Reprise

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Curufin takes Lindalórë to the beach for the first time after returning from the Halls of the Waiting.  Quenya names used (Curufin = Atarinkë).  This is the companion piece to "Beach", but is also very closely related to "Locked", "Punch", "Snore", "Secret", "Drought" and "Fantasy" amongst other related arcs.  Lindalórë is, of course, my OFC who serves as Curufin's canonical wife in my permanent head-canon.  Takes place in Valinor early in the Third Age (or late in the Second, hard to tell).

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Curufin x Lindalórë

Characters: Lindalórë (OFC), Curufin (mentions Teldanno (OMC from "Locked"))

Warning: non-canon compliant AU, OFC warning, spontaneous extra children, deception in the past, dysfunctional relationship, mentions murder and sadism

Song: Kurenai

Words: 1,772
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reprise (noun): a recurrence, renewal, or resumption of an action; a repeated performance: repetition
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reprise

"Do you still come here?"

He did not sound curious.  More than anything, he sounded as though he couldn't think of anything else to say.  The silence between them was not comfortable or companionable.

Not like it used to be, when they could stare at one another for hours and never need to speak.

"No."  Abrupt.

It was not a lie.  Why would she when he wasn't there?

More even than her home did this place remind her of him.  Of them.  Before the tragedy of the Darkening and the Kinslaying and the Exile.  Before everything had torn them apart.  Before her life had tumbled downwards into a dark spiral from which there was no true escape.  It reminded her so much...

Of actually being happy.  Of being excited for her future.  Of being able to walk down the streets without those stares boring between her shoulders.

So much that she could no longer bear the feeling of soft sand between her toes.

Because all she could think of was how it felt beneath her feet as she leaned upwards to kiss him.  Of how bright his eyes had been when they married--filled with wonder and awe and adoration--and how broad his smile stretched and how his stony face softened.

Or the sound of the ocean.

Because it reminded her too much of his laughter, rolling through her in great waves, pulling her towards him helplessly.  They used to lie here on the sand with only that deep rush of water against the shore for company and his voice ringing in the air, entrancing...

No, she had not visited this place.  Not since he had gone from her life.

But he was back.

And walking upon the shore felt like tearing open an old, half-healed wound, letting it bleed freely.  A dissonant reprise of some long-lost aria of passionate love that they had shared once upon a time in a dream.  Because he wasn't the man she remembered at all, nor was she the woman he had once courted so sweetly in the twined light of the Two Trees.  Before everything had gone so wrong.

Just looking at him now, she could see the differences starkly.  The small scars on his hands and on his once-flawless face that cut up any illusions of memory.  Gaunter were his cheeks and sharper the corners of his set, uncompromising jaw.  Around his mouth there were no laugh-lines anymore, but heavy marks of frowning and scowling.  And not once had she yet seen his brows relax from their permanent frown or his eyes widen from their narrowed glare.

Everything about him was harder and less forgiving, something dangerous.  The way he looked and talked and acted.  Crueler.

His voice was not soft anymore, not even when he spoke quietly and intimately in the silence.  There was always that undertone of harsh reality, a man who had lived through things she couldn't even begin to imagine.  More confident and most powerful in spirit, brighter, but with less that sense of sweetness that always had enchanted her.

Lindalórë knew not what to think of this stranger who was no longer her Atarinkë.

He looked at her, and his eyes did not soften and glisten in love and devotion.  They might as well have been carved from the stars themselves for their coldness, untouchable and distant.  It seemed that he did not recognize her any more than she did him.

"Do you hate me?"

The question was flat.  She could not hear even an ounce of anxiety, remorse or sorrow.  Just empty curiosity.  An enquiry to a stranger.

Did she hate him?  She had never really thought much on it.

She had forgotten him out of necessity.  But could she hate him?  After all, he had left her by choice, but she had stayed behind by choice.  Lindalórë would not lie to herself and say that she had not loved him all this time apart, no matter that she locked him away in a dark room to drive his ghost from her mind.  Nor would she place blame solely at his doorstep for their separation and tragedy, for equal parts had they both shared in deception and in wickedness.

"Do you hate me?" she mocked in the stead of her answer.

A smirk came upon his face, and it almost made her shudder.  There was nothing kind about the icy amusement, a pale phantom of his crooked, charming smile.

"Of course not.  I could not hate you."

"Not even for keeping your son from you?"

A flash of pain came and went.  But it chased away the smile, leaving something broken behind. "You... you did right by the boy in the end.  No matter how much I would have liked to know him and raise him, I cannot blame you for your deception.  I understand why you did what you did and hold it not against you.  You saved him.  But I would know..."

A strange look came across his face as he paused.  Thin lips parted diffidently, as though he were almost afraid to speak.  A flicker of uncertainty broke the shell of arrogant confidence in which had been encased his fire.  A flicker of something familiar and heart-wrenching just barely visible.

An image of his downcast eyes and hunched shoulders.  Of his too-serious features and his fidgeting hands curling in the sand.

"Do you remember," he began, "when you swore once that you cared not what I was or what I became.  Right here, in this exact spot.  Do you remember?"

"Yes." She had not thought of it in a very long time.  But she did remember.

Again, he seemed to pause.  His tongue flickered across his lower lip and his eyes dropped downwards, no longer meeting her gaze but hiding instead behind dark lashes.

His hands were curled in his tunic until his knuckles were white.

"Can you love a Kinslayer?"

Can you still love me?

She had sworn, remembered it vividly.  That she claimed not to care about status in the least.  That she claimed it would not have mattered had he been a poor commoner and she a noble's daughter, she still would have married him no matter the stigma and the slander and the scandal.  Never had it occurred to her when she spoke that he might become a murderer and an exile, that he might leave her behind to go to war and return thousands of years later a changed man.  That he might become infamous for his malicious cunning and ruthless slaughter of innocents but still somehow have that insecurity nestled deep in the corners of his psyche.

"I do not care what you are or what you become."  It was her voice that echoed in her mind.

For the first time since he had appeared upon her doorstep, she looked without fear into his eyes and found them soft.  Completely uncertain of her reaction.  Lacking that intrinsic faith but still clinging onto gossamer tendrils of hope.

He did not believe that she could.

But, despite the changes--and the voice in the back of her head that hissed subtly her greatest fears and doubts--she could see something there that reminded her of before.  That reminded her of days spent in bliss upon the white-sanded beach, holding hands and laughing together.

Little glimpses of familiarity that, despite the webs of darkness that blocked her sight, shimmered with dazzling white hope from afar.

He was not the same man.  And she was not the same woman.  What they had between them would never be identical to their original melody, so innocent in its dulcet sweetness.  It was darker now, tainted with loss and tragedy and separation, but it had not faded in silence.

Her love for him had not vanished.  Nor would it ever.

"I do not think our love will ever be the same." And how she hated the sudden blackness of his eyes as they narrowed once more, hiding not cruelty and wickedness but instead disappointment and the sheen of tears.  The way his entire body froze and his shoulders dropped in resigned acceptance.

That look she knew well.  The look of despair and hope dashed against the rocks of rejection.  Remembered seeing it on her reflection each morning that she woke without him beside her to light up her day.  A look she never wanted to see again.

"But you are still my Atarinkë, are you not?"

Silver flashed upwards, clashing sharply with her vision, wide and shocked.  All the cruel lines went slack, stripped away.

And the smile that followed, sad though it might be, was genuine and hopeful.

"Of course.  Always."

So beautiful she could not help but return it with one of her own.
"Then you know my answer already."

It was the first time she had seen him look like himself.  Grinning widely to spite the deep trenches and frown-lines at the corners of his lips.  Brows relaxing over resplendent eyes until he morphed into something halfway between her hazy dream-lover and the frigid doppelganger that had returned from over the sea.  And it was enough.  His arms came about her and pulled her close against him, caged her within the heat of his blazing spirit with gentleness that she could remember so clearly.

And Lindalórë was content to rest in that warmth, revel in the comfort and safety.  Long had she missed his touch and scent, the smoky tang in the back of her throat and the softness of his dark hair falling against her face when he rested his cheek upon her head and breathed her in, murmuring soft words of love that barely reached her ears, tangled in the sound of the water and the mist.

Long had she missed his closeness.

"Let us start again," she whispered into the dark curtain of his silken hair, even as she stroked her fingers through its wild tangles. "Let us go looking for seashells."

Slowly, he released her, his cheek leaving the cushion of her hair.  They parted once again, but not so far away that his warmth did not radiate outwards into her skin.  Not so far away that he could not grab her hand within his callused palm and kiss her knuckles coyly, his devilish smirk returning only a hint sharper and wilder than she recalled.

"Whatever you wish, my lady."

It would not be perfect, but Lindalórë did not care.

She had him back.  And she would not be letting go a second time.
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Yes, I have had this idea on my mind since writing "Beach", which my readers seemed to find really cute and adorable.  So sorry to ruin it, but this once definitely isn't quite as adorable or sweet as the original.  It is a reprise, after all, in a minor key.  LOL, jk, ignore my musician jokes.  In any case, I wanted to explore this relationship after Curufin returns because I can imagine it would be hard to just accept him back and pretend nothing happened.  Impossible, even.

Yet I don't want people to think that she's Stockholmed into taking him back or anything, because she stayed behind completely willingly and lied through omission to her husband.  Maybe him leaving had detrimental effects on her health and sanity, and maybe he is a murder and slightly psychotic, but she isn't much better, and she's lucky that he's not demanding her apology as well as forgiveness.

The song for this piece came to me just before writing "Beach" and it was perfect.  I'm not sure who is singing to who--maybe both to each other--but I just fell in love with it, and it fit so damn perfectly!  Tsukiko Amano has once again gotten me addicted to a Final Frame theme song (technically, it's Project Zero, but whatever).  Kurenai is amazing and I love it so much!  It's got her personal twang all wrapped up into something new and fitting, but that plays back on an earlier theme to those of us familiar with some of her other compositions.

Yeah, I'm a dork.  Forgiveness is appreciated.  Enjoy.