House of the Golden Flower

Mean Siobhan! Holding my update at ransom!

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That day at my valley changed something between us, and I saw him looking at me more thoughtfully now and then. I stopped smiling when I saw him doing that, and peered silently into his eyes, trying to read the emotions there. He always turned away.

At the next Gates of Summer celebration, he stood at the table and cleared his throat to announce his wish to speak. Everyone looked at him expectantly. He looked at me briefly; the odd look in his eyes again, and then turned away and began to speak. I glanced at Ecthelion, but he didn’t appear to know anything about this.

"I would like to announce that I hereby bestow nobility upon Glorfindel." He gestured to me, and everyone applauded politely. "Glorfindel, what name will you choose for your House?" He asked me.

"I would bestow that honor upon you, my king." I replied, not knowing what I would name a noble house. He smiled briefly, and looked as if he would like to touch my cheek, but refrained. "I name you Glorfindel of the House of the Golden Flower." He stated formally to more applause.

I knelt and kissed his ring, making sure my lips touched the skin surrounding it. I loved this man with all my heart. I sat down after bowing to him and being sure that he sat first. I looked at him sadly during the meal, for I knew that by this he meant not to take me as consort or keep me as his lover in his house, but that this was political. He wished me to marry and father an heir to the House of the Golden Flower, that the child would become regent and king in time. He wanted me to do what he could not, would not. He was giving up pretending that one day he would marry a woman.

I was sorrowed by this, not only because it meant I now had a duty that I must refuse, but that it also meant he loved me to a fault. To his undoing, even unto his own ruin. I lost my appetite and Idril imperceptibly took my hand under the table, offering comfort. Elfling I was no more, and yet sadness could still find me. Yet, there was hope. There was always hope. Idril was our hope, and she knew it as well as I.

After that night I did build and set up my own noble house, and Turgon came and lived with me there as often as I went in by night to share his bed. I took no wife, and Turgon said not a word to me of it, yet I knew that something was wrong for him to be so very distant. And I didn’t want to lose him.

One day, I went to his palace, walked inside and opened the closed study doors, seating myself on his desk atop his papers so that he had to look at me and confront me. He looked up at me calmly. "We need to talk." I said.
"Talk." He replied.
"Children." I said. He winced at the word. "Heirs." I continued, getting another wince. "I will not take a wife, you will not take a wife, Ecthelion wishes to take no wife, and Idril has no husband. What is to be done?"
"You will take a wife."
"Will I?"
"You deserve to be a father, have proud sons to bear up your name. You should live on forever in your children. I command you as your king, as your lover, as whatever I am to you, to take a wife."
"On the authority given me by being your lover, your mate, your equal, I refuse."
"How dare you?"
"How could I dare do it, if you could not? You are no coward Turgon, to send men into battle ahead of you as shields, so why do you play the coward now?"
"What are you saying?"
"I love you, and I want you. Only you. Forever. Or have you forgotten what we said fifty years ago? I’ll gladly remind you, for my memory is yet true."
"Glorfindel, do not argue with me, or I’ll have you put in the prison for treason."
"Coward!" I snapped.
He stood and loomed over me. I met his eyes for a long moment. Then he turned away and walked out of the room.

I followed his retreating back; tempted to kick him so hard his feet would leave the ground. He stopped suddenly, whirled and was right in my face. He shouted, "As your king I command you to marry Idril Celebrindal and you SHALL do so or I’ll have you put in chains!" I didn’t even flinch, meeting his eyes coolly, our noses nearly touching. "Is that all our love means anymore? That I should wed your daughter so you might have the perfect king spawn? Is that all I mean to you? And her, would you make your daughter marry a man she has only affection for as a brother and friend? You are a coward, Turgon, to breed us like horses." I whispered.

He blinked once and as if out of nowhere his open hand caught me across the cheek with enough force to knock me onto the hallway floor, landing on my right side. I did not fight him in the least, and once down I lay there, devastated. "I am no coward." He said in a low voice, and ran away down the hall, away from me.

I lay there.
I had no reason to get up, and so I lay where I had fallen, just as I landed, my body unheeded entirely. All I could see was my hair over my face and all I could hear was the wind blowing emptily through my hollow soul.

He returned after a few hours, and I could tell it had grown dark outside the comforting curtain of my hair. His boots shuffled near my face. I waited. "Glorfindel, get up." He commanded. Not the words I wanted to hear. I decided to be stubborn. I just lay there. "Glorfindel." His tone carried a hint of anger and my name was drawn out in warning. No response from me. He moved off.

I stayed where I was. I couldn’t understand him all of a sudden. What had I done to deserve this? I was angry, understandably so, but I tried my hardest to see things from his point of view. I got nothing. Long hours passed and I still did not move. My patience won out over my anger, which demanded I get up and claim Idril as my wife, as her father’s gift to me and make him jealous and hurt him as he’d hurt me. I did not. I could not. I loved him. I would love him forever. It was a sacred thing, not to be defiled.

He came again in the morning, and I knew it was morning because of the stiffness in my body and the light filtering through my hair. "Glorfindel." He said again, sounding tired and...sad? I held my peace. "I’m sorry Glorfindel." He said after a moment. It was still not what I wanted to hear. I had a feeling that if I waited long enough he would open up and talk to me, tell me why he’d said all that. Another long silence, an wal walked over to the study door and spoke again, angry now. "I want you gone from there by the time I leave this study. I never want to see you in my house again." The words cut deeply. I closed my eyes under my veil of hair. The study door slammed shut.

I lay there a long time, considering.
At length I rose to my shins and elbows and pushed myself up from the floor and walked numbly to his rooms. I paused in the doorway. Where to place myself? The bed we had so long shared? The floor by the fireplace where we sat together long hours? I settled myself in the doorway, sitting with my legs stretched across the threshold. He wouldn’t be able to miss me, or close the door, and he would have plenty opportunity to ‘accidentally’ kick me if he so pleased.

I waited.
He came along at dusk; shoulders slumped, and froze when he saw me in the doorway. Then his face cleared of all expression and he stopped right in front of my legs. "Move." He said, in a dark version of the tone one would use with a servant or a disrespectful child. I remained where I was, gazing beyond him at some invisible point. He drew his sword, and I felt the tip touch my neck under the curve of my jaw, in his favorite place to kiss. Would he? I wondered. There was no telling.
"Move." He said again. The blade pressed inward, the curved tip piercing my skin. The blade in the cut staved off what little blood there might have been, for the moment. It didn’t hurt much.

I became aware his hand was shaking. I moved, drawing my legs up to my chest. The blade retreated, and he sheathed it as he walked past me. He closed the door, sliding me out of the way with it. I sat myself against the wall to the immediate right of the door. Blood ran down my neck and pooled in the hollow above my collarbone. I didn’t bother to wipe it away. Or the tear that followed, sliding down my left cheek and disappearing into the neck y tuy tunic.

Another night had passed in silence before I heard the door open. I did not move, even to look at him. He sat beside me, leaned forward and looked into my eyes. I looked back. He looked haggard and worn, as if he’d gotten no sleep. Then he spoke.

"You don’t want me, Glorfindel. I’m such a cowardly old fool, to have trapped and seduced a beautiful young man like you. I should never have forc-" At that point I didn’t want to hear anymore of his self-loathlieslies and so I slapped him.

He looked at me, emotions swirling in his silvery gray eyes. I met his gaze evenly. Blow for blow, it had been. And this, revealed at last, was the root of the problem. "I knew what I was doing when I chose you, Turgon. Just because I didn’t sleep with any others before you doesn’t mean I was innocent. Unknowing, perhaps, but you’re all I wanted and still want. I chose you, and I love you, you cowardly old fool. Do you honestly think you could have forced me?"

He looked me over sullenly. "No."
"Good. Then I nevant ant to hear bullshit like that again." I kissed him then, right on the handprint on his cheek, still warm from the blow.

He caught my face and turned my lips to his, and we kissed again almost as if it were the first time again. Almost. I knew all the ways to turn him to a writhing mad thing, and he knew mine. Idril was right. We deserved each other. As he carried me to our bed, I honestly didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing.