Dedicated to a friend from my Japanese language class.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Silmarillion
Pairings: Caranthir x Haleth (Haley)
Characters: Caranthir, Haley (reborn!Haleth)
Warning: majorly AU, modern times, briefly mentions war, slight sexual undertones, rebirth, theories about how the world works
Song: Near Light
Words: 913
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euphoria (noun): a feeling of well-being or elation
She was laughing and romping through the snow like an eager child, a broad grin splitting her face, freckles dancing over her cheeks. From beneath her knitted blue hat, blond waves spilled over her shoulders, tangled from the wind whipping through their veil, sending it flying in abstract curls about her heart-shaped face.
And Caranthir, he could hardly breathe. Her every free movement, her airborne lopes and her hands thrown to the sky in matching knit gloves, her hair waving as if through water and her bright hazel eyes flashing with glee, it was all entrancing, all-encompassing. Had he half the mind to, he could have sat and watched her joyous supplication to the falling frozen crystals forever and a day and been content for the rest of eternity. That she was made so happy by something so simple made his heart clench taut in his chest.
Looking back at him, she beckoned him forth with wild hand gesticulations. Even at this distance, he could see the flutter of her eyelashes, dotted with diamond droplets of melted snow, and the shapes formed by her lips, the words being formed by her far-away, echoing voice that could not be received over the pound of his frantic heartbeat.
"Come on! What are you waiting for?"
An odd question. He was many thousands of years old, but Caranthir had never once played in the snow. Valinor rarely saw the white, powdery fluff, so his childhood had been mostly devoid of its splendor, and he had not been privy to the journey across Helcaraxë so did not know the bite of cold wind or the sting of vicious frozen pellets. Only in Beleriand had he seen this strange phenomenon, and later in Middle-earth, but by then any youthful wonder at the sight had drained from his cursed blood and tainted spirit, deemed unimportant and childish in the face of darkening reality and danger lurking on the horizon.
How different things had come to be.
When he didn't respond--and the look on his face probably explained his utter consternation at the very suggestion--Haley pranced back the way she had come, carefully tip-toeing in her own calf-deep footprints to reach his side.
Her gloved hand curled around his wrist, so very warm and soft on cool skin, yanking him forward into the field of white. "Hurry up!"
Hesitantly at first, he followed her into the wintery wonderland, captivated by her rosy cheeks and the sway of her hips as she ran ahead of him, just beyond reach of his fingertips. And, as though pulled by invisible threads, he followed wherever she went, tracing her footprints with his larger, booted feet.
It was a foreign, strange feeling, this playing, like letting go of all the shadows that hung in a heavy shroud over his heart, letting go of all expectations and formalities and responsibilities. For once, Caranthir felt the air come freely to his lungs.
And she was laughing, snow struck up by her heels as she raced across white, falling fluff dotting her clothing and melting to her warm skin. The sound of her euphoria hit him as a ray of sunlight to bare flesh, melting through rigid muscle to frigid bone beneath, soothing away tension and worry. Chasing away darkness.
Valar, but he loved her!
And he could not help but join her in laughter, could not help but join in her wild, joyous dance through frozen white, more two harmonious creatures celebrating the simple beauty of the world than two humans contemplating the complex reality of its mysteries. And perhaps it was not only the simple beauty of the world he admired as his Haley ran squealing out feigned protests and he gave gentle, relaxed chase.
As he wrapped his arms about her waist and lifted her off her feet, spinning her through the air to the lilt of her cries and laughter and the touch of her hands against his arms. Glorious. Absolutely glorious.
They tumbled downwards onto the soft bed laid out by the grace of winter's bosom, their bodies turned towards one another, their faces so close that the white clouds of their panting breaths mingled between them. He pressed his cheek to the cold blankets and observed the ring of mossy green about her pupil, branching out into rich mahogany and the velvet of dark chocolate. Observed the flush of her face against cold and exertion. Observed every crease around her smiling lips and at the corners of her glowing eyes.
Let the mortals think what they might, but even without a perfectly-shaped slender nose and elegantly rounded face and properly graceful chin, Haley was the most beautiful creature in the world. Beauty of the flesh was hardly the net that held the ancient elf as a willing captive.
Caranthir was gasping softly from running, but felt no fatigue in his limbs. Instead, his entire body felt as though it boiled over in lightness, in the weightlessness of their small little world. And if his vision went blurry, he never admitted to himself that the sting creeping up behind his eyes was entirely to blame.
None of the past mattered here. Just her and the snow landing softly upon their faces. Just her and the touch of their brows. Just her as their arms tangled, his knuckles stroking her cheek, her mitted-fingertips tracing his jaw.
They needed nothing more than this moment.
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It's hard to make a prompt like this anything but fluff unless you're writing horror, and I didn't feel like bloodshed today. It's finally started raining after a horridly long winter and a virtually nonexistent spring, and I just felt good today. Lazing around. A little homework here, a little reading there. It was nice.
And the music helped. Actually, the music is where the snow came from. You'd think I would be sick of snow by now, but the music just fit is so perfectly that I just had to do it! It's called Near Light (by Olafur Arnalds), and for some reason just the picture and the colors and the sounds all made me think crystals and light and glistening. My other thought had been glittering caves full of refractive crystals.
But this is where the story went. Hope you enjoy.
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