He wasn't quite sure what made him pick up the Red Book to begin with, anyway. Part of it was curiosity, he knew that…and part of him wanted to know what Frodo had actually known when he had chosen to take the Ring.

Sauron found the first chapter quite amusing, though it was slightly spoiled by the fact he knew just what that ring was, and what it would do…But still, it was wonderful to see more of Bilbo, whom he had only met briefly in Mandos.

The second chapter was harder. The story of the Ring—his story—was laid out in painful detail. The Ringspell itself was enough to nearly do in Sauron's resolve to actually read this tale. The fact that it was his brother narrating the whole thing just made everything worse. But the Maia was nothing if not stubborn, and he persevered.

Until that once sentence. It was an admirable thing, and altogether precious. It was an admirable thing. Admirable. Maira. Mairon.

How. How had Frodo managed to use that one word to describe the Ring? That one word that formed the core of his old name, that innocent, laughing child who had died by slow degrees until the creation of the Ring had been the final death-knell?

"Yes, it was an admirable thing," Sauron whispered, closing the book he could no longer bring himself to read. "The last creation of one who could be called the admirable."

So yeah, I'm not making it up, Sauron's original name, Mairon, comes from the Quenya root 'maira', which means admirable. I was re-reading that passage, and my jaw dropped.

Obviously, this is set in the same universe as Fallen, as that would be the only universe of mine where Sauron would be able to read the Red Book.