Touch

Canon-compliant AU.  Eöl had never intended to marry Aredhel.  And he certainly had never intended to fall in love with her.  Sindarin names used.  Íreth is the Sindarin equivalent of the name Írissë, which is (most likely) Aredhel's father-name.  The names Aredhel and Ar-Feiniel are both epessër, and thus I find it highly unlikely that they would be used to address her by her husband (or lover).  Connected up with "Wrong", "Sweeten" and "Hands" quite closely, but from the guy's POV.  Takes place in Nan Elmoth shortly after their first meeting and stretching on for at least a few months.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion (but dude, Tolkien, I hate how you wrote this pairing)

Pairings: Eöl x Aredhel

Characters: Eöl, Aredhel (mentions Thingol and random Sindarin elves in his court)

Warning: possibly a bit AU, canon relationship, premarital sex, mixed intentions, naïve princesses, very mild sexual undertone turned fluffiness

Song: Tears of an Angel

Words: 1,475
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touch (verb): to bring a bodily part into contact with especially so as to perceive through the tactile sense; handle or feel gently usually with the intent to understand or appreciate
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/touch?show=0&t=1371501456

It had not been about love.

After all, they had not known each other.  Not by face.  Not by name.  Not even by reputation.  It was pure animalistic lust and just the right amount of vindictive bitterness that had resulted in the seduction and subsequent "kidnapping" of Íreth Aredhel.

She was nothing.  Nothing but an unlucky, naïve Noldorin woman who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong man.  Beautiful though she might be, Eöl had had no intention of taking her as his wife or keeping her in his home.

Maybe they could have a short liaison for a few weeks--she was a rare, exotic commodity that even he, the reclusive and prickly Avarin smith, would not waste--but he had not planned to have anything else to do with her.  Certainly not a lasting, meaningful relationship.  He would break off their bouts of intense coitus, and then he would send her properly on her way and never hear of her again.  For all he cared, she could get lost in the damn forest crisscrossed with his dark labyrinth of enchantments and starve to death and he would not shed a tear over her loss.

It had been about his own personal satisfaction and nothing more.  He did not and never would care a lick for a golodh.  In his personal opinion, the murderous, insane, kinslaying trespassers deserved every misfortune reaped upon them for bringing the Black Enemy to the far shores, to the doorsteps of the innocent.  In the back of his mind, Eöl wanted Íreth to suffer some terrible, unnamable fate in the depths of these wild lands, for it was her family that had brought down death and destruction upon the heads of his people.

Perhaps it had been unfair to use her as an instrument of vengeance (no matter how petty) against her family when she was so obviously lust-stricken and starry-eyed.  At the time, he hadn't cared.

But, inexorably, things had begun to change.

Starting with his foolish decision to allow her to sleep in his bed after they finished their strenuous bedroom activities.  Allowing her to press her sweat-slicked, soft white body against the full length of his hardened muscles and scarred skin, their legs entwining until they seemed to merge into a single body.  Allowing her to stroke her hands through his hair as they drifted into Lórien's embrace, the soothing brush of nails to his scalp rocking him to sleep.

Allowing her to touch him.

Apparently, allowing such intimacy once had been an invitation for her hands and lips and body to make regular contact with his person whenever she wished to share her strange brand of physical interaction and affection.

Because he could remember well the first time she had hugged him--arms around his neck, eyelashes fluttering across his pounding pulse--after he arrived home from one of his trading trips into the mountains.  And, for the life of him, Eöl could not remember the last time someone had pressed their body against his in such a platonic and meaningful manner--as a greeting filled with relief.

"Welcome home."

He could remember the first time she had grabbed his hand whilst they walked through the forest in the night.  The grouchy dark elf had whined and muttered about how such romantic, fairytale ventures as moonlit walks were a complete and utter waste of his time, but somehow feeling her fingers entwining with his and squeezing--a reassuring "I'm here" to quiet his restless fidgeting--left the unshakable smith with a lump the size of a frog in his throat, squirming fitfully until he hadn't the power or coherency to voice any more complaints.

"It's something lovers do back home in Tirion.  Do you mind terribly?"

Whenever she entered a room and found him there, she would stand on her tiptoes and press a tiny, chaste kiss against his closed lips.  Never had he seen a woman do as such, for the dignified ladies of Thingol's court would not have been caught dead kissing their spouse (let alone a lover) in public, not even in front of their servants or minstrels.  But Íreth even kissed him in front of guests.

Whenever she came upon him in the forge, sweaty and sooty, her arms would wrap themselves around his waist, her hands resting on his flat abdomen and her head resting against his rippling shoulders.  And even though she always wore white and silver to his dreary black, she never seemed to care that her clothing always came out of such an embrace smudged and streaked in ash or oil.

And whenever he did her a favor, even something as tiny as fetching a quill from the other room or holding open the door for her passage or even tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she bustled past him carrying on with her own busy schedule, she always stopped her endeavors and rewarded him with a little peck on the cheek.

And those tiny kisses always made him blush to the roots of his hair.

Because no woman he had ever met before would ever have shown him such genuine, innocent adoration.  The Sindarin women of court were haughty and sneered down their noses at his foreign strangeness, as though he were a disease they might catch if they were seen near him before the eyes of their peers.  Never would one of them even dream of actually hugging or kissing the sweaty, dirty barbarian elven blacksmith from the far east.  They were hypocrites, the lot of them, for they had no such trouble appreciating his foreign looks when they were tumbling around in his bed, crying out his name in ecstasy.

Íreth was nothing like them.  She was like no woman he had ever encountered.

Soon, she had become a fixture.  She had touched something inside of him that no other woman of the dozens he had had affairs with had ever so much as brushed.  In fact, it was worse, because she was under his skin and in his routine and imprinting herself willy-nilly all over his life!

He would turn a corner and smell warm pastries baking and smile while thinking of her--the golodh he was supposed to despise.  He would walk into their shared bedchambers and see her brushing her sleek hair, would catch her eyes in the mirror and feel a wave of warmth suffuse every inch of his body, sinking down through tense muscle and turning even his bones to mush.

He would even wake up on the road and blink his eyes and wonder why her fingers were not drifting in soothing waves through his mussed hair.  And he would think of how wrong it felt and how much he missed the feeling of tender, unconditional caresses before he was awake enough to scold himself for such childish infatuation.

But in the end, Eöl was no fool.  In the end, her blood was insignificant, for she was no nameless Noldorin harlot.  In the end, he knew that he could not simply uproot her from his household, because things would not go back to the way they had been before.  They never could go back to the way they had been before, because the damnable (wonderful) woman had wriggled her way beneath his shell of poisoned spines and curled herself up around the most hidden part of his spirit, the part that no one else had ever managed to uncover.

As much as his inner reclusive tendencies demanded he reject all forms of companionship, he knew that he desperately needed her.  More and more with every minute she imposed herself upon his home and his heart.  More and more with every sweet good-morning kiss and flighty, feather-light caress to his cheek.

And Eöl was not about to let her go.  To lose a part of himself so deeply entangled with the fragile depths of his spirit would be devastating.  Would shatter him beyond repair.

And he was frightened.  Frightened of being alone.  Frightened of doing something wrong.  Frightened of being left behind by the woman who had--without even trying--somehow managed to touch his blackened and rotten heart and bring back the light.

He was frightened because he knew he was in deeply love with her--with the Noldorin princess Íreth Aredhel, whom he should hate more than anyone else for her ignorance and lighthearted glory--and he could not even remember when this charade had stopped being about vengeance for his scattered and tormented people.

Could not remember when it had started to be about love.
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Okay, this is the second time I have ever written anything from Eöl's POV.  I have been obsessing over this pairing quite a bit lately, because (no offense Tolkien dude) I have trouble believing that Aredhel would randomly marry some guy she met in a dark, scary forest.  In fact, I have trouble believing that he would marry her when he hates Noldor so passionately (enough that murdering his son was better than letting the kid live with them).  This (to me, at least) seems much more in character and still manages to keep up his rather nasty-tempered persona.  I mean, just because he's in love doesn't make him nice, right?

Anyway, was listening to Tears of an Angel by RyanDan (identical twins singing duet).  I randomly found it today, and after music theory in high school and college, I'm afraid I'm developed a bit of a weakness for the opera-esque tint in songs like this.  Their voices are just so very lovely and it makes me happy to listen to them, even if the lyrics weren't exactly perfect for the piece.  Meh, who cares about that, right?  Enjoy pretty music.

Cheers.