Indirect

Canon-compliant.  The unrequited love of Daeron.  No Quenya in this one, since all characters are Sindar.  Honestly, I become fonder of Daeron every time I write him (and I partially blame Elf Academy for my like of him--look it up on the Silmarillion Guild if you want modern!AU awesomeness).  This is pure character development.  Takes place in the First Age (probably) in the forests near Menegroth.  Introspective.

Disclaimer: Tolkien owns the Silmarillion

Pairings: Daeron x Lúthien (one-sided)

Characters: Daeron, Lúthien (Melian is sort of mentioned)

Warning: canon-compliant, canon not-quite-pairing, unrequited love, angsting, hints of war

Song: The Bioluminescence of the Night

Words: 910
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
indirect (adjective): deviating from a direct line or course: roundabout; not going straight to the point; not straightforward and open: deceitful
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indirect

She charmed him.

It was in her sweet smile, full of brilliant innocence--ignorance of the darker reality of the world, of its insidious, whispering evils encroaching upon their once peaceful land.  It was in her huge blue eyes, filled with wonder at every softly plucked note and every hushed breath of a whisper, ebullient in their telling, in their weaving.  It was in the exuberance with which she tackled every aspect of her life, never hesitating to reach for the skies, never held back by the constraints of station and propriety that should have governed her body.

It was her beauty in the moonlight when her feet gracefully loped over the dew-laden earth, twining into something otherworldly--phantasmagoria, an ephemeral dream in the haze of shadow--that drew forth his breath from his lungs in song so powerful it left him shaken to the core at its ceasing, his body ringing with the purity of its tone, the trembling of its emotion.

Daeron could not deny it, not to himself.  He was in love with Lúthien Melianiel, his glorious princess, the woman who gave the spark of molten life to his frigid heart without even realizing.

But she did not love him back.

Unrequited love, he had learned, was a torture more painful than any wound of the flesh.  Because no matter how he longed to embrace her tightly against his chest, to breathe deeply of her scent--the mysterious tang of rain in the darkness of the forest--to run his fingers through the thick curtain of raven hair that wrapped its silken feathers around her supple body, he knew it was not his place.  It was never to be.  No amount of longing could change the fact that, in her innocent eyes--lights shining through the gloom of his ever darkening world--he could claim only the title of friend.  Never of lover.

And so he loved her in the only way he could.  From a distance. 

When she held his hand, he smiled without bitterness and tried to hide the sadness that sparked to life in his glistening eyes, because she was giving him affection and he would take whatever she offered.  When she wrapped her slender limbs around him, laughing joyously after running through the forest like a wild creature, winged and untamed, he would pat her on the back and resist the temptation of softly panting lips and rosy cheeks.

It was only indirectly that he could love her.  Out of fear.  Out of self-preservation.

It was in the songs that he sang to her swaying and twirling.  All of the adoration, all of the entrapped longing and desire to please, all of the sultry burn in the back of his throat, flowed into the melodies to which she graced her sole presence, her ghostly dancing form.  And if he imagined that, as he spoke aloud of adventurous heroes and love stories with requited endings, in his mind he was really telling her everything, all that was boarded up in the dusty, vacant rooms of his soul.

Sometimes, he imagined she might hear, might understand, but he knew better than to dream.  With the traitorous hope in his breast, a kiss upon his flustered cheek rather than his parched lips would surely set fire to his inner sanctuary, would surely destroy the part of him that remained untainted by bitterness and unwilling jealousy.

Instead, he gave her trinkets made from his own hand and delighted in the gentle smiles she would return him, gifts in their own right that left his heart pounding sharply against his ribs.  He composed her songs of love which he never presented to her in their true form, but in hidden lyrics, in a veiled message beneath feigned joy.  He wrote poetry describing every part of her that he loved so dearly, and he burned them each night and imagined that their ashes would settle upon her still, sleeping form and her dreams might be haunted with his voice and his beloved gaze.

He told her "You look lovely this eve, riel-nín", and she would giggle and twitter as a young maiden.  But her answer would always be "And so, too, do you, mellon-nín".

And it was enough.  It was enough to have her undivided attention for an hour or so each evening.  It was enough to be allowed to watch her as she made merry amongst the towering enchanted trees and spirited herself away into a wonderland where no evil could touch the star of her spirit.  It was enough that she shared even that small, secret part of herself with him, even if she considered him but a friend, a steadfast companion rather than a lover.

Because he loved her, he would be whatever she wanted.  Even if it meant that he could not love her openly as a man loves a woman.  Even if it meant hiding in the shadows and wishing and praying and hoping ceaselessly, uselessly, hopelessly.  Eternally suffering.

Even if it meant never kissing her fair lips or hearing her voice whisper "meleth-nín" in his ear, it was enough to brush his fingers against her vibrant soul for even a miniscule moment in time.

Because his unrequited love for her was true.  And he desired only her happiness.

And that was enough.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daeron may have been a bitch about the whole thing with Beren (can you really blame the poor man?) but I believe that he really did love Lúthien, and not just because she was pretty when she danced.  I think he really loved her, because he knew her as a person, and it's sad that things don't always work out, but I think he must have made the best of it.  Anyway, this was just prodding at his angst-ridden soul, because I'm a horrid sadist who enjoys the suffering of others immensely.

The song I was listening to was The Bioluminescence of the Night by James Horner from the Avatar Soundtrack.  Honestly, though it's got an incredibly over-used, cliche theme, Avatar is an awesome movie with epic special effects and gorgeous music.  This is a beautiful piece.  Most of the Avatar Soundtrack is absolutely lovely, and you should take a few minutes to just browse if you need pretty music to listen to (like me, who lives off pretty music and would shrivel up and go crazy without it). 

Anyway, I thought the elegance and ethereal quality of this piece fit the story perfectly.  And a pretty picture to go along with the story: The Choice of Luthien by =Gold-Seven on dA.

Sindarin vocabulary time!
riel = princess
mellon = friend (yeah, this is in the Fellowship of the Ring)
meleth = lover
-nín = my