Smile

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Because I'm an evil and horrible person, tragedy strikes Valthoron once again.  As if his life didn't suck enough already.  Obviously OMC-centric.  Related to "Shame", "Born", "Starve" and "Belong" amongst the entirety of the Cheat arc and all of its substituents.  I have to admit, I wasn't sure if I wanted to go this direction, but it just happened.  And I feel a little sad, but not much.  Takes place in Mirkwood during the late Third Age (possibly BotFA).

Disclaimer: I don't own the Hobbit (book or movie) or the Silmarillion.  But Val is mine.

Pairings: past Valthoron x Tauriel

Characters: Valthoron, Tauriel (mentions Thranduil, Oropher and the Valar)

Warning: non-canon compliant, past m!preg, implied non-con, references to mass murder, war, death scene, dismemberment, non-canon (so far) character death, general depression and mourning

Song: Cry

Words: 1,246
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smile (noun): a facial expression in which the eyes brighten and the corners of the mouth curve slightly upward and which expresses especially amusement, pleasure, approval, or sometimes scorn; a pleasant or encouraging appearance
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/smile

"You should smile more often," she teased, pinching his cheek. "You are so very handsome, but your ruin your looks with that awful scowling and brooding."

Bright-eyed and mischievous, she stared up at him expectantly. "Smile," she commanded.

He didn't know how to smile.

Never had Valthoron been a creature of great joys or great happiness.  There were the smirks, witty and sarcastic, filled to the brim with wicked amusement when the fancy and hot blood struck true.  There were the crooked grins, broad and toothy, of a warrior in the midst of a battle, slaking his predatory instinct and visceral will to survive upon his enemy.

And then there were the sad little curves of the lip, phantoms too quick to label and too rare to judge.  The feeling of bubbling affection that arose whenever his father looked upon him with loving, adoring eyes or embraced him with welcoming arms.  Yet, genuine though the feeling might be, there always was that little pinprick of despair laced within the lattice-work of intricate emotions and bonds.  Always the itching knowledge that, at any moment, his father could look at him and see someone else.  Something else.  Something monstrous.

Fear would come into those beloved eyes, and Valthoron would feel his hesitant smiles dashed against the rocks of disappointment and disillusionment, brought down like a towering fortress with its foundation blown into a thousand brittle pieces.

As a child, he frowned.  It was safer that way.  Less painful.

As an adult, even a hug or a soft assertion of love could hardly draw so much as a twitch forth from the straight, stern line of his mouth.

No, he did not know how to smile.  Did not particularly believe he ever had known how to smile.

But she had taught him.  Even against his will.  Without even his notice.

"Like this!"  Her fingers dug into his cheeks, pressing his lips up in a mockery of a grin, all grimace and tooth and painfully contorted skin.

"This is silly..."

"Don't be such a spoilsport."  She frowned up at him, her shortness and slenderness somehow negated by the intensity of her gaze at it focused wholly upon his features.  Concentration lit the intelligent depths of her spirit, left a sweet little indent between her eyebrows and a slight crease where her teeth had worried at her lower lip. "Just once.  It won't kill you to look happy."

He was happy, but looking happy seemed an altogether foreign and unnecessary concept.

Nevertheless, he attempted.  And was laughed at for his troubles.

"You look ridiculous!"

Once again, he made to scowl at her and her lack of appreciation at his indulgence.  One of those dark and dreary frowns that put down before many an unwanted snicker and snipe.  Yet, when his eyes settled upon her rosy-cheeked face and his ears rang with the echoes of her laughter, he could not bring himself to glare and silence her fun.

He was too busy staring.  Too busy feeling the bubble of something warm clawing its way up through his ice-stricken core.

Too busy to notice that his own mouth had moved of its own accord, bending up...

All he knew were the thousands of shades of her hazel eyes.  The jadeite center fading into darkness, a rich molten caramel and copper blending with flecks of sunshine.  The way her brow curved up in surprise, a graceful arch that he wished to stroke with his fingertips to test its softness and sleekness.  The way her lips parted in surprise, flushed and looking so plush, making him wonder what they might feel like...

"My, my, look at you, my prince!  You have dimples!"

By the Valar, he loved her.  Felt her suck him in and drown him.  But it was a good sort of death.  A good sort of purging, leaving behind something raw and ragged.  But something clean and ready to be filled.

Just breathing in her presence near to his soul allowed him to wipe away the stains.  The remembrance of shearing his hair to the scalp out of fear and shame.  Of seeing his father flinch when he raised his arms to be held between his tears.  Of hearing his grandfather disown him as the product of sin and evil.  Of watching so many friends and comrades die, their blood lapping at his boots whilst he stood by helpless and impotent.

Wiped all of that darkness away.  Allowed him to smile.  To feel that golden sheen he had been missing.  That little thing called happiness.

And now...

And now... she was...

An arm missing at the elbow, bleeding out.  Hastily tied, the bandage cut off blood flow best it could.  And between her ribs seeped blood from a deep wound, rusted and gory blade still lodged in bone and organ.  He dared not do more than cut away the cloth to bare the skin below.  Dared not pull the weapon loose for fear that the blood would spew forth in an endless tide.

Already, her face was so pale and wane.  Her eyes, normally so bright with clarity, were dulled and drooping.  Her breath came in gurgling pants, pained and shallow.

Dying.  She was dying.  And he knew, though part of him wished to deny the truth, that even the greatest of healers could do naught for her now.

And he could do naught but cradle her close and breathe her scent beneath the copper tang of spilled blood.  Could do naught but stroke her cheeks and brows, pressing kisses against her soft, sweat-slicked skin.

Could do naught but try to make it comfortable...

"Promise me.  Promise me you will keep smiling." Her remaining hand was so soft upon his face, so weak as it reached upward.  Fluttering as delicate as a moth's wings past his cheeks and nose and lips.  Leaving their tiny red marks upon his pale flesh. "Promise me you will not frown forever."

"I..." Already, he felt the rise of the pain.  The wracking agony that had burned away all semblance of happiness.  All chances of an elusive smile.

"Please..."

But he could never say no.  Not to her.

"I promise." Stricken, he looked up at the stars.  Remembered lying next to her in the dark, feeling her hand curled within his own, their fingers embracing and their bodies pressed together in warmth and comfort.  Remembered tentatively reaching out and pulling her close, pressing together their lips until they melded and all the world seemed to lock into its rightful position.  With her at his side.

Remembered her smile afterward, as tender and heart-wrenching as the liquid sweetness of her gaze.  As the last glimmer before the lights went out.

Tears boiled over, but Valthoron refused to turn away when the pinpricks of light wheeled and blurred overhead.  When the image once so beloved now dissolved into a realm of agony about him, all around him, slithering inside him.  Until his very core burned.

And then there were the smiles, so genuine and filled to the brim with sorrow.  The kind of smiles that made the heart throb and ache.  She taught to him those as well in her final moments.

And he would keep smiling as he had promised.  Until the very end.
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Honestly not sure I should even bother with ending ANs anymore.  I don't really write much of anything anymore.  Maybe if there's something important to say?

Song is Cry by Thomas Bergersen (or TSFH).  It's gorgeous.  So listen.  Or else.