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
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.
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