Choose

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Complex is the torn heart of a woman in love with a man who is not of her people.  Entirely OFC-centric, so if that bothers thee, thou canst depart immediately.  If not, stick around.  Based of "Soulful", which was written ages ago (okay, only a month short of a year ago) and is related to "Alcohol", "Treat", "Stormy" and some other Fingon-centric works.  This is, at its most basic, an exploration of the differences between different elven cultures.  Because all elves are not the same, Thorin Oakenshield!  Do your damn research!  Anyway, takes place in the forests to the west of Ered Luin in the First Age.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Silmarillion, but I do own Sáriel.

Pairings: Fingon x Sáriel

Characters: Sáriel, Sáriel's mother (unnamed) (mentions Fingon (of course), Sáriel's father (also unnamed), Fingolfin, Turgon, Aredhel and the rest of Fingon's Noldorin cousins)

Warning: technically possibly canon-compliant, OFC-centric (as mentioned above), mentions of differences in religion and culture, prejudice and xenophobia, probable alcohol abuse and implied premarital sex, fluffier than it sounds, I swear!

Song: 1000 Words

Words: 2,447

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choose (verb): to select freely and after consideration; to decide on especially by vote; to have a preference for; decide

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

Some choices were not so easy to make.

If she had known how harsh this choice would become, would her choices before have been different these past few months?  Often enough in these last few days had Sáriel wondered this to herself as she gazed upon the trees and walked amongst her people.  And often had she found herself unable to regret the decisions that had led her to this place, this divide in her existence.

Her entire life had she lived here, leaping among the trees and the darkness broken only with the stars and their cold light speckled across the heavens.  Long ago, she remembered being a child in a world without the strange golden glory of Anor and the ghostly cast of silvery Isil.  Days when her people danced upon midsummer's eve in bliss and held festivals in the harvest months before winter's ravages and then celebrated again when the snows melted and the flowers bloomed and all things returned to greenness and liveliness.

She remembered a time when overhead there were only the twinkling lights to guide weary travelers and her mother told her stories of their wonder, of walking up into the sky and touching their pearly, distant light.  So long ago, that was, in a world that did not have danger and heartbreak and shadow.

Different was the world now.  But still, Sáriel was home here.  The canopies overhead were her roof and the mossy ground her floor and the maze of ancient, whispering frees were friends and her protectors.  And her people, in their simplicity and their beauty, needed not lavish costumes of fancy fabrics and the decoration of glittering, jeweled creations of cold metal in order to be the loveliest sight she had ever seen.

At least, until him.

But he was not of her people.

Not often did they meet, for he had duties far away and could not often escape to see her, his lover.  His father was a king, and he was a prince, though he did not look or act it.  Unlike the fey-eyed elves that looked down upon her kin as though they were more animal than person, he held no scorn when he watched her laugh at the brush of leaves upon her cheek or sing the songs of the birds flitting between the trees.  No sternness lined his flushed lips or narrowed his exotic eyes when she wore trousers like a man and hunted with him in vast and unsettled lands instead of spending her days weaving and gathering the vegetables and fruits tended by the Green Lady’s graces.

He was of them—the elves that her father warned her to avoid, that made her mother shiver in fear and recall the darkness to the North—but he did not seem like them.  He was not haughty like them or greedy like them or prideful like them.

So much was he like her and her people, easy to bring to laughter at the simplest of things, enjoying a good time rosy-cheeked from hand-brewed wine, following her on her adventures with an open mind and a huge, throbbing heart into the highlands where beds were crafted of sharp stone and only company kept warm the skin.  There was little, Sáriel found, that she did not like about her beau.  Even his strangely sharp features and his frighteningly bright eyes echoing with divine light.

But he was not like her.  Not one of her people.  And that, Sáriel could not deny.

So far, she had kept him secret from her parents and her companions, sneaking off to meet him before dawn came upon the earth, sometimes not returning home for days on end.  Hunting and enjoying the wind in the mountains, she claimed, though she was certain they did not entirely believe her words, knew they suspected and were awaiting her announcement of courtship.

“You glow like one in love,” her mother had told her when she returned from her last rendezvous with him. “Must you hide your lover from us, my daughter?”

“I hide no one and nothing.”

But that secret smile had not budged from her mother’s face. “Do you truly think I would not recognize the visage of my daughter stricken with love?”

Until then, she had not realized how far her liaison had gone.  She had not realized she was in love with him, her handsome stranger from far away.

It brought new thoughts to her mind.  Thoughts that marred her simple joy.

For his people were anything but simple.

Sometimes he spoke of them to her, of their war and their violence and their unhappiness.  Of their fighting and their feuding and the breaking of families through betrayal.  Of his cousins with their poisonous eyes and of his father who was tired and of his brother who was bitter.  Of the problems, the days spent worrying over his sister’s safety and his people’s prosperity and the battles they fought for days and days and days with no end in sight for naught but a few glowing rocks.

It was nothing like this life she led here.  Nothing like the endless days of hunting and returning home to smiles.  Sáriel had never experienced problems more complicated than gathering enough food for the long months of winter.

And, whether or not he seemed to be, he was a prince.  The prince.

And she was a wild elf of the forest.

And she loved him.  Dare she think he, perhaps, loved her back?

But even if he did love her back, Sáriel felt her heart grow heavy and sink down deep into her belly, for she knew that he would never stay here with her—could never stay here with her—and live a life without strife beneath the trees and the stars.  She stared out into the vast depths of the forest, at the familiar bends and curves and the twist of bark she knew as she knew the back of her own hand.  This place was her home, but it was not his.

“Why do you stand outside, iell-nín, in the chill?”

Her mother had come to find her, and Sáriel wondered if her agony showed upon her face as though it were written for all to see.  Wondered if the tear in her heart bled as red as did a tear in her flesh, seeping out to stain everything with its pain.

“I think I am in love,” she whispered.

Settling carefully down a basket of clothes river-bound, her mother stepped up beside her upon the porch.  Eyes so pale and clear, so blue and knowing, watched her carefully from behind the loose waves of silvered white hair. “Is that not blessed news?”

Should she tell all?  Or should she stay silent?

“I do not believe you and father will approve of him.”  Which was the truth.  Because until she had seduced him on a whim and watched him run after her upon winged feet with an enamored grin, she would have scoffed at the idea of a woman of her village being insane and reckless enough to fall in love with one of them, just as would the rest of her people if they knew of her crazy love.  Once, the elves from over the sea had struck terror into her heart and fury into her mind with their oddities and dark light, and she had glared upon them and their strange customs and their avaricious tendencies just as had her parents and her friends.

But he was not like that.  Not at all.

“And why do you believe that, iell-nín?” Suspicion therein lingered, narrowing and darkening the blue from its pure pitch to something deeper and sharper. “Is he not from our village.  Is that why you hide him from us?”

“Yes…”

But more so than that.  He was not even of the forest.  Not even of those who had stayed behind.

He was a man from over the sea.  And his eyes echoed with sunlight and sorrow.

“Yes, he is.  But, nana, I love him.”

And she wanted to be with him forever.  She wanted to wake up to his smile and the shimmer of gold in his dark blanket of hair.  She wanted to walk at his side and hold his hand and kiss his cheek without fear of discovery.  She wanted to lay with him in the twilight and make love and pray for a child into his damp skin as they drifted together into dreams.

Sáriel wanted him.  Desired him and needed him.  Didn’t think she could live without him.

She loved him. 

But she loved her family.  She loved her people.  She loved her home.

And he was a prince.  Often did he come to her beneath the boughs of her familiar trees and murmur words of love and devotion into her ears, but never did he stay.

“I cannot,” he always told her, sounding sick at heart when they prepared to part ways, eyes already wistful with longing. “Had I the choice, I would throw away the kingdom and the jewels and the frippery of court.  But I am the prince.  My father needs me.  My people need me.  And it is a duty I cannot abandon.”

So torn were his goodbyes.  But always did it strike her…

“Had I the choice…”

If he could disappear, give up the life he had always known, would he truly choose to stay here with her and live the simple ways of the forest people?  Would he give up the warm beds he told her of so fondly and the rich dining and wines he enjoyed and the indoor dancing and frivolity indulged until the sun rose?  Would he throw away even the love of his father and his sister and brother, leave them stricken with sorrow at his loss, to stay here with her forever?

Would he have given up everything and been happy with only her when he was leaving behind his home?

Would she be willing to do the same?

“Will you go to him, my daughter?”

Softly did her mother speak, and Sáriel found her breath caught in her throat.  For she had not expected the woman who had birthed her to know her mind so well, to see her conflict with such ease or understand the reason she fell into black depression and stifled the urge to weep at the stars and pray to Elbereth for guidance.  And yet, those blue eyes knew all when she turned to stare into their depths with her lips parted in shock and startled eyes opened wide.

“I do not want to choose, nana.”

Tears pricked and leaked over the edges of her pale eyelashes, glistening their way down her cheeks with only the starlight to mark their passing.

Because there were two directions, two paths.  One that led away into his embrace, into a world that she could scarcely imagine and one that was utterly foreign, filled with shadow and hatred and all the taint that had his people brought over the sea.  But also with promises of joy and hope, of so much love that her heart near overflowed with its golden champagne.   In that vision, she always saw a child in his arms and the most un-kingly smile upon his face as he tucked her body against his side.

The other led only deeper between the trees and up into the starlight, but when Sáriel looked too long she saw no end, and the path twisted into the dread of loneliness and the regret that burned like acid in the veins.  Free of burden that way might have been, treading forever among her people, dancing wildly beneath the stars in absolution and singing praise to Elbereth and Aran Einior in the night, but in the end she would be alone.  In that end, there would be no more kisses and held hands.  No more laughter in his deep, rolling voice or smiles upon his fair face.  No more lovemaking beneath the trees and whispering in the dark.

No children.  No family.

For she did not think she would ever love another as she loved him, her stranger from far away.  Her prince.

And she knew she had to choose.

“I know, iell-nín, that your heart is torn,” her mother whispered, wrapping slender arms about her shaking frame. “But it is all the more important that you choose well.  That you make sure you seek happiness.  For I would not have you wither in grief at its loss.”

And she knew she would not be happy without his love.  Without his smiles greeting her in the morning and his embrace rocking her to sleep when evening fell.

She hugged back and felt some lightness mix together with the heaviness aching through her chest. “Is that a blessing, naneth?”

Fingers tightened in her hair and a kiss met her brow.  No more words were imparted.  None were needed.

And she understood that her mother knew the truth of her heart as well as did its owner.  Sáriel marveled and wept all the same at that revelation, her face buried in that familiar, cloying scent of snow-fallen hair.  Quiet would her mother keep in the following days as the daughter packed away her scarce belongings and let anticipation overcome her fragile heart.  Speak not of the departure would her confident and protector, until the day she fled into the forest and never returned.

Never had Sáriel made such a choice before.  And either path would be filled with some sickness and some heartbreak.

But now, at least, she could hug back in warmth and acceptance, basking in silent reassurance.  And she could look toward her future with a smile upon her lips despite the rising darkness in the North and the strife of those strange peoples from far away.  Among them, she would not be in this place that she had always called home, but…

He would be her new home, if indeed he would have her.  And Sáriel thought she could bear that weight, if only so that she could be by his side.  If only his warmth would envelope her and soothe the ache in her heart.

It was a sacrifice, and a heavy one at that.  But she knew that she would not regret the pursuit of happiness.

When next she left her small village, she smiled at her father and kissed her mother’s cheek.  Squeezed their hands tight and promised to return home safely.

But she never came back.