Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion
Pairings: pre-Imrazôr x Mithrellas
Characters: Imrazôr, Mithrellas (mentions Eärendil, Elros and the Valar)
Warning: canon-compliant, possible AU?, mostly just sappy romance mushed up with plain old angst, mysterious past, etc...
Song: Pain
Words: 1,266
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untouchable (adjective): forbidden to the touch: not to be handled; exempt from criticism or control; lying beyond reach; disagreeable or defiling to the touch
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/untouchable
She stood ever still. Statuesque and silent. Always, she stared off towards the mountains with great distance in her ocean-deep blue eyes. Never had he seen her move a muscle nor glance asunder in the trance which captured and held her immobile and pale. Never did she even turn to gaze in his direction, though she must have known of his presence at her back.
Often enough, Imrazôr sat just as silent and just as still, watching her as she held her unspoken vigil with the wind whipping through her loose silvered hair, catching and clawing at her gray garb. He could not help but watch, for she enchanted him beyond reason without a droplet of effort.
Glorious in face and form was she. Her beauty left him breathless in awe. No woman had he ever laid eyes upon who could match this phantom for the softness of her skin or the perfection of her visage. Had he not known better, he would have called her an angel in the flesh, fallen to the dilapidated earth. But it was not only that which captivated the mortal in body and mind.
It was her sorrow.
So potent it seemed to wash against him in waves, great breaths of the sea sighing over his soul. He dared not catch and hold her gaze for very long--for fear that it would consume him, pull him under and drown him. Yet all the same she was suffering and he could not bring himself to turn away.
"Come with me. Let me help," he would say, would reach out a hand and wait for her to move, to touch his rough warrior's palm with her gentle white hand. So that he might lead her away from the hazy mountains lingering in the distance and the screams of the sea at her back. So that he might teach her to smile again and forget the long years of darkness behind her.
But she would not allow him close.
Would not take his hand. Would not turn away from the wide open land beneath her eyes. To others the view might appear glorious, but Imrazôr came to think of it as an open wound, stretched wide and festering at the edges, refusing to heal and allow his angel to rest.
Days turned into weeks. And then months. He brought her food and drink but never saw her eat or quench her thirst. Left her blankets which never moved from where they lay folded and cold on the ground. Whither or whether she slept, he could not have said, for even in the night she stayed still and quiet on her weathered cliff, eyes fixated on far distant peaks even when the darkness lay a blanket over all the land and they could no longer be seen.
And in the darkness she would hang as a star--just as cold and just as untouchable. Distant beyond reach of his grasping hands. Shining down in his mortal form and filling it with longing.
What he would not have done for her. He would have followed Eärendil the ancestor and built Vingalótë a thousand and ten times over again were it enough to ferry him to her lofty height and allow him to brush against her brilliance. Would have followed Elros Tar-Minyatar and built an empire remembered for ten thousand years--gift it unto her hands without hesitation or question if it would only make her eyes rest upon him with fondness.
And even after five years had passed and she still moved naught, he did not give up the hope like moonshine raining down on his heart.
Stubbornness and determination were written in his red blood, in the marrow of his bones. It was this woman Imrazôr loved more than any other--more and more and more each passing day he stood beneath her shine and her sorrow and wistfully awaited the moment when he heard her voice speak his name for the first time and accept his copious offers of a home and a family--of a husband to lay by her side and hold her steady against the ravages of whatever past left her so sad and so still.
Awaited the moment when his climbing and striving and praying finally delivered him into the vicinity of her otherworldly glory and he managed to touch the cold adamantine of her heart, managed to embrace it in his fingers and warm it with the heat of his palms.
Awaited and awaited. Awaited until the day when he mustered the courage to lay a diffident hand upon the graceful curve of her back in silent comfort. Until the day he reached out and grasped her slender fingers where they lay limply at her side and squeezed the chill out of pale flesh trembling ever so softly.
Until her soft eyelashes fluttered and her midnight eyes finally blinked, finally closed and opened again, and moved away from the far distant peaks that offered none of the comfort he presented before her so graciously.
Until they rested on his face and his heart burst with untold joy, because they were neither angry nor distant, but awash with the shattered gleam of tears left un-fallen. Tears that overwhelmed the icy defenses of this star in bodily form and spilled down her cheeks, hot droplets splashing against his flesh.
Her arms were around his neck, and against his shoulder she wept in soft little gasps.
And the feel of her in his arms left him floating, walking amongst the towering clouds even as he crooned and hushed her quiet, airy cries. Her brilliance may as well have blinded him to all else and burned brands of devotion into his skin, for he could not so much as glance away.
By the Valar, he loved her so. And to touch her untouchable, broken beauty was a miracle in of itself. To see the hesitant little smile overwhelm lips that had not so much as parted since the day he first beheld her left him reeling.
"Master Imrazôr..." His name from her melodious voice was as the most heavenly, divine music. But it was so quiet and quavering, nearly inaudible, and her body trembled against him as a slender tree in a strong wind, collapsed into his hold as she was uprooted. It was all he could do to lift her lest she topple to the ground. And against him she curled, light as a feather.
"Shall I take you home?" he asked, hoarse as he looked down into her face. Even the red rims of her eyes did not diminish her beauty, not by an ounce.
And the bloom of a grateful smile curving up the corners of soft lips made his heart stutter. Her head was lain against his shoulder, a hand sliding over his nape and through his dark curls. "That would please me," she told him, whispered against his skin.
And just as gratefully, he carried her away from the wide open scar of the land towards his white pearl of a city waiting below. Carried her down from her fixture in the heavens amongst the far distant stars in their black and empty space, down to the marred earth to shine her beauty upon his meager mortal world.
"Thank you," she added in the surrounding dusk. And he held his breath. For she was real.
His angel. His star. Reached. Touched. Fallen.
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I completely blame Elf Academy (by Fiondil on Stories of Arda if you're perchance interested, because it's an awesome modern!AU) for this story coming into existence. I'm a fan of the Noldor and freely admit it, thus I don't normally devote this much time to Silvan elves, but the story of Nimrodel and Amroth has captured my attention again, and thus Mithrellas as well. And I got carried away and thought of this story in the shower this morning and it wouldn't leave me alone.
The song I wrote this to is Pain by Rungran (from the Devil May Cry OST). Actually, I think it's the reason that so much star-related imagery showed up in the piece, because the image of her glowing at night was there originally but not the "star" thing--and then it connected up with "untouchable" and became irresistible. And so there.
I cannot for the life of me find any good pictures of Mithrellas--but you should totally read the story referenced above because it's an absolutely awesome. In lieu of an actual image to give you an idea of what I think Mithrellas and Imrazôr actually look like.
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