Reap

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Revenge isn't waiting for Celegorm in Menegroth, but Dior definitely is.  Quenya names used (Celegorm = Tyelkormo, Maedhros = Nelyafinwë and Nelyo, Curufin = Curufinwë and Curvo, Fëanor = Fëanáro).  Major distortion of canon here, just warning you ahead of time.  I do believe I've mentioned this in "Eternal", which is the second story I put on this blog, but let's just say that Celegorm's got a bit of a surprise waiting for him.  Story takes place in Menegroth in FA 506.

Disclaimer: Tolkien owns the Silmarillion.  Sorry dude, I changed your plot a bit.

Pairings: Celegorm x Lúthien (possibly one-sided), Beren x Lúthien

Characters: Celegorm, Dior, Curufin (mentions of Maedhros, Fëanor, other Fëanorions, Nerdanel, Beren, the Valar, Thingol, Míriel, Eluréd and Elurín)

Warning: extremely AU, canon character death, somewhat explicit violence, mentions of sex, lots of blood but not a lot of gore, lame fight scene, fantasies about murder, mass murder implied, unhealthy emotional states/insanity, cruelty towards children implied, (sort of accidental) patricide, filicide and avunculicide (f-ing long warning sorry)

Song: Final Destination

Words: 1,865
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reap (transitive verb): to cut with a sickle, scythe, or reaping machine; to gather by reaping: harvest; obtain, win
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reap

The loss of Lúthien's affections to a barely matured whelp of an atan had always been a very sore spot for Tyelkormo.  But even so, his family could not understand the true depth of his hatred, because he had never spoken truthfully of her--his One.  Not even to Curvo.

His brothers were aware of his jealousy over the woman and of his blistering hatred towards Beren Erchamion; it was not as if the silver-haired prince had tried to hide the bitter, resentful feelings from his own kin.  In his darkest hours, he would spit and rave and pace like a caged animal, ranting  to Curvo's blank face and empty eyes until he ran out of complaints to petition and words to shout and glasses to smash against the stone walls.

They had thought it obsessive and disturbing, but they knew that Tyelkormo was more than slightly senile, and none of them questioned his behavior.  Or perhaps none of them dared.  Tyelkormo could not blame them for that, unsure himself whether any defense of Beren within his earshot would have triggered a homicidal reaction.

But it had only gotten worse from there.

When he heard news of the child of Beren and Lúthien, bile had made its presence known in the back of his taut throat, the acidic bite slinking upwards and settling on his palate.  The sudden and nearly uncontrollable urge to murder someone had nearly brought his fingers around his brother's throat.  It had been so temptingly unprotected and vulnerable and Valar! but his heart would not hurt nearly so much if he could just asphyxiate someone with his bare hands--preferably the man who had gone and mated and procreated with the other half of his soul--and maybe that searing-hot agony that was building layer-by-layer in his deepest hidden core would go away and leave him be.

He had not been prepared for the betrayal he felt.  For that was how it felt in the back of his mind, as though she who he knew he was meant to be with had rejected every part of him as unworthy, unsuitable, had thrown his offering--his offering of everything he was and had been and ever would be forevermore--back in his face with a sneer and lain with filth to spite him and his possessiveness.

Because she knew.  They had only made love once, but she had known, understood why he was driven to the point of madness.  And she had abandoned him anyway.

No wound had ever been so painful, not by sword or spear or word.  It was not a scar that Tyelkormo had ever recovered from, a metaphorical limp dragging him down ever after, always reminding him that she despised him and left him behind like trash.

Nothing else had ever awoken such a violent urge for revenge in his breast until the day he heard of Dior Eluchíl, the physical manifestation of the action that had rent and torn down all of the tapestries of hope and love he had left hanging in the cold, empty chambers of his heart.  No longer did Lúthien's slight exist only in the shadows creeping through his mind; now it had become corporeal in the form of a child.

The very thought made him shudder in fury of the likes he had never experienced, more acute than any pleasure and more agonizing than any torture, filled to the brim with the overwhelming need to be sated, lest he lose himself completely in its gaping maw, devoured whole, mind and body.

The day that the missive arrived from Nelyo was a day that Tyelkormo would never forget.

For savage joy had flooded his chest when they were ordered to "march upon Menegroth should Dior Aranel refuse their demands", because finally--finally after so very long--he would reap his revenge through terror and blood and death.  He would destroy the evidence of Lúthien's betrayal of his love--unrequited and unfulfilled and broken--and maybe then the trembling somewhere in the vicinity of his heart would go away and not make the back of his eyes sting and his temples throb and ache from holding onto the veil his composure by the skin of his teeth.

Maybe the harvesting of crimson tribute and dying screams and seeing the glazed look in that child's eyes as he lay in a pool of his own lifeblood would be enough to sate the monster clawing and snarling in the back of his mind.

For Nelyafinwë, this venture was about reclamation of what was rightfully theirs through birthright and through oath.

For Tyelkormo, the ruin of Doriath and the death of Dior Eluchíl would be salvation.

---

And then everything had gone terribly wrong.

His first sight of Dior--and Oh! the volcanic tide of hatred bursting to life and forcing tremors through every limb left him breathless with anticipation of the sound of sword slicing through flesh and carving bone--had been of the silver-haired child of the House of Elu Thingol slicing open his brother's throat.

Curvo had fallen, blade clattering lifelessly to the marble floor as dark hair haloed and mixed like ink with steadily flowing rich blood, pouring from the opened jugular.  Even the best healer could not have saved his brother from such a wound, for he bled out so quickly that it seemed every ounce he was pumping frantically through the rivers of his veins was emptied in a precious few moments, leaving him pale and cold on the ground.

After that, the copper tang had flooded had mixed with rising acid in Tyelkormo's throat, morphing into a concoction of pure battle-lust.  With an enraged scream, he launched himself at the king, wild-eyed with the burning spirit of his sire, fey with hunger for death and the secret terror lodged in his chest like an infection that just would not go away.

A smile cracked his lips, bared his teeth like an animal preparing to rip into an opponent.  Wide eyes--eyes so blue that he could have drowned in them--stared back.  The king had her eyes.

Without thought, without even looking further at the child--he did not want to see Beren's face staring back until it was gray with death and cold as ice beneath his vengeful wrath--Tyelkormo leapt into battle, crying out to the hidden sky in wordless ecstasy.  His veins pulsed with life, his mind filled only with the next gleam, the next screech of metal against metal, the next burst of sparks stinging the fingers wrapped taut around the hilt of his sword.

His whole world was that next movement.  The curve of his enemy's arms and the angle of his sword.  The balance of booted feet across from his, leaning ever so slightly to the right, swinging forward and teetering towards falling.  The over-wide arch of a sword speeding towards his side, leaving wide open the vast expanse of vulnerable belly and chest.

There was no hesitation.

All the way through, to the hilt, the sharpened edge bit through skin and organs and ripped open the fabric at his enemy's back, gleaming red before Tyelkormo's lusty eyes.  Satisfaction.

And then pain.  Slicing and twisting pain and the feel of hot stickiness soaking into his clothing.  Tyelkormo looked down at the sword lodged through his chest and felt the blood rising as he tried to breathe and rattled sickeningly.  A cough, and crimson splattered across the face so near to his, watching him with no small amount of hatred and fear.

Blue eyes.  Lúthien's eyes.

But it was not Beren's visage those jewels of the sky were set upon.

Tyelkormo's own sharp jaw-line clenched as the child's teeth grated in agony.  Thin, bloodless lips and a long, straight nose.  High, aristocratic cheekbones and a cleft chin.  Brows that curved downwards into a permanent scowl, all wreathed in silver veins of loose hair.

This was a child of the House of Fëanáro, every line and curve and angle of him.  Nerdanel's elegant nose.  Fëanáro's terrifying gravitas.  Lúthien's pure beauty and sky-blue eyes.  Tyelkormo's spitefully curled sneer.

And he could not understand.  No thoughts would come as he choked in his own blood and felt the world tilt onto its side, going gray at the edges.  Little droplets, like rubies, fell from the king's parted lips, flowing downwards on the pale, flawless skin.  Those eyes, shocked and horrified, blinked once up at him, and then the hand holding the sword buried in Tyelkormo's torso fell away, the limp body sliding off the Fëanárion's blade and thudding to the floor.  Only it was not the blood of Beren Erchamion which joined and mixed with the blood of Curufinwë Fëanáro slithering over white marble and carved stone.

No power on earth could have kept Tyelkormo's knees from turning to water.  He landed on the ground hard and cried out in anguish.  When the tears burning behind his tightly shut eyelids surged forth, he did not stop them.  The when and how and why did I not know that flitted briefly through his mind were all pushed aside beneath a tidal wave of emotion.

Maybe his House was cursed after all.  That was all he could think as he was pulled under by the darkness, barely aware of the screams in the distance or the hot wetness that blanketed his flesh and stained his hands red.

Because he had gained no revenge this day.  Or salvation.

Because he remembered the little ones with big terrified eyes and silver hair--by the Valar, his hair, not Thingol's, but Míriel's legacy, his mind cried hysterically--and again Dior's face flashed before his eyes and how could this possibly be true?  Why was Ilúvatar so cruel that he could not even die with the satisfaction of knowing his broken heart had been avenged?

But as the world around him was slowly swallowed, he thought maybe he did deserve it.  For all the dark deeds and sins committed at his hands, freely and willingly with pleasure.  You reap what you sow--was that not what his mother's had taught him as a child?  And as the dam of his tightly chained sorrow and longing and regret and guilt crackled and crumbled and spewed forth, he knew that he believed her words, that he deserved this fate.

How ironic, that the suffering of others has only compounded upon my own despair...  A watery laugh brought pangs of agony from his chest.  And then sobs, thick and wracking, shook his shoulders.

She was right.  He had only reaped his own suffering, doubled it thrice over.

And it was this thought that echoed through his mind as reality overlapped with fantasy and diverged from the tangible.  He would die here, beside his only child in the depths of his blackest sin, alone with no one to cry to, no one to plead with, no one who understood.

The light wavered and faded as his trembling hand reached for anyone--anyone who would listen--

And found only empty air.
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Because I ship Celegorm x Lúthien shamelessly, and because I can, and because I'm something of a Beren-hater.  Poor Celegorm, but I just had to do it to you.  Fortunately (I think) this is actually not the end of this scene, but I chose to cut off here because the prompt becomes irrelevant after this point, and I can just save the fates of Eluréd and Elurín for later.  I need to write some stories from Lúthien's POV also, so I can sort out in my mind exactly how all of this interesting canon-twisting actually works.

But that's a project for another day.  The song I was listening to is Final Destination by Within Temptation.  This song has reminded me of Celegorm from Day 1 of listening to it, and I just couldn't help myself.  It just really brings him to life for me, and I listen to it when I try to get in his head all the time, so I thought I might as well use it.

Also, a picture of silver-haired Celegorm (I'm really sick of seeing him with golden hair.  He's not even related to the Vanyar): Celegorm by Ivanneth.  This picture is from the Tolkien Gateway, not dA.  I'm having trouble finding good pictures of Dior, to be honest.  Also, the picture that inspired the setting of the Second Kinslaying: The Oath has been awakened by =Gold-Seven on dA.  Read the description under the picture; you'll understand.