Locket

Mellow Soulmate AU, Locked arc.  Curufin made those lockets so that they would never forget one another.  And they served their purpose all too well.  Quenya names used (Curufin = Curufinwë, Maedhros = Nelyafinwë, Maglor = Makalaurë, Celegorm = Turkafinwë, Caranthir = Morifinwë, Finrod = Artafindë).  Very closely related to "Locked", "Beach", "Reprise", "Snore", the dA piece "Apart" and "Twisted" amongst others, including all of the Nargothrond arc.  Basically fluff to angst.  Takes place (part 1 and 2) in Valinor during the Years of the Trees and (part 3) in Beleriand during the First Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion, but Lindalórë is mine

Pairings: Curufin x Lindalórë

Characters: Curufin, Lindalórë, Finrod (mentions Maedhros, Maglor, Celegorm, Caranthir and Fëanor)

Warning: non-canon compliant, OFC warning, starts fluffy and goes downhill from there, mental instability/insanity, hints at child abuse (verbal)

Song:

Words: 1,943
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locket (noun): a small case usually of precious metal that has space for a memento and that is worn typically suspended from a chain or necklace
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/locket

Working in the forge was not an activity that Curufinwë relished.  Certainly, he had the talent and dexterity for the task--for the shaping and the pounding and the artistry--but he didn't have the charismatic intensity for design.  Not like his father.

Somehow, it had always made him the greatest disappointment of all.  Nelyafinwë was a politician and Makalaurë a scholar.  Turkafinwë was the rebel and Morifinwë the strange ghost.  But then there was Curufinwë, the perfect replica child that his father always wanted, with the same damning features and the same intellectual strengths and the same natural talent with shaping metal and stone.

With everything but the drive.

Rarely did Curufinwë want to create masterpieces.  Bitterly, he often regarded the fire and the heat and the smoke with the sort of nostalgia that makes one's stomach churn unpleasantly.  The memory of those eyes, calculative and judgmental, following his every move with punishing criticism flashing in their depths, it always left the tiny hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

But today he had a mission.  A mission that trumped even the unpleasantness of remembering the long, blistering private lessons that he wanted to completely forget.

Now he drew them all back into his mind, categorizing them almost fanatically, searching for that one tip or sarcastic hinting nudge that he needed.  His father's perfectionism would turn out to be useful for something, after all, even if it was something the man himself would probably never approve of.

This project had to be perfect.

Never before had Curufinwë devoted himself to a work of the hands with such enthusiasm, such obsessive drive toward the flawless end result.  His father would have been proud to see such devotion to the craftsmanship that ran through their fiery blood.

For days and days, he had been working on this.  This gift.  Already, he'd had the portraits--one for each half of the set--commissioned and sent to be completed.  But while Curufinwë knew he could not paint well enough to perform that duty, he knew this art like he knew the back of his hand, however unwilling that knowledge might have come.  He knew the twist of molten metal, the ring of tools and the hours and hours of delicate, eye-straining work.

It was worth it.  So very worth it.

Each delicate entwining vine.  Each petal of each tiny flower.  Each twist of gold and silver.  Every single engraved letter carefully etched.  Every last detail fanatically planned and worked and reworked and reworked again into perfection.

Even then, it was not perfect.  And Curufinwë would start over again and again until his blood settled and the roiling tide of disquieting obsession quieted in his breast.  Until he could look upon the trinket in his palm and imagine it hanging around her neck, settled to the warm, pale skin over her heart so that she would always have some little part of him with her.

And the matching other half.  So that he would never be alone.

It was, perhaps, sentimental and ridiculous.  A fantastical gesture that she could do without.  But part of him needed this, and he did not quite understand why.  Never would they be parted... and yet...

And yet he couldn't make the thought go away.  The thought of having his wife's image lying over his chest, over the throbbing pulse of his heart every second of every day so that she knew, understood, exactly how much she meant to him.  Exactly how much he needed her... would always need her...

Foolish.  But true.  Curufinwë would not stop until he was finished.  Would barely sleep or eat because the pull became too powerful to overcome.

If this was what his father felt at all times every moment of the day, he could understand why the Crown Prince hardly ever left the forge--hardly ever left the work that seemed tied directly to his surviving the next hour and moment and second.  Because it was maddening.

---

And, in the end, it was perfect.

Seeing her expression when she first beheld the set--hers golden and his own silvered--lying entwined in the palm of his hand.

"Perhaps it is silly, but..." He ran a hand through his loose hair and tried not to blush or fidget with nervousness.  Tried not to make it obvious exactly how many days and days of backbreaking effort he had put into cultivating these two works, sitting tiny nestled in the palm of his broad, callused and burn-riddled hand. "But I wanted to give you something..."

"Atarinkë?"

"I just want you to have a part of me.  Even when I am not here.  Just... please... to ease my mind."

"And the other one...?" She lifted the silver locket, opened it to her own portrait staring back, green-eyed and smiling gently.  It was an expression that he adored, one that always made that tight ball of tension at the base of his throat unravel into lightness.

"Even when we are parted, we will never be apart."

"Are we planning on being parted?" Teasingly, she grinned up at him. "Silly man, but I... I like it." The flush that spread across her cheeks made his head spin.  How was it that every day--every moment--she seemed to somehow grow more beautiful and breathtaking?

"Let me put it on," he requested softly, picking up the slender chain of her locket in between graceful fingers.

"Yes..." Breathless was her voice and wide were her eyes.  Carefully, he slipped the golden chain over her head, watched as the gilded chamber holding his portrait settled just shy of her breasts.  The temptation to reach out and touch it, to run his hands over the pale, soft skin beside it, to know that she was his forever, nearly had Curufinwë losing the little sensibility he possessed when it came to this woman.

Instead, he bowed his head and closed his eyes. "Put mine on," he requested.

Felt the silver--starkly cold and yet somehow comforting--settle around the nape of his neck as she pulled the tail of his dark hair over one shoulder.  The weight dropped, thudding against the top of his sternum, and the prince's breath shuddered out of his lungs.  Standing at full height, this time he did not resist the temptation to touch, run his fingers over each familiar loop and curve and indent, knowing that beneath their outer protective layer rested a piece of her, eternally smiling and eternally glowing.

Opposite, in tandem, her fingers traced her locket again and again.  But her eyes were still focused on the man before her, immobile and stricken, but all the same every bit as adoring.

"They are perfect," she told him. "I will never take it off."

He did not plan to remove his either.

Never.

Raising her hand to his lips, he brushed a soft kiss across her knuckles affectionately and breathed deeply of her sweet lily-scent.  Happiness was a foreign concept to him--a simple defective doppelganger--but at that moment he thought he might actually know what that blissful, bubbling feeling truly felt like.  Rising all the way from his toes to the tips of his fingers to the top of the head...

Just being with her made him feel warm.

---

Every time his fingers brushed the metal, that feeling returned.  Momentarily.  Indescribably.  Giving him a whiff of that relief he so badly needed.  Because he needed her like he needed air and water and food.  Needed her so badly that it was killing him slowly, the mere faded memory of touch and smell and laughter and love...

Separated by thousands of leagues of land and water and war and broken ideals, he wondered if she continued to wear her locket.  Wondered if she needed him as much as he needed her.

Curufinwë had never removed his.  On dark nights he often held it close, stared at her picture in the firelight, wondering if he would ever touch the soft slope of her cheek again.  If he would ever bask in the golden light of her smile again.  If he would ever kiss her hand and breathe in her familiar scent again.

Tonight, however, his fingers fiddled with the locket, lifting it up and setting it down in a cycle of guilt, hesitation, loyalty and guilt all over again.

Tonight, he had invited Artafindë into his bed.

His golden-haired cousin wasn't here yet.  Wasn't here to make his mind go blank, take away that suffocating loneliness that ate slowly away at Curufinwë's sanity.  Wasn't here to make him forget about how that golden feeling he so cherished was slowly slipping away, the memory of her smell in the back of his throat growing fainter and the touch of her skin to his lips grayer.

Taking it off... was that the same as betraying her?  Forgetting her?

Giving up on her?

Sickness bubbled in the pit of his belly through each new cycle, each vicious stab into his spirit.  Should he remove it?  Should he keep it on?  Should he...?

But in the end Curufinwë could not bear to part with it, that silvered locket settled upon his chest, not even so that that tiny part of her that remained would stay untainted by his sin and disloyalty.  Because he needed her, and Artafindë was not her.  But perhaps if he kept it on...

Perhaps it would be enough.  When finally his lover came and their clothes fell away to only the cover of soft sheets and hot, slick skin...

It still remained.  Because he could never forget her.

But on the other side of the sea, she stared at it, the golden casket of her dreams.  Knew that, beneath those intricate twining designs, his eyes would stare back at her, formed of iron and silver and the stuff of stars.

Reached up and held it in her hand, remembering how happy she had been when he had given it to her and had sworn that, this way, they would never be apart.

Slowly, these shards of his spirit--sharp and toxic--were haunting her.  Poisoning her.  Killing her.

And Lindalórë could not bring herself to breathe another moment with that weight pressing down upon her lungs, stealing her air and leaving her to choke in the aftermath of despair.  Here, in this room where rested his belongings and his clothing and his portraits and his works, would rest this little trinket.

A quick tug broke the delicate chain of gold.  Trembling, she set it down in a velveteen bed and closed the lid of the wooden case.  Locked it and set aside the key.

Maybe, she thought as she turned away and left the room, if she left that locket here she could forget all about his existence.  Maybe, she thought as she locked the door, she could be happy that way and drive the feeling of his kiss upon her hand from her mind.

Maybe, she thought as she walked away, the pain would stop.  Finally.

And, in the aftermath of his affair, Curufinwë lay alone upon his bed, sated and glowing with temporary satisfaction, and wondered hazily once again whether or not she still wore her locket.  Her gift.  Her personal piece of his spirit.  Wondered if she refused to remove it from its place over her heart.

If she longed for him as much as he did her.  If she refused to ever let him go.