks like this, unplanned and undecided, in the heat of the moment. It's unwise, and dangerous. But he fears the worst if he does not continue.

"Nothing has been revealed that I have not already known, that I have not always feared." Always, though it had been less so in the past than it had been recently. He never had this much problem admitting his fear before. "We have always been at odds, and I have never cared. I have always known your agenda, and I still I hearkened to your summons. It was you that I followed, and you that I still do! Not your beliefs, not what you wished to do."

"Use me, then. Use me to the last, as you say, as you wish, for have I not already pledged all that I am to you?" In this, only in this, perhaps, he does not waver. Only in this he is resolute. "You need not lie to me. You have never lied before, and still did I serve you. I care not for what you are now, or what you become."

Edited 2014-01-12 02:35 (UTC)

"We have always been at odds, and I have never cared. I have always known your agenda, and still I hearkened to your summons. It was you that I followed, and you that I still do! Not your beliefs, not what you wished to do."

The words ring and ricochet in the confines of Melkor's skull, which ached with the burden of it.

His own hands reached out, now. Curled into the fabric used to clad the warm body of Mairon, bunching the fabric, rucking it up, so that he could grab two handfuls and pull the other form to him.

"I don't understand," he admitted in the quiet. Pressed his mouth to Mairon's brow in a kiss, like a benediction. "I don't understand," he echoed again, pressing a kiss also to the bridge of his nose. "I don't understand how you can make yourself not care. I don't understand how you can separate me from my cause. I don't understand how you can desire so single-mindedly to let yourself burn up in me. I don't understand why you think I can allow it." Kissed his mouth, relenting enough to reach out to him in spirit as well.

"I don't understand. I am adrift in the vastness of my incomprehension. And more than anything, I don't understand why. Why, Mairon? Was it that you loved our father still, after everything? Was there some still greater power of the Ainur, yet unknown to me? What drew you again to their work, and to forsake aught we had ever done together?"

Edited 2014-01-12 07:39 (UTC)

Were he a lesser man, or a man at all, he might have sobbed in relief. Or punched Melkor again.

Mairon is too exhausted to do either. Exhausted in a way he has never been before, as if a war has just ended, as if Melkor has finally returned from one of his long forays to the East Men, as if he'd just been released from Namo's halls. He falls easily into Melkor's grip, though unwilling and unable to loosen his own. The touch of spirit he welcomes wholly, even if he is sluggish in responding to it.

"I was afraid," he says into the hollow of Melkor's throat, not the first among the number of things he has never admitted to anyone else. "They cut off your feet and dragged you away in chains, and I did not want to suffer the same fate, for it was not my fate to suffer. But they said I must return to Valinor and beg forgiveness of the Valar, receive Manwe's judgment and a sentence of servitude-- how could I?"

It's almost laughable to think of it now, and he does laugh, the way one laughs when they do not wish to be frightened.

"I hated them as much as I loved them, our brethren and our enemy. How could I kneel and beg leave of them? But if I continued to do as I had always done in your service, they would not have allowed me to walk free." He pauses, presses a kiss in return, in case he would not be able to again, bringing his hand up at last to touch at Melkor's neck. "..All I ever wanted was to see the world ordered. By Fate, or by another's hands. Perhaps that is how the Father made me to be."

To deny all that was wasteful and unneeded and needless, and accept only what was most efficient. Loyalties to an absent Vala were needless at the time, it seemed.

Edited 2014-01-12 09:04 (UTC)

Melkor's fists unclench slowly from where they grip Mairon's clothing. He smooths away the wrinkles his grasp have made while Mairon speaks, and makes no move to hush the maia when he laughs.

Gaze lowered, he presses into the kiss, presses his body towards the hand lightly on his neck. "We were all made by His hand, to be what we are," he agrees, though the words ring hollowly. As if admitting that is another kind of defeat. But adds also, "...with... less force, Mairon. The way you're pinning me is... painful."

"As is... all of it." His shoulders sag, slowly. The barrier he had rushed to build between them begins to come down, little by little, and his spirit reaches still more for Mairon. "All of it."

"Curl into me, Mairon. Lay with me. I'll... make better sense of it later."

But a knock upon the door interrupts what else he might have said.

"If you try to leave again it will be worse." A flat glare, albeit weak. But he loosens his grip and leans more than presses against Melkor, shifting the weight off of the injury, and drops his forehead onto the shoulder before him.

Before he even replies verbally he's already reaching back, curling into Melkor in a way that can't be physically described. The knock does little to stop him.

"Does everyone here have such impeccable timing?" Muffled. He lifts his head to rest his chin upon Melkor's shoulder instead, to address the person on the other side of the door. "Who is it?"

Only a few hours after escaping the gravity couch, AM had received a text message from Mairon asking to come to his room. He figures it's for more help on encryption or something stupid along those lines - or to attempt to blackmail him with his memories. Whatever it is, it had better be important and worth it. He's still rather tired from the jump, seeing as he had been in stasis all through the last cycle, plagued by strange dreams...

One part of the text message conversation made him raise an eyebrow, however. "We will be waiting." We. He doesn't recall Mairon ever using the Royal We. Perhaps there is someone else there. Blackmail, perhaps? AM cringes at the thought of it, wanting to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible.

With some irritable force he knocks on the door, having no idea he has just arrived at the end of a lovers' spat. A muffled voice asks who it is, and he irately responds, "AM. You told me to come."

It was preemptive, calling AM over so soon after contacting Melkor. He hadn't thought confronting Melkor with this would have taken so long, or gone so intensely. He almost wants to tell AM to come back another time.

Instead he presses another hesitant kiss to Melkor's lips and pulls away from his master with some effort, sighing. He gives a small, apologetic smile, and nudges at Melkor until he's away from the door so he can open it.

"So I did. Come in, please." Tiring as that ordeal may have been, he wears his usual self-confident smile again by the time the doors are open, if a bit worn at the edges. He looks over his shoulder. "This is the man from whom I learned those encryptions I spoke of."

When he turns back to AM, the smile quirks just a fraction wider, and he steps aside to let the man outside enter.

"AM, this is Melkor. I spoke to you of him once."

A muscle jumps in Melkor's jaw; irritation. But he leans into the silent kiss, and flows away from the door, walking further into the small room. As he passes it, he plucks up the gleaming memento from where he'd placed it on the bed; pocketing it invisibly while the door is opened behind him.

He only looks over his shoulder at the introduction, eyes narrowed, broad shoulders set. Though his hair is short and he looks neatly modern and very clean, matched to the modernity of the jumpsuit he wears, there is... an utterly feral look to him. His eyes gleam in the room's relatively low light, landing harshly upon AM- one predator assessing another across invisible boundaries of territory.

His fea lashed out, rubbing harshly along the edges of this alien presence, trying to discern the nature of this stranger. And somehow, the 'once' blackens his already grim mood.

"AM."

It will suffice as a greeting, but there is a snarling hauteur to it.

AM steps inside the room when instructed to do so, and immediately notes the presence of the other man. Taller, larger, completely menacing. It's easy to discern his nature right away. Humans are easy to read, and Melkor makes little effort to hide the snarl behind his voice, the grimness behind his gaze.

"Melkor," he greets back, a bit flatly.

He vaguely remembers the man being mentioned from Mairon's memories. Sacrifices to a powerful false god of sorts, or something along those lines. So Melkor is the one in charge then.

There's a fixed look between the two of them - tall, middle-aged men, neither one truly human, both hiding immense power... and both carrying the capacity and desire for destruction. Not that AM knows that directly, but there's a sort of angry fear and rivalry he feels. The man is watching him - a powerful man who is a god to many (another similarity then).

Keeping his eyes on Melkor, AM speaks to Mairon, a bit calmer, a bit more cautious. "What is it you wished to speak to me about, Mairon?"

"Play nicely, now." It's a humorous tone. He goes around back to readjust the lighting in the room, conveniently placing himself between AM and the way out. And not intending to move from there just yet.

"I wanted to ask if you and I could have another barter," he says smoothly, as if unaffected by their little posturing game. No different from when he and AM had spoken before. "Your knowledge on things here and there, instructing my associate on the use of encryptions. For a favor of your choosing, in exchange. But of similar value, of course."

You and I, specifically. He'd never intended for Melkor to have part in the payment, but seeing AM's reaction to him now, it'd likely be best if he wasn't.

Mairon's head tips, considering something. "Perhaps you might like to join in our alliance as well. It may cater to your.. interests."

At the similarly flat greeting, his wolfish smile winks out, baring a canine and many of his other white teeth. Whatever he has seen in AM has allayed some of the pent aggression, and he prowls to sit on the edge of the be, neatly crossing one ankle over the opposite leg, letting his elbows rest on his knees while he listens with suddenly sharpened interest.

Mairon has taken the lead, here; and Melkor is confident enough to let him keep it, instead giving the other two space, watching and assessing all that happens with keen and predatory attention.

"I doubt you need to explain the concept of fair trade to him, Mairon," he says quietly when he does interrupt. His eyes gleam, bright and hard as a knifeblade bared in the dark. "And while I can appreciate your care, in this..."

He turned then to AM. "Forget the comm networks and their use between passengers. I could care less about them. The ultimate prize is The Ship, and I mean to attempt a direct interface with it, or if that's a goal best left to long-term efforts, to dredge up and restore its original records and spearhead an effort to retake many of its primary functions." His dark eyes fell on the other man, knowingly.

"At present, The Ship is a prison. But I am not unconvinced that it cannot be made... a tool."

So Mairon is to bring this man in on their temporary "alliance." Of course AM doesn't trust him at all, but AM doesn't trust Mairon either. He trusts no one, and is fully prepared to dispose of them should they get in the way. (But they're powerful and that scares him, at least on a deep unconscious level - only registering at the front of his thoughts as frustration. This would prove difficult.)

Still, encryption is a simple thing, nothing drastic. Looking back at Mairon, AM is about to agree to his own terms, making an offer of what he wants, agreeing to their little "alliance," before Melkor interrupts.

His gaze snaps back toward Melkor on the bed, and he listens, feeling his inner defenses build up. The Ship is mine, he thinks, or at least that is his goal, and has been his goal ever since he came to terms with the fact that he was no longer at "home." His eyes narrow, knowing he'll have to compete for this goal. Even if they partner up now... Well, it wouldn't last, of course.

Coldly, he replies. "And what kind of a tool do you want the Ship to be?" Still, at least he's interested. Melkor is one of the first to speak his language, aside from the other AIs. This could prove useful.

It's a little hasty, he thinks, and he muffles a cluck of his tongue when AM's motion to respond is interrupted.

"We do not mean offense, if we have given any." Melkor might, but Mairon softens his tone to an apologetic note, truthful if not sincere. When he speaks again is it careful and methodical, with the gravity of an unblinking gaze. "Others may seek freedom, but we would discover how this vessel does what it has done to us and others like us; to you, and others like you. And to make use of this to our advantage."

He notes the coldness, the guarded expression and posture. Remembers enough from their brief empathy link and the interaction that followed to think that AM must be quite displeased with this indeed.

"Do you find this disagreeable?" His mouth thins into a line. "I would still week a barter, regardless. My master may care little for such things, but I would like to learn more of what you know, AM."

"Whatever kind of tool we like," answers Melkor smoothly to AM, though there's a... black sort of hunger to his expressionless face. Something that would have made the flesh crawl on any mortal creature.

His sudden thin-lipped smile is sharp enough to cut.

And he makes a small motion towards Mairon, clearly giving over the audience with AM to the one who'd called it.

Edited 2014-01-15 22:19 (UTC)

It's interesting to hear Mairon refer to Melkor as "his master." AM knew already that Mairon seems to hold the other in high regard, like a god, but now he knows specifically that he's "master." Valuable information, of course. Melkor is certainly in charge, so anything has to go by him. And so Melkor's desire for the ship will not leave AM's mind at all.

With that hideous smile, AM glares back for a moment before matching the gesture, giving a haughty smirk - fake pleasantries to a degree. I'll deal with you later.

He turns to Mairon then. "If you wish to learn more, I suppose we can arrange another deal." But what does he want in return from these two? He wants the ship ultimately and wants to remove anyone who aims to stand in the way of said goal. "But what would you have in mind for giving me?"

A servant he may be, but a lieutenant also, and certainly not one to stand by if he feels that Melkor is being threatened. So there's an edge to his smile, a bit of stiffness, after watching the brief exchange between them.

"You have my gratitude, for that." He doesn't bat an eyelash, not even when he addresses the matter of what will be exchanged. "As I said, AM; so long as it is within reason, I would leave the choosing of my payment in your hands." His head tips once more, considering again. "What would you consider to be of similar value?"

It's unfortunate AM has no lieutenant of his own - someone who would protect his back at all costs. Two against one is what this stands to be now: a completely unfavorable battle for AM, one that he could easily lose. He's not dealing with stupid humans either - these are otherworldly beings, capable of great feats. The thought terrifies him more.

He still attempts to maintain his calmness as he looks to Mairon, thinking over this little deal. Teach him more about encryptions? AM could do that. He won't teach all of his knowledge, but he could give more. In exchange.

"All right, fair enough," he says. "I suppose what I want..." His voice is a bit softer, lower, more intimate. "...Is your cooperation. Your alliance. Both of you." He glances back at Melkor briefly. "Information exchange... Freedom from any... foul play." He gives a quick smirk at that. "But of course, that should be a given, since we're friends."

Melkor's dark eyes flit between his lieutenant and AM, his own features unreadable. Closed. The glassy surface of his eyes reflects all he sees, revealing nothing.

"One long-term advantage for another. Done." He closes the bargain in lieu of Mairon, standing smoothly, strangely sinuous, as if he's jointed like a serpent. "The scope and scale of information we provide you shall be directly correlated to the amount of assistance you provide in turn." His teeth gleam when he bares them in a wolfish expression that has only a little to do with a smile.

"Let's not play pretend. It's trite. And if you should ever have need for work less sanitary... I hope you know who to turn to."

Another person might have been easily enticed by AM's approach, or a lesser one easily frightened away. Mairon is neither, and so reacts with a falsely true calm, curiosity and wariness. Where Melkor reveals nothing (to his internal dismay), what Mairon reveals is what he wishes to be observed in him

Yet even he cannot hide the flicker of something when he watches Melkor stand, the movement of his form, the way he had so many times in the past. His hand flexes, clenching over the ring in his palm in a small gesture of unsurety.

"As he says; we have an agreement." Mairon says, but remains eerily still. "And indeed, we are friends. I would ask, however, as to the manner of cooperation that you ask of us. If you have an agenda of your own, AM, I think we would both like to know of it."

A game of words. He learned his lesson the first time, when he thought swearing fealty to the Numenoreans meant he would be left alone.

The agreement is quick - too quick. He hears the rustle of fabric as Melkor moves, immediately giving consent to this arrangement. An agreement to stay allies, to exchange information in equal amounts. It's only fair, of course - AM wouldn't expect anything more from a smart tactician. With Melkor's flash of the teeth, AM tilts his head upward, giving an air of haughty indifference to that gesture. He's not going to be intimidated by the likes of his ally.

Mairon agrees as well, quickly after Melkor speaks. It seems they both have an idea of what AM truly wants - especially Mairon, seeing as he has seen AM's memories, knows what he is capable of. Knows what he delights in.

"Well good. Scratch my back and I'll scratch yours, or so they say." So many expressions in the English vernacular that had picked up from observing humans for so long. It's easy to figure out what it means.

With a smile, he gives a brief huff of amusement. "Perhaps I do have my own agenda. But so do you."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

come break me down

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject