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Sometimes Mairon hated still being embodied. It was nothing but a shackle now. His shapeshifting was harshly restricted since he'd returned to Valinor, as were all his sorcery, much of his remembered wisdom, and really all the accustomed natural powers of a Maia. He might as well be nothing but an Elda who could see in more dimensions than usual. He retained a half-conscious flexibility to the shape of his fana; he might present himself as tall, petite, slender or robust, as the situation and his whim indicated. Today he was slight, leaning into Eönwë as the other brushed a kiss over the corner of his mouth. It was a bad day.
“Keep me safe,” Mairon breathed. “Don’t let them punish me further. Promise me.” He controlled the whimper that threatened to escape. “I’m so helpless.” He’d never reveal such weakness to any other being; he had a little autonomy, though he dwelled with near obsession over his tenuous freedom.
“Always,” Eönwë murmured, and squeezed Mairon to his chest.
His room was barely more than a cell: A narrow bed, a writing-desk, a plush chair facing what served as a window. Not that he craved more of the sky and its reminder that Manwë held his very existence in his hands.
Eönwë eased himself back to look fondly down at Mairon. “I’m making you a gift, you know,” he smiled.
“A gift. I deserve no such thing.” Mairon hated the strictures placed on him, breeding abject boredom, and really he felt he deserved quite a lot indeed that he was denied. But he scoffed, quietly wiping away a final scalding tear. “And what kind of gift could I have earned?”
“Well, that’s the point of a present! You don’t have to earn it at all.”
“I may leave the mountain?” He was confined to a lesser wing of Manwë’s palace, discreetly guarded, in what he suspected was a converted storage closet. “Surely you haven’t convinced them to let me craft again,” he sneered. “Oh, it's a new gown, rich with gold embroidery?” He plucked at the unbleached linen he wore with distaste.
Eönwë’s eyes narrowed. “Bitterness doesn’t suit you. And you’re just going to have to wait for the gift.”
“Let me craft.” He wanted - needed - to make something, something beautiful. He knew he would never be allowed near a forge again, not till the world was remade. But he had put in a petition to practice woodworking. Sculpture, whittling, even carpentry couldn’t be more humbling than mandated idleness. He’d begun drafting a little house, a low little bungalow, calculating the optimal angles of light falling from the ceiling beams, in the fancy that he’d someday be able to live on his own.
Eönwë said nothing.
“I know,” Mairon whispered. It was so tempting to give in to despair.
Eönwë did indeed acquire a few new pieces of clothing for Mairon, nicely tailored and decorated at the hem and cuffs and neck, which he was most grateful for. He knocked politely at Mairon’s door, then let himself in. Mairon’s space was still not his own. “I have great news!” he beamed. “We can go flying! Lord Manwë will let me chaperone you.”
“I’d be trusted that much? Absurd.” But Mairon knew he was no match anywhere for Eönwë, especially in the skies, if it came to a fight. And if he tried anything clever Eönwë would take him down in a heartbeat. There was very little risk for those enforcing his sentence. “Will you carry me in a basket? I can’t form wings, you’ll remember.”
“That’s just the thing! Your fana will be a little more malleable. You really will be able to fly!”
It had been some time since Mairon had tested the bounds of his imprisonment. He flexed his shoulders, and closed his eyes, and extended his arms into shiny bat’s wings. His eyes grew wide. “But why grant me the sky?” he asked as he flexed his new appendages. He trusted nothing about this. “When I’m permitted to take my silly walks outside I can feel the hatred of every stone and lichen and created thing.” He didn’t admit that the excursions were nearly unbearable, and only marginally better than quietly reading alone.
“Come on, come on!” With every passing moment Eönwë grew more excited, until it seemed he would leap out of his skin.
Tall and lithe, Mairon pulled his arms back into their accustomed shape, and in silent acquiescence made for the door.
In between visits from Eönwë and the other Maiar who couldn’t control their curiosity - mostly the ones who’d come down into the world after his flight to Utumno and knew him only from story and song - Mairon had been making a fair copy of a bound book of his alleged exploits, adding annotations and corrections in red ink, though he redacted none of his actual crimes. He wanted to rip the original slanderous text into shreds, but knew that if he did he’d be denied library privileges. So he amused himself with the notion that someone might read his version one day, and become just a bit more sympathetic; or possibly even more scandalized. Thus it was that in his writing he was too engrossed to hear Eönwë’s light tapping. But as he rapped a bit harder on the door Mairon shook himself out of his reverie and made his brief way to open the door.
“It’s here,” Eönwë smiled broadly, his eyes soft. “I’ve finished your present!” He’d been too excited to even wrap the handsome leather book he thrust forward into Mairon’s hands.
“What’s this?” he asked, even as he examined the untitled cover, and flipped it open to the middle. The paper was fine but the page was blank. He blinked, prepared to be very offended. “A journal? How kind of you….”
“No, no, start at the beginning!”
Silently Mairon turned back to the first page, which bore the illuminated title A Book of Days. On the next Eönwë had written in his own bold, scattered script, “For Mairon, that you may look back on your little joys in the times to come.” He flipped to the following page, which bore a small square of plain linen and by it the message, “How I first saw you.” Below it was a similar scrap of raw silk labeled, “What you earned,” and diagonally from that a swatch of richly brocaded roses complete with gleaming thorns. “What you deserve,” it was marked.
“What is this?” Mairon squinted down at the page, ready to dismiss as cruel the insult he thought it might be.
“Keep going!” Eönwë had slipped behind Mairon to read over his shoulder. The next page sported a cluster of dry, pressed violets, and the phrase, “From our picnic.” To the next was affixed one of Eönwë’s own crisp tertiary feathers. “Soaring!” was its only inscription.
Mairon looked back in consternation. “Did you tear this out yourself?” he demanded.
“I do shed a feather occasionally, you know that.” From before, went unspoken. “But even if I had plucked it fresh it would be worth a little pain for you.”
“Ridiculous. And what shall I find next?” he asked, already turning to the following page, and frowned. “A drawing of me… drawing? And not a very good one.”
At this color rose high on Eönwë’s cheeks. “I did that,” he muttered, embarrassed. “And I know it’s not great. But I saw you one day and I had to impress it in my memory. You’re beautiful,” he added softly.
“Well.” Mairon wasn’t going to shrug off the compliment, but he didn’t feel it needed further explanation. He took one of Eönwë’s hands from his waist and wrapped it around himself. “What’s all this about, anyway? A scrapbook, really?” It was a dubious, sentimental thing, and showed just how naive Eönwë really was. With everything that had passed between them over the ages, he retained the purity of his soul. Mairon’s heart gave a twinge.
“Mm-hm. I’ve been working on it.”
“So I see.” Mairon flipped through the next few pages, each decorated in similar fashion. When he reached the end of the filled section and came upon several empty pages, he frowned. “Where’s the rest?”
“That’s for you to make,” he explained, his irrepressible cheer returning. “You’re going to be around a long time, and you’re going to save things that make you happy. Successes, achievements, big or little things. Anything that makes you smile.”
“Darling,” murmured Mairon. “It’s too - it’s too silly. I can’t bear it.” He choked on the final words.
“No,” and Eönwë kissed the back of his neck. “It’s exactly what you deserve. Joy.”