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After changing his skin, Mairon stands bare before a mirror. No, not he, the other. He runs his fingertips over this body (his body?), traces curves and bones unknown. He looks down at his hands. The trembling stops.
Gone are nails like claws, all sharpness in him trimmed to prudence.
Gone are the fiery locks, framing him like a radiant mantle. This is no place for vanity.
Mairon (Annatar) touches his elven ears. Unadorned. His fingers trail over his jaw, now slightly more pronounced.
In soft waves his white-blonde hair cascades down his shoulders, shoulders that are broader, somewhat.
Annatar smiles at his reflection. He runs his fingers through his hair, picks up a plain robe folded on a simple chair.
Do not frighten them with brilliance. Modesty soothes.
He steps closer to the mirror. Pulls the lids of one of his eyes open.
Gone is their brightness. Smothered serpent. Fire dulled to honey.
Sweeten their ruin.
Annatar takes root in the city. His new flesh moves among them with ease. The flesh feels different.
When, shrouded in candlelight and wine-drunk nights, at last he lures the elf between his thighs, it feels different. When the elf thrusts inside him, all red-stained lips, grim and proud heart soft from wine, it feels different. How did it feel with Him? It is so long ago. He clutches Celebrimbor to his chest like a dying thing that night. The flesh wants and gasps and pleads.
Stoke his ambition. Sing to his desires.
For centuries, he makes himself a home.
Obsession whips the elf along. For centuries. Grandfather-shadow, some things are inescapable. He forgets his place.
His throat feels good beneath Annatar’s hand.
And when these hands torture, when they maim and when they murder, then, at last, this flesh might become home.