âYouâre charming, arenât you,â clearly, he needed to teach this once king how to address a real king, but that will come later. âI cannot help but wonder, however, if you did not abandon your brotherâs march the moment you faced hardship, whether your kind wouldâve still died or not. Perhaps you couldâve saved them, had you not turned tail and ran.â
He laughed once, both out of amusement and amazement that Arvo even had the nerves to let his mouth run as thus, despite them both knowing full well that it is only by his good grace (and amusement) that he still lives. âPetulant boy! Cry to your gods then, if you desire it so, but know that they have failed to contain me once and they shall fail again. Though, seeing that my beother apparently takes a liking to you, perhaps he will heed your call. Tell me again how you groveled at his feet for mercy. Or did you shun your dignity, and spread yourself before him? Thatâs how the rumors go, my plaything. They say that you took him before his court, and he filled you with enough seed that it did not stop leaking out of you until overmorrow, and that is the only reason you have received a pardon. Is it so?â
Morgoth's words were not anything he had not though himself, in the lonely hours of the night, in the silence of empty Tirion. Would his presence had helped? Would people have listened to him - and more importantly, would that have even made a difference? The spiral of thoughts was enough to drive an elf mad.
His face flushed against his will at Morgoth's crass words, but he tried to keep his expression impassive. This was all surely Morgoth's scheme to get under his skin, to shame and break him.
"Your brother is not so vulgar as you, Bauglir. His mercy is given freely; you tasted it once yourself, did you not?"
He grinned at ArafinwĂŤâs pause, the malice deep in his heart feasting upon his uncertainty, his doubt. âI cannot help but think of your brother,â Melkor continued, encircling the other as a predator its prey, âhe had not even breached my gates before the lashes of flame consumed him. I do wonder what he must have thought in his final moments. How he must loathe you, ArafinwĂŤ. You are the very kind of coward your brother so often preached of.â
âOh, I have, though perhaps not in the same way you have tasted it.â At that, he barked out a loud laugh, clawed fingers raking through Arvoâs golden hair. âCry for him, then, and see what mercy he grants you now. Is poetry and song truly his domain, when it is silence he doles out so often? Or you can behave, and let me indulge you for once.â
