Fading Away

I would have had this done yesterday, but my computer froze last night and I was tired.

Anyway, canon-compliant AU.  When one starts to fall apart at the seams of sanity.  Related most closely to the Cleansed arc, "Scowl" and the Winter arc.  Basically this is picking up on ideas presented there.  I don't know what else to say except first time writing this POV.  Takes place in Imladris during the mid-Third Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of Tolkien's works

Pairings: Elrond x Celebrían

Characters: Celebrían, Elrond (mentions Elladan, Elrohir and Arwen)

Warning: canon-compliant AU, family angsting, past non-con and torture heavily implied, possibly character insanity/mental illness

Song: Lost in Hopelessness

Words: 991
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fade (verb): to lose freshness, strength, or vitality: wither; to lose freshness or brilliance of color; to sink away: vanish; to change gradually in loudness, strength, or visibility
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fade

Thin, skeletal white hands lying upon damask and handmade lace.  They shake too hard to pick up the needlework spread beneath their tips, abandoned.  To occupy the mind with thoughtless, effortless endeavors ingrained deep into muscle.

In fact, they almost seem as though one could see right through their pale membrane, picking apart the skin to reveal the dying muscle and blue, throbbing veins beneath.  They morph and warp until their joints bend strangely and their lengths twitch as the legs of a crawling spider.  Monstrous and stomach-churning and withering.

They look sick.

As sick as she feels.

Sitting still all day and all night staring at them.  These strange things that should have been so familiar but seemed more disgusting and grotesque and wrong the longer she stared with blank eyes, trying not to think.  Sometimes she rather wished that she could look away, stop being fascinated and repulsed by their sight.

Stop feeling so cold that her legs would not move.  Stop feeling so empty that her eyes could not summon the tears to cry.  Stop feeling so tired that her body sagged and yet so alert with lingering, leeching terror that she dared not sleep.

She wished to stop feeling this despair.

But she could not.

It took so much energy.  Looking at her husband's face, she knew he wanted to see her smile like she used to, bright and happy to see him, a loving and caring wife and mother.  But she could not feel those things, become again that illusion.  Could not feel the sunlight of the gardens upon her face, its heat somehow warped into chill that burned through her muscle and bone.  Could not take joy in the beauty around her--in the depths of his gray eyes she so adored and his handsome smile she once coveted--because everything fell apart...

Fell apart into shadows.  Into twisted forms that no longer resembled anything beautiful.

Because the hugs of her sons reminded her only of powerful arms holding her down as pain wracked her body and violation ripped open her spirit.  Because the touch of her husbands hand, knowing that he loved her and desired her as a man loved and desired a wife, left her stomach twisting in fear and repulsion.  Because her daughter could not understand or comprehend the suffering of one ravaged and ran away in tears and fury and confusion, abandoning to darkness the mother alone in her sitting room chair.

Alone.  Alone, alone, alone...

With that chilled feeling seeping down her spine.  All warmth drained away, droplet by droplet by droplet, day after day after day.

Until she felt thin.  Like a ghost.  Until her spirit burned out into ash.  Until her heart froze over to keep out the aching pain gnawing and gnawing...

"I love you," he would say.

And she could no longer say it back.

"I need you," he would add.

And she could barely stand his touch.

"Your children miss you."

She was ashamed to even meet their eyes.

"Please, do not leave us."

But, in the end, she wanted to go.  Needed to go.

She was sick.  So sick.

So badly, she wanted to be able to feel heat upon her skin again.  Appreciate the brush of lips across her knuckles and the corners of her lips.  Revel in the squeeze of arms about her small form, crushing in affection and adoration.

So badly, she wanted to be able to love them again.

But Celebrían was fading away.  Day after day after day, little pieces of the woman she had once been--the woman her children still clung to hopelessly, the woman her husband loved and yearned for--were crumbling and falling away until she became something less.  Something transparent and empty and bitter.

A woman who could not kiss or touch her husband, because his eyes would morph into cruel red orbs and his tender smile into a sadistic grin and his gentle hands into tormenting claws pinning her down.  A woman who could not hold her sons or daughter in their time of need, who could not reassure them and draw away the poison of their worries because their fears were all too real and all too true.

A woman who would not even shed tears, because she knew that if she dared let down this frozen veil everything would fall apart completely.  She would melt away into oblivion, a mere remnant of a memory of a dream-woman, ruined by the blazing heat of a cruelly forged world.

And she wanted...

...she wanted to be healed...

...and stay...

And no longer sit in her chair staring at these foreign, dying hands.  No longer be distant and silent for fear of night-terrors and hallucinations overlapping reality.

She wanted to be whole.  For herself.  And for them.

She wanted to.

But in the end she could only sit.

Sit and stare at her strange white hands, wondering if the day was done yet so that she might retire to the safe haven of her chambers.  Away from her twin sons who tried to coddle her in the midst of her distress.  Away from her husband, whose hurt eyes haunted her dreams.  Away from her daughter, so full of anger and upset.

Away from everything that had happened, so that she might fall into that darkness in peace and forget.

Her eyes would open the next morning, and she would return here without breakfast or early morning tea.  Here, to sit in her chair as she once had done, needlework draped over her lap in a waxy mockery of normalcy.

Staring at her hands.

So thin and so white and so disgusting.

Until, one day, they would disappear entirely.

Until, one day, she would disappear as well.

Heartfelt

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Defiant AU.  Short and sweet goodbye.  And a promise.  Quenya names used (Angrod = Angaráto).  This is basically part of the same arc as "Puppy Love", "Loved", "Odds and Ends", "Difficult" and "Garden" among the rest of the Defiant arc and any other related Mellow AU stories.  There are a lot of them now, LOL.  Anyway, it really is short, just like its song, but I actually like it this way.  I made me happy.  Takes place during the Years of the Trees.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: Angrod x Eldalótë

Characters: Angrod, Eldalótë (I actually don't think it mentions anyone else...)

Warning: canon-compliant AU, mushy romantic stuff, waxing poetic, unrequited love (for now), oaths are dangerous things

Song: Eternal Three

Words: 845
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heartfelt (adjective): deeply felt; earnest
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heartfelt

Of course she didn't believe him.

Not that it was surprising.  All things considered, Angaráto doubted he would have believed himself had their places been reversed, had he been the poor peasant and she the rebellious princess in love.  It sounded like a storybook tale read to girl-children before bed, full of false romantic notions and devoid of the lesser idealistic facets of society.

Facets he knew she knew all too well, living so close to the court.

After all, he knew many nobles who were fleeting in their affection.  Many a young man who seduced a beautiful woman with sweet, charming compliments, dashing flattery and sultry seduction.  Certainly, she would have heard stories and whispers and rumors, felt the anxiety at his approaching and cornering her with his affections.  Known that, as he grew older and his advances changed from childish adoration to something darker and sharper, she could not resist.

Wary, she was.  Lacking in trust and faith.  Shadowed with doubts.

The gleam in her eyes that silently spoke as his grew taller and the afternoons in the gardens grew shorter.  The gleam that said...

One day, you will take back your promises.  One day, you will turn around and walk away.  One day, you will forget all about me.

One day, I will be a mirage in your past.

One day, I will not even exist in the back of your mind.

Until the day had come when it was time for him to leave her behind.

There had never been a time in his life when she hadn't been there.  That beautiful, earthly creature with her wide-brimmed hat and her loose tunic, her hands stained with dirt and her hair wrapped up into a loosely braided bun.  When he was little, she would play with him, gentle fingers tickling his sides, gentle smile filling up every centimeter of his sight.  When he was older, she would always listen to anything he needed to say, to whatever was on his mind, and give the best advice.

When he reached adulthood, she would barely look him in the eye.  But he still felt the draw every moment of every day, pulling him away from his studies and his thoughts and his dreams.

Filling him up with her.

And he had never meant anything more than he meant that promise on that day.

Staring down at her figure in the garden from the window above.  He dared not speak to her face-to-face, feared the scornful doubt that he would see within the depths of her spring eyes.  But part of him wondered if she would hear him despite the distance.

If she would sense his heartfelt oath.

"I know you do not believe me..."

He pressed his palms to the glass, feeling the scrape against his manicured nails and the coolness against soft hands that had never seen hard labor or craftsmanship.  Slowly, his forehead followed, the cold sinking deep into his flesh and bone, the barrier keeping him just out of reach of the golden light streaming down.  The same light that sprinkled itself across her form and made her look so enchanting.

No matter the simplicity of her clothes and hair and work, she would always be his One.  And nothing could dissuade him from his certainty.

"I know you would call it a lie, tell me I am foolish..."

He almost wished she would look up, see him standing in the window looking upon her form as a man looks upon his greatest treasure.  Maybe then, in the heat of the frozen moment when their eyes connected and their spirits entwined, she would understand.

That he couldn't let her go.  That he couldn't leave her behind.

That he would never...

"But I promised you that I would make you the happiest woman in the world," he continued, his breath washing a fog over the glass, tracing its way up his cheek, frosting her imagine in his eyes. "And that is one promise that I would never break."

Never stop loving her.  He couldn't.

"I will be back for you.  And somehow... somehow... I will convince you of my love."

He hoped that, somehow through the fibers of time and space, that his words would resonate with her spirit, his other half.  That she would hear him and know.  That the little sprout of hope she tried so hard to neglect and destroy would continue to grow.

Would flower.  So that she might never forget to look for his returning form on the horizon.

And Angaráto turned away from the window.  Away from her.  It would be years and years before he would lay eyes upon her again, the woman who held his fragile heart in her palm without even realizing.  And though it pained him to be away from her, he knew...

"I will be back.  That is a promise.  And I will make you happy."

Even if you do not believe in me, no words have ever been so desperately true.

And he walked away.

Mistakes

Right, well, I don't know if I'll ever get caught up, but I'll try to get back on schedule.  Finals are coming up soon, so we'll see how I stick to that, yeah?  LOL.

Anyway, possible canon-compliant AU?  Lalwen has made some hard decisions, but she's strong, and she has no regrets.  Some Quenya used here (yenya = my daughter, yonya = my son, atar = father and emya = mama).  Basically, this is a continuation of "Test" from ages and ages ago.  More feminism and social problems, because Valinor is not a perfect and happy place.

I also just have to say that I watched the HetaOni walkthroughs and I think I just about died.  So the music for this piece is from that, in case you wondered why this went in such a sentimental direction.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion or any other words.  I don't even own the children.

Pairings: OMC x Lalwen

Characters: Lalwen, Aranwë, Finwë, Ecthelion (mentions Indis, Findis, Fëanor, Fingolfin and Finarfin)

Warning: possibly canon-compliant, origins of characters, scandal and social ostracism, sexism and feminist themes, strong female character, pregnancy, premarital sex, single parenthood

Song: Break of Dawn and Saying Goodbye

Words: 1,219
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mistake (noun): to blunder in the choice of; to misunderstand the meaning or intention of: misinterpret; to identify wrongly: confuse with another
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mistake

Sometimes, one had to wonder.  About their decisions.  About their fate.

If they were taking the right path.  If they were somehow lost.

And it was not as if Lalwen never stilled from her constant tourbillion of energy and wondered in silent stillness.  Every day, she would pause and look out the kitchen window.  Wonder how things could have been different if only she had chosen a different path...

Was she really happy with this life, so different and simple?

With her sweet son, half-grown and already showing the stubborn temperament and undeniable recklessness of her family and blood.  With her belly rounding again, a second child on the way, squirming and kicking beneath her restless hands in the early morning glow.

With no husband in sight.  With no family at her back.  Alone.

"I let your transgression slide once, yenya, but..."

On the window's rough wooden frame, her hands clenched tightly until the knuckles blanched into white.  Truly, she hated remembering those days past now only a few months, looking her father in the eyes and knowing that he was so disappointed in her and her decisions that he could hardly stand to call her "daughter".  That he thought she was making a mistake, ruining her life for a mere droplet of independence and rebelliousness.

He didn't understand.  None of them did.

"Why could not have your only son been enough for you, Lalwen?  Why could you not have been content as you were?"

But that was the strange thing about contentment, wasn't it?  It was easy to seek it in the midst of turmoil and upset, in the midst of depression and unhappiness, but it was impossible to find it when all around you looked and looked and only became sadder...

Here, she...

"Emya, are you okay?"

Away from the landscape that she looked at so often but never saw, Lalwen turned to find her son standing before her with a searching expression in his aged eyes.  Aranwë, her sweet boy, was reaching that point of youthful independence, the itch to do things on his own without her help or guidance, growing up into a powerful young man who no longer needed his mother.  But still he was so very protective of her, the only parent he could ever remember.  Growing up in a house of people who sneered down their noses upon her decision to keep him and claim him as her son through blood...

"It would be a lie to call him anything other." That was what she always said, and she stood by her words to her dying breath.  That she swore.

"A lie that would have saved your reputation.  And a lie that would have made his life easier."

They had wanted her to pretend to have adopted him, the baby she had nurtured in her womb for a turn of the seasons.  They had wanted to deny him his blood rights, to call him the son of another House.  But she had never hidden the truth from anyone, even if it made her a social outcast, a sullied and ruined woman swathed in sin and scandal.

"I am fine, sweetheart," she lied softly, running her fingers through his dark hair.  Her hair, for his father's hair had been a rich chocolate.  Eyes looked up at her with shocking incisiveness--large gray eyes, her eyes, for his father's had been so very blue and so very pure of that calculative glint of royal blood--and Lalwen knew they did not quite believe her.

"Okay..." But he did not leave her side.  Instead, his small fingers wrapped themselves into her skirts, clinging tightly.

And the affection she felt for her baby couldn't have been stronger than in that moment.  Had she chosen to lie... would they have this bond?  Would he look upon her this way, as his true mother, or would she have become nothing more than a cold and distant figurehead?

How could this have been a mistake?

And now, with another baby on the way...

"You have left me no choice.  I did not want to make this decision."

Well, it was too late to go back now and rewrite actions already taken and words already spoken.  Too late for her to take back her wild night of passion in the arms of a nameless man.  Too late for her to change her mind about wanting a second child.

Too late for her father to take back his damning disowning or her mother to take back her scathing scolds and accusations.  Too late for her brothers to withdraw their disappointed and cold gazes or her sister to withdraw the utter scorn in those cornflower eyes.

Too late to go back to the way things had been before.  In a palace as a princess, living in a fantasy dream where all was well unto forever.

Too late for regret.

And yet, she was never certain there was any to be felt.  Here...

Here she was happy...

"You are not welcome within these walls.  No longer are you a daughter of the House of Finwë..."

Her hands lowered from the windowpane, sliding down over her bump again and again.  One child pressed against her side, nuzzling and so very warm, her sweet Aranwë, son of kings.  Another rolling in her womb, seeking the sound of her heartbeat and the soft thrum of her voice humming an old lullaby, her little angel.

They were beautiful.  And she would never consider them mistakes.  If anything, they were her salvation.

In the end, she thought, things had turned out for the best.

No matter how much she wondered and paced and stared out at the landscape beyond her windowsill, never seeing beyond the designs of the grain in the wood, she knew that her decision would never change.  Never would she crawl back on hands and knees to beg forgiveness and give in...

"Unless you relinquish the child.  Hide your pregnancy, and I shall discretely find the baby a good home with a welcoming family..."

"No... Would you ever give up your child in such a way?  How can you ask this of me, atar?"

"Lalwen..."

"No..."

Never would she throw away that which was most precious.

"Come, let us start on dinner." She wrapped a slender hand about her son's back, steering herself and the child away from the frozen place of thoughts and memories and too much wondering for the soul's health and sanity. "There are apples from the tree on the hill that I collected this afternoon.  I will make apple pie if you promise to behave and help prepare our meal... No messes this time, yonya..."

For once, that young face wasn't scowling.  A beatific smile formed, those eyes flashing vividly with the silvered light of pure happiness.  With a hint of something just a little too knowing.  And then the moment was broken with a broad grin that reminded her all too much of her playful older brothers.

"Promise, emya!"

Apple pie was his favorite, after all.  And she loved to see him smile.  Her treasure.

The only mistake she could have made was ever considering throwing this away.