Dust

Mellow Soulmate AU.  To sweep away the dust of the past.  Quenya names used (Celegorm = Tyelkormo, Finrod = Artafindë).  Note that Finrod's Quenya name is in the Noldorin dialect, as opposed to the Telerin dialect, in which it would be Findaráto.  Also, I just made up off the top of my head that they were friends, even though the Silmarillion never says anything about it.  Because I can if I feel like it.  Takes place sometimes in the Second Age in Valinor.

Disclaimer: Tolkien owns the Silmarillion

Pairings: Celegorm x Lúthien, Finrod x Amarië (on the side)

Characters: Celegorm, Lúthien, Finrod (mentions Amarië, Eru, Fëanor and the Fëanorions in general)

Warning: extremely AU, facial scarring, references to betrayal and murder, obsessive behavior and stalking

Song: Sword of the Stranger

Words: 1,830
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dust (noun): fine particles of matter (as of earth); the particles into which something disintegrates
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dust

It was a moment Tyelkormo had been dreading with all his being for more than a millennium.

He absolutely did not want to face Artafindë again.

One could hardly hold his reservations against him.  After all, was it not he who had betrayed his cousin and sent the noble, honorable king to his death as little more than a beggar with ten loyal servants to his name? 

To claim the throne.  To remove a troublesome pest.  To sate his thirst for death in times of relative peace.  Tyelkormo had heard all of these theories before, but none of them were even close.

All of it was for the sake of the woman beside him.

Tyelkormo felt Lúthien's fingers squeeze his arm, trying to soothe and comfort his vividly restless spirit, but he did not think anything could comfort him at the moment, not with the purest form of shame washing over his skin as acid, clawing its way beneath flesh down to bone in waves of agony that could not be treated.  If he could, he would have bid the ground open and swallow him into its gaping jaws so that he might never be forced to thrust his presence upon his family--upon his cousin, who deserved much better than he had been dealt.

Because their friendship had not been shredded and thrown to the wind over a circlet or a kingdom. It had never been about the crown.  It had been about jealousy and obsession.  And Artafindë, kind and generous Artafindë who had once been one of his few true friends on the golden shores, had merely been in the way, an obstacle to be removed.

Removed without hesitation and without remorse.

"What should I even say?" he wondered aloud. "What can I say?" Nothing seemed appropriate but to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness, and even his infamous pride could not have halted him but for the fact that he deserved none.

"Tell the truth," her dulcet tones chimed in his ears. "None of us are fully to blame, and none of us are completely blameless.  You may have acted through love and through desperation, but it was not you who swore an oath to Beren's progenitors.  It was not you who threw him into the dungeons and tormented his friends.  It was not you who killed him in the cold blood."

"That does not change my betrayal of kin unto kin.  It does not change the fact that the filth of sin has defiled anything pure we once might have had."

Cool fingers touched his cheek, turning his face.  Tyelkormo was nearly too ashamed to meet his lover's eyes, for it was she who should hate him the most, perhaps even more so than Artafindë. "Do you truly believe that?" she asked. "Between us, the taint of dark past was swept away, allowing new, hopeful light to burst forth.  Cannot the same be between yourself and your cousin?"

"I should not be that way," Tyelkormo rasped. "He should not forgive me."

She pulled his forehead down to touch hers softly. "Sometimes it is not about what should or should not be, but about the heart's desire.  Give Finrod a chance.  Give yourself a chance."

"I will try..."

They parted back into two separate creatures, but his lover's warmth at his side was a reassuring pinprick of light in the overhanging darkness.  It was then that they entered the halls of his forefathers, and Tyelkormo stood in a vast room with Artafindë as kin through blood for the first time since that fateful day of needless betrayal and broken bonds in Nargothrond so many years ago.

Helplessly, his eyes trailed to golden hair, locking with orbs as bright and endless as the sky.

Artafindë.

The face was not as familiar.  Scars raked over what had once been unspeakably handsome features, leaving them trenched and jagged, distorted into a visage no maiden would find appealing.  But one only needed to glance at the soul beneath to know that Artafindë was a selfless and righteous man worthy of devotion and loyalty.  And anyone who could not look beneath the skin-deep marks of his devotion to oaths and his indescribable bravery was not worthy to lick his boots.

He was the polar opposite of Tyelkormo, who felt the weight of his sins and the stinking odor of spilled blood hovering around his body even now.  That anyone could bear to be close baffled him.  That Lúthien could bear to touch him, to make love to him, to kiss him, left him stunned.

Between the two of them, Artafindë was undoubtedly the better man, and Tyelkormo would not grovel for forgiveness from a pure soul, did not even want to taint his cousin's ears with apologies.

But it was not he who approached the other first.

Shocked, he watched his dearest cousin slip away from the golden-haired woman on his arm and cross the room in long, confident strides like the king he had been born to become.  Each second, he drew closer, and Tyelkormo's throat grew tighter with a strange sort of fear.  Why he was afraid, he could not have said, but the symptoms were unmistakable--the heavy pulsing of his heart in the back of his throat, the sweat on the nape of his neck and the nervous nibbling of his lower lip.

Until they were standing face-to-face but three feet apart, and it was all he could do to stay on his feet and not crumple to the floor spewing empty words and promises that could never be kept.

Silence surrounded them.  The room went quiet as all eyes beheld the estranged cousins.

No words were forthcoming, but Tyelkormo's lips parted anyway. "Cousin... I--"

The rest of the air was squeezed out of him by a shockingly powerful embrace.

"Thank Eru!" Artafindë gasped. "You have finally returned!"

What?

Confusion no doubt was plain upon his face, but Artafindë merely laughed and grasped him by the head, turning him this way and that to receive delighted kisses upon each cheek and one upon his brow. "Cousin, so greatly I have missed you, I cannot even describe!"

I do not understand.

"Artafindë, of what do you speak?" he whispered, eyes wide.  Because surely Artafindë could not have missed him.  Because Artafindë should not have missed him, should have been grateful that his tainted, treacherous spirit was locked safely away in the Halls of the Waiting so that it could not spread and infect the holiness of the untouched lands of Valinor.

"Am I not allowed to miss my own kinsman now?" the golden-haired man burst out, grasping his forearms and shaking lightly. "I have been waiting long to see your eyes returned to brightness."

"I merely thought... Did not think you would care to see the man who sent you to your death."

The room was still holding its breath.  It was not as if they did not know the tale of Artafindë's bravery in the black pits of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, or who it was that had driven him out of Nargothrond with a tiny slew of loyal subjects to protect him.  The actions of his cousin had been honorable from start to finish, if not admirable, whilst Tyelkormo's were heaped in the darkness that suffused all of his line.

Yet he could detect no trickery or malice in the wide-open eyes. "I am no fool, cousin mine," Artafindë professed, his gaze flickering over to Lúthien's unearthly beauty. "Indeed, I have known you since I was but a boy.  Did you truly think you could hide your motivations from my eyes?"

Tyelkormo's heart swelled.  Had he been completely obvious about his affections?  But no, none of his family had been aware that he had done anything more than lust after Lúthien's glorious face.  None of them had known what she was to him, or that he had been watching her for decades heaped upon decades in cemented longing, praying for a way to claim her despite all the odds stacked against their future.

And when that opportunity had arrived... Well, all things begun by his House well would end in tragedy, or so it was spoken.  And that prophecy rang with truth.

"I had thought it rather... well hidden."

"Indeed." Artafindë smile was blinding. "It was my time to depart, and I was ready to return home to by beloved's arms.  Perhaps you were not the only selfish man squabbling over Nargothrond's entirely unwanted throne."

"And you would forget everything I did, just like that?" It was too good to be true.  Too good to be real.

A hand gripped his shoulder tightly. "If there was anything to forgive, I would forgive in a heartbeat, but I cannot say that had our places been switched I would have acted differently." That scarred face sobered. "That I can say that I would not have acted from the same desperation would be a lie--for my Amarië I believe I could have done anything, good or evil--so can I blame you for doing so, my dearest old friend?"

"You should," Tyelkormo replied softly, though he wondered if he would have blamed Artafindë had their roles been reversed.  It was a dangerous contemplation.

All he received in reply to this statement was a long, piercing look. "Sometimes, it is not about what we should do, but what we want to do, and I do not want this dust and ash between us to settle forever.  Let us sweep away this past that covers the polished facets of friendship.  Let us start anew."

Could it really be so simple?

"I cannot forgive myself so easily," Tyelkormo insisted, voice cracking ever so slightly. "It will always be there between us.  The past is not as dust that can be swept aside on a mere whim."

"Oh, but it is," Artafindë assured him. "And I told you, there is nothing to forgive, my cousin, my dearest friend."

Another hug wrapped Tyelkormo in the familiar and yet unfamiliar warmth of his cousin's blinding light, a light that was not hungry and devastating flame of the Spirit of Fire, but the gentle caress of Laurelin's gleam upon shivering flesh.  The resistance drained away, and though he did not return the embrace, Tyelkormo felt a little lighter for it.

It was a start.  All around him, light burst through his earthly body--the light of his cousin's understanding and his lover's beaming smile--to brush away the filth thoroughly encrusted upon what had once been Tyelkormo of Tirion in younger days. As the dust was swept away, the sweet dream of endless green fields and the sweet air of mountains reappeared in the back of his mind, a resurrected ghost of a wish long since abandoned to ruin, a painting uncovered from millennia of neglect.  A little droplet of hope.
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Before you all wonder why Finrod forgives so easily, let us examine some facts.  1) Finrod made the oath to Barahir of his own free will, 2) Finrod decided to honor that oath of his own free will and 3) no one made Sauron capture and torture them all except Sauron.  Therefore, Celegorm cannot be held at fault for Finrod's death no matter how he intended (and succeeded) in betraying his cousin's trust.

Thus, I must say that Orodreth's reaction (i.e. throwing Celegorm and Curufin out of Nargothrond) was both understandable but slightly unjust.  No one made Finrod go on a mad quest to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown except himself, and certainly no one can be held responsible for their being caught except themselves.  Nevertheless, I can see why Orodreth would be pissed off, especially if he's assuming (as is canonically "confirmed") that Celegorm is just after his brother's circlet and the keys to Nargothrond.  In my story, it's all about the chick.

Listening to Sword of the Stranger by Naoki Sato from The Sword of the Stranger (the anime).  I've never watched it, but this song is pretty damn epic (and the picture on the YouTube video is amazing--oh! Haku and Zabuza, how I love you both! *bursts into tears*), so there is that at least.  In any case, I enjoyed it.

This entire fic was inspired by a random comment made my one of my vocalists when I asked her what came to mind when she thought of the word "dust".  Yes, she came up with "sweeping the dust of the past away".  I don't think she even realizes that I heard her.  Therefore, I am dedicating this piece to her, even though she influenced it unknowingly.