Disclaimer: Tolkien owns
the Silmarillion. Istelindë is mine.
Pairings: Maedhros x
Istelindë
Characters: Istelindë,
Maedhros (seriously doesn't even really mention anyone else but random elves on
the street)
Warning: canon-compliant
probable AU, OFC, mentions war, torture, mutilation and alludes to murder
Song: Starfall
Words: 843
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dramatic (adjective):
suitable to or characteristic of the drama; striking in appearance or effect
At first, she barely
recognized him.
He was still taller than
any man she had ever met, back erect and head held high with pride,
towering over the crowds even as they parted about him, as though some evil
stench or disfiguring disease physically riddled his
form. He was still crowned in luxurious russet locks, long and
curling in thick, silken waves around broad shoulders and over the rippling
muscles of his bared arms. To her he came upon the street in a blue
tunic, unadorned as a common merchant with nothing to his name but the clothes
upon his back and the boots upon his feet.
Still, he was the most
beautiful man she had ever laid eye upon.
But he was at the same
all too different.
She first noticed it
when he reached her side and knelt in the middle of the street with his head
bowed, first noticed when his hand rose to grasp hers, only the left, bare of
the wedding band that had once adorned his fourth finger. His lips
brushed her knuckles in the gesture of a dashing prince, but she could see that
he was weeping openly, narrow cheekbones glistening in the fading evening
daylight as he laid his forehead to her cool skin.
"My sweet Istelindë,"
he rasped, and his voice was low and unfamiliar, gravelly where it had once
been dark chocolate and velvet. It was now strained, heavy with an
unnamed weight.
His right arm rose, and
she nearly recoiled at the disturbingly handless stump revealed to her gaze,
the knob of his wrist jutting awkwardly from scarred, twisted flesh,
permanently aching pink with raised marks and painted with
blanched, jagged edges writhing over fair skin.
But the physical
mutilation was nothing in comparison to her first true glimpse of his face, her
first true glimpse of the dramatic change wrought through misadventure and
suffering.
For
that face that had so long had haunted her dreams and waking
hours was nearly unrecognizable. Once, she had known it as she knew the back
of her own hands, every curve and dip and angle of his regal cheekbones and
straight nose and cleft chin burned into her mind as a vivid, eternal
image. In their younger years beneath the golden and silver lights, he
had been the most handsome and glorious of men--Maitimo, his mother
named him, and he was perfect in face and form. His face had been narrow,
but full with healthy flushed skin and dimples at the corners of his grinning
lips.
He was not smiling
now. Instead of dimples, there were deep lines etched into skin once
smooth and flawless, circling the corners of the downturned bow
of mouth and digging deep trenches beneath his steel-gray eyes.
Between slender brows, a deep furrow reflected countless years of anger and an
equal burden of sorrow.
Once brilliant eyes were
faded and dark like ash, the silver stars she had once been so fond of
gazing upon now shielded with a fog of destruction, smoke rising from
the corpse of the man she had once loved so dearly, charred and melted away beneath
the vicious heat of sin and betrayal. That man had been ravaged by
unspoken horrors which she for all her worldliness could not even begin to
imagine or understand. Hollow and filled with ghosts, those darkened
orbs were ringed in bruised circles from nights filled to the brim
with guilty thoughts and echoing screams.
But even so, a small
flicker of the fire she so loved remained, licking at the back walls of grief
like a glimpse of redemption. Somehow, the spirit beneath the battlefield
of scars still smoldered, fighting against the treacherous downpour to awaken,
to burst back into life.
"My handsome
Maitimo," she responded softly, her voice low, her hand rising from his
grasp to cup a gaunt cheek and stroke over sickly gray flesh. "I missed
you so, my husband."
At her gently spoken
words, helplessly, his lips twitched into a crooked grin, a pale shadow of the
roguish expression that had first seduced her in the blissful years of
maidenhood and naivety. But for all the washed-out glory, his sight still
caught her breath in her throat, still stirred her heart into a beating frenzy,
still left her breathless at the sight of the wonder in his eyes, the familiar hiding
beneath this war-torn stranger with her husband's height and red curls.
For all the dramatic
change, he was still her Maitimo, her mate. Her One. And no amount
of sorrow could destroy the soft fire seared down to his core. No amount
of suffering could unmake the other half of her soul or rend their bond apart
at the seams. Each tenuous thread held strong and true. Though she
could see the doubt in those eyes--the fear in that heart--it was unfounded.
She welcomed into her
embrace and laid his head upon her breast. And she forgave.
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Very short and
sweet. In all honestly, until about an hour ago I had no idea what I was
even going to write for this prompt. I've been busy all day.
Performances with my pet vocalists and going places and
watching movies. I'm so distracted. But anyway, here we have a
first glimpse into the mind of Istelindë. I have never written from her
perspective before, so this is a first for me. Forgive me for focusing so
much on an OFC; some people don't like that, but I couldn't help myself.
Listening to Starfall by Two Steps From Hell.
Amazing song (though the people who leave really random story-board ideas in
the comments section need to learn to be less cliche) and I've loved it for at
least a year and a half now, if not longer. It was, like, the second TSFH
song I ever discovered and I immediately found it enchanting.
For fun: Maedhros the Tall by ~Ilweran in dA in the
same style as the Fingon in "Terrible". For some reason I find
these words to be rather interesting from an artistic standpoint. Not
sure why, but I like them.
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