Breathing

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

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

Pairings: Maglor x Vardamírë

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

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

Song: The Call

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

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

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

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

He waited.  And he held his breath.

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

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

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

Her.

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

She was exactly as he remembered.

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

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

"Mírë?"

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

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

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

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

"I missed you," she whispered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Makalaurë, look at me."

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

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

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

He was looking at her, and she was real.

"I missed you, too."

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

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

The waiting and wandering was done.  Finally.

They were breathing.

Breathing.