Spring

Cleansed AU.  They were helplessly drawn together, friction and heat, and no longer can one escape the other.  This is a continuation of "Winter" and "Color", or you could just call in "Color" from Elrohir's perspective, I guess.  I'm not sure where I'm going to go with them.  Maybe they'll find Amroth and Nimrodel--if they survived that is.  Anyway, also related to "Cleansed", "Life" and "Push".  Takes place in Lóthlorien in the early Fourth Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Unfinished Tales or The Lord of the Rings

Pairings: Elrohir x Mithrellas

Characters: Elrohir, Mithrellas (mentions Celebrían and Elladan briefly)

Warning: non-canon compliant, rarepair, depression, self-hatred, survivor's guilt on both ends, possibly dysfunctional relationship, soulmate stuff, some fluffiness

Song: Send Me A Song

Words: 975
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spring (noun): an ultimate source especially of action or motion; a time or season of growth or development; specifically: the season between winter and summer
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spring

It was hard to explain, that feeling of being by her side.

They did not oft speak, but, as the snows began to melt and the days began to warm such that their cheeks were no longer frost-bitten and sore from the wind, he took to walking with her every day at length.  For hours and hours at a time in comfortable silence.  Often, they did not even have a destination, but simply went wherever their feet took them.

Elrohir couldn't say he really looked where they headed.  More often his eyes were settled upon her.  Mithrellas.

There was just something about her that fascinated him.  That called to him in a way he could not explain.

Her beauty was as cold and pale as winter.  Frost-dipped hair, white skin and ice-crystal blue eyes.  No smile ever softened the frozen lines and edges of her expression, and no warmth ever melted the shields of ice that inhabited her distant gaze.

At least, not at first.

It was like standing apart, too far away to feel the other's warmth.  She stood within reaching distance as they walked, but he never dared actually reach out and touch.  An ocean might as well have rested between them, no matter that he wished to reach out and brush away the layers of snow that had settled upon her spirit in stifling heaviness.

He worried that she might melt away like a snowflake upon bare skin and be gone.

Instead, he trailed beside her.  And then, as the sun began to set upon their bleak existence and the temperature plummeted until the bare skin of his cheeks burned, he followed her back to Lothlórien's faded beauty.  There, they parted ways until the next morning.

But, slowly, the days grew longer and longer and their walks farther and farther from "home".

And, as the walks grew longer, Elrohir found himself drifting closer.  Close enough to sometimes feel her breath upon his lips as she gazed up into his inquiring stare.  Close enough to take in the radiation of faint heat that her presence offered, a star's core of warmth curtained by the cold outer layer of white light.  Close enough to be fascinated by the soft queries of her tentative voice.

Close enough that, one day, he tangled their fingers together. And she did not let go.

And he didn't mind.

Truly, he did not understand.  How she somehow soothed away the resentment curdling in his chest and the guilt like lead in his belly.  How she somehow pushed aside the need to stay at a distance from everyone and everything if only to make sure he never forgot his sins and dared reach for happiness.  How she somehow managed to make everything about this cruel and unforgiving world seem just a little softer... just a little more welcoming...

Just a little warmer and sweeter...

He should have run away from her as soon as her warmth began to breach his defenses and touch the inner part of his secret self that none had touched since the sailing of his mother and the betrayal of his brother.  He should have fled back to his suffering in silence, living only off the memories of blood and rage and his mother's tear-stained face flecked in red.  He should have forgotten all about his winter-white beauty, driven her image and her comfort from his mind before they had a change to take hold, twine their way through the holes and bars of his mind until he could not untangle them or cut them away.

But he could see that she was a kindred soul, equally broken of heart and suffering alone.  And, when he lifted her hand to brush his lips across her knuckles, her fingers squeezed tightly and her eyes fluttered shut to hide away the effect of his simple touch.  Not fast enough to keep secret the sheen of tears or the unwilling gleam of gratefulness and affection.

The longing and desperation.  The tenuous hope that he might stay forever crushed beneath the fear that he would turn his back and walk away.

Leave her to fade into the background alone.  Forgotten.

Mithrellas needed him.  And he hadn't the heart to leave her behind, knowing what her fate would be.  Not with the image of another pale woman with her translucent skin and her frail form ghosting through his memories, reminding him that he could not save her.

But this woman...

He could feel her thaw at his touch and the sound of his voice.  He could see her beauty changing from the silvered frost of winter to the tentative gray of early spring.  And then the soft rose.  The shroud of waiting death retreated, and the color of liveliness solidified.

It seeped back into her face and form, vibrant and new.  A sweet scent that he breathed deep into his lungs and could never describe and yet never forget.  A feeling he needed to suck in day after day like he needed the air to breathe and water to drink.

She had reached the spring of the soul.

Just as the snows finally faded away and the grass turned pale green beneath the hazy sunlight of early morning.  The first buds were upon the trees and the birds were singing for the first time since autumn had ended.  Already, he could sense that winter was finally passed for the year, and that soon no chill would remain at all to haunt.

He came upon her--upon her blossoming smile--and was entranced.

Around them the air was warm.  He held her hand, offered her a broken smile, and they walked away.

And never quite came back.