Várion wept helplessly, though his tears had long since run dry. He simply didn't have enough water left in him to cry. It had finally happened today, what he had long feared: the forced toil and poor food that was a slave's life in Angband had caught up to him, and he had collapsed, unable to rise. The Orcs had beaten him for that, further damaging him, until Vàrion knew he was dead. It would simply take some time…and possibly some hungry Orcs.

That thought frightened him, as he thought nothing could after the years he had spent in Morgoth's fortress. But he did not want to be eaten alive…

Suddenly, a slender, warm hand slid underneath his chin, lifting it. Raising his eyes, Várion met the golden eyes of Morgoth's most powerful lieutenant, the Maia most accredited as the actual lord of Angband. But the expression in those eyes…it could not be pity, could it?

"Do you wish to live, or to die?" the Maia asked quietly. Várion couldn't help but give a short, mirthless laugh.

"What is the offer behind those two choices?" he rasped.

"If you wish to die, I can make it swift and clean, and mostly painless," Sauron replied quietly. "If you wish to live…I can give you two weeks with double rations, and orders to the Orcs to leave you alone."

"How do you rationalize that one?" Várion couldn't help but ask. Sauron shrugged.

"That it is easier to heal a sick slave than break a new one," he replied.

"And for death?" Várion asked again.

"No one looks twice at a dead Elf," the Maia answered. "Not here." Várion was silent for a time.

"I want to live," he finally said, his voice breaking into a sob. "Perhaps I should want to die, and escape this torment…but I want to live." Sauron said nothing, and simply slid his hands behind Várion's shoulders and knees. The Elf couldn't quite hold back a whimper when the Maia lifted him, but Sauron did nothing other than to continue down the hallway. He took Várion to a large room scattered with a few tattered furs and blankets where the Elven slaves were accustom to rest whenever they were allowed to.

There, Sauron lowered Várion onto a fur with surprising gentleness. Then with quick, efficient movements, the Maia moved out the door, returning swiftly with a water-skin, half a loaf of bread, and a bowl of the oddly tasteless porridge that was a staple in Angband. These he set down by the Elf's head, and left again.

Várion heard Sauron's curt orders to the Orcs who were driving some exhausted Elves into the room.

"Double that one's food rations, and do nothing else to him for a fortnight."

"But lord, but it's broken and useless. What's the use of coddling it?" One of the Orcs whined.

"It's easier to let a slave rest and heal for a few weeks, and get years more out of him than to try to capture a new one and break him to his tasks," Sauron snapped. "If you disagree with me, you are more than welcome to volunteer for the raiding parties."

"No lord," the Orc responded, sounding terrified. "It'll be as you say, lord, nothing to him 'cept food 'n' water for two weeks."

"See that it is so," Sauron said with finality, then his soft footsteps faded into the distance.

Several weeks after the two weeks Sauron had given him, Várion was traveling down the same hallway he had nearly met his end. Near to where he had been was another Elf, but this one was clearly dead. Várion normally would have simply walked on, but something, perhaps Sauron's words that no one looked twice at a dead Elf, prompted him to stop. This ellon had clearly been beaten severely, but he had a strangely peaceful smile on his face—and a single, sure cut across his neck, one that had caught both of the major arteries there.

And with a cold rush of certainty, Várion knew that this Elf had been offered the same choice as he—and had chosen death.

Hah, it's fixed! Yay. Anyway, this story is the result of a name you create a year ago popping up and insisting they make a good story...