Erratic

Canon compliant AU.  It was said that Idril avoided Maeglin for as long as Gondolin remained standing.  This is why.  Quenya names used (Idril = Itarillë).  You could say that this is related to "Urban", "Passion" and possibly "Loveless".  It happens before the arrival of Tuor in Gondolin, so Maeglin has not yet been captured either.  In fact, he may not even realize that he's "projecting" his "darkness" at all.  Anyway, the setting is (obviously) Gondolin.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: one-sided Maeglin x Idril

Characters: Idril, Maeglin (mentions other random elves, Aredhel and Eöl)

Warning: canon compliant AU, unrequited love, possessive love/infatuation, fear of assault and/or rape by a female character, dysfunctional family, not-quite incest, cultural slurs, mild xenophobia, sexual undertones

Song: Behind the Mask

Words: 1,230
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erratic (adjective): having no fixed course: wandering; characterized by lack of consistency, regularity, or uniformity; deviating from what is ordinary or standard: eccentric
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/erratic

At first he seemed sweet and naïve.  A little lost and a little grumpy, but for the most part charming and perhaps a touch star-struck.  Though he was her cousin, Itarillë did not worry herself overmuch at his slightly infatuated behavior.  It only made sense, when she was the only person--male or female--who took the time to notice and treat kindly the half-blooded newcomer.

Maeglin had struck her as harmless at first glance.  A tall and awkward boy suffering from the effects of the trauma of losing his mother and father in a single blow.

Now, though, she was beginning to doubt.

It started out innocuously enough.  He would glance at her, just a hint of something un-cousinly lingering in the dark corners of his recherché eyes.  A something that gave her shivers down her spine, as though his long, spindly fingers traced down each bump of her vertebral curve.  And then the look would vanish beneath childish affection, masked by the cute half-smile and bashfully flushed cheeks that twisted away the sharp lines of his face.

The transitions were so fast she almost did not notice them at first glance.  Thought that she had imagined them.  But then Itarillë began to watch.

Began to become unsettled.

By the moments when Maeglin was not knowingly within her sight.  When he neared her, under his eyes, something about him always inexplicably softened.

Around others, she found him unpredictable.  Dangerous.  Frightening, even.  A hard, cutting edge lined in jagged serrations, prepared to slice if one dared step to close.

There was that darkness lurking.

One moment he would seem perfectly fine.  Smiling blithely.  Maybe even laughing.  And then someone would say something rude or hint something demeaning just within earshot, insulting his mother or father or half-Avarin status, and every inch of his body would go tense as the over-tight string of a creaking bow, muscles seemingly prepared to leap like a mountain lion onto an unsuspecting, aimless goat that dared think itself above the food chain.

She saw his tongue dart out to wet his lips, curving slowly as his gaze burned into the aggressor, and the flash of bared teeth would momentarily shine beneath the seemingly nervous gesture.  She saw his already almond-shaped eyes narrow into slits, only inky blackness peering out from between his thick lashes.

But then it would vanish again, as if pulled back beneath a curtain.  Hiding.  Controlled.

She knew, though, that that control was slipping.  Maeglin was growing impatient and intolerant.

Lately, the fury and hatred did not retreat after a mere moment of exposure.  Erratically, they appeared whenever someone dared utter a word against him or against her or against anything that Maeglin held of import.  The same look that she remembered (with slight horror zinging through her jumbled thoughts) which had contorted his father's features just before the barbaric dark-elf hurled a javelin at his son, just before it had sliced through Princess Aredhel's shoulder in protection of her only child.

There would be snapped words and threats of bodily harm or corporeal punishment.  There would be shoves and kicks that left the foe groaning on the ground.  Once he had even drawn his knife on a wide-eyed courtier, hissing something in the man's ear that left that face blanched clear of all color.

And, most especially, he reacted violently to those few men who dared to attempt and court her.  The princess.  Maeglin's own cousin and close kin.

Snarled at them when he thought she looked the other way.  Glared at them from across the room as though they carried a plague.  Spread rumors about them to tarnish their reputations.

He could have claimed to be protecting her out of familial loyalty, but Itarillë knew differently.  This wasn't about protection, like a brother protects his sister.

It was about possessiveness and jealousy.

And, quite honestly, it had begun to scare her.

How he had begun to follow her around as his darker reflection became clearer and clearer, daring to stalk her through the city on silent feet.  Never before had she noticed, her mind elsewhere in enjoyment, but now she saw him everywhere.  Saw him watching her from across the room when he should not even have been present.  Saw him peering in the windows to see her lounging in the sitting room, pretending desperately he was not there.

Even saw him spying on her with suitors in the gardens, watching with the blackest, most venomous sneer she had seen yet whenever she dared flirt with another man.  Whenever she dared hold hands in the supposed privacy of her own home.  Whenever she dared sneak a kiss.  Always, she would turn around and see him there.

His unusual and disquieting behavior had even begun to leak into their face-to-face interactions.

"He is not good enough for you."

And what business was it of his whom she courted and loved, she had wondered.

"That is not for you to decide, cousin."

His hand wrapped around her arm then.  Squeezing tight until she wanted to tell him to let go because he was hurting her, but held her tongue in pride.

Later, she pulled back her sleeve to reveal purple blotches in the shape of his broad palm.

No longer did she want to spend time with the once-charming man in order to feed his nauseating, growing obsession.  More than anything, Itarillë wanted to tell him to go away and leave her alone.

But whenever she parted her lips, looking up into those eyes, she would always see that half-hidden shadow of lust and greed and wrath.  Would see behind his bright eyes and broad grin that man who held a knife to another man's throat for a mere slight of words.  Who watched the other courtiers with blatant hatred burning like pits of hellfire, ready to char their flesh and bones to ashes in vindication.  Who stared at her like he wanted to rip off her clothes and devour her.

A shudder would wrack her body, a tremble coming to her fingers.  A terrible twinge sending her heart racing.

"Why do you go pale, cousin?  Do you not feel well?"

And she would say nothing.

Because she feared.  Feared that his mask might fall and release that erratic creature of fury and possessiveness.  Feared that, should she deny him, he might grab her and shake her until she was covered in bruises.  Feared that, should she chose another over him, he might truly murder her suitor in the cold blood.  Feared that, if she did not give in to him, he might coerce her or force her or manipulate her into his life and his bed.

And then she would tell herself that her Maeglin would never do such a thing.  Would never intentionally harm her.  Would certainly never rape her.

Yet, no matter how terrible she told herself these unproven accusations were, she could not free them from the prison of her subconscious.  Could not forget how his hand sometimes lingered too long upon her arm or how his hugs dragged on as he breathed deeply of her hair.  Could not forget that, though he looked at her in adoration, a monster was prowling beneath.

Waiting patiently.
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I don't want anyone to think I hate on Maeglin, because I don't.  He's very jealous and handling his unrequited love very poorly.  I thought it made the most sense for Idril to "avoid him because she perceives evil" if he acts kind of creepy and strange around her, thus unsettling her enough for her to actively avoid him.  I would find it creepy and frightening, too, if a man acted this way around me.

In any case, the story itself is, admittedly slightly influenced by the title of the song and its automatic association with an "evil" character that was once perceived as good and moral (*cough* Obito why did you become evil? *cough*).  Behind the Mask (by Yasuharu Takanashi, as usual) is from the crazy new Shippuuden movie where everything in the fake alternate reality is backwards (or almost everything) and I thought it just fit the concept of the piece rather well.  The mask reference, however, was completely coincidental.

That is really all I have for today.