Orchid

Canon compliant AU.  The language of flowers is delicate, especially when one barely knows the giver well enough to interpret the message.  This is based entirely on one paragraph of "Puzzle", which was written ages ago, and thus is related to all other Fëanor x Nerdanel stories, particularly ones that take place before his defection.  Takes place in Valinor in the Years of the Trees.

Dedicated to by orchid Senna.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Fëanor x Nerdanel

Characters: Nerdanel, Fëanor (mentions Mahtan)

Warning: canon-compliant AU, flower language, implied violence with a hot poker, romance, sexual undertones and half-naked men

Song: Cassandra

Words: 1,485
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orchid (noun): any of a large family of plants that usually have showy 3-petaled flowers with the middle petal enlarged into a lip and differing from the others in shape and color; a light purple
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orchid

Truly, she knew she shouldn't take anything he said or did seriously.  She shouldn't.  He was handsome with his dark coloring and his gleaming eyes, truly a creature stepped straight from the most wondrous of paintings or masterful of sculptures, but underneath that outer shell of charm and good looks was nothing more than an arrogant, egocentric and domineering misogynist.  A man who needed his stubborn, pig-headed butt walloped a few times to introduce some much needed humility into his body chemistry.

Just thinking about him oft made her blood fizzle and crack with the need to throw something across the room and hear it shatter against the wall.  Like she imagined it might shatter against his thick, impenetrable skull.  But maybe, she oft thought sadistically, it would knock some sense of respect and decency into that genius brain of his.

Unlikely, of course.  The prince had ever been a spoiled child grown into a demanding man.  A man who got everything and anything he wanted with ease, from tools to gems to pretty women.

And she refused to be just another object in his collection.  Another pretty trinket to explore and uncover, but to be thrown aside once its unique beauty had become commonplace and its glimmer and shine had grown dull to the ever-changing passion and inquisitiveness of his gaze.

There was no way he could be sincere.

That man...

"I have a gift for you, my lady..."

It was back, that sultry rumble that permeated his words whenever he spoke to her in private.  She hated how the mere purr of his voice could make her shiver in the most primal manner.  Undeniably, he was attractive.  At least, physically.

Mentally, on the other hand...

"What do you want now?" she snapped rudely, not even looking up from her sculpting.

She would rather not deal with this sick game of his again.  His last gift had been beyond humiliating.  For the most part because Nerdanel had immediately known what it meant when clearly he didn't.  Or perhaps he had--What prince did not know the meanings of flowers, after all?  It was commonly taught to the upper nobility--and was rubbing it in her face viciously for sport.  It was only logical to think he had been making fun of her, the impressionable artistic daughter of his mentor and master at the forge.  A mere woman.

No newcomer to the world of harsh words--she was a woman grown and providing for herself without a husband, after all, and thus was somehow swimming against the flowing river of society's will and susceptible to the ravages of its displeasure--Nerdanel had come to expect this attitude from men around her.  Condescending and patronizing in their belief that she required a mate in order to survive for more than a few hours when left to her own devices.  As if her brain was so small and her mind so dimwitted that she could not function without a male ordering her about this way and that, keeping her in line and under his will.

The fact that he had teased her about her lack of a mate, pretended to be interested in the strange nonconformist with the wild red hair, was painful.  The stabbing sensation in her chest and the prick of tears in her eyes had been hidden with her red-faced rage and harsh words that had driven him off chortling and prancing with glee.

And now he was back.

"Do not be so unfriendly.  You are so much more lovely when you smile, nárinya."

He was leaning beside her against the wall, arms crossed and shoulder holding his weight.  Undeniably shirtless beneath his leather apron, his face covered in small droplets of sweat as he panted, he was nothing short of mouth-watering and delicious in appearance.  So disgustingly attractive.  In fact, her eyes followed small beads of water as they slipped beneath the leather, curiosity sinking into her mind...

But no.  She absolutely would not think about him like that.  He was not worth glancing at twice.  Not even to get another look at the muscles flexing uncovered before her eyes.

"If all you are here to do is bother me and waste my time, I suggest you find a more productive pastime, my prince."

Of course, getting rid of this weed would not be so simple as spouting a few poisonous words.  It never was with him.

"Do you not want to see my gift?"

After the last, no, she sincerely did not.

But, of course, he did not wait for her answer.  Instead, he brandished them forth as though they were a blade rather than a bouquet.  Little white flowers, so sweet-scented, mixed with delicately curling ferns of pale green and large blossoms of three petals.  Pale purple lapped at their center whilst rose and damask coated their edges.  And a brilliant mixture of deep blue and golden orange dripped down from the cusp of their apex like droplets of rich indigo paint and honey, just waiting to splatter from that lip upon the floor below for all their vividness.

Orchids.

Nerdanel felt her cheeks flush again.  Half wondering if this was another of his jokes or simply an attempt to seduce her into his bed.  For she knew their meaning as well.

Rare beauty.

"Do you approve, my lady?"

And then she looked up.  Into his crooked smirk, so confident and so mocking, and his fiery eyes, burning incisively against her wilting spirit, causing rashes and itches and pealing of the outer layers.  He did not look like a man sincere.

He looked like a man who gazed upon her red hair and her pale flesh and freckles and felt lust to take her to his bed and sample her recherche taste and color.  A man who breathed in her independence and mastery of art and her inability to obey like a mindless doll and wanted nothing more than to see her crushed beneath his thumb, dependent upon his words and lusting after his admiration and affection even at the cost of her free will.

It was perhaps that sudden thought that brought forth the hidden rage which her red hair had so long ago foretold.

That, and the fireplace poker had just been conveniently within reach.

But now, as she sat in her chambers, staring down at the blooms tied with ribbon and left abandoned upon her comforter atop her bed, Nerdanel wondered what she should do.  Why her mind rejected that pessimistic outlook.  Why she wanted to believe that she was not only an object in his eyes to be had and thrown aside.

Why she wished that he was sincere.

That man whom she hated.  Despised and held little respect toward for all his ponce and pride.  And she wanted him to believe in the message presented before her eyes in the shape of these orchids with their graceful curves, to have been truthful in the silent words he whispered unto her ears.

She wanted to have misinterpreted his recklessly passionate gesture.  Wanted it to be one of affection--even in passion--rather than sexist mockery of a lustful man in search of easy prey.

Why, she could hardly have said.  The man drove her crazy.

But when the thought of throwing those flowers into the fire--of watching their painted petals and lips shrivel up and blacken beneath the ravages of ash and heat--crossed her mind, Nerdanel bit her lip and could not reach out and do the deed, though it would have absolved her of need to agonize further over her interactions with their giver.  She could not banish from her inner mind the memory of his face and his eyes and his smile, the sound of his voice and the rumble of his laughter and the way he purred her name.

She could not accept that the truth was so ugly.  Or perhaps she just wished to flatter herself, believe that someone somewhere had found her something other than odd and undesirable, to be gawked at and whispered about when her back was turned.

Perhaps she was a foolish and emotional woman just like they all claimed.

Because, later that night, the orchids were placed carefully in a vase and set upon her bedside table beneath the glow of her candles.  And she stared at their splayed and delicate shapes reflected upon the wall well into the early hours of the morning, unable to look away.  Unable to deny their beauty.

Unable to stop wondering...

Until she dropped into sleep.  And dreamed of Fëanáro.

Of his genuine smile and his lips murmuring her name so sweetly in the dark.