Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion
Pairings: Angrod x Eldalótë
Characters: Eldalótë, Angrod (mentions Eärwen)
Warning: canon compliant AU, class differences, canon pairings, sort-of cradling robbing, fluff and angst
Song: Shirohae
Words: 2,554
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odds and ends (noun plural): miscellaneous articles; miscellaneous remnants or leftovers
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/odds+and+ends?show=0&t=1377977196
They were the little things.
Rising in the morning and reaching for her gilded hairbrush. The ridiculously gaudy thing rested perpetually upon her vanity, set before a matching silver mirror. She held it within her hands, weighing its heaviness against the strength of her wrist before raising it to her tangled hair, burnished brown in the sunlight streaming through the bedroom window, and let it slide through in long, luxurious strokes...
Feeling its teeth gliding through the long locks smoothly...
"What use have I for such a... a... lovely"--expensive--"trinket, my prince?"
His smile dimmed slightly upon her answer, and Eldalótë resisted furiously the twinge of guilt that anchored itself in the harbor of her conscience at the mere thought of making him sad. Of bringing that disappointed look to his eyes.
"Well, it is meant to be used as any other hairbrush, lótenya..."
Blue eyes fell downcast, settling somewhere around her ankles rather than upon her face or the hand that still held the intricately engraved silver accessory.
"I thought it would suit you."
She gazed at it again, taking in the twining vines spiraling their way upwards, blooms shooting off their stalks and unfurling into starflowers. Truly, it was the finest of work, and she shuddered to think of how much he had spent to commission such a piece.
And for her...
"Well, it is rather beautiful..." Again, she ran her fingers over its curves. "But, in the future, try not to spend so much on me, my prince! I am a gardener!"
"All the more reason!" His smile was back three times as bright and his eyes were gleaming with ten times the eagerness to please. "You really like it?"
"Of course."
"Then... you will not mind a matching mirror... right?"
Snorting softly to herself, she set aside the hairbrush, running her fingers through the smooth locks left in its wake, watching them spin and fall through her grasp in the reflection. Heavy at heart, she reached back and began a simple braid, quickly weaving the hair tightly together until it came to a tail, hanging over her shoulder and coiling in her lap.
Thinking of him as she reached into a drawer and pulled out a fraying blue ribbon...
"Blast it!" It was loose again, falling all over her sweaty face, getting tangled around her clumsy, filthy gloves and falling into the damp, newly trimmed grass, gathering unwanted green decoration. Truly, she should have it cut. It was getting so long and thick that her simple, rather mediocrely crafted ribbons constantly slipped out or snapped under the weight.
Finally, she got it all pulled back and wondered if she had any shears lying around that she could--
"You look like you could use a hand, lótenya..."
Startled into jumping, she gasped and felt the messy tail of hair she had gathered at her nape unfurl, spilling once again all over into everything. Annoyed, she glared up at him.
"Can I help you, your highness?"
"You can call me your prince." Dressed in his well-made, jewel-encrusted garments, he sat cross-legged in the grass beside her, unbothered by the dampness and the mud. "Here, let me..."
His hand reached back, pulling loose the ribbon holding his own hair in place. Eldalótë could not help but watch in fascination as the golden curls spilled over his broad shoulders and around his sun-kissed, grinning face. So handsome she almost could not believe he was real...
But then he reached for her hair.
"B-but, my prince, it simply is not proper!" Scandalized, she managed to capture most of her hair and heft it away from his touch. It simply wasn't right, a prince braiding a gardener's hair, as though she were his...
His...
"Did you not want it out of your face?"
"Well, yes, but..."
"Let me try just once. Please?" His smile was somewhere between boyish and roguish. "If it is horrible, I will let you ban me from hair-braiding. I promise."
And there were the eyes. She remembered those eyes so well, pleading and teasing. "Fine... But only once!"
Once a day every day since. Wistfully, she fingered the satin smoothness, finely woven and strong, before threading it into her hair and tying it tightly to hold the braid in place. This shade of royal blue, deep and rich, had never been her color--she much preferred browns and greens, simple and natural--but it had suited him terribly well.
Still, he insisted upon using it whenever possible. She suspected it was a claim of some sort, his manly pride preening and prancing. Too much, she let him get away with. It was probably why they had ended up married.
With a sigh, she stood and went to dress. Something nice and simple, loose-fitting. Something she could garden in.
Still in-sight of the mirror, she tugged off her sleeping robe, hanging it upon the back of her vanity chair, before tugging her nightgown over her head. The fabric caught slightly, and she slid her hand upwards, unhooking the lace upon the neckline from the necklace that fell now to rest between her breasts.
Gold and heavy, lined with huge rubies that must have cost a fortune. She had hated it immensely when first she had received it, but now...
"Absolutely not."
"Just try it on."
It sat heavy against the tough fabric of her tunic, sliding down to uncomfortably rest upon the swell of her chest. Everything about the rubies and diamonds, refracting a thousand pinpricks of blinding light through their intricately cut facets, sat wrong with her. Clear red and white on scratchy green and brown. Extravagant to the point of prodigality clashing sharply with her simplicity.
Eldalótë parted her lips to tell him exactly what she thought of the horrid piece of jewelry--namely that it belonged on a courtesan in a slinky scarlet dress with too much rouge on her make-up smeared face--but then she got a look at his expression.
Of utter adoration. Staring at her as though she were fallen from the heavens.
"You have no idea how glorious you are, do you?"
And she just couldn't bring herself to do it.
What was she to say to that?
Now she found herself fond of the silly thing. Wearing it all the time under her clothes, even though nothing she owned matched the blood-colored hue of the stones or the resplendent gleam of the adamant. Her fingers washed over it for a second, feeling living warmth resting within the jewels, absorbed from lying against her skin.
And then she covered it up with an ugly brown tunic. She didn't want to think about it anymore.
Instead, she made her way to the kitchen, planning on a simple breakfast. Oatmeal maybe.
Except she opened the drawer and heard the clatter of silverware before she could reign herself in. Peering downwards, she stared...
At the box. Wooden and carved painstakingly into a forest scene by talented hands. Thin, fragile glass was inlaid on the lid, allowing the viewer to peer through at the marvel below.
Namely, silverware that probably cost more than her entire house.
There was a note, of course. It had been left on her counter, and Eldalótë knew she would have to lecture "her prince" about breaking into other people's houses, even if he was planning to leave gifts instead of thieving them.
Carefully, she opened the lid, feeling as though she might scratch or break it at any moment, taking in the sight below. Little doubt was there in her mind that this was actual silver, or that it probably took months of hard work to forge and shape and decorate the unwieldy pale metal into these elegantly curved spoons and knives and... other things.
She wasn't even sure what that was...
The box was carefully packed away, and she barely touched it. Never had it been used in its entirety except at the wedding (and even then, she still only used one type of fork). But she didn't mind this gift so much...
After all, it was functional at the very least...
It was better than the necklace, though she had bent over half of the forks within a year and dinged and banged up the rest at a steady pace. Her mother-in-law would have been scandalized at the dullness and abuse of the silver. The silver. It sounded like something a countess should be worrying about, not a gardener.
Still, she pulled out a dish--thankfully simple and unadorned--and set about her meal as the sun rose.
Ignoring the cold feeling of metal in her hand all the way.
Fleeing to the garden quickly after.
Into the early morning light, only just becoming lush and golden in the wake of the pale dawn. Arien's rays were warm against her skin, brushing away the chill and dew that lingered from the nighttime and casting an eerie, lovely sheen across the yard.
Flowers in every direction were blossoming into color, twining their way up the side of the house, occupying the space beneath the windows, climbing up the gardening shed and taking over completely the fence. Most would have called it disorganized and overgrown, yet, in her opinion, the yard remained perfectly groomed as always, her personal little paradise protected from the rest of the world.
She had only ever shared it with him.
"Do you not think golden shears were a bit much, my prince?"
"You can call me Angaráto, lótenya."
He had forgone his fancy clothing and braids today, donning a simple silver circlet and loose-fitting tunic. It did not even seem to bother him, sitting around with her in her personal garden, blocked from sight and without a chaperone. Then again, a common woman like her needn't be watched so closely, for she had no virtue to guard...
Carefully steering her thoughts away from dangerous territory, she examined the shears. In general, gold was not used for tools such as these. Too soft and malleable. But her suitor was a prince, not a craftsman or a gardener, and she doubted he would understand that she would prefer something in iron over something in gold for such dirty and unseemly tasks as yard-work.
"My prince..."
"Teach me how to garden."
Why would he want to know such things?
"It is not work meant for royalty, my prince." And she wasn't sure she trusted him anywhere near her rosebushes. He could do whatever he wished to the ones on his father's estate, but hers were her babies, and she wasn't about to let him anywhere near them with shears, golden or otherwise.
"But you seem to love it so much!" He drew closer, and she felt him press against her back, chin coming to rest on her shoulder. Breath washing over her ear and cheek, intimate and close. "I want to understand."
A shiver ran through her body at his proximity. At the touch of his hands on her wrists, arms wrapping themselves in a living, flexing cage around her body.
"Show me..."
She never could say no to that man!
Huffing, she went and recovered her tools from the shed--even the blasted, useless shears--and pulled on thick boots over her loose trousers. Like a fool she probably looked as she slapped on a wide-brimmed hat and yanked on gloves that hid away any elegance her hands might have possessed. Better that way. She had never really been all that beautiful in the first place. Satisfied that she looked sufficiently messy and unappealing, she set about her work.
There was always weeding and watering and tending to be done. She would start with the roses and work her way around the yard. And she would not think any more about him...
Unless she saw...
That...
It had grown over the years since he had given it to her. She stopped beside the red tulips, staring down at their graceful, towering forms heads above any nearby plants, richer in color than any rubies. They seemed to soak in the sunlight and glow, their translucent petals fluttering softly with the breeze.
He, of course, never understood why she planted rich purple tulips right beside the red.
Against her will, she felt her eyes blurring.
"I brought something for you, lótenya."
He had been bringing her things ever since that day in the garden when she realized--in horror and unwanted delight--that he had somehow never gotten over her, the family gardener. That he still believed he loved her.
Of course, it didn't change his class. Her prince had yet to realize that many of the expensive, fancy things he bought for her were simply impractical for her lifestyle. She took about the same amount of pleasure in heavy, glistening stones and silver mirrors as the women of court took in dirt under their manicured nails.
Still, he didn't mean any harm by it. She just hoped that, whatever it was, it wasn't quite as bad as had been the shears.
"Yes, my prince, what... is..."
He was holding a pot. A rather more-decorative-than-necessary pot, to be exact. But it was not the pot itself, with its gold inlay and swirling designs, that caught her attention. Rather, it was what rested within the pot.
Oh... It was beautiful...
Tall and healthy, a perfect bloom unfurling to receive sunlight. Her fingers reached out to trace the edge of a fragile, soft petal.
A red tulip.
"Know you what this means, my prince?" she whispered. Feeling her heart skip a beat in wonder and nervousness. The butterflies always fluttering about her stomach whenever he was nearby now felt like they were wildly trying to flee the prison of her belly, so violently were they roiling and twisting.
"Of course I know." The crooked smile he offered made her heart melt. "As soon as I realized, I... Well, I planted one for you, before I even came back from the academy. Though I was certain I had killed it a few times, it seems to have managed to thrive beneath my clumsy care."
She could barely breathe. He had not bought it, but planted it himself?
"I told you, I love you. I always have, and I always will. When will you believe me, Eldalótë?"
And she believed.
It was unbearable, seeing the two--red for her and purple for him--side-by-side. When, in reality, they were so far apart.
And she struggled not to weep in full.
For they were the little things--the odds and ends--that reminded her. Of how he pursued and courted and wooed her into love through sheer stubbornness and naïve charm. Of how he had married her and made her the happiest woman in the world, just like he had sworn as a silly young child with a silly bout of puppy love. A prince and a gardener, like a fairytale.
They were the little things that reminded her. That he was gone. And that a part of her life, the part he used to fill with his vibrancy, the part that had molded into a dreamland at his side, was empty.
They were the little things that reminded her. That they were all she had left.
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First off, the flowers. Red tulips symbolize "perfect love" because of a Turkish love story that, if I recall correctly, as something to do with jumping off cliffs to prove undying love. I believe I've mentioned it once before in "Puzzle" ages ago. The purple tulips, on the other hand, symbolize (specifically) royalty, and thus are rather metaphorical when placed next to the red ones, at least in my head. Even though the real meanings of flowers wouldn't apply in Tolkienverse, I used them anyway for fun.
This pairing seems for some reason to capture attention. In any case, I didn't want to write an actual courting scene, because today is definitely an angst day, but I thought I'd put some cute stuff together and used the cuteness as a catalyst for the sadness. I know, horrible, right? But I can't help myself. How is it that stories that should be cute always end up sad?
The song, of course, fits perfectly in my opinion. Shirohae (once again, from the Naruto Shippuuden OST II by Yasuharu Takanashi) has this sort of tone about it, with the gentle guitar theme and the quietness of it all, somewhere between memory, acceptance and nostalgia. Not really sad, but not happy either, if you know what I mean. And even though it's far from my favorite song on the OST, I still have a strange fondness for it.
Hope you liked.
P.S.: lótenya means "my flower"
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