Of Elbereth's Bounty

Title: Of Elbereth’s Bounty – Part 3
(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: After their sultry midsummer night’s dreams, Tathren and Echoriath awake to find the world has changed.
Rating: R
Disclaimers: Characters belong to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.
Author’s Note: Two houses, both alike in dignity, in fair Valinor, where we lay our scene. Yes, well, the whole thing’s gotten completely out of hand!! Cannon characters worked so well together, that they begot multiple OMCs, who then begged for their own proper tale. Think of it as Romeo and Juliet for Male Elves, with star-crossed lovers, a fair amount of quarrelling within the families, but, do not fear, there will be no life-taking of any kind. It does, however, help to no end to have read both In Earendil’s Light and Under the Elen before this, as otherwise you might not recognize any of the characters. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for keeping to the path thus far!!
Feedback: Would be delightful.
Dedication: To the moderators of Library of Moria, Melethryn, Adult Fan Fiction.Net, and other sites of their ilk for all their wonderful, tireless work and for keeping us up to our ears in fic.

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Of Elbereth’s Bounty

Part Three

As a sea-swollen midsummer breeze swept through the leaves around him, Echoriath flirted with wakefulness. The delicate scent of willow down tickled his senses, though his drowsy mind could not reason how such a blithe odor could waft so high above the upper boughs. With good-natured grumbling, he snuggled deeper into his bed only tod hid his cheek scratched by a coarse, uninviting surface.

Bark. Curious.

Slowly extricating himself from just beneath the surface of light slumber, Echoriath opened his eyes but a slit, only to be assaulted by the blast of Arien’s boldest rays. To his faint surprise, he was curled onto the widest bough of a middle-aged ederwood, not twenty paces from the one where Tathren’s talan was hung. Memory suddenly flooded his groggy mind: the ale hall revels, his cousin’s fit, their meandering return to his apartment, and his mule-headed insistence that Echoriath leave him at the door. Too worried by half to obey him, he’d instead kept vigilant watch from this accommodating perch well into the night, waiting on a yelp, a cry, or any sort of unseemly sound, until, he guessed, sleep had overtaken him. At present, his bleary eyes found the window of Tathren’s bedchamber, where the curtains billowed, but remained drawn.

All was well, then.

He’d best, Echoriath surreptitiously whispered to himself, return home, before his Adar sent out a search party. The thought that they would probably be only too pleased at his absence, coupled with the rather bountiful comforts of the tree, bade him cuddle further onto the branch and sigh blissfully, as the first tendrils of sleep reclaimed his lax form.

The leaves above him rattled as if shook, but he ignored whatever groundling creatures scurried there. He was an elf, they would not bother with him. The fiendish creatures struck again, to the left, then close beneath, then high above. What lengths could these doe-eyed heathens leap in their ardor? The definite knock of a nut hitting the trunk over his head alerted him to real danger, as his own branch was repeatedly pelted with these deftly launched missiles, which splintered on impact and soon rained over him.

“Echo!!” a too-familiar voice rasped harshly from below, attempting to avoid rousing Tathren. With an inward groan, Echoriath uncoiled himself, yawned generously, then scowled down at his too-spry brother. “And just when were you going to grace us with your presence, majesty? It is almost afternoon!!”

Surprised, Echoriath looked up at the sun, just inches from the spire of the sky. His brother, to his great chagrin, appeared to be correct. His negligence had caused his vigil to be found out; it would now require explanation, not just to his too-cheery twin, but to his fathers. With a groan, Echoriath stretched himself along the bough, then resolved to face the day. He took care to embrace the tree with proper reverence for sheltering him; the resulting aura of contentment from the ederwood his one consolation, as he grappled down to the forest ground.

“I should have known you were not closeted with the fair Elostrion,” Cuthalion reproached him, noting with satisfaction the blush that stained his cheeks. “Though in truth I did not think to find you here. Was Tathren so poorly yestereve?”

“Aye, he was strange, Talion,” Echoriath told him verily. “We must pass by the willow thicket, inform Ada-Hir and Ada-Las of his distress.”

“He must have been weirded for you to so court his displeasure,” Cuthalion remarked, joining arms with his sleep-lithe twin. “He will anger at your care.”

“Let him rage,” Echoriath dismissed him, still too tired to be provoked. He held no fear of Tathren’s ire. “Though let him also be well.”

“It is a day of strange temperance, indeed,” the silvery elf commented, after a time. “For you to sleep so longly and Tathren to loose countenance at a gathering.”

“I will not neglect my chores,” Echoriath promised, though Cuthalion had given no thought to this. “I will work into the night at the harvest.”

To his increased perturbation, his brother laughed outright. “You will not need keep long hours for this harvest, gwanur!! The orchard will be barren in a week, with such hale company as you keep.”

“What company?” Echoriath grumbled, out of sorts. He had not yet shed his exhaustion and his brother would not relent his taunting. “What madness is this you speak of? Verily, Talion, you may in time incur my own ire if you do not stay your menacing tongue.”

“Oh, testy!!” Cuthalion snorted gleefully. “Perhaps you did indeed pass a few scarlet hours with Elostrion? Though he looks mighty piqued, for one so recently tumbled.”

At that, Echoriath wrenched himself away, hastening his pace and avoiding his brother’s twinkling eyes. “You are foul.”

“Aye, perchance,” Cuthalion giddily admitted, as he jogged up to his side. “But I am also, regretfully, the only one who has thought to forewarn you of the company of elves camped in our courtyard, waiting on your arrival.”

Echoriath halted precipitously and gaped at him. “How…?”

“They were bedazzled, it seems,” his proud-eyed brother elucidated. “By your conversation and the no doubt reluctantly offered evidence of your incredible skills, gwanur-nin. They seek, for the duration of their stay in Telperion, some gainful employment, in service of your vision.”

“T-they… they seek…?” Echoriath forgot to digest the words, before he could spit them back at him. “My… *service*?”

“Your mastery,” Cuthalion underlined. “My young master builder. Though I imagine their brawn would be better used in the harvest, for the time being, as naught will be construction-ready for a fortnight, at the least.”

Echoriath corralled his swiftly fleeing emotions with stunning speed. “And what do our Adar make of this… this company’s insistence?”

“They are veritably saturated with pride,” Cuthalion beamed, pulling him close again. “As am I, brother dear, and hope to be counted among your skilled company.” His darkling twin met his eyes with such softness that he knew no force in Aman could keep them apart, in this and all things. “Though they bade me inform you that, as your forces are tripled and then tripled again, you will not be so forgivingly missed at our evening meal, nor spared their wrath after continued absence.” Echoriath sighed ruefully at this, though he could hardly begrudge them this too-loving concession. “Besides, as you will soon be journeying to lands afar, I think it best to appease them.”

“I had not thought otherwise, gwanur,” Echoriath smiled, his usual bashful smile, though tinged with a newfound confidence. He squeezed his brother with unbridled affection, then urged them swiftly onward.

His company awaited him.

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

After blinking away the last shades of slumber, Tathren peered out, through his thick, gossamer curtains, into what he astonishingly perceived to be late afternoon. Over the distant tree-tops, Arien loomed baked and golden, preparing for her nightly bedding beneath the far horizon. He knew not by what black enchantment he had been allowed to sleep the day away, but even a night beleaguered by his fired soul’s musings could not have thusly afflicted him so. Though he had not given in to exhaustion, he estimated, until just after dawn, even in all his adventuring he had never so longly recovered, not even when touched by bog-fever.

He tossed his curtains shut and growled, whether enraged by his oversleeping, his wastefulness, or the previous evening’s theatrics, he knew not.

Taking measure of his talan with a shrewd eye, he noted several telltale inconsistencies. For sheets so tempestuously furrowed through a night’s furious reasoning, the corners were tucked in and folded at sharp angles. On his bed table waited a carafe and a poured glass of spring water, neither of which he routinely kept there. The clothes he’d so fitfully shed had been closeted away by carpet sprites, or some such fantastical creature, as he had no memory other than dropping them at his feet. Last, but most condemning, was the hollow tub awaiting both him and the frothy waters that were, no doubt, at this very minute being boiled by his worried fathers.

“Ada!!” he called them in from the kitchens, praying inwardly that he had not, upon their discovery of him, been provoked by one of his lustier dreams of the night past.

The night had seemed, at times, one long, lusty dream, but he nevertheless dismissed any hint of shame from his demeanor.

In mere seconds, his Ada-Hir shuffled in, bearing a tray of tea cups and a steaming pot. Tathren inwardly berated himself for being so comforted by the sight, as Elrohir quickly deposed the tea setting and hastened to examine his son. His argent eyes glowed with caring, with deeply-held concern; Tathren could only guess how compelling Echoriath’s pleas had been over this trivial business. He reminded himself that he’d probably terrified the inexperienced elf, who knew little of the often sundering after-effects of revelry – not that such was the outright cause of his intemperance. He expected his fathers to be more learned in this regard, but Echoriath’s earnestness had probably worried them beyond reason.

Yet another too-tender facet of his blithe cousin’s allure.

“How do you fare, nin ind?” Elrohir inquired softly, feeling his brow for fever. “You seemed well enough, in slumber, but the young one was quite distressed by your behavior yestereve. What was the trouble?”

“I… I cannot say,” he replied honestly. He did not, even after a night of agony, have the slightest notion of why such blistering jealousy had so precipitously overtaken him. “Truly, Ada, I have never experienced such… I know not even how to name it.” With his most youthful, beseeching regard, he further begged. “Please, Ada, I am well. I need not trouble grandsire with such –“

“Your grandsire is a healer of peerless arts,” Elrohir retorted, with a pointed brow. Tathren sighed mightily, then plunked down on the edge of the bed. There was no force in Arda or Aman that could best him, save an iron word from his beloved Ada-Hir. After handing him a cup of hot tea, his father took his place beside him. “But I, too, see no reason to worry him, unless of course the fever comes anew. Even I cannot keep you from him, then, if word reaches that his grandson’s sickly.”

“Nor would you choose to now,” Tathren taunted him. “If not, I imagine, for Ada-Las’ assurances.”

“Perhaps,” Elrohir chuckled, found out, but felt no shame. “Your Ada-Las has been known to hold great sway with me.”

Tathren smiled fondly, heartened by his father’s rising color, by the ever-pull of his affection for his mate that, even in such an instance, led his thoughts astray. That his Adar loved so purely, so intensely after so long always kept a part of Tathren’s heart at peace. Whether he was journeying or in their home’s berth, he knew they would always have each other’s solace, each other’s care to keep them. He adored them with a recklessness that bordered on abandon, each of his own potential mates judged by the weighty scale of their love. They were, in this, the most sterling and the most exigent of examples to him.

Yet their wily ways were unrepentantly willful. He glanced at the cup suspiciously, then proffered it to his Adar.

“Test it, will you?” he requested with a child’s innocence, though Elrohir was no fool.

“There is no draught, tathrelasse,” he swore. “Have you not slept longly enough?”

“Well reasoned,” Tathren smirked, then sipped at the hot tea. Despite his protests, it was quite soothing.

“You may be pleased to know that your efforts have not gone to naught,” Elrohir informed him, after he’d taken several good sips. “Your company encamped themselves on your cousin’s doorstep this very morn, begging employment. They are harvesting the orchards as we speak.”

“Are they?” Tathren beamed. “I will swiftly bathe and join them.” After one of his father’s ever-diplomatic, you-will-do-no-such-thing glares, he tempered. “Or, perhaps, on the morrow, after I have recouped some of my strength.”

“Well reasoned,” Elrohir shot back, but indulged his paternal urgings and began to stroke the length of his golden hair. Tathren cottoned to the gesture as a horse’s snout to petting. “Talion was raising considerable ire from our young Echo with the naming of a certain Elostrion. Was he so taken with him?”

Tathren stilled imperceptibly, forced himself to answer: “Aye, so it seems. They may, before long, begin courting, if Elostrion has his way.”

“Is Echoriath not similarly attentive to him?” Elrohir asked.

“I cannot say,” Tathren shrugged, with easy dissimulation. “One cannot truly ever say what tides move within my darkling cousin, how they may rise his moods or sway his heart.”

Elrohir nodded sagely at this remark, fell to pondering the wonder that was his brother’s child.

Tathren, however, turned his mind to subtler matters. His gentle Ada, focused as he was on Echoriath and Elostrion, might not guess the true subtext of a question that had knocked forcefully through Tathren’s near-bursting skull the night before. He stayed his tongue until Elrohir’s eyes had nearly glazed-over, then carefully introduced his subject.

“Ada,” he inquired soberly. “May I ask an intimacy of you?”

“Surely, ioneth,” Elrohir replied, surprised by his solemn countenance.

“I know that it was by Thranduil’s order that you…” Tathren took a steadying breath, then soldiered on. “That you took rites with my other father, upon his first majority. Yet I know you well enough, Ada, to know that, had you not felt Ada-Las was suitably readied for such embroilment, nothing in Thranduil’s or any other force’s power would have compelled you to lie with him against your will. Against his will. May I ask… what was’t that convinced you he was ready for such a… a vital choice?”

Elrohir examined his son for some time, no doubt attempting to discern the reason for such a complex and personal inquiry. When none was forthcoming, he looked within.

“I courted him some, beforehand,” Elrohir explained quietly. “At first, I feared he was too green. He had never even been kissed! Nor felt drawn to any other elf, male or maid, but then there were naught but elders in Mirkwood at the time and his people were routinely besieged. I was gentle, at first, though I myself was terribly eager; I loved him at first glance of his half-grown self. At once, he was too glad to return my affections, and, after a time of tender play, I saw desire spark in him. In truth, if I had had means I would have delayed another month or two, but times were fraught and we were wanted in Lorien… I gave him the choice, told him directly of my intent and answered even the most intimate of his inquiries beforehand. This candor, I suppose, is what readied him… though I like to think it was my comeliness and sensual graces.”

“No doubt,” Tathren chuckled fondly, somewhat appeased by his honest answer. “I ask because… there is one, in my circle, who is heavily beset by their virginity, and I thought… I thought perhaps to…”

“Is this one an elfling still?” Elrohir inquired hushly, almost fearful of the answer.

“Nay, they are well passed their minority,” Tathren assured him.

Elrohir turned this over some, then queried: “Would you offer the gesture out of love, or merely desire?”

“In truth,” Tathren exhaled with some difficulty, his father striking to the core of the matter. “I know not.”

“Delicate,” Elrohir concluded, after a time. “A moment of extreme delicacy, to be sure. If you offer yourself in love, but are not wholly convinced of it, the elf might suffer greatly for love of you, since you have been offered and thusly taken their body’s most precious gift. If you give yourself in lust alone, they may become enamored of you, or, worse, you of them, and they do not return this affection, so opened are they as a result of your coupling to… other attractions. You say you are dear friends, this may well sunder what friendship you bear one another… a delicate affair, indeed.”

“Ada, you have hit the very crux of my confusion!!” Tathren exclaimed, beset by melancholy.

“And, yet, I have no answer,” Elrohir apologized to him. “But this… you are, without doubt and though I am horribly predisposed to your beauteous nature, one of the most tender, kindhearted, and giving elves in my acquaintance. I have no fear that, if you hold both their heart and your own with the most tenacious care, you will greatly gift this young elf by your regard and affections. Put the choice to them, ioneth, have faith in them. Only once given can trust be wholeheartedly returned.”

Tathren let his father’s words slowly seep in, both their wisdom and their warning. He set the tea cup aside, and embraced him ardently.

“Well reasoned, Ada,” he noted, with a sigh.

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

From the outskirts of the resplendent orchard to the west of their talan, the much hallowed Balrog-slayer of Gondolin basked in the bucolic scene before him. Amid the dense foliage of expertly tended trees hung summer-fatted fruit; elegant pears, blushing peaches, and lusty plums, each juice-swollen sphere a tribute to the doting nurture of his son’s evergreen thumbs. The former guard-captain also noted how the affinity of touch required to harvest this ripe crop would finesse the brawny explorers’ knife-play. This merry bunch was scattered across the orchard, teetering atop ladders, portaging full baskets to the wheelbarrow, and generally taunting each other with the scathing affections of swordbrothers.

Though he was not yet in sights of their mocking, his workers time and again looked to Echoriath for guidance, instruction, or simply information. When their young master spoke, only the leaves dared to rustle and sway, though Glorfindel had come to believe even these elements hushed in deference to him. He knew not whether his father’s pride puffed at his son’s burgeoning leadership or at the adventurers’ valorous obedience of him, as he had himself trained many among the company and had, before Echoriath’s birth, somewhat regarded them as both his soldiers and his children.

He only knew his heart was as glutted as a calf at his mother’s teat.

“Our milliard paternal labors have at last come to fruition, gwador,” Legolas remarked in greeting, as he stepped into line with his bond-brother. “How fare you on this remarkably fine day?”

“Well met, Legolas,” Glorfindel smiled in response. “By troth, my dreaming mind could not have conjured such a hopeful scene in a thousand nights’ somnolence.” The archer laughed wryly, though inwardly agreed when he fell to contemplation of the jovial industry before him. “That my timid one is captain of such an esteemed company alone would appease a father’s worrisome nature, but to see him so well regarded among them by the grace of his ample gifts is near miraculous. And that his brother and cousin join ranks without dissention or jealousy…”

“Aye, I too am gladdened,” Legolas acknowledged. “Perhaps some long hours in nature’s cradle will keep my son closer to our own. Elrohir and I are grateful to Echoriath for showing these willful adventurers the quiet pleasures of home.”

Glorfindel nodded sagely, though would not let this shadow cover his triumphant mood. “Elrohir dearly wanted for him, these last years.”

“My husband may be more suited to the sharing of his innermost thoughts,” Legolas murmured, almost to himself. “But I suffer well as he, in solitude.”

One glance at his pensive countenance told Glorfindel some trouble was afoot. The glorious day strangely burnished Legolas’ preternatural radiance, while such lazy midsummer afternoons usually imbued the archer with a shine of unequivocal splendor. His oft mercurial eyes were serene as the still ponds of Fangorn, their humors murky, reflecting some beleaguering preoccupation. He and Elrohir were lively enough at dinner the night before, their relentless affections engaging and spirited as always. Yet, on this watershed afternoon for both their children, Legolas had turned almost melancholy.

“None among our kin doubt it, mellon-nin,” he shot in the dark. “One has but to linger a moment in company of you and your child to know your harrowing affection for him, and his unblemished regard of your gallant self.” Legolas smirked at this characterization, but nothing more. “Come now, gwador, I am unused to such sobriety. What trouble so afflicts you?”

“Not trouble,” Legolas answered cryptically. “But… a struggle within.” His eyes, keen as arrowheads, examined his bond-brother’s stately visage, but found there only care. “I have, of late, wished for another child.”

Glorfindel nodded sympathetically, then sighed. His experience of the decision that now blighted Legolas’ mirth had been prolonged and agonizing, little wonder his flaxen friend’s spitfire was so mellowed by his inner musings. He was grateful that their one attempt at progeny had wrought two such peerless sons, thus permanently and sufficiently quenching his tormenting thirst for parenthood. Legolas, however, had never before longed for children; the manner of his son’s begetting was if naught else an extreme deterrent against further action. None doubted that Tathren was fervently beloved by both his fathers, yet only one between them had wanted such a birth before it was foist upon them, only one would have chosen such a path. Until, apparently, with the advent of peacetime, an accidental father found himself too-well liking of the task.

“You would take my counsel in this?” Glorfindel asked, knowing the answer before it was uttered.

“If your grace would be so burdened,” Legolas grinnoftloftly, himself flirting with mockery.

“It well would, if only to champion your cause with Elrohir,” Glorfindel assured him. “I assume he yet opposes your will in this. And justly so, as he would, by my mark, be the chosen sire.”

“He would,” Legolas informed him, waiting on further remarks.

With heavy heart, Glorfindel allowed the maligned memories to overtake him, spoiling, for a moment, their blithe afternoon. He constructed the telling of his anecdotes with care, considerate of both his audience and his desire that this proposed child come into being. He knew that, once begot, Legolas and Elrohir would easily repress any lingering regret in the thrall of their little one’s giddy eyes, but the cumbersome manner of his making, would, until then, too solemnly weigh upon them. He hoped his words might lighten them both.

“Before he became Lord of Imladris, in Elrond’s stead,” he began. “Elladan had recognized my longing and agreed that, in time, we might be fathers. As time stretched ever on - some thirty years had passed - his impassioned nature was settled some by his entitlement, yet still he would not concede to my desires. He would defer to duty, he said he would not share my fine company, he cited reputation and honor, our binding vows and the painful aftermath of my rejection of him. These matters, however, were long fought out between us; he was afraid. I knew not how to convince him. So, I relented. We would have each other, which was considerable consolation.”

“What swayed him?” Legolas inquired softly, not wanting to shatter the spell of his remembrances.

“You own son,” Glorfindel responded, to the archer’s surprise. “Elrohir and I were required by Celeborn in Lorien, we needed absent ourselves but a month. This was too short a time to summon you back from Ithilien, and, as Tathren was quite young still and embroiled in his studies with Erestor, Elrohir left him in his brother’s care. I know not what passed in that month’s time, but, when I returned, Elladan himself proposed it.”

“You have never asked him what convinced?” Legolas queried, taking comfort in the mere event of their discussion.

“I have indeed,” Glorfindel chuckled. “But he has yet to answo myo my satisfaction.”

“What then?” Legolas urged him on, as the next chapter of the tale was of vital import to him.

“We coupled with a ferocity unknown to man, beast, or Eruchin for a half-year,” the Balrog-slayer slyly admitted, noting Legolas’ rising color. He and Elrohir were, to all appearances, similarly fever-struck. “And sought out a kindhearted elf to mother our babes. We chose her for her deportment and willingness, but if I were to choose again, I might select with more caution. Her decision to remain in Arda has… my sons have paid too high a price, for this.” His dismissed the aggravation that crept over his spine at the thought, then continued. “On the night in question, she was blessed with a patience few even among our kin will ever know. For weeks before, I had fretted and fumed, not on my own account, but for Elladan. But when I woke that morn and saw him so sickly, so sorrowful, his manner brash and his nerves grating him raw, I knew that I must forget my own selfishness and focus on his needs. If I recall, the playing-out of our little drama was almost too comedic. Elladan was unsteadied by dwarven wine, but after some effort, still proved impotent. Not wanting to burden them with my presence, I waited far away, but was soon precipitously summoned to their chamber. My poor husband was maddened by the wine, weeping and listless, it took an hour of my most salacious insinuations to rouse him. In the end, I had to slink out of the chamber unnoticed and pray for rain, though to this day I know not how she managed to surge his seed to completion.”

“Abysmal,” Legolas judged, but there was clear mirth in his tone.

“Indeed,” Glorfindel seconded, glancing back at the busy orchard. “And yet… when Cuthalion swings into our feasting hall, aglow with his day’s fair humor, or Echoriath presents me with one of his awesome designs, I cannot bring myself to imagine our life otherwise. How could it be otherwise? They *are* my life’s work.”

Legolas shut his eyes, beset by emotion. When they opened again, they alighted on Tathren, carrying a ladder to the next bountiful tree, his cheeks as plump and golden as the peaches therein. Shroud in the aura of this image, Legolas shone again, his earlier gloom cast away by shrewd advice and the comfort of good counsel.

“Besides,” Glorfindel concluded. “My proud and valorous husband was so plagued by guilt that he worshipped my body nightly, and for months after. Though I wish I could have spared him the shame, I recall those hot nights with terrible fondness.”

At this, both wicked-eyed elves surrendered to their snickering.

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

Though his bonny comrades had welcomed a day’s respite from the rigors of the harvest, Tathren’s nerves had flared at the hesitant announcement on the previous afternoon. After a hectic fortnight of plucking and lugging, the adventurers were spent, their archery and swordplay woefully neglected in their new master’s service.

As Echoriath had detailed with his usual diligence, the trees themselves required this time of rest; to mend their wounds, replenish their lightened boughs, and feast on the fertile earth beneath. Said fertilization would come not from seeding, but from the sky, for which the gardener needed no company. The company, however, had grown painfully fond of their master, and insisted that he sup with them that very eve, with the blessing of his fathers. Echoriath, as ever, had blushed a fearsome crimson at the concession and timorously agreed, which only endeared him more, to both the explorers and to his rabid-loined cousin.

The dinner had provoked every thigh-licking thought he had toiled, through arduous nights of self-abasement, to repress; for he could not, despite his most thorough abusing, forget them. During those heady days in the orchard, his preoccupying employment and his vivacious environment had kept his wolfish needs at bay, though he unwittingly watched Elostrion’s interactions like a hawk. That night, at their table, every gaze that gleaned upon Echoriath appeared predatory to him, his own more than any other. Thorontir’s boorishness became lecherous in his red-glazed stare, Glinfalas’ aloofness a cunning ploy to lure his observant attentions, even Rohros, recently betrothed, and Cirhith, no lover of males, were not spared, their patient interest in the darkling elf’s more intellectual conversation perverted beyond reason. The worst offender, and most blatant tease, was of course Elostrion, who, to Tathren’s waning credit, did harbor a secret wanting for Echoriath. Perhaps not so secret, as he had spent the better part of the afternoon demanding of Tathren some hint as to the young master’s tastes, astride the main branch of a pregnant plum tree. That his gracious cousin had bore the company’s most outlandish flirtations with humility and disbelief had been the only thing to hearten him, though the very fact of his own incessant desire shamed Tathren through.

If, indeed, this wretched agony was desire alone.

His Ada-Hir’s most pointed question had caused him to quest, not over mountain ranges nor fields thick with orcs, but through his haloed remembrances of time spent with his soft cousin. Through his past eits its with male and maid, to uncover a bed-mate’s charms he had hungered for as keenly as this unknown promise, one he had courted who was half as smart, half as sweet natured. Within the confines of his enclosing bedchamber, he had journeyed into the estimated future, to a time when Echoriath might be promised to another and he himself bound. When, between his adventuring and the darkling elf’s ambitions, they would missed each other’s company for decades at a time. True, his last venture in the wilds had spanned nearly a decade, but not a day had passed when he had not missed both his tender cousins. His mind had not long stood such bleak imaginings, his loins had crackled in protest and his heart…

His heart had sunk like a stone in his chest.

He had known fear, then, known its bone-coring bite, for he knew himself born under the black star of Thranduil’s shadow and that all his golden father’s misgivings may very well come to pass.

For he could not appease this wanting in other than Echoriath’s bed.

Still, he was no wanton. His jealous streak was fitful, but he was no cur. The offer, as per his Ada-Hir’s sage suggestion, would be put to the darkling elf with gentility and some well-planned encouragement; if he was refused, then so be it. Tathren well-knew the magnitude of his request, he could school himself to accept whatever answer now awaited him in the orchard quiet, where Echoriath would soon summon the rain.

Under the lush midsummer boughs, he would woo his genial one with a skill he hoped akin to that of his wise father, once upon a time.

***

When he sung the first, vital note, the trees veritably writhed in rapture. Too long had their boughs been handled by a lesser touch, their hollows and shades invaded by roughshod elves, unlearned in his giving ways of old. He had planted them, reared them from saplings, nourished their soil with the rose-blended mulch they favored and mended them with moss plasters after storm. Summer-thick sap flooded their branches with the same gushing, heedless flow as blood through his veins, the aura of his heart unbound feeding them, healing them, willing them to molt their bark-scabs and open to the over-misting sun.

Above, clouds of twilight blue gathered at his beckoning over the barren trees, wafting into swollen form like faraway ships in a gale. The wilded wind rippled through the lapping leaves, billowed through his loose shirt; its feral gusts moist, ripe with the coming rain. His face upturned in abject worship, his arms outstretched, supplicant, he culled the yearning trees with full, impassioned song, luring their lithe, wispy spirits into blissful communion.

The sky cracked, and begat a spell of pummeling rain.

The trees’ essence surged, shrieked their pleasure, and Echoriath himself shook amidst their throes. Their bond severed, his song was choked off by a mouthful of rainwater. He spat a vaulting spray over the grass, then coughed mightily to clear his throat. Sensitive, shivering, and soaked through in the wake of his otherworldly summons, he hugged his puckering arms tight and squished through the strip of long grass in the middle lane. He could still make out eager sucks, slurps, and swallows amid the din of the leaf-tapping shower, his orchard would soon be thoroughly quenched and ready to grow again.

With a playful smile, he swd tod to avoid a squashed pear, one of the few casualties of the explorers’ first afternoon at harvesting. The stomped pulp and broken skin would only serve to enrich the soil; Echoriath had even considered sacrificing a bushel per rung of trees, but knew they would never forgive him. Instead, he would surreptitiously blend some into their beloved mulch, thereby tempering their scorn and keeping peace between them.

Before he could even consider how to broach the matter of ‘the intruders’ without their rotting their trunks in anger, he stopped cold. Tathren, drenched through, awaited him beneath the tallest cobapple tree, his flinty eyes sparked with a haunting incandescence even on this sallow afternoon. Bleached pale by the rain but strikingly handsome, Echoriath c not not keep himself from sneaking under the drooping branches to join him in secret sanctuary. This elicited a smile worthy of Arien’s radiance, which warmed them both considerably.

“You shiver with cold, gwador,” Tathren seized him up immediately. “Why have you no cloak?”

“I had not thought to tarry here,” Echoriath answered plain, but was quick to approach him.

In truth, his limbs quaked not from rain nor chill, but were still electric with aftershocks from his communion. This same dizzy magnetism drew him ever closer to Tathren, the pull of whose ensorcelling eyes he could not, in his tremulous and heady state, long resist. He watched his lips, petal-pink from the cool rain, speak to him, but could not mark the words, such was the lure of their subtle dance. None had ever intruded upon one of his rituals afore, thus Echoriath could not have forewarned his too-fair-by-far cousin away and spared himself the embarrassment that was sure to come. For even from within the fugue of desire than suddenly engulfed him, his ever-sharp mind recognized and alerted some dormant part of him to the dangerous, potentially brazen behavior that might result.

He stumbled back a few steps, wrenched his eyes away.

“You are weary, my brave one,” Tathren surmised, twisting and snapping a last, unpicked cobapple from a nearby branch. “The spell-caster need take as much replenishment as the enchanted orchard.”

He chomped off a generous bite, then offered him the remainder. Echoriath gladly accepted the dripping fruit, sinking his teeth into the sweet flesh and crunching out a bite of his own. The tart juice pricked his tongue, though his mouthful nearly melted when Tathren licked his own lips clean. Something in his cousin’s piercing eyes stung up the length of his spine. He swallowed hard, the pulpy liquid oozing like honey down his throat and pooling heat in his nether regions; Echoriath knew that if he did not seek true shelter soon he would loose what brittle hold still straightened him. The air between them seemed thick as glass, though Tathren’s sodden, golden hair shone like a crown. At once terrified and energized, he flicked a stray lock behind his own peaked ear.

Tathren’s hawkish eyes snapped to attention, something broke within him.

When he began to ease towards him, eyes luminous as sapphires and visage of sobering intent, Echoriath’s breath caught, his legs buckled, and he knew, he *knew* with will-shattering clarity what would come next. He wanted it like nothing he’d ever wished for; the sword-hewn arm that closed around him, the calloused hand that cupped his face, the breath that misted over his mouth seconds before those petal-lips suckled him, fleeting as the flutter of a bird’s wing yet betraying a fallacious heat. Echoriath suddenly loathed that Tathren was so gentle with him; he wanted no maiden’s kiss, but one deserving of a mate.

When Tathren drew delicately away, Echoriath met his mouth with ardor, pouring every last reserve of longing into this first, breathless embrace. To his great encouragement, Tathren broke away panting, stunned, but deliciously so, by the darkling elf’s daring. The piqued explorer ventured forth again, catching that luring bottom lip between his own and sucking softly. Echoriath let his mouth be savored, the top lip receiving equally sweet attention, then both voluptuous curves were lapped suggestively. Tathren finished him off with a lingering caress, resting their by-now baking foreheads together. He brushed lazy fingers over his flush cheeks, chuckling to himself, then knit him into a closer hold.

“*Valar*, but you are lovely,” Tathren murmured.

Though he did not for a moment trust his voice, Echoriath was desperate to know what in Elbereth’s name had transpired here. Still, he was not known for eloquence.

“H-how…?” he stammered. At this too-careful inquisition, Tathren seemed to come into his senses, though he did not move to release him.

“I thought…” he began, but then considered the matter some. “Since my return, I have been rather… entranced, by your beauty. I was not unaware of your comeliness before, mind, but in my years abroad you have become so… so pearlescent in your twilight lushness that I… Your brother told me that you were untouched and I found I could not, after coming to know you again these past weeks, allow your innocence to go unchallenged. Therefore I…” Those bedazzling eyes fixed on him anew, their jeweled luminescence so overwhelming that he nearly gasped. “Echoriath, I would invite you, at your leisure, to my bedchamber. I would guide you in whatever love-rites you might wish to be introduced, in whatever desire or manner of loving you might take pleasure. In which we would both, of course, take ample pleasure.” He finished this last with a rather saucy cull on his gaping, though willing, mouth. “*If* you would have me…”

“I would,” Echoriath instantly agreed, with such earnestness Tathren nearly forgot the whole affair. “When shall I come?”

“As you wish,” Tathren answered, astonished that something so long siing ing could so effortlessly come to a boil.

“Tomorrow, then?” he requested, then thought better of his pliancy. “I would come tomorrow night.”

“Veell,ell,” Tathren beamed at him, so glorious in this hush moment that Echoriath’s eyes brimmed. He stole another kiss to stave off his tears, then mewled when Tathren did finally release him. “Think on what pleasures you might enjoy, lirimaer.”

“I will think on nothing else,” Echoriath pledged, then – to his horror – realized he had spoke aloud. A flattered smile from his cousin calmed him, emboldened him. “Nor have I thought of else since… your return to Telperion, tathrelasse.”

“But…” Tathren’s entire countenance clenched as though to avoid a slap, yet his face colored as if he’d verily been struck. “You hold no favor for Elostrion?”

Echoriath likewise tensed, intuiting the overbearing import of his response. “Nay. I do not immediately lend my heart to those whom my brother would choose for it.” After some hesitation, he snatched up Tathren’s trembling hands and kissed his agile archer’s fingers with considerable intensity. “Though I may be banished forever for even the barest conception of the feeling, there is but one in all my hundred years who has… moved me. Bade me forget the cares that shun me from the world and wrought my… my desire.”

No longer trembling hands smoothed up his arms, then, sweeping the slender slope of neck and cupping the noble-slanted jaw anew to scorch his mouth with an embrace of pure, sensual need, such as Echoriath had never known before. If the promise of this kiss unbound heralded the coming night’s indulgences, then his dreams were but sketches of an altogether more riveting and unpredictable design. He reeled, from the woozy tree-trance, from his cousin’s blistering overture, from the heat that now coursed into him through their immaculate connection.

With a palpable groan of frustration, Tathren pushed him away, so flamed by arousal that he could not look him in the face.

“Come tomorrow,” he beckoned, then staggered back into the rain.

End of Part Three