Chapter Text
Blood and adrenaline rushes through his veins, cooling fight-fevered skin. He spits sand and blood, staining red the desert at his knees.
Beyond the dull haze of a post-battle high, he hears his men, those of them still alive and groaning and struggling to rise. Others too injured to stay awake, and others still.... dead.
The number of his enemies' slain is higher, though. That gives him some satisfaction.
"You fight well, Man of Illahm."
A voice like gold cuts though the cloud in his mind. He lifts his head, eyes lidded, and sees only the setting sun halo-ing the head of this battle's newest participant.
Strange. He was sure they'd all fallen already.
Kharif struggles to his feet, catching the glint of sunlight on the metal of a spear. He will not stand to have another enemy before him, not one who seeks to take advantage of the situation.
Their weapons clash with muted blows. He doesn't know how he manage to hold onto his spear, how he manages to swing so hard, so well. There are no other signs of battle, and his opponent does not call out for succor.
Only when his footing slip does it finally end. He receives no finishing blow, hears no whooping victory call— the Khalwadin were known for such celebrations. The silhouette he'd seen was undoubtedly one of the Eastern tribesmen from the lands up north, come down to take the spoils of war for himself.
Yet as he strugges to his knees, the light falls differently, and he sees.
Certainly, this man is no tall sea-dweller, no boatswain. He is.. Khalwadin. Surely. He is the color of brass, sleek and slightly sunburnt. Despite having exchanged blows, he wears a smile that seems to beckon the dead.
"..Who are you? Are you here to—"
Blood trickles over his right eyelid, obscuring his vision. He wipes it away quickly and grips his scimitar. Mehrad forbid he be caught off-guard so easily.
He doesn't expect a hand to be held in front of him, extended as though in friendship. The man is relaxed, languid, even.
The wide-bladed tip of the steel rod he carries is smeared with blood. The same color decorates his abdomen, the swirls on his arms and chest, the underside of his eyes. A fresh cut paints the side of his rib, and a matching smear of blood sits guiltily upon Kharif's own blade.
But there is no animosity.
"One should introduce themselves before asking of others, no?"
The man does not ask.
"...Kharif."
He grips the proffered arm and finds himself pulled up with surprising ease and strength, though the stranger does not offer anything in return yet.
The Easterling (it's easier to tell now that the sun no longer makes him look like a god on this earth) is small— Kharif towers over him by almost an entire head. And he wears nothing but a pair of loose breeches, and a shawl around his head. Pauldrons he bears, lined with white feathers.
He doesn't look like a fighter.
Those painted hands move, gesturing, passing over the swirls and marks on skin with a dizzying effect. Kharif stumbles and finds the stranger far closer than he'd like (and yet not close enough), those very hands keeping him from falling completely over.
"You have lost quite a bit of blood, merah."
"I'm... not..." He's on the ground again, nestled in sand. He remembers seeing a small host of men behind this gilded stranger, yet none of them are coming forth. Is this to be his end? "..I'm not merah yet."
Numbly he feels a mouth press over his own and he opens his eyes. Red and black speckled colouring frames a slit of gold, eyes glimmering in a mockery of the sun.
"My name is Mairon," the gilded god says, his breath and skin hotter than the sands at noon. Kharif feels his stomach drop. "You may know me better as the Lord of Mordor. Mehrad. Merhadi. The Prophet."
Is it the blood he's lost? The Lord of Mordor speaks as though he were a multitude of voices, like the chorus during prayer, and there is an aura about his head, around his eyes. We await his Glory.
Somehow, he can find no reason to believe the man before him is telling anything but the truth.
Kharif leans in, sealing and accepting the offer of an alliance, and feels the Lord of Mordor smile against his lips.
And he faints dead away.
.
.
.
When he wakes again, it feels like a dream. A wooden roof shields him from the evening sun, sheer black cloth hiding him (them) from prying eyes. The gilded god sits nearby on a nest of fabrics and pillows, no longer so gilded as Kharif remembers.
He's humming. Singing a song Kharif hasn't heard since childhood, sung by one whose face he can never recall and always as though accompanied by a full set of strings. Never the same as when his parents would sing it.
Only recently did he realize it for what it was. That it was only ever one man. This man.
"Here, I found my love," Kharif murmurs. The singing falters and for a moment he regrets it. "Here, I found myself. Here, I made my home.. My sands, my streams, my never-ending voice."
"..Here, I spilled my blood," the Lord of Mordor sings, a verse that Kharif only recalls from his dreams on cloudy nights. "Here, I learned what it meant to live, to love. Here, my love, my life, my heart..."
He sways with the palanquin, bending as a reed in the wind. Kharif leans closer.
"Who do you sing of, Lord Mairon?"
Gold-brass eyes turn to his, the depths of which he cannot ever dream to penetrate.
"We drew hearts into the stone," he says. "We counted love on our tongues and let them loose into the air. We sang with gravel in our lungs and breathed with dust in the air. We dreamt of a world where everything was ours, and nothing at all."
Then he looks away.
Kharif pushes himself upright, and the strip of bandage wound across the Lord of Mordor's chest gives him pause.
And he realizes.
"..I have drawn your blood," Kharif says, the words numb on his tongue. "Forgive me, mehrad, I did not know— I was not myself—!"
"Worry not for past deeds." The Lord of Mordor comes close and kisses him again, chaste, the offer of friendship once more. "You accept the friendship of Mordor, do you not?"
And once more, now that he is far more lucid and conscious, Kharif returns the kiss with vigour. It takes every ounce of willpower he has not to seek more, so heated and heady he is with post-battle adrenaline.
"I accept," he whispers. "Though you call me merah when I hold no such titles.. "
"A promise, then. For when the time comes. We will bring your people back to Illahm, wounded or otherwise." The smile graces his face again, a ripple in a puddle. "Leave the West-Men to me."
That night, Kharif kneels before his altar and prays harder than he ever has before. For it must be blasphemous to yearn for a god who belongs to the Maker.