Ignore

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Poor Fingolfin.  Curse the woes of young love in times of peace.  Quenya names used (Fingolfin = Nolofinwë, Finarfin = Arafinwë).  I have never written this pairing before, I swear, but I would put it in the same universe as the Exception arc and the Vital arc.  We'll see where it goes, because I just made it up on a whim about... two and a half hours ago.  Takes place in Tirion during the Years of the Trees.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Fingolfin x Anairë

Characters: Fingolfin, Finarfin, Anarië (mentions Finwë, Indis and Fëanor)

Warning: canon compliant AU, canon relationships, faint teenage-ish angst and sappy romance stuff, overdramatic overdramaticness, I'm too tired to write warnings right now

Song: Insatiable

Words: 1,418
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ignore (verb): to refuse to take notice of
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ignore

Maddening.  It was absolutely maddening.

How he would watch her waltz across the room upon winged feet, her dark and sleek beauty somehow outshining even the most exotic, adamant of pale-haired Teleri and the most vibrant, blinding of golden-maned Vanyar.  How he would take in every angle, every inch and every movement, and feel his heart throbbing violently against his ribs, pounding and rattling at the bars as though it wished to leap from its cage and fly to her upon gilded wings.

Maddening.  He was utterly and completely in love with her--Anairë.

And the day she spoke civilly to him would be the day Dagor Dagorath was upon them.  If even then.

"You are still watching her."  Like a phantom, Arafinwë appeared at his shoulder, and Nolofinwë felt his heart leap into his throat.  With shame.  And with no small amount of resentment. "Have you not surrendered to the inevitable defeat yet, brother?"

Oh, he would have liked to.  Dearly, at that.  But he simply could not.

One look at her, and all his resolve to stay away, to find another sweet girl with fluttering eyelashes and a lovely smile to marry and start a family, it all vanished like the morning mist.  Left him stark naked in plain daylight.  As hopelessly, helplessly, blatantly in love as ever he had been.  Unable to tuck it away or hide it from sight--not even his own.

He knew she knew.  That she noticed.  She was an intelligent and cunning woman.

He knew that she knew.  And knew that she did not care.

More than anything, he despised the flicker of her eyes washing over him as one glances upon an insect on their windowsill, resting for a split-second--the second that brought shards of hope stabbing deep into the core of his being--and then darting away as if she had not noticed at all.  As if he were not worth noticing.  As if he were something less than a person.  As if he were not even there.

And he knew he deserved it.  The thought made him inwardly wince, brows pulling low over eyes that clenched shut against the onslaught of unpleasant memory.

How was he to know that the silly, horrid girl living down the street from the palace with her ugly temperament and her snarky personality would grow up into such a glorious creature?  How was he to know that, one day, he would look at her and see his entire future staring back at him, a reflection of something just slightly beyond the grasp of his fingertips?

How was he, the young and foolish, spoiled prince in the turmoil of his youth, to know that a few cruelly spoken words in the heat of temper would redirect the trajectory of his life so drastically?  So permanently and so painfully?

"You are ugly and rude and completely horrid, Anairë.  I am shocked your parents can even stand to have something so terrifyingly garish in the same room for the shame!"

He had pulled on her braids and poked at her shoulders. Anything to make her look into his eyes as he parted his lips to spew vicious prods and barbs.  Anything to make her pay attention.  Anything to make her aware of how utterly he hated her...

"Just go away, Nolofinwë.  I do not wish to see you right now."

Of course, young and callous as he had been in those days, the frail tremor of her words had not reached his ears.  Only the poisonous bite of her fangs, sinking themselves into his pride and stinging so wretchedly.

"But you know I am right."

He could not make himself stop.  And he did not want to.  Did not want to cease.  Did not want to apologize.  Did not feel sorry for such awful comments--such awful lies that tasted like grit and sand in the back of his throat.

"I said go away!"

On the verge of tears, and he remained oblivious... until...

"No one will ever love you with your horrible temper and your whiny voice.  No man would ever marry someone like you and risk procreating something just as frightening.  You will be alone forever, a spinster in an empty house with a cold hearth!"

He remembered picking that fight.  Remembered instigating and stoking its flames, though in retrospect he could scarcely understand his own actions, irrational as they were.  Remembered wondering after why her refusal to spend time with him had made him so angry.  Why he had felt the need to say such things when in reality he rather enjoyed her company.  Why he needed her eyes upon him and no one and nothing else, forget how that goal might be accomplished.

Now he understood what had drawn him so to her, even then.

But he remembered the slap that had followed as well.  The stinging mark upon his cheek that his mother had fussed over later in the evening, that had bruised and lingered for almost a week to display the source of his guilt and shame.  He never told his parents how he came to receive it, but he suspected that his father had guessed by the look in his eyes every time he had seen the blotchy black and purple.

That look that made Nolofinwë sick to his stomach with guilty conscience.

Because that was the only time he had ever seen Anairë--in all her fiery passion and steadfast stubbornness with a spirit forged of steel and poise enough to make the Valar weep--actually cry her eyes out.  Tears had poured down her porcelain face as she looked up at him.  Her eyes had been huge and stormy gray and shimmering, so stricken.  So deeply hurt.

So very frightened.

After that, he had never spoken to her again.  She had drifted out of his young life when he left for the academy.

And crash-landed back into its very center when he returned.

Only she remembered.

He would approach, open his mouth to speak a trifling compliment and ask for her hand in a dance, only for her take note of his presence and abruptly turn away to address another suitor as though he were invisible.  He would engage her in conversation at the table when he sat near her during those fancy dinners at the parties, only to have his voice mystically tuned out by whomever happened to be sitting on her other side regardless of whether their mouth had been open or closed.

It did not matter that he was a prince.  She ignored him and spurned him.  Perhaps rightfully.

None of that changed the fact that he was in love.  So very in love.  Not just with the grace with which she danced or the elegance with which she walked, but with her effortless ease when speaking and the sneaky little glint of amusement that appeared in her eyes and the twitch of the corner of her painted lips when she stifled a laugh.  With the stubbornness that outdid even his own and the pride that would put his older half-brother's to shame.

With all of her spirit and all of her flawed perfection.  He didn't deserve her, but he yearned for her nonetheless.  Wasted away his chances at another wife and another family, unable to think of any other.

And he could not stop.  For one could never deny their care for their One, not for long.

He would not have put it past her to be the first to ignore the pull forever.

"You know I cannot surrender," he finally replied, glancing at Arafinwë from the corner of his eyes.  His younger brother's lips pursed slightly, a look coming over his face that was pinched in irritation and faint disapproval.  And yet his blue eyes widened and softened in understanding mixed into a gag-worthy tincture with bitter pity and resignation.

"Of course not." A hand patted at his shoulder. "I know not what to say, brother."

"I think there is nothing to be said."

He would pine ceaselessly.  He would wistfully watch.  He would daydream his life away.

But she eclipsed all others, whether or not she desired or intended to usurp gravity's place as the force at the center of his universe.  And, drawn toward her flame, Nolofinwë knew he was steering only toward disaster and heartbreak.  Toward the inevitable fall.

He knew.  Knew also that he could never turn away.
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Short and sweet... No one knows anything about Anairë.  Her name does not even appear in the family trees in the appendices of the published Silmarillion.  Therefore, she simply exists and I choose to make to her a noldo (I can't remember if her Noldorin status is canonical or not, and I'm too lazy to check).  The rest of this backstory was born entirely from the prompt and I hadn't even thought about it until tonight after orchestra rehearsal as I was walking back to my dorm.

In retrospect, it is actually kind of awesome.  This is what makes this prompt business entertaining.

The song is Insatiable by Darren Hayes, a song I heard once as a 12-year-old and never got over.  I don't even know why.  All the sexual references would normally put me off, but its sensuality just stuck with me.  Even though it's not really all that relevant to the prompt, this is what I wrote it to, so this is the song for today.  Enjoy it. :3