Of Elbereth's Bounty

My Friends,

I want to thank everybody who read and reviewed for taking the time to respond, so heartfully and so eloquently, to something that is so dear to me; especially keekercat, Anorielle, Twilight, Kit, and of course Eresse, but all the others I’ve forgotten as well! Your attentiveness to the details of the story is astounding to me and your devotion to the characters just incredibly touching. Forgive my absence, I have been struggling through some personal issues, but there is much more to come in the new year! Five more chapters of this, three companion tales concerning some of the minor characters, then a return to my golden couple, Elrohir and Legolas, for an entirely new adventure outside of this universe. I hope you will stick with me for it all, and I am forever grateful for the feedback you provide me with!

–Gloromeien ;D
swishbucklers@hotmail.com

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Of Elbereth’s Bounty

Part Eleven

Cuthalion spied her across the room, and was instantly smitten.

No ellon of worth could resist verdant eyes as lush as the Nevrast marshes, skin buttery as milkseed, petal-pout lips and hair of midnight luxury. As he approached the exotic-eyed ellyth, her swarthy lashes and almond shaped lids reminiscent of the ancient courtesans of Amon Rudh, he admired the contrast of her prim, sea green sheath against her florid features. Those lashes bat quick as a hummingbird’s wings, until the tiger eyes caught sight of him; a flame of yellow warning haloed the black pupil that assessed him.

He attempted to disarm her with his gallant’s smile, but the razing eyes would have none until they concluded their exacting scrutiny of his too polished, too smug wares. Even at such a tender age, no silvery spark could long distract her; already she recognized fool from foe, miscreant from miser, true chivalry from hollow charm. Cuthalion beamed with genuine admiration at the mysterious maid before him, secretly hoping to be worthy of her favor. He dared to sweep a stray lock behind her teardrop ear, stroking the length of the lobe in the regular gesture of affection.

She gurgled, unimpressed, and spat a juicy wad at him.

His cheeks burned hot as lava rock, as a snickering Tathren swept in to second him. The daunting lady Miriel, but a two-month old, trilled gleefully at the sight of the golden elf, whom she probably mistook – Cuthalion inwardly grunted – for her other father. Few could doubt that this was the offspring of the meticulous Erestor, though her maidenly indignation was pure Lorien lass, like her mother. Adar’s relentless diligence and Naneth’s bemused haughtiness made for a potentially lethal combination in their demanding daughter, when in later years some foolhardy suitor might dare to call on her. What mettle of elf might best the trial of her courtship, he could not even begin to wager, though the haunting beauty of which she would eventually be possessed was in ample evidence, even in such raw form.

In any case, the lady herself expressed a definite preference for blondes, if her giggling against Tathren’s shoulder was any indication. His brash cousin cradled the babe with a gentility he would not have foreseen, allowing her to test her newly empowered fingers on clutches of his hair and stroking her slender back with considerable finesse. Under Tathren’s patient ministrations, Miriel was soon merry as a halfling, her dazzling emerald eyes even gleaning on Cuthalion with approval.

“See, lomeloth?” Tathren murmured against her blue temple. “Talion is not so strange. Indeed, he is much more learned than I, where the pleasing of maids is concerned.”

“Tathren, hold your tongue!!” he griped. “There is no need of such… such indelicacies, in the presence of an elfling.”

“Though he has much to learn of babes, I fear,” Tathren indirectly taunted him. “Especially those who have yet to comprehend the most basic conversation. You must teach him, pretty one, lest he be as blundering a father as he is a lover of males!”

Cuthalion harrumphed with such bluster that Elrond would have been glutted with pride. To think he had been heartened to learn that his cousin would join him in guardian duties this afternoon, as all of the elders were occupied in settling the first ship of newly arrived colonists from Laurelin. Rare was a time when the service of nearly all ellyth and ellon of Telperion was required, but times in the Blessed Realm were so fractious, at present, that only the younglings were spared. As this first vessel contained the largest portion of the northland children, any spare nannies and wet nurses were summoned to their humble port. When Erestor had mentioned that his sister and her mate would like to participate in the children’s settling, Cuthalion had sacrificed the tending of his horses for the afternoon to coddle the newborns.

As the adventurers’ preparations were delayed by the precipitous advent of their Sindar guests, Tathren had also volunteered; if only to enjoy the company of his oft overlooked cousin this last time, before their imminent departure. The party had only days left to settle accounts. Each member found their waking hours coveted by a host of loved ones, their time even more precious now that the Laurelin ship had docked ahead of schedule. With daylight hours devoted to their guests, many of the elders fought through their mounting fatigue to spend vital night hours with their sons, nephews, or grandsons. His own fathers were no different, obsessing over every detail of Echoriath’s carriage from pack to broadsword to boots to water skin, leaving little time for brotherly highjinks. With his parents still quite tender over their recent quarrel, Tathren had even less allotted time for indulgence with his ever-admiring cousin, so his accompaniment this afternoon was an unexpected, and treasured, surprise.

A time not to be wasted in one-upmanship.

“I love males well enough,” Cuthalion insisted quietly, still easily bruised by the memory of his begetting-day escapade. “Indeed, I love my fathers, brother, companions, and cousin quite dearly. I merely wish to keep them from my bed.” He tentatively moved towards the mirthful pair, caught a lock of the little one’s hair. This time, Miriel met his wistful smile with her own ebullient one, allowing him to pet her silky head.

Tathren, however, gazed rather fondly at his complimentary cousin. “I meant no injury, Talion.”

“None was taken,” the silver elf replied, though his winsome gaze told a different tale. “I might attempt to hold her. What say you?” In response, he was proffered the giddy babe, who was so thoroughly tamed that she even reached out to him. Warmed by her acceptance, he gladly cuddled her close, cheered by how readily she snuggled against him. A poignant, piercing feeling gripped him, such that he was almost overcome by the need to shelter, to secure this fragile creature against the perils that yet wandered the world at large. He had never before halted his exploits long enough to consider the matter of his binding, of his own fatherhood, but one could not help be confronted by these issues when cradling such a comely babe. “Tell me, cousin, and stave your cunning tongue for a brief time. Think you… think you that I might one day be a parent equal to my own?”

“I have no doubt of it, Talion,” Tathren assured him, gesturing towards a nearby sofa. With a vigilant eye on the bassinet that yet berthed Miriel’s slumbering, sunny-haired brother Orinath, he turned his mind to this mischief that so gloomed his cousin, who had ever before embodied the very essence of mercury. “You are fortunate that your eventual children will be begot with ease, no threat of infidelity or acquisition of suitable naneth to weaken your resolve.”

“The acquisition of a suitable mate, my cousin, is of no little import,” Cuthalion reprimanded. “Even to one so married to the love of maids as I.”

“Talion, I meant no fault in my taunting,” Tathren apologized, sensing his cousin’s disease. “I believe Ada-Fin and Ada-Dan are quite relieved to know that their line will continued unabated, and with little difficulty. A biding of ellon to ellon is rife with troubles, even in this advanced age. Your conviction gives them no end of peace.”

“Would that I feel such peace, at being proved so…determined,” the silver elf sighed. He kissed the crown of Miriel’s sable hair, as if to comfort himself and not the child. “In truth… I feel I am no elf at all, but cursed with manly passions even some of the Dunedain defy. Eldarion was but a quarter elf, and he could lie quite blissfully with you, Tathren.”

When Tathren could not argue this, for the prince’s emphatic cries still scorched his lesser dreams, he struggled for a line of reasoning that might penetrate his cousin’s defenses. Perhaps, if his attempt proved unsuccessful, he would entreat Echoriath to ply his gifted mind towards some reassurance that might satisfy his blue brother, for they could certainly not abandon him to misery in but three days time. Indeed, the very fact of their departure might hinder the renewal of his spirit. This worrying thought prompted him to essay the matter himself.

“Not every elf is blessed with the duality of our nature,” Tathren ventured softly. “Though I cannot claim to have dissuaded, nor disliked, the occasional attentions of maids before my majority, think on your own lovely brother. He could not functionally bed an ellyth, not for all the mithril in Mirkwood’s mines. If we should desire children of our own, I know not what might come to pass, should he need be the sire. You may not be fashioned by a split of seed, but the Valar have seen to bequeath you equally nonetheless, in the matter of preferred bed-partners; neither of you can be said to be imbued with the ancient duality.”

“But my genius lies in the art of bed-play!!” Cuthalion mewled, his forlorn visage undercutting the arrogance of the statement. “Seduction, initiation, tenderness… wild, impassioned pleasuring, these are my most hallowed of gifts, and I am kept from plying them with an entire gender of our race!! It burns me to the core, Tathren, that I cannot experience the very sensations you and Echo affect in each other on a nightly basis.”

“Verily, Talion, the two acts are startlingly similar,” Tathren informed him, unable to stifle some light amusement at his too evident jealousy of he and his Echo’s love. He began to suss the undercurrent of loneliness in his cousin’s conversation, masked as self-recrimination. “Kisses, touches, release… you cannot *become* a maid, my brave one, therefore it matters little who is engaged in your arousal. Unless, of course, the feeling you lack is that between a casual bed partner and a melethron.”

Cuthalion groaned warily, averted his eyes. “Perhaps…”

“You have every right to be envious,” Tathren continued, with studied delicacy. “I felt such affront myself, at times, when faced with loving fathers such as ours. And then for your own, resolutely chaste and despairingly innocent brother to successfully woo the mate of his heart despite gutting timidity… add to that a whiff of destiny and little wonder you feel the Lady herself has forsaken you. Yet you have but begun to know the world, Talion. You are privileged in that you may attempt many different employments, experience a variety of companions in your search for fulfillment, for a mate. Echoriath is locked into a pattern of the Valar’s devising, but you are free to improvise, to err, to improve yourself in a manner that yet terrifies your brother. I know this well, for it is my shoulder that his tears soak when he cannot accomplish a task to his exacting self-standards, my bed that is overcast with desolation when he is too fatigued to accomplish another elder’s insistent demand. Enjoy your liberty, nin bellas. Do not linger on what you cannot grasp, but seize what is before you. I wager that by the day of our return, you will have undertaken a host of tasks that we can only dream of.” Tathren regarded the now sleeping babe tenderly, then amended. “Indeed, perhaps the talent you seek is currently beneath your very chin.”

With a gentle laugh, Cuthalion peered down at precious Miriel. A wave of calm washed over him, emanating from the baby’s hot body and rippling through his tense frame. He suddenly realized he would be all too content to wile away the afternoon as her rather over-ambitious pillow, while trading barbs with his sage, ample-hearted cousin. He dismissed any cloying thought of his coming leave, instead relishing the child’s warmth, Tathren’s generous counsel, and the luxury of such a nurturing home to support him.

“She is an enchantress,” he commented wryly. “I fear we will both need of succor, when such a wise one as you departs from our woods, tathrelasse. You are the true treasure of the glade. I hope my brother cherishes you well.”

“If he but halves my own feelings in return,” Tathren smirked to himself, his face aglow at mention of his lover’s care. “Then I am sated for an eternity.”

They shared a complicit look, then fell into easy banter.

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Elrond stifled an unsightly yawn, but could not keep his lips from sneering. Halting his progress towards yet another candlelit conference hall, he rested his foggy head against the cool stone of the archway and allowed his droopy eyes to shut for just a second’s respite. He dared not sit, lest he slump to the floor and slumber hardily; though he did wonder if these Laurelin legions might herald his eventual passing to Mandos. Not since the War of the Ring had his energies been so depleted, his foresight called upon with routine nonchalance by those that would belittle him for it and his diplomatic skills drained of resolve in the face of such courageous, stubborn Sindar folk.

The aggravated and little experienced leaders failed to appreciate that Telperion was not their frontier settlement, that the strictures that so chafed them also wrought a harmonious existence for his people, that the gentle forest provided for all their needs, that they were in no danger of predators, pestilence, or crop devastation. That Noldor patience and efficacy may have saved the lives of many, if welcomed in the northlands from the start. Yet how could he convince them, fraught as they were from the recent floodings, that said efficiency also bored their youth to recklessness and imperiled circumstance, that his people were plagued by caste related tensions, that each culture had their fears, fortunes, and foibles.

He thanked the Valar for blessing him with two such able sons, then rallied his beleaguered senses.

Elrond chose to skirt through the gardens, instead of the normal route to the High Council hall. Ithil was large as a honey-melon behind Taniquetil’s bulbous crest, the aura of divinity that emanated from the mountain peak blotted out by the golden moon, herald of summer’s balmy nights to come. As he swept through bashful jasmine boughs, vines of violet blooms, and beds of frail nightshade, he thought of his tireless mate, charged with overseeing the Healing Halls, while Erestor stole an hour or so with his children. He longed to sink into her unparalleled embrace, so blithe, so restoring, but her arms would be kept from him until the wee hours, when both would be too sundered to even essay a kiss. He had forgotten what a strength her mere presence was; how forlorn he had grown in those telltale years without her, how hopeful he was now with her near. If his naneth’s vaulted final prophecy could indeed come to pass, then he would never again need fear calamity, that some turn of fate would snatch her from him, perhaps fading him in turn.

He could not do without her; a lesson from which he yet bore the scars.

As he progressed along the moonlit path, he came upon, to his mild surprise, his twilight-favored grandchild. Echoriath was raptly engaged in a typically thorough explanation of seasonal weeding to his newly trained gardener, whose struggle against the heaviness of fatigue rivaled Elrond’s own. The darkling elf, however, was yet fuelled by anxiety over the proper tending of his foremother’s beloved gardens in his prolonged absence, as such Elrond need not ply his hallowed skills to foresee no rest for the green gardener this night.

His grandson was, apparently, indefatigable. No sooner had the horn sounded from the docks, than he and his applecart were collecting spare tents from the settlement’s talans, which by noontime had been raised in the far meadow. He’d sent a party to collect fruit preserves from his larder, sharp cheese from the forge caves, and lembas fresh from Eldirwen’s ovens, then himself helped serve the simple luncheon, only taking a share at Tathren’s forceful insistence. Before the masses had finished their meal, he’d drawn up plans for a temporary water supply to the meadow; with the ready aid of his exploring companions, the system was in place by early evening. He’d absented himself from their ramshackle banquet to swim in the river, scarf down another Tathren-approved meal, then corral extraneous torches for the colonists’ compound before twilight gave way to child-panicked blackness. Tathren and the adventurers were presently entertaining some of the frontier males in the ale hall, but Echoriath was undaunted, the chores he could not accomplish this day occupying him through nighttime. Amidst this chaos, Elrond held little doubt that Tathren had discovered, through the course of his own day, tiny gifts, signs, and moments flaunting his cousin’s unwavering affection; the proud grandsire instinctively knew his genial one was kin to his Celebrian as example of a doting mate.

His tenacious, tender grandson was in every way astonishing.

Despite the pride that swelled within his chest, Elrond then conspired to free the haggard gardener, who he feared would not longly remember any further instructions. He strolled towards them with purpose; indeed, he had hoped to beg an audience with Echoriath before his departure, and the hush of night was as useful a time as any he might have in the fleeting days to come. His gardener bowed in deference, in acute desperation, which did not go unnoticed by the darkling elf beside him.

“Grandsire,” Echoriath greeted him, with unrestrained affection.

When he hugged tightly to him, Elrond felt the exhaustion he so well concealed, how the affliction of his impending leave besieged him, and thought perhaps the youngling was not so entirely indefatigable, after all. With a pregnant nod, he dismissed the now swaying gardener, loathe to lax his hold on the elf he coddled. Echoriath was just as eager to be held so affectionately, such that he forced Elrond to recall how they had not truly conversed since the revelation of his betrothal to his cousin. Tathren had himself sought him out for that quiescent discussion, but he’d only glimpsed Echoriath in passing or at formal events, preoccupied as he was with Laurelin, Council matters, and Elrohir’s illness. With a sweeping sigh, he allowed his fea to engulf his grandson as his constant arms held fast, balming the little one in the aura of ages past, in the strength of one who’d lived through their people’s greatest sorrows. Though he loved all his grandchildren with a ferocity few might acknowledge in him, this one was his pearl, the rarest jewel in his crown of worthy heirs. That he had been absent for this delicate one’s early years had pricked him something awful upon their arrival in Valinor, but twenty years ago; how he’d have relished curling up by the hearthfire with this elfling to cradle. If for this chance alone, he hoped Elrohir would overcome his fears and gift them another grandchild.

This precious one, however, might very well fall asleep if they lingered too long, so Elrond moved to separate them, despite his yearning heart. Echoriath smiled with renewed conviction, sensing his grandsire’s acceptance of his own heart’s choice even though not a word had yet been voiced by his elder.

“I wager you could not resist the lure of your mistress, Ithil,” Echoriath teased him. “Her ethereal grace bettered by grandmother alone.”

“Indeed, she is a torment,” Elrond replied, complicit in his mischief. “But, alas, she is too distant. Best I take a turn with my grandson, and forget her charms.” Echoriath giggled, as he wove an arm around his lithe waist, though beneath his skin was a ridge of taut muscle. “Where is your beloved tonight, nin pen-ind?”

“In the ale hall, making merry,” the darkling elf informed him, though he held no fear of the novelty of the news on his all-knowing grandsire. “In truth, I pray he will emerge unscathed. Those Laurelin folk are fierce, even to one of common blood. And he a Sinda Peredhil!”

“They are weary,” Elrond commented. “Fear not for our golden one. They will revel with alacrity till they collapse where they stand. Perhaps we should send an envoy of blankets and morning broth to the ale hall…” His grandson laughed again, the aftershocks rippling delightfully through him. “Do you not long for his company, these last nights at home?”

“I will have years of his company!” Echoriath insisted. “Better I assure myself that those left behind do not want too intently for us.”

“Impossible, that we should not want so,” Elrond dismissed his reasoning, but kissed him ardently on the temple. “But heartened are we by your resolve, by your ambitions and your coming achievements. Have you given a thought to what you might name this new settlement? As architect and founder, it is your privilege.”

“I have come upon a notion,” Echoriath admitted. “To be revealed at our return. I would see the site before I conclude myself.”

“Well considered,” Elrond praised his thoughtfulness, as they meandered towards the rose bushes.

The pair fell silent awhile, both enraptured by the velvet night, by the song of the nightingale in the trees about them and the rustle of wind through the nearby willow. The effulgent cast of the yellow moon was mirrored in Echoriath’s glowing eyes, the fullness of which gave the longtime loremaster momentary pause. The serenity of countenance that suddenly came over his grandson told of he whom he reflected upon, as well as the ardor of the emotion roused within him. His eyes were soon luminous as faraway torchlight, as his spirit stretched through the ether to seek out the beacon of his lover’s flame. Rare indeed was the sight of two elves so newly sworn with such a consummate connection, the well-honed capabilities that couples longtime bound but of humbler bloodlines yet fought to realize between themselves.

The event both frightened and awed him, enough of both to prompt his response.

“Does he heed you, when you thusly beckon through the otherworld?” Elrond inquired, with far more confidence than he felt. “Does he answer?”

“He cannot,” Echoriath explained, mildly shocked that his wise grandsire did not understand this potential of his. “But he knows I call for him, and is heartened.” When he observed that Elrond waited on further knowledge, he continued. “At first, I could not control the urgency of the feeling, and he would come at once, fearing I’d come to harm. But as our relations deepened in intimacy, he has come to read my moods and knows when he is truly wanted for.”

“How long have you been able to summon him?” Elrond asked, in his healer’s tone, which put Echoriath on his guard.

“Since we first declared our love,” his grandson replied, with an innocence that worried him. “Is that not usual, grandsire?”

The young elf had never loved before and was apparently ignorant of some of the norms, not to mention that his fathers had neglected to inform him of his potent Maiar blood. Elrond made a note to speak with Elladan this very night, but before, he must veil a loremaster’s cautions in a grandfather’s intent, which was not to spook his timid one into staying from adventure to explore what little they understood of his heritage.

“Tell me, dear one, would you confide an intimacy to one so doting as I?” Elrond queried, with some charm.

“Surely,” Echoriath earnestly replied, though his eyes had ceased their otherworldly shine.

“When you lie with your beloved,” Elrond essayed cautiously. “Does your fea linger awhile, after your passions are ended? Does your flame long to burn as one with that of your cousin?”

“*Desperately*,” Echoriath answered him, though understood what it was he confessed. “In truth, this need of mine has been a concern for some time, which I could voice to no one but Tathren. We are both… conscious of the lure of the other’s flame. We have heard the tales… The feeling is strong in him, but there are times when I feel it might consume me. I have even… I have stopped our relations, once or twice, to corral myself.”

Elrond sighed, then objected: “Pen-neth, why did you not come to me? There exists a humble incantation that, if regularly conjured, can keep a promised couple from consummating their intent to bind before their time.”

“There is?!” Echoriath bleated, then seemed to chastise himself for his ignorance. “Forgive me, grandsire. I have yet so much to learn of loving…”

“The link between you is already rather intense,” Elrond commented. “I would recommend the pledge be uttered with double the regular frequency. But fear not, my brave one, every elf new to love is occasionally daunted by its whirlwind demands. Even some who are not so new experience trouble now and again.”

Echoriath beamed a breathtaking smile at him, then sunk anew into his arms.

“I fear it is not your sage counsel that I will miss most of all, grandsire,” the darkling elf intoned with ardent affection. “But these quiet times of honesty between us.”

The Lord of Telperion shut his eyes, and clung tight to his little miracle elf.

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Beyond the torchlight of the encampment fields, an undulating brume ghosted through the forest hollows. Spectral clouds, like a thin spill of cream between the trees, clotted out all but the black, burley mallorn trunks, the milk-fed moon above. Legolas swerved through the murky wood as if on instinct alone, his violet cloak flapping about him like a raven’s wings. The frosty mist stung his cheeks as might the scowering of steel wool, though he dared not employ the cover of his hood, lest he loose his already meager hold on his bearings. The sodden ground squished and shifted beneath his galloping boots, the springtime mulch of melted snow, damp leaves, and emergent moss a treacherous path for any late evening traveler, but doubly for one so burdened by precious cargo.

While dredging up the bog mud from a nearby marsh that afternoon, the frog-nourished sand an excellent balm for severe burns, he had discovered a patch of barely bloomed amarinths, sister to the golden yasbrinth, late of Glorfindel’s mantle. The flower trove was ample enough for him to thieve away three entire roots, each with four stalks, which he transported in a sack along with several generous shovels of the moist soil that bedded them. The elegance of the petal shape, the lissome stem, and the regal indigo shade reminded him of the hush nobility of his elf-knight; once suitably potted, he would gift his husband this distinguished plant, a favorite of his from the gardens of Imladris. For the extra root, however, he had less eloquent designs.

The drooping boughs of his willow thicket were lithe as wraiths. They swayed amidst the vaporous fume, blown by forces unseen, unfelt by the archer as he billowed up the path of his own, somnambulant gardens. The oval eye of his kitchen window glowered hot in the distance, blinking in time with the flames of the hearth fired within. As he ‘scaped through a side door, the pungent smell of lye pricked his fog-blotted senses; Anorwen, their honorable housemaid, was boiling a batch of undergarments in the belly of a copper cauldron.

Without bothering to properly untie his cloak - which he plunked over a hook, hung by its mithril clasp - Legolas stole over to a wayside alcove, where a worktable for their gardener was housed. He had earlier tasked Echoriath with the retrieval of several supplies, his bond-son-to-be had not failed him. A round pot patterned with a mosaic of translucent blue pebbles, in tones from cobalt to sapphire, was rolled in an oilskin to seal off the fertile earth already filled within. A basket full of tools, vials, and sprays was hid on the bottom shelf of the larder. Spying Elrohir at his desk through the dew shroud pane of the tiny window, which looked across the rose beds and into to his husband’s study, Legolas set about replanting and replenishing the drowsy flowers. Echoriath had been kind enough to enclose a scroll of instructions for the pummeling of the third bushel; once the first two bunches were potted with careful presentation, the archer was ready to turn alchemist for a time.

As he laid out the pouches of athelas, pollen, aloe, and other unguent herbs, he could not keep himself from snatching glances at his comely mate, now tucked up in his basket chair by the humble brick hearth, scribbling intently in his diary. Even from such a distance, Legolas could perceive the sadness he yet held at bay, until their son had truly departed and the tempest brewing within him would be fully unleashed. True to his word, Tathren had spent longly hours each day with his doting Ada-Hir over the past three weeks, but the tally of those days would be done on the morrow and neither could further allay his sorrow at the too-incumbent parting.

Father and son had grown so complicit in their brief confessional time, such that Tathren’s impending absence would thoroughly devastate them both; thus, Elrohir had hatched a winning plan to continue their closeness even away. Each would compose a journal to the other, of thoughts, incidents, and ruses, which would be traded upon the company’s return. Though the agreement had been to commence after leave-taking, Elrohir had not waited through the night of its conception, his heart too full of the troths he could not dare utter - less their son be dissuaded by the ardor of his emotion - to further withhold his quill from parchment. This evening’s fireside conversation had been their last in privacy, Legolas had no doubt his husband would be occupied by his venting of the resulting gush of feeling for some time yet.

He had known better than to leave himself unoccupied during this strenuous time for their family.

As he measured out the ingredients as instructed and tipped them into a bowl of unctuous oil, Legolas could not help but look forward to the time after their grief, when the shock of temporary loss would metamorphose into the relentless appreciation for the mate left with; a brutally physical appreciation, he predicted. When at last his unruly stomach had been appeased of its rancor and his lusting fever smote by proxy, Elrohir had begged a reprieve from their coupling. Legolas, ever gallant, had understood, even encouraged such an action. The chore of constant release or numb impotence demanded by the ruthless fever had taxed his husband beyond his limits of endurance, only for his body to be wrecked to emaciation by his subsequent illness. Their struggles had only strengthened their bond as mates, but Elrohir’s taste for the love-act needed to be rejuvenated, the taint of sickness, rote, and their son’s disloyalty blighted through a period of abstinence.

This vital respite had had the effect of enhancing their chaste affections. Elrohir would constantly seek out the sanctuary of his limber frame; lazing in his arms for an entire afternoon, showering him in a unremitting spate of kisses and touches even when in less-than-polite company, harkening to him after even the briefest of moments apart. Whence he had been judged sufficiently restored by a bedeviled Erestor, they had resumed their nightly strolls, a vital source of contentment for them both. Their meandering discussions through the forest haunts would end not in lasciviousness, but in languor; each husband cradling the other for a time until slumber fell upon them. As soon as they slipped into the other’s arms, their soul flames would meld; the resulting effulgence sustaining them, until dawn and duty beckoned them apart.

Indeed, Legolas came to cherish this time of sweeter love as essential, necessary to both survive their son’s coming absence and the eternity of their blissful union.

The promise of the reunion of flush, hungry bodies, however, loomed large in his daydreams, for he would not insult his husband by dreaming so at night. Perhaps to stave off his own form of melancholy, Elrohir had lately been temptation personified to him, in his smolder-witted estimation. Legolas had devoted most of his free time to plotting future seductions, though these he would only deploy after Elrohir felt readied in giving himself. He respected his husband and his sorrows too much to hasten him. He could, however, demonstrate the ever-flowing rush of his devotion through simple offerings, such as this lovely plant, while preparing for later bed-play by crushing an extra bushel of the blooms into an amarinth-scented salve.

Wicked and cunning, true, but also oddly comforting to the lust-deprived mind of a Mirkwood elf who longed to take possession of his heart’s mate.

Another quick glance told him Elrohir would soon finish his impassioned missive, so Legolas dumped the last of the amarinth powder he’d ground into the bowl of salve, then blended the mixture with the conviction of a seasoned chef. After batting off the last of the glutinous ooze from the spoon, he secured a lid on the bowl, then shelved it in the far back of their ice box. By the time he’d cleared the table of evidence and squired the plant into their common room, Elrohir, eyes warily overcast, was emerging from his study’s shadow.

Though his every nerve was spiked in anticipation, Legolas was casually reclined on their divan, perusing an abandoned volume of love sonnets, when his quiescent beloved drifted in.

“Amarinths, and so soon,” the elf-knight remarked, though without visible cheer. “How came you upon them?”

“A marsh, by the camp,” Legolas expounded, barely veiling his anticipation. “I saw their indigo blooms through the long grass and thought of you.”

Elrohir’s smile was bittered some and would not meet his downcast eyes.

“Beautiful,” he whispered, curling into an armchair leagues from the divan. “You are… you are such a one, my husband…” His brimming mithril eyes locked on the flower, but would not stretch further to his golden mate. “Even in such a bleak time for us, you think but to hearten me. I fear I am no match for your immaculate care, my Legolas.”

At the sounding of that last endearment, Legolas pricked up his ears. There was some newly, though obscure, matter afoot, looming about the chandeliers as if the brume without fogged around them. Only hours before, Elrohir had hung about him like a cat on a sunbaked porch; his bonded had been so amorous before his meeting with their son that the archer had thought they might very well couple that night. Yet if Tathren’s departure had been the catalyst to this despairing mood, Legolas doubted it was the outright cause. If so, why the vacuity, why the listless affectation of gratitude? Some greater mischief had beleaguered his husband, of this he was slowly growing certain, and no force of goodness or gall would keep him from its discovery.

With the stealth of a veteran hunter, he folded the book together and seized up his morose mate. Resignation ruled him, at present, tinged by a hopelessness he battled to offset. When Legolas shifted into a more welcoming position, those argent eyes slunk over him, tempted by the promise of his beloved’s arms. Their gazes met, but Elrohir’s pained visage only withered further; the darkling elf opened his mouth to voice his thoughts, but none would come.

“Melethron,” Legolas beckoned to him. “Do not stinge yourself as the bearer of ill news. Come hither, and be confessed of it.”

“I cannot,” Elrohir balefully shook his head. “For the matter of my conversation will surely burn you such that… that I will not be welcome within your embrace for some time to come.”

“Nonsense,” Legolas scolded him softly. “Tell me soonest of this trouble, and know my heat again.”

“You would not be so giving, if you knew of my… my resolution,” Elrohir mused. “I fear my news will gut you, my dearest one, and I would not, if I could spare it, inflict such hurt upon you.”

“Then come be fortified by my kiss before you ruin me, my beauty,” he ventured, with a touch of humor.

“*Legolas*,” Elrohir groaned, curling further into his chair.

“Melethron-nin,” Legolas cooed, luring him with a prideful smile. “My star-rider.”

To the golden elf’s ever-heightening unease, his Elrohir actually blushed.

“Do not dissuade me with love troths, Legolas,” the elf-knight intoned, with self-imposed severity. “Not this night of nights.”

“Very well,” he sighed in turn, waiting on this fractious news. “I find far too many ‘*Legolas’*’ in that upbraiding tone of yours, meleth. Say your peace, and be done with it.”

With permission granted in such distemper, Elrohir found himself reluctant to commence their sundering. The voicing of his decision could not wait, however, and so he selected his opening words, indeed his every word, with greatest care.

“My recent illness has, by now, been entirely overcome,” he hushly began. “The lust-fever has also been conquered.”

“For the best,” Legolas commented, to encourage him. “I would not haste to see the scourge return.”

“Truly?!” Elrohir asked him, taken aback by his opinion.

“Forgive my boldness,” Legolas prepared him. “But I liked not that our indulgence had become a necessity. I would not have my bonded lie with me for relief alone, nor did I like to take you until exhaustion overwhelmed my senses and I fell dead asleep, for nights upon end. The occasional night of fervent coupling is always pleasurable, for certes, but mindless coupling is for naught. The only thought that kept me counseled was that you suffered far more than I. I came to long for a look of true desire between us. Love was never absent in our togetherness, but lust, as you have so skillfully instructed me through our long years, must be meticulously kindled, before we two, as one, might be engulfed by its flames. Mark me, Elrohir, I gladly gave of myself and would do so again. But I like our ease in loving, I like to tempt you, to be seduced in return. I felt the fever an intrusion, not a boon to our togetherness. I daresay you felt so, as well.”

“I did,” the elf-knight admitted thoughtfully. His shoulders laxed some, when he saw how easily his first hurdle was jumped clear. The second, however, was double the size. “Indeed, I sense, though I know not how, that the fever will never return.”

“Valar be praised,” Legolas heralded emphatically, then waited on him with doting eyes. He wanted his husband something earnest, after that admission, to soothe away the strictures of reason and bathe him, worshipfully, in his love. Perhaps he should voice this desire, before the feeling is betrayed?

Too late, for Elrohir spoke again.

“In light of my recent struggles with our pen-tathar,” his husband stated softly, desolation undercutting every syllable breathed forth. “In the wake of that razing fever, bereth-nin, I… after much reflection, I have come to… to a reversal of our fortune. I no longer… that is, I feel I cannot… I cannot sire…” Before he could speak the last, Legolas was at his feet, kneeling as only a tenderheart could in such a grave circumstance. “You must forgive me, Legolas. You *must*!!”

“Hush, melethron,” he crooned as if a lullaby, pulling Elrohir off his seat and into his arms before the elf-knight could think to object. “I know. I know and… I understand.”

“Forgive me,” the darkling elf bleat anew, but did not stop himself from burrowing into his husband’s tight embrace.

“How can you be ought but faultless in my eyes, lirimaer, after such agony?” Legolas insisted. “We have eternity, meleth, for revisions and reconsiderations. Of most vital importance, we are reconciled with our child. I cannot wish for more, lest the Valar curse me for my arrogance.” Gentle lips found his bonded’s ear, into which he further vowed: “I cannot wish for more than your peerless love, my only one.”

The kiss that then mated to his mouth was far from chaste, far from rote, but flared with the promise of a mate seduced by his beloved’s ever-valiant heart.

The bliss of their most worshipful loving could not verily wait upon sorrow’s renewing aftermath.

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

Elbereth had fashioned such a beauteous day for their departure, none in the vale could doubt the Valar’s will in regards to the valor of the expedition. Indeed, none among the gathered well-wishers could loom amid their own storm clouds too long, when such a luminous cast dappled the glade grass, the trees about billowed in blithe harmony, even the sprightly river gushed wildly, in lieu of tears. The pack-laden steeds were lined officiously, brushed down and petted only moments before by their eager riders, who lately lingered among their anxious familiars, eyes darting away every so often to flatter the luring horizon.

With a snort from Thorontir, or perhaps merely the most wily of the horses, the adventurers were made too strikingly aware of the imminence of their leave-taking.

Arms yet linked with those of his Adar, Echoriath fidgeted rather becomingly, too energized to be affected by the moment of the occasion. His overabundance of excitement had infected his elders, who, far from being worried, were already thinking towards his return, bursting with tales and seasoned by his experiences. Glorfindel hugged to him a good long while, singing him heralds and imparting a lifelong warrior’s wisdom, not shying from a tender peck to end his sermon.

Fuelled by his praise, Echoriath veritably leapt into Elladan’s waiting arms, though his darkling father had nothing but bale-faced emotion to impart. He clung to his yet slender son for lesser time, but with greater intent, drinking in the last remnants of his sweetness. Echoriath, however, was wise to his regrets.

“Fear not, Ada,” he swore to him. “The journey will not bitter me. In my heart, will forever be your timid little one.”

“Aye, that you will,” Elladan himself vowed, then released him before he could not. “Be safe, nin pen-ind. May our love keep you always.”

Before the young builder could recover himself, Cuthalion pounced on him. He thought his brother might break his arms, such was the crush of his embrace, but yet he gave back his equal in force and affection. The silver elf was concomitantly abashed and elated for him, quaking as he was with inexpressible feeling. He fumbled awhile in his pockets, then pulled out a telling leather sachet. Before he could proffer it, Echoriath took up his hands.

“Talion, there is none in Aman that could take the place of such a brother,” he insisted, though he nonetheless allowed the sachet to be pressed into his palm.

“That is why I gift you but a sliver of myself, to keep you,” Cuthalion explained, as his blushing twin loosed the strings.

He extricated a bracelet of leather twine, a lock of his silver hair braided in the weave. Cuthalion tugged back his sleeve cuff, revealing its twin, woven with an ebony wisp instead. At Echoriath’s bleat of delight, of desolation, the horn sounded behind.

“Quickly, you must fasten it,” he urged, as his brother instinctively grabbed his wrist. As soon as this was accomplished to his satisfaction, he sprung on his silver twin anew. “I will cherish it always. None but you shall sever it, gwanur-nin, though may a time never come when I cannot find my home in your heart.”

“Be brave, Echo-nin,” Talion wished him, struggling now to maintain composure and put on a beaming smile for his twin. “Each day, I will want for you, but then I will recall that you are joyful in your charge and pray for the Valar to bless you with inspiration.”

“As I will pray that you find your bliss, nin bellas,” Echoriath whispered to him. “Though we are not of the same seed, Talion, we are forever twinned in regard.”

“We are,” Cuthalion nodded, then kissed him on the brow. “Now go, gwanur, and ride for destiny.”

As Echoriath skipped off towards his tawny steed, his beloved could not bring himself to break from the circle his steadily, though quietly, weeping fathers held around him.

“The years will pass in a blink,” he reassured them. “I swear it, Ada-Las, Ada-Hir. You will not have time enough to want for me, ere I will be returned.”

“We will want but for your safekeeping,” Legolas murmured. “For your fulfillment in the quest, for the awesome beauty of the valley, for the mischievous companionship of your swordbrothers, and for the maturation of your love for your betrothed. We will want for the envisioning of a haven for all the peoples of elfkind. We will want for your peace of mind, and the least daunting hardships along the way. Though you, no doubt, will want for a greater challenge than that.”

“Perhaps,” Tathren smirked, his eyes pure mercury for a glinting second. “I would not waste myself in perils, Ada. I would enjoy my company, my journey’s path, my beloved one. Though I will want for your wisdom, Adar-nin, not to mention an archer who bests me with stunning regularity. Mayhap you should want for my humility...” When the horn sounded for a second time, Tathren knew he had tried Thorontir’s patience long enough. Legolas took solid hold of him, letting the link between them flare for a brief instant. “I will sing to you, Ada, through the ether, so you may know of me.”

“I will listen for you, nin ind,” Legolas promised him. “I could never forget my little lark’s call.”

The instant he wrenched himself from his sire’s arms, he plunged into Elrohir’s. The elf-knight was surprisingly serene, though his cheeks were yet streaked with tears.

“This very night, you must write in your journal, Ada,” Tathren pressed him. “I will, as well. You must tell me all of what you experienced today, all of what is in your heart. I would know you. I would know everything of you.”

“You need know only this, my brave, beautiful one,” Elrohir rasped, not even trusting his voice to carry the message through. “I am so very proud of the elf you would make of yourself, of the courage you demonstrate so effortlessly. May the lessons of the road before you teach of fortitude, caring, and conviction, though you already possess each of these weighty blessings. You have my love, pen-tathar, and will forever be the child of my heart.”

“Gerich veleth nin, Ada,” Tathren proclaimed, then thieved a last, desperate hug.

With a whistle from Echoriath, already mounted his steed, he bowed before his hallowed fathers, then sped off to join his company.

As the riders reared their horses, before galloping off to chase the dawn, the gathering of loved ones and well wishers broke into the traditional questing choral, which sung of hardiness, of gallantry, of honor, heritage, and the wide expanses of their forever land.


End of Part Eleven



Translations:

Gerich veleth nin - You have my love