Eternal

Same Soulmate AU as Mellow (Dior is Celegorm's, not Beren's).  Dís dies giving birth to Kíli in a cabin in the mountains belonging to two particular elves.  Said elves pretty much adopt the three remaining dwarrows into their little family.  Seventy-seven years later, said dwarrows pass through on their way to reclaim a certain Lonely Mountain from a certain fire drake.  Mostly introspective and fluffy.

Disclaimer: Tolkien owns the characters.

Pairings: Celegorm x Lúthien, hints of Bagginshield

Characters: Celegorm, Lúthien, Thorin, Bilbo, Fíli, Kíli, Thorin's Company (Aegnor, Andreth, Beren, Caranthir and Haleth mentioned)

Warning: Major AU, possible OOC, hint of slash, little angsty and fluffy

Song: Heaven

Words: 963
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eternal (adjective): having infinite duration: everlasting
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eternal

Sometimes, Celegorm wondered if mortals think about how fleeting their lives are.

To him, three hundred years isn't much more than the blink of an eye.  One hundred years is even shorter, and fifty years is hardly worth mentioning.  Thinking of the interesting guests in his front yard, the immortal pauses only to blink and focus on their movements as they rough-house and talk and laugh.

Thorin is 195 and already going gray.  Their burglar--their odd little creature that calls itself a hobbit--is 51.  They might die tomorrow or the day after, or forty years from now, but all the elf can think about is the fact that they won't be around much longer.

They are more fleeting than a shooting star.  In an instant, they will all vanish into dust and memory as if they never existed.  In that way, at least, he can see how loving a mortal is so painful, why Aegnor rarely smiles, why Caranthir pines away.

The touch of a hand against his arm brings him away from his morose thoughts, a thousand miles away and six thousand years into the past, back to the present where the fire flickers in the darkness and sends washes of warm air over his face. "What has you frowning, meleth-nín?" Just beyond his shoulder, his wife is standing half-shaded by the eaves of the cabin, but her eyes are brighter than Arien.

His eyes slide over to Fíli and Kíli, Thorin's lively nephews.  He and Lúthien had known the brothers since they were very small--Celegorm had been the one to swaddle the younger for the first time.  But that seemed a blink of an eye ago.  The family of dwarrows--minus their mother--had stayed until spring and then moved on to their home.  Celegorm had not seen them since.

The boys were almost grown, though Kíli's beard was still on the sparse end of the spectrum.  They were pestering the burglar, teasing the little creature with grins splitting across their young faces.

"Even if they survive this insane quest, they will not live but for maybe two hundred more years," he murmured, feeling an unknown emotion burning in his chest. "Dwarrows only live about a quarter of a millennium."

His mate hummed softly in the back of her throat, and the pure sound shivered through him, soothing away the strange pinching feeling that had taken up residence inside his ribcage. "They have gotten much bigger, and in so little time," she commented. "Soon I suppose they'll be grown up.  Eventually, Fíli will become King."

Celegorm didn't point out how unlikely it was that this quest would succeed.  His wife's adventures had proven that probabiliy did not reign supreme in the universe. "Is this what it was like... being with him... Beren?"

They did not often discuss the man.  Celegorm had once hated his adversary passionately, but his hatred had long since mellowed to plain dislike, especially since his Nightingale was beside him and Beren's soul was beyond the edges of the world.  Still, he found himself curious.  How could Lúthien love Beren?  How could Aegnor love Andreth knowing they could never marry in her lifetime?  How could Caranthir fall for Haleth, knowing that she was already more than halfway to her death?

"It was a little painful," she admitted, her lips forming a sad little smile. "I knew it would not last, and I wanted to be with him.  You... you were an unexpected hitch in my plans to join him beyond the edge of the world.  Still, it was better to have him for the short time we both walked the earth than to never have known him at all."

Her smile brightened. "Besides, I would not say he is gone.  Certainly, he no longer lives on this plain of existence, but I remember him.  And I will be here forever.  How many mortals can pass beyond the realm of the living knowing they will never be forgotten?  He will be remembered forever.  In a way, he is just as eternal as any of our folk now."

He will be remembered forever. He is eternal.

She stroked a hand over his scalp, running her fingers through his hair, tugging it loose of its braid so that the silvery strands spilled over his back and shoulders.  Gently, her fingers combed through the tresses. "You will not forget them, will you?"

Thorin, who he'd built a grudging friendship and camaraderie with.  Fíli and Kíli, who he considered to be more his children than Dior ever had been.

"Nay," he admitted. "I do not think I could even if I tried."

"Well there, then," she cooed, pulling his head back so she could press a soft kiss against his brow. "They are lucky dwarrows indeed.  No matter how their quest ends, they will be remembered forever as well."

There were many things that Celegorm knew he would remember forever.  The face of the first elf he slew in Alqualondë.  His father's body burning itself into ash.  The first time he joined with his Nightingale.  The first time he looked his son in the eyes.  Some of them, he preferred not to remember at all, but this newest memory he thought he could live with.

Looking out at the dwarrows obnoxiously shouting around the fire as they shared their dinner, his eyes focused on Thorin seated beside the burglar, seated perhaps too close, and on the two brothers laughing and pestering the company.  He could see every shadow and wrinkle in their faces, and found them just as beloved as any flawless, smooth face of the Eldar carved from moonlit marble.  These were his dwarrows.

And they would be remembered forever.  They were eternal.
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Well, it wasn't that fluffy, but perhaps a bit cliche.  Oh well...

Song I was listening to (though I can think of several others that would've fit this theme better and resulted in something of a completely different genre): Heaven by Hayley Westenra

I had to do it.  I read Never Trust an Elf by annarien (on fanfiction.net) and my beloved First Age elves just decided that they needed to exist in the world of the Hobbit.  I think I'm addicted.

And, uh... did I mention AU? LOL.