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.

Turn Away

Mellow Soulmate AU.  There truly is a fine line between love and hate.  Almost indistinguishable.  Quenya names used (Celegorm = Tyelkormo).  This is sort of a continuation of “Obvious” and is also closely related to the Nargothrond Arc and the Mellow Arc (obviously), as well as “Collision” and a few other stories.  Too many to list all of them.  Takes place (probably) in Nargothrond during the First Age.

Disclaimer: I don’t own the Silmarillion

Pairings: one-sided Celegorm x Lúthien, Beren x Lúthien

Characters: Celegorm, Lúthien (mentions Fëanor and the Fëanorions, Nerdanel, Oromë, Morgoth, Thingol, Beren and Melian)

Warning: non-canon compliant, premarital sex, implied affair, non-con marriage, past mass murder, war and non-explicit violence, depression, insanity, kidnapping (sort of)

Song: Red Sorrow

Words: 1,874

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turn away (verb): deflect, avert; to send away: reject, dismiss; repel; to refuse admittance or acceptance to; to start to go away: depart

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/turn?show=3&t=1390235637

One never forgets that pivotal moment.  The moment that remains set forever as a gem—beautiful and light or dark and grotesque—set into the center of the crown of their timeless fate.  The moment that will determine the future of their existence forever, that leaves them gasping and breathless, reaching out to hold it back in primal terror but feeling the last vestiges of its celestial robes flit through outstretched fingers.

Certainly, Tyelkormo would never forget his moment.

Much had already changed in Beleriand.  Things that were once important—resisting his father’s iron grip, disrespecting his older brothers for their compliancy and attempting to beat individuality into the younger ones who might still be salvaged—were suddenly no longer important.  In fact, they seemed downright petty in the face of murder and violence, the face of the Darkening and the Exile and the chaos of war that followed.

The hunter was no stranger to killing.  But there was a difference between hunting in the peaceful quiet of Oromë’s Woods and fighting for one’s life upon the field of battle, risking one’s life each and every second for square inches of ground.

It changed people; that was certain.  It made him more ill-tempered, riled his temper and left a bad taste constantly sitting upon the back of his tongue.  Such was his fate, the warrior so far away from everything he had ever known and held dear in his heart, forced and contorted into this mold that shaped his body and spirit into something shriveled and repulsive just for the sake of revenge not his own, a few glowing trinkets and his father’s prideful arrogance.

That pivotal moment, he had believed, was his decision to uphold his father’s Oath.  The decision to hold aloft his sword in the torchlight and swear proudly with a sneer of hatred upon his lips and white-hot fury in his eyes.

But it was not.

Perhaps, even after all the hardship—even after the massacre on the docks of Alqualondë and the abandonment of their kin to flee to Losgar and the loss of his father and brother and even the following war that had no end in sight—he had believed there was still something left to be salvaged.  Still something left to hope for.

Seeing her for the first time had only cemented that belief, for how could a condemned world house such glory, such salvation?

Kissing her had lightened his heart in a way that Tyelkormo could not even describe, not in words and not on paper and not even in the depths of his own mind.

Becoming one with her—with the woman he was fated to be with forever, the woman who completed his broken and ravaged spirit—had been…

It had been like finding home.  A home greater and more all-encompassing than the eternal verdant of the Woods in Valinor or the lavish mansions and halls of his father could ever have offered.  Feeling her around him, in him spirit, breathing upon his lips, stroking over his bare skin—it was indescribable.  Unfathomable.  Perfection.

It was the first time he had believed—truly believed—that everything might be all right in the end.  That there might be happiness waiting somewhere in the far distant future after war and heartbreak and suffering.

That, one day, this madness would end.  She would hold his hand and kiss his cheek and nothing in all the world could be wrong.

But how wrong he had been.  How terribly, utterly wrong.

The moment upon which his fate rested had not yet come.  Not when he gazed upon the Lady Lúthien for the first time.  Not when he had kissed her for the first time.  Not when he had made love to her for the first time.

It was the moment he told her they were to be married.

He was in love—he was so, so in love with her, this woman, this flighty, perfect songbird creature of ethereal beauty—and he had believed she loved him in return with all her being.  Why else would she stay by his side and cry upon his shoulder?  Why else would she kiss his sorrows away until he could once again breathe?  Why else would she become one with him beneath the stars and then stroke her fingers through his hair until dawn came upon their bodies curled together in the grass?

But that moment… that moment…

Her eyes were blue and gray, gentle twilight perched just above the horizon, lightening the sky and sliding its veil over the pinpricks of the stars.  But they were not alight with the same joy that raced as wildfire through his veins, eating away his heavy sorrow with passion and adoration.  In fact, they did not change at all in the face of his bold proclamation.

They just stared almost blankly.  Almost pityingly.

“My Lady…?” His voice wavered in hesitation, uncharacteristic diffidence.  Would she not kiss him?  Would she not say she loved him?

Would she not be happy as his wife?

Tyelkormo knew she had loved that mortal man before him and that she missed her lover, and he knew their marriage would be difficult what with his family’s reputation and her father’s stubborn hatred of his kin, but if she truly loved him would she not have thrust all of that aside?  Would she not have wrapped him up in her wonderfully soft arms and her charming croons and her sweet scent and held him tight, refusing to let go?  As she had done for him—her mortal.

Why was she not happy?

The longer they stared into each other’s eyes, the more realization set in with icy fingers and sharp nails scratching trenches into tender flesh.  It was a painful, horrible realization.  The kind of epiphany that splits the soul like an earthquake splits the ground and leaves the vulnerable blood and life and love gushing beneath so utterly exposed.  He stood before her steady gaze—her coldness and her rejection laid bare—and felt like his entire body was an open wound that lay beneath the poison of her scorn and the knives of her callous frown.

Because, after that long, terrible moment, he watched her turn away.

“I do not love you, Celegorm Fëanorion.  And I will not marry you.”

I do not love you.  Like a drumbeat of war, like the foreshadowing of doom.  I do not love you.  And I will not marry you.

Did not their oneness—their wholeness and intimacy—mean anything to her?

The kissing and the lovemaking had meant everything to him.  They had sewn together tattered shreds of his mind that he had not even known were floating away upon the wild winds of insanity.  Each moment he breathed her in was a blessing.  Each word she spoke in his ears rang like heavenly bells.

Each touch she imparted to his flesh was as purification of the spirit, chasing away the stain that lingered putridly upon every inch of his soul.

She completed him.  And he loved her.

And to her, he was nothing.  Nothing at all.  But a toy.  But a means to an end.

It was that pivotal moment—that mere breathless pause—that changed everything.  And, later, he would look back upon those shallow breaths and remember the pain that blazed through his chest like fire and know that, if only she had not been so cruel, things might have been different.

If only she had truly loved him then.  If only.

But, as a fragile structure of glass caught beneath a falling hammer, something holding his mind intact shattered at the blow of her rejection.  Sprinkled crystalline splinters down in a shower of pain that left him reeling with confusion and fury and terror.  A lesser man would have slid to his knees and allowed himself the shame of begging for reconsideration at the overwhelming despair.

But not Tyelkormo Fëanárion.

He did not allow such weaknesses.  He was a creature forged of his father’s fire and his mother’s intelligence and his line’s innate determination.  A man who could not be tamed or beaten down into the dust, left crying and suffering and sniveling like a slug.  Never would he be lowered as such.  Not even for the woman he loved—this woman.

This woman who had used him, and he had allowed her that vice.  She who had manipulated him, and he had fallen for her wiles.

She who hated him, and he had been blind to her disgust.

If she wanted to play this game, though, he would oblige her want.  He would lock her away in her chambers and leave her to rot in a cage, a captured songbird whose voice slowly faded day-by-day into oblivion, chipped away with sadness and heartbreak...

Heartbreak equal to his own.  For his chest hurt worse than any wound had ever ached or any words had ever stung.  Worse even than his father’s burning eyes and his mother’s disappointed gaze.

It hurt so badly that he wanted to scream.  But he would not… He would not… give… in… to… her…

He would force her hand, and she would spend her days married to this man she hated.  She would bear him his children and carry on his line and serve him as his wife.  And, when the long days had passed and the war was ended and all that she loved was gone in the fleeting blink of an immortal eye, he would be all she had left to hold, to covet… to cherish.

Tyelkormo would make her want him.  He would make her love him.

“We will be married, Lúthien Melianiel.”

It would be an empty and cold and bitter marriage.  But the reality of their world set in with all the chill of Helcaraxë and all the malice of Morgoth.  The disillusionment was almost as painful—as grating and cruel—as her vicious words and her distant eyes.  He was a bitter and cold man, and there was no salvation waiting to embrace him and wash away his taint at the end of this journey through hell.  He was an awful creature, a sinful murderer, a heartless wretch, and he would not care for anyone ever again.  There would be no absolution.  There would be no stability.  There would be no safety.

“I will never love you!”  Her birdsong was riddled with darkness, with dripping fangs and hooked claws. “I could never love a monster.”

There would be no love.

There would be only him and her.  And the broken crags between their fitting pieces, chipped away by her pure cruelty and his pride and despair.

Let her turn away from his face and scoff at his infatuation.  Let her hide in the dark and cry for her lost love.  Let her learn the meaning of agony as he had learned it through centuries of suffering.

For he would turn away from his love.  Away from his hope.

“So be it.”

And he would never look back.  Never look back.  His fate was sealed.

Awareness

Canon compliant AU.  Zeal Arc.  Celebrían takes her first real step into the alien realm of adulthood and disillusionment.  All Sindarin names.  Much longer than I had expected.  This is related to “Stop Time” and “Fade Away” as well as “Zeal”, but, to be honest, I’ve not actually written much of this pairing at all.  So, a first meeting story for all of you!  Takes place in Lothlórien early in the Third Age.

Disclaimer: I don’t own the Silmarillion or the Lord of the Rings

Pairings: pre-Elrond x Celebrían

Characters: Celebrían, Elrond, Celeborn, Galadriel, other random elves (mentions Thranduil)

Warning: canon-compliant, possibly crush-like infatuation, supposed love at first sight, sheltered childhood, mentions of war and death

Song: Levi's Theme (basically piano version of Reluctant Heroes

Words: 2,179

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awareness (noun): watchful, wary; having or showing realization, perception or knowledge

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

For most of her life, Celebrían was oblivious to the world of men.

Celebrían had never bothered to take great notice of men before.  They flitted here and there through her life, both before and after coming to the haven of Lothlórien, mere ghosts in the background of more important matters and more important people.  The world she frequented was one of women and beauty and simplicity, not of war and death and the power struggles of male pride.

Days were spent embroidering or chatting with her lady’s maids in the quiet shade of the mallyrn.  Hours were spent seated at her mother’s side in quiet companionship amongst the womenfolk as they sat down by the river, uncaring of the grass staining their white skirts.  Baths would follow and were conducted with much giggling and gentle splashing in the softly caressing currents upon naked white skin.  There was always a soothing pair of hands to wash her back in the shallows and brush her damp hair each evening before it was braided into an elegant tail for bed.

Dresses.  Dancing.  Music.  All flowers and scents and softness.  It was a world separated from the outside.  A strange sort of obliviousness, she thought of it as, for she knew that beyond their borders much had been happening in the wide open world.  War had ended and the rebuilding of the world had begun.

But here, within these borders, she was detached from that chaos and dirt and horror, somewhere so safe and evergreen, so without a trouble in the world, that the hardships and realities of the lands beyond her home rarely even crossed her mind. 

Men simply fell into this category of realities of which she had no understanding, for they were strange and distant figures in her mind.  They might as well have lived only in distant Gondor or Ered Luin for all that she thought of or cared about their everyday comings and goings.

There was, of course, her father.  Celeborn would kiss her upon the cheek and smile at her crookedly each morning they broke their fast together.  Her uncle Orodreth was also a permanent fixture, but the mild-mannered healer was far from what Celebrían would have considered to be the ideal and stereotypical male specimen.  Really, it was just her and her mother and endless days of blissful ignorance.

Until they had a visitor.

It was exciting—novel—at first thought.  They did not get visitors here, for they were a private people.  The elves of the Woodland Realm did not like to stray so far south—indeed, their king was not overly fond of the Lady of Lothlórien no matter that he had once been friends with its Lord, her husband—and the scattered people of Eregion and Lindon were by no means cast aside but neither were they overtly welcome.

A newcomer was different and refreshing.  Celebrían well remembered gathering herself and her lady’s in waiting, clutching at the lace and softness of her dress as she swept across the grassy clearings with bare feet and climbed into a tree to get her first look at the stranger astride his dark horse draped in equally dark robes.

“My Lady,” one of her girls called softly, “My Lady, please, you should not be this far out of the city without an escort.”

“Hush,” she called back, straining for a better vantage point. “He is nearly around the corner!”

“My Lady…”

They were nervous, and Celebrían understood that to some extent, but who would hurt her within the borders of their fair realm, the mallyrn and the songbirds?  And, anyway, her curiosity so often got the better of her “proper” upbringing and graceful, womanly manners that they out to have been used to her antics by now.  She did not want to wait until dinner to see this interesting anomaly in her life of sheltered comfort.

Indeed, the wait was worth the trouble of snagging her dress thrice on the way up and scraping her palms on rough wood at the crook of two massive limbs.  Poised in place, high over the head of the stranger, she caught her first glimpse of his face.

His beautiful face.

Powerful features, slightly rugged, older than any elf’s face she had ever seen but by no means wrinkled or repulsive.  There was a firm furrow in the brow and a sternly downturned mouth, but they did nothing to decrease the unique glimmer of dark gray eyes or the graceful tilt of the head.  Regal, like a prince, and straight upright, like a warrior.  It was a posture she had seen in her father before, but…

But this man was nothing like her father.  Tall, broader in the shoulders, stronger and sharper in the features.  And with dark, dark hair.  The moonless night shade that allowed the stars of his eyes to be seen in all their magnificence.

The princess, for the first time, felt a blush form upon her cheeks at the sight of a member of the opposite gender.  And he had not even realized how she spied upon him from the boughs overhead.

“My Lady!” The hiss was urgent. “Please, my Lady, we need to prepare you for evening meal.  You have twigs in your hair… Please come down…”

Twigs and leaves in her hair, scratches and a few splinters in her palms, tears at the seams of her dress… What a hooligan—what a child—she would have looked had he seen her in that moment!  Suddenly more embarrassed than she could ever recall—for she had never felt embarrassed about any sort of unkempt appearance before—Celebrían vaulted down from her position upon the young mallorn, hoping that she had not been spotted by those extraordinarily incisive, clever eyes.

Suddenly, the idea of bathing and grooming before dinner had its merits.

Her glanced down at her dirty hands, which normally she would not even have bothered to wash before eating.  And she imagined what he might say if he noticed their stains.

Bathing definitely had its merits.

---

The princess was spotless when she made her appearance at the table for dinner.

Her parents already awaited her arrival, sitting in their usual places with her father at the head of the conservatively short private table, her mother poised upon his right side like a white-hot flame.  But, where usually she would be seated to his left, another person—a dashing and dark-haired person whose mere presence had her heart skipping a frantic rhythm in her chest—was already seated and amiably talking to the Lord of Lothlórien.

It was when her footsteps echoed upon the wooden floor that her father took note of her presence and smiled broadly. “Ah, Celebrían, iell-nín,” he breathed, beckoning with a hand for her to draw near. “Come and meet our esteemed guest.”

Oh Valar… Up close he is even more handsome…

Dreamily did she take note of every line and angle of his features.  The hair that had been modestly braided back earlier was now loose, elegant and complex knots tied into the hair framing his pale face and accenting even more his stunning eyes.  He looked less like a warrior now, and more like a prince or a dignitary with his ramrod straight spine and his perfectly folded hands.  But, more importantly, those eyes were upon her as she came forth, fixed and inquisitive.

Awareness stung her skin, prickling like needles and biting like a chilly wind. 

Her dress was flattering, the neckline just a hair lower than normally would she wear so that the top of her bosom and the swanlike arch of her throat were plainly visible when her hair swayed just so and parted in tantalizing silver waves.  Vaguely did the thought cross her mind that she hoped he appreciated the pearls inlaid upon her necklace that dipped down into the valley between her breasts in provocative silvered lines of pale skin.  As gracefully as she could manage—And why, oh why could she not pull of seamless and effortless harmony of movement like her mother?—she approached the table (upon the left side) and stood before the newcomer’s chair, desperately clenching her hands together to hold at bay the fidgeting.

He was looking at her.  He was looking at her!

“Greetings,” she murmured, wishing her cheeks had not darkened to damask when her voice wavered precariously.  Covering the slip with a faint dipping curtsey and a bowed head (anything to keep from looking directly into those eyes), she introduced herself. “I am Celebrían, daughter of Celeborn.  May the stars shine upon our meeting.”

And, gallantly, he stood beside her as she straightened, towered over her, every line of his body screaming of courtly perfection and a soldier’s straight posture.  Even when he bowed, he seemed to fill up all her vision, effortlessly capturing her attention when his lips air-kissed her knuckles. “I am Elrond of Rivendell,” he replied—and his voice was so smooth, so lovely in its faintly exotic lilt, in its stoic firmness tempered with just the slightest hint of warmth and kindles—as he rose back to his full height. “The stars do, indeed, shine upon our meeting.  How could they not shine upon one so radiant?”

The damask turned to blush.  Celebrían wished she had a fan.

“Sit,” Elrond requested, pulling out the chair at his side for her and waiting for her to delicately place herself upon its cushion before sliding it inward. “I was just discussing how lovely your home is.  I have never seen a place so beautifully preserved and timeless.  So peaceful.”

Peaceful.  Celebrían thought it rather boring, not peaceful or tranquil or even terribly beautiful.  It was simply as she always recalled, effortlessly wondrous.  But to this man, whose irises were darkened with sorrow and whose eyes were cornered by the faintest of crow’s feet, this place must seem like paradise.

A warrior, her mind provided faintly.  He has seen the battlefield.

Scarcely could she imagine what that must be like.  Tales in old history texts always made out everything to be so chivalrous, so amazing and full of bravery and great feats of power.  This man, however—for all his powerful stance and impressive posture—did not seen like those heroes in the old tales.

“Is Rivendell not peaceful, my Lord?” she asked.

Perhaps she had said something wrong, for his mouth tightened faintly. “Orcs still roam free upon the plains and in the forests.  Our valley is protected somewhat, but one can never be too careful so close to Hithaeglir.”

It was mildly chastising, like talking to a child.  The blush deepened to humiliating red as she thought about how she must sound.  Of course nowhere in Eriador or Rhovanion was peaceful!  War had just ended, and this man had been in the thick of its torturous grasp!

Foolishness and ignorance had never seemed so menacing before.  All eyes were upon her, eagerly awaiting a response from her slightly parted, stunned lips.  And Celebrían did not know what to say.

What should I say?  What should I do?

Luckily, her mother drew Elrond back into conversation with frightening ease, saving her the embarrassment of spouting out some equally naïve comment and pressing insult upon injury.  But the damage was already done; she could see in his eyes the sudden dismissal.  He ignored her.

She had never been so aware of her own faults either.  Her own failings.

He thought her a child.

And she, of course, was hopelessly enamored.

Shamelessly did she gaze upon that profile in the twilight gleam of the forest—the straight nose and the full lips and the long eyelashes—with searching, wistful eyes.

He was perfect.  Perfect.

And she had never been more drawn to a man in her life.

It was then that she knew—as she looked into her mother’s pale eyes filled with faint disapproval and glanced at her father’s half-hidden frown of consternation—that she wanted to marry this man.  This perfect, handsome, sweet, kind-hearted man.  Not only marry him, but understand him.  He had effortlessly piqued her fancy and her curiosity and her pride.

Effortlessly captured her in his web and left her skin and her mind and her heart crawling with sparkling heat and a lust to prove her worth in dismissive eyes.

Like her mother before her, Celebrían of Lothlórien knew exactly what she desired.  And nothing—not her parents or her upbringing or even her future husband—would stand in the way of her desires.

Such was the blood of the daughter of Galadriel.  Such was the blood of Ñoldorin fury tempered with Vanyarin charm and Sindarin wildness.

Elrond had captivated her senses.  And she did not think she could escape even had she wished.

But she knew that she wished not to be free.  Only to sink deeper into his wisdom.  Only to gain the fascination of his senses.

Only to earn the regard of his heart.

Decadent

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Cheat Arc.  As the final years of the Third Age begin, the ghost of an old enemy begins to rise from the dead and stretch its influence across the world.  Features my OMC Valthoron.  This is, however, mostly centered on Thranduil.  I blame The Hobbit movies.  They’ve got me thinking in an entirely different time period than I usually would.  Takes place in Mirkwood shortly before the events of The Hobbit.  The first warning signs of the Necromancer appear.

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

Pairings: none

Characters: Valthoron, Thranduil (alludes to others but never explicitly states names)

Warning: non-canon compliant, slash and m!preg implied, OMC POV, mental instability, alcohol abuse, non-graphic death by spider

Song: Main Theme of Final Fantasy VII

Words: 1,304

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decadent (adjective): marked by decay or decline; characterized by or appealing to self-indulgence

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

The forest was growing darker.  And with its darkening, the king’s eyes were haunted.

Oh, Thranduil was very good at hiding his secrets.  The pain and the fear that riddled his thoughts.  The encroaching dread that overshadowed his heart.  The doubt and the despair that wormed their way deep inside his core.  If one dared look, they would not see their lord and leader faltering, but merely colder and more bitter than he had been in the long years of peace.

Valthoron was not fooled for a moment.

Days were becoming shorter even when spring’s warmth was meant to turn green the boughs of their trees, even when summer’s heat came up from the south and tried to coax forth the flowering of buds and the liveliness of the forest creatures gone quiet.  No one could deny that sunlight no longer broke through those canopies overhead, no longer dappled the clearings with radiance and welcome.

Dark and dangerous was the home Valthoron had grown to love through his many long years.  And it hurt him as well.

It hurt to hear the sobbing wails of the trees echoing in his ears as their suffering overcame their ancient resilience.  Their towering bodies became gnarled and twisted, riddled with filth and parasites, rotting into putrid destruction as leaves burned red and fell to the floor to cover the softness of the moss and the grass.  They were dying, more and more every day, as the taint spread northward, crawling into the realm of the Elvenking with slow but inexorable force.  Unstoppable and powerful and evil.

But worse still were the spiders.  Creatures of wickedness and greed, they slaughtered the animals that once frequented the forest and wove their webs above the pathways through the trees older than time.  Long, sickening gangly legs and an array of black, gleaming eyes that followed passerby, stalking them through the dimness of a once radiant land…

So many deaths.  Not only of unwary travelers, but of those unlucky enough to lose themselves in the once-familiar labyrinth of trees.  All it took was a sip of enchanted water or a trip over a jagged rock or the slice of a hand upon broken and splintered bark.  The sickness would infest itself into flesh and down to bone, drag them down and down into the darkness from which none would ever awaken…

It brought waves of nausea forth, remembrance of those bodies found, bloodless and shriveled husks, emptied of their organs, left face down to poison the pools of water that once were pure or to sit upon the forest floor and blacken the soil until naught would there grow.  These bodies, Valthoron would not allow his men to touch for fear of the toxin.  They would be burned into charred ashes, and the acrid smoke would choke his lungs as it swirled up and up through the tangled of webs and trees into the sky beyond.

It was horrible.  But he could not imagine how horrible it must be for his father.

For Thranduil, who wallowed in his responsibility for his people, his duty to keep them safe in these times of encroaching evil.  For his father, who now sat upon that throne and brooded with distant eyes in the chilly silence of winter’s first kiss killing off the last leaves of autumn’s reign.  For the Elvenking, who was frightened at the age-old threat of shadow falling down over their eyes to blind them and lead them away to their doom should he falter for but a moment…

Truly, the oldest prince understood the failings of his beloved king, his father.  He understood why Thranduil’s mind darkened in the long, decadent days.  Days spent cutting their people off from the world outside to keep them safe as prisoners.  Days spent lounging upon that throne and thinking and thinking until the dark cloud strangled any bright rays of joy from that mind.  Days and days and days spent trying to ignore the signs and the warnings in vain hope that they were false.

The alcohol was a ruse.  Wine flowed into his father’s cup thrice and tenfold faster than did water.  It took more liquor to make Thranduil tipsy and woozy and smiley than it did to make Valthoron pass out in drunkenness.  A vice to try and drown away the troubles that burdened the king.

But it did not serve its purpose.  No matter how many parties were thrown in delight for the stars—the stars they could no longer see, for the forest blocked their sight from the wanderer’s eyes like a net woven of the finest, blackest of spider’s silk—and no matter how much revelry was indulged—such frivolity, an attempt to make light of the falling glory of their home as it crumbled at the foundations—there was nothing that could hide the truth.  Not for long.

The drinking turned in a more dangerous and obsessive direction.

It was in those days which followed that Valthoron beheld the fey gleam of madness beneath stillness and turquoise calm.  Fingers would clench upon the thick armrests of that throne, going white and then red beneath the weight of stress and the adornment of rich, useless jewels.  For hours and hours—hours that drew into long days and wary nights—those eyes would stare and stare as if all the answers to all the great mysteries of the world rested upon his fingers.

Thranduil would gaze upon them, drawn to white and adamant the most.  No starlight could they find in the skies, and so he sought salvation elsewhere.

Never had Valthoron seen an obsession like this.  But he heard of it—knew of it—and dreaded it with all his heart.  For it was such greed—such all-consuming lust and fiery need and pitiful longing—that had brought his wretched life into this world through pain and blood.

He could have sworn he saw the light of the Silmarilli reflected in those eyes.

“White gems” his father desired, sighed blissfully in the imagining of holding them in his palms, of their star shine overflowing through his fingers like crystalline water. “White gems of starlight threaded upon the silver of the moon’s frail whispers.  Something to bring light…”

To bring light…

It hung in the air, untouched and unfinished.  To bring light…

To bring light when their hope was as decadent as their forest and their king and their people.  It was an empty hope, a useless and childish hope, but when one could grasp at nothing but that final flimsy thread dangling before their desperate, maddened gaze…

In the end, Valthoron could not blame his father for this descent.  He could not blame Thranduil for feeling useless in the face of such a burden of command and defense.  Nor could he blame his father for growing desperate as that nightmare closed in around them, broke through the walls of the fortress of the mind and ate away at the strength underlying.

Thranduil was lonely.  He was so, so alone.  Without a mate.  Without a confident.  Without support.  Without a single drop of understanding in the universe.

And he was unraveling, the threads once forming his seams tangled around Valthoron’s fingers, falling and falling through into the depths of flame and death.  Those eyes, so bright, were darkening.  That compassion, so strong, was slipping into apathy and coldness.

There was no kindness.  There was no compromise.  There was nothing but desperation and eyes drawn to the south.

Nothing but empty prayers.

Nothing that Valthoron could do to help.  To ease this burden.  To bring back even a glimmer of that light.

Nothing but watch.  Nothing but wait.

Nothing but stand still and watch everything fall to pieces.