Garden

Defiant AU.  She just wants to understand.  And to help him heal.  Quenya names used (Angrod = Angaráto).  Basically, this has to do with "Odds and Ends", a little with "Puppy Love" and "Loved", a lot to do with "Flowers" and "Fight" and quite a bit to do with "Difficult".  Ah... too many to keep track of!  Takes place somewhere outside Tirion in the early Second Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Angrod x Eldalótë, past Morgoth x Angrod (one-sided)

Characters: Angrod, Eldalótë (mentions Morgoth, orcs and other random elves)

Warning: non-canon compliant, past non-con and torture heavily implied, past slash, some cutsy romance stuff and some PTSD

Song: Promise

Words: 1,263
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garden (noun): a plot of ground where herbs, fruits, flowers, or vegetables are cultivated; a rich well-cultivated region
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/garden

"Do you remember when you planted the first red tulip?"

Out of the blue, her question startled him.  The timbre of her beloved voice was so soft, like kitten down in contrast to the metal shards of screams and spilled blood and echoing pain.  It brought him back from the ever-present haunting that seemed to constantly consume his thoughts, and the once-prince found himself sitting in his wife's sunlit garden.  Far, far away from the hellish pits of Angband.

They were sitting in the grass together with a picnic basket spread between them.  For how long he had been staring blankly into the distance, sandwich dangling limply from his hand, Angaráto could not have said.  Only that his wife's hand now rested upon his forearm, her eyes narrowed in concern and sadness as she gazed up into his face.

"Of course I remember."

How could he forget?

It was one of those memories that just never faded, no matter how much the Dark Lord had attempted to beat the happiness and brilliance from his indomitable spirit.

"Will you show me how to plant it?"

Her eyes were still wide with wonder and awe.  But she nodded absently despite, reaching out to grasp his hand and lead him through the grassy yard. "I know exactly the place."

The quaint little flowerbed sat beneath the parlor window.  It was the first time Angaráto had ever knelt down in the dirt with the intention of doing such menial labor--such tasks were below his princely status, after all--but he found the damp feel of soft earth and the thick, rich smell to be novel.

Her hands guided him so easily.  Like second nature was the tending of flowers to his beloved, and she did not falter through his clumsy movements and curious questions.

But in the end, it was the prince himself who had laid that red tulip into the earth--planted the beginning of their garden.

The next day, a purple tulip appeared side-by-side with the red.  And he did not need to ask her what it meant to know what exactly her lips so silently said.

When he proposed two days later, she said "yes".

Now, her slender and deft hands carefully lifted his own and cradled.  Angaráto hated looking at the contrast of her sun-kissed perfection with the bony ridges and broken smoothness of his form.  Two of his nails were missing, having never quite grown back correctly.  And his skin was littered with scars, cuts and burns that had become infected and never been tended.

He hated even more watching her lips touch that skin.  Skin that had touched--

"Whatever troubles you, I wish you would tell me."

His eyes shot upwards, connecting sharply with her verdant.

But how could he tell her of those awful things?  What would she think of him, her husband the murderer? Her husband the traitor?  Her husband the whore?

"Some things should not be spoken aloud."

The strokes of her fingers faltered, and for a moment he feared that she would pull away entirely.  Spurn his touch as he had spurned her comfort.

And yet she clung still.  Went back to her gentle touches and kisses and words. "Do you know why I planted the purple tulip beside the red?"

Of course, he knew that as well. "It is me, am I correct?"

They were staring at one another again, and his palm was still against her lips as her breath washed over his calluses. "It represents royalty.  It reminded me so of your personality.  You'd the stubbornness and will of a king all wrapped up in the young and enchanting form of a prince.  Honorable, steadfast and loyal to a fault.  I thought it fitting..."

Her gaze dropped away, instead resting upon that flowerbed.  There were now more tulips, red and purple interspersed together upon the bed of earth. "I thought it fitting that they grow side by side.  We are, after all, bound together until the end of days.  You and I."

"I am not the person I once was." I am not your honorable, steadfast and loyal purple tulip.  If anything, I'm as monstrous and disgusting as any Kinslayer or orc.  A rotting, blood-stained bloom.

"But you are." Her fingers traced the raised weals of scars, up over his knuckles and fingers and wrists. "You do not understand.  I would love you still if you were a Kinslayer.  If you were a traitor.  If you were in league with the Dark Lord himself!"

"But I was.  I was in league with him." Abruptly, he pulled his hands away from her, and the separation of their bodies was more painful than being ravaged by the Dark Lord.  More painful than having his flesh stripped from his bones muscle by muscle.  More painful than any punishment he could contrive, even death by slow and painful torture.

He could not allow her to touch him.  He could not taint her.

"I was with him.  And that is not a reality that will ever go away."

"But that does not make you any less you, Angaráto.  Are you not still my prince, the silly young boy who courted me in the gardens and promised me forever and a day of blissful marriage?  Of a home with a plentiful garden and children underfoot and time to cultivate flowers and enjoy the sunshine?"

Do you not still love me?

"It is not the same." I would love you unconditionally without question...

No matter...

"It is the same." Serious were her eyes and firm was her voice, her low and smooth alto. "Nothing you can do or say will ever make my love for you cease.  You were stuck with me from the moment we began this garden, my prince.  And I refuse to let you go."

I just wish you would see that.  I wish you would let me touch you.  I wish you would let me help you.

But could he tell her everything?

Here, before the most sacred of gardens.  Could he spill forth such filth from his mouth, spread his horrors and nightmares into her mind and body and soul?  Could he really speak of his inner fears, of the moments in which he had faltered and the moments in which he had nearly fallen from grace?

"I... I cannot..."

"You can tell me.  Anything.  Anything at all."  Hands framed his face, gentle fingers upon his cheekbones, tracing over his eyebrows and down his slightly crooked nose.  "We have entwined together, and now we are more one person than two.  Every part of you is a part of me.

"And I would have all of you.  No matter what you think might be good or evil."

I would have even your darkest, most terrifying secrets.

And, if there existed anyone in this world whom Angaráto could trust, wholly and completely, with the strongest outer shell of his heart and the weakest inner core, it was Eldalótë.

"It is not a pretty tale."

The pad of her thumb slid over a scar upon his cheek.  And then rested upon his lower lip. "This flower wilts not so easily as you might think, husband."

And he told her.  Everything.

In the garden.  Until twilight came and went.  Until the stars speckled their faces.  And until the sun rose and spread petals of pale light across the sky..

And still, she smiled and stroked his cheek.  Even through the tears.