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ttrtru · 1 year

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How many times did Angmar feel like throwing Khamul into a nearby lake on their way home?

Sorry for the delay in this week's oneshot! It ended up being waaaay longer than I expected. Like... double the length of my usual oneshots.

Anyway, here's Angmar saving Khamul. No he still hates him what are you talking about. They aren't becoming friends or anything. TW: Descriptions of injuries

Across the Sands of the East

Khamul is gone.

That in itself is not unusual. Of the two of them, most would expect Angmar to be the one to lean towards solitude and independence. Angmar is gruff, a fact he will admit to readily. Easy to anger and more likely to lash out in violence. He does not care for the opinions of others, and would never let his own actions be influenced by such a thing. It is an uneasy peace he holds with most of his companions, held in place only by Angmar’s physical might over them.

Khamul is far more sociable than he-far more likable. Angmar has seen many a time before how Khamul flows from one conversation to another, how he can slither his way into near anyone’s good graces. He is like a parasite that feeds exclusively on the praise of others. He gets along well with the rest of the Nine, save Angmar himself.

Even Indur reluctantly gets along with Khamul, despite their initial friction. Khamul is simply difficult to dislike, makes himself difficult to dislike.

Despite this, despite Khamul’s aptitude towards sociability, he does not work well with others. Not in the same way Angmar does with discord and strife and arguments. No, while Khamul is friendly towards near anyone, but he is friends with no one. Angmar has seen the way Khamul will part ways with someone with a smile and a laugh, only for his good spirit to vanish near instantly the moment he believes he is out of sight. He has seen the way Khamul will say nearly anything just to get others to like him, to the point where Angmar is not sure what opinions Khamul himself holds. He has seen Khamul’s attitude pivot so quickly that it must be fake.

Angmar may prefer his own company, but Khamul is worse than he is. Khamul only pretends to be friendly, keeping the illusion of amicability firmly fixed to himself like a mask. Angmar does not know what Khamul is truly like beneath the layers upon layers of deceptions.

Looking at them both, one would expect Angmar to be the one to disappear off on his own. But Khamul is the one who requests to go out on his own alone, Khamul is the one who vanishes for years upon end on tasks by himself, Khamul is the one who is often gone. Meanwhile, with Indur dogging at his heels near constantly, Angmar is rarely alone.

Khamul being gone is not unusual.

No. What is unusual is that Khamul is not just physically gone, but mentally gone. A feat that should be impossible. One day, over two weeks prior, Khamul had simply become unreachable. Angmar had not noticed it at first as he almost never has a reason to even attempt to contact Khamul, and Khamul has even less reason to contact him. But his master had noticed when he had attempted to reach out to Khamul through his ring, only to find no response. Even if he happened to be sleeping when their master first reached out, every subsequent call also went unanswered. Angmar knows his master’s call is painful to ignore. It is unthinkable that Khamul would willingly ignore it for so long.

Which would suggest, perhaps, it is unwilling.

With no one else accompanying Khamul on his journey, no one could truly say what had happened to him. As far as Angmar is concerned, Khamul is likely either dead or managed to somehow lose his ring like a fool.

…Though the second scenario may circle back around to the first anyway. At this point, all of them have far outlived their natural lifespans. Even Angmar knows removal of the only thing keeping them alive will probably result in their deaths.

“And Angmar?”

“Yes, master?”

“If you cannot bring back Khamul, do be sure you at least bring back the ring.”

Not Khamul’s ring, not his ring. The ring. Clearly, his master was also already assuming the worst had happened.

Ah, well. Khamul always had been a nuisance. Frankly, Angmar did not consider his death to be that much of a loss. Surely whoever his replacement was could not be as terrible as Khamul himself was. Perhaps, if he asked, his master would even let him choose another Nazgul again. Indur was by far the easiest to work with of the entire group, while the rest were all equally as annoying as they were frustrating.

Even apparently in death Khamul must be a nuisance. Angmar huffs slightly, kicking his boot across the ground, sending sand scattering in the wind. This is his first time visiting Rhun, and he can safely say he is not impressed. He has been trudging across these damned dunes since he left Mordor several days ago. The sun is hot, the sand is dry, and climbing up and down these sandy hills is frustratingly slow. Every step only serves to pour more sand into his boots, and trying to empty them is so ineffective he has given up on it.

He does not even know where he is going. He has a map he cannot read, and a direction he must go in. East. Well, many things are East. There are mountains in the East. The ocean, eventually, is in the East. North and East is cold, while South and East is somehow even hotter than it is at the moment. His master could not even give him the name of a city, as apparently Rhun was not in the habit of actually naming places. Just… East.

He’d been walking aimlessly, following the direction of the sunrise for days through the desert. He has somehow not even managed to run into any towns or villages in that time. It has only been sand. Angmar did not think it was possible for him to hate sand, as he has encountered it many times before lining beaches and Angmar loves the ocean. He will readily admit he was wrong now.

Angmar squints through the harsh sunlight, scanning his surroundings for any sign of civilization or-there’s smoke on the horizon.

He pauses and lifts a hand to shield his eyes. Yes, there is smoke on the horizon, rising up over one of the dunes. It is billowing up, dark and black and noxious looking. Clearly too large to be the smoke from a campfire, clearly too dark to be benign.

It is as good of a clue. If there is fire, there must be people.

Angmar quickens his pace slightly, making his way down into the next valley and scaling up the dune as fast as he can, though the journey is still painfully slow. The smoke is growing now, rising like a terrible cloud, reaching for the sun and threatening to blot it out.

He crests over the peak of the dune and spots what seems to be a city in the distance. He can see large walls surrounding it and large gates that have been thrown open, revealing several houses ablaze within. Yes, this is the source of the smoke he had seen because the city is on fire.

His gaze dips downwards, drawn by a dark shadow on the pale, yellow sand. About halfway between he and the city, perhaps a hundred feet from where Angmar stands, there is a body. Clearly human, and Angmar grimaces when he spots a familiar puff of a purple-dyed fur accessory amongst dark hair and pale, white cloth.

Khamul lays sprawled out upon the ground like a downed animal. The sand around him is wet, visibly darkened by the blood staining it. His wrists are bound in shackles, his arms stretched out over his head where he has collapsed forward in the sand. His head is buried in the space between his arms, face completely obscured from view. His hair, normally an obvious source of pride for Khamul, is matted with mud and blood, and lacking any of its usual adornments. His clothes are equally stained in the areas that have not been torn to shreds.

He looks… bad.

He looks dead.

But there is a man approaching Khamul’s limp body from the burning city, sword already drawn in anticipation, and men do not strike down corpses.

“Khamul!” Angmar bellows, racing across the sands. There is a song that streams past his lips like the breath of a dragon. The melody is fragmented-he cannot think swiftly enough to make it sound nice, but luckily music was never about beauty and more about intention.

It is an enchantment of swiftness, of speed, of urgency. With the might of the song at his heels he moves swiftly across the sand, closing the gap in moments. But the man is also there, raising his sword, ready to bring it down on Khamul’s head.

With no time to go around, Angmar bounds over Khamul’s body instead. Midway through his leap he snaps his teeth together, clipping off the end of his song and just as quickly beginning a new one. This is a song of strength, of power, of might. He can feel the song settle into his body only a moment before he lands on the ground before Khamul, his own blade already drawn and held high.

He swings it downwards like a club, catching the other man in the shoulder near the base of his neck. There is armor there, but it is irrelevant. The sharpness of his sword is irrelevant. The weight of his blow drives his enemy to his knees, and Angmar follows it with a brutal kick to the head, sending him sprawling to the floor.

Angmar gives him no chance to recover. He drives his sword straight down, through the man’s neck, nearly severing his head from the rest of his body.

The battle song still hisses past his teeth and he turns with a snarl, yanking his sword free from the corpse’s throat. Fresh blood splatters across the sand and he turns, surveying the dunes for a further threat. Screams of anguish and pain cry out from the burning city, but no one else leaves its smoldering walls and he lets the song fade to harsh, deep breaths.

He sheaths his sword, and it makes a strange, wet noise as it bloodies the inside of the sheath.

With a grimace Angmar turns back to Khamul and falls to his knees next to him. In that moment where he first laid eyes upon him, he only had the opportunity to take in the broad state of Khamul’s wellbeing before he had to move to defend him. With a moment now to actual survey his injuries, it is obvious something terrible has happened to him. His back is a shredded mess of both cloth and skin, the two bleeding together with bright red blood until it is hard to tell them apart. Carefully Angmar rolls him over, keeping one arm under Khamul’s shoulders and propping him over a knee to keep his upper body off of the sand.

When Angmar turns him over, Khamul’s head rolls to one side limply. His face is visibly bruised and bloodied, his eyes are closed and hidden slightly between the mess dark hair that has fallen over his face.

Yet Khamul clings to life like the parasite that he is. His breathing is swift and shallow, but he somehow despite his injuries he lives. Angmar grasps for Khamul’s right wrist with his free hand, and frowns slightly when he sees a familiar band upon Khamul’s second finger. Somehow, despite everything, he has managed to maintain possession of his ring.

Angmar scowls, but lowers his shoulder, awkwardly rolling Khamul from his knee to his back. It is hardly a graceful thing but Khamul is smaller and lighter than he is, and within a few seconds he has managed to get most of Khamul’s body against his own slouched back. He takes a moment to throw Khamul’s arms over his shoulders before slowly shifting, getting his legs under him and rising from the sand. He’s forced to lean forwards slightly to keep Khamul from rolling off his back and forced to keep his hands tucked under Khamul’s legs to keep him from sliding back to the ground.

It would be nice to be able to move away from the burning city, to find shelter somewhere from the sand, but Mordor is several days travel away and Angmar had encountered nothing on the journey here but sand and sun. Even if Khamul had managed to survive this long, Angmar doubts his stubborn clinginess to life would last for the entire duration of a trip without treatment. He is still actively bleeding, now both onto the sand and Angmar alike.

So. Not to Mordor. But there is shelter nearby, so Angmar turns his back to the West and trudges through the sand, towards the burning city.

With Khamul as deadweight upon his back, the short trip takes far longer than it should. But within a few minutes he slips inside the gates, slinking past screaming men as they scramble to put out multiple fires. They do not notice him as their attention is rightfully preoccupied elsewhere, which is good. It gives him the chance to survey where the fires are most heavily concentrated, then sneak along the wall towards a section of the city that is not actively burning.

He slips into the first open door he can find. It is a small house, one room only, furnished sparingly by a single bed, a table and a chair. Only two windows on the same wall as the door. Defendable. Fortunately it is empty as well, probably because the owner is attempting to help their neighbors with the flames.

Angmar slides Khamul off of his back and onto the bed, taking care to roll him onto his stomach so his bloodied back does not stick to the bedsheets. After a moment of thought, he shifts Khamul’s hands so they are above his head, so he is not laying on top of his own arms.

Khamul looks paler than he usually does, and his breathing is still distressingly quick and shallow. He still has not woken, and it is clear that if he continues on this way he may never wake again. His fate is in Angmar’s hands, and Angmar’s hands alone.

He can still still yelling from outside, and the smell of ash clogs his nose and burns at his throat. Their surroundings are treacherous indeed.

Prioritize. He has to secure Khamul’s safety first, otherwise any attempt at healing will be useless.

“Stay here,” Angmar orders, despite the fact Khamul is still unconscious and is not capable of hearing him or moving. Still, the verbal affirmation makes him feel slightly better. This may very well be the first of his commands Khamul actually follows, even if he has no choice in the matter.

With a huff he draws his sword from its sheath once more. The blade drips fresh blood onto the floor as he opens the door and steps out into the smoke and screams.

— — — —

The fire already took care of many of them. The others were ill prepared to fight both the flames and Angmar, and fell easily to his blade. In less than an hour, the city is quiet save for the sounds of burning. Countless lay dead in the streets, and it is both practicality and spite that keeps Angmar from even attempting to burying them.

Angmar sighs as he returns, kicking the door closed behind him with a foot. His arms are currently otherwise occupied carrying the supplies he managed to gather before the fire claimed them, though he promptly dumps them upon the table. It is an assortment of anything he thought may be useful. Linens, or any relatively clean looking cloth for bandages. Water, where he was able to find it. Several nameless jars of salves that could just as easily be for styling hair as they could be for tending to wounds.

Angmar is no healer. None of the Nine are, as far as he is aware. No, Angmar is far more familiar with causing injuries rather than attempting to fix them. But some things lie in the realm of common sense, and Angmar is willing to wager he cannot make anything worse. If he does nothing, Khamul will die. At least if he does something, Khamul may not.

It is not as reassuring a thought as it should be.

Angmar grabs a small knife from the table and makes his way to the bedside. He lifts some of the fabric of Khamul’s formerly white tunic near the shoulder, and with careful motions saws through the sleeve. He makes quick work of the other one as well, then slowly tugs at the fabric. Without the sleeves present to keep the destroyed outfit in place, Angmar is able to slowly peel the fabric away, exposing Khamul’s back completely. Khamul’s belt still keeps the tunic in place around his hips, but now it is more of a skirt rather than a tunic.

He reaches to the side, grasping one of the waterskins he had managed to plunder and uncorking the top. He can still hardly see the state of Khamul’s back even with his clothes no longer obscuring his view thanks to all of the blood so…

Angmar upends the contents of the waterskin onto Khamul’s back.

A violent shiver passes through Khamul’s body as the blood is washed away, staining the sheets around him bright red. The water washes the sand away as well, which must be good if only because sand in wounds is surely bad. Just for good measure, Angmar grabs another waterskin and dumps that over Khamul’s back as well. He is starting to be able to see the injuries better, namely several long gashes that run from his shoulders down to nearly his opposite hip, ending just above Khamul’s belt.

…Clearly not wounds sustained in battle.

“Ang..mar?” Khamul murmurs, and his shaking arms shift slightly as he tries to push himself up. His eyes are open but look… unfocused. Squinting at him though a mess of muddy, bloodied hair.

“Stop moving,” Angmar snarls immediately. He hadn’t realized Khamul had woken up, although based on the way Khamul keeps trying to prop himself up he is clearly going to be just as irritating about this as he always is. Even while heavily injured, Khamul just cannot seem to listen to him. “I told you to stop moving,” Angmar repeats, quickly locating a spot relatively free from injury near the root of Khamul’s neck and pressing a hand against it, forcing Khamul back down into the bed.

Khamul makes some wordless, questioning noise which Angmar ignores in favor of grabbing some relatively clean-looking cloth he had managed to scrounge up with his free hand and pressing them to Khamul’s back, trying to dry off the water and wipe away any lingering blood. At the contact Khamul flinches, fingers curling into the bedsheets below him. He’s still moving, clearly unable to listen to Angmar for even one moment, but Angmar huffs and focuses on Khamul’s back again, keeping a hand pressed against the back of Khamul’s neck. He does not care what Khamul does with his hands as long as he does not do something stupid like try to stand up.

The cloth is quickly bloodied, and Angmar tosses it over his shoulder in favor of grabbing another cloth. Just as soon as he wipes blood aside does more bubble up from Khamul’s wounds, but it is sluggish and slow. Not freely bleeding like a fresh injury would. That may be good, if the wounds are trying to clot and scab over. It may be bad, if he does not have enough blood left to bleed.

Khamul being awake now may hint towards a better outcome, though Angmar would appreciate it if he would stop fidgeting as much. Even if he is no longer trying to sit upright, he is still wiggling his arms where they lay above his head, and making a good amount of noise jangling the chains of his shackles against each other.

It is said noise that actually draws Angmar’s attention away from the mess of Khamul’s back to his hands. It is only a glance, but when he sees red amongst the silver metal he doubles back and looks again, just in time to see Khamul drag his nails across his own skin, tearing deep into the flesh of his forearm and giving himself an entirely new injury.

“What are you doing?” Angmar barks, catching Khamul’s hand by the wrist and jerking it to the side, out of reach of his own nails. Or tries to, anyway. The chain still binding Khamul’s wrists together goes taut relatively quickly, and he just ends up dragging Khamul’s other hand along with. “Stop!”

“Gt… off,” Khamul grunts softly, barely intelligible, and Angmar can feel him straining against his grip, trying to free his wrist. Angmar huffs and catches Khamul’s other wrist with his free hand, and easily pins both of them over Khamul’s head.

“I will not release you if you cannot refrain from injuring yourself further,” Angmar snaps. This situation is less than ideal for the both of them. It is not as if he wants to have to tend to Khamul’s injuries. It is not as if he wanted to have to rescue him in the first place. He does not like Khamul, he has never liked Khamul. The feeling is clearly mutual if Khamul cannot bear to stand his touch when Angmar is doing his damndest to try to help him! What business of his is it if Khamul wants to tear himself open again? If Khamul wants to die, perhaps he should just let him!

A strange, nameless feeling curls in his gut and catches in his throat.

Angmar does not release Khamul’s hands.

“Get… off,” Khamul repeats insistently, managing to find his voice slightly. It is hoarse and raspy and broken in a way that it hardly sounds like Khamul at all. Weak, just like his attempts to free his hands from Angmar’s grasp. “Get it off.”

“It?” Angmar repeats cluelessly. Khamul gives another pull, the noise of the chain rattling draws Angmar’s attention back to Khamul’s shackles. He shifts his grip slightly higher, revealing the cuff and the bloodied skin around it.

Multiple angry, red, bleeding lines run along Khamul’s forearm. But they are not random self-inflicted strikes as Angmar initially thought. No. Each scratch starts either at the edge of the cuff or even slightly underneath it, and trails off as they get further from the shackle. The bloody scratches are deepest nearest to the cuff, and there are a few even on the lower palm above the cuff rather than on the forearm below it.

He is not trying to injure himself. Like an animal caught in a trap, Khamul is trying to tear himself free.

Angmar scowls. He does not know why Khamul is so insistent his chains be removed immediately, but clearly he is going to fuss about it until they are off. Perhaps if Angmar knew who had put them on Khamul in the first place, he would be able to locate a key. But even if Khamul were in such a place to tell him such a thing, even if Angmar felt inclined to pick his way through the corpses outside, even if Khamul’s warden had not died to the flames, Angmar does not think he can leave Khamul alone. There is a good chance even if Angmar manages to locate the key, he would return to find Khamul missing his hands completely just in an attempt to get the cuffs off. He is still whispering and straining against Angmar’s grip, after all. Leaving him unsupervised would be bad.

How annoying.

Angmar shifts his grip, pressing both of Khamul’s hands against the bed and pinning them both in place with one hand. With his newly freed hand, he grasps the thin, metal chain that connects the two shackles together. Ignoring the tackiness of the chain-which apparently has blood on it-Angmar squeezes his fist together around the chain. This is the third time today he is using magic, and it is starting to exhaust him. He’ll have to do this quickly. He hisses a short enchantment, a song of weakness, of breaking, of destruction, and almost instantly the chain shatters in his grip. Cracks and rust spread across the individual links back to the shackles themselves like a disease, and Angmar makes easy work of them as well, crushing them to pieces under his hand.

It is only when the former shackles lay in fragments upon the bed that Angmar slowly releases Khamul’s wrists. Khamul has fallen silent again, letting his forehead slump forward against the bed again, face once more completely obscured by his own hair. If it wasn’t for the fact Angmar could see his breath occasionally hitch from pain, he would suspect Khamul had fallen back into unconsciousness.

At least now Khamul was finally still. Not before giving Angmar more injuries to tend to, but at least Khamul was no longer actively fighting against his efforts to heal him.

With a sigh, Angmar turns his attention to the more concerning injuries on Khamul’s back. During their brief struggle, more blood had time to well up from the slashes across Khamul’s back, but not too much. Not enough to justify pouring a third waterskin over Khamul’s back, though Angmar is half tempted to just because Khamul has frustrated him. He refrains though, instead just dabbing the blood away with what was once a shirt.

With Khamul’s back as clear of blood and sand as it is ever going to be, Angmar wipes the blood off his own hands with the shirt before tossing it over his shoulder and onto the floor as well. He grabs a sheet he had stolen from a drying line and begins to tear it into long, thin strips with his hands and placing the strips back on the table beside him. It takes him a few minutes, but by the end of that time the blanket has been demolished into something more useful and Khamul still has not moved.

“Sit up,” Angmar grunts, and for once Khamul listens to him, slowly moving his hands and trying to push himself upright. He doesn’t get very far before Angmar reaches out and grasps him by the arm, pulling him the rest of the way upright so he is sitting on the bed, back facing Angmar and feet hanging off the other side.

Angmar grabs one of the makeshift bandages he has created and presses it against Khamul’s back. It’s quickly stained red in some areas, but Angmar ignores it, wrapping the long bandage around Khamul’s entire torso. He manages to encircle Khamul’s chest with the bandage three times before he has to tie the bandage off, at which point he picks up another bandage and repeats the process. He’s careful not to wrap the bandages so tightly that Khamul cannot breathe, nor too loosely that they just fall off. The blood is actually helping him slightly with that, acting like glue and keeping the bandages in place.

He works in silence. Khamul is silent. The only noise is the rustling of fabric, or the creak of the floorboards when Angmar shifts his weight towards the table to collect another bandage.

It is odd to see Khamul in front of him and not hear his scathing tongue throwing out taunts. He is more subdued than Angmar has ever seen him before. There are no verbal jabs sent in his direction. He does not even speak, in favor of hanging his head low as Angmar works. Not that Angmar is complaining but he can still admit that it is bizarre.

When he has managed to cover all of Khamul’s injuries with one layer of fabric, he returns to the top and begins the process again, and then again a third time until the blood stops staining through. That is really all Angmar can ask for, and where his common sense regarding healing stops. With the injuries sufficiently covered, Khamul shouldn’t be at risk for bleeding out anymore. Not from his back, at least.

Which leaves the self-inflicted wounds.

Angmar sighs loudly, but grabs the bandages, some more cloth, and one of the waterskins from the table and crosses around to the other side of the bed so he is standing in front of Khamul rather than facing his back. Khamul’s head is still bowed forward, the mess of his hair thoroughly obscuring his face from view.

That’s fine. He doesn’t need to see Khamul staring at him while he works anymore than he needs to hear Khamul speak. This is tedious enough for him already.

He pours some water over Khamul’s arm, rinsing the blood away. He pats it dry with the cloth, revealing the numerous harsh, thin cuts. Now that the restraints are gone, Angmar can clearly see where they used to be simply based on the absence of injuries.

He starts at Khamul’s elbow, wrapping the bandages around his entire arm then beginning to spiral the bandage down slowly. Bloodied, raw skin is slowly covered by clean, white bandages, and when Angmar reaches Khamul’s wrist he goes a little further to reach the raw skin of Khamul’s lower palm. At least these cuts are superficial, only requiring one layer of wrapping to cover them without blood staining through. The other arm is the fortunately the same, requiring only minimal effort to wrap it in white.

That should be the end of Khamul’s injuries, as far as Angmar is aware. He hadn’t seen anything else significant that required immediate attention. There was nothing he could do for the bruises and abrasions on Khamul’s face, nor for the patches of raw skin over his knuckles.

Angmar huffs, exhaling sharply from his mouth. Khamul’s clothes are unsalvageable at this point, but he had anticipated that. He grabs the final two items from the table of supplies-a plain, beige shirt and a pair of darker, brown pants-and tosses them at Khamul. Khamul doesn’t even bother trying to catch them, and both items hit him squarely on the shoulder before falling down at his side. Luckily, being clothes, they cannot actually hurt him no matter how hard Angmar flings them at him.

“There,” Angmar grunts, stepping away from Khamul and towards the door. “Something clean. I doubt you want to wear scraps on our journey back.”

Khamul does not respond, though the mess of hair turns slightly, presumably as he looks down towards the clothing.

For some reason he cannot understand, Angmar can feel anger beginning to bubble up inside him. Some nameless feeling curls in the pit of his stomach, and Angmar grimaces.

“There’s water on the table,” Angmar adds when Khamul holds his silence. “Come outside when you finish changing.”

He turns sharply and walks towards the door. His hand snags the back of a wooden chair as he walks, and he throws open the door, dragging the chair with him outside into the sunlight. He yanks the door closed behind him then all but throws the chair against one wall of the house and sits. He has no desire to watch over Khamul while he changes. He is not a healer, he is not Khamul’s mother. If he cannot manage to put on a fresh shirt by himself, perhaps he should just die and spare Angmar any further work.

Several buildings still burn nearby, but most of them have already been reduced to smoldering rubble. Angmar can see several bodies from where he sits of Men he had slain. There is a story here. One that now only Khamul knows, and one Angmar is certain Khamul will not share.

There is that anger again. It is a familiar enough feeling that he can immediately name it, but bizarrely enough he is not angry at Khamul. He cannot even try to redirect this anger to Khamul without that other, foreign feeling reemerging like a rock in his gut, which only serves to infuriate him further.

This is Khamul. Irritating, fake, shallow Khamul. Khamul, who deliberately antagonizes Angmar so that he may laugh about it, who can only smile like a fox, who does not have a genuine bone in his body. Khamul, who wears a thousand masks, and then a thousand more beneath that so that no one has ever seen his true face.

It is hard to reconcile that image of Khamul with the body he found in the sands, with the desperation, with the silence afterwards. The only time Khamul is ever quiet is when he is lying in wait.

They feel like two separate people.

A crash from inside the house startles Angmar from his thoughts, and he barges back inside before his mind catches up with his body’s actions, drawing his sword in anticipation of a fight.

Khamul is sitting on the floor in a patch of sunlight from the window, one hand pressed against his forehead and the other on the bed, clearly supporting him. The table has been knocked over, and the few bandages Angmar didn’t use along with the empty waterskins are on the floor around him. Khamul had managed to change his clothes at least, now wearing the beige shirt and brown trousers which he is absolutely swimming in. Well, at least they are too large rather than too small.

“What happened?” Angmar growls, stepping further into the room, glancing around for a threat. He checks the other side of the bed just to be sure no one is crouched down there, out of his sight, but it is just he and Khamul in the room.

“Dizzy,” Khamul whispers from the floor, a trembling hand still pressed to his own forehead.

Angmar scowls-checks under the bed just in case, vigilance never hurts-then sheaths his sword and walks around the bed so he can see Khamul once more. His hair is still a mess, but Khamul had at least tried to push most of it away from his face. He was going to have to wait until they returned to Mordor to properly fix it, though. It was not as though they had enough water to wash it here among the sand. Nor was Angmar willing to wait in this wretched place any longer just so Khamul could look a little nicer.

“Get up,” Angmar barks, and once more finds himself somewhat surprised when Khamul actually tries to rise. Angmar only lets him struggle for a moment before he grasps Khamul by the elbow and drags him the rest of the way to his feet. When Khamul staggers slightly, Angmar scowls but keeps his grip around Khamul’s elbow tight to support him. Khamul immediately latches on with his other hand, clinging to Angmar’s arm.

Clearly, Khamul was not going to be able to make the journey back to Mordor under his own power.

Well, if Khamul cannot walk on his own, Angmar would simply have to do the work for both of them.

Not giving it any further thought than that, Angmar heaves Khamul onto his back so that he is carrying him like a traveling pack, the same position he had him in when he first carried him into the city. He hooks his arms under Khamul’s knees to keep him in place, but with Khamul able to actually hold on this time, Angmar does not have to lean forward as much to keep him from falling off.

Clearly still exhausted, Khamul does not even make a noise of surprise when Angmar maneuvers him onto his back. He simply collapses against him, arms hanging over Angmar’s shoulders and letting his head rest there as well.

Angmar adjusts his grip slightly, gives the room a spare glance to ensure he is not leaving anything important behind, then sets out into the sun. Khamul gives a small shiver as they pass into the light and shifts on his back, but does not try to get down at least. Ignoring his passenger, Angmar makes his way down the street, towards the city gates. They pass corpses both burned and stabbed, houses both still on fire and smoldering rubble. He can feel Khamul shift again, drawing his arms back so instead of hanging over Angmar’s shoulders, he can wind his fingers into the fabric of Angmar’s shirt and hold on.

“…Thank you,” Khamul murmurs softly. Angmar can feel a growing dampness on his shoulder that he vigilantly ignores. Acknowledging Khamul’s tears would mean prying into why he is crying, and Angmar is more than happy to keep as few words as possible exchanged between them.

Angmar only grunts in response. This entire encounter changes nothing. He still does not like Khamul. Khamul still probably hates him. When they return to Mordor, they will return to their usual, mutual antagonism.

But they will be returning to Mordor together.

“Master,” Angmar calls silently through his ring, “I have found Khamul. We are on our way home.”

#minubell #angmar #khamul #fanart #sorry i forgot to draw the sword and fluff thing and misc items on Angmar

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ttrtru · 1 year

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Your them are always so cute. And Melkor's imagery of having so many hands is so so cool I can't even word.

(btw I didn't know your Melkor design so I kinda used a general Melkor but I'd redraw if you have a particular design for him!)

So I now there is very little chance of it arriving because how would it work ?? But I am so curious about a Angmar meeting Melkor fic haha (or just the Nazgûl in general meeting him)

Well so because Tides of War is actually all technically backstory for my dnd campaign which takes place in the 4th age, THEORETICALLY my players could reach a a point where the Nazgul and Morgoth meet each other. I suppose you could call it one of several bad endings.

Bad Ending: At the Door of Night

Angmar is exhausted. Weary in a way that he has not known for several thousand years. Tired not in body but in spirit. This war has weighed heavily upon him and now, faced with their victory, all he can feel is fatigue settling over him like a blanket.

The others lay scattered around him, thrown backwards by the thunderous shockwave. It had only been by plunging the tip of his blade into the earth and clinging to it like an anchor that he had not also been cast down, though he has been driven to one knee and forced to bow his head to brace against the backlash. He cannot muster the strength to stand.

The tempest has eased now, and Angmar lifts his head slowly, squinting past the messy strands of his own hair. His hands still cling to the hilt of his sword, the tips of his fingers blanched white from the force of his grip. His arms are shaking slightly, but if he untangles his grip from his weapon he will probably collapse.

The Door of Night rises before him. Impossibly tall, with pillars of rich black stone. The ruby red eyes of basalt dragons stare down upon him with a weight he cannot truly describe. Smoke stills pours past their carved snarls, but it is beginning to run thin and die. The two great gates of the Door no longer bar the entrance to the void. They have been cast open by his Master, and Angmar is free to stare past them into the Void.

There is… nothing there.

It is blacker than the Door itself, darker than the darkest of nights. There are no stars, no light, but a strange, low humming noise seems to rumble forth from the darkness. Staring directly at it feels sickening. Forbidden. Forbidden in a way that is somehow worse than how it felt when he first stepped foot upon these lands. It makes his skin crawl like the swarming of thousands of spiders across his entire body, and he can feel his hair stand on end in response to the terrible, indescribable wrongness.

This Door should have been left closed.

Some dark fog spills out from the open Door, rolling across the ground on an invisible wind that sweeps his hair slightly. Where it passes the grass shrivels and begins to turn white as crystals of frost gather on the thin surface of their leaves. As it creeps over his legs Angmar cannot suppress the shiver that passes through his body. It is cold, impossibly cold, far colder than the North.

He bares his teeth against the frigid air and exhales sharply. His breath is visible like a white cloud that hangs in the air before him for an instant before vanishing. It is growing colder still, as if that thick, noxious fog is sapping the very warmth from the air. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The Void is dripping now, and something thick and viscous like tar seeps out from the base like a wound.

A hand suddenly springs forth from the Door, blackened and oozing and slams against the frame. Claws dig into the stone as a second hand erupts from the dark and braces itself against the other side of the Door.

A third-fourth-fifth-DOZENS of hands emerge, grasping at the sides and top of the Door and digging into the earth at its base. Each of them blackened as if burned and dripping with that eerie, disgusting tar. There is a pause, then each hand tenses and begins to pull, dragging something out of the void. Something with a turbulent, unnatural, liquid-like body, something piercing white-blue eyes that seem to glow against the black of its body, something with scales and horns and feathers and skin and too many eyes, too many teeth, too many-

“Oh,” Khamul whispers reverently from somewhere on the ground behind him. Angmar could not disagree more.

The thing hauls itself completely from the Void, spilling pieces of itself upon the ground. It is as tall as the Door itself, and something that could vaguely assumed to be a head tips up towards the sky like a lizard bathing in the sunlight. It pauses there for several long moments, basking in the light. When it sighs more of that thick, choking fog spills past its sharp teeth.

“My Lord,” a voice calls out softly, and Angmar’s gaze snaps down to where his master stands just before the creature, impossibly tiny next to its bulk. The creature’s head drops and two large, strange, white-blue eyes focus on the significantly smaller figure. Several of its smaller eyes slide across its body until they too reach its face and are also able to stare at his master. Its face splits in a cracked, cruel smile, and Angmar grimaces against the wave of possessiveness that rolls across his own skin in response.

“Lieutenant,” the thing rumbles, its voice deep and rumbling like thunder. Hands, smaller than the ones that pulled it from the Void’s grasp, emerge from its body and reach out, running over his master’s shoulders, parsing through his hair, touching his face.

This time, Angmar does not bother resisting the possessiveness that bubbles up within him and escapes from his throat in a low growls.

The thing freezes. Its ever-changing, turbulent body goes impossibly still. Eyes blossom over its blackened, wet body, and in the moment it takes for Angmar to realize each of them are locked upon him, the creature moves.

One moment he is upon one knee, the next his head cracks against the ground and all Angmar can see are stars. He snarls even before his vision recovers, and in that moment he can feel a heavy weight pressing down upon his chest, holding him against the dirt. The stars sharpen back into reality, and Angmar realizes they are not stars at all but hundreds of eyes staring at him.

“Oh,” the thing purrs, a large hand pinning Angmar to the floor. A second and third hand pin his hands to the ground on either side of him, and Angmar instinctively closes his fist around the ring on his right hand so it cannot easily be stolen from him. A fourth hand reaches out, grasping for his face, and Angmar snaps his teeth at it, though it artfully avoids his jaws. A thumb presses against one of his cheeks and a finger presses against his other. Fingers curl under his chin and force his head upwards and slightly to one side, and those disgusting eyes are staring at him from all sides as the thing hunches over him. “Fascinating. Your soul is positively frayed, little one.”

“Little one?” Angmar snarls, cursing, trying to get his feet free enough to kick at the thing. His left foot connects with and then sinks into something wet and foul that must be the creature’s body. Incensed, Angmar lashes out with his other foot, and manages to get his leg up and around the arm pinning him down. It sinks into the tar-like substance slightly as well, but gives Angmar enough leverage to yank his other leg free. He aims his now freed leg higher, towards where the thing’s chin seems to be, but a fifth hand reaches out from the mass and catches his foot by the ankle before it can make contact.

“Hush, be still,” the thing coos at him, which only serves to make Angmar angrier, and he strains against the hand holding his face to try to bite it. It is not as if he wants any of that disgusting blackened tar in his mouth, but he is willing to suffer some if he can also inflict some pain in return. Were he not already so drained of might, perhaps Angmar could actually land a strike.

“Release him.”

Angmar watches those eyes slide sideways and glances to the side as well. Khamul has managed to find his feet, and stands a short distance away, legs shaking slightly from the effort. His sword is drawn once more, and he holds it at his side with one hand while the other wipes dirt and blood away from his cheek. “Please,” Khamul adds belatedly, a moment too late compared to his usual politeness.

He looks terrible. Like at any moment he might collapse again. No doubt the weariness Angmar feels Khamul too must be feeling. Possibly even more so.

“Another one?” the thing murmurs thoughtfully. There is a shuffling from around him, and Angmar strains against the hand holding his face to try to see the source. Whatever it is has the thing’s eyes sprawling all over its body to apparently see everywhere all at once. “Ah, and more still? What are you?”

“Those are mine, my lord,” Angmar hears his master murmur from somewhere he cannot see. “I believe you are scaring them.”

“Yours?” the thing asks softly, body rolling as it seems to physically digest this information. One of the larger eyes focuses back on Angmar, and he snarls furiously at it.

“My Nazgul, yes.”

“Ringwraiths?” the thing hums. Its eyes turn back on Angmar and scour over his body for a moment before settling on his closed, right fist. The hand pinning his wrist adjusts slightly so that the finger can reach up and scrape over the part of the band still exposed to the air, and Angmar shivers in response. “Ah, I see. How clever, lieutenant.”

“Thank you, my lord. Will you release him now? As I said, you are scaring them.”

“…Of course,” the thing reluctantly relents, and the hands grasping Angmar’s body recede. Its body rolls for an instant, collapsing in on itself before a man emerges from the dark. Thick, flowing tar makes way for pale skin, except on the man’s hands which remained stained black like they have been burned. There is a surprisingly normal amount of eyes and arms and teeth.

Annoyingly, when Angmar slowly struggles to his own feet, he realizes the man is taller than he.

“They are just so adorable, lieutenant,” the man says, and Angmar is not the only one of the Nine that bristles. He can feel a prodding, wordless question through his ring from both Khamul and Indur of worryconcerndistress, but he ignores them both in favor of glaring up at the man. The remainder of the Nine slowly regroup behind him, huddling together in a familiar formation with Angmar at the point. One of them-Ren?-presses a sword back into Angmar’s hand, and his fingers curl around the blade as best he can. Angmar himself adjusts his stance to be slightly wider, providing more cover to them in his shadow, but any other movements seem beyond him at the moment. He still feels slightly pinned and breathless beneath the man’s sharp gaze. “May I have one? You have… nine, surely you do not need them all.”

“You may not,” his master responds, and there is a slight snap to his voice that Angmar is used to being on the receiving end. Apparently this man is not, because he finally drags his eyes away to turn around, and Angmar feels like he can breathe again without that gaze upon him.

“No?” The man is frowning slightly when he turns back towards Angmar. The other Nine take a reluctant step backwards when the man steps towards them, but Angmar only bares his teeth in a grimace in response. “Look, this one is not even frightened of me. You should let me keep it. I promise I will not even break it.”

“I only serve my master,” Angmar barks back before his master can respond. “Not you.”

“Angmar,” his master calls, and there is a warning in his voice that Angmar immediately ignores.

“I am your master’s master,” the man responds, head tilted to one side. One of his hands reaches out towards Angmar’s face again, but it pauses when Angmar raises his sword in warning. “If he obeys me, surely you must as well.”

“Never,” Angmar responds immediately, and gives him a rude gesture as well.

The man blinks down at him before his frown splits into an eerie, disgusting grin that makes the others take yet another step back and Angmar snarl.

“There are not many Men that would deny me,” the man purrs. He’s stepping closer, and blackened nails pinch Angmar’s sword, keeping him from swinging it. He leans forward slightly, thrusting his face directly into Angmar’s, those eerie, blue eyes staring deep into his. Angmar thinks he can see the Void in those eyes. Certainly something dangerous, not deep within them but rather close to the surface. Danger that drives the others back, but only makes Angmar steel himself. “I rather like you, I think. Are you certain you would not like to serve me instead?”

Angmar glances past him, and makes eye contact with his master for just a moment. A moment where his master immediately reads his expression and must see something telling, because he quickly opens his mouth to call out a warning.

“Angmar-“

Angmar bites the man on the nose.

#minubell #melkor #mairon #angmar #khamul #nazgul

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ttrtru · 1 year

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Maimaimai

#mairon #ttrtruart

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ttrtru · 2 years

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why are they so cute

@ttrtru

Adjusting to a new home is scary. It's scarier when you're alone.

TW: Implied/Referenced child abuse

Autophobia

It takes newborn children the first few months of their lives to realize that objects continue to exist when they are not staring at them.

Indur is not a newborn, but he feels still feels a heart-racing panic whenever Angmar slips out of his sight.

His room in the tower is quiet but his heart rattles in his chest. It is dark in his bedroom, with night having well fallen upon the tower. The candles are long extinguished. He lays upon his bed in the black, tucked under sheets and blankets and furs.

He is alone.

He is exhausted.

It was easier in Harad-not home, never home-to ignore the panic, as Angmar had barely left his side for those few years. The room Angmar had claimed just so happened to be right next to Indur’s, and with no one else in the castle it had been…peaceful. Indur still had jumped at shadows whenever they looked too similar to people, but Angmar had always been there to chase the memories away.

It was only when Angmar had finally been called back to Mordor by his master and Indur had followed that things had changed, had gotten worse.

Our master now, Indur thinks to himself, staring at the stone ceiling above him. Something stirs in his chest and it feels like jealousy.

He is… mostly indifferent towards their master. Indur is not loyal to him like the other Nazgul are. He is not disloyal either, of course. He may be young but he isn’t a fool. No, Indur is simply loyal to Angmar. Indur’s loyalty to their master is secondary to Angmar’s own. A byproduct at best.

Indur suspects their master is aware of this.

Sometimes he worries if he will be cast away for it.

Indur closes his eyes. Trying to fall asleep, trying to slip into unconsciousness. He’s so tired. Why does sleep elude him again?

So far there has been no comment. There was an initial judgement when they had first arrived, but it had lasted only a few minutes and their master had let Angmar’s decision to give Indur a ring stand without much fuss. There had been no tests of his skills or knowledge. No oaths of fealty.

They had not even spoken since that first meeting. Indur has not even seen him since that time.

Their new master is apparently very busy.

Indur turns his head and presses himself into the pillows, wrapping his arms around one of the smaller ones. Squeezing it to his chest, trying to settle the distress sweeping over him. It is night time. He should be sleeping.

His eyes are already closed, but he squeezes them shut even tighter.

Nighttime is the worst.

Over the last few weeks Indur has gone from walking several feet behind Angmar, to a few paces, to just behind him, to practically walking on top of him, all in an attempt to minimize those moments of fear that come from not being able to see him.

He is of course mindful of his feet to not accidentally step on Angmar’s heels. Like Angmar’s actual shadow he is quiet, unobtrusive, and dutiful in the way he follows him almost everywhere he goes. Like a good shadow, Angmar rarely pays him much mind.

Indur knows, naturally, that Angmar has not vanished from the world just because he is doing other things. He knows Angmar has not been suddenly struck down when he is simply out of sight. He knows Angmar is fine.

But Indur cannot help the rising alarm in his chest that bubbles up into his throat when Angmar is gone. Cannot help the way his heart races and his throat tightens and his brain conjures images of the worst come to pass.

Angmar is easily the largest of the Nazgul, easily the tallest of the Nazgul, easily the strongest of the Nazgul, easily the most adept at magic amongst their number.

Indur is easily the smallest of the Nazgul, easily the shortest of the Nazgul, easily the weakest of their number. He is the youngest-will forever be the youngest-and it is in moments like these, trying to fall asleep in a room by himself, that he feels far younger than his years.

He feels like a child.

He feels like he is still a child.

He feels like he is still eight years old, trapped within a castle that should be a home but it isn’t.

His eyes are shut but it would not matter because he cannot see anyway, not with the blindfold covering his eyes.

“Indur.”

Fingers comb through his skull, nails dragging across his scalp, winding in through his hair and pulling HARD. Yanking his head back until his throat is bared for hands to wrap around and squeeze until he can’t breathe.

“Indur.”

Another set of hands cup his cheek, gently at first then abruptly aggressive, squeezing his jaw tight until it aches. Forcing his mouth open, and he still cannot breathe but it doesn’t matter because a goblet is being pressed against his lips and a liquid that is sickeningly-sweet-familiar slips past his teeth and across his tongue. The wine barely disguises the taste of the herb that has been added, but Indur does not want to drink either anymore. He's sick of the way it blurs his thoughts, makes his vision spin, makes him forget.

“Indur.”

Indur awakens with tears in his eyes, sweat on his forehead and a sob in his throat. He chokes back tears, head swimming and mind disoriented. He’s uncertain of when exactly his racing thoughts had made way for sleep.

He curls his fingers into the sheets of his bed, but they’re too soft under his grip. His room is too warm, the darkness too stifling, the solitude too unbearable.

He can’t… He can’t breathe.

He kicks at the sheet and punches the pillow away, trying to free himself of the sensation of being strangled. His hands grab at the collar of his night clothes until his fingers find purchase and pull. The cloth stretches and the threads break with a quiet tearing sound, and he’s left lying upon the bed with tears in his eyes and a ruined shirt.

At least it no longer feels as though it is choking him.

Indur draws in a breath that hitches halfway through his inhale and turns into a sob near the end. He presses shaking hands against the sides of his head, pushing at his temples, trying to clear his mind.

It is his seventh night of nightmares in just as many days.

That doesn’t count the others he has had since arriving here.

The loss of sleep is getting to be unbearable. He feels at the end of his rope. He’s exhausted. He just wants to be able to sleep through the night undisturbed, to not have the memories of his childhood haunt him so.

It should be over. It is over. Those people who tormented him are dead by his own hand. Why can’t their memory remain buried as well?

He sniffs loudly, rubbing the corner of his eyes with his sleeve.

It’s too much. He can’t stay here anymore.

Slowly he swings his legs over the side of the bed, and his bare feet quietly touch the warm stone floor below. He grasps one of the blankets he kicked off the bed and drapes it over his shoulders like an oversized cloak. It trails behind him on the ground as he reaches for one of the pillows on the bed and tucks it close to his chest.

Indur shuffles towards the door, sniffling quietly. His steps are quiet on the smooth stone, and the door only creaks softly when he opens it and steps into the dim, candle-lit hall.

No one is awake at this hour. No men, anyway.

Indur closes the door to his room behind him.

He moves down the hallway like a ghost, the only noise the occasional hitch in his breath like a hiccup and the sound of the blanket dragging behind him across the stone as he walks, staggering only slightly.

Left.

Right.

Up the steps.

Down the hall.

He comes to pause at last in front of a door just like any others in the tower, but Indur knows better.

He reaches up a hand, knocking softly on the door once, twice. When there is no response after a few moments, he lets his hand rest on the handle and opens the door with a soft creak.

Inside the darkness, a shape stirs.

“What?” Angmar growls. His hair is untied from its usual loose half-bun, and all of the long grey-black stands hang freely around the sides of his face and down his neck. He is still laying upon his bed, but is propped up on one elbow, squinting towards the doorway. He blinks the dregs of sleep from his eyes and Indur can see the exact moment that recognition dawns on Angmar’s face. “What do you want, runt?”

The nickname is obviously insulting, but Indur’s heart soars at the sound of his voice anyway. Deep and rumbling and slightly more gravely from sleep.

“I can’t sleep,” Indur whispers from the doorway.

“…And?”

“Can I sleep on your floor?” Indur asks quietly. He usually spends him time in Angmar’s shadow trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. This is… this is a first for him. But his nose is still running and his shirt is ruined and he can feel tears at the corners of his eyes and his breath hitches and he is just so tired.

He’s desperate.

Angmar stares at him in silent judgement, still obviously weary from being disturbed from his own sleep. There’s a scowl on his face that is nearly always present on his face and makes his thoughts indecipherable. There are small, almost impossible to notice eye movements as Angmar’s gaze sweeps over him, and if possible his scowl deepens.

Indur doesn’t know what he’ll do if he’s turned away. He just wants to feel safe once more.

Finally, Angmar grumbles and shifts in his bed until he is closer to the far edge of the bed rather than being in the middle. He pats the new space created on the bed next to him with a soft, gruff, “c’mere.” Almost immediately he rolls back over so his back is to Indur and lays back down to sleep.

Indur doesn’t hesitate, quickly scurrying over to the bed before the offer can be retracted, abandoning his own pillow and blanket upon the floor at the side of the bed. He slips beneath the covers, pulling the blankets up over his chest and up to his chin. They’re likely the same blankets in his own room, but they feel nicer in Angmar’s room. Cozier.

He lets his eyes close once more.

He can feel the dip in the mattress next to him, can hear Angmar’s deep, rumbling, annoyed huffs about having been disturbed.

...This is better.

Something shifts next to him, and a large hand settles on his head, not combing through his hair and pulling, but rather giving him a single, almost reassuring pat.

“Next time you come in, don’t wake me up,” Angmar grumbles, then rolls back over to asleep.

It’s as close to an open invitation as Angmar will give him, and it is one of the most precious things Angmar could have offered him.

Indur sleeps well for the rest of the night.

#minubell #indur #angmar #khamul #ttrtruart

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