Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion
Pairings: Curufin x Lindalórë
Characters: Lindalórë, Curufin (mentions Lindalórë's parents, Finwë, Fëanor, Maedhros and other anonymous elves)
Warning: non-canon compliant AU, mostly fluffy romance, elements of historical fiction and sexism, conservatism in Valinor, people being snobby, allusions to premarital sex, possible cliché, possible child-abuse mentioned
Song: White Angel
Words: 1,999
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beach (noun): a shore of a body of water covered by sand, gravel, or larger rock fragments
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beach
Never before had Lindalórë been courted quite like this. And never by a man quite as unusual or distractingly perfect as Curufinwë.
Oh, she'd had her fair share of admirers. By no means was her family the most powerful for influential in Tirion, but, with her father serving as one of the King's counselors, her family merited a certain measure of respect and envy. Thus, never had she been in short supply young men of court searching for a wife with not only a pretty face, but with good political ties.
Most of those young men would flirt with her at the parties. They would complement her dress and shoes and hair as though they knew the difference between taffeta and silk or sapphires and aquamarines. As though they actually cared either way. They would tell her how pretty her eyes were--like emeralds, they said so often she now tuned the compliment out entirely--and how lovely she was when she smiled, never mind that rarely did she actually plaster a feigned look of enjoyment upon her painted face, let alone smile, at a high society event.
They would fetch her drinks even if she said she was not thirsty. Then they would ask her if, after being refreshed (like a horse that needed watering), she would like to dance. Of course, she was obliged to say yes to avoid offending the admirer and then she spent at least two or three dances per suitor embraced just a hair to close with the hand at her waist just a few inches too low.
But, in the end, she had learned quickly not to take at face value any advances of this sort. Some of these young men were just looking to establish themselves should they need to fall back upon her as a possible wife. Some of them truly were looking to marry her, knowing the power of having her father's ear in which to whisper. Some of them still were only looking to seduce a young, naïve girl of court, whether for bragging rights or simply because they thought they could and were interested in a night of passion.
She would turn and find that such men would be across the room a mere fifteen minutes after her rejection, wooing and seducing some other poor giggling girl out from behind her frantically fluttering fan and straight out of her expensive dress and silk undergarments.
But Lindalórë was used to this sort of courting. It happened every time she appeared in public. The occasional poetry was read or verses of song sung, but it was nothing special. Nothing noteworthy.
However, Curufinwë was as far as one could get from ordinary.
The fifth son of the crown prince literally swept her off her feet.
He didn't need parties or flowers or poorly written songs to grab her attention. Instead, he would merely come to her home and steal her away, sneak her out into the city for a few hours of poking their heads into every shop that caught their interest or of time spent together in obscure little bakeries or restaurants. They went for lengthy walks and actually talked about things other than her hair and her dress and what her father was working on for the King. He asked her what kinds of things she enjoyed and listened when she answered. Asked her what kinds of things she wanted to experience with his riveted silver eyes.
She had told him about the beach.
Or rather, that she had never been there. Even if she was considered part of the nobility, her father did not appreciate the Teleri and, thus, would not take her to Alqualondë where she could wander the white sands looking for seashells and feel the sand dip between her toes. Her mother would have been horrified at the idea of getting sand between her toes, but Lindalórë wanted to know if it was soft or gritty, no matter that she might have to wash her legs in the ocean to get the dirt off later.
Honestly, she had not expected anything to come of it.
---
But then this morning he had shown up before the sun even rose, like one of the roguish gentlemen from one of the romantic stories she keep hidden under her mattress, and had literally kidnapped her (and she had giggled all the way, wearing an old, fraying gown without a corset or petticoats beneath) out her own window. It wasn't nearly as romantic as it had sounded in those fairytales, but she thought it funny nevertheless and relished the chance to put her arms around his neck as he carried her with ease.
"Where are you taking me, Prince Curufinwë?" she asked, still half-laughing in the midst of the silvery night-glow of Telperion.
"To the beach." As if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
And two hours later, as Laurelin began to wax and Telperion nearly completely waned, they were out on the vast expanse of sand--completely alone.
None of her other suitors would ever have done something like this for her. Not only because it was unconventional and compromising, but because they didn't even know her favorite color or favorite dessert, let alone that she dreamed of walking down the shoreline with bare feet.
"It's beautiful," she told him. And it was. The sand was pale and burnished with gold. And it was soft, like walking on flour, getting everywhere, powdering her bare feet up past her ankles where she kicked it into the air. And then there was the ocean in a dazzling miasma of gray and blue and green. She hadn't ever seen anything like it before, stretching on forever and ever, softly roaring and singing each time it rose upwards and crawled gently up the sand, leaving behind writhing designs of darkness to clash with the white.
Cold, misty wind parted around her when she turned, her loose hair whipping up around her face as she beheld Curufinwë standing behind her sans his cloak and boots. He hadn't bothered with courtly attire either, and his hair was a complete mess as the wind's fingers tangled the midnight tresses. But it didn't detract at all from his natural beauty, or the sinful sultriness of his crooked smile and admiring eyes.
"It certainly is," he replied. Looking straight at her.
A flush worked its way up onto her cheeks. Somehow, she doubted he was talking about the sea or the sand. And yet, she hadn't the heart to be upset at such a blatantly inappropriate comment that, from anyone else, would have sounded more like a proposition. Especially when it was the most honest and heartfelt compliment she had ever received. Especially when she could hear the sincerity on his voice where so many voices before had fallen short and false.
Hesitantly, she grasped his hand and pulled. "Let us go looking for seashells. What say you to that, Prince Curufinwë?"
"Whatever you wish, my lady." They started walking together out onto the damp sand, feet sinking into the silt. She hardly noticed that she never released the long, graceful fingers twined and imprisoned within her own.
"You can simply call me Lindalórë."
His smile made her knees wobble. "Very well... Lindalórë. You might as well call me Atarinkë."
And his words made her heart throb.
---
It was hardly the last time they went down to the ocean together in the morning. Even though she was fairly certain that everyone living east of Valimar (including her parents) was aware of the trips to the seashore without a chaperone, Curufinwë did not bother to stop stealing her away. To be truthful, Lindalórë thought it was the sweetest thing. They could get away for a while, be alone together without interruptions and without the limitations and prejudices of court. Just them.
Eventually, her pool of available suitors dried up. She didn't care.
He was definitely the One.
And this day, like many days before, they sat together on the beach, damp from playing in the water--looking for shells and splashing one another--and gritty from sea-salt and the soft sand that managed to writhe its way into their clothes and hair. They just laid still as Laurelin waned again and the beach turned silver-white. Holding hands. Talking and joking and laughing to pass the time.
"We should get married."
It shouldn't have been as surprising as it had seemed at the time, but it had come from between his lips purely out of the blue, caught in one of those heavy silences that rested so comfortably between their bodies. Her eyes searched out his silvery orbs, locking.
"Possibly." Of course.
"Will you? Marry me, I mean." He sat up, shoving back his curtain of dark hair, face becoming suddenly serious, suddenly so very much like the King's and the Crown Prince's. "I may not be the heir--the fact is, I will never sit on the throne--and I may only be a craftsman, but..."
She should have felt insulted, but she knew he didn't think lowly of her or her intentions. They were friends--more than friends, for certain--but he felt obligated to give her a way out of marriage if she truly desired. Many times, he had told her she could do better than him, the wild and reckless fifth son of a hot-tempered prince. A doppelganger of the father he despised.
Sometimes, she hated his father. Hated how fake all her Atarinkë's confidence truly was in the end.
But Lindalórë pushed such thoughts aside. They weren't important right now. Not nearly as important as the searching look upon his face, anxiously awaiting with little starlit glimmers of hope. And with dread. As though she, like his father, might somehow find him a pale reflection and turn him away.
"I do not care what you are or what you become," she answered, watching his shoulders relax and his eyes brighten to the sheen of the stars. Loving the way his lips began to curve upwards despite their faint tremble, exposing entrenched laugh-lines on his cheeks. "I would not care if you were the heir himself or if you were lesser nobility or not nobility at all. You are still my Atarinkë, are you not?"
"Of course." Not a droplet of hesitation.
"Then you know my answer already."
Somehow, the entire affair was so much more romantic than any of the classic proposals done on bended knee in her novels and tales. Somehow, the fact that he wasn't rigid with confidence and speaking like a knight in shining armor was so much more endearing. Somehow, the fact that he swept her against him and laughed aloud with joy when their lips brushed together was much better than a long-drawn, seductive kiss. And then he toppled them into the sand, leaning over her, damp tangles of dark hair falling about them.
"Should it be here?" On the beach. "My father would probably protest, but I am only the fifth son of the Crown Prince, so there really is no need for a fancy ceremony at the palace with all that mayhem and tradition."
Her parents would probably protest as well, desiring a large and fanciful ceremony to compete with that of the second-in-line himself for their only child, but Lindalórë didn't think that she cared all that much for a fairytale wedding with thousands of well-wishers in a giant marble room filled with cold-eyed politicians watching impassively. Rather, the idea of something small and private--of wearing a dress without all that complicated lace and trimming and jewels, of foregoing shoes so that she might feel the soft sand underfoot--was more charming and special.
"I think I would like that," she whispered. "Right here, on the beach."
"Right here," he agreed. "Right here."
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Once again, forgive me for focusing my all on an OFC. It drives some people crazy. But for me, Lindalórë is nearly as canon as any of the canon characters (and more so than some of the more obscure ones), so I've very, very attached to her. And, after all the tragedy I've put her through in every story she's ever appeared in, I thought she needed a little love. Expect the beach to reappear in future stories, but don't expect them all to be happy. I have plans, after all.
Nevertheless, I have gotten the fluffiness out of my system for at least a half-week or so, I should think, if not longer. Let's see... who hasn't gotten a fluffy romance scene yet? LOL.
Anyway, the song for today I just happened to find on a whim after looking into (and rejecting) another song I've had on my mind. I naturally associate this other song with this pairing, but it's too sexual and dark for these cute scenes, so I nixed it. Instead, we have White Angel by Florian Bur, which at first to me seemed rather unremarkable. However, it has extremely high-pitched piano playing in it, without a full lower bass, all sugary and sparkly and transient. And I just fell in love. I reminded me of the beach (and yes, I have been to the ocean before, but hopefully Belegaer is both warmer and more enchanting than the Atlantic) and thus I couldn't help but use it. And the sweet part at the end was absolutely perfect for the last scene and I just melted...
Alright, the music geek will shut up and let you get on with your day, now. I just can't help myself sometimes, you know?
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