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Mairon wiped the soot and sweat from his face and stepped into the high-raftered hall that was home to Aulë and Yavanna. Usually, the place was filled mostly with those who worked in the forges and craft hall like himself, those who followed Yavanna preferring to nest or burrow in the wide expanses of forest and field, if they rested at all instead of lifting their limbs like a tree to the sky or wafting as flower petals on the wind. Today though, Yavanna herself was in residence, home from wandering the forest depths. Birds and small pterosaurs flitted in and out the open windows, and Mairon had to slip past a napping tortoise that was bigger than his chosen fána to reach the Lady's side.
"You asked for me?"
She turned to him with several tiny squirming bundles of fur in her arms. "Mairon! I could use your help getting these little ones situated. All those mountains Melkor's been lifting where there shouldn't be any sent a landslide down right onto their den. He flattened the trees for miles around. I'm so angry I could scream. But I need the fire built up and a place for these to rest. There's two litters of young; one has their mother, but the other parents were not to be found. They must have been separated in the landslide too far to return from; I could not leave these abandoned and alone."
Mairon carefully schooled his expression not to let any guilt show. He'd had another gift from Melkor just a few days ago: a pure metal that burst into flames when water touched it. He still hadn't asked the Vala to stop his strange courtship. He pushed down the little whisper in the back of his mind that insisted he didn't want to. Why did Melkor have to do things in so disorganized a fashion anyhow? With Mairon to help and guide him, perhaps there would be less collateral damage....
He shook off the most definitely forbidden thoughts and set to cleaning up Melkor's mess, as much as he could. The small creatures were shivering, and the sole remaining mother--some kind of furry, four-legged predator, with a mouth full of beautifully sharp teeth and pointed ears--seemed desperately weary. Mairon laid out bedding near the hearth once he had the fire roaring. It was a cold day for Almaren, something about Yavanna's plants needing a season of rest, and a few snowflakes had been drifting from a grey sky, though they melted into friendlier moisture as soon as they met the ground.
Once the mother and the young were settled comfortably, Mairon sat beside Yavanna, watching as she checked the creatures over carefully and brushed the dirt and detritus out of their fur. One of the little ones licked at his hand and crawled into his lap. Its eyes weren't even open yet. Gently he ran a wondering finger over its soft fur.
"She likes you," Yavanna smiled.
"She likes how warm I am," Mairon countered.
"I think it's more than that. You have such a calm and patient way about you. They're drawn to that."
"Well, I like her too." The small creature was nipping at his finger as if she thought she could get milk that way. "What do you call them?"
"These are wolves. Not so far removed from Oromë's great hounds, but meant for wildness."
"They kill and eat other creatures?" Mairon hadn't quite wrapped his mind around that, though he knew Oromë and his hunters did the same. It felt... dangerous. Like if he were ever to taste it, he might not come back.
"It's all a part of the world's balance. Everything that lives eats something else, and dies and is eaten in turn. It's like a great dance, or our Music; everything has its turn in the light and then must pass that gift to another."
Mairon nodded. "But these little ones must eat what their mother's body provides, yes? I think this one is hungry."
Yavanna's expression turned grave. "I fear there will not be enough milk for all. Some then must die, but I wish it were not so. This is Melkor's fault; it was not their time."
"Is there no other animal that can give them milk?"
"Certainly, but their teats won't fit a little wolf cub's mouth. I could fetch milk from one of the goats my maidens have been making cheese from, but how will they drink it? They're too young to lap it up."
Mairon fell to thinking. This was a mechanical problem, and he excelled at those. He stroked the wolf cub's fur; it was very pleasant and warm, and the cub seemed to like the attention. "Something small," he murmured to himself. "Something they can suck, or that expresses only a little at a time...I have syringes in the forge," he exclaimed. "But they've had chemicals in them...Let me make you a new one. I'll be right back."
He handed her the puppy and sprang to his feet. Thin copper sheet was laid ready; that could be sterilized easily, and worked easily too. It was a matter of a few hours to solder together several syringes with their plungers and to clean them thoroughly of flux and oxidation. When he returned, the mother wolf was fast asleep, but several of the pups were whining in hunger. Yavanna was stirring a pot of milk near the fire. Soon Mairon was ensconced with a pup in his lap, trying to find the perfect rate of offering milk that the pup could swallow without spilling down its chin.
"You know..." Yavanna began thoughtfully. "It will be hard for hand-fed babies to return to the wild. They'll be too tame. Perhaps you'd like to keep one."
Mairon nestled the pup closer, imagining having such precious company at his side all the time. "Would that be all right?"
"I think it would be for the best, in fact."
The evening passed pleasantly between talk and feeding the wolves every little while. Mairon found Yavanna's ways of shaping things fascinating, so different from Aulë's, and he had question after question for her about breeding and adaptation and selecting characteristics over time. When his eyes began to drift shut, he stretched out beside the hearth with a pile of puppies curled up around and on top of him. They slept peacefully all through the night.