Mellow Soulmate AU, part of the Disconsolate arc. More Maedhros and Istelindë bonding, but this time from his POV instead of hers. Quenya names used (Maedhros = Maitimo). Basically a continuation of "Disconsolate", "Adapt", "Soft" and "Soothe", but it takes place before most of the scenes in the last one (probably between the second and third). Anyway, just cute shit because I felt like it today. Takes place in Tirion during the Years of the Trees.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion
Pairings: Maedhros x Istelindë
Characters: Maedhros, Istelindë (mentions Fëanor and Nerdanel)
Warning: non-canon compliant AU, OFC warning, arranged marriage, fear of spousal abuse, vague sexual undertones (but not really), mostly just cuddling
Song: Reminiscence
Words: 1,835
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ameliorate (verb): to make better or more tolerable
Between them there constantly remained a sort of thick and unpleasant tension upon the air, impenetrable and uncomfortable. The sort that made his throat constrict around his sly and calculative words and his already displeased features fold into an imposing scowl.
It didn't ever help, that helpless expression. The sight of his shadowed frown and the sound of his stark silence only ever make her tremble before his imposing height like a fragile, frightened baby bird before a hungry feline. As though he might actually leap forth, fangs bared, and tear her apart like some sort of savage animal instead of a civilized man. In her eyes, he can see that sickening expectation, the waiting for him to somehow harm her should she dare to so much as speak.
And, like a dark and twisted cycle, her reaction only ever makes his mood worse.
It drives Maitimo crazy, the thought that someone had taught her to expect such brutality from her spouse. Certainly, they hadn't married for love or for lust. They had not even known each other's names! But that she would think so lowly of him simply because he could not constantly don a false mask of gentlemanly charm and gravitas...
Truly, he tried not to take it personally, her fear. But it was taxing on his patience and his mood.
How could he spend time with her--with his wife--when she could not even look him in the eye without flinching as though struck?
All he ever wanted to do was grab her by the arms and shake her until she spoke. Demand that she tell him who had been filling her head with such awful thoughts of marriage and of her husband that he scared her into muteness. Ask what he had done to make her think he was some sort of barbaric monster who would have her stand all day like a porcelain doll waiting upon him hand and foot like a mindless slave.
The worst part about it, though, was that it never dissipated. That inequality. That nervousness. That sickening anticipatory dread.
They would eat together, and the quiet would sit heavy over their dinner table, scaring off even the most steadfast of servants. Master and mistress would stare down at their plates with shifting eyes, dutifully eating without tasting a morsel that met their tongues, and then when they finished he would escort her out of the room and she would flee to safety. Back to their quarters to sew or to clean or to braid her hair, she often claimed, but he suspected she usually went to weep alone.
And then, an hour or so later, he would go up to the bedchambers they shared--had to share, if only to keep up the image of a happy marriage that his father wanted to cultivate--and he would find her trembling upon the bed, pretending to be asleep with her face turned toward the wall so that he might not see her terror-stricken panic.
But he never said anything or did anything. If she wished to turn him away, he would not try to change her mind. By no means did Maitimo want to lay with a woman who would do naught but stare at the ceiling and wait for it to be over like some sort of nightmare.
Today, as every day before, was no different in their evening meal, in the lack of eye contact and the hesitance with which she touched his arm as he led her out of the vast hall echoing with their mutual discomfort. No different in her blatant ignoring of his presence, back toward him and facing the blank wall, as he undressed and pulled on loose leggings and a nightshirt. No different in that her eyes remained closed and her back remained stiffened when he settled upon the bed beside her and blew out the candles.
He whispered his goodnight and was not surprised when no reply was forthcoming. Closing his eyes, Maitimo took only a moment to wish that things could be different between them. Thinking and thinking until he dropped into sleep, interrupted by the reflection of his inner wistful unbalance. Light and unsettled.
Rarely did he sleep well by her side. Rarely did she sleep well by his.
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When Maitimo blinked his eyes into wakefulness, it took him a moment to realize that it was not morning. No harsh golden light was tugging at the curtains, trying to blind him into the world of the living. Rather, he could tell that Laurelin had scarcely begun to wax, leaving veins only of silver slithering across the floor of the bedchambers.
It took him two moments to realize that he could hear something.
And another to recognize the faint, dissonant noise.
Little hiccupping sobs that she no doubt prayed he would not hear echoing off the far wall. In the darkness, he could make out the slender branch of her forearm rising and the rounded cup of her fingers clamped tightly over her lips as she jerked and shivered on her side of the bed. Only the curve of her cheek could he make out, graceful and soft in its slope, gleaming with wetness in the silvered light.
Crying. He wished he was surprised. But he wasn't. And that only intensified the ache centered maddeningly beneath his sternum.
Carefully--instinctively without thought--he shifted toward her, but she did not seem to even notice his movement. Not until his arms slipped about her belly and his forehead pressed into the space between her trembling shoulder blades, eyelashes fluttering upon her pale cream skin through a sheer layer of silk.
At his touch, she tensed and coiled like a startled feline, her soft gasping cries ceasing. Breath held, she remained as a taut bowstring, the arc of her slender form shaking with the strain of keeping still, of suppressing her weeping into silence and her urge to run away from his touch, as though her utter obedience might hold his wrath and lust at bay. As though morphing into a hard, lifeless, petrified doll in his embrace would make her the perfect invisible, mindless drone of a wife.
But this time Maitimo refused to back down. Refused to be cowed by the heaviness that slammed down onto his shoulders and tried to drag him to the floor in defeat.
Instead, he closed his eyes and pressed close, breathing in her sweetness and warmth. Letting his body fall limp within their cocoon of soft covers and the waves of silver and russet curls. Clenching his arms tighter as his voice softly hummed to life between them.
It was a silly old lullaby that his mother had sung to him a thousand times in his childhood memories. And a thousand more, he had whispered it to his little brothers in the dark before sleep, watching each of them fall asleep curled safely up in their beds. So tiny and so in need of protection and comfort in a supposedly perfect world with just a touch of wickedness waiting like poison under its calm surface.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he felt her relax. The muscles of her belly--tensed and flexing beneath his carefully lax fingers--smoothed into pleasant feminine softness. The stiffness of her shoulder blades, one pressed harshly to his cheek, unraveled into a gentle slope when her shoulders loosened. And then, moment by moment, the jolting rocks of her body fighting against the rising tide of sobs and cries ebbed and faded into the occasional hitch. And then into tranquil, even breaths against the sheets, breaking the silence in tandem to his wordless melody.
It was the first time he could recall being with her and feeling no weight. No unpleasant distance. No gaping abyss of misunderstanding and fear.
Just him and her. Without the unease and the worry and the vicious repeating cycle. Ameliorated.
Even then, he did not stop. Instead, Maitimo carefully pulled himself closer and wrapped around her fully, all platonic tenderness and shared warmth in the night as his voice dwindled with fatigue and sleep threatened to take over once more.
Faintly, her hands brushed against his knuckles, fingers fluttering against his skin. Her touch kept him upon the cusp of wakefulness, nuzzling into the arch of her spine lazily, nose tracing each vertebral bump. It was nice, he thought, this sort of togetherness. Involving nothing more than simply tactile connection and the pleasant sort of quiet buzzing over his skin of shared comfort without the complication of sexual desire and shyness. Just this, so simple.
"Thank you..." So quiet was her voice that he almost did not hear.
And, in that moment, he could have broken that peaceful blanket. Could have asked her why. Could have learned the truth of her misconceptions and tried to correct them with fancy words and a dance of logical rhetoric in the early hours of the morning. That had been his desire for many days, to somehow bend her mind to his will, convince her of the folly in her thoughts with iron rationality.
But often enough his father had scolded him and said that actions spoke with greater force and finesse than ever could a handful of words. Berated him for his passionate insistence that argument could be won only through a silver tongue.
Now was his chance. But he hesitated. Hesitated and allowed it to slip away.
In this instance, he was inclined to accept the wisdom of his sire and admit defeat. The last thing Istelindë needed was an interrogation on the unpleasant influences that warped her perception of the world and of Maitimo. More so, he thought, did she need the reassurance that he was here and that she was safe within his arms.
Safe within his protection.
The prince sighed softly and pressed a kiss to her back. Forgoing words, for once in his life, the quick-minded debater settled for the droplets of quiet splashing tenderly around their twined forms. Those unseen, unheard glimmers spoke more in a single moment than all the words in the world could have waxed and persuaded in a millennium.
Together the pair drifted off again. This time enfolded in calm revelation.
In the morning, when he rose at the dawning of Laurelin, Maitimo looked over at his wife's face and marveled at her smile as she dreamed. When she did not look as a timid mouse crouched and hiding in fear--indeed, when she was blossoming like a pale morning glory in the early light of their bedchambers--Maitimo thought he had never seen anything more lovely. More entrancing.
And if his fingers danced carefully over the curve of that cheek and the raised corners of those lips, there were none to witness his fleeting moment of enamored contentment.
Maybe... just maybe... things would get better.
Maybe... just maybe... this partnership might find some way to bloom.
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