Breathing

Mellow Soulmate AU.  The reunion of a husband and wife parted for two ages of the world.  Quenya names used (Maglor = Makalaurë, Laurë for short).  This is, of course, related to many other stories but "Waiting" is its companion piece.  "Pauses", "Memorial" and "Done" are among other closely related pieces, as well as anything in the Morals Arc.  Basically, though, this is meant to be something sort of fluffy and cute.  Because I felt like it today.  Takes place (probably) where Lindon used to be in the early Third Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion, but Vardamírë (Mírë for short) is mine

Pairings: Maglor x Vardamírë

Characters: Maglor, Vardamírë (mentions the Valar, Ulmo and Varda in particular)

Warning: non-canon compliant, return-to-ME trope, OFC warning, hugging and fluff to soothe away the angst at the beginning

Song: The Call

Words: 1,184
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breathe (verb): to draw air into and expel it from the lungs: respire; to inhale and exhale freely; live; to pause and rest before continuing
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/breathe

There were days when he believed with every fiber of his being that he would never see her face again.  The most beloved face that constantly weighed upon his heavy heart.

Long, long years passed at a crawl, filled with the sound of the ocean pounding an endless rhythm upon the shores, hissing up the sprawling white of the sand to nip at the toes of his boots.  And Makalaurë had long since grown accustomed to the song of the water, its slow and deep breathing washing salt and mist across his face, tangling damp fingers through his hair and whipping it back from his eyes.

In some ways, he almost felt it had become part of his body.  Or, perhaps, he had become part of it.  The oxygen--sweet and pure beneath the cold light of the stars blinking down from the vastness of the sky above the churning waters--seemed to be swallowed into those depths, dragged away into the endless blackness below.  And he stood, breathless and frozen, a fixed statue of flesh and bone, pearl and shadow, pale and dark entwined and left upon the beach to stand forever in the cold.

He waited.  And he held his breath.

Held his breath as whispers came and went through the threads of time and space.  The call of the sea pulled and pushed upon his mind, drew his feet upon the shores to the north where the tides were chilly and dark.  And Makalaurë followed to whatever end, for what end had he in sight but to follow that song until the end of days?

Yet, perhaps, the Valar were more merciful than he had expected--than he had ever dared hope.

Well did he remember the feeling, the overpowering ice surrounding his heart and mind as he stepped across the damp sand in the ethereal evening light.  It was there that he saw her.

Her.

Her slender form draped in deep blue and silver, the hem of her gown soaked with the writhing waves washing up onto the pale sands, slipping around her bare ankles.  Her white skin laced through with silver beneath the light of Isil, so fragile and so pure.  Her hair spun of moonbeams, drawn as a curtain back from her face by those same hands of mist, salt and water.

She was exactly as he remembered.

Blue eyes gazing out from a ring of pale lashes, infinite in mystery and yet so terribly, achingly familiar that the back of his throat drew tight.  Her nose was small and upturned in that cute fashion that had always made his heart flutter, and her lips were drawn into the gentle smile that made his bones melt into jelly.

A mirage, he thought at first, an evanescent manifestation of nostalgia and tragic loss.  Silently, he drew closer.  Until they stood but an arm's length apart from one another.

"Mírë?"

Barely a single ringing note in his voice rising over the howl of the open water breaking upon the shore.  And yet she heard, her hand rising in answer to his sighed call.  Her fingers brushing against his cold cheek in a fluttering caress. "I think the stars are shining down upon us, Laurë."

The laugh that bubbled up in his throat sounded more like a sob.  Her touch felt real.  But she could not be.  She could not be.

"I think they might be," he replied brokenly, wistfully, to this creature woven of starlight.

They pulled one another into an embrace, her arms about his neck and his curled tight and desperate about her willowy waist.  Makalaurë could barely summon thought as their forms tangled, as her brow was pressed against his, as he took in every fleck and shade of her dazzling eyes in the moonlight.  Just standing here, feeling her warmth...

"I missed you," she whispered.

He did not even dare speak back.  Not a second time.  Surely, this moment--this strange warmth and this perfect silent togetherness--would shatter back into chaotic reality.  Her form would fall apart beneath his eyes, a figment of imagination conjured from wisps of mist upon the pearly sands.  Surely, he could not be so lucky as to feel her once more against him, sinking into him and consuming his spirit.

Surely, this was a dream.  But a sweet one.  A cruel one.

But please, Ulmo, let her be true.  Let her be real.

Against his cheeks, he felt her hands cup and hold gently but firmly, fingertips tracing little patterns over the scar that cut across his left temple and over the wrinkles that lined the corners of his eyes and the deep-set lines burrowed into the skin around his lips. "Laurë?"

"I love you." He could not help the whisper, and beheld her face as one stares into the eyes of Varda Elentári, reverent and awed beyond all poetic words.

If he never saw her again, let him hold this image forever in his thoughts.

If he blinked now, he was certain that she would vanish beneath his hands.  The tangle of her curls around his fingers would dissolve into heavy, salty air and the curve of her waist beneath his scarred palm would slip away into emptiness.  But he did not care.

It was enough.  His eyes closed.  It was enough for forever.

"Makalaurë, look at me."

And, when his lashes parted, she was still there.  Still solid.  Still warm.

Still breathing.  He could feel the air hot against his lips, and the knot in the back of his throat unraveled and left him gasping.  The tight ache of his lungs ceased, soothing heat filling his chest when the air swirled in and filled and filled.

It was like breathing out a thousand years of icy water, coughing the chill and thick soup of despair and foamy regrets from his ragged spirit.  The tightness that he had forgotten, agonizing and stretching and screaming, was suddenly all at once gone.  Light and floating, it all drained away and nearly left him dizzy and giddy.

He was looking at her, and she was real.

"I missed you, too."

It had been many years since he had smiled.  So many that he had lost count of the centuries weaving in and out of each other, filled with the deep song of the ocean beating upon the shores, with only the touch of the waves upon his feet and the wind upon his flesh to keep him company in regret.

But her laughter drew a helpless grin up upon his lips.  Brought him back from the drowning waves.  And the air had never tasted so sweet and so clear as it did when her voice rang as bells across the land and resonated through the fabric of the world.  It was too real to be a mirage.  Too tangible and perfect to be a dream.

The waiting and wandering was done.  Finally.

They were breathing.

Breathing.

Irresistible

I really feel like this will be an every other day thing until I get over my obsession.  Reading like crazy.  Can't stop.  Blame fucking Mycroft Holmes.  It's all his fault.

Hand of Fate

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Of naivety and disillusionment.  This is most closely related to “Cheat”, “Overflow” and “Decadent”, but is technically related to everything and anything with the pairing Amrod/Thranduil as well as anything Amrod-related that takes place post-Second Kinslaying.  However, I like to think of this as the Thranduil POV of Overflow in a weird sort of way.  Takes place in Mirkwood, though there is a flashback to Menegroth.

Disclaimer: I don’t own the Silmarillion or The Hobbit

Pairings: past one-sided Amrod x Thranduil

Characters: Thranduil (mentions Amrod, Valthoron (OMC), Legolas, Morgoth, Sauron (the Necromancer), Thranduil’s mother, Thingol, Eru and other random elves)

Warning: non-canon compliant, slash, soul-mate trope, implied m!preg and past (non-graphic) non-con (heavily implied), violence and blood, character death, depression, pure angst, mass murder

Song: Revelation

Words: 1,665

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fate (noun): the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are or events to happen as they do: destiny; an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition or end; final outcome

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fate

It was a romantic notion that not many ascribed to, the idea of a fated One. 

Thranduil had believed it wholeheartedly when he was young and full of naïve hope.  With barely a century to his name, he had wistfully dreamed of meeting his One, the person he was created to spend the rest of forever with.  Two halves of a perfect whole.  Two pieces that created a complete image.

Two souls that would seamlessly weave together into one.  In wholeness.  In togetherness.  In happiness.

Foolishness.

How could they not fit together perfectly?  That he would ask himself.  How could they not be meant to be?

How could such a meeting—such a partnership, such a connection—not bring forth the greatest of happiness?

Of course, he had imagined meeting a lovely young maiden in the twilight of the forest gardens.  A nice, sweet girl with bell-like laughter and rosy cheeks; a girl of his own people, the gray-elves, who would bear him children and spend forever at his side in the great hallowed halls of Menegroth.  Or, perhaps, it would be a man.  He would not have been repulsed at the idea of a handsome warrior with a strong bow-arm, someone brave but with a kind side buried underneath a stern façade at which he could flirt and blush.

They were just sweet little daydreams that he kept privately locked up in his head.  Never would he have spoken of them aloud—he was too prideful and too stubborn and admittedly too arrogant to reveal such a vulnerable part of himself—but it had been a part of him nonetheless.

Foolishness indeed.

Dreams were lovely things.  Delusions created to retain bare-boned scraps of joy in a world consumed by war.  Young and full of naïve hope had he been without a doubt.  The war had boiled on longer than he had been alive, had wrecked distant lands outside the borders of Doriath beyond all repair and ravaged all that was green and good into barren wastelands of bones and twisted metal and sorrow.  But it had never reached deep within their borders, to the city with walls carved and painted by the finest hands and furnished with tapestries woven by the most talented fingers.  Jewels and finery and parties and wine dominated the world of the court of Thingol, not blood and death and dirty, ugly realism.

All romanticism and beauty and pristine ignorance.  All everything the world was not.

---

Until the day came when they invaded. 

The sons of Fëanor, the golodh Kinslayer’s devil-spawn children from the West, filled with violent lust for blood and greed to reclaim their pretty glowing rocks.  Until that day, those flame-haired monsters from across the Great Sea had been but a fleeting and ghostly nightmare, merely a bedtime story whispered insidiously to scare mischievous children into staying in bed at night.  But that was all they had been.  Nightmares to counter the daydreams.

That was all they had been.  All they had been until fate decided otherwise.  And it had changed everything.  Perhaps, he would later think, it was meant to.

But then Thranduil thought none of that.  He had thought of nothing but fear, but the terror that forced his throbbing heart to climb up the back of his throat until he wanted to be sick.  He had thought of nothing but fleeing and hiding, running away from the advancing flash of swords down the corridor, chasing the unarmed inhabitants of a city that had never seen war knock upon its gates.

He had thought of nothing but keeping his family alive when he heard the piercing shriek of his mother.  Of her death.  It had drawn him forth like nothing else, pulling him from the safety of his locked chambers without a second thought—without even bothering to grab a dagger or a bow to protect himself.  And when the door had opened… he had seen him.

His One.  Covered in blood.  Standing over the prone body of his mother.  Sword aloft in a vicious, cruel arc.

His One.

It was like a flash—all at once a shattering revelation that left his legs quivering beneath his weight.  Thranduil had not known how he knew, just that he knew and could not deny it.  All it took was that one glance for his heart to break.

Handsome face splashed with crimson, splattered across the high cheekbones lined with snarls and down the front of a tunic embroidered with a damning seven-pointed star.

Son of Fëanor.

Green eyes, he remembered vividly from that frozen moment of epiphany.  Very green eyes with pupils blown wide-open like empty windows gaping into the vastness of the Void beyond.  They seemed to dominate the too-pale face, clashing sharply with the too-bright blood on blanched white skin and the too-red hair slicked to a sweaty forehead.  Red and green and white.

And pain.

Because he had been a foolish and naïve child then.  Happiness would come with this moment, the moment he met the One he was destined to spend forever with.  Nothing could get in the way of that bliss, he had believed.  No matter what it took, if he was with his One they could overcome any obstacle that stood in their way of togetherness—of happiness.

But not this.  Not this.

Not the empty insanity that stared back at him.  Not the sword that flashed in the light of torches, red and dripping with his mother’s blood.  Not the green, green, green eyes that were filled with lust beyond want for spilled blood.

Not the way a gloved hand wrapped around his upper arm and dragged him closer without gentleness or care.

Not the way lips crashed down over his screaming mouth and sucked out his spirit.

Not the way he couldn’t pull away from that grasp no matter how hard he tried to squirm away—

He was dragged, kicking and screaming amongst the chaos of the dying and the dead and the murderous and the murderers, into his own room from whence he had come out of hiding at his mother’s agonized screams.  And the door shut behind them.

There was fear and horror.  Dread that crawled over his skin, chilling.

But none of it compared to the disillusioned despair.

Cruel was the hand of fate, to have dealt him these cards through the alignment of the heavens and the gifts of the Music.  He had a One—some never found their fated mate, and it was always so celebrated, so joyous—but this was no blessing.  There was no happiness.  There were no moonlight kisses to be snuck.  No giggling together and blushing at half-censored lewd jokes.  No courting or flirting beneath the boughs of familiar trees and under the shade of vibrant gardens.  No engagement and marriage and no endless days of bliss winding off into the horizon of eternity.

There was blood and pain and hopelessness.

There was red and green and white.

And then there was only black.  Only black.  His fate.

---

Sometimes dreams were lovely little things.  They brought forth what little joy could be found among a world dying as it was choked to death in the maws of the northern shadows and the greed of the West and the lies that closed in from every corner.  But dreams had to end.  And Thranduil’s dream had ended that day.

Just once, though, he wished he could have had his little dream.

Even looking back upon it—millennia later, from his position of power upon his throne when the shadows once again closed in around him with salivating fangs ready to tear him open and eat him alive—he wished he could have had just this one dream.

He wished his fate could have been different.  That his naivety could have, for once, proven to be true.  That that giggling maiden or stern-faced warrior lingering in the back of his mind was more than a crafted illusion.  That everything would have turned out for the best in the end because surely Eru, who wrote the grand ballad that shaped the world, would want to weave a happy ending for all who held goodness and rightness to their breasts and not torment His Children ceaselessly without cause.

Maybe, then, he would have had something to smile about when destiny-turned-reality and the cold light of the stars wove their strings about his fragile life and wrapped him in webs of discord.  When they found Thranduil once again damned and alone and wanting.

All he had wanted was to find his One.  And he had.  But, looking back, he wished desperately—forlornly and bleakly and foolishly—that he had not.  Not like that.  Never like that.

He would have missed Valthoron.  And he would have missed Legolas.  Or, if he had married a sweet maiden or a beautiful warrior and lived out his days in peace, he might have had them both anyway.  And maybe they, too, would have been unburdened by the cruelties and sin of the past that could not be changed.

Maybe, then, there would be more than the vortex of black sucking him down.

Maybe…  Maybe…

Yet, as he sat upon his throne and stared blankly into the distance, Thranduil always had to wonder…

Had it all been laid out in the stars?  Was it all meant to be? When the Music gave him Amrod, had it truly been a warped mistake, a note of discord in the great harmonies that led to this torment?

Was there ever really any hope?  Or, perhaps, he had been destined to suffer from the very start…

Perhaps he had been beneath the cruel hand of fate from the very beginning.

Kisses

Canon-compliant AU.  Of the kisses of Celebrían daughter of Galadriel.  This ended up being way longer than intended, and I left some parts out that I thought of later.  But I’m satisfied with the flow of this so I’ll leave it.  Definitely related to “Fading Away” and “Awareness”, but also serving as a counterpoint to “Goodbyes”, which is from Elrond’s POV.  Sort of a life-story-like piece.  Takes place (at first) in Lothlórien, and then in Rivendell, and then in the Undying Lands.

Disclaimer: I don’t own The Lord of the Rings or any other works of Tolkien’s

Pairings: Elrond x Celebrían

Characters: Celebrían, Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond, Elladan, Elrohir, Arwen (mentions other random elves)

Warning: canon-compliant AU, heavily implied sex, kissing (one would hope), sexual undertones, mentions of childbirth, pregnancy, implied torture and non-con, implied war/violence

Song: ...And Then I Kissed Him

Words: 2,194

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kiss (noun): a caress with the lips; a gentle touch or contact; an expression of affection

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/kiss

Her first kisses were from her nana and her ada. 

Celebrían remembered them even when she was fully grow, pleasant little dreams half-hidden in the haze of memory that followed her into her years of adulthood.  They were always gentle things, those little gifts.  Sitting in her nana’s lap, feeling tender lips brush over the tip of her nose as she giggled into soft white lace.  Being lifted up by her ada into the air and twirled, squealing in delight at the feeling of his chapped lips on her rosy cheeks.

Feeling hands cradle her face as goodnights were whispered in her ear and a tiny kiss was pressed to her brow.  In that spot, she would feel the love of her parents spread outwards until she drifted off in the rocking embrace of that pure sensation.

They were lovely things, those little gifts.  Always did they bring warmth and love upon her heart, and their memory always soothed away the worry and sorrow in her spirit when the days darkened with shadow and her parents’ eyes grew saddened and cold.

They always allowed her to smile.  Just a little bit.

Even when there was nothing left to smile for.  She remembered.

---

But those little kisses were nothing like his kisses.

Her nana’s kisses were like a moth’s wings in the twilight, full of delicate sweetness and underlying affection that could not be spoken in mere words.  Her ada’s kisses were all warmth and sunshine streaming through the forest trees, playful and teasing and bringing forth laughter.

But his kisses…

The first time was a shock.  Standing beneath the boughs of lantern-speckled trees, a clearing breaking overhead into the heavenly dome, they had been together.  And his eyes had sparkled with each and every star, reflecting down at her, enchanting her and holding her hostage.

Celebrían remembered the first touch of his lips.  Elrond’s lips.

They had been hesitant, barely a touch at all.  But it had felt like nothing she had ever known.  Like fire igniting beneath the tingling flesh of her parted, shocked lips.  She remembered how her breath had caught and held.  How she had struggled to gain her next breath in the wake of such a tiny, vastly powerful gesture.

“Would you allow me to court you, my Lady?” he had asked.

Somehow, she had found the air to say “Yes”.

And he had kissed her again.

---

Those kisses only became deeper.  More wild.  Harder to control.  Harder to stop.

Before him—with his strangely aged beauty akin to the finest of ancient wines upon the blissful tongue—Celebrían could not understand what it was that drew together a man and a woman in the way of lovers.  Her handmaidens had tittered and whispered about it behind demure hands, their eyelashes fluttering as they beheld the guardians walking past in packs, backs straight and eyes glued in forward position looking so composed and so handsome.  There had been so much blushing and giggling.  So much sighing with dreamy eyes.

Celebrían had seen beauty in men.  But she had not seen this heat.  Had not felt this passion scorch across her skin and fill her cheeks with blood.

Nor fill her belly with molten fire.

That was what those kisses did.  They started as a tiny searching brush, a teasing caress to part her mouth, to share her air.  Teeth gently scraped the too-tender skin of her lips to her punctuated gasp.  And then he would tilt her head and they would connect.

And she could feel them come together.  Could feel his tongue everywhere inside her mouth.  Could taste his heady flavor on every inch of her overwhelmed palate.

Her hands would thread through the dark hair at his nape, pulling him closer…

And then he would pull away.  Cut the strings of their wholeness and leave her hanging, panting softly in the scant few centimeters that lay between their flushed and impassioned faces.  So close and so far away.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “Not yet.”

But soon… Soon they would be married.  Man and wife.  Soon he would be her husband.  And then they would not need to stop when the flames grew high in the intimate darkness and began to consume their waking thoughts with a red glow.  Then they could clash like thunderstorms over the plains, and they would come together entirely.

---

In a kiss far more intimate.

Together in their marriage bed.

Celebrían had never imagined.

She had never imagined…

---

The first time she held her sons in her arms, Celebrían had been sweaty and exhausted from the birthing of twins, long and arduous as it had been.  The bed upon which her marriage had been consummated was the bed upon which she gave birth to her husband’s heirs.

And they were beautiful.

She held them, cradled them close and stared down into their red, slightly wrinkled newborn faces.  Identical, but she could tell them apart already, for they felt so different when they resonated with her heart.  Each with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes and big milky blue eyes.

They would be gray in the end, she imagined.  Like his.

Beyond words, she lifted them close and ignored her fatigue.  She pushed aside her discomfort and the dripping black at the corners of her vision.

She pressed their first kisses against their tiny foreheads.

“Elladan and Elrohir,” she whispered.  And pressed their second kisses in the same spot again, taking in their softness and breathing in their sweet baby-scent.  She wanted to remember this moment forever.  “My sons.”

---

Celebrían often wondered if her sons remembered her kisses the way she remembered her nana’s kisses.

How often she loved to kiss their chubby little cheeks!  How often did she shower with adoration their cute button noses!  How she loved to hear their squeals when she pressed her lips to their ticklish little bellies!

It was different giving the kisses away.  But she loved it just as much.

The sound of childish laughter filled the afternoon all around her, and in bliss she leaned back to soak in the sunshine and the autumn cool of the valley dyed all orange and red and gold with the Fading.  Everything was so peaceful… so perfect…

Until she heard the crying.

Like any mother, she was up as soon as the wail sliced through her paradise.  They were only across the courtyard, her two babies, but they were just out of sight and her heart was fluttering hard in the back of her throat with worry as her shoes clicked over stone and…

And Elrohir was on the ground sobbing, tears and snot on his reddened face.  Big puffy eyes looked up at her pathetically.

He had scraped his knee.  Poor thing.

With a sigh, she scooped him upwards and set him upon one of the ornate benches, kneeling before his sniffling form as she crooned.  Elladan was at her side looking worried, clutching at her skirts with fidgeting hands.

“Ah, don’t cry, ion-nín,” she murmured as she stroked the tears from Elrohir’s cheeks. “Let me see you knee, my darling.”

“Hurts,” the child whined.

Carefully did her fingers explore the scrape, using the edge of her dress to wipe away the sparse amount of blood and dirt to reveal a tiny scrape beneath.  For, indeed, that was all it was.  Just a scuff from the rough stone upon soft skin.  Already, Elrohir’s cries were nearly quieted as he watched her wide-eyed.

“Let nana kiss your scratch better, darling.”

“Kiss it better?”

Celebrían nodded. “Like magic,” she replied, pressing her lips in a breathy caress across the angry red mark twice as once her own mother had done for her. “See.  Does it feel better now?”

Her youngest son wiped his nose on his sleeve and sniffled again.  But he also nodded, looking satisfied now that he was not bleeding all down his leg.  More fright than pain, Celebrían realized.  And such an easy affliction to fix.

“Good.” She added a kiss to his forehead and lifted him from the bench, setting him once again upon his spindly legs. “Now go and play.  But be careful this time, ion-nín!”

Like nothing had happened, they were off romping again, laughing in the afternoon sunshine.

Little kisses.  That was all it took.

If only the world stayed so simple forever.

---

When her daughter was conceived unexpectedly, Celebrían looked forward to the birth with great excitement.  To having a girl-child in a house full of men.  To having a companion, an heiress to teach her sewing and weaving arts, to dress up in pretty gowns and spoil with gentle baths and evenings of hair-brushing and braiding.

But, as with her sons, the beauty of her newborn daughter in her arms for the first time had caught her unawares.

Arwen was perfect.  A perfect baby, quiet and contemplative as she yawned up at her mother and blinked those huge blue eyes.  Again, Celebrían knew—perhaps as only a mother would—that they would fade to her husband’s gray.

To Lúthien’s gray.

Such a beauty her little lady would be.  And Celebrían could not help but press butterfly kisses to that precious face.

Somehow, she knew… knew that Arwen needed all of the kisses she could gather and give…

Somehow, she just knew…

---

Knew that, many years later, she would give no more kisses.

No more could she stand to feel the kisses of her grown sons upon her cheeks—

Once she had loved them and cherished each one, for grown boys so rarely desired the attentions of their mother and so rarely allowed their persona of adult gravitas to fall so that she might give the gesture back in return—

And no more could she give her daughter kisses upon the brow—

As she often did if only to wish the young girl luck and send with her beloved little one eternal love and guidance.  If only to let her youngest child know that she would always be there—

No more could she even bear to be touched by her husband.

She could not bear to receive his kisses.  Not upon her hands.  Not upon her brow.  Not upon her cheeks.

Not upon her lips.

Touch made her hollow heart quiver in terror, left her hovering as a shadow of a ghost holding on to life by the thinnest of spider’s threads.  Each brush of fingers brought remembrance of searing pain.  Each brush of lips left her remembering only the horror and the violation.

She wished she could tell Elrond it was okay, that she would get better.  She wished she could see his eyes light up in hope.  She wished she could feel the warmth that once suffused her being when his kisses rained upon her skin.

But wishing did not change reality.

Wishing would not make the kisses warm.

Wishing would not heal her open, rotting wound.

---

Time helped.

In the Undying Lands she had all the time in the world.  Here, seasons never changed.  Here, there was no evil shadow.  Here, the days were peaceful and the nights were tranquil.

Here, there was no need to be afraid.  She could allow the divine Light to seep back into her flesh and warm again her bones with easy slowness.  To burn away the nightmares and memories hidden in the cobwebs strung from the darkest corners of her mind.

Here, she came to be almost at peace.

Almost.

But something had been missing.  It took her many years to see it.  To feel it.

The absence of kisses.

Her nana and ada were across the Sea.  Her husband and sons and daughter were across the Sea.  Her heart and soul and life were across the Sea.

And she missed them.  Missed their kisses.  Missed their voices.  Missed their love.

More than anything.

And she knew that she could not be healed.  Not yet.

Not yet.

---

Not until she saw him again.  Elrond.

All of her body screamed to be near him, to take hold of him and never let go again.  Peace these shores may have offered, but they did not offer the love and companionship she remembered.

They did not offer the beautiful feeling of warmth that slid through her aching body when she slung her arms about his neck and embraced him tight.

They did not offer the shocking wonder of feeling his arms—his actual arms, corporeal and tangible and real—squeezing around her tautly in return.

They did not offer the all-consuming feeling of rightness when their lips came together again and again and again.  Frantic and breathless and full of awe.

Until they came apart and stood together on the docks, sharing their breaths.  Each staring into the other’s eyes.  And Celebrían could do not but reach upwards and cup that beloved face in her hands as she wept tears too sweet to be sad.

“I’m here,” he murmured, lost in her.

And she kissed him again.  Equally lost.  Equally found.