Title: Monsters
Fandom: The Hobbit, Silmarillion, Lord of the Rings
Rating: G
Length: 200
Content notes: N/A
Author notes: Thanks go to Icka for telling me the end needed work, and Morgynleri for Requiem Court
Summary: What is a monster?



Morgoth does not think of himself as a monster. He does not think of the fell, deadly and light-devouring creatures he has shaped from the too-fair, too-smooth, too-bright things of the Valar's making as monsters, but as efficient improvements. It pleases him that there is little to tell between the heart of a balrog or a dragon, a flock of crebain or a pack of wargs, besides the technical details of legs or wings, fiery breath or fiery whip, claws or teeth or razored beaks.

Annatar however, clever, pretty, skilled servant, seduced from Aulë's hall, and Curumo after him, walking in darkness even in sunlight, breathing despair on Manwë's too-clean winds. They are true monsters, fell and fallen by their own hands, their own wills, fast caught in the web of endless night.

Sauron and Saruman, viewing the world at their feet from their tower's lofty heights, are not monsters in their own eyes. How could they be? Are they not working for order, peace, the good that comes from sure, skilled minds maintaining a single crown, steady hands wielding sword and sceptre?

No, that which resists submission, wild and untamed — Ents and Eagles and interfering mortals — are the monsters.