Phoenix

Mellow Soulmate AU.  The Spirit of Fire burned him down to the ground, but Amras has risen from his ashes.  Sindarin names used.  I didn't even edit this, so it's probably crappy and shorter than I intended, but I've got other shit to do, including sleep.  Related to "Run", "Languid", "Bewitching", "Settle" and "Indirect".  Basically just more relationship stuff.  Entertaining but lacking in plot LOL.  Takes place somewhere east of ME after the end of the Third Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Amras x Daeron

Characters: Daeron, Amras (mentions Lúthien and Fëanor)

Warning: non-canon compliant, slash, rarepair, past filicide, mass murder, unrequited love, bisexuality, mental illness, obsessive behavior, possible insanity, depression

Song: No Way Back ~Out of My Way~

Words: 1,290
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phoenix (noun): a legendary bird which according to one account lived 500 years, burned itself to ashes on a pyre, and rose alive from the ashes to live another period; a person or thing likened to the phoenix
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/phoenix

Recovery was a long road.

More than most others, Daeron knew this to be true.  His disastrous dance with unrequited love had left more than a few scars in its wake.  And even thousands of years later he was not recovered.  Not healed.

The thought of her still made him ache to his bones in miserable longing and bitter resentment.  That she would choose a mortal man she barely knew over his friendship and adoration.  That she would place her trust in a man who had done nothing but create trouble and hardship for her, who in the end killed her, over hundreds of years of close confidence in her best friend rankled him.

That, in the end, she had not trusted his motivations...  That, in their last confrontation, she had called him a selfish traitor...  That, when he had tried to assure her that--though he might be selfish--his intentions were for her own safety, she had thrown his devotion back in his face...

There were many other ways to shatter a man.  But Daeron wondered if torture was crueler or kinder than the fate that she had gifted upon him with her last hissing words and her horrible, soul-shattering glares.

With her accusations.

Was it any wonder that he had left?  In the face of her supposed miraculous tale of love and hardship overcome, he could not bear to watch.  To see her happy with that man.  To watch her start a family with someone else.

Even knowing was enough to leave him scarred.  The knowledge that she never was his and never would be.  That she never would love him the way he loved her.

That had been a very long time ago, and the echoes of that pain still left him wincing.

But he had a new life.  Different and strange.

A new life.  A new lover.  A new family.

And the two jagged pieces of that which he held dearest now had begun as broken as he had been.  Their lives had been but rubble, burned down to the ground, ashes gray and lifeless where there should have been greenery and liveliness and hope.

Compared to Amras, Daeron considered himself rather lucky.

No tales of unrequited love and romance lingered in his mate's past.  And the scorches and burns of the damning tale of Daeron and Lúthien might as well have been rashes in comparison to the devastation that constantly haunted those verdant eyes.  He could recall well the first time he had seen them, their grief and pain and shocked betrayal swirling under a sea of animalistic instinct.  So incredibly beautiful and so maddeningly tempting, but still frightening and disheartening.

Bit by bit by bit, he drew as poison from a wound the truth behind the tragedy.

Betrayal was putting it lightly.  The abandonment of kin left to die of the cold and of starvation still left Amras in shambles of rage and horror.  The apathy and sadistic pleasure of his father's blazing eyes denying his arguments, refuting his calls to turn around, to reinstate honor and kinship.

The decision to take it into his own hands.  And then the fire.

But what really destroyed the beautiful, innocent spirit that once Amras had been was not the terrifying experience of death by flame and water.  It was not the knowledge that he had failed to help his kin, to save them from suffering and harm.  It was not even the memories of blood-painted hands staining crimson the clear waters, the shedding of innocent lives in a sinful tirade that could never be taken back.

It had been looking up at the shore and seeing the glow of those eyes.  And knowing that it was his father who had set alight his world and watched it burn.

Without a drop of remorse.  Without a hint of regret.

Without so much as a particle of sorrow.

The Spirit of Fire had turned Amras' world into nothing but a pile of ashes.  Mind in tattered scraps of cloth and torn flesh.  Trust broken and strewn like rotting entrails across the ground.  Innocence raped and stained into the purest of blacks, ragged and worn and soaked with the ink runes of damnation.

That was the man Daeron had first encountered.  A creature of pure instinct and flight, desperate to escape any and all memory of the past.  On the run from the truth of the world.  Blind to all but surviving the next day--hour--minute--moment if only to survive in the wake of utter destruction.  Of having every layer peeled back to the naked core.  Of being ripped apart and bruised black and blue by cruel fists.  Of being left behind in the wreckage of all the ideals and hopes and dreams to die slowly.

Looking at Amras now, one would never have guessed.

Those eyes were alight with that same unholy, entrancing fire.  That smile could melt the minstrel's bones down into jelly with ease.  And that handsome visage could effortlessly leave him struggling for air.

But Amras spoke.  Intelligible.  Gentle.  Sweet.

It was rebirth.  Whereas Daeron had slowly healed, patched up each and every wound until they were but ugly scars left in the wake, he knew this was Amras rising from the ashes.  Becoming something new--something even more amazing and breathtaking--in the wake of ruin.

"It was never your fault.  You did all you could do."

"It clearly was not enough."

The guilt was fading with each passing day.

"I loved him.  I trusted him.  And I believed in the benevolence of his heart and the steadfastness of his promises."

"I know... I know..."

"I swore his Oath..."

"I know..."

And though the memories did not fade away, acceptance eventually set in upon those dreadful, gaunt and pale features, filling out stretched cheekbones and adding a healthy flush to the gray glow of blanched skin.  Eventually, lips that he had only ever beheld folded into a sneering scowl or screams of pain or pursed into apathy were curving upwards at the corners...

"You should smile more often."

"Do you think so?"  Roguish and teasing.  Flirting.

"Scoundrel."

And the fire that nearly had been extinguished was suddenly lit anew.

Of course, Amras would never forget.  The remembrance would not go away.  Much as Daeron could never forget the look of hatred and disdain upon the beloved features of the woman he would have once died for, Amras would never be able to throw away the image of his father's unforgiving features sentencing him to a lonely death.  Turning him into little more than a sacrifice toward a greater goal, the removal of an infection that would have jeopardized plans long set in motion.

But that did not mean they could not be happy.  That did not mean Amras could not become stronger.  And for all his broken innocence and ruined trust, he had morphed into something a thousand times as wonderful.

Perfect imperfection.  Glorious and vibrant wings of scarlet and gold spread across the sky.  A phoenix in flight.

No more running away.  No more denial.  No more crushing defeat and failure.

Only freedom.

And when Daeron wrapped his arms around that tall frame and pressed his cheek to the warmth of a powerful shoulder, he could feel the strength of that spirit wrap around him.  Heat the chill long taken up residence in his heart.  Tease and coax forth new blooms of tenderness and trust and love.

From beneath the ashes, reborn.