Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion or the Hobbit
Pairings: Celegorm x Lúthien
Characters: Lúthien, Thorin, Celegorm, Kíli and Fíli (because baby dwarrows are adorable) (mentions Dior, Beren, Irmo and Arien)
Warning: extremely AU, canon character death, Dior's parentage spontaneously changed, baby dwarrows, OOC Thorin?, non-canon relationship, mentions murder, death and insanity
Song: Samidare
Words: 1,594
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skill (noun): the ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance; dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasks; a learned power of doing something competently: a developed aptitude or ability
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skill?show=0&t=1368457418
It was the middle of the night, and the baby was crying. So very long it had been since her own son was this young, but Lúthien still remembered the sleepless nights well, and her relief when Dior had been able to sleep from dusk until dawn with no interruptions. Sighing, she rolled over upon the mattress and made to rise with her hair in disarray, only pausing when she realized that the opposite side of the bed she shared with her husband was conspicuously empty, the imprint still warm. Which meant Celegorm had awakened to the wails and was likely in a terrible mood, fumbling around trying to quiet the child.
She pulled on her night robe and went to save the baby from the stone-carved scowls and snarled words for which her mate's kin were renowned. As predicted, the temporary nursery's door was wide open, and she could see a tall silhouette within. She stepped closer, preparing to interrupt an ill-tempered glaring session, and promptly froze in place, shocked.
For the very moment she saw little Kíli in her husband's powerful arms, Lúthien knew Celegorm was a natural.
It was in the cant of his body, the way he pressed the child softly to his own warmth and was painfully, breathtakingly gentle in a way few could imagine a man of his past and stature. Almost immediately, the tiny dwarrowling stopped his loud wailing and sniffled quietly, huge brown eyes staring up and up into Celegorm's alien features.
Long, slender fingers--fingers she knew were honed for wielding sword and bow, for killing in the cold blood--traced over chubby, soft flesh, tracing a button nose and over surprisingly dark brows.
Strong little fingers captured the stroking digit, bringing it to a toothless mouth, and it was all Lúthien could do to silence her coo of delight when her husband did not so much as flinch away from the drool and sticky fingers. That tall body, lithe and muscled, was rocking on its heels instinctually, and gradually even the whimpers and whining ceased as the dwarrowling closed his eyes and suckled contently away.
The very sight made her heart ache, for what she wouldn't have given to go back and see her own son in such arms, happy and at peace with his sire. It was not that she did not love Beren, of course, but Beren had been built for adventure and dashing romance, not for parenthood, and had stood awkwardly on by as his wife bustled about cleaning and feeding and bathing their infant son.
And Dior, of course, had never really been Beren's to begin with.
Biting her lip, she wondered if, perhaps, she had robbed Celegorm of something even more important and essential to his wellbeing than her love and devotion. Because at this moment, he did not look like he could have harmed a fly, let alone slain thousands without hesitation or remorse.
He looked like a father. And it made her faint heart stutter.
---
Kíli was crying.
Groaning, Thorin rolled out of his makeshift bed in the living room before the hearth, leaving little Fíli alone, snoring softly. As much as he wished he could leave the child-rearing duties to Lady Lúthien, he knew that it truly was not her responsibility to be up in the middle of the night attending his infant nephew. And (he added to himself) he did not want to be more in-debt to her and her burly husband than he already was.
The crying died down before he even reached the doorway.
For a moment, Thorin contemplated going back to bed. Clearly Lúthien had beat him to the nursery. But perhaps he should offer to rock the child to bed so she could return to sleep? As much as babies still confounded him, it was his duty...
That decided, he padded with bare feet into the hallway. Only flickering shadows from the fire in the other room illuminated his way, but he could see in the dark well enough to make out the womanly shape poised in the doorway to the nursery, and that it was infant-less. Blinking, he finally made out her face, staring into the room with eyes that were distant and glazed, an elven look if he ever saw one. Always, they seemed to be looking into the far recesses of the past, never towards a better future.
"My Lady--"
She held up a hand to halt his words, and then beckoned him forth. Thorin yielded without a fight and found himself standing beside the fair elf, eyes adjusting to the silvered moonlight spilled across the nursery floor, broken with the blackened shadow of a faintly moving figure.
But if Lúthien was out here, then--
Then it had to be Celegorm in there with the baby!
It was at that point when Thorin would have flown into a panic worrying that the sharp-tongued bastard had put a pillow over his nephew's face had Lúthien not laid a gentle hand upon his shoulder and squeezed. "Look," she murmured, sounding like a girl speaking of her very first love, unabashedly enamored and completely starry-eyed with that breathless quality to her lyrical voice. "Look at them."
And he did look, at least enough to see that the elf he knew as being an ill-tempered, hot-blooded, murderous fiend was rocking his nephew to sleep like a seasoned parent. For once, sharp brows were not furrowed into a permanently furious expression, usually pursed lips left relaxed to bloom into a soft little smirk, eyes no longer frosted over with frigid calculation and contempt.
It was just an elf and a baby. Everything was perfectly quiet and so still that he could hear their breathing, could make out the swish of Celegorm's long braid as he rocked and the flutter of miniscule fingers holding the mighty elf's hand in place as a bottle or toy to be gnawed. Soft hums rose, easing around them as a warm blanket on a cold night, sinking down to the bone.
Well he could remember the first few times he had taken care of Fíli when the boy had been that tiny and helpless, but he never had the aptitude for it. Always, his hands felt too broad and awkward, too heavy, as though they might accidently bruise or shatter tiny, brittle bones. But in this image before him, there was not an ounce of awkwardness, not a trace of the ruthlessness so intrinsically present in the elf that he had come to know over the past month living deep in the mountains.
"I did not know he had such skill with the little ones," Thorin murmured, more to himself than to his equally silent companion.
Lúthien let out a breathy sigh. "Indeed, I doubt even he realizes. He has not spent overmuch time with young children, not even in the days before leaving the golden shores."
Thorin never would have guessed, not whilst watching the scene before his eyes. "He will make an excellent father, if this is just instinct." In the dwarrow's experience, it took many months to ingrain parental instinct into one's bones. Until his nephews' father had died, Thorin had never bothered to do so, and afterwards he realized how utterly stressful it was, how foreign to his ancient and stubborn blood. No, the king without a mountain was not created for fathering little ones.
But this creature surely was.
At his words, he felt Lúthien draw a sharp breath. "He would have, indeed," she whispered. "But perhaps..."
Melancholy surrounded her, this beautiful elven creature with the stars in her eyes, who even Thorin could not help but fall in love with just a little. She just looked so heartbroken, so very saddened, that he wondered if perhaps he had said something he should not have, but somehow she was still smiling tenderly through the sheen of tears glistening her endless blue gaze.
"Let us leave them be," she finally said, pulling him away from the doorway. "Your nephew is in good hands."
Longing could not be written more prominently upon her features.
Nor could nostalgia and regret.
And as she kissed his brow and walked away to her own bedchambers, Thorin found himself wondering exactly what it was that he had missed in their exchange. Surely such a skill in her mate would be highly prized, more so than skill in the forge or whittling wood or hunting with a longbow?
Confound the elves! They never made sense!
And with that in mind, Thorin headed back to his blissfully warm and comfortable bed, reassured that he would not be awakened again this night.
---
And Lúthien, for her part, returned to the comforts of her bed and fell into Lórien's gardens, dreaming of silver-haired babes and hushed lullabies with the breeze of spring and flowers on the air. Sweeter than sugar and warm like Arien's rays, the idea inexorably settled into her subconscious, the vision of her dearest husband rocking and soothing their infant son.
It was not an idea that would be fading as the morning mist. Implacable as an old oaken tree, it laid its roots deep into her spirit and began to grow and branch towards the sky.
Celegorm would never know that that one little glimpse changed everything.
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The first thing that came to mind when I saw this prompt was Fëanor, unsurprisingly. His damn name (father-name, mind you) means Skillful Finwë, so it was the logical conclusion, but I decided that that was boring. Instead, I sifted through the other sons of the House of Finwë looking for a target, and low and behold I fell into another Hobbit fanfiction fixation and picked up this very old idea--old as in back from the second story I wrote on this blog old.
And you have no idea how long I've been waiting for the perfect prompt to write to Samidare by Yasuharu Takanashi from Naruto Shippuuden OST II. This song... I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this song, and words cannot describe it either. I'm at a loss. Forgive me. It's just that this song has the power to make me cry every time I hear it, and I never cry.
So if Celegorm must be humming something intelligible, this is it.
I don't think I have anything else to say.
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