Threads of light cut through the shadow of Melkor's raiment like lightning through a stormcloud. And like smoke or some dread black mist it foams and froths, betraying his sudden anger. The shapes of the imps are almost obscured by it as it grows, and he stalks forth with the flicker of Mairon's red-golds reflected in his eyes like fire mirrored and glittering on the surface of jet shards.

"Mairon, you will scrape yourself off of that floor before I give you a reason to beg," he warned, voice rumbling like thunder, so low it makes the stone quiver.

"Pain was an instrument I granted you, when first I wrought the manner of the world to my liking." Melkor had long known the awesome power of pain. Had long been given cause to fear it. It was a strange half-formed shadow of himself he saw in Mairon's cowering, and he detested it.

He detested also the thought that some other power had forced his servant so low. Jealousy and spite made his unfamiliar pulse hammer in his throat. The marbled floor was so well-glossed that it reflected his own darkness up at him as he covered the distance which separated them.