Of Elbereth's Bounty

Title: Of Elbereth’s Bounty – Part 10
(third in my unofficial series, after In Earendil’s Light and Under the Elen)
Author: Gloromeien
Email: swishbucklers@hotmail.com
Pairing: OMC/OMC, Legolas/Elrohir, references to Glorfindel/Elladan
Summary: A family is broken.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.
Author’s Note: It helps to no end to have read both In Earendil’s Light and Under the Elen before this, as otherwise you might not recognize any of the characters. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for keeping to the path thus far!!
Feedback: Would be delightful.
Dedication: To the moderators of Library of Moria, Melethryn, Adult Fan Fiction.Net, and other sites of their ilk for all their wonderful, tireless work and for keeping us up to our ears in fic.

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Of Elbereth’s Bounty

Part Ten

To the unmindful eye, his garden was yet wintering. Barren as an upturned field after harvest, the sand-textured soil had readily absorbed the last of the moist leaf mulch and was now parched coarse as the badlands to the southwest. The premier buds and saplings had yet to nose out of the dry earth in search of the sallow sun, before the rain season giddily doused their beds, announcing the full blush of spring at last.

In a month’s time, his garden would be lush again; yet his father-heart as fallow as the Dead Marshes.

Nested amidst a throng of fur pelts, wool blankets, and downy quilts, Elrohir ignored the colossus of teapots his somewhat overanxious husband had brewed for him and instead drunk his full of the crisp, cleansing air. Feeling slightly henpecked on this swarthy, overcast afternoon, the elf-knight had demanded he be set up out of doors and shooed his grudgingly grateful mate out to the archery fields. Though his lusting fever appeared to be quelled, the purging sickness had persisted for several tumultuous days. The evenings brought brief respite from surly mornings and spacey days. A monotonously masticated dinner of plain, tasteless foods would be wishfully prepared for him, then consumed with commendable enthusiasm. Elrohir would fight the resulting nausea as a legion of snarling orcs, but would again find himself heaving into their tub, by midnight. Night last, however, he’d kept down his gruel through a Gil-Galadian effort of willfulness, thus was now begrudgingly recompensed with a stay outside, but not before Legolas had readied both his basket seat and a waytable full of amenities.

Such was but a small luxury of their everlasting bond, the thoughtfulness of Legolas the fair.

Neither he nor his tirelessly patient husband had set foot beyond the walls of their residence for nigh on a week, their doting family frequenting their abode as if permanent inhabitants. Celebrian had temporarily exiled their cook until her son was bettered, naught but a mother’s touch, in her esteem, would tempt her son’s bilious innards towards compliance. Elrond and Erestor camped in the study, furiously leafing through the most ancient tomes for alternative remedies to such a rare malady among elfkind. Glorfindel, with Cuthalion as his second, had taken full charge of preparations for the Laurelin survivors, while Elladan unofficially headed the Council. They visited evenings to allow Legolas time for vital rest, to distract Elrohir from his churning entrails with wicked-tongued merriments and with salacious gossip from the outer realms. Any discussion of the root cause of Elrohir’s distress was banished from the house as summarily as their flustered cook, though his father would grow fidgety with the repressed need to advise him if too long at his bedside. Elrohir himself had been so weak, he’d barely registered the quiescent state of alarm hovering around him, until he’d shuffled out of bed that morn and been greeted by a quorum of purple-rimmed eyes, poised to serve him.

To their collected dismay, he’d chuckled fondly, thanked them generously, and begged them return to their homes to rest *themselves*. He’d nibbled on a modest fast-breaking with Legolas, who had nearly crawled onto the table and fallen to slumbering. Instead, they had both tucked into their cozy chaise-longue. His golden husband had slept like a babe in his arms, until the spectral sun was at its highest arc. Afternoon had brought renewed vigor to them both – or in his case, a less weighty lethargy. His mind, however, was keen again, so he chose to steal away the time in soul-scanning reflection. The days since his watershed argument with Tathren had been a dull-witted fugue. Elrohir knew he must conclusively settle himself, before facing either sorrowed mate, well-meaning father, or corroded son. That Tathren had been excluded these last days of strife for their family would feel to the young elf as too-vicious punishment; despite his own unabated hurt, Elrohir was both conscious of this and eager to reconcile them. If such measures were temporary and forced, then so be it; he would not have his son depart for five years away believing himself unloved by his caregivers.

A wave of fatigue lured him deeper into the blanket folds, his energies too easily drained by conjecture and recollection. He grappled for the tea, but found the pot too heavy to lift. A childish frustration beset him: too long has he been waylaid by the indignities of this illness! He has traded hard-repressed lustiness for a humiliating languor, one entirely unbecoming an elf of his abilities – how shamelessly he had bemoaned his past afflictions, not knowing what embarrassments could replace them! With a whine of frustration, he gave up the remedial tea and burrowed further into his covers, regretting the surety with which he earlier dismissed his Legolas. What he would not give, in the present, pressing moment, for the sight of his teasing grin, for a wry laugh from his velvet throat and a lilting tune to bask in…

He had wanted, these last nights, for the strength to love with his mate, to be replenished by Legolas’ most tender touch and enveloped in the tight of his embrace. Only there could his fractured heart be truly mended, only there would he discover the way to ease his troubled son. Yet at the moment, his acid-bloated stomach wanted the tea most, while his cranky body wanted sleep’s balming oblivion.

He noted twin shadows stretch across the garden path, as two elves as twilight-fair as he crept onto the terrace. One look from his placid-eyed brother told him Elladan had instantly recognized his plight, his actions bearing out this supposition, when he poured him a generous mug of tea and eased the clay cylinder into his feeble grasp. The elder twin tested his brow for fever; satisfied by the coolness of his skin, he pulled up a seat and gestured to his companion to do the same. Only belatedly did the elf-knight note this second was Echoriath, who proffered a plate of his favorite lemon and poppy-seed biscuits.

If only his own transgressions against the bashful elf could be so easily forgiven.

“Well met, gwanur,” Elrohir rasped, then drank amply from his mug to assuage his still-raw throat. “And you as well, young one.”

“We encountered Legolas,” Elladan explained, as greeting. “Though I am glad for his chance to take leisure, I wondered at your readiness to pass a lonely afternoon, so I came hence.”

“I am glad of it,” Elrohir smirked at him. “I was too bold in dismissing him.”

His argent eyes turned on his sober nephew, who surprisingly betrayed no hint of timidity. Indeed, if aught the yet humble elf appeared entirely possessed of himself, gracious, patient, but resolved. He had not come so randomly calling, nor in suit with his father’s chores. He was all too evidently determined to champion a perhaps familiar cause. Elrohir was so impressed by this newborn maturity, this poised stateliness, that he could naught but bear him out.

“Your air seems much improved, Ada-Hir,” Echoriath judged kindly. “Please forgive my intrusion on your rest, I seek not to further your troubles.”

“You are no trouble, Echoriath,” he assured him. “Indeed, I am glad to speak with you. There are some matters on which I wish to appraise myself. Firstly, and most dear: how fares Tathren?”

Though taken aback by this outright request, the builder was little ruffled. Indeed, the smile that overswept his visage at mention of his beloved would put the sun itself to shame for hot, resplendent affection. This one’s love, at the least, proved devastatingly true.

“He wavers between anger and a pale indifference, to mask his sorrow,” Echoriath bluntly replied. “He feels abandoned, but knows too well how his decisions… how *our* decisions… have blackened his name in this house.”

“His name is not black,” Elrohir insisted. “Merely grayed some. I myself wish to wash such cloying tarnish away soonest, through reconciliation. I regret that my illness too forcibly beleaguered me when last we spoke. I had hoped he would persist in his efforts to aid us… but I fear my words were too bruising to him. Yet I cannot claim my heartbreak to be any less… visceral.” His stomach lurched, as if in recognition of this prolonged pain; he momentarily lowered his eyes to conceal its effect upon his pallid countenance.

Echoriath nodded sagely, then essayed: “I have not come to plead for him, Ada-Hir, as he is well capable of requesting such an audience with you. I came merely to… to assure you that his heart is well and truly kept, that I have not been weirded into abeyance by my introduction to the sultry arts, that I go forth into adventure by virtue of a longing in ample evidence before Tathren made any of his love returned. Though we are solidly promised, I have no intention of officiating our betrothal for many a year. I know my limitations, as well as… as the longstanding record of my regard for my cousin. I cannot claim that had no bearing on our initial dalliance… but I have known the force and ardor of his love. It is pure and bountiful as Elbereth’s light. It is… everything.”

By the end of his proclamation, both fathers were rapt, yet pensively so. Elladan veritably glowed with pride; Elrohir himself evidenced a wisp of a smile.

“My son is fortunate to be bequeathed such a heart as yorn, young one,” Elrohir answered him. “As I am grateful for your favor, on this delicate afternoon. And indeed, you have impressed the heat and honor of your love for him upon me, your readiness for such a fraught journey as you proposed to undertake.” He paused, then, his silver eyes tinged with blue melancholy. “Yet the fact of your love, while heartening to me, does not excuse the deception that has been spun around us, nor Tathren’s disavowal to assist his incipient leave-taking, nor… nor the equally vital fact that the trust between fathers and son has been completely severed. These cares are incidental to our present conversation, and cannot be remedied by such a timely visit as yours.”

“He fears you have forsaken him,” Echoriath insisted. “That he is not welcome in his home.”

“His home, I believe, is with you,” Elrohir smirked stealthily. “As for his childhood house, that is in Arda, far away. Yet in the berth of his fathers, he is always welcome. They sought only to let anger and sickness abate, in days past, so as to properly and fairly counsel him. Their love of him will never fade, no matter how their tempers rage or their innards revolt.” Betraying a smile of his own and seemingly satisfied, the young elf vividly bristled with the need to run home, to relieve his beloved’s own, personal agony. “You are grown brave, Echoriath, to face me so. This bodes well for the coming journey. I wish you every happiness, dear one, and fulfillment besides. Know that, when the time comes, you yourself will be wholeheartedly welcomed into the intimate ranks of our small family.”

With a sprightly gasp, Echoriath sprung up to bow to the elf-knight. “I am honored by your favor, Ada-Hir.”

“Now go,” his elder instructed, with a touch of mirth. “And please take Tathren the lovely biscuits. Though I am grateful for your pains, I cannot yet stomach them, and they are, if I recall, of his preference as well as my own.”

“Indeed, they are,” Echoriath seconded, before bounding out so enthusiastically the twins shared an affectionate laugh.

“He is a wonder,” Elladan shook his bemused head. “In truth, I fear I may be beset by a similar illness, when he departs. I know not how I will bear the years without him.”

“He has ever been your treasure,” Elrohir solemnly agreed. “Forgive me, gwanur, if in my throes I slighted your genial son. I was…”

“Fear not, my gentle one,” Elladan assured him. “I took no umbrage. Both Glorfindel and I begged Tathren to let us accompany him, that fateful afternoon, but he would none of our objections. His tenacity makes him a bold adventurer… but I, too, worry at the swiftness of their devotion.”

“I had wondered at your so ready acceptance of their light-headed deceptions,” Elrohir remarked, as his brother poured him another round of tea, then one for himself.

“I had no choice but to accept it,” Elladan sighed, with some evidence of frustration. “They were so ruddy with their love, so keen… and Glorfindel had guessed it, so to condemn them, I needed condemn my own mate… his love, his support in this tense time is too vital to me. Though I have taken… measures… to assure he will not repeat such an infraction.”

“I have no doubt!!” Elrohir exclaimed, feeling his cheer blooming anew.

“I pray, gwanur, that you may be reconciled with your dearest child,” Elladan whispered, taking his brother’s hand. “That you may look forward to the second child that will soon bless your binding. I pray the Valar for us all to weather this troubled time.”

Elrohir fell silent, content to be succored by his twin and unwilling to comment on the potential for a second child. His waning mind could not focus on such an abstraction, on a possibility that had become vague with the ending of his fever. For the fever had ended, he knew and he believed Legolas also suspected, with his break with Tathren, forever quenched by this calamity.

He knew not whether this was, in truth, an uncounted blessing.

*********************************

Legolas plucked his bowstring absently, reached for another arrow. The target was beginning to resemble a bouquet of Mirkwood-colored fletches, as the only variation this master archer could find for himself was in the resurrection of a long-waylaid quiver and a bundle of abused arrows. Yet even these hit their mark, despite his crushing fatigue, despite the ever-gnawing thought of Elrohir left alone when so poorly, despite the skin-pricking presence that waited behind, until the father’s patience was undone and he was finally granted an audience with his Adar. Tathren had been lurking by the stump-stools for nearly two hours, considering how to make his play even while admiring his sire’s deadly acuity, relentless and taciturn as he appeared.

Legolas had refused to acknowledge him, but not out of spite. He simply had not yet figured out his own appraisal of the circumstance between them, now that Elrohir was on the mend and his rage had reinvented itself as terrible confusion. He knew only too well the restlessness that primed a young elf of Silvan blood, having been one himself. Tathren had not been entirely off the mark when he suggested Elrohir did not properly countenance his Silvan nature.

Though his son had been raised in both imperial Imladris and colonial Ithilien, he was by his very soul a child of Greenwood, a humble and voracious woodland elf. His son came from a long line of intemperate elves – Oropher, Thranduil, and he himself, not to mention he was half Dunedain. Though much of his character had been carved out by the constant attention of his Noldor father, Legolas understood all too well, and had witnessed memorable incidents, where his learned Imladrian nobility had directly clashed with the Silvan urgings within him, with often volatile, overwhelming, and uncontrollable results. Their recent confrontation had been, upon some later consideration, a perfect scenario for the proving of this theory (how Elrohir would take pride in his fashioning that last thought alone); Tathren’s fiery love for his cousin and his self-pride as an elf of means coming into direct conflict with his respect for his fathers, with his devotion to his family, and the knowledge of his own judgmental error.

Legolas’ arrow went slightly north of the center, when he thought on how his son must have roasted himself, this past week, for – alternatively – his insubordination towards his clueless fathers *and* his failure to properly convince them of the nobility of his purpose, of this notion of worthiness that eternally besot him. This, Legolas believed, he must have inherited from Elrohir’s influence, for he has never for a moment felt himself lesser than either the Noldor or his esteemed mate.

He launched off a penultimate shot, then restrung his bow, back-flipped off a nearby log, and stripped off the entire center ring with a vicious mid-air strike. He landed to an appraising whistle, the crunch of tentative steps in the grass behind.

“It appears my string has frayed,” Legolas commented casually to the wrought presence. “Will you clear the target?”

As he plunked down on the log to tend to his bow, he watched as Tathren studiously yanked the arrows out of the taut hide of the target, examining each for damage before collecting those fallen on the lawn. The ghostly sun loomed behind filmy clouds, hung low over the horizon, its amber rays burnishing a haloed crown around his comely child’s hair. Legolas was again blindsided by feeling, perhaps with too much facility, too readily did he long for conciliation. Their misery had begun with his pride, he reminded himself, with a mindful of flattery and paternal self-indulgence. Yet as his son hurried over, his task complete, with a swiftness that only amplified his too-evident apprehension, Legolas could not keep himself from echoing the fulsome thoughts that had once urged him out of the banquet hall.

When he took the arrows from his gently trembling son, he replaced them with a firm clasp.

“I had come to flatter you,” he began, staring straight into wide, watering aqua eyes. “Not to spy. You mustn’t think… I would not conscience espionage, no matter what I suspected. But I did not suspect you. I had no idea of it, truly, until… I had admired the boldness of your protective action, against that oafish elf. Your beauty, child of my siring, on that heady night. I wanted but to… to compliment you, on the sterling elf you have become. That is why I sought you out, that is why I discovered you, there.”

“I did not merit such acclimations then,” Tathren murmured, cowed by his forthrightness. “As I do not merit them now. How you can yet speak them is a mystery, Adar, when I have so grievously…”

“Hush, pen-neth,” Legolas quieted him. “Take your ease on this simple log and find your peace with me.”

With a vigorous nod, Tathren sat beside him. He fought to calm his flaring emotions, ever the wood-elf at heart. Legolas held tight to his hands, raptly observing the raucous play of feeling over his son’s grave visage. When his features eased into steady compliance, avid, yet penitent, blue eyes found their match in his own.

“I know not how to right the wrong I have done you, Adar,” Tathren haltingly essayed. “I fear that Ada-Hir is forever lost to me.”

“Your transgression has long been forgiven, ioneth,” Legolas assured him cautiously. “Yet, like my bowstring, our bond remains frayed. We feel we are not wound together, in trust and in paternal intimacy, as we once were. Your Ada-Hir is especially anxious at this sudden unwinding, as you are not tied to him through the siring bind.”

“Ever have I adored Ada-Hir,” Tathren insisted, with an urgency that stung, such was its ardor. “I did not mean to injure him, nor you, Ada. I wanted only to-”

“For your love to bloom in the shelter of secrecy,” Legolas interrupted him. “Aye, we did hear you that incident eve, nin bellas. I understand the concerns that caused such a misjudgment, for I believe that it was one. We would not, perhaps, have approved your courting of your cousin, but we would have accepted it, had you come directly to us with knowledge of your feelings. As it stands, there are two vows broken, and these are no little vows.” He paused a moment, rested another hand atop that already entwined with his son’s. “Both your Ada-Hir and I are committed to restoring you into trust, to sussing out the thorns that prick you so that you feel you cannot trust us. This work is meddlesome and often treacherous, pricked as we may be by similar, yet invisible thorns. But we vow to you that we will see it done, if for love of you alone, nin pen-ind. Yet I fear… that the re-soldering of our trusting bond will not be completed within three paltry weeks time.”

Tathren’s eyes moistened anew in the face of his fathers’ undeserved, unwavering devotion to him, but he softly shook his head.

“It cannot be,” he whispered, clutching to his father’s hands as if to a branch amidst the rapids. “I cannot stay. Though I am abashed at the love you yet bear me and I know how cruelly I have broken my vow… I cannot forsake him, Ada. I cannot let him venture out without my support. It will break him!!”

Legolas sighed, but did not himself loose his hold. He had known Tathren would not alter his decision – he was too enflamed to even countenance such a choice – he had only hoped to present some alternate solutions. These, however, involved a Council whose will championed others suffering before his own domestic cares… and by the flint amidst his son’s glistening eyes, he was sure Echoriath could not be moved to stay. He would, nevertheless, make Tathren entirely aware of the chances he took in leaving them.

“Your very vigilance over your beloved’s care, ioneth, speak to me of a mate’s devotion,” Legolas acknowledged. “But allow this caring mate, if you will, to relate some of the overbearing anxieties that often beleaguer his own husband, and learn you some in regards to the strength of fatherly bonds. My own, you may be surprised to learn, is still tenaciously strong. I daily battle with the lure of my Adar’s flame, to make right with even he who has behaved so abominably. That is perhaps why I sought him out, even after the attempts on your barely nascent existence. Why I, in the months after your begetting, took so long in departing from Mirkwood to return to my mate, even though the evidence of his culpability was extreme and my child was growing steadily. In the first weeks after conception, a sire is haunted by the song of his impending child and is forever heartened by the memory, once that child is born.”

“I remember your note,” Tathren admitted, as a rapscallion tear escaped him. “I will always remember…”

“Yet your bond with Ada-Hir is far more tenuous,” Legolas pursued. “Though he cared for you from earliest infancy, you are not so bound to him. Ever has he feared this, ever has he been plagued, by nightmares, by waking shadows in times of your disobedience, that one day you will forsake him. He is too acutely aware of the wedge that has been forced between you, since you first took to adventuring. How with each journey, you further distance yourself from him, in order to survive it unhindered. I have marked well, Tathren, how you no longer confide in him as you once did, how you rebuke his questions beforehand and fail to recount all but the liveliest tales of your adventuring upon your return. Before your majority, he was your most intimate confidant. At present, he and I are equaled, in your regard.”

“Would you not that it be so?” Tathren asked bluntly, avoiding his insinuations of distrust of his other father.

Legolas took his time in replying: “I am full aware of my shortcomings where your nurture is, and has been, concerned. I am not, by nature, an open elf. I allowed my resentment of my own father’s actions to darken our relations, especially in your early years. Indeed, I feel that particular trouble was only put to bed last summer.” With a sigh, Tathren seemed to himself admit the truth of this. “But how can I tell you, nin ind, of your Ada-Hir’s near worship of you, from the time before you were born? Since the night of our binding, he wanted a child, but did not dare broach the subject with me. When he was informed of your coming, he was, from the first moment, ebullient. He thought of little else but your needs, your future; he loved from the first thought of you, his pen-tathar.
“I recall vividly our peaceful time in Imladris, in the years after the War. I would wake, as any other bound elf, wanting for my lover at dawn’s first light. Elrohir would have already stolen into your bedchamber to fetch you. I would turn groggily around to find him tucked up against the headboard, sprightly babe in arms, cooing to you, informing you of what diplomatic endeavors would occupy our day. Rare was the day he would spend without you by his side, in those first, tender years. It was he who encouraged me to curl up with the both of you and tell of our past adventures, to steal some vital time with you each morn, before the onslaught of duties swept us up. In later years, when you needed schooling, I had several quarrels with him over the daily duration of your studies, the apparent ‘paucity’ of your instructors’ talents, and the solitary playtime you required. But he was never greedy when it came to your time, he merely required the best for his dearest one. He loves you wholly and blindly, ioneth, and for this he suffers now. This sickness is not simply the result of his fever, the drug, or his repressed anger, but the gutting fear that he will never again be in your confidence, that he has lost that one grace forever. This is the pain he will not allow himself to swallow, that he seeks to purge from his very soul over and over again.”

Faced with the twin daggers of this poignant tale and its harrowing consequence on his father’s health, Tathren’s very heart was stabbed woefully deep. He struggled to restrain his emotions and bear the blame as a warrior might, but at his core he was of a compassionate nature, so tears soon streamed down his sallow cheeks.

“The memory of his… his… it has not faded from me,” Tathren confessed, wrecked with sobs. “In truth, I have had need of him, but I… I thought a worthy elf took his majority in hand and did not… did not allow himself to be weakened…” With a bleat of exasperation, he bowed his head. “I know not what I thought…”

“Is that truly the cause of your distance, ioneth?” Legolas considered for him. Every inch of his skin longed to fully embrace his son, but he knew the power of his message would not be felt as surely in his arms. “An elf who has no ties to home can come and go as he pleases. Your absences were facilitated by this evasive attitude towards both your Ada-Hir and I, myself. You are fortunate Echoriath travels with you, but I fear what might occur if you and he are parted on future journeys, for some reason of duty or calamity. This trend of your natural instinct strikes to the very core of the bind you would forge with your beloved. I have seen how terribly Elrohir has weathered this way of yours… I cannot imagine even the most heartfelt of conciliations will be soldered true, before this latest, prolonged absence.” Legolas laid the choice out plain before him, so that there would be no mistaking him. “If you cannot win back Ada-Hir’s trust in the coming weeks, Tathren, the most cherished times before you, between you – at the time of your binding, the birth of your own children, through eternity - may very well *be* lost forever, as you fear.”

At Tathren’s look of absolute despair, he gave in to his longing and fervently hugged his son to his chest.

***********************************

Imperious Ithil loomed above, as a pearl swathed in the black depths of ocean. Her gauzy cast beamed through the skylight above their bathing chamber, a diaphanous veil rippled by the steaming tub beneath. Bouquets of lily-lipped candles, in lieu of the five-pronged chandeliers favored by those of Elrond’s house, adorned ledges cut into in the shale walls, left coarse when scored from the seaside cliffs. With the open-mouthed, oval bath brimming with froth and misting the air, the effect was as if entering an enchanted marshland.

With a blush of pride, Echoriath surveyed the spellbinding result of his slight of domestic necromancy, winked at the complicit moon, then spirited away to lure his beloved within.

The fog of despair that had surrounded Tathren this last, arduous week had turned dense and ominous as a storm cloud upon his return that eve. Though reconciled with his sire, his efforts to mend with both his fathers had been once again hindered by the very illness he believed himself to have caused. After the cataclysmic burden of immediate conciliation Legolas had thrust upon him that very afternoon, Tathren had accompanied him back to their willow-shroud abode, in hopes of precipitating the long-overdue conversation between himself and his Ada-Hir. The elf-knight, however, after an intense discussion with his twin, had been guided back to his bed and yet slept there, the day exhausting to one so feeble.

While Echoriath had stuck to their apartments, believing him but moments from return, Tathren had waited-out this sudden fatigue in his fathers’ home. During this fractious time, the young adventurer had faced the scorn of his extended family, all rallied to the common cause of Elrohir’s health. Legolas had been soft with him, but fretted over his mate’s condition and thus had little time for the consolation of others. Elrond had been stern; though the Lord had no quarrel with his grandson’s participation in the expedition at hand, nor did he lecture on the perils of love between close kin, he was bewildered by the deterioration of his most righteous son and could not keep his sharpness sheathed when addressing his grandchild.

This overt resentment, however, had been preferable to the mournful silence that had beset his gracious grandmother. The ethereal lady of Imladris, yet grieved by the loss of her only daughter without proper farewell, recalled all too vividly the drowning sorrow that had led to her leave from Arda, which proved eerily similar to Elrohir’s throes. She had had the sanctuary of Valinor to gentle her; if Elrohir suffered so in Aman, there was no land across the sea to succor him, none but the Halls of Mandos. Yet her blithe nature could not countenance any harshness towards her needful grandson, but neither could she conscionably offer him solace, so she crept about the kitchens and spoke not a word to any. Her grave stare and blanched visage had said volumes enough.

Eventually, Legolas had urged them all out, as he believed his mate would sleep through the night and would conscience no disturbances, well-meant or accidental. Tathren had lurched through their entrance as though shackled in irons, grumbling like an ungainly cave troll. At present, his withered frame was bent over Echoriath’s desk, scrawling off a letter in a swordman’s brute hand. The chain around his neck hung free of his open-collared tunic, the ring sagging down towards the parchment as with the weight of Sauron’s One. Had their betrothal so burdened him? Would he loose himself of their impending bind? Though Echoriath could naught but speculate at his beloved’s state of mind, he yet could, as any proper mate should, definitively work to improve it.

He had modeled his ministrations after the most hallowed couple in his acquaintance, Legolas and Elrohir themselves. Often had he heard his brother wax rather poetic on how his uncles should instruct others in the techniques of remedial coupling, the soothing of a mate’s woes through doting carnality. Cuthalion had not skirted the details, either, though Echoriath chose to remain oblivious as to his gleaning methods. Upon seeing Tathren so forlorn, he had decided to pay tribute to his ailing betters through the fleshly healing of their son, though he yet wondered at their approval of such measures.

With a grunt, Tathren jabbed the quill into its cobapple and buried his swollen face in his hands. Peering over his hunched frame, Echoriath perceived that the letter in question was addressed, in a host of endearments, to his Ada-Hir. The darkling elf could only guess at its anguished contents, but these were not of his concern. Instead, he burrowed securing arms around his beloved’s waist and nuzzled into the crook of his neck, his nose precipitously piqued by the musky scent of wildgrass that ever wafted from him. Tathren jostled his shoulders to shrug him off, but Echo clung tight, until he heard the blonde elf’s breath catch hard as he swallowed back the brunt of tears.

“Meleth, you are worn raw,” Echoriath murmured behind his quivering ear, his lover attuned to his potential distress even mired in his own.

“If I am to suffer as he,” Tathren bleated. “Then so be it.”

“Ada-Hir himself would say other,” he insisted.

“I care not,” Tathren countered morosely. “I wait but in vigil to aid him. I will have no peace so long as he is sickly, if only in homage to his care.”

“To weary yourself further will only prolong both your agony,” Echoriath reasoned, to one whom reason had perhaps quitted some time ago. “Ada-Hir will bear witness to your torment and be compelled to save his tongue, so nothing will be resolved between you. And you, melethron-nin, though I adore you with every breath of my being, are flint-fired when properly rested. I fear the combustive alchemy of frayed son and frail-witted father will not lend itself to the blunt conversation required between you.” Echoriath nipped the bone of his jowl through a film of translucent skin. “Your Adar does not deserve your distemper any more than you deserve his solemn resignation. Come, meleth, and be heartened by the capable hands of which your loving has crafted mine own.”

When Tathren quickened to him, Echoriath kissed him deeply. This bold overture blindsided the golden elf; whips of biting need flayed across his chest and thighs, as an invasive tongue braised over his own. A desperate want blazed through him, broiling off any lingering treacle of remorse and sweetening him for the syrupy flood of his desire for his only one. Their mouths were hotly engaged from the cusp of the desk to the cove of the bathing chamber, where Tathren broke off only to gasp at his fairytale surroundings.

“Why have you done this?” he rasped, sadness ever-threatening in the face of such formidable consideration.

“Hush,” Echoriath whispered, stopping his agape lips with another smoldering kiss. “Too long has your satiny skin ‘scaped my covetous touch, the love we daily battle for gone unfulfilled. I have not known a week’s abstinence from our relations since first they began, seven days without your soulful regard is seven days too long. I will not go another night without burning with you, melethron, without being singed and sundered by your most tawdry affections.” As if to sear his demand into his very mouth, Echoriath’s tongued him again. “If I truly have your heart, tathrelasse, then you will forget yourself and surrender to me.”

With a shrewd, saucy eye, Echoriath watched his lover’s flush face for silent acquiescence. With a wisp of his lashes, it was given.

The darkling elf was suddenly bequeathed a patience his companion little felt. Tathren’s clothes were stripped as husks from an eave of corn, leaving only the flaxen silk of his loose hair. Echoriath leisurely lead the golden elf up the steps to the petal-strewn bath, scented with roses and lavender springs. If the tranquil waters smelt like the purest bliss he’d known in some considerable time, their heated depths were even more exquisite, the perfect balm for his wrought, aching limbs. With a flamboyant rip, Echoriath shed his own sarong and slipped in behind, his slender form barely distressing the seamless surface.

When Echo drew him back to wet his hair, Tathren nearly melted into the bath, into the arms of his sage one, whose instincts in the matter of his care were proving awesomely acute. For an absent moment, he let himself float, releasing the last of his belligerence into the ether and cleansing his spirit of heartache. Knowing hands found him; soon, but not too soon. They wrung a spill from his hair, then tucked the sultry locks aside in favor of the smooth plain of his back. Not a muscle was left unmolested by Echoriath’s agile fingers, the sensuality of the massage only enhanced by the oil that anointed him.

Yet even one so masterfully controlled as his beloved could not long hide his own arousal. The insistent member would brush against his buttocks concomitant with the more vigorous kneads of his twin thumbs, causing the ripe elf to groan, catch himself, then pull contritely away. Despite Tathren’s subsequent mewls of protest – for he needed to be taken without delay – Echoriath was determined not to indulge himself until his beloved was as lax as an uncoiled rope. His own erection wanted for those lissome fingers, for their tease and taunt, even more hungrily than he wanted impalement on his lover’s renown shaft. When Echoriath moved up to work his pulsating temples, he collapsed himself back against him, rolling his hips to a bawdy rhythm his cousin soon found irresistible.

“Mount me,” he pleaded, by now too far gone to be delicate. “*Saes*, Echo.”

“Nay,” Echoriath protested without conviction. “Too brute. I must be salved to fully sheathe myself.”

“Aye, sheathe yourself,” Tathren moaned, too caught in the notion to fully comprehend him. “Soonest, melethron.”

The darkling elf’s hips took on a will of their own, grinding in counterpoint to Tathren’s gyrations to maximize the fricative flares of carnal sensation. In but a sparely week, the control he’d prided himself on having earned through months of harmonious pleasuring proved too swiftly beyond his body’s current capabilities, his reason-dampening responsiveness to even the lap of Tathren’s sodden hair up his sternum enough to thoroughly tantalize him. Any breach of his lover would be mercifully quick, as his fearsomely swollen member already throbbed with want of release.

As did the golden elf that thrashed about his lap. Echoriath belatedly recalled, somewhere amidst the haze, that he’d not so much as cupped his lover’s plum-fat bollocks since their first, incendiary kiss. Grappling for hold of those buck-wild hips, he cursed as he slid his own rapacious engorgement home, into the moist, molten core of his beloved one. Snaking legs around his lover’s to lock Tathren against him and ramming his already spurting head into his sacred crevice, he fisted the golden elf’s hard-swollen shaft with artless, beauteous abandon, until he bayed his climax as vociferously as an entire pack of wolves. Echoriath barked out his own soon after, panting, wanton, and relieved to hear his lover sigh in satiation.

They held thusly together for endless minute, loathe to halve themselves of the whole they had momentarily become.

***

Another spate of tenacious tapping stirred Tathren from his light doze, before the blithe heat of Echoriath, limbs coiled possessively around him, could lure him into an entirely enveloping slumber. Splayed before the hearth like a pair of playfully amorous pups, the roaring fire kept away the last of winter’s chill, lit the sorrow-shroud room as if with the bloom of their desire. Their rambunctious, fevered loving had followed them from the bath, onto the bear pelt, the scorch of melding bodies burning off excess moisture as readily as the flames.

Their brute physicality had scored his very bones of sadness; the blood pummeled forth upon his third impalement, the bruises to his collar, the scars torn across his back testament to the vicious, worshipful catharsis spurned on by his lover’s care. Echoriath had evidenced the full rage of his heart that night, only such potent, incurable emotion could have roused him from misery. Tathren felt cleansed of guilt, of blame, the safeguarded evolution of a love such as theirs worth any, every price. Echo had used him as only he knew, relentless though ever sensually attuned, instinct overcoming intellect, reason choked off by a primal paw, until both had been utterly erotically consumed.

Only when his soft, scarlet member had been gently extracted had the truth of their ravaged coupling seized his brittle beloved. The shock had whipped him wicked; the tender elf had wept violently. Tathren had kissed him senseless, avowed his own satisfaction with their tempest-loving, until his Echo had sagged in his vigilant arms and fallen into a heavy sleep. The spell of twilight sands had but begun to mesmerize, when some unfathomable visitor beckoned at the door.

Fearing his father beset by some new, more callow mischief, Tathren carefully scooped up his listless love, cocooned him into a quilt on the divan, then scanned the shadowy room for sight of his sarong. As he did so, he noted the purpling streaks that trailed him across the rug and thought better of such paltry concealment. Pleading patience from the messenger, he hastened into the bathing chamber, swept a sodden cloth over the remnants of seed and gore that already flaked upon him, and tugged on a waiting robe. He knotted the last of the sash even as he fumbled with the latch, swishing open the door without thought to who might be so intrusive in the dead of night.

No rosewater nor lavender oil could have suitably prepared him for Elrohir.

If his father objected to the too glaring cause of his tarry, he well masked his reproach. The elf-knight merely arched a knowing brow and silently implored his aid, hunched as he was over a flimsy-looking cane. Any hesitation Tathren felt in coddling him was immediately whisked away by the biting wind, which stole into his hearth-heated house like a beggar seeking shelter. He gathered his feeble father against his side and guided him within, unable to resist a fleeting kiss to his crown, as he lowered him into an armchair. Elrohir’s silver eyes instantaneously watered at the gesture, which told Tathren of the stresses that beset his sage father, of his strange vulnerability. When Elrohir cast his look aloft and rallied his senses, Tathren remembered the bloody rug. As he rolled up the betraying pelt, he prayed his too observant father had not yet noted the telltale stains and wondered at his state of mind. He was sure somnambulant Echoriath had not gone unremarked, should he carry his beloved into their bedchamber or first offer his father some tea? Instead, he dragged another chair by the fireside.

“He is sweetly, in slumber,” Elrohir hushly praised. “Though even there his regal visage brands him a prince of the Noldo tribe, my brother’s lush features refined by pure elven grace. A beauty.” Tathren stilled, waiting for the axe to fall. “Tis little wonder you adore him.”

“I *do*, Ada,” Tathren swore, despite himself. “I do adore him.”

“Then you are both blessed,” Elrohir commented, somewhat enigmatically. “The light of Earendil shines upon you, pen-tathar, as your Naneth foresaw on your birth night. From the orc fields before Mount Doom, your uncle saw the beam of the silmaril above and cleaved to me, even as the mountain bled its fire, the Dark Lord’s tower crumbled before our eyes… the very moment of your break into the world. A portent of his acceptance of you as our kindred, a sign… his blessing. The Fourth Age of Elves, here in the Undying Lands, heralded by the birth of a Sinda child, to be raised by Sinda and Noldo. A new life for our reunited people, for peace among elfkind. Your very heart seeks to reap of this blessing, to continue the Valar’s intended healing of our people’s woes through your prophetic adventuring, through the expression of that bountiful heart, through its eventual binding with one bequeathed such gifts as you cannot possibly conceive of. You, Legolasion.” Eyes as glossy as a mithril shield met his disbelieving own. “You, my son.”

Startled, and greatly unsettled by such talk of omens, Tathren was dumbstruck for a considerable time. He woke from his mind’s groggy meanderings, when Elrohir cleared his throat.

“Would you not care for some tea, Ada?” he inquired, almost timidly.

“The wretched drink flows through my very veins!” the elf-knight mused, with some faint mirth. “Have you not some fine Forochel vintage about? The glacier’s affect on the vine is said to hearty the grape, and thus cool fever’s flush.”

“I may have secreted a flask or two away,” Tathren indulged him. “Though if you breathe a word of this allowance to Ada-Las, I will not wake another dawn.”

“Agreed,” Elrohir winked, complicit, as he hurried away to fetch the ice wine.

Not in his most generous imagining of the situation could Tathren have predicted his father would be so kindly with him. Even if his momentary milk would be later curdled by condemnation, he was glad of the familiar tone his elder currently employed. His fondness was implicit; for that alone Tathren could have cried out his heart, Valar-blessed as it may be. He was soon curled into his own armchair, nursing a flute of Forochel and waiting on his father’s judgment of the vintage. He was relieved to note that the wine but amplified the rose of the elf-knight’s cheek, his noble countenance improved by a turn out of doors, by a chaste drink. Though sluggish illness yet weighted him, his spirit was lightened of some imperceptible, unaccountable burden; Tathren hoped this conversation would ease him ever more.

Ease them both, for certes.

At present, the wine itself seemed not to overly impress the darkling elf as much as the flute that contained it.

“How cunning,” Elrohir reflected, admiring the craftsmanship. “A bloom of willow leaves for my pen-tathar. Exquisitely rendered, at that. A gift?”

“Indeed,” Tathren replied, bashful.

“Ah,” Elrohir nodded, a smile twisting his lips. “From your lover?”

“He was but my cousin, then,” Tathren admitted.

Elrohir accepted this, a keen glint to his eye, but then turned worryingly sober.

“If you are to be bound, ioneth,” Elrohir intoned with studied gentility. “Then there are… circumstances, of which you must be appraised. I know not if Echoriath himself has realized them, but that is not my concern. My brother reminded me of a great many things, just this afternoon, that in my sickness I had overlooked, and though he has not perhaps spoken of them with his own son, I would be remiss in allowing my own to bind himself to said elf without knowledge of them. I wish I had some… some solid notion of their effect, of their potential between you, but only the Valar hold such secrets, and those hallowed ones hold them dear as their entire, eternal design.”

“Ada, you frighten me,” Tathren exclaimed, eyes rapt upon him. “Tell me, please, of this… these godly affairs…”

“Very well,” Elrohir consented, settling in to his chair and taking a long sip of the wine. “Your grandsire, Elrond, inherited the gift of foresight from his naneth, Elwing. She was one of the most powerful seers our people have ever known. She lived in the time of greatest strife among elfkind, before the race of men became a reckoning force in Arda. When she came to possess the vaulted silmaril… only the Valar could best her powers. She was the oracle of our kind in a ruthless time. Lit by the silmaril, she foresaw ages to come: her son Elros’ timely choice, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, the Shadow’s rise and eventual fall. Her prophecies were transcribed by the seafarers of Sirion, who passed them on to Cirdan, and through his son Erestor, they came to Elrond. Even when he doubted her predictions most, he cleaved to them. As ages passed, he told none of her acuity of vision, none of their very existence. Save his mate, to whom he is ever bound in truth. Upon his leave-taking from Imladris, thinking all of the prophecies come alive, he passed the volume and the knowledge onto his successor. My brother shared this tome with me, that fateful year, though I have forgotten much of which I read.”

“But if these predictions have come to pass,” Tathren interrupted him. “Then what use are they to us now?”

“All but one has been fulfilled, ioneth,” Elrohir quietly explained, moved as he was by the knowledge he would soon impart. “The last I spoke earlier, that the Sinda child, the herald of peace born at the Shadow’s fall, would come upon the Blessed Realm as a balm to an open wound. Gold would be his mantle fair, and forever would he seek out the ore of greatest treasure to him. Golden flower. Golden mane. Golden eyes.” Tathren gasped, but did not halt his father’s recounting. “If the Sinda child finds the treasure within his heart, when flames are melded and our fractious people one again, then time will take on this one’s golden hue, and all of Aman will flower under his touch, and those of Mandos will be free of the Halls of Waiting, and the Valar will quiet upon their mountain top, and peace will reign among the Children of Eru.”

By the end of this recital, Tathren was agape. “Can… can you be sure that… that *I* am… the child. The Sinda child.”

“Your grandsire has foreseen it,” Elrohir imparted. “As well as the White Lady, your foremother Galadriel. You are the champion of the fallen, of the sick and the slain. When the prophecy is fulfilled… none among elfkind will pass on. All illnesses may be cured, all wounds remedied, all feas forever bound to the flesh that holds them.”

“Ada…” Tathren murmured, nearly sundered by the might of this discovery. “H-how… how must I fulfill this prophecy?”

“We know not,” Elrohir sighed, wishing he himself understood this delicacy. “I have lately consulted with my Adar and Erestor, after you were so precipitously dismissed from our home. We cannot say which path, which choice is for the better, merely that you need not agonize over every decision. The Valar will guide you, they wish to see their people as one. All that we truly know is that… it appears Echoriath was destined to be your mate.”

“How now?” Tathren demanded, his interest piqued anew by this too compelling information.

“The Golden Flower,” Elrohir essayed cautiously. “Is the mantle of Mandos himself. In Gondolin that fell, each of the houses chose a deity as their champion. Glorfindel chose the mantle of Mandos to empower his warriors, so that they might give themselves fully to the battle at hand, in defiance of the renewing elven death. When he was subsequently slain in his battle with the Balrog, Mandos appreciated this courtesy and gave him new life. If Glorfindel had not lived again, Elladan would never have seen his love fulfilled, Echoriath would never have been born, and you… you would not love as needed, would not free our people from the Halls. You are bound to Echoriath by fate itself, even his golden eyes sign of the purpose that surrounds you both.”

“The color of Ada-Fin’s love for Ada-Dan,” Tathren whispered reverently. “Aye, tis wondrous.”

“Alas, that itself is but a myth, ioneth,” the elf-knight amended him. “I come now to the rub that might most prick your so very independent spirit, even more than the strictures of prophecy and destiny.”

“Go on,” Tathren encouraged him, all the more invigorated by his revelations so far.

“Just as Cuthalion is the image of his grandmother,” Elrohir pointed out. “Though none of my siblings carry her traits, Echoriath was bequeathed, through our line, a disproportionate share of… of the Maiar blood, which comes from our kinsman Melian. His talents are ample, and faultless, almost… as sorcery. His mind is keener than even your grandsire’s. Indeed, he may be the most genial elf to yet be born of any tribe. He will play no small part in the prophecy’s fulfillment, if only in the building of cities for these elves that cannot suffer harm. His eyes are the surest sign of this overabundance of Maiar blessings.” His father paused a while, seemingly reluctant to reveal the emphatic end. “Erestor has long expected your relations to turn… intimate, though he kept this knowledge from us, as yours were the first to meet Echoriath’s eyes.”

A creeping cold snaked through him, then, such that he could barely rasp: “Are you…?! Think you that he… he unknowingly… I have been ensorcelled!!”

“You *have*, nin bellas,” Elrohir underlined gently. “By the Valar’s will, Echoriath was endowed with the most seductive of Maiar traits, golden eyes that are known to spell those that meet them upon waking from their mother’s womb. As your Ada-Las was chosen as your sire, renown as he is for his mischievous nature, stubbornness, and intense curiosity. As such, there was no way you would not be lured into the birthing room and would fail to lock eyes with the babe. The seed of twinship was not split for your cousins to come into being, so that there would be but one intended.” Reconsidering his own words, the elf-knight chose a different tact in the face of his son’s incredulity. “The Valar above do not bend us to their will, but on occasion they stack the odds heavily in their favor, in the favor of goodness, of righteousness, of harmony. This is such an occasion. Golden flowers, of Mirkwood and of Gondolin, to love the Sons of Elrond Peredhil, an elf of Maiar descent. The suitors of golden mane, ensuring a Sinda child will be born of these unions. Golden eyes for the child who is a cousin but by affinity. There is purpose afoot, ioneth. Your purpose.”

“But which *is* my purpose?!” Tathren bellowed, but lowered his tone when Echoriath snortled. “How can I be said to have a purpose, when even my binding mate is pre-destined, when the Valar have conspired to join us as pawns on a Battle Game board?!”

“I would think you would be proud of such a purpose,” Elrohir remarked softly. “The Valar seem to have little intent beyond that you love your cousin. The rest will either come to pass or naught, through a confluence of effect and reaction far beyond your powers, such as they are. Your other grandsire, for one, almost upset the Valar’s design through a simple act of remorse. Have you not thought on what might have come to pass, if his murderous plots had succeeded? Echoriath born without a mate, for one.”

“I have thought on little else, in my darkest hours, since the summer,” Tathren confessed to him. “In truth, I have come to believe us… fated, to be one. The Valar’s blessings, or designs, are but an afterthought. Yet fate, too, is precariously wrought, and had Thranduil murdered me-”

“Speak not of it,” Elrohir immediately implored him, still too weak to stomach such black thoughts. “Think on the journey to come, your growth as lovers, as future mates… these are the matters that must occupy you, that will keep you whole.”

With no little severity, Tathren centered himself. Despite Elrohir’s vital information, the trouble between them had not been addressed. Blessed by the gods he may be, but his father’s blessing he yet lacked, and this was most precious of all. He reached for his Adar’s hand, was heartened when both were instinctively given.

“How can I be whole, Ada, when we are yet divided?” Tathren mused. “No prophetic purpose changes how I have deliberately frayed *our* relations. How I have mocked your ever-constant trust, broken my vow of home-staying, belittled your love by my faithlessness, and kept you estranged from the most intimate knowledge of my heart. I am no elf at all, away from your regard. Forgive me, Ada.”

At this unexpected admission, Elrohir could naught but welcome his forlorn son into his arms. Tathren cottoned to him as if he were yet a youngling, seeking out a steady hold in his upturned world. He allowed his woeful father to vent out his heart; a pact was sealed between them to keep daily appointments, until his departure. Yet even as he clung to his wearied caregiver, he could not entirely tare his eyes from the twilight elf that slumbered near, his very comely countenance crafted by Elbereth herself, to lure him, to lust for him, to love him.

By a flicker of those bedazzling golden eyes, he had been spellbound.


End of Part Ten