Of Elbereth's Bounty

Title: Of Elbereth’s Bounty
(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: The family celebrates the return of its boldest young elves, mysteries are solved.
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.
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.

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

Of Elbereth’s Bounty

Part Fifteen

After the last glow of ember was snuffed by the moist evening air, the hearth died. As the acrid fumes of the smote fire roused him from light, dreamy slumber, a crack of lightening sounded, streaked across the sky swollen with ominous gray clouds. As he peered across the pale sweep of Legolas’ back, out the arched study windows and into the blanketing night beyond, the father in him cursed another storm to unsettle his little ones. A second cuss followed suit, that their soft, shuddering bodies would pile into another’s bed and seek the ample folds of his arms, even if such a one was their very brother.

While the lover in him savored the two days left for their leisurely coupling and the husband in him thrilled at the intimate conversation that had stretched over four engrossing afternoons, Elrohir knew that the parent of elflings only had so many opportunities to cuddle with his sprightly ones. As another blinding flash bleached Legolas’ skin a pearly white, the father in him mourned the absence of three toasty, trembling bundles hugged to them, intermittently giggling and bleating, doing everything in their precocious power to delay their rest.

A rumble from his belly-pit put his mind towards other matters. They had coupled away the long afternoon on the luxuriously furred pelts before their hearth, until the heavy sleep of the sated had claimed them sometime after the supper hour. As was his custom once a final, braising release had finished him, Legolas had poured himself across bliss-dizzy husband and suckled his creamy flesh, until the remained of his energies sapped him into oblivion. Elrohir had drifted off soon after. Now, the press of Legolas’s trim body into his very hollow stomach reminded him of naught but the rabbit pies left for them by their cook, yet another delicacy wrought from his husband’s bountiful hunt the previous morn. In his hunger, he vividly recalled other treats spied in their larder: huckleseed cracklins with pickled agoroot, sharp Otirion cheese with chestnut croute, white flagelberries from Vinyamar orchards, and bitter mead brewed in the spring source. Though feasting on wood-elf nourished his /fea/, his /hora/ required baser stuffs and with some immediacy, at that.

Yet a rousing wood-elf appetizer might significantly heat up, with flattery, fawning, and cunning flirtation, the duration of their cold supper, so Elrohir flexed his limbs out with a languid, lascivious purr, the skin-friction between them usually enough to wake his dozing mate. To his surprise, Legolas suddenly grew rigid, his muscles bruising tense and his brow fraught. He hissed fiercely at some phantom foe, then kicked out such that Elrohir had to ease away; once free of his husband’s steady hold, his nightmares struck in earnest. Legolas thrashed about as if arms were restrained behind his back, howling threats at the unknown enemy and spitting viciously into the air. Elrohir knew not if he was revisiting some past torture sequence or envisioning his own dismal beleaguering, but was on some level thankful this seemingly involved the incapacitation of Legolas’ sword arm, lest he be unwittingly knocked senseless and unable to reach his mate.

As he cautiously moved to now. Knowing from experience that coos and caresses would have little effect, he grabbed his shoulders and shook him hard, snapping out his name in a stern voice. After several fruitless trials, Legolas’ growls had turned to helpless mewls; the shattering cries of one forced to witness a beloved’s brute, agonizing execution. The weary elf-knight, desperate to tare him from his own cruel unconscious, slammed him repeatedly down, slapped his cheeks scarlet, was nearly prepared to throttle him, when the archer’s blazing eyes flew open and he sucked in a razor-sharp breath. He quaked such as Elrohir had never known of his valiant husband, choking, gasping, sobbing up a veritable storm in his arms, as the wilding rain pelted like a fire-squad against the window panes. The shame of this vulnerability, even before his doting mate, caused Legolas’ cheeks to burn red as bilious lava; Elrohir had never seen his normally stoic-to-a-fault husband so shredded by something so innocuous as a nightmare.

Which in itself was an omen black as the cinder of Sauron’s fallen form.

As suddenly as he’d been assaulted by his dreams, Legolas sprung up to full, wet-eyed attention. Only then did he seem to recognize Elrohir, but after a quick sigh of relief, he ignored their heady state of undress and grappled to his feet.

“There is trouble,” he barked by way of explanation. “We must fly!”

Before Elrohir could push off the floor, Legolas lifted him upright, then dragged him along to their bedchamber as if the Nazgul were themselves chasing them. He tossed tunic, breeches, boots, and braid clasps at him, himself already halfway clothed before Elrohir could squeeze out the washcloth.

“There is no time for toileting, meleth-nin,” he bluntly impressed upon him, flipping open their armory chest. He threw out sword-belts, scabbards, daggers, quivers, and bows upon the lust-twisted bed-sheets, an arsenal such as Elrohir had not worn since the Battle of Pelennor Fields.

“Legolas, melethron,” he implored him, clasping the archer’s forearms and taking immovable hold. “If we are to battle such a force of evil, then we must ready some plan of attack. You must tell me, my brave one, who indeed we are fighting!!”

To his astonishment, Legolas bit back an outpour of stinging tears. His face as white as a death shroud, he could only rasp out a portend live with violent intent.

“He has come to finish it,” he seethed, then yanked Elrohir towards the door.

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

Their bed of golden hay was bristled, crackling, and damp from the incessant humidity, the wood planks about them stank of mildew and the air was ripe with sopping horse, but curled into Tathren’s arms as he was, little about the pungent atmosphere could truly bother him.

Certainly not the occasional shrieks of elfling delight echoing up from the stalls below, where three raven haired imps aided Cuthalion in brushing down his prize riding mare, Lavana (named after the ellyth who had taken his innocence, but what did one expect of the silvery lothario that was his brother?). The patter of triplets scurrying from stall to stall could be picked out of the din, as well as snippets of instruction, as his Ada-Dan was examining two mares overburdened by late season foals they’d yet to bear, while his Ada-Fin and grandsire Elrond smoked pipeweed by the half-cocked stable doors. He and Tathren had snuck up to the hayloft for some lazy smooching, possibly the only chance for indulgence they’d have on this stormy night.

At every thunder clap, the elflings would squeal wildly, the horses would whinny irritably, and the elders would chuckle to reassure them both. There was domestic bliss, indeed, in this Blessed Realm.

With a glint of pure mischief, he plucked open the collar of Tathren’s tunic, then nuzzled his face in the downy, white-gold wisps revealed to him. His beloved had grown considerably more hirsute since the recent celebration of his hundred and fiftieth begetting day, as, he had learned through an insightful volume on peredhil lore and legend, others of his kind had similarly evidenced. His man-blood delayed the full maturation of his adult form past the usual elven mark of a century, while the fea allowed his more manly attributes, such as broader shoulders, a meatier frame, and the aforementioned thatches of hair, to reign in splendor for an eternity. Like Elrond, Tathren was truly half-man, half-elf, thus was bequeathed a chest-full of flaxen fluff, brackish underarms, and a patch of silky strands to laurel his mortal-thick member. Though Tathren had been overly concerned – indeed, almost deliciously bashful – about the sudden solidifying of his form and the distressing emergence of a pelt upon his front, Echoriath had flattered him into flush-cheeked acceptance; but he had not even amended the truth.

He had been more than aroused by this subtle transformation, he had been ravenous to the point of glutting himself: delving into sharp-scented crevices, stroking the gossamer plain of his chest, relishing how the coarse hairs scraped his chin while he serviced his beloved. To speak nothing of the way needfulness now struck his peredhil lover, his desire often so acute as to tempt forcefulness, not that Echoriath minded the occasional night of manhandling. Indeed, he had not thought Tathren could ever prove *more* alluring to him, but with the passing years his golden beauty was by nature refined and Echoriath’s hunger grew more elemental. He could not dare dream how he might long for his husband once they were bound, how this forever mating might heighten their physical pleasure past the ravishing that nightly besotted him. He was almost relieved that the ceremony had been delayed a year, to allow him to adapt to the merciless, primordial force his lover had become.

A force that now strained quite potently against his inner thigh, from within its breech-cage.

Tathren’s iridescent aqua eyes were penitent, but desperately needful, when he quit the downy wisps and gazed tenderly up. His beloved’s nascent maturity caused him to be extraordinarily sensitive to even the most innocent stimulation. What their sensuous kisses had prompted, bodies pressed hot and ardent neck suckling had prolonged, until self-restraint became outright impossible. Were they only among elders, Echo would not have thought twice about relieving his dearly one; even though Cuthalion would tease their skin raw with future merriment. Yet any more than some involved caresses courted exposure, if not to actual eyes then to the piqued ears of the elflings below. Echoriath would simply had to assure his flamed beloved that none would hear his moans.

Crawling over him with predatory flair, he clamped a luscious kiss to his mouth, drinking deep, plundering thoroughly, and stopping even the most sultry groan from escape. Breeches were soon shoved down, arms defiantly pinioned into the chafing hay and legs locked wantonly open, as Echo began a scorching grind of hard-swollen shafts between them. Fuelled by equal parts of thrill, foolhardiness, and trepidation, Tathren bucked up viciously, the entire length of his skin washed rose with exertion. Twas not long before he crested, an ecstatic howl not entirely blunted by Echo’s tongue, though faint enough not to pique attention amid the peals of elfling laughter below. Echoriath bit into a salty shoulder to stave off his own cry; his earlier musings on Tathren’s peredhil magnificence having roused him more than he’d originally esteemed.

He sank with a crunch into the welcoming shards of hay, twining with Tathren in their usual lazy way. They shared a soft giggle at their stickiness; he was sure none of the elders would mistake the blush of afterglow upon them, when they finally corralled their tipsy senses and skipped down from the loft. Those prying eyes could wait awhile, however, as for the moment there was a love-bite to balm with a few skilled laves, seed to sop up with an increasingly-vital handkerchief, and a emboldened peredhil body to snuggle down with.

***

When they had lingered above for a longly while, Tathren’s face nested in his beloved’s ebony mane and his steamy breaths gusting down the slope of his ear, he heard the stable door crash in. Through a cacophony of harsh voices, they pushed up onto their elbows, but were unable to properly peer below. As no foreign voices sounded and the little ones did not protest this intrusion, they took their time readying themselves, loathe to cover up, to lace in, to break from their tender hold.

“Where *is* he?!” a horror-stricken voice demanded, before fleet boot-soles thwacked up the loft ladder.

Legolas leapt onto the landing and scoured the area, until eyes haunted a spectral blue alit upon them. Tathren smirked at his father, at his own compromised position – caught as he was refastening his breech-laces – but his sire betrayed not a glimmer of bemusement, merely acute anxiety. Stomping over to them, he yanked Tathren to his feet, into a crushing hug, his hands furiously feeling for bruising, a wound, a fracture. While Tathren himself hadn’t the faintest notion what had brought on this frankly bizarre show of affection, Echoriath’s lush features were soon pregnant with understanding, with compassion for the startled father.

“I swear, Ada-Las, he has come to no harm,” the darkling elf assured his wrought uncle. “He spoke with such wisdom, such heart… Ereinion himself would have wept at his poignancy, would have been fired by his call to action.”

“I wish only that this day had never come to pass,” Legolas glowered, though he laxed his hold to overtly examine him. “Has Elrond seen to you? Has he made note of any strange marks, black auras, signs of poison or spellcasting about you?”

“Ada, I am entirely well,” Tathren insisted, comprehension dawning at last. “He will cause no trouble in the vale, grandmother would never forgive him.”

“He cares only for vengeance,” Legolas ignored his reasoning, looking raptly into his eyes for evidence of the black arts’ thrall. “Swear to me you did not challenge him, ioneth.”

“I did not challenge him!” Tathren scowled, bordering on foul humor. “Ada, I have my wits about me!”

“*Legolas*,” Elrohir beckoned his temperance, as he stepped onto the hayloft. “Meleth, you are frightening the little ones. They have never seen you rage so; they are all aflutter below.”

A spark flared in Legolas’ eyes, as he digested his mate’s concern.

“Were they near, when you confronted him?” Legolas demanded anew. “Were they exposed to his wrathful bluster?!”

“They were entirely safe,” Echoriath interjected, growing weary of his accusatory tone. “Ada-Dan came to fetch them home to our foremothers and Ada-Fin accompanied us into the assembly. There was never any chance of harm, Ada-Las – if I believed even the merest threat opposed my beloved, I would have dragged him home myself.” Echoriath’s sympathetic, though adamant, eyes seemed to finally reach the harried golden elf. A gentling touch from Elrohir followed suit, along with a hearty clasp from Tathren himself.

“Meleth, will you not heed their testimony?” Elrohir further soothed him. “They are whole, hale. The storm has passed.”

With an anxious wince, Legolas whipped around to face him. “But Tinuviel?!”

“Both Mithbrethil and your Naneth have sworn he knows naught of Tinuviel’s birth,” Elrohir reminded him, weaving consoling arms around his frazzled beloved.

“He traffics with the Laurelin elders,” Legolas objected, though without his earlier fever. “One of them may have…”

“Tinuviel sleeps in the Lord’s House, Ada,” Tathren informed him. “We spoke with Nenuial upon our return and thought it best if all the little ones rested here awhile, until our elders could properly – and *calmly* - asses the situation. Though I doubt any trouble will come of this encounter, we are not careless.”

“Merely bold enough to dally in a hayloft,” Elrohir taunted wryly. “With your entire family occupied below.”

Even Legolas laughed generously at this gibe, while Tathren and Echoriath essayed a ruddier palette for their cheeks. Yet the archer and vigilant father would not be entirely dissuaded from his course.

“You may indeed be hale, pen-tathar,” he noted carefully, stroking a doting touch through his son’s sheathes of flaxen hair. “But surely such an encounter riled you… dredged up emotions long imprisoned within…?”

At this potent remark, Elrohir also became readily troubled by the consequences of this unexpected confrontation.

“Seeing him in the flesh was rather… daunting,” Tathren hushly admitted. “But he was so arrogant of manner, of such self-inflated countenance, that I soon saw through his over-polished veneer to the cowardly elf beneath. To think I had once wished to know him… I must again beg forgiveness for the trouble this wrongful desire caused between us, Adar-nin. Your advice was sage, objective and inviolate; he loves nothing more than his hold on others, than rule at any cost. If I may take some heart from the circumstance of our encounter, it is in the knowing that I am more than worthy of him – I am his better in strength, compassion, and valor, for your love has raised me so. I have had but a taste of the bitterness you combated, of the obstacles you faced to see me born. That you did so with such conviction and such love bests me through. I am… forever grateful, for your gifts to me, for your sacrifice…”

Tathren soon found himself plunged anew into the dual holds of his adoring fathers, swept away as they were by the feeling behind his humble words.

“Twas no sacrifice at all,” Legolas promised him. “To see you so gloriously grown.”

“Nay,” Tathren countered him, as they all reluctantly eased off. “I know too well the comfort and caring of a father’s affection. Twas a momentous sacrifice.”

“Yet I wonder if the foregoing of Thranduil’s affection would be weighted by such a steep price,” Echoriath considered, as they all made their way towards the ladder.

A glance back at his golden father’s sober visage told Tathren how wrong his beloved was.

***

The heavens above crashed with bolts of live, livid lightening, as the coal-black firmament crackled with sparks in their wake. The shroud peak of Taniquetil burned fierce, streaking the clouds of gray fog with orange flints and puffing its billows with angry red fumes. Gales of serpent-tailed wind whipped down the mountainside to lash mercilessly through the trees, tearing terrible cyclones of leaves from their startled boughs. The most fearsome storm the vale had seen in all its years raged beyond their trembling shutters; the climate within Elrond’s foyer was no less likely to thunder out reason’s feeble restraints, such was the atmosphere weighted with virulent emotion.

“The Valar themselves are infuriated by the happenings in our humble vale,” Elrond himself noted, as he lingered by the window. “They like not to see their heroes so distressed.”

“The Mirkwood may have distracted them from his machinations,” Glorfindel snorted in disgust. “But here before their hallowed mount, his dubious dealings are laid bare. He will face their wrath if he but dares to devise.”

Seated with such regal countenance as even Elrond rarely affected, the Balrog-slayer betrayed not but the boldest confidence. Long accustomed to deciphering Thranduil’s mind-games, he held little fear that the former Mirkwood king could be thoroughly trounced by the esteemed company collected for this unexpected, unofficial family council. He was, however, one of the few with such an irrefutable belief in the ultimate inefficacy of Thranduil’s doddering might, as most of his progeny were assembled there.

With every glance in the direction of any of her three grave-faced sons, Laurelith further bittered towards the husband she had so recently reconciled with, the garish color of the gutting hurt he had caused each sterling one like a stain on her heart. She inwardly marveled that, after the blunder of her reunion with her imperious bonded, they could even think to entrust her with the coddling of her precocious granddaughter, the tiny miss Tinuviel, who in deep, peach-cheeked slumber was completely oblivious to the goings on around her.

The triplets had been far more riled by their golden father’s fraught manner. Once he’d descended from the hayloft, they had forced his attention on them, keeping about his and Elrohir’s legs while they walked the short path to the main house. The first rumbles had struck upon their entrance therein, at which point Nenuial swept into the hall and her spooked sons could not thereafter be pried from her skirts. Their gentle mother had finally cooed them into a light, tremor-ridden sleep before the blazing hearth; she was now wrapped tight there with them, along with Miriel and Oronath, tucked into the arms of a vigilant Cuthalion.

With Haldir called away to lead the security patrol, Erestor had gratefully joined them, his calming influence and clearheaded suggestions vital to the tense proceedings. Seated primly in a soft-cushioned chair, he kept one hawk-eye on his sleeping babes and one on his former charges; the loremaster would never truly be other than their guardian. Though he sat chastely twined with his mate, Elladan hovered near Echoriath; who was similarly reclined with Tathren, with an ease of manner and an air of inner fortitude neither must have actually felt.

A distracted Mithbrethil positioned himself rather close to the fire, as if in need of its warmth on this dark night; his absent visage clearly longing to be elsewhere, in another’s dulcet embrace. That Thalarien was quietly dozing in her husband’s tender arms undoubtedly did little to alleviate the burden of separation for him, though Luinaelin, haggard and aggravated from an endless day of negotiations, battled so against his fatigue, he would enjoy naught but his wife’s consoling presence this night.

As his pensive father drifted back from the window, Elrohir completed his survey of the hall’s assembly and graced his mate’s pallid countenance with concerned argent eyes. In truth, he had never before seen Legolas so utterly provoked, nor so blatantly afraid. Fear was not an emotion he had ever associated with one of his beloved’s valor. Legolas, however, was a warrior to his very core, and no warrior leapt into the fray without first sharply assessing his own potential weaknesses. His ferocious love of and elemental protectiveness over Tathren, Tinuviel, and the triplets were the archer’s most glaring weaknesses; that they were threatened now brought out in him both the lion and the lamb. The lion would stop at nothing to keep them safe, but was often too sure of its skill to think out proper strategy. The lamb was the yet innocent heart that loved them with a warrior’s pure regard for his charges, which left his own self-possession perilously vulnerable.

If any harm were to come to them, Elrohir feared it would be the end of him.

That no promise nor pronouncement of the Mirkwood king’s could convince Legolas of his earnestness and good intentions disturbed him little. Creatures obeyed their inner urgings; Elrohir himself regretfully believed that not even Laurelith’s unblemished regard could restore her husband to his right mind. The king had allowed their family tragedy, his estrangement from the other elven tribes, the murk of the Mirkwood, perhaps even some small dose of the Shadow itself, to seep into his beleaguered, grieving senses long ago; only a direct petition to the Valar above could cleanse him of this wretchedness, over years of time and of penance. Only then could he dare to beg his sons’ forgiveness, tentatively begin to know his long-grown grandchildren.

Yet Thranduil’s rage was easily wrought, his will and might of colossal intent. This was Elrohir’s immediate concern; that in his haste to protect their younglings Legolas would be overbold and clash with his crazed father, thereby effective another tragedy of epic proportions. One not necessarily fatal to his mate. Elrohir, though he adored his husband and knew him, in their bed, to be a truly soft-hearted spirit, also knew he was possessed of enough mettle, enough blinding terror, enough of his own injurious anger that he could, if thoroughly provoked, kill his sire.

Legolas had held Tinuviel longly before ceding her to his mother, had denied his sadness but had been deeply stricken when the triplets had fled to their own naneth. Though he would always love each and every child with abandon, he hated the weakness this love exposed and blamed himself for the threat to their safety. The lion and the lamb were at war within him; Elrohir was unsure that even one of his admittedly vast diplomatic skills could resolve these polar forces in his mate to a sensible course. Not when baited by his own raucous fears, the horror-pregnant thought of losing husband, son, and thereby his own wits in a blow of Thranduilic proportions.

Though Legolas was bent forward over his lap, arms balanced on his knees as if to sprint forward at the necessary moment, Elrohir squeezed his thigh with a caging grip. His only recourse, at present, was to distract Legolas with his own acute worry, force his husband to concentrate on his well-being, not on aggressive thoughts. The ruse worked instantly. Legolas leaned back into the chesterfield cushions and wove a tight arm around him, even taking his lips in a long, gentling kiss; the barest echo of their afternoon’s loving rippling through him.

“You are my strength, star-rider,” the golden elf whispered, as he clasped his dearly husband’s hand.

He stole another heartening kiss, before turning his attention to Elrond, though beside them Tathren’s smirk was unmistakable. He winked at his mischievous son, as much to reassure him as to taunt him, who gestured fondly in return.

“The hour grows late,” Elrond summoned them to order. “And I would sleep in resolution. What word from the colony?”

“My brother and I have been acclimated as initial lords of the hamlet,” Luinaelin explained. “After Tathren’s brave words, many have resolved to remain awhile and break ground with us, though a small minority is yet loyal to their king.”

“I wager more will follow you, by dawn,” Erestor predicted. “With the Valar’s will railed from mountain spire down to the very bowels of earth beneath us, few will be so blind as to ignore them.”

“Yet our people are not slurred as mule-headed for no ready reason,” Mithbrethil pointedly remarked. “My Adar is shrewd enough to spin their displease in his favor, gaining a few converts. Twas ere his method in Mirkwood, and many here are longtime Mirkwood folk.”

“Some will go and some will stay,” Legolas concluded for them. “This is of relatively little concern, a village will be founded regardless and you, my brothers, will be lords. But will he come for our children?”

“He already has,” Glorfindel stated bluntly. “And they have answered him.”

“Aye,” Tathren seconded, but with gentility enough to soothe, not bait, his father.

“Do your children know him, Luinaelin?” Elrond asked.

“Nay, and they will not,” Luinaelin insisted, matching Legolas for aggression. “We have already made plans to move them hither, by accepting your gracious invitation, Lord Elrond. I, myself, will keep a tent at the colony, but as Thalarien is nearing her birthing time, I would she reside here.” He patted his wife’s plump belly, as he spoke this, though his inquisitive stare turned on his mother. “But our children are not the only ones needful of protection. What action are you resolved to, Nana?”

With a long, bleating sigh, Laurelith confessed: “I feel, ioneth, that in light of all his grievous behavior, that a council of this bleak nature must be called to order… I cannot justly return to him.”

The silence that met this decision could have stopped time itself.

Beside him, Legolas shuddered such that Elrohir thought him weeping, though he collected himself with a swiftness typical of his self-possession. Though the idea of his mother in that tyrant’s embrace sickened his husband to his own purging illness, if Laurelith did not rejoin her husband and return to Laurelin, there was no anticipating the fury of Thranduil’s vengeance upon them. None assembled could be convinced of his seeing his part in her estrangement, of his vowing to better himself to deserve her love anew. The price for her safety would be high, though not one of her sons would see ought but its payment, even with their own lives.

If Elrohir despaired at this prospect, then the subsequent interjection struck ice-cold.

“Then I will face him,” Tathren declared, though Echoriath blanched almost instinctively.

“You will do no such thing!” Legolas countered roughly. “Tis my blood he’ll seek, *I* alone will meet his wrath.”

“Never alone will you stand, gwanur-nin,” Luinaelin amended for him.

“Not when I am childless, unbound,” Mithbrethil insisted. “Ever has he kept my counsel close. I will renounce my lordship, be reconciled, journey north with him. With Nana gone, he will cling to me. I will convince him of my repentance.”

“What of Aneandrel?” Luinaelin demanded of him. “You cannot forsake her and be content, Brethil.”

“What of contentment, when these sweet ones are in peril?!” Mithbrethil shot back. “Those lovely ones by the fire, Tathren to be bound in a year’s time… your own babes, Luinaelin… Tinuviel so comely in our Nana’s arms? A flirtation is small sacrifice, when such ones are at stake.”

“Think you they will ere be safe if our father watches his one hope fade from grief?” Legolas affronted him. “A flirtation, Brethil? If Aneandrel is but a flirtation, then Elrohir and I are but swordbrothers.” He appealed to the greater audience, his face lit anew. “Come now, we are among the keenest minds and the bravest hearts of our people! There must be a peaceful resolution at hand!” Despite his words of encouragement, he sighed warily, his brow creased with the effort to corral an archer’s wits to their task. Elrohir hugged him close again; he’d moved away some in his ardor.

To their commingled horror, Tathren stood to address them all.

“I believe, Ada, my familiar ones,” he solidly began. “That you are somewhat mistaken in your assumptions. Why would he come for you, Ada-Las? You journeyed to Mirkwood to face him, not one but twice before we took leave of Arda. He could have easily forced his way into our family home, bragging to grandmother of his desire for reconciliation, yet he remains hidden on the outskirts of our realm. If he wanted to confront you… he would have. Nay, it is I who lured him into stealthier tactics. He would break bread with me, as he has already himself suggested. I know not what his ultimate designs are, but I know this: I can subdue him. I can best him. At the very least, I can momentarily appease him with a brief audience.”

“Tathren-“ Legolas attempted to deny him, but Elrond quickly interrupted.

“Let him speak, my bond-son,” he all but commanded, which forced Legolas’ silence.

“There has been much talk, of late, of the prophecy’s fulfillment,” Tathren commenced anew. “Of the fruition of my future bond with Echoriath. The Laurelins in particular are wedded to this idea of my Valar-blessed potential; indeed, were I of greater years, they would want me for their lord. Their nearsightedness in this is somewhat astounding and I give it no import. But my grandsire, in his ever-constant paranoia, very well might. He has tried to smite me before. Now that I threaten the continuation of his rule, he very well might be plotting a similar action.”

“All the more reason to keep you away,” Elrond himself softly suggested, as none dared interrupt the young elf after the Lord’s order.

“Perhaps,” Tathren acknowledged, then inhaled a fortifying breath. His next statements would be controversial at best, but make them he must. “I have lately read the prophecies myself, in hopes to countermand some of these forced interpretations. As I reflected on the text, I came upon… two notions specific to our trouble this evening. First, that the prophecy nowhere states explicitly that Echoriath and I are bound as mates when Mandos is opened free.” The company absorbed this idea with pensive silence, adjusting their own assumptions to his newly theory. “We already evidence, as routinely examined by our grandsire Elrond, a preternatural connection. Our hora have yet to join as one, but our fea have long been commingled. By this reasoning, the prophecy’s requirements are, in part, fulfilled. As to the second, the lines are vague in specifics, which led me to reflect further on our present circumstance. Thranduil has ever attempted to… to do away with what he has wrought. In this, he may act in league with some form of Shadow, but we know he is not bedeviled, merely overproud. Perhaps, then, this opposition is the will of the Valar. Perhaps I am meant to–“

“Nay!!” Echoriath cried out, his burnished eyes instantly alight with tears. “Nay, nay, *nay*, meleth-nin!!” The keenest mind among them, he had already made that vital leap to Tathren’s unthinkable conclusion, the vision of which instantly drenched him in the most unforgiving sorrow ever known to the tender elf.

Tender, indeed, were Tathren’s eyes, when he glanced back to soothe him.

“Melethron,” he murmured with lush affection. “If tis their will, none can countermand it. We must face the truth boldly. There are other hearts at sake, Echo, others loves and lovers. Our sacrifice would render so many unto joy, and not without recompense. We would not be apart eternally, merely for a time.”

“I cannot bear such an absence,” Echoriath bleated, now weeping openly and curled into Elladan’s vigilant arms. “I could not… my heart would… my fea…”

“You are not meant to, nin ind,” Tathren whispered, reaching out to stroke his slick cheek. “That, too, would be part of their design. We are meant to free Mandos together, through our love. Mayhap through the challenge of… a tragic love.” He snatched up the darkling elf’s trembling hand, pressed a hot kiss to its palm. “I would do all in my power to return to you soonest, melethron-nin. I would shake the Halls of Mandos such that their stone would crumble to dust, for love of you, Echoriath.”

“But not from within!!” Echoriath mewled, letting the others in on their cryptic quarrel.

In his quiet corner of the chesterfield, Elrohir considered this news with mounting devastation. He, too, had read the prophecy in full, and though there was no evidence that Tathren was mistaken in his conclusions, neither was their proof of his rightness. Yet he could not still the rapid-fire pulse through his tense veins, nor could his parent’s heart accept this fate for his golden child.

“Have you not accounted for the others that might fade from grieving you,” Elrohir opined, as delicately as he could manage under such strained circumstance. Legolas stared at him with palpable relief, his tongue rendered almost witless at his son’s insinuation. “Though they would all be freed by your rescue, are you truly willing to allow your brothers to be raised without fathers, your grandparents to live without their son, your uncle without his twin, say nothing of other fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers that might be smote by your fall? Surely, the Valar have not blessed their heroes with such bounty so that they might all be assembled in Mandos for a few centuries of reckoning before its tumultuous end? Mark me well, ioneth, you are infinitely brave to venture such a notion, but there is none here who will allow you to proceed as if it were commanded from on high, when there is not evidence enough to support even its suggestion, valiant as your words have been and the later action implicit within them is.”

Tathren nodded, conceding his harried father’s point, and sunk back into his seat. His eyes, however, were so bright with resolve that Elrohir now feared two of his dearly elves would do something dangerously rash.

“Yet his argument has some soft merit, to my great regret,” Elrond responded kindly to his sobered son. “Tathren has rather convincingly argued that he is Thranduil’s primary target, whatever his intentions. Perhaps some carefully escorted meeting might at the very least allow us to better navigate the minefield of his motivations.”

Swallow back a growl, Legolas fought his rousing ire and stated plain: “I know my father, Elrond. He has wanted to end Tathren’s life from before his very birth!”

“We cannot prevail without some sacrifice, Legolas,” Erestor, ever the voice of reason in Elrond’s house, impressed upon him. “I am but a newly father, but I know what it is we ask of you. I would never give a second of my son’s time to a tyrant such as your Adar. But the threat to your other children, to your brother’s brood is terribly real. Even the barest, most offhanded mention of Tinuviel’s existence could stir up the king’s darkest instincts, once he knows you have begot a child of pure elven blood, once his mate has forsaken him.” His point shot true, by the archer’s grunt of frustration; Erestor gracefully moved on to specific arrangements. “If we are all agreed on this course of action, I will set up a luncheon at the Laurelin camp in a few days time. Glorfindel and I will accompany Tathren ourselves. Haldir and Rumil will stand guard, along with Tathren’s own company. If at any time Tathren wishes to depart, we will spirit out of there so swiftly, not the Nazgul themselves would mark us.”

“The question remains before us,” Elrond formalized the proposition, as Elrohir’s innards writhed with contempt for so fastidious, so vile a solution. Legolas drew ever closer to him, unsure whether he could give his bond-father a voiced acquiescence. “Are we agreed?” Elrond turned, first, to the subject at hand. “Tathren?”

“I am most heartily agreed,” he nodded, his warrior’s streak humbly relishing the challenge.

“As are we,” Elrohir spoke, mostly to relieve his husband of such a dark duty. “With the necessary provisions in place.”

“Well noted,” Elrond smiled reassuringly at his son, who sought sustenance in his sage gray eyes. He would take private counsel with both Elrohir and Legolas, later. “Others?” Each in turn voiced their agreement, most wishing Tathren good fortune and gentle reason. When all but one was accounted for, Elrond shone a patient, balming look upon his still sniffling grandson. “Echoriath, you have not said your piece.”

The darkling elf shut his brimming eyes, then drew in a halted, harrowed breath. When his lids raised, his gaze was distant, darkened, as if some vital spark had been smote from him.

“I will give no word against my oath of love,” he replied, with gripping clarity. “If this action is taken, though taken with utmost security, it is nevertheless without my consent.”

Though Tathren’s face was ashen, Elrohir marked that Elladan’s betrayed more than a hint of pride. He instinctively knew his twin would have chosen like to his son’s calamitous decision; indeed, he himself might have been so bold in his youth. The choice, however, was a young one, born of a peacetime life. Yet Tathren and Echoriath must suffer their own lovers’ quarrels, if they are to be righteously bound. Most of the elders present instantly recognized this, and the resolution was passed.

“Very well, then,” Elrond concluded. “Erestor will take the matter into his own extremely capable hands. I suggest we retire, my dear ones, lest we prove too exhausted, on the morrow, to enjoy the very impish elflings we sought this night to protect.”

With that, the company drifted off in itinerant pairs – Celebrian with Laurelith, who yet cradled Tinuviel; Elrond sharing a private word with Erestor; Luinaelin carrying his dormant wife; Glorfindel offering Mithbrethil a nightcap; Elladan assuring that Tathren and Echoriath would take a chamber within; even Cuthalion woke long enough to bear his two charges to a proper bed - though Elrohir and Legolas lingered on the chesterfield. Legolas was yet a mire of irresolution, so far from the hot-blooded elf that had claimed him that afternoon as to almost bring Elrohir himself to tears. The archer rested a leaden head on his mate’s shoulder, seeking a rare moment of consolation from him. Though himself worried beyond measure for their courageous son, he knew a husband’s valor was now required of him; thus he gathered Legolas tightly to him and gave him blithe succor.

Before long, a faint tug on his tunic arm awoke him to the world around. He raised his face from Legolas’ silken crown to discover three sets of onyx eyes, their black irises flickering with reflected firelight, fixed imploringly upon them. Brithor was the first to reach out to them, hoping to somehow ease his fathers’ sadness with the tender hugs that had so often heartened him. Ciryon and Rohrith soon similarly beckoned, their dark eyes wet with sympathy. He spied Nenuial’s knowing wink, as she slunk out the door to check, no doubt, on the state of Tinuviel’s hunger.

Legolas, as near to elation as he could muster, scooped up his bushel of sons and drew their warm bodies between them. Even though they could not tell them of what had transpired that evening – their brother’s peerless valor, their grandsire’s heinous behavior, their own dire circumstances – they took ample consolation from their unquestioning support and cherished the treasures the Valar had so amply bequeathed them.


***

Spinning the delicate pewter handle three rotations counter-clockwise, Tathren released a spill of foamy hot-spring water into the hollow tub. Perched on the swooping edge, which arced over a voluptuous diameter to curve up at the end like a teasing tongue, he breathed deeply of the steam clouds that billowed about the faucet, the mineral aftertaste so reminiscent of the sea. As if the balmy bath would not already be enticing to his fraught and haggard beloved, he sprinkled scented herbs into the gushing water: jasmine, cardamom, and a faint trace of clove spice. If his treacherous self would not be called upon to mollify Echoriath’s tension-strained muscles, then the very least he could do was provide him with an alternative remedy to ease his physical aches.

Tathren doubted the sweetly elf’s spirit would find rest this night.

Yet clad in his light undershirt and now chafing breeches, Tathren wondered, as he crossed to relight a storm-smote candelabra, how longly Echoriath might linger in the hallway, in heavy-hearted consultation with his Adar. While their disagreement at the makeshift council had hardly been the first time they’d found themselves of opposing minds, twas indeed the only occasion on which they’d been of conflicting opinion on such a fundamental issue. Earlier, as they made their way from the common room to their guest bedchamber, Echo had glided through the halls behind them as if a shadow of himself. Once arrived at the threshold, he could not bring himself to forgo his father’s strong, consoling presence, and thus begged a private audience of him.

Tathren had well understood, even encouraged such a consultation, though his approval had hardly been solicited. He himself wished Elrohir and Legolas were not so absorbed in their own apprehension as to almost forget that their eldest son, while of tireless courage and of voluntary will, had acted purely out of heart and thus required some of their peerless heartening, to supplement his own. Left to his own devices for over an hour of stagnant isolation, Tathren found he could do naught but silently fret.

Was he needlessly endangering himself, the sanctity of his family, his future bond with his beloved, by taking on such a foolhardy challenge as to meet blunt with his murderous grandsire? Was this simple, yet pestilent trouble the first spore on the unblemished face of their togetherness? Would his warrior’s resolve be the severing of them? What if this action, this choice countermanded the Valar’s intended destiny for him, broke him from Echoriath forever, and rendered the prophecy moot? Could he survive an eternity without his heart, his Echo, whose thoughtless wounding earlier that eve had regressed his poor, tender elf back to the bleating timidity of his minority?

Echoriath had not seemed so brittle, so diminished, not since the first months of their bleak winter ensconced in the brute mountain pass. The anguished elf that had met his eyes in the common room had been the one who had pined for him from afar for a half-century; the one who had scurried away to his sketch pad when roused hot-cheeked by embarrassing feeling and the one who had toiled away in his greenhouse to avoid the sight of Tathren frolicking in the gardens, lusty-eyed, with a past dalliance. The potential return of such a Spartan way of life had maddened him to grief, had made his stout-hearted Echoriath forget his own tenaciously-earned strength.

Tathren could not fault his beloved for this sudden weakness, not when the idea of a millennia without his gentle one so petrified his own heart that its stalactite surface would stake him from within, were the most horrific circumstance of his young life to come to pass. He was asking – nay, demanding – that Echo bet on a power-drunk elf’s passivity in the face of the ultimately loss; little wonder his beloved scorned him so. Yet, ever of Thranduil’s bullish kindred, he could not allow himself to give in to these black thoughts. Instead, he had busied himself with relighting the torches, adding a few candelabra spokes to their subtle glow, plumping the veritable bouquet of pillows, and drawing an unctuous bath for his weary love to soak in, as longly as his troubles might plague him.

His equally restoring embrace would await in the bed beyond, though Tathren did not delude himself that his soothing arms would be soon required after such shameless behavior.

As he extracted two luxurious velour robes from the linen chest at the foot of the bed, he smelt the rich, heather-laced musk that permeated his beloved, then heard him bolt the lock. With a sigh so weighted it whimpered some at the end, Echoriath padded over to the bedside, where the robes were now laid out, and began to undress. Tathren was unsure what to make of this gesture, whether to offer his usual, affectionate assistance or to allow the darkling elf time to make his needs known. He chose the latter – wisely, he thought – as Echoriath had yet to meet his anxious eyes with even the most cursory glance.

Echo’s sobriety did little to impeded his implicit efficiency. He deftly folded his clothes as they were stripped off, hanging the necessary garments off a nearby chair, tucking his boots under, and loosing his hair with typically fleet form. By the time Tathren tugged off his shirt – cautiously positioned on the opposite side of the huge bed – Echoriath was entirely naked, neither displaying his considerable beauty nor concealing it in some backward notion of propriety; his comeliness was neither weapon nor tool, but plain, unavoidable fact. He abandoned the robe on the coverlet and walked humbly over to the bath, apparently unable to resist its rejuvenating promise.

Tathren kept his gaze fixed to his brief toileting tasks during his own bedtime routine, his solemn stare uninvited to the frothing tub, to the assurance of a single, penetrating flicker of the golden-eyed elf within. Once unfettered, he crept between the welcoming sheets, their satin folds of little comfort to his stricken, hardened soul. He did not bother to feign a sleep that would elude him the entire, empty night, but instead sought out the sultry moon, whose midsummer swell loomed luminous above, now that the storm had tempered some. He lay transfixed beneath her dulcet cast for a long, listless while, until waters rippled circuitously in the distance, the flap of sodden towel sounded, and lithe feet dug a path through the bristly bedside rug. A dull weight sank into the other half of their mattress, heavy with languor, with sheer, crippling exhaustion.

There was no solicitous touch to stroke up the length of his back, though its ghostly memory tickled up his spine such that he had to fight the impulse to shiver.

Tathren thought, suddenly, strangely, of his mother. Though death was a truth of mankind, even for those whose lives were stretched out by their ancient elven lineage, she had nevertheless chosen to bear a child who would considerably outlive her. She knew her babe would see her fall, knew he would pass an eternity with only the sparest of memories of her, but she never wavered in her want to give him life. She could have, so easily, conspired with Thranduil to bring about his death in utero, where not even the Valar could have reformed him, but instead she wailed for Elrohir in face of his assassins, fortified herself in Lorien for the duration of the War, and forgave Legolas his distance, his prolonged absences. Indeed, with two such fathers to raise him, she could have given him up entirely to them, but instead she gave up her very kin to be at his side as he grew, save those three vagabond years his fathers had allowed her to take him journeying with her Dunedain clan, so that he might know his manly side.

Were it not for the many sketches that kept permanent record of her beauty, Tathren would have already forgotten the soft plains of her face, the tender sparkle of her eyes and the worshipful gaze she always blessed him with. As peredhil, he was not possessed of the vigilant memory resources of full-fledged eldar, so the sketches were intensely precious to him. The knowledge of these and her final words to him he had buried in the most secret valve of his heart, a vault dedicated to her alone. Twas a strength similar, but never equal, to hers he had drawn on at the council. When he proposed the potential of his fall, of his breaking of Mandos from within, he had remembered her blithe, undaunted calm as she had bid him a final farewell. His dear Nana, of hallowed, battle-hardy Dunedain stock, had not failed him at the last, though he had been nearly abolished by sorrow.

He was startled back into the present moment, when that telltale touch did indeed smooth down his back. The spill of his own tears was a shock to him.

“Do not weep, meleth-nin,” Echoriath murmured against his temple, his body now entirely spooned with his. “I have not forsaken you.”

“I did not think… that is, I but thought on…” he struggled to explicate, his nerves suddenly raw with need of Echoriath’s warmth. His forgiveness. “My Naneth.”

“To speak of sacrifice,” the darkling elf acknowledged, enveloping an even more generous hold around him.

Echoriath fell silent a stretch, his arms of ample consolation, which allowed Tathren time to center himself. The golden elf eventually wormed around to face him, a penitent gaze alighting upon solemn amber eyes.

“Forgive me,” he essayed. “I was wrong to venture such a fateful interpretation of the prophecy without first debating the notion with you, melethron.”

“I would gladly forgive this injury,” Echoriath replied hushly. “If you would forget the notion entirely and focus on a less fatal interpretation of the scrolls.”

“But what-“

“I will not live for supposition, nor speculation, Tathren,” he told him forthright. “The prophecy may have a milliard interpretations, and though every action we take on either allows or negates the possibility of Mandos being freed, we cannot weigh every decision in such vaulted light. We must live as we would. The Valar will provide for us, heroes or no.” He hesitated a moment, his lids downcast while he gathered his thoughts. “Have you never, in these secret reflections of yours, considered that the prophecy… may not come to pass? That we were never intended to break Mandos, that our love, though true and hotly felt, is but… coincidence? An alchemy of no great design but that of our complimenting natures, our proximity, our rearing… whatever confluence of events was required to cause us to seal ourselves as one being? Or even merely a by-product of my Maian wiles?”

Tathren could not help a smirk at this, though the argument did quite readily provoke him.

“Nay,” he admitted. “To my eyes, the portents were ever clear, though the manner of their resolution mayn’t be. Though there is merit to your concerns…”

Echoriath eagerly continued: “The Laurelins want their savior, meleth, and those in Telperion, our dearly kin included, want peace among elfkind, but the desperation of these factions does not make us instruments of the divine. Indeed, I have held little care for these prediction since you made them known to me. My needs are humble: an open field to build upon, the sanctity of my expanded family, swordbrothers to second me… a husband’s reverent regard. *Your* love, maltaren-nin, and yours alone, until the Valar stop time and the world itself wafts into ether.” The darkling elf gulped back a ragged breath, his amber eyes chilled copper with sadness. “I know I cannot keep you from this bold gesture of yours, melethron. Though I do not consent, I neither demand you similarly abide by your oath of love to me. Our bond is not a cage, but a river… a constant flow between us. As such, however, I would that you entertain two requests of mine.”

“Most gladly, my dearest one,” Tathren agreed, kissing him tenderly to seal his promise. “I would most heartily ease your mind.”

“Well, then,” Echoriath smiled faintly, though not yet convinced his caveats would be met with swift compliance. “First, I would that you return your copy of Idril’s prophetic scrolls to Erestor and demand that he forbid any from their perusal, until their contents have come to pass.”

“Happily, melethron,” Tathren vowed. “And I will do my utmost to forget I ever perused their fractious verses. My peredhil mind should aid you readily in their expulsion. In twenty years, their very existence will be wiped clean from my memory.”

Even Echoriath could not swallow a grin at this gentle, though honest, merriment. “Then we should never be parted more than ten, nin bellas, for my own heart’s assurance.”

“And the second?” Tathren inquired, barely stifling a yawn. His fatigue had caught up with him, now that reconciliation was palpably near. He snuggled further into Echoriath’s too silken embrace, ready to drift contently off, once he’d accepted his final amendment.

“That I be allowed to stand guard with our company,” Echo whispered, his voice suddenly ripe with cutting fear. “While you lunch with Thranduil.” Tathren bit his tongue to stave off an instinctive dissent, waiting instead to heed his beloved’s oft-sage reasoning. “I could not bear tense, endless hours occupied in some vain activity, whist my beloved traffics with such a tyrant. I would be at hand, attuned to your moods, your myriad emotions, so I might sense when true danger threatens.”

“But what tenor of danger would a lover’s heart not deem true?” Tathren delicately objected, already sensing the rigidity of his beloved’s normally supple back.

“I would not come unless you openly called for me,” Echoriath insisted. “The ruse itself is of such fragile making than any interruption might anger him. I would not put you in such peril unless…summoned.” Though Tathren’s face shone with deeply felt sympathy, his aqua eyes were yet conflicted, his mind weighing reason against his lover’s needs of assurance. Echo’s blood ran crisp as ice at the thought of his denial of so simple a request, such that he was compelled to plead his case from the very recesses of his heart. “Tathren, if you cross swords… if he bests you… I cannot be away!!! I cannot bear the thought of you passing from this realm without my arms to cradle you in your last moments, my eyes to hearten you, my kiss to warm your way to the Halls of Waiting! If I am to somehow bear your passing, I must shepherd you, meleth-nin, melethron-nin, into Mandos’ very arms, else I will fade the very instant your hora turns entirely cold. You cannot keep me from a last caress, my most cherished one… if we have shared any love at all, you will not forbid my spirit this quiescent vigil.”

The ardor of Echoriath’s incandescent eyes wrecked him so thoroughly, Tathren could naught but give in.

“We have but barely begun to share our love, Echo-nin,” Tathren swore to him, sealing their pact with a bond-mate’s kiss. “I would have no other shepherd to Mandos, or throughout eternity.”

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

He streaked through the high grass as stealthily as a viper through the nettles, black cloak whipping invisibly overground, a hissing swish behind him. Never had he witnessed such an ominous midsummer night in this somnambulant vale. The dank, frigid air, the fog of cinder-clouds above, and the faraway mountain fuming red as an forge hammer remembered him a time, a merciless place he’d sooner abolish from his mind: the seething plains of Mordor itself.

He came to the river. To his battle-ready eyes, the inky rush poured through the field like orc’s blood. He had not been so violently charged, so resigned to conflict since that fateful day of the Shadow’s fall, of his heraldic son’s birth. Though he could never ‘scape the warrior within, in the subsequent years of peace he thought he’d banished the bedeviled memories of the Ring War; molted the scales of his inner-slayer on the shores of Arda, sacrificed this second skin to the carnage-rich earth of Gondor. Yet here again circumstance forced him to be fanged with slit knives, stalk through the midnight plain and prey in a panther’s ebony mantle.

To hunt the elusive, tyrannous quarry presently known to elfkind.

Despite the council’s fugue-headed conclusions, he knew this task to be his alone. The chain of events had begun with the first spark of his conception, the arrogance of a king flamed by both his incendiary love for his wife and the terrible threat to his people. With such dubious intent had he been created, the very color of his hair fashioned as if by the Valar’s own ethereal light, but none born of such grandiose designs could be a savior pure and true. He was reared in a quiver climate of bow, brawn, and webbing-strewn bracken, of dissimulation and of trenchant deceit. The Shadow itself had delivered him from blind obedience to a power-mad father; Celebrian’s torture was his honor’s accidental salvation, Elrohir’s injury caused his eventual exposure to clear, golden righteousness.

To love, in all its maddening, mysterious hues.

The beacon of this other’s ever-constant heart had guided him, guarded him through perils untold, a wood-elf’s scathing bouts of weakness, reticence, obstinacy, and rancor. His giving light had burned through the princely fetters that restricted him and had fired the heroic nature his begetter had aspired to. Unlike the King of Mirkwood’s belligerent dedication to the cause above all other consideration, this lover had revealed to him the bounty of the world they hoped to save, dared him to experience the utmost bliss and thereby suffer the agony of its impending immolation. If Mirkwood had made him a fighter, his elf-knight had made him a survivor. Yet the miracle of their son, which had made him so loathsome to his very creator despite him being the product of his own machinations, had trenched in him a well from which he derived the greatest source of pride, of achievement, more so than even his participation in the Fellowship of the Ring.

He was now a caregiver.

After loving his husband into an unimpeachable slumber, he had longly debated the merits of his present action, cocooned in their hotbed embrace. He was impressed by his own hesitation; it was, in itself, evidence of Elrohir’s beneficial influence in his life. In being acutely aware of the consequences, he was also cognizant of the stakes, of the precious value of what he might forsake this night and of the desperate reasons for such forbearance. He cherished this mate, this family, this life, with a dedication his own father had never known and could never have taught him. On the eve of war, he had vowed to sacrifice himself for their security. He would do no less tonight.

Yet the necessary secrecy of his stealing away chastened him considerably. He had lingered perhaps too long by their bed, watching Elrohir’s eyelids flutter through rosy dreams, holding the scroll of farewell troths he would perhaps discover upon waking. He had kissed him almost too many times, barely swooping away before his tears inadvertently roused him. He had despaired that Mandos would rob him of his lifetime’s remembrances, blunt the torment of the passing millennia by dulling his mind. He had struggled against the grating urge to see his children one last time, but feared the sight of his sweetly dormant little ones would stay him till dawn.

Tathren’s face, however, would have only solidified his will in this. The thought of his golden son coming to harm fuelled his resolve. Silently snaking his way over to the embankment, he deftly sprung from stone to jutting stone, until he landed on the far bank, beyond the borders of their realm. His guardsmen slovenly sprawled around a pile of embers, little skill would be required in breaching the largest tent, into which the king had already retired for the night. He scoured the compound for any sign of troublesome interruption, then dared a steeling intake of breath.

By the red, Rohirric dawn, he will have claimed his birthright.

***

The implacable eyes that peered up, at his quiet entrance, were surprisingly moved by the sight of him, yet they did not for a moment retreat. Though unbidden, he strode brashly over to the ridiculously ornate table and took a lofty seat directly across from the gruff king, who despite himself took obvious appraisal of him. The regent could not conceal the pride that swelled his irises a translucent aquamarine, from their usual furtive indigo. Legolas swallowed back a bitter mouth of indignation at his gall, that such bejeweled, brilliant eyes as his sire’s were blind to the true, inner beauty of his land, of his people, and of his youngest son.

“Mae govannen,” Thranduil pointedly welcomed him. “To what do I owe this most unexpected intrusion?”

“To little more than my benevolence,” Legolas repliqued tartly, his own eyes dagger-spiked. “I carry in my quiver two poisoned arrows, unknowing which will strike clean. The first comes in the form of ill-tidings, the second a potent ultimatum. I would presently make my case, if you would hear me.”

Thranduil raptly examined his staid features for some indication of the matter of these black tidings. Finding naught but an unforgiving stare, he was not fool enough to speak hastily. A master strategist, he knew instantly he could not penetrate his son’s long-practiced defenses. This was not the starry-eyed youngling he’d so mistakenly ensorcelled, this was an elf of poise, purpose, and no paltry gift of majesty, though Legolas himself would rather be flayed alive than admit to this flair of his character. This elf was a seasoned warrior, a pilgrim, and a sire in his own right.

Better and braver than either of his elder brothers, this elf was of Oropher’s line, of crown-worthy honor, of his blazing seed.

*His* son, above all.

Thranduil took a generous draught from his waiting goblet, then licked the crimson brine off his snarling lips.

“Tis pity you will take no wine,” he commented wryly. “This particular vintage is quite savory.”

“I’ll have my treachery served cold, by your grace,” Legolas sharply replied. “And your answer forthwith.”

“Tell of your tidings,” Thranduil ordered him. “Keep your ultimatum. A bargain cannot be struck with one who possesses naught of interest, Legolas, or have I at last come upon some trinket to lure your fair-weather attentions?”

“I confess, I am covetous,” Legolas taunted him. “Of your retreat to Laurelin and your vow to never return.”

The resulting snort came with no little flair, even from one of Thranduil’s feral sobriety.

“You disappoint me, nin bellas,” he eventually remarked. “I assumed your peredhil consort had instructed you in the wheedling arts of enigmatic debate.”

“I anticipated such arts would have no effect on a crude Sinda monarch,” Legolas retorted. “I do not dally in niceties when faced by such a brute.”

“If tis compliance you seek, ioneth,” Thranduil icily responded. “Then best you not rile against your own kind.”

“I am of elfkind,” Legolas emphasized. “And you, *Adar*, are keen to distract me with such hotpoint jibes, but no longer. I bring tidings from my naneth, the fair and goodly Laurelith.”

“From Laurë?” Thranduil started, quite visibly stifling a tremor of dread. He straightened in his seat to further empower himself, but inwardly fortified against the coming blow. He reminded himself of how attuned this wily son was to his few, but affecting vulnerabilities. “I caution you, Legolas, to recall who twas who taught you to wreck such furious vengeance. He will not be so easily bested.”

With keen, piercing eyes, Legolas reached into the fold of his tunic and extracted a tiny pouch. He tossed this across the sleek surface of the table, through the king scoffed at his stealth tactics. He piqued a defiant brow, then pawed open the laces, his simmering stare never leaving his son’s impassive face. Unimpressed, he dumped out the meager contents, only to gape, quite undignified in his utter shock, at the shimmering necklace spilled across veneered wood.

Rather than flare with unbound ire, his heart sank into his entrails, as if made of the inviolate mithril that laced through the delicate leaf pendant before him. His gift to his beauteous wife, upon Legolas’ very begetting day. The first fallen leaf of autumn immortalized forever; for the one who had birthed his own little green leaf. The charm she clung to as she was so mercilessly slain, wore beneath her robes, symbol of their undying bond. She had exited Mandos with the necklace around her slender neck, the pendant stuck over her heart. He had marked its fierce glimmer, when at last he had found her again, upon the blessed shores of Laurelin; been caught by its shine as he knew her again, his fallen wife, his lost mate, his eternal love.

Now returned to him.

By courier, no less.

“Nana said you would not mistake its significance,” Legolas told him, without the expected menace. “Nor its portent. She has chosen to remain with her sons, in Telperion.”

Thranduil growled under his broiling breath, his teeth dripping with the vivid taste of rage. Barely conscious of the need to restrain himself, to meet this impudent son with full, potent majesty; this urged him to snatch up his goblet, gulp down a sour mouthful, then force his hand to rest the wrought metal base on the table surface with a hummingbird’s grace. That he accomplished this without a finger’s quiver was testament alone to his colossal will.

“And your ultimatum?” he seethed, but gave the fiend before him his entire attention.

Legolas’ baleful stare bore not a trace of his renown mercury, though he was no doubt tempted to toy with his raw, riled father. Instead, he promptly unsheathed his broadsword, setting the deadly weapon across the table between them and offering the hilt to the fuming king. Thranduil did not flinch, though he was, for a fleeting moment, intrigued.

“Two paths diverge before you, Adar,” Legolas calmly explained. “One swift, to the vengeance you have such intimate knowledge of and with which you seduce your cur-hearted minions. The other, a pitiless, unforgiving journey towards redemption, but also back into my mother’s graces and perhaps, in considerable time, her heart. As you once so arrogantly told me, this choice will be the making of you. It will either condemn or renew your spirit, though neither result is assured.”

“Spare me your gloating, child,” he tersely grunted, his dark eyes hungry for retribution. “Give me my choice.”

Legolas nodded, with such patience that the king almost pounced, then continued: “My mother’s heart is not entirely cold, but yet she cannot abide by your treatment, during her absence and in these recent years, of your once cherished sons. Your atonement must be dedicated, immediate, and without objection, else she will herself climb to the summit of Tanitequil and petition the Valar to dissolve your bond. You are to return to Laurelin this very dawn, tarrying in Valimar if you must to await your rallied supporters, and remain there until the frontier is properly tamed. Upon satisfactory establishment of a residence and town for each and every inhabitant, ensuring the constant and unabated quality of their life, and after ten years of government, you may absent yourself long enough to seek audience with the Valar, who will pass their terrible judgment upon you. Once this task of their choosing is complete, you may begin to court her again, as well as work to earn the forgiveness of your children, and perhaps even solicit the company of your grandchildren.”

Thranduil chuckled with genuine mirth at this absurd suggestion, then demanded: “The alternative?”

“You may finished what was so wrongheadedly begun,” Legolas declared boldly, without a trace of fear. “In exchange for the sanctity of my children and those of my brothers’ seed, present and future, I offer you… a feast of vengeance upon me. I give you my sword. Strike as you would, I will not defend myself.”

“*Legolas*,” he huffed, but could rouse no breath to his usual bluster.

“The choice is before you, Adar,” Legolas underlined darkly. “An unbreakable commitment to redemption, or my eternal life for a solemn oath to keep away from my kindred.”

“And what if I renege on this bloody pact of ours?!” Thranduil spit back at him, the inconceivable terms braising his kept countenance. “What if I take your life with relish, then charge your children the moment after?”

“Then even my beatific naneth cannot spare you from my husband’s blade,” Legolas swore with chilling severity. “Nor from her goodly petition, which will immediately go forth. Nor from the Valar’s timely intervention. You are not shroud by the Mirkwood here, Adar. Though this be the Blessed Realm, you will suffer as none before. Say nothing of your lost kingdom, your lost power, your lost children and wife.”

“Do you think me so witless as to break you?” Thranduil bellowed, unable to further contain his fury. “How am I to win back my wife with such blood on my hands?”

“The thrill of vengeance has its sensory allures,” Legolas cunningly reminded him. “There are alternative forms of satisfaction. Tis this one I offer you. It should warm enough to bear through a few decades of solitude.” He shrugged off the burden so easily, Thranduil was almost proud of him. “Besides, certainly one of your scheming ways can spin a suitable veil over the truth. My cloak hood was raised when your guards struck. They knew not who they slew, but that he threatened their king. You can keep our secret, savor it as your own. Know that you finally triumphed over my wretched diplomacy.”

“A wretched business, indeed,” Thranduil grumbled. “One would think your Noldo spouse had a hand in it, though even he is not so basely formed as to feed his mate to the wolves.”

“A compliment, Adar?” Legolas riled him. “You’ve grown soft in your dotage.”

“Not so soft as to act rashly,” the king impressed upon him. “Nor to spare you, should I chose vengeance.” Without a word, Legolas loosened the ties of his tunic and opened his collar wide, offering his love-bitten throat as proof of his sincerity. Thranduil remained unreadable, though determined to provoke him. “And what of this Son of Elrond? What of these babes you cherish so? Tell me, ioneth, for my own betterment, how can you abandon them so carelessly to fate?”

“I would give anything for them,” Legolas proclaimed, his eyes hard. “Even my life, if it would spare them a greater grief. They will know, when they come of age, of my sacrifice. They will know the depth and ardor of my love, even from Mandos itself.”

“I suspect they may all follow you there,” Thranduil teased him, with a menacing playfulness. “When they learn of your fall.”

“Jealous, Adar?” Legolas retorted, striking clean. “I have not come for merriment, nor for your sickly pleasures. My message is delivered and I would have my answer.”

In an instant, the king kicked back his chair, swiped hold of the sword, and stood imperiously above him, the blade poised but inches from his neck.

“Who are you to make such brazen demands of the one who gave you life?!” he roared, unleashing the very element of his rage upon him. “To dangle an impossible choice before me like a carrot before a dull-witted horse?! I am the King of Greenwood the Great, a Sinda King, son of Oropher who fell in the Last Alliance, ruler in this Blessed Realm, and the very seed who grew your overbold, ungrateful self. I made you what you are, child, and I need no word, pact, nor challenge of yours to end what I have wrought!!”

At this, Legolas also leapt up, steady and strong before the tide of bile Thranduil spewed forth.

“Then finish it!!” he hissed, pushing ever closer to the sure blade. “Finish me.”

Thranduil needed not be affronted by Legolas’ dry, ready eyes to know his mind. He glared at his insurgent son with sizzling disgust, at the green leaf hanging so perilously from the bough, from the last of its neck-stem, so feeble before him, so wasteful of the life, of the legacy bequeathed him.

He had made his choice.

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

Elrohir was wrenched awake, his spine seized with a sharp sting of tension.

Panting lightly, he pushed up onto his elbows and peered into the blackness. Twined amidst sweat-sodden sheets veritably molded to his sinuous frame, the night chill pricked the length of his exposed chest, which only more keenly alerted his warrior’s instincts. His bed was barren of elflings, which he swiftly recalled was for good reason, but more disturbingly, his mate was also missing. Shaking any last wooziness from his mind, he studied the darkest depths of the shadows about his bedchamber for a gleam refracted off moist eyes, a pale slice of cheekbone, a strand of shimmering flaxen hair caught by the faint glow of their garden torches though the window.

He found no trace of his sterling husband, not about the shadows nor in the considerable expanse of back yard visible from their terrace door. There were, however, a flurry of lights in the distance, buzzing like tiny fleets of feeflies even through the thick glass of the pane. Wondering at this strange happenstance, that Legolas had perhaps been called away and not thought to warn him even in such a sated sleep as his, Elrohir hastened to wrap himself in a velvety robe and threaded the sash as he drifted into the hall.

He followed the acrid scent of burning parchment into his study, where a small fire popped and cracked in the hearth. A sternly posed elf stood in spectral silhouette before the cool yellow flames, clothed and cloaked entirely in black, save for a long, golden braid that slithered over his far shoulder. His senses overwhelmed by both the pungent fire and the dimness of the room, he did not recognize the elf, until he was but a few strides behind him.

None could mistake the love-bite in the crease behind his peaked ear.

“Melethron?” Elrohir announced himself, touching Legolas lightly on the arm so as not to startle him.

His husband managed a lonely smile, welcomed his embrace. Though the archer’s arms wove dotingly around him, his tunic was yet wet with dew and his cheeks braised by the wind. Elrohir was not pleased by his unexpected absence, but Legolas was so wearied from his adventuring that he could not whole-heartedly keep from cottoning to him.

“Did the ruckus outdoors disturb you, meleth-nin?” Legolas queried, softing a kiss over his lips. “I instructed them to keep to the far path.”

“Why did you not wake me, when called away?” Elrohir asked, still somewhat unnerved by his sudden disappearance. “I may have needed rest, Legolas, but I *cannot* rest peacefully when I wake to a uncommonly empty bed.”

“Forgive me, dearest one,” he whispered, stopping his gentle protests with a deep, loving caress. “You slept so soundly, I was loathe to disturb you. In truth, I was not called away, but awoken myself by faraway voices. I sought out their cause. The Laurelin elders are decamping as we speak. They leave for Valimar with the dawn, where the king awaits to lead them north.”

“Thranduil is abandoning his mate here, without protest?” Elrohir verily gaped in astonishment. “How can this be?”

“I fear my brothers had a hand in it,” Legolas hushly suggested. “Though I doubt they will admit any such complicity.”

“Nay, they are too proud,” Elrohir agreed, turning pensive even as his husband drew him ever close. Legolas buried his drowsy head into the crook of his neck, drinking in his sleep-heavy scent with a low moan. “I trust you were careful enough not to light up our most cherished tales?”

“I was cold,” Legolas mumbled into his collar. “But I was indeed cautious. Twas a notice from the king that I burnt.”

“Was it foul?” Elrohir queried playfully. “An endless pontification on our injurious, heathen ways?”

Legolas chuckled some, but without his usual mirth at such gests.

“Nay,” he sighed, lifting his face to address his mate directly. “Twas rather brief. He commands us to trouble him no more, and for none of any kith or kin to seek shelter nor sanctuary in the north. The elders would fare as they will, and not be disturbed by ungrateful upstarts of slight age and slighter wits.”

“Your sire is a poet at heart,” Elrohir further taunted. “Did you mark well the potent meter? The remarkable scheme of the rhyme?”

Legolas smirked wryly, but ignored his smart mouth in favor of suckling its plump lips. Elrohir could not deny that the missive had struck to his husband’s oft fragile heart – where sire-minded matters gravely concerned – so he offered him the peerless consolation of his arms, his heady, balming kisses. Yet as he grazed sensuous hands up his neck, to tenderly cup that devastatingly fair face, a rather unguent wetness spread across his fingertips. He quickly broke off, when he spied their scarlet stain.

“Legolas, you’ve been struck!” he gasped, instantly bending his head aloft to examine the wound.

“Tis but a scratch, melethron,” the archer reassured him. Upon closer appraisal, the sword-slit had indeed clotted nicely, though the application of some medicinal cream would aid some in its mending. “As I dressed in the darkness, I marked not the somber colors of my raiment. I surprised one of the elders, springing out from the black as I did.”

“I have a mind to upbraid you as one of our mischievous elflings, bereth-nin,” Elrohir harrumphed good-naturedly. “But as you seem fit to faint in my arms, lest you fall into a bed soon, I will instead lure you into the sanctity of our bedchamber and curl us beneath the downy coverlet.”

“Aye, some Elrohirian warmth will suit me well,” Legolas smiled, with opulent affection. “I feel as if I have traveled to Arda and back again, meleth-nin, across a breadth of vast, ominous ocean, to a fierce and hostile land. But I am returned to you, nin ind.” Nearly breathless, listless with fatigue, he added, “I love you so, my star-rider.”

“Come, then, my brave, valorous one,” Elrohir murmured, as the exhausted archer sunk anew into his embrace. “Let me warm you as only a true lover could.”


End of Part Fifteen