Contagious

Canon-compliant AU.  Turgon reflects on his wife and daughter and their similarities.  Surprisingly, he isn't angsting the entire time.  Quenya names used (Turgon = Turukáno, Idril = Itarillë, Glorfindel = Laurefindil, Fingolfin = Nolofinwë). This is vaguely related to anything wherein Turgon and Elenwë are a pairing ("Breeze", "Tight", "Objective", that sort of stuff).  And yes, Glorfindel is Elenwë's brother--maybe even her twin.  Takes place in Gondolin in the first age (I would assume anyway).

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Turgon x Elenwë (past and pre)

Characters: Turgon, Idril, Elenwë, Glorfindel (mentions all the Finwions, Anairë, Fingolfin and Fingon in particular)

Warning: canon-compliant AU, canon relationships, crushes, canon character death and nostalgia, a little angst and a lot of fluff

Song: Passion

Words: 1,110
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contagious (adjective): communicable by touching: catching; bearing contagion; exciting similar emotions or conduct in others
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contagious

Itarillë had her mother's smile.  Undeniably.

Of course, she also looked very much like Elenwë.  Like mother like daughter.  Had the same golden hair and soft, delicate fingers from her softhearted Vanyarin bloodline.  Had the same blue eyes, crystallized droplets of the sky fallen to earth, wreathed by pale lashes.

Yet he could not help but notice something more of his wife in their child.  Notice that, when she spun around--barefooted in the gardens in her flowing, pale gowns--and spotted him standing behind her, a wide grin formed upon her young, soft face.  A smile so beloved and so painfully familiar beneath the golden flow of curls and reflected in deep blue eyes.  

A little reflection of a past bygone...

---

As a child, Turukáno had never been particularly happy.

In fact, he had been a rather stern-faced and serious child.  Everyone said so.  With a father heavily entrenched in politics and family disagreements.  With an older brother concerned with living up to their sire's standards and reputation.  With a mother who smiled and doted and fawned but could never play with him or understand him.

Was it any surprise that he spent most of his time alone?

Was it any surprise that he was not particularly joyous?

Most of the time, he was simply lonely.  But, of course, he never said much of anything to his parents or to his brother.  Not to his cousins who oft visited but never stayed for long.  Certainly not to his aunts or uncles or grandfather.

Not to anyone.

Until the day she came along.  A day that he knew, even then, he would be unable to forget for as long as he breathed and thought and dreamed.

In the gardens of the palace, he sat minding his own business, reading in the afternoon light beneath a conveniently shady tree, enjoying the temperate weather and wondering how much longer his father planned to make them stay here in mind-numbing boredom.  When his meetings and gatherings and council sessions would be finished so that they might go home to their townhouse in Tirion.

It was then that they appeared.

"Why are you hiding back here?"

Looking up and up and up, his eyes were filled with a sheen of gold.  The reflection of Laurelin burning into his eyes off of two identical pairs of silken curls.

Two figures stood over him.  A boy and a girl with gold hair and blue eyes, clearly brother and sister.  Their faces were curious and questioning as they leaned over him, half-blocking the brilliance of the light, their dark outlines blurred at the edges.

Turukáno did not know what to even say to them, these strangely friendly children.  None of the courtiers' children ever dared speak to him, let alone ask him questions so rudely.

They sat watching one another in complete silence.  Until the girl-child crouched beside him in the grass, her skirts spreading in a pool of soft blue around her.  Leaning over, her hair spilled against his arm as her huge blue eyes took in the words spread across the pages of his novel.

"Reading is fun and all, but it is an excellent day for playing in the gardens..."

And then she smiled at him, her pink lips stretching and dimples forming.  Something about it was just so lovely, outshining easily the Trees and the stars and the holy visages of the Valar all combined into one.  It left him with a curling feeling of warmth bubbling up beneath his ribs, climbing its way out of his throat in an intelligible sound of half-confused wonder.

Wide-eyed, he looked upon her, this girl and her contagious smile.  And the stern-faced second son of Nolofinwë felt his lips twitch up hesitantly at the corners.  Bashfully.

"Yes, I suppose it is..."

Her giggles were prettier than the twittering of the birds and the operatic poetry of the courtiers.  Prettier than his mother's soft laughter and his grandmother's faint chortles.

Prettier than anything.

"I am Elenwë, and this is my brother Laurefindil.  We were wondering if you wanted to come and play with us.  You just looked so lonely over here all by yourself on such a lovely day that we thought perhaps you would like some company."

Her hand reached out, curling around one of his own, tugging his fingers firmly from his book and easily hoisting him upwards.  Normally, Turukáno would scowl and snipe at anyone who made him lose his page in a book, but even when the cover snapped shut and the novel tumbled its way to the grass he could not summon even a droplet of annoyance.

Not in the face of her welcome.

"I... Okay..."

As if he could say "no" with her tangible joy writhing in the air, embracing and engulfing him until it was on every side of his being.  Of his physical body and his cold-as-ice spirit, melting...

It was just how she was.  A ray of sunshine and heat and sweetness all intertwined into something that outweighed pure gold in value and that saturated more fully with warmth than even the strongest of fires in the spirit.  And the young prince felt his heart flutter.

He had never had a friend like her before.

Elenwë...

---

But, rather than the usual flashbacks of blood and screams and suffering, it was a pleasant reflection of memory.  Of sweeter times in brighter places.  And though the grief never vanished from the aching emptiness where a chunk of his heart cleaved out by the death of his beloved wife, Turukáno did not at that moment feel the overwhelming resentment and heartbreak that usually accompanied thoughts of her face and form.  

Not of her scream just before he heard the snap of her body against the jagged ice below.  Not of her shocked eyes as she reached out to grasp him but was too far away, her fingers slipping upon his cloak.  But rather her honest and kind character and her willingness to reach out and help others.  Her ringing laughter echoing through the gardens and her warm fingers wrapped around his hand.

Itarillë had a contagious smile.  Just like hers.

And the ever-present warmth that followed the sight of those cute dimples and the wide-eyed glimmer of blue eyes and the bell-like laughter... it was there.  Not a ghost or a faint and faded memory.  Tactile and wrapping him up in a blanket.

He received the hug from his daughter and felt the corners of his lips twitch upward.

The stern-faced king was smiling.
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Surprisingly, I felt like writing something sweet today, not something completely angsty.  I think it's because Death Note has been filling up my "depressingness" quota every day.  Either that or making my "horror story" quota worse than it already is.  In any case, this just sort of wrote itself and I actually rather like the way it turned out.

I think it's cute, and I don't think many things are cute.  Anyway, Turgon strikes me as that dorky kid with the glasses who plays the recluse sitting in the corner and always looking too serious for his own good.  Sorry if that's too stereotypical, but that's how I see his child-self.  I see his adult self being an ever-so-slightly stuck-up and self-righteous guy with a stick up his butt.  I mean, he has a good side, but I see the arrogant side as well.  His wife, I feel, would counter that part of him, but since she's dead...

Anyway, the song definitely influenced this piece as well.  Passion by Utada Hikaru (from Kingdom Hearts II) is one of my absolute favorite songs.  I love all the version of it (have heard many, many of them) and it never manages to get old.  Plus, it just as the not-quite-happy but not sad sparkle that borders on nostalgic reflection and it just makes me so happy.  And it fit so perfectly with this piece that I had to use it.

So yeah, hope you enjoy. :3