Faded Light: Book II

(For additional notes and disclaimers, please see top of Chapter 1. I own none of Tolkien’s characters or world, only the OC’s I created. I am only doing this for fun and as a writing exercise.)

- I've had so many lovely reviews this week that I decided to leave you all one more for the weekend...(though I am wondering whether it's possible to update too often.) Actually since I do have the next twelve chapters already done, it is easy to keep updating, hopefully by the time those twelve are posted, I'll be another twelve or fifteen chapters ahead again...

No Legolas in this one, sorry, but I thought it was past time to bring Leralonde back into the story, who hasn't appeared since the end of Book I. The next one will be another Legolas chapter, "Visions" and the two after that will be two long chapters, "Royal Blood;" I'll try to post all those in the next week and a half...that's all for now, enjoy. Thank you to those who have been reviewing and thanks in advance for the R and R... -


Chapter 20

Affair


The younger Elf was sitting up in his bed when Leralonde arrived, a dense-looking volume on his lap as he read by the light of several candles on the nightstands. But it wasn’t some work of fiction he was so deeply immersed in; his right hand would move every so often over a sheaf of parchment beside him on the bed taking quick notes of whatever the youth found to be of interest...

Studious Elf, he thought to himself and smiled fondly; though he supposed that was the reason Tadion was so favored among Vaurna’s students. Only mid-way through his six hundreds, he had already risen to become one of the old Healer’s assistants, a position that usually took others several more centuries to reach.

“I did not think you were coming tonight,” said the youth not pausing in his note taking as he reached for a cup on the nightstand on his left side.

“Have I ever stood you up, Melui Pen?” said the Prince leaning down to place a quick kiss on his young lover’s lips before moving aside to try and slip out of the heavy formal robes he hadn’t bothered to change out of before heading to Tadion’s house which was a good distance from the Palace, especially at night, though fortunately on one of the still-safe roads...

“The Crown-Prince just had to be in attendance at the Feast for the Lords and Lady long enough for the sake of good manners...although I’m sure Adar was glad to see me gone early,” he added.

“Was Saelbeth there?” asked the younger elf rising from the bed to put away his ink and pens and books.

“Saelbeth isn’t the kind to make an appearance at social events these days,” said the Prince trying to keep the pain out of his voice at the mention of his lover...former lover, he reminded himself, since that was how Saelbeth had wanted it...

It had never been the same between them since Saelbeth’s ordeal at the hands of the Orcs. They had grown apart not only because Saelbeth had stubbornly remained in Rivendell, but the distance he put between them on the rare occasions they saw each other.

The physical wounds from the attack had healed but the experience still haunted him; that along with constant worry about their daughter’s condition from the long-lasting effects of the Orc’s poison, which still affected him as well; and thinking himself somehow to blame for Leralonde’s falling out with his father and being the cause of him being away from Mirkwood while the Prince was sorely needed there...

So he had remained away and Leralonde had returned home...and it had happened that he began spending his time with Tadion, which the salacious gossips at the Palace had quickly made into affair. Though whatever was between them wasn’t exactly as the sordid imaginations of his uncle’s Courtiers took pleasure in conjuring up...

Although he remembered Saelbeth’s unusually indignant reaction when he learned of Tadion through some malicious person who apparently had nothing better to do than writing meddling letters to Rivendell...

“Tadion? Really Highness, isn’t he a bit young for you...? I can’t believe he’s much past his five-hundred’s...”

“Six-hundred-forty...not that it matters...and what do you mean a bit young?’ It is not as if I have thousands of years on him...”

“He is very pretty anyway,” the other laughed and went on scornfully. “I always thought so, all that white-blonde hair, delicate pale skin…though I didn’t think you were into making young virgins, Highness...”

“You’re angry Sael, so I won’t dignify that with a response. But whatever you wish to say to me, I will thank you to leave him out of it...you know well that our problems have little to do with Tadion...”

He did not think that was an argument they had ever gotten past...

“I have not seen Sael since he arrived. I don’t know if he’s actually avoiding me or needing to rest from his journey,” the Prince went on, still struggling to escape the uncomfortable garment.

“Now that I think of it, however,” he asked, turning toward the younger Elf, “why is it I never see you at Court functions? You’ve certainly rank enough to be there...”

“Yes, I’ve rank enough, even were I not Vaurna’s assistant,” said the youth, coming to stand in front of the Prince and helping undo the tedious ties. He seemed to consider carefully what he was about to say.

“My family and I, however, have an understanding...as long as I make no claims of noble birth, they pretend I don’t exist and I can live my life as I wish...”

He shrugged, hanging up Leralonde’s rich outer robe before coming to help with the rest. “It’s worked well enough for several centuries...”

The Prince couldn’t help frowning, “But why?”

The other actually smiled, “Do you really need to ask, Highness? The son of a noble family who fancies other Ellons is an embarrassment; you should know that.”

“So I’m reminded, more often than I’d like,” he muttered.

“My younger brothers aren’t so bad. I still see them sometimes,” Tadion paused for a long moment, lost in some memory.

Leralonde nodded thoughtfully, as they finished with the complicated Court robes, and he began undoing his shirt, thinking of the two amiable young elves, Alagion and Noruinif...the latter who had recently joined Uruviel’s Novice class...

“...but Lord Hirgon and my uncles disowned me a long time ago,” the youth went on in an uncharacteristically emotionless tone. He paused again while he carefully hung up the rest of the Prince’s formal clothes. And Leralonde wondered if it wasn’t more to give his hands something to do than about being tidy.

He knew Tadion and his eldest brother never spoke to each other, in fact he couldn’t really remember when he had ever seen them in the same place together, and he knew Hirgon was a proud Elf from one of the most ancient Silvan families in The Greenwood...but he had never imagined just how much of a self-righteous bastard...

He laid his hands on Tadion’s shoulders and brushed aside a lock of pale hair, leaning over to lightly kiss his temple. “I always knew Hirgon was a hard one,” he said, “but I did not realize he was such a heartless...” he stopped, not wishing to speak ill of the younger Elf’s kin even if the Forest Lord was...everything the Prince had just thought of him.

The young Healer turned in the Prince’s arms, arching a blond eyebrow, pale green eyes studying him before he spoke again. “I probably had such thoughts myself a long time ago, but I got over it.

“It’s very hard to hold on to that kind of resentment for four centuries...well, I suppose Onoro has...but I couldn’t.

“After our parents were killed,” he said, and moved aside to start snuffing out the candles in the room. “Hirgon had to become the Head of our House...I suppose having so much responsibility imposed on him...having suddenly to take care of three Elflings and being over a thousand years older than any of us, he thought we should all obey him like we would Adar..." though his words seemed to be trying to justify him, there was no sympathy in the young Elf's tone for whatever had compelled his brother's actions.

“I was just past two-hundred when he started to figure out I wasn’t what he had expected me to be...I’d barely started to understand it myself then,” he said sadly.

“What happened?” asked Leralonde, pulling back the covers and sitting on the bed in just the comfortable leggings he had been wearing under all the elaborate attire.

“Short version,” said the younger Elf, pausing at the light beside the doorway, “he was very angry over... something...

"He swore I would not be the one to disgrace our family, called me some vile names I won’t repeat and threatened to sell me to the first slaver he could find...” he spoke quickly, as if that made it easier. “I knew him well enough not to wait around to find out whether he meant it...I ran away...” he finished.

“Valar, suddenly my father sounds like the most liberal thinking Elf in Mirkwood,” whispered the Prince.

Lord Ruthlagor may have his faults, able even to hold on for years to his anger, but he would never threaten anyone with anything so horrifying...

“Where did you go?” he asked and wondered how much Tadion had revised in his telling and whether his rift with his family had anything to do with the dark secret he only once confided to Leralonde; an evil memory that he hid behind his almost unwavering cheerfulness which most took for the light heart of a untroubled youth...

He had been able to bring himself to speak of it only once, after they had been seeing each other for awhile, describing it only in the vaguest of details …and Leralonde had asked few questions seeing how it distressed the younger Elf to speak of it even without specifics...

It was the reason, despite everyone’s assumptions about their relationship, even before they really had one, and whatever feelings were between them now, that they had never actually been intimate beyond wandering hands and occasionally passionate kissing...though he was sure all those evil-minded gossips, couldn’t imagine their dissolute Prince spending much time with someone as fair as Tadion without quickly taking him to bed...

The youth turned back to the Prince and smiled again. “Kin of Vaurna’s took me in. That’s when I began to study the Healing Arts,” he said, getting back into the bed and putting out the rest of the candles on the nightstand; all but one, which Leralonde had learned early in their relationship, Tadion always left burning through the night. Though he had yet to learn why.

“I owe a lot to them," Tadion went on. “Hirgon threatened to make a fuss for a while, but then he decided since he did not actually want me back anyway that it’d be less trouble for everyone to just be rid of me.

“It was all a long time ago...as I said, I moved on centuries ago.”

He curled in beside Leralonde wrapping an arm around his waist. “...what would filling my heart with resentment accomplish except turn me into some...joyless copy of my brother...?

“I’m far happier like this...for as long as you want me here...”

He looked up and placed a finger gently on his lover’s lips before he could say anything. “I’m not a fool Leralonde; I know you’ll always love Saelbeth...I knew it when we started this...

“You were together for nearly two centuries...he’s given you a child...with me, you can’t even expect a normal relationship...”

He scoffed, “And what’s normal, Tadion, except what everyone assumes other people are doing...”

He looked into green eyes the color of the forest in the morning light, and wished fleetingly he had not already given his heart to another when they had began this affair, and he wondered at what point his love life had become so complicated...

The last thing he wanted to do was wound Tadion...and he hated those rare times when the younger Elf seemed to think so little of himself.

Tadion had overcome so much darkness, including his family’s desertion to become the worthy Elf he was and achieve everything he had through his own merits...when most would have faded or Sailed or at least not done half as well with their lives as Tadion had...

“If all I wanted was a quick, meaningless tryst, there are plenty of Ellons I could find it with,” he said.

“That’s not why I’m here,” he brought his young lover’s hand to his lips and kissed his palm before running his fingers through masses of pale hair. “I like being with you...”

“I know...” he laid his head back on the Prince’s chest, entwining their fingers together...

“...though sometimes I do wish that...” he trailed off leaving the thought unfinished...

“What?”

He shrugged...

“Do not make the mistake of thinking you’ll break me Leralonde,” he said instead. “I am not as fragile as some think...

“I’m a realist, and I’ve never expected anything more than I can have...I know one day Saelbeth will see he’s been wrong...and I shall be glad to see it...”

“You know,” he whispered teasingly, trying to lighten the melancholy that had come over Tadion from their earlier conversation, “for such a young one, sometimes you think too much...”

“I don’t...” he protested, sounding affronted.

He gently pulled Tadion’s face toward him, kissing him softly before it gradually deepened...when they parted he was glad to see some of the sadness gone from his eyes.

“What was that for?”

“Because I like to...Brainy Elf...”

“Don’t call me that...” he sulked, but then he smiled and leaned over for another kiss, just as the moment was abruptly ended by noises outside the house followed a few seconds later by a loud banging on the door.

The Prince looked at Tadion questioningly, as they pulled away from each other, “Who could it be at this time of night...?”

“None of my neighbors; I have few of them all the way out here, and they never venture out after dark...”

The youth was down the stairs and at the front door first, candle in hand; he looked anxiously through the peephole and found a harried-looking Talagan on the other side.

“Mellon Nin,” he said opening the door quickly, “come in...what’s happened...?”

“Highness,” said the warrior breathlessly as he stepped through the door and saw the Prince standing just behind Tadion, ”...Prince Ethiel send me to find you...

“A pack of Orcs...they attacked two of our villages to the south; on this side of the mountains...the news just came a little while ago...”

“Valar...no Orcs have ever gotten that far...”

“Vaurna asked me to get you too, Tad,” he said finally turning to his friend, his first duty done, as the Prince turned and ran back up the stairs.

“In case any survivors are brought...” he added somberly. “We don’t know yet...”

“Of course...

“Would you mind getting our horses...?” asked the Healer. “We’ll change and be right down...

“...get something to drink too,” he instructed, “you look ready to collapse...”

“Aye...thank you, Melon...”

The youth quickly followed his lover back to the bedroom...cursing the way this night, which was supposed to have been a festive one, had apparently ended...

TBC...

Elvish Translations:


Melui pen / lovely (sweet) one

Onoro / (q.) brother

Adar, ada / Father, dad, daddy

Ellon (s) / Male elves

Mellon Nin / My friend


Elvish Names:

Alagion / Rushing, impetuous

Hirgon / Rock Lord

Noruinif / Sunny Face (...not sure about the spelling of that one; I need to check it again)

Tadion / Second Son

Talagan / Harper (Hasn’t appeared in the story until now, but was mentioned in previous chapters as being Faervel’s spouse and one of Legolas’ close friends.)

Uruviel / From Ur / fire and Ield /daughter (Female form of the name Uruvion, who was mentioned once before as being Head of Mirkwood’s Palace Guard. So, Uruviel and Uruvion are probably brother and sister.)