Adapt

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Istelindë must accept the reality of an arranged marriage that she never wanted.  No names other than hers are even mentioned explicitly.  Anyway, for those of you who may not remember (or know), Istelindë is my OFC and is getting married to Maedhros in my quickly expanding and evolving head-canon.  Thus, this story is part of the arc started by "Disconsolate", but takes place before that story, and is also related to "Broken", "Dramatic" and "Weapon".  Takes place in Valinor (in Alqualondë) in the Years of the Trees.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion, but Istelindë is definitely mine

Pairings: pre-Maedhros x Istelindë

Characters: Istelindë (mentions Olwë and his unnamed heir as well as some of his other children, possibly including Eärwen)

Warning: not quite canon compliant, OFC warning, politics and marriage, hints at sexism, indoctrinated gender inequality, elven culture

Song: Nobody's Home

Words: 1,177
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adapt (verb): to make fit (as for a new use) often by modification
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/adapt

Marrying for love was every young girl's dream.  Istelindë had been no different than any other girl in this respect, despite her status as the granddaughter of the King of the Teleri.  As a young girl, she had been eager to seek out potential love, excited at the prospect of romance and everlasting bliss.

Her hopes and dreams had been large.  A fiancé whose looks and personality and gentle compassion outshone the stars and the Trees.  A wedding that would go down in history for extravagance and elegance and the smile on the bride's face.  A husband who treated her with respect and listened to her and loved her more than life itself.  A dozen children underfoot with big blue eyes and chubby, rosy cheeks.

Every girl had these images planted in their minds, growing taller and taller each year she grew older.  They strived toward that goal.  And Istelindë knew that many succeeded--found their prince charming and lived happily ever after as in storybooks and fairytales.

But there was a key difference between Princess Istelindë and many other young girls in Aman.

That being, of course, that she was a princess.

And being royal was, in of itself, more a cage than a freedom.  More of a curse than a blessing.  Built off a foundation of responsibility and duty instead of grandiose frivolity as so many commoners liked to envision.  Where those ignorant people saw dancing and profligate parties and the most expensive jewelry and clothing, there were also requests and meetings and rules and manners and etiquette.  But never was there room to behave in any manner unbefitting a member of the royal House.  Not even in private.

And love had no place in that life.  It was a luxury her status couldn't buy.

It was sheer luck that anyone at all married for love in her family.  Her father and mother loved each other deeply and completely--two halves of a whole blessed enough to come together early in their lives--but she knew it was not the same for everyone.  For her aunts, marriage had been about cementing loyalty and rewarding good servitude and making political ties with important allies.  When she was little, it was all too easy to ignore this distasteful reality--to convince herself that that would never be her marring for power.  Certainly, her parents would never allow such a travesty!

She had been a foolish and naïve little girl more focused on her own fantasy than the truth of the life she led.  And now she was floundering in the tide of that reality as it encroached upon and overwhelmed and destroyed her false world.

Because Princess Istelindë, who had big dreams paving her future toward eternal happiness, was getting married to a man she had never even met before.

She wouldn't have that imaginary fiancé with his imaginary perfection and their imaginary wedding.  There wouldn't be secretive smiles sharing love and silent feelings.  There wouldn't be that quiet intimacy of courting in the silvered light and sneaking kisses in the gardens.  There wouldn't be any of that trust and passion meant to be shared between spouses.

There would just be an empty bond tying them together and an expectation that she would provide children, take care of the household and stay out of her husband's way.

And she didn't know what to do.  What to think.

How did one adapt to having all their hopes and dreams torn apart and thrown aside like meaningless trash?

She wasn't allowed to whine.  She wasn't allowed to cry.  She wasn't allowed to refuse or request or demand or anything but sit as a dainty trinket upon her cushioned chair--legs tucked primly in place and hands folded delicately in her lap--and accept whatever decisions her father and grandfather made about her future.

Like a perfectly trained pawn, she was meant to go where she was told and perform her job whatever the circumstances, no matter how loudly the voice in her head screamed or how desperately it rattled the bars of its cell.

So desperately did she want to pretend that none of this was happening.  That she would awaken and it would all be a nightmare.

But--though she could never claim to be a realist--Istelindë closed her eyes in the safety and privacy of her bedchambers and truly thought about her future.  So maybe she wouldn't get everything she had ever imagined as a foolish little girl.  So maybe her self-centered little world wasn't going to be a perfect diamond and free of marks and flaws.  So maybe she would never have the love that every girl secretly yearned for in her most secret heart of hearts.

So maybe life was not as forgiving and gentle as she had always wished and imagined.

But she was still going to make the best of what she had been given.  It was either that or give up and become the very doll that her family saw her as--a lifeless, empty thing.

It was, at first, hard to accept, but it was a lesson she wasn't going to ever forget.  She had to adapt or risk losing herself completely to despair at the endless road of broken hearts and disappointments stretching on and on into the distance.  Sure, she could go on crying and fading and drift in and out of her own life like a phantom, pretending at familial bliss while inside she crumbled.  Or she could make the best of what she had been given and persevere and save a little bit of that magic that seemed to make life worth living.

Maybe there would not be a perfect husband or a perfect wedding or a perfect marriage.

However, there was still that little dream she clung to, tooth and nail with every bit of iron fortitude she could conjure from the depths of her heart and soul.  That little dream that was still a possibility if she just held on a little longer and trudged on a little farther.

That little dream of big blue eyes and chubby, rosy cheeks.

Istelindë no longer considered herself a delusional and idealistic child with unrealistic, ephemeral daydreams fuelling her intangible corporeality, but everyone needed something to hold on to.  Especially when they were stepping of the edge of familiarity into the total darkness of an unknown future without the option of turning back.

And even if her husband turned out to be a cold-hearted bastard who ignored her all day and turned his back on her at night... Even if he never acknowledged her presence or intelligence in his provincial world and treated her like property instead of a person... Even if he never even realized she was more than an inanimate object whenever he wasn't using her as a vessel of procreation...

This was one dream he could never take away from her.

The one dream of which she would never let go.
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This is another one of those stories that turned out completely opposite of how I'd first intended.  Originally it was going to be post-marriage, not pre-marriage, and Istelindë was going to be rather accepting of the politics involved in her bonding with her husband.  Then this happened.  Writing culture and tying in splurges of realistic historical fiction is far too tempting to resist.  That, and I blame the song for this.  Nobody's Home is an old favorite of mine by Avril Lavigne, and though the lyrics do not fit the story at all, it's all about the tone.

Of course, I don't mean to sound like a sexist myself.  I can assure you that I know not every girl dreams of marriage and whatnot (though during certain time periods it was rather the only option on the table for a girl), and I myself never intend to allow my body to serve as the host of a parasitic life for nine months so that I can spend the next twenty years getting less than four hours of sleep every night.  It's just not ever going to be my thing, as I find children neither cute nor attractive in any form.  Nonetheless, all of my female characters (obviously) do not subscribe to the same beliefs as I.  Which makes them interesting to write.

But this gives me a new direction for my arc to take.  Poor Maedhros--he's going to have no idea what he's getting into.  We'll just have to see how this all pans out, won't we?

Final note: I've finished my second prompt table of 30 and will be starting on my last.  Celebration!  LOL, you probably don't care, but I felt like sharing.