Mellow
Soulmate AU. We’re going to call this
the Rhythm Arc. Anyway. Írimë does not know as much about her oldest sibling
as she would like to believe. Or about
her sister-in-law. This is closely related
to “Test”, “Whitewash” and “Mistakes”, basically serving as a prelude to the
last but happens after both of the others.
This is a character origin story, but also a look into misogynism and
feminism in Tolkien’s works based entirely off my interpretation of elven
society as being antiquated and patriarchal.
Feel free to be more idealistic.
Takes place in Tirion during the Years of the Trees.
Disclaimer:
I don’t own the Silmarillion. Or either
of Írimë’s children. Btw: Írimë = Lalwen
Pairings:
OMC x Lalwen, Fëanor x Nerdanel
Characters:
Lalwen, Fëanor, Ecthelion (mentions Aranwë, Finwë, Indis, Findis, Fingolfin,
Finarfin, Maedhros, Nerdanel and other grandchildren of Finwë)
Warning:
technically canon-compliant AU, misogynist tendencies, feminist undertones,
unplanned pregnancy, premarital sex, royalty, scandal and political
maneuvering, cover-ups, legitimacy issues, Fëanor being strange
Song: Forbidden Love (in no way a reference to a pairing)
Words:
2,106
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
trouble (noun):
the quality or state of being troubled especially mentally; public unrest or
disturbance; a state or condition of distress, annoyance or difficulty; a cause
of distress, annoyance or inconvenience
Trouble.
That was
the word they whispered behind her back.
The word that meant ruin. The
word that meant scandal.
The word
that meant her life was unraveling at the seams.
Lalwen
was no foolish young maiden. She knew
that those who chose to observe could see it as plainly as they could see the
sky and the grass and the mountains and the rivers. Even the loosest of her gowns covered with
the most voluminous of robes could not hide the roundness now growing at her
center. And even were the physical
indicators not enough, her trips to the bathroom each morning like clockwork
would spread word amongst the servants, whose gossip would be like flame unto
dry wood.
Everyone
would know. Everyone must know.
Whispers
began to flow like good wine tainted with poison and sweet music with a single
discordant voice. Everywhere she turned,
she sensed the eyes watching and waiting for her to make a mistake. For her to reveal her shame.
Her
trouble.
For it
was trouble. Lalwen wondered if she had
been too brave—too foolhardy and careless—with her liaison. She had not tried to conceive a child either of love or vindictive bitterness,
but neither had she gone out of her way to avoid
conception. Recklessly, she had thrown
aside all thoughts in the heat of the moment and allowed herself the freedom
she so often had craved since the long days of whitewashed lies had begun to
eat away at the murals of her mind.
It had
been a statement then. Disobedience. A way to spit in her parents’ faces for their
callous treatment of their illegitimate grandchild. A way to make them sorry without ever needing
to breathe a word of the untruths that had destroyed her heart and wild spirit.
My spirit is not tamed! That was what her actions had screamed. Think
you truly that you can control me? That
you can hold me hostage and bend me to your will? That you may decide the fate of my son and I
will stand back and watch demurely as you deny him his birthright?
But this
was farther than she had intended to go.
And it
was only a matter of time.
A matter
of time before her father demanded the truth.
Before he disowned her and stripped her of her status and left her
helpless. Before the rumors would become
facts and the facts would become concrete and the true ostracism would begin.
Part of
her wondered what would happen to her now—to her and her young son and her
unborn baby. Her reputation was
transferred automatically upon the shoulders of her children. Would they be shunned, thrown out of the
palace and left to wander the city like beggars until Lalwen found a patron who
would take a loose woman into his or her employ? Would they starve, because she could sell her
jewelry and her expensive clothing and even her skills should it be necessary,
but eventually even those vices would run dry?
It was
not often that she agreed with anything the wily bastards and prissy peahens of
court hissed behind fluttering fans and beyond closed doors. But this… this…
This was
trouble. Real trouble.
And she
knew her father saw by the strained look that glazed gray eyes normally so soft
and tender. She knew her mother saw by
the tremble of the lower lip and the shattered blue eyes. She knew even that her siblings saw, for
Findis turned up her nose and Nolofinwë averted his eyes and Arafinwë pretended
at oblivion.
Even
Fëanáro must have known. Must have seen.
Yes, it
was only a matter of time. And she did
not know what she would do when that time came.
For now,
she could only hide in the darkened corners of the palace and soothingly stroke
the swell of unborn child, hoping that her turmoil was not reflected upon his
young and innocent spirit where it rested in her womb. More than anything, she would have liked to
give this baby the life she could not give Aranwë, the life that she could not
even give herself, without all of this political scandal and the weight of a
thousand eyes bearing down upon their backs.
“Why can
life not be simple, I wonder,” she whispered. “My sweet baby, what I would not
give…”
“So it is
true, then.”
Barely
did she restrain her gasp, catching it heavily upon the rise of her tongue and
against the wall of her closed lips.
Slowly did she let her gaze rise from the place where her hands rested
upon her child, up and up and up toward another figure half-hidden in the
shadows. Another figure with eyes that
could have lit their own skies for their intense resplendence.
He was
the last person she would have expected to see.
“Your
Highness,” she whispered with a bowed head, neither acknowledging or dismissing
his claim. “What can I do for you?”
“Tell me
the truth,” he said. His voice, at
least, was not harsh or sharp. It was
frightfully soothing, raw silk and velvet, and immediately Lalwen was put on
edge. Never was Fëanáro charming for no
reason. There must be something…
She
licked her suddenly dry lips. “You already know the answer,” she replied as
calmly as she could manage. Her voice
still quivered. “Why would you want to
hear it again?”
“Because
I do not want to hear it from the lips of my backstabbing courtiers.” Too close did he draw, near enough to
touch. Near enough that she could feel
his heat through the layers of her clothes.
Near enough that she could see how his normally razor-edged smile was
rather dull and drawn. The tilt of his
head was wrong, and the stance of his body was different—where were the
challenging thrust of broad shoulders and the condescending angle of that
glorious face?
It was
wrong. Strange.
What do you want, I wonder…
“I am
with child.” The admittance was harder to grind out than she had expected. And it left her feeling naked and vulnerable
before a predator, a man she knew could pick her apart with villainous delight
and would feel no remorse in the ravaging. “But you already knew.”
“Of
course I knew.” And, for once, he did
not sound arrogantly pleased with himself. “My wife has been with child enough
times that I recognize the signs. I may
be a man, but I am no dullard.”
Of
course, with four children now and a fifth on the way, Fëanáro would see the signs with clarity. Lalwen would not have been surprised if he
had known before she had known.
But why,
then, would he say nothing?
Normally,
he took great pleasure in bringing low those who laid bare their secrets. Never one for compassion, he tore them apart
like a vulture gorging its hunger upon a corpse, eagerly consuming them until
nothing was left but bones and he—the predator—was purring in contended
sadism. It was, she had learned young,
simply the way of the strange and paradoxical Crown Prince, who could be so
gentle and loving one moment and, without so much as batting an eyelash in
shame, be so terrifying and heartless the next.
“You
know,” he began, “You are not the only woman to have ever faced such a
situation.”
“Do I
know?” she asked, raising a brow to hide her anxiety and growing fear. Women at court who became with child out of
wedlock were taken away to the country, hidden beneath the shadows of their
many relatives. Later, they might appear
again, childless and with nothing to show for their extended stay upon the
green expanses of Valinor but for a smile more wane and many conversations more
dull.
Of
course, it was rarely proven or acknowledged. She could, if the father consented, always
marry to keep the child in wedlock.
Then, they need only a few extra months to…
To… cover
it up…
She understood.
“Nerdanel.” Somehow, it did not surprise her as much as
it should have. “Little Nelyafinwë?”
Well
could she see that image in her mind, of a young Nerdanel seduced with ease by
Fëanáro’s persistence and unwittingly charming vehemence. They—as she and her lovers had—would have
lost themselves in the fire and the passion and the tangle of limbs slick with
sweat. In the aftermath, they would have
cuddled and whispered soft words in the dark, basking in the warmth of another
body and mind and soul so close to their own, as at one and whole.
And then
morning would come and bring all its troubles to bear.
“Do not
misinterpret,” the Crown Prince said quickly, frown lining the sides of his
mouth and furrowing his brows. “I love my wife, and I had intended to marry her
from the beginning, else I would not have courted her as I did. But we were foolish. I had not even asked her father for her hand
when the first signs appeared.”
And
Lalwen knew the rest. A swift engagement
and marriage—at Fëanáro’s insistence—and a grand ceremony in which the groom
and bride glowed equally bright and radiated happiness even through the damper
of somber state proceedings. Then
Fëanáro had scooped up his giggling new wife had retreated to Formenos—to the
country—and proclaimed that he wanted a year of respite from the hardships of
prince-hood so that he might enjoy his time spent with their future queen.
It had
seemed innocent, innocuous, and was meant to appear as such. Well played.
Well played indeed.
“Are you
good at slipping through the knots of trouble, your Highness?”
His smile
was back. Incisive and conceited as
ever. “Very.”
“Ah.”
What more
could she say to that? Was he here to
gloat?
“However,
I am not nearly as cold-hearted as you think me, dear sister.” He spoke as though he could read her
mind. The Crown Prince stepped even
closer, and Lalwen was swallowed up in the swirl of silver-white eyes circled
by dark lashes, almost hypnotizing. “I have a little… present, shall we say… as
a gift of congratulations of my newest niece or nephew, of course.”
His hand
upon her own was like being touched by open flame. Shocked, she was, that it did not char her
flesh down to the bone from just a mere moment’s brush! But, somehow, the searing pain of heat did
not come, and she felt his fingers curl around her own, pressing her fist
tightly shut. Icy cold metal—ornate
edges and loops—dug into her palm beneath the pressure of his iron grip.
“What is
this sup—?”
“Hush.” A
finger stopped further words from departing her lips. “As I said, a gift. I have more houses than I could ever
need. What harm will one less do? It is just a little cottage in the rolling hills,
neglected and left to gather dust, but I thought I ought to provide a proper
gift for my darling younger sister and her children who carry the blood of my
father in their veins.”
“Children…?”
Children,
not child. Plural.
“Both of
them,” he replied matter-of-factly, his hand dropping away from her own. “After all, with all this trouble you have
caused this household and upheaval you have created within this family, no one
else will bother.”
Cold were
the words and vicious was the smile that played their counterpoint, but as
Lalwen watched her half-brother walk away as though nothing had happened, she
had to wonder…
The key
rested there in her hand when her fingers blossomed open to reveal its
glory. And a glorious rose it proved to
be. Heavy and brass, it weighed down her
arm and yet seemed to make her shoulders feel so much lighter.
Her
father could frown. Her mother could
cry. Her sister could scoff. And her brothers could look the other way.
But at
least someone saw. At least someone cared.
Or,
perhaps, Fëanáro only understood.
Maybe more
than she suspected. Yet, somehow, that
was a comfort.
Silently,
she pressed the key to her bosom with her left hand and stroked her unborn
child again with her right. Perhaps the
life she desired for her son or daughter was not yet beyond her grasp.
Perhaps
that little glimmer of hope was not yet lost.
No comments:
Post a Comment