Further Tales Of Elbereth's Bounty

Title: Further Tales Of Elbereth’s Bounty – Ciryon’s Tale, Part One
Author: Gloromeien
Email: swishbucklers@hotmail.com
Pairing: OMC/OMC, Tathren/Echoriath, references to Legolas/Elrohir, Glorfindel/Elladan
Summary: This is a companion piece to Of Elbereth’s Bounty, which takes place between the action of the final chapter (16) and the epilogue, set centuries in the future. Some of the characters from OEB deserved to have their own stories wrapped up outside of the actual narrative of that tale. This particular tale, along with the soon coming Rohrith’s Tale, concern the majority rites of two of Tathren’s triplet brothers.
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.
Author’s Note: While I think parts of this story can be understood on their own, I think it better to read the whole cycle, or at least Of Elbereth’s Bounty, to completely understand the world I’ve created and the character histories. The series is as follows: Part One is ‘In Earendil’s Light’, Part Two is ‘Under the Elen’, and the vastly larger Part Three is ‘Of Elbereth’s Bounty’.
Feedback: Would be delightful.
Dedication: To Eresse, as always.

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Further Tales Of Elbereth’s Bounty

Ciryon’s Tale – Part One


Summer, Year 194, Fourth Age

In the misty dusk of twilight, their eager faces lit by the smoky glow of the torches, the elves assembled before the marbled steps of the House of the Fountain.

When Brithor peaked around the natty frond of the curtains, the sweet, greasy smell of camphor wafted in, luring Rohrith to his side. Between their haloed silhouettes, the vast dark of the courtyard could be observed; the emblematic fountain at its center spilling forth multifoliate peals of freshwater, like a liquid rose of translucent gold. Six leaf-shaped beds of graceful blooms spread out, as if verdant tongues thirsty for their rejuvenating source, to delineate the main routes to the six major city districts: the coarse riverside, the ripe vineyards, the rich farmlands, the stoic mines, the effete embassy row, and the learned corridors of the academy.

Guardian to each path was one of the six guild houses, where elven craftsmen from both Arda and Aman flocked to increase their skills, cotton with their peers, and ply their esteemed trade. Each stood in honor of one burned to ash by Balrog spew in Gondolin of old, each bore the exultant emblem of that laurelled house; fountain, tree, eagle, horse, star, and golden flower, the last of which shone, in the rosy balm of the sinking sun, from across the way. The art each championed was tailored to this guiding symbol, each banquet table saved a seat for the return of its fallen lord.

Excepting the House of the Golden Flower, who had but recently celebrated the advent of its most revered and distinguished patron, the Balrog-slayer Glorfindel.

This was but one of the milliard marvels their two year sojourn in Gondolen had bequeathed the sprightly triplets of Elrond’s line. Crouched at the base of an imposing column, Ciryon scanned their audience through his brothers’ limber legs, yet another sickly shriek of nerves howling up his spine. The unnerving sensation was by now only too common to him, as their time in the southlands had given him ample occasion for such pin-prick anxiety, usually but moments before some exhilarating or adventurous feat was attempted. Normally of a hesitant nature, his twins had waged a relentless battle with his inhibitions throughout their stay, which had, despite his reservations, lead to an abundance of unparalleled experiences, both unique and shared; though, in the bed-bound susurrations that always ended their days, no experience was truly kept private between them. Despite their often polarizing personalities, the triplets were, as ever, as one in solidarity and in mutual support.

From their very docking in the harbor, of barren sands and of titanic crags, the place had overwhelmed Ciryon with intrigue. The contrasting landscape, the arrogant, often elegiac mountains that kept vigil over the bucolic valley, was enticingly foreign to one so accustomed to the shelter of rampant forests. The clash of rural hardiness with vaulting culture but further whetted his abject, unquenchable thirst for knowledge, offering his unsuspecting palette a veritable feast of ancient tomes, crafty techniques, and tantalizing governmental woes. For the past two years, Ciryon had gorged himself on both the rarest of delicacies and astonishing alternatives to the usual fare; his young mind challenged intellectually, spiritually, and socially, as his body was physically.

Each morn, he would wake with the glorious dawn, break fast with his fathers, brothers, and sister, then present himself to his ever-bemused Ada-Hir. After delivering Rohrith to the House of the Eagle, also known as the Guild of Philosophy, Oratory, and Rhetoric, they would undertake some educational mission, be it a close conversation with a sage master, library research to elucidate some historical ambiguity, or a diplomatic session with the High Council. Though he adored both his fathers in equal measure, his Ada-Hir was at once his mentor, his friend, his most patient of tutors and his most heartening consolation, who consistently encouraged him in both his personal obsessions and his academic pursuits.

Lest he hideaway in the library for his entire stay, Rohrith and Brithor took charge of his spirit’s enrichment, goading him with typically wily finesse into a wealth of sensory explorations, social gatherings, and wilding escapades. Gondolen was a place to be lived, not merely understood, and his mad twins were more than happy to twine him up in their string of madcap, if often half-cocked, adventures. From simple pleasures, such as stamping grapes in the winery, to more elaborate schemes, such as commandeering a skip to ride through the western rapids, to outright devious designs, such as stealing into the rafters of a coitus-cult house one night to observe the randy, ritualistic goings on, he reluctantly became their cherished accomplice, though he himself was wise enough to recognize how these antic exploits had urged him a bit further out of his shell’s comfort.

All three brothers had matured considerably, and quite astoundingly, in these last few years of elflinghood.

Rohrith had blossomed quite admirably into the natural leader all had long predicted he would become. In the bosom of his favored Guild, he had so developed his skills in oratory and debate that he already had a following of like-minded acolytes. Though all of tender years, these were Aman’s future lords and councilors. As Rohrith was already an ardent devotee of the sword, these bright ones trained with him, bantered with him, delved with him into the hotpoint questions of their age and toasted with him on many a casual eve on the guildhall steps. In Telperion, Rohrith’s training had him groomed as a future marchwarden; after his proclivities here, Legolas and Elrohir envisioned an altogether different position for their vital son. Their grandsire Elrond, arrived just a month before, had been particularly stunned at this becoming transformation, vowing to take him on as an apprentice upon their return.

Brithor, for his part, had explored more sensual avenues, when not busy shadowing Tathren about the vale. Never one to pursue a certain occupation, the most amiable of the triplets had not lost his affability in growth, nor his quiet, unyielding worship of their elder sibling. Like their brother, he was an elf of simple strength, but far less ambition. He cared not for Guild life, preferring to engage in whatever physical chore Tathren had planned for them, as the golden elf was also terribly fond of Brithor and had discovered in him an able partner. Whether hauling trees from the shore, aiding in the construction of even more talans for the expanding populace, or grooming at the stables with Cuthalion, they had kept easy company together; chatting and jesting, uncomplicated. By night, however, Brithor’s warm and generous ways had turned perilously flirtatious, the fairer sex often caught in his roving crosshairs. Whenever the family had attended a feast, celebration, or social event, the maids of the valley had flocked to him like gulls to seed; he had been easily lost to their fluttery attentions. Only Ciryon and Rohrith knew that he had seconded another of Tathren’s groundbreaking traditions, having been bedded by a shrewd ellyth long before his majority rites. This had unleashed a hunger within him both his brothers came to fear in themselves, once they were truly awakened by the love-act. As a result, his twins had struggled to restrict in his carnal jaunts about the far meadows, through mischievous activity and simple reasoning, but Brithor had never been less than utterly respectful even in his erotic adventures, frequenting the same maid for an extended time and only choosing another partner when she, sensing his lack of prolonged commitment, inevitably quit his company. These breaks had done little, however, to daunt his self-confidence or to restrain him from seeking another out; he was, as one of Rohrith’s most intuitive followers had quite keenly noted, an elf made for lovemaking, in all and any of its ambiguous forms. Brithor was, nevertheless, a brother beyond compare, knowing implicitly how to love all those around him, however platonically or fraternally.

On this particular evening, the House of the Fountain, also known as the Music Guild, was hosting their annual concert for local artists, at which their family choir would in but moments perform. Since their infant years, Nenuial, blessed with a near genial talent herself, had tamed her rambunctious elflings by teaching them to sing. The triplets had an admirable vocal range and their eloquent harmonies were altogether rapturous, but Tinuviel, as befitting her name, was the true songbird among them. Her haunting, dramatic voice had felled even the stoniest hearts in Telperion; her mother held no doubt that the emotive Gondolen crowds would be sobbing in tribute by night’s end.

Indeed, their reputation, as well as the fame of their heritage, had amassed them quite an audience, which Rohrith and Brithor were surreptitiously surveying from their makeshift slit in the curtain. Ciryon, for his part, was pretending the courtyard was empty; once onstage, and between his identical brothers, he would properly acclimate to their expectant eyes, but the wait was scoring out his innards by the second. They had never performed to such a voluminous crowd before, nor had they ever sung the intricate melodies they practiced in the sanctity of their mother’s house for ought but their grandparents and their extended family. Their only public displays had been the occasional folksong at festivals in the vale; in the accomplishment of the task before him he felt like a hobbit seeking the seat of Gondor. His brothers, however, were typically rabid with excitement, avidly whispering their recognition of various audience members to him. Tinuviel, having her hair tended to by their Nana, was far more demure, humming the more challenging notes beneath her breath.

“Ciri, come and see!” Rohrith admonished him, before poking his nose out anew. “*Everyone* is here for us: Ada-Dan and Ada-Fin, Cuthalion and Miriel, grandsire and grandmother with Lalaith, Erestor and Haldir with Orinath –“

“For certes, he is here,” Tinuviel repliqued, eager to quash her brother’s needless enthusiasm. “He swore to me he would come. Name some unexpected friends.”

“Rumil and Anamir with their daughters,” Rohrith underlined, to upbraid her.

“Who have grown rather impossibly fair,” Brithor commented, to a communal groan from his twins.

Before they could continue their appraisal, Nenuial plucked them back from between the curtains and snapped its folds shut.

“Think not, dears, on their approval,” she warmly advised them. “But on your performance’s worthiness.” They followed her pointed eyes to Ciryon by the pillar, took their pregnant meaning in stride.

Compliantly, they tucked under their by now shaking brother’s arms, more than content to soothe him into a brittle front of courage. Ciryon welcomed their attentions by cinching them even closer to him, loosing his inhibitions on the steady stream that flowed through the bond of twinship between them. He was heartened before long, knowing that even the most hostile embarrassment could not infiltrate the fortress brothers at his flanks.

“Be consoled by a gift from the Lady herself, Ciri,” Brithor hushly informed him. “Ivrin is here, as well.”

Though it seemed even his twins could not protect him from the assault of his own riotous emotions at this gutting announcement.

“I-Ivrin?” he stuttered, suddenly gone spectral white. “But is he not… at sea?”

“Aye, he was, but landed in Telperion some while today,” Rohrith seconded. “Twas his ship, of course, that Rumil commissioned for the journey south. By happy coincidence, Ada-Las met with them at the docks and, knowing how we missed our cherished gwador, urged the captain to stay on for a two-month, to after spirit us all home.”

“We must show him a time, gwenin, here in our adopted land,” Brithor insisted, though needed not truly encourage either of them. “As he took us bashing through the forest wilds in youthful years, so shall we now storm him through this valley made for the best form of mischief.”

“Indeed, Ivrin will prove a most willing accomplice, if I know him of old,” Rohrith added, wondering at Ciryon’s continued quiet. His bashful brother nodded rather wanly at this once favorable proposition, sinking back into himself. He threw a doting arm around Ciryon’s hunched shoulders and squeezed some cheer into him. “With our gwador about, there’s no telling what we might get this sober one up to, Thor!”

Brithor, ever more attuned to Ciryon’s darker moods, consciously shifted the tone of their talk to accommodate his reticence.

“How long has Ivrin been away, Ciri?” he carefully asked him. “Surely it must be some great years since we’ve last seen him?”

“Nay, tis but two since his ship has landed in Telperion,” Ciryon murmured in response. “Though that last stay was but a fortnight.” /Two of the most revolutionary and heart-rending weeks of my elflinghood,/ he thought inwardly, but kept his tongue. “The sailing trade is a harsh mistress.”

Brithor smirked roguishly at the feeling quavering beneath those spare, unassuming words, gleaning onto their ulterior meaning despite his brother’s efforts at concealment. Suddenly, the two-month appeared rightly glutted with potential. He winked stealthily at Rohrith, whose brow furrowed at this strange gesture, and clapped Ciryon quite sharply on the back, to rouse him from misery.

“Then we, as his sworn brothers, must restore him!” he pledged, with a wolf-toothed grin. “But first… we should rather impress him.”

“Some tuning, then?” Ciryon humbly proposed, eager to distract his brothers from his mounting distress.

As they muttered half-voiced harmonies between them, Ciryon struggled to shut out, as Ada-Hir ever advised, the scathing inner voices that assailed him; voices that decried his affections as futile from one so opposite to him in character. As they filed off towards the stage, he bemoaned to himself that these last weeks in Gondolen - a couple of years that had seen him free of so many fears - would end with restraint, with self-repression. As the Guildmaster announced them so eloquently, he blunted all other cares from his mind, waiting for the first strum of the lyre to overtake him.

The note was struck, and he forgot himself awhile.

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

/Lithe as a petal sailing downstream./

The House of the Golden Flower buzzed with vivacious revelers, hummingbirds and honeybees all, who fluttered about the drapery-swathed halls tippling flutes of marigold wine. As besotted by the concert’s ethereal melodies as by the choir’s unearthly beauty, their enraptured audience had followed them to the after-feast, a private affair gone frivolously public through emphatic acclaim. To traverse the main hall was to court fleet-hearted mischief, as swirling dancers snatched up even a trolling observer, minstrels kept the music lively, and spirit-ruddied miscreants pollinated the wine trough.

Thankfully, the labyrinth of flowing curtains, intricate quilts, and tight-woven tapestries had aided the triplets’ hasty retreat from their leagues of new, preying admirers, to the high-walled back terrace and the enclosed gardens below. A band of trusted guards stood attentively by the grated gate, allowing entrance only to friends and familiars. The enchanted atmosphere of the gardens was the perfect remedy for the primitive stares, frothing mouths, and lecherous gropes of those spelled by the trio’s purring voices and wolfine charms. Beneath trellises of spiraling ivy, languidly drooping willows, and the moist marshes around the moonlit pond, the three brothers were free to frolic with their loyals, while on the balcony above their elders kept hawk-eyed vigil on their adolescent antics. They had been, however, absurdly tame even for them; indeed, it was Tinuviel who had stolen away with Orinath, to twist and twirl in the main hall.

In a humid, mossy hollow beneath the fieldstone bridge, Ciryon wished he could remember the performance that had so ensorcelled the Gondolen masses. Once his lush voice had melded with his twins’ melancholy tones for that first poignant ballad, he’d given himself entirely to melody, had been wholly lost to pure, resonant harmony. He who lived on facts, on theories, surrendered himself in song, such that he could not rightly recall any sensation other than soaring. When their bountiful applause had roused him, his trance had drifted slowly off, like fog rolling down the mountainside. His proud, giddy brothers had dragged him about through their hug-happy relatives, only Ada-Hir’s familiar succor had truly bled into his dream-state.

He yet felt blanketed by memory’s heady fugue, but for an altogether dissonant cause.

He’d been unable to fully engage with their furious arrival at the guildhall, still dazed and distant, but their break onto the terrace had penetrated some. The balmy air had flattered him into the present, as did the swell of ripe pomegranate on his tongue. He had realized - as had Echoriath, who had shoved the plate of fruits and sweets before him - that he was ravenous; his skin prickling not just from his conscious seeping back into current time, but with the first licks of exhaustion. Ushered to a corner table by a beaming Legolas, he had gratefully devoured the offered delicacies, relishing the luscious texture of each fruit, the sugary grain of the cakes, and the pungency of the buttery cheese. He’d downed an entire carafe of water to quench himself, then had finally felt awake enough to greet their familiars.

After some easy moments with his grandparents, uncles, and family friends, he’d strolled down to the gardens, his head still so buoyant that he had completely forgotten his earlier distress. As he had scoured around for his brothers, the midnight gardens had cast their own, mysterious spell, their shadowy walks and their shroud thatches enrobing him in a veil of complacence. Brithor he had found in a flowerbed of giggling maids, himself patiently waiting out the revelation of their intentions. Ciryon’s need for stout-hearted company had been better suited to the gathering on the pond banks, where Rohrith and his loyals lazed about, sipping mead and telling tales.

With a hesitant smile, he had slipped in beside his brother, who to his dismay had interrupted a poe-faced elf to introduce him. Only once he’d nodded affably to the makeshift circle - though he had long been acquainted with most - and their attentions had turned back to the pixie philosopher, had he been stung by the piercing stare of all-too-familiar emerald eyes. Though his pulse had pumped out a quavering tattoo and his blood had streaked like lightening through his veins, he had not been able to keep from meeting cute with that bejeweled gaze, nor blinking a bashful greeting to his longtime friend.

With a rope-raw hand over his heart, Ivrin had subtly bowed in acknowledgement, then resumed his attendance of the impish raconteur to his right.

Ciryon, meanwhile, had felt deliriously faint at just that trace moment of regard. He had found he could not keep from gawking at the handsome Dorian elf, his vulnerable adolescent body all too affected by Ivrin’s virile presence. His comeliness had certainly not dimmed in his years away; his supple frame corded with hoist-hardened muscle, his skin seasoned bronze by salt and spray, his mahogany hair burnished by elemental exposure. Ciryon’s desire had bubbled impetuously up, a brash, raucous surge that he was perilously ill-equipped to dam even in cases of mild attraction, the rush wilded even further by the flow of feeling from his tender heart. When those excoriating eyes, somehow intuiting his deep embarrassment, had again been foist upon him, he had had no choice but to effect an awkward, but thankfully swift, escape down to his current hideaway.

Yet his desire, as well as the scepter-steel evidence still encased beneath the loose slope of his robes, would not be so easily concealed during their next encounter.

Indeed, Ivrin had once been the very cause of his tumultuous introduction to fevered, irrational adolescence. For the past few years, Ciryon had been the very definition of an elfling on the cusp, his uncontrollable yearning for physical stimulation and his all-too-facile incitement to arousal a constant source of shame for one so proud of his poise, of his inquisitiveness and of his rationality. He battled nightly with intrusive dreams so molten he would wake in a swamp of sweat and stickiness, his purple sword ever at the ready. He rued his feeble hold on composure, how a myriad of sensations could spring him in any circumstance; the pop of a grape in his mouth, the gush of the cascade across his back, the most platonic of smiles from a elf crossing his path. Though both their fathers and their brother had forewarned them, in their fortieth year, that the coming decade would bring such challenges, such bodily revolt, Ciryon had nevertheless not weathered these episodes well, uncomfortable as he was in flirtatious situations and embroiled as he was in the worship of one, mercifully absent elf.

He recalled all too vividly the occasion of his first burgeoning into physical maturity; how could he not, for it was one of the most revered moments of his minority, routinely revisited and hotly improved by his fork-tongued unconscious, which he was convinced unforgivingly sought his ruin through viscous nocturnal eruption. It had been a cool spring afternoon, not four years ago, when he and Ivrin had been embroiled in a lively conversation by the library hearth. Though hardly a scholar, Ivrin was fascinated equally by literature and by maritime lore, which he often sought out during the triplets’ tutoring sessions, as he had been their great friend since infancy. Ivrin had often ended up joining these sessions, Erestor quite eager to infuse his husband’s gamely nephew with some vital book learning. While his friendship with Rohrith and Brithor had been forged on the training greens, Ciryon’s befriending had been effected through their mutual passion for all things tall and tale, no book of poetry nor expansive novel too dense for their undertaking. They had often lingered, after lessons, delving through the musty stacks until they found that perfect, obscure volume to share on a rainy afternoon, tucked into Erestor’s massive armchair. From their first age of education, at fifteen, to their last at forty-three, he and Ivrin had enjoyed these stolen moments together; their friendship fuelled by literary kindling.

On that final day of togetherness, Ivrin had been looking forward to his departure the following morn, for employment on a merchant vessel. Ciryon had been aching with the knowledge of his close friend’s leave-taking, but could not confess this to him, as Ivrin was too obviously thrilled by the prospect of adventure. He had longed to be a shipwright for countless years; he hoped that, after immersing himself for a time in seafaring culture, he might find a master builder to apprentice himself to. Ivrin had been brimming such with anticipation that they had cast their dusty tome aside and segued quite effortlessly into singular conversation, Ciryon attentive to his friend as he had never been before. He had been, in some ways, like an open wound, seeping over with feeling for his departing companion, nearly festering with repressed emotion.

Only when Ivrin had described the sterling ship of his imaginary designs had he been singed through with a terrible need.

/‘Lithe as a petal sailing downstream, the hull would sweep across the still waters like a caress, the ephemeral ship floating over the ocean as the Foam Flower sails the midnight sky.’/

The desperate want that had coursed through him at that lofty utterance had been nothing like blithe, nothing like the immaculate silmaril above, but altogether like an unsmitable blaze. Ivrin, in the gauzy glow emanating from the fire, had been so luxuriously rendered as to unabashedly entrance him; in retrospect, his budding body had no choice but to react. His heart, however, could have dulcetly given way to rapacious desire, but to his utter astonishment - then and now - it had instead clamored up a cacophony of protest to Ivrin’s incipient departure, seizing him with fervor and shaking him such that he had to swallow back a soul-stricken howl. This swarm of feeling had distracted him long enough from the quite visceral evidencing of his newfound attraction, that he had been thoroughly shocked to sense the existence of a log-fat erection – his first ever – jutting up from his braying loins.

He had known very well what the bedeviled trouble was; but as his sudden affliction was unprecedented, he could do little but fumble an excuse and scurry home to the sanctity of his bedchamber. Flustered, frazzled, and entirely overwhelmed by this unfathomable occurrence, he had not known, despite his parents’ gentle teachings, what in Aman to do about this intrusive display, nor how to banish it from him. Fretting, he had drawn himself a bath, hoping the silky waters would ease the swelling some – needless to add his emulsion had an entirely opposite effect. Thinking him sick, Ivrin had called that evening to check on his fever; thankfully the episode had not repeated itself and, the matter quickly settled, his brothers had joined them for a turn in the woods.

He had longed for no other in the four years since, though had been able to conceal his rapid-fire affections, as well as his dew-eyed appreciation of the seafarer’s many qualities of character, on the few occasions they had had together.

Ciryon kept this love to himself, for himself alone; Ivrin belonged to the sea.

Since their advent in shining Gondolen, his desires had extrapolated some. Only a stone would not be moved by the decadent creatures that sauntered about the valley, and he was in the prime of adolescence. Though he still dreamed of none but Ivrin, he would be false if he did not concede that others had caught his eye and that he had, in solitary moments, found some pleasure in thinking of them. Indeed, he took some relief in these fleeting attractions, as they were a sign of future hope for him, though none would hold his notice long enough to truly capture his heart. Ivrin’s eyes, and no other’s, spilt his scalding seed, so relentlessly, so voluminously, that Ciryon often thought he’d never truly be sated.

He had made a strained peace with these sudden, wanting inflammations, a trial of maturation he had no choice but to bear through. He certainly could not bring himself to behave as Brithor did, nor did he wish to embrace the studious avoidance of bodily need Rohrith practiced. Instead, he had sought blushing counsel from the likeliest source, Echoriath, who had given him tricks to temper himself during festive occasions, to focus himself in more sober times of instruction, and to create himself a sanctuary in which to encourage sensual self-exploration. These had indeed helped him greatly, perhaps it was again time to borrow Echo’s ear for awhile; his current, glaring predicament would be only too familiar to his bond-brother.

The problem of how to pass time with Ivrin while still maintaining his composure had reared itself soon after his retreat to the bridge hollow, the solution yet impalpable. The chance to reawaken their long dormant friendship was too precious to be missed, though Ciryon wondered if he was merely constructing rather elaborate designs for his own eventual, emotional collapse. Ivrin had been born in Laurelin. He spoke reverently of Lorien of old, as if he had himself inhabited the stately forest and safeguarded its borders against the Shadow. Ciryon had always held that the Dorian elf’s secret dream was to build a fleet, one fit for the royals he worshipped as his own master and mistress. Galadriel and Celeborn were as beloved to Ivrin as his own grandparents; he wanted nothing more than to gift them a ship beyond compare, a vessel of his own resplendent creation. This goal, however glorious, would not be achieved in Telperion, whose measly riverside port was fit only for small supply boats and slender passenger ships. No romance could be undertake with one partner so oft abroad, and Ciryon was not yet elf enough to believe he could live away from his family’s support.

The gods may very well be against them, if not Ivrin’s own desires, which Ciryon muddled over daily. All this internal debate, however, was useless before his majority’s turn, though the Valar themselves only knew when he would see Ivrin again, after this accidental holiday. Perhaps in years to come, he could create an occasion, he could undertake a quest… but even he thought this unlikely at best, laughable at worst.

He was made for pining, not wooing.

With a whining bleat of defeat, he sank back against the fieldstone arch of the bridge. His skin still fuming from his scarlet sail through memory, he wrinkled up the bottom edge of his robes above his knees and dipped his bared legs in the blessedly cool pond. He forced his clenched muscles to lax, his shoulders to stretch, his breaths to lengthen, and his own rigid length softened accordingly. The night was kissed by a scintillating star, why should he not bask in its spectral serenity, instead of worrying himself red and chafing? The imagery his woozy mind conjured amused him such, that he choked off a chuckle with his palm.

“Though you have ever found more merriment in solitude,” Ivrin announced himself, from behind. “I pray, gwador, that you might abide a slight intrusion, as I have longed since the very moment of my arrival to take some ease in your esteemed company.” Without waiting for compliance, he plunked himself down at his side and beamed at him so brightly that Ciryon thought he might shed tears. “How do you fare, mellon-nin?”

“I… I am… well enough,” Ciryon managed to stumble out. He took shelter in the obvious, while acclimating himself to Ivrin’s bold presence and smoldering scent. Indeed, everything about the Dorian elf was enticing, but most especially the gentle, kindly look upon his face. “I must confess… I… I have missed you greatly, meldir.”

Ivrin’s sultry features veritably glowed at this pronouncement, such that Ciryon thought he might seize him up and squeeze the very fea out of him.

“And might you welcome such a friend’s embrace?” Ivrin asked him; mirthful, but earnest in intent. “Verily, Ciryon, tis as if we never afore knew each other.”

“Forgive me,” Ciryon replied, amidst a rash of blushing. “I am… still growing into my skin.”

He allowed Ivrin to envelop him, fighting to suppress the shiver that snaked through him.

“Are you very tender, then?” Ivrin inquired, his breath ghosting over his ear.

“Aye,” Ciryon murmured, too brittle to fully respond.

“Then I swear to go gently with you,” came the playful yet knowing reply, at which Ciryon’s rash became an outright flush.

The hug, however, was studiously chaste. He suffered it with aplomb, somehow, despite his inhibitions, wishing that more was attempted, or at least alluded to. They eventually settled into a companionable hold; Ivrin wedged himself against the wall so that he might look Ciryon in the face.

“You have indeed grown remarkably,” he noted, without a hint of undue appreciation. “They valley itself seems enamored of you and your mirror-brothers.”

“Aye, they are an insurgent lot,” Ciryon snarked, unimpressed though only too cognizant of the veracity of his observation. “Cuthalion has already come to blows with one unsavory letch from Tiron, to say nothing of Tathren’s habitual fits of temper. We would strike out ourselves, if provoked, but it would only encourage them.”

“Brithor seems to need no encouragement,” Ivrin remarked, with a gamely grin. “I take it he is an elf already?” Ciryon laughed sharply in rueful acknowledgement, happy to have so easily fallen into their usual banter. He had indeed missed his friend, and related this by an affectionate squeeze to his outstretched arm. “And you, gwador? Have you sampled the local delicacies and taken resounding leave of your minority?”

Ciryon rolled his eyes, but smiled still.

“Nay, I am well settled to elflinghood for my few remaining years,” he revealed. “Though I have yet to convince my body of my continued innocence.”

“It would have you a wanton?” Ivrin teased, clapping a supportive arm over his shoulders. “Fear not, mellon… the fever will not quit you, even in after-years!”

“By the Valar, Ivrin!!” Ciryon groaned, but was heartened some by his care. If only the months ahead could pass exactly as this, he would be content for another decade of absence.

“Alas, I have not stolen away from the pack merely for sport,” Ivrin told him, rather soberly. “I came, in fact, to berate you, meldir, for your lack of promised correspondence. I received not even an ounce of gratitude for the volume I sent you.”

“Which volume?” Ciryon started, surprised by this turn of conversation. “I’ve had no word of you since your last stop in the vale.”

“No word at all?” Ivrin queried rhetorically, a frown darkening his face. “Did my Adar not deliver a book of ancient sea chanteys to you? I sent one along with him, from Vinyamar…” With his aggravation plain, it was Ciryon’s turn to weave a consoling arm around his sleek waist. “Verily, he is like an istar in his practiced forgetfulness!”

“I’m sure he meant no harm in it,” Ciryon soothed. “Though regardless, you do indeed have my gratitude. I would have writ, if I… if I had had knowledge of where to send the message.”

By this time, Ciryon had to fight mightily against the urge to kiss away his consternation, all too aware of his softening feelings. Ivrin had attempted to correspond with him, to reach him from afar… and by the burn of his cheeks, he was quite angered by failure. In his haze of desire, Ciryon had somehow forgot their closeness, the complicity they shared in younger years. He had, it seemed, almost entirely ignored the intimate friendship that had ignited his passion’s fire; a foolish, but amendable, mistake.

“Indeed, that was my purpose in writing,” Ivrin mused, though knew his fury was futile. Instead, he turned his mind towards his true intent in seeking Ciryon out. “I am sorry you believed me so thoughtless as to abandon you outright, gwador. You must allow me to make the time up to you in the coming months.”

“I would be most glad of it,” Ciryon resolved. “Indeed, when we spied you from behind the stage, Rohrith and Brithor were already plotting out prospective adventures…”

“And I will be thrilled to be their acolyte in such glorious mischief,” Ivrin agreed, with a caveat. “But I did not have them particularly in mind, though of course I adore them as brothers. Nay… tis *you*, mellon-nin, that I wish to shadow during my time here. I have missed our closeness, at sea, our particular affinity. I like my ship-friends well enough, but they lack a certain… grace. A graciousness and intellect vital to my existence. I have been too long away from such influence. I need to revel in it, to replenish myself. Might you be agreeable to… to aiding me in such an endeavor?”

“You wish to shadow me?” Ciryon repeated dumbly, disbelieving that his ears had heard true.

“I would not be glued to your side for the day long,” Ivrin elaborated. “I am not so bold, nor so foolish as to suffocate you thus. I know well of your need for solitude. I merely suggest that we might plan a daily activity, intellectual or otherwise, so that we might… reap the amplest yield of our time together here.”

Ciryon took a moment to chew on his words, ruminating on the various meanings implicit in the phrases he selected and properly digesting their supposed effect on his rather precarious hold on his body’s urgings. Mostly, he struggled to grit back the roar of delight, the quite vocal ejaculation that spurred from his very core, this chance to spend every coming day in Ivrin’s most cherished company.

In the end, he demurred rather winningly.

“I would be most amenable to establishing such a routine, meldiren,” he smirked, with feigned haughtiness.

“Verily?” Ivrin smiled as well, as if he had doubted that his proposal would be happily met. With such infectious beatitude Ciryon was reminded of the kiss he’d earlier sought.

“Aye,” Ciryon whispered, unsure of how to show his fondness without being overtly covetous of his affections. “But before we strike our accord, you must swear to… to devise some form of correspondence for the absence that is indeed coming soon. And you must swear to write, else Valar knows what might become of… of us.”

“By Elbereth, I swear it will be so,” Ivrin proclaimed earnestly, clasping his hand so forcefully Ciryon thought he may have cracked a bone. “But know that no absence can abuse nor sunder my care, Ciryon. Ever have you been the brother of my very heart, gwador-nin.”

Ciryon was so touched by his sincerity, he could almost forget the dire chastity of the sentiment.

Brothers they would be, then.

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

As he crept into the dank hold, the wick of his lone candle cracked and huffed, the dust-thick air nearly snuffing out the lone light guiding him forth. He’d thread a single, slender finger through the curl of its brass base, the rim of which dug into his sea roughened skin and braised a red arc into the swell of his index, such was the weight of the wax. The broad oak planks of the ceiling muffled the heel knocks, boot stamps, and looping whistles of the dancers above deck, but the crash and flood of the ocean breaking across the hull was lulling to him.

Carefully balancing both the sparking candle and his scraggly book of verse, Ciryon ghosted through the stagnant air, casting a fearsome, wraith-like shadow behind. He glided with spectral grace over to the store of furniture his fathers were shipping back to the vale, a luxuriously cushioned divan the pile’s master-crafted centerpiece, forced in by the ornate writing desk he himself had been gifted by the chief historian of Gondolen’s great library. The other pieces were arrayed such that one need only settle one’s wares on the desk, hop deftly over the armrest, and sink into a cradle of downy satin pillows for an evening’s decadent recline.

This was not the first night of their three week journey home that Ciryon had sought out the solitary comfort of this sanctuary, though, as but three days remained them before porting, it may well be the last. He doubted either his brothers or Ivrin would allow him to abstain from the revelry that currently raged above, nor could he bring himself to, as these would be his final moments with his dear, rediscovered friend for several years. Yet on this night of riotous carousing he required some ponderous reflection, a shyly respite, the chance to grasp, however ephemerally, at some peace of mind.

He’d known little in these last, whirlwind weeks with Ivrin, of complicity, of camaraderie, and of startling epiphany.

In truth, he’d never known such a blissful time. If he’d sampled Gondolen’s delights before Ivrin’s arrival, with his friend and heart’s brother by his side he’d veritably gorged on them. Ciryon, in his innocence, had never even considered how so many of the devout lovers in his acquaintance were also such giving friends to one another, how such playful companionship only served as kindling to the heat of their passion. Though he’d kept his libido under well enough control when in Ivrin’s beckoning presence, he could not damped the effulgence of his soul’s yearning flame when so effortlessly heartened by his company. Twas maddening to him, what a sterling match they made, their characters the perfect compliment, their tastes diverse yet flattering, their tempers both even and their manners both mindful of others. Though Ciryon craved solitude, when he was with Ivrin he felt no such compunction; they could easily spend hours in the same study, in complete silence, and never feel burdened by the other’s presence. Yet their discussions, once begun, were of epic scope, as well as wholly engrossing. Indeed, only a select few could effectively pry them apart, even comments from the most esteemed specialists only sparred them on to further debate. Ciryon was sage enough to realize how Ivrin’s attentiveness improved him; he was more likely to voice his opinion, more amiable in mood, more jovial altogether, and more welcoming to those outside his circle of familiars.

In short, love became him; for he was, after coming to know Ivrin so intimately over these last months, tragically and quite irrevocably enamored of him.

Yet Ivrin had not the slightest inkling of his care, nor viewed him as other than the hardiest of friends. The clarity of this truth had overwhelmed him on several occasions, most notably during one of their more roguish and outright disobedient ruses, involving, as these mischiefs ever did, his sprightly twins. Indeed, they had themselves plotted the tarnishing deception, as if such a notion was ever in doubt. Rohrith had rallied his youngling loyals to the cause and Brithor had provided a few sporting maids; the presence of which had, in the end, only prolonged their sentence.

With the founding couple of Tathren and Echoriath currently residing in the valley, its people had pushed for a new council election, as the inhabitants valued their opinion above all others and the candidate they chose to support would be a beneficial one to their colony. The votes would be cast before the noon hour, the afternoon would be spent tallying. Most of their family had promised to aid in this lengthy and monotonous task, which left the triplets to their own conniving devices; as well as the reputed bathing shelf in the mountains completely barren, as all elves of age, residents or no, would not take leave of the town that vital day. With their elders suitably distracted, they and the underage, nominal elflings in their acquaintance were free to sneak up to said bathing shelf - from whose sultry climes elves in minority were banned - which the triplets and their accomplices did. To their credit, all were too entrenched in the mire of adolescence to go completely bare, most wore discreet bathing trunks or bound their breasts with cheese cloth, though the flirtations were rife and giddily unbound, as were the public frolics in chaste affections.

Ciryon himself had been quite enthralled by leisure; the rush of the cascade bracing, the balmy sun a languorous treat, the sandstone bed of the shelf soft and welcoming. Prone across the singeing rocks, he and Ivrin had followed a meandering train of thought to its illogical and quite woozy conclusion, mostly ignoring the coquettish maids and the brawny males skipping about. Twas then that Ivrin informed him that one of Rohrith’s swordbrothers had asked after Ciryon’s availability, assuming that one who frequented him so would know well of his circumstances. With cautious eyes, Ciryon had examined Ivrin’s sun-drenched face for even a trace of jealousy, but to his dismay found none. Indeed, Ivrin had rather emphatically urged him to give the likely suitor a chance and soon after slyly offered to arrange a spare gathering to better acquaint them.

Thorn-pricked by the rather naked evidence of Ivrin’s platonic concern, he had replied too sharply, scraping his back against the raw stone as he wrenched himself onto his opposing side. He’d felt the beads of burgeoning blood burn his scratches; Ivrin’s eyes, dark as a forest pine, needling him for an explanation as to his brash behavior. While scarlet trickled over his spine, he’d inwardly cursed himself, the rancor of his words speaking more than their extracted meaning. Before he could muster a comment infused with equal parts bemusement, self-beratement, and warning against similar suggestions, Ivrin had moved so close behind him as to tempt his ever-ready arousal. Worse, yet wonderfully, his friend had soothed his broiling head with gentle, easing strokes, trailing his fingers back through Ciryon’s velvety sheathes of hair. He had whispered a confessor’s assurances to him; that he knew Ciryon was yet tender, that he wanted the security of majority before embarking on a romance, that his experiences in Gondolen had affected him deeply and that he had not yet reconciled his glaring transformation with his regular self. After Ivrin had sworn not to pressure him again, he had added that he would himself help the covetous elf to understand this was but an expected reply, though Ciryon had no reason to fear him or to shy around him, as he was also green.

In time, he had slipped away to drench a cloth, once fetched he had cleansed his wounds. Despite his rather acute despondency, Ivrin’s wry humor eventually drew him out again and his mood was quite merry thereafter. Excepting upon their return home, where Elrohir and Legolas awaited them, manfully attempting to scowl through their amusement. One of the more bashful maids had confessed to her Naneth of the entire affair. Words had spread swiftly on such an anxious day, so their Adar had no choice but to publicly chastise them. Over the course of their years in the valley, Ciryon and his brothers had accomplished many unprecedented feats of daring and guile, but none was so wretched as their five night stint as fishmongers in the culinary guild. An unexpected luxury had come, however, in the form of Ivrin’s nightly tending of his over-seasoned hands, soaking them in an aloedil wash and binding them in palm leaves for an hour before bed. He had sat with him, in those late hours, reading from the book of verse Ciryon now absently flipped through, intoning in his smoky voice ballads of witchery and woe.

Ciryon had not had a proper sleep since, his flint-ready mind forever conjuring up those precious, near sacred moments with Ivrin.

As he trenched himself into a lofty corner, Ciryon analyzed every one of their rabid adventures for some hope, some sign of how he could bear through his impending absence. These escapades, whether intellectual, nautical, or frivolous, would be the foundation of his mature character, the fertile soil in which his unfathomable adulthood would be rooted. Ivrin had become essential to him; even unrequited, his affection molded the matter that made him, fashioning an elf of kindness, of spirit, and of honor. More than many of his generation, he now understood love’s element, its tenor and its shades, its fury and its desolation.

The rub was that he would essay the practicality of this understanding on no other than his bosom friend, whose own heart was an enigma as puzzling and as daunting as any in their people’s history.

Ciryon, bereft of a further strain of hypothetical reasoning, instead shifted the candle to cast over his book and bunked down into his cozy nook, questing for insight, for enlightenment in lyricism, metaphor, and the poetics of ancient artisans. He became so engrossed in the exquisite compositions that he did not mark the recurrent creak of the floor planks, nor the flicker of a dim-flamed lantern about the musty hold. Indeed, he did not start, with an unsightly oath, until the intruder had set the lantern down, vaulted over the far arm of the divan, and landed, with a swoop, but a sliver-space from the knees over which his tome was spread.

Wicked-eyed, Ivrin grinned with palpable satisfaction and no little mirth, as Ciryon fought to calm his uproarious pulse.

“Fiend!” he snarled, but could not keep himself from smiling. He wished he had more than the fragile book to launch at him, though a quick heel-butt to the shoulder did wonders for vengeance.

“Tis I who should name you thusly,” Ivrin retorted pointedly. “For abandoning me to the rather lecherous attentions of the captain of your uncle’s guard, who has imbibed far too much rye-seed liquor for steady thought and whose gropes rival an octopi for efficacy!” When Ciryon giggled at this rather pathetic image, Ivrin became frightfully sober. “Verily, gwador, your solitary ways are sweet enough, but at times… tis the eve afore the penultimate night of our togetherness and I am injured that you would rather spend time alone. I had thought… I will leave, if you wish.”

A strange mood indeed had shroud his friend. Ciryon had wondered how Ivrin would treat their leave-taking, though had assumed he would confront the circumstance with his usual wit and aplomb. His words, however, were the most uncertain he had ever uttered to him; indeed his entire manner seemed pained, his natural aura of gold gameliness muted, vulnerable. Ciryon desperately wanted to catch up his hand and press it to his heart, but knew such a forceful gesture might frighten him away. Instead, he shifted into a more welcoming posture, removing the barrier of his bent-up legs and beckoning Ivrin to approach, if he would.

“Nay, you must stay, meldir,” Ciryon warmly insisted. “I only sought some quiet, never to offend. Indeed, I thought you would follow me, if you wearied of the revels. You know me well enough. Forgive me for not hiding away in my chamber, but there was no peace to be had! Tis folly bunking with half-grown brothers! Brithor is entertaining some salty ellyth on his berth, Rohrith would soon invade, on the opposite side of my thin wall Cuthalion and Miriel were… demonstrating their love with aggressive physicality, while Tathren and Echo were similarly occupied across the way... I fear I will have to sleep in the hold, once my fathers and uncles join the fray.”

Ivrin chuckled softly at the painting of this vivid sonic palette, but the sentiment did not reach his eyes.

“Then you are most emphatically forgiven,” he murmured, turning pensive. “In the throes of adolescence, such close quarters must be a trial.” When Ciryon flushed in response, he knew better than to press the matter further. He seemed not to have heart enough even for jesting. “I see you’ve taken up the Aerandir anew.”

“Whose other works are so suited to sea travel than those of the wanderer?” Ciryon noted, taking refuge, as Ivrin had guided him to, in the poetic. “Erestor tells me his father was first gifted his own volume by the poet himself. I shall have to ask him, if ever I am blessed with his acquaintance, what manner of elf he was. Perhaps he might even recount some intriguing tales of their conversations. He shelves it now, in our library, so you may… you may keep this one.”

Carefully veiled eyes met his, the gray-green of dulcet willow leaves; Ivrin’s face nearly expressionless. Ciryon was by now thoroughly unnerved by his friend’s bizarre reservation, the ire that seemed to ripple under the surface of his most casual actions. He began to feel as if no remark was satisfactory, no comment nor anecdote sufficient, but by what scale and to what end he could not say. Steeling himself for an offhand, or perhaps underhanded, strike, Ciryon waited for his answer, for some faint sign of emotion within him.

“I confess, I have grown rather fond of him,” Ivrin admitted, in a whisper. “Almost desperately so. His words are comfort on a chill night, though remote as the specter of your far-away companion, as the phantom remembrance of a lover in your bed when you suddenly wake.”

Though such subject matter was leagues beyond his own experience, he could only hope to draw out Ivrin’s now glaringly apparent sadness by confronting this notion head on.

“Does the sea evoke such visions for you?” Ciryon prodded, with feather-touch gentility. “Have you so recently lost someone dear? You never said before.”

“Nay, I never said,” Ivrin acknowledged blackly, retreating inward. “I vowed not to, for him, for myself… to others, I vowed. Others who saw clearer than I, but who also have not seen…” Repentantly, he snatched the book up, flipping through the pages as if searching for a port to anchor in. Ciryon began to fear that he would have to fetch Tathren and Echoriath, for he was not yet equipped to deal with such ragged emotions. He had forgotten, as he often did, that Ivrin was but seven years older than he and only a few past his own majority. “Shall I read out a favored passage?”

“If it would hearten you,” Ciryon encouraged, wanting to hold him as he had so often been held, but afraid the meaning would be mistook. Or, more likely, understood entirely too well.

“From ‘The Gloaming’,” Ivrin announced softly, clearing his throat.

'Shadow and mist meet the morn in a swoon,
embers of the dying night. Too soon,
the traitor sun will burn this gloaming hour
bright, will singe the sea from dusk to dour,
and, like the flower foam that crests
the waves, will broil the filmy tide to rest.

In this golden hour before the sun, I muse
on murk, on effluent emotion. I confuse
sea with lake, river with ocean. I am made
of mist and shadow by the moon, but by day
I long for the obscurity of brume, of blight…'

Ivrin halted, as if overcome by the elegiac verse.

“Finish it,” Ciryon implored, himself lost in the moment’s rapture.

When emerald eyes of full, fierce incandescence leapt off the page and met with his own, Ciryon almost yelped. Ivrin’s handsome face was no longer impassive, but live with force, with an indecipherable feeling, at once intent and dismantling, of such ominous beauty that Ciryon thought he might weep. The touch that grazed over his cheek was of utmost gentility, but the fist jabbing into the small of his back seethed with power, with suppressed will, as if to spread his very fingers would be to seal their fates.

“To lose in midnight fugue my lover-light,” Ivrin whispered from memory, then launched at him.

Even to the last second, he did not possibly think a kiss would come; the fire of it shocked him straight. Plump and luscious lips pressed ardently to his own, his head held firm so there was no chance of missing the mark. Yet they were not too wanting to lick, to tease, to lave open with a sweet tongue and to skirt the inner rim, before suckling. Hot breath poured into his mouth, besotting him further, until he was unrepentantly netted in Ivrin’s steady arms, his own tingling fingers twined in sleek mahogany hair.

By the time those smoldering lips eased off, Ciryon was as spineless as a jellyfish.

He gazed up into eyes as vast and deep as the sea, overhung by a furrowed brow, searching for signs of distress, of approval, of anything overly perplexing in his flush face. The brilliance of his own onyx eyes, their keen fascination and their forthright awe of him so entranced Ivrin that he dared not impress his worries upon that eager face, whose wolfish lips twisted into a grin of pure, devouring delight.

“Am I to take this as your overture?” Ciryon queried with unabashed playfulness, hoping to diffuse the moment and to loose Ivrin’s tongue in an altogether different fashion.

“Take it as you would,” Ivrin replied, so bedazzled by those obsidian eyes that he could not summon any manner of thought or reason. “I adore you, regardless of my heart’s reception.”

“Then tis your heart that’s extended,” Ciryon clarified for himself. “And not merely your…?” A flick of an eye finished the question, a surprisingly rosy blush tinted Ivrin’s cheeks.

“They are both indebted to you,” Ivrin told him. “For you have kept them, though unknowingly, long and well.”

Ciryon gasped at this, though little should truly shock him after recent, molten events. Feeling bold, he sought to learn more of what he had so recently been taught, brushing hesitant lips over Ivrin’s own, which shivered with pleasure. The sailor maintained a fragile hold over himself, allowing Ciryon to explore his pursed mouth, to test out pressure, texture, sensation. After an extended indulgence and no little suckling of his own, he flicked his tongue out to part them, knowing, however reluctantly, that they must reckon themselves to this newfound emotion between them.

Ciryon himself emerged from their kiss quite breathless, so unmoored that he could do naught but cling to Ivrin, his mind a fog.

“Such a mystery,” he mumbled, as Ivrin reclined them along the divan. Their warm bodies fit quite snugly together. Ciryon had never felt so relaxed, so right with another. The heated fusion made him giddy; he chuckled sweetly, randomly, into the slick skin of Ivin’s neck. “I had not marked the faintest glimmer of care in you.”

“I swore to go gently,” Ivrin remarked. “You were so terribly tender upon our reunion, raw with such adolescent embroilment as I myself had only recently cast off. Verily, Ciryon, you quivered like a leaf in my arms. I knew then… that any love made between us must begin in friendship, as all the lasting loves do.” His face turned solemn, but remained intent. “I had hoped to keep our feeling strong through correspondence, to keep my heart concealed until such a time as I might be a constant presence at your side. My resolve has failed me, this night.”

“Happily so,” Ciryon smiled, quickly plucking another kiss.

“In but two turns of the moon,” Ivrin sighed, maudlin. “Twill not be such a happy thing. To part from a friend is troublesome. To part from a lover is heartache.”

“Ever in my heart was I parting from a lover,” Ciryon revealed, refusing to give credence to any shape of sorrow. “Tis but a shift in the requiting.”

Ivrin was acutely impressed by this, such that he pressed their brows together, drinking deep of the darkling elf’s intoxicating optimism.

“Then I find I must swear anew,” Ivrin pledged. “Beyond mere correspondence, towards something palpable. I cannot say how many years such an undertaking might occupy, but I promise to return to our vale as often as I can in the meantime, and barring that, to effect my apprenticeship as swiftly as possible, so that I might… I might ply my trade nearest to my heart and might, in future years, court you proper. But you, dear one, must swear to me in return.”

“To what should I swear?” Ciryon asked, eager to accomplish anything he might desire.

“Not to bind yourself to another until… until I have my say,” Ivrin proposed, a shake streaking through him at the black thought. “My chance to win you.”

“Then I swear to this, and more,” Ciryon underlined, cocooned as he was in Ivrin’s vigilant embrace. “Will you be so very long away?”

“Nay, not so very long,” Ivrin assured him, doubting the promise even as he spoke it. Still, they could not spend their final days wallowing in despair. Best to lighten them both some. “I would not leave ought to chance. Not when such a comely elf as one of your darkling beauty is loosed upon the vale, seeking his majority.”

“Then have me for your own,” Ciryon urged him, eyes soft and sultry as velveteen. “By my heart, I would gift it upon no other.”

With a wrenching groan into his neck, Ivrin writhed, once, against him, but fought temptation with the mettle of a Balrog slayer.

“I am an elf of honor, lirimaer,” he rasped out, every stitch of his strung frame giving the lie to this necessary gallantry. “You are my treasure, Ciryon, tremendously precious to me. My north star. My silmaril. I would not spoil you for all the heavens’ might, not here in your fathers’ care nor under the watchful eye of Elbereth herself.”

His composure ravaged by this declaration, Ciryon bit such a kiss into his lips that Ivrin could feel the pulse of his own heart.

“By the Lady’s grace, I will wait for you, melethen,” Ciryon boldly vowed. “But I will take my toll in kisses, ere we part.”

With an impish grin, Ciryon assaulted him anew, enjoying while he could his peerless lover’s care.


End of Part One