THE SPEED OF THE END

Findaráto traveled through Beleriand with Turukáno as he had told Carnistir he would. While the fresh breezes of a peaceful summer wafted across their bodies, Findaráto and Turukáno lay together upon the green grass. Turukáno’s head rested upon Findaráto’s chest, and they spoke to each other of their individual losses.

“I knew not what I should do or whither I should go without Elenwë, until you came to guide me,” said Turukáno as Findaráto stroked his hair. “With you I have found comfort and peace.”

“Alas,” sighed Findaráto, “while with you I have found serenity and friendship, I have lost the one whom I love, and it is as intense as the pain from a stab wound.” For Carnistir is both my gain and my loss. He owned my heart yet he pierced it with the cruel arrow of his rejection. With him I have found my most intense love and my greatest sorrow.”

“I was going to advise you to go to him, beg for his mercy, and be with him,” said Turukáno, “but now that you have told me his love causes you such hardship, perhaps you would remain happier without him, and if you wish, you can always find solace with me.”

“Nay, but I am not happier,” admitted Findaráto, “And yet I could live as I do live, with many friends around me and still find peace, I think. I am afraid that I shall always be restless and try to seek solace in the friendship of others like yourself, and I thank you for inviting me to do so, Turukáno. It is in my nature, I suppose, to be faithless and for my loyalties to waver. Yet I would wish to be faithful. For that I am sorry.” And he cupped the side of Turukáno’s cheek with his hand. Turukáno turned his head to kiss his cousin’s palm.

“While I can say truly that I love you, Findaráto,” whispered Turukáno, and he rolled off of his cousin’s chest in order to face Findaráto and gaze into his eyes, “I am happy now to have found this vale, and I intend to throw myself into building as beautiful a city as I have dreamed about since leaving Tirion, and it shall be a shelter for me and Itarillë. This is what I desire most. And I am willing to let you go, my cousin, and I tell you out of love for you as a dearest friend that you should go to seek out Carnistir. Go to him at least once more. Cast yourself upon his mercy and beg him to forgive you. I feel that you will not regret that you did this.”

“Perhaps you are right,” said Findaráto. “But I know not if we will have anything more in common. It may be that we have been too long separated.”

And so Findaráto wavered. In his restlessness he went to visit Elwë, while Nargothrond was being built. He and the King of Doriath had angry words, and Findaráto would not defend himself against Elwë’s accusations about the Kinslaying and his own part in it. His brother Angaráto, who accompanied Findaráto, told Elwë that it was Fëanaro and his sons who had done the most wrong. Findaráto was grieved to hear that Angaráto and Carnistir had become enemies, and he feared that he and his mate might never be reunited.

Findaráto returned to Nargothrond after the confrontation with Elwë, to find its construction was now complete. Artanis traveled from Doriath to stay with him for awhile, and over dinner she expressed concern that Findaráto had no mate.

“Findaráto, you are a lord of your own vast realm, and you are attractive enough that I wonder at your choice to remain single. Now that your silly fling with Fëanaro’s son seems to be over, should you not be concerning yourself with settling down and perhaps having a family of your own?”

“Artanis,” Findaráto looked at her with an uncomfortable frown marring his smooth forehead, “that was no ‘silly fling’, as you called it. My feelings for Carnistir are so intense that I will never be able to replace him. Therefore I shall never marry. I sense that a doom has come to lie upon my shoulders as a cloak of heavy cloth, and I cannot now remove it.”

“You are depressed and lonely,” said Artanis, her voice soft with sympathy, and she placed a cool hand upon her brother’s arm. “That is why you feel this way. Come back to Menegroth with me and stay a while with us. We shall introduce you to some pleasant female Elves of our acquaintance.”

“No,” said Findaráto, his voice firm. “I know now my path.”

“Your path has always wandered,” said Artanis, concern marking her face with a frown as she saw her brother despairing.

“Then so be it,” said Findaráto, and dropped his head between his shoulders, clutching his wine goblet with both hands. Artanis saw that his shoulders were shaking with grief and she put her arms around him to hug him and give him some comfort.

After this he wandered about in his restlessness and still did not go to Carnistir, feeling both loneliness and fear of rejection. Maitimo and Macalaurë came to visit him and invited him to go hunting with them.

“Come with us Findaráto,” Maitimo said, “and the hunt shall be sure to take your mind away from your sorrows. You shall experience the exhilaration of the chase with us. My brother Carnistir is a fool, and I shall tell him so when next I see him.”

He joined his cousins for a while but then tired of it, and he wandered into Ossiriand, intending to turn north and venture into Thargelion to seek Carnistir. But instead he chanced upon a tribe of Men, and he stayed with them for a while, befriending Bëor, and advising him to move westward with his people, to a place called Estolad near Doriath. Bëor begged Findaráto to take him to Nargothrond so that he might see it before he died, and Findaráto, wavering once more, torn between doing as Bëor wished and following his own dream to seek out Carnistir, decided to take the Atani with him and traveled homeward. Thinking that Bëor was mortal and old, and would soon die, he made the choice to relinquish the desire to meet Carnistir at this time.

Carnistir, meanwhile, had kept to himself in Thargelion, busying himself with his trade with the Dwarves, building his army, and trying to push thoughts of Findaráto out of his mind. At night he lay in his bed and thought of Findaráto with an ache in his heart of bittersweetness, and wondered if he would ever see his lover again. But Carnistir willed himself not to make the first move to seek his beloved Findaráto, and he remained harsh of word and stern of countenance whenever he met with people – his servants or otherwise – and everyone with whom he dealt was afraid of him. They saw in his face and bearing only their dark, harsh lord who never smiled and upon which a gloom seemed to lie like a thunderous cloud.

Strange new people eventually came into his lands. He learned that they were called the Atani and he allowed them to dwell there although he was not interested in them and paid them no attention, preferring to go about in his gloom and despair, dealing with people unknown to him as little as possible.

But something occurred not long after the Atani had arrived that caused Carnistir’s feelings to change. Moringotho sent a band of Orcs forth to attempt to attack the Atani and destroy them, and they broke Carnistir’s leaguer and came into his lands. These Orcs drove Haldad, the chieftain of these particular Atani, into the tight corner between the Rivers Ascar and Gelion, where the people built a fortress to protect them from assault. But they ran out of food and the Orcs slew Haldad and his son who ventured out of the fort. Then Haleth, Haldad’s daughter, who was strong and had a brave heart, held her people together until a week later they heard the happy sound of trumpets and Carnistir’s army came to save them, the dark lord, resplendent in his red and gold armour, at its helm.

Carnistir looked upon these brave people with pity and kindness. His opinion of them had changed, and his mood had lightened. After Haleth told him what had transpired, he offered her free lands in which to dwell within his kingdom and invited her to stay, having taken a great liking to her. He offered her his friendship, but Haleth turned down his offer, gathered her people together and continued west, where they came to Estolad, and stayed there awhile.

Eventually, Haleth came to Nargothrond and met Findaráto. When they desired to go to Brethil where Bëor’s people dwelt, Elwë denied them this privilege, but Findaráto persuaded him to let them stay. During one of their conversations, Haleth told Findaráto about her meeting with Carnistir.

“He was like none I have ever seen, my Lord,” said Haleth. “Though I have now seen many of your people, dark and beautiful I thought him, but his face was like the sun. The light shining from him stunned me so that it was difficult to look at him directly. I would have stayed but for my desire not to be the thrall of anyone, not even of a being as beautiful as he.”

Findaráto’s heart lurched at her words, so odd it was to hear this mortal woman speak of his estranged lover, and by her description he realized that Carnistir had had a change of heart. For Findaráto recollected with fondness that when Carnistir’s heart lifted and he smiled, he was as glorious as Haleth described. The radiant beauty of the full sun shone from his face. It was as if he spent so much time covering it with gloom and ill thought, that when his mood occasionally lifted and a smile broke upon his face, it was like a fire burning at night, fiercer and brighter than the stars. Findaráto had seen that happen to Carnistir before, and desire rose in him again to go forth and seek out his mate in Thargelion. His mind was made up and he set out as soon as he could ready himself, and he traveled swiftly into Carnistir’s realm.

Findaráto was travel-weary and in need of a bath when he arrived in the lands of Carnistir. He was impressed by the beauty of the green meadows, snow-capped mountains and the clear, swift-flowing River Gelion. He was awed by the greatness of Carnistir’s halls that had been built by the Dwarves with whom he had dealt and were majestic and unlike anything that Findaráto had before seen. The workmanship of the Dwarves rivaled that of the Noldor. Carnistir’s home was built of solid gold and marble. Inside, an enormous staircase wrought with intricate engravings wound from the upper levels to the main floor and was framed by solid gold railings. Soft, dark red carpeting lined the marble steps and was mirrored in the red colours of the rugs in every room. In the entryway were many finely sculpted statues and beautiful paintings. The Dwarves had put intricate scrollwork into the trim and mouldings throughout the house, and their women had undoubtedly fashioned the exquisite tapestries that adorned many of the walls, and the colourful drapes that hung in front of every window.

When Findaráto arrived, Carnistir’s servants went to tell their lord of his visitor and it was many minutes before Carnistir descended the stairs to greet Findaráto. He held out his hand in greeting, but his eyes were cold, his face haughty and unrevealing. His servants were not surprised at their taciturn master’s formal greeting of his guest, as it was his wont. However, Carnistir could not help but beam his radiant smile when he saw his lover again, although he swept it away with a glum look as soon as he could master himself to do so. Findaráto swept off his helm and his mane of golden hair fell free around his splendid attire of blue trimmed with gold. Carnistir looked unmoved by the glorious sight of Findaráto, resplendent in his armour, much matured, stronger and even more beautiful than he had been in his youth.

“How pleasurable to see you again, Cousin” was all he allowed himself to say.

“Oh, Carnistir,” Findaráto replied, the music of his voice like a salve over Carnistir’s emotional wounds. Tears misted Findaráto’s eyes. His lips, full and inviting, trembled. Those two words were all he spoke, and Carnistir’s resolve almost cracked. He wanted to throw his arms around his bonded mate on the spot, but instead he grasped Findaráto by the hand and pulled him toward the stairs. He turned to the servants who were still in the vicinity.

“You are dismissed. I will call you if you are needed,” he said curtly. Then he turned to Findaráto. “Come upstairs with me now!” he hissed between clenched teeth. “I want to show you personally around my home,” he said out loud for the servants to hear.

They had barely reached the top of the stairs when Carnistir began to undo Findaráto’s clothing and tried to kiss his face and caress his body at the same time. Findaráto, who was trying to admire the fine furnishings and decorations in Carnistir’s home, could not see much of them because the attention that Carnistir was lavishing on him obscured his vision.

“Ai!” he cried. “I am sure that I must be as eager as you, Carnistir, my love, but you are so passionate, like one with a fever!”

“Gods, Findaráto,” uttered Carnistir, his breathing ragged, “be quiet and help me with these damned clasps!”

“Let us go to your private chambers,” suggested Findaráto, pressed against the corridor wall by the weight of Carnistir’s heavier body, as Carnistir fumbled with his cousin’s robe while pressing kisses to his neck.

Findaráto smiled at and held up a hand in greeting to a maidservant who passed them in the hall and tried to avert her eyes. She was carrying a pile of laundry below stairs.

“Someone has seen us now. Let us go inside your rooms,” grunted Findaráto as a deft hand slipped into the waistband of his trousers.

“I don’t care anymore who sees us,” hissed Carnistir between kisses as light as petals dropped upon Findaráto’s lips. “Now shut up and keep still. I intend to ravish your beautiful mouth before I take your even more enticing body hard and without mercy. You shall have to beg me to stop.” And Carnistir flicked his tongue across Findaráto’s lips before plunging his tongue into the soft depths of the inviting mouth. At the same time he reached between Findaráto’s legs, his trousers having been pulled down partway to expose his firm length, and clamped his hand over it, stroking and rubbing, alternately with hard, then soft, strokes. While he caressed Findaráto, he pressed his chest hard against his cousin’s, holding him firmly in place against the wall. When Carnistir broke the kiss, he was inflamed, his face red and his own length damp and aroused, and hard as a sword.

“I longed for you while I waited here alone,” he said, his voice harsh with passion but not anger. His actions were rough, but they were not spurred by violent feelings, rather from the estrangement between them that had now been rectified. “Come into my bedroom,” he said, and led Findaráto, who was trying to catch his breath, into his vast, empty chambers. “I am intending to strip you, Findaráto,” he said, his gaze of hot coal burning into Findaráto’s blue eyes. “And then I am going to ravage you senseless. But before I do that,” he teased, “I am going to taste you, and I shall be slow, like treacle oozing out of a jar.”

Carnistir led Findaráto to a long wall into which was set a fireplace with a small fire burning in the grate. He pushed his cousin back against the wall and continued to unclasp his robe, and when it was undone and had fallen to the floor, he turned his attention to Findaráto’s tunic. Findaráto raised his arms and Carnistir pulled the silk garment over his head and flung it aside. He stared at Findaráto’s heaving chest and smoothed his hands over the satiny skin and rolled the pebbled nipples between his fingers. “He loves his sex hard and up against a wall,” Findaráto thought with surprise as he did not remember that about Carnistir.

Findaráto cried out. “Ai, Carnistir! What are you doing?” Carnistir had lowered his head and began to suck one of the pink nubs between insistent lips. This caused Findaráto to moan and writhe, but Carnistir kept him still with a hard-muscled thigh pressed like a firm vise against his groin. Findaráto gasped at the sensation of his body being both pushed and pulled at the same time.

Carnistir began a slow descent to his knees, leaving a trail of wet kisses along Findaráto’s abdomen. When he was kneeling he grasped Findaráto around the waist and inserted his tongue into his cousin’s navel, swirling around the concavity a couple of times before placing his lips against the top of the hard length nestled below Findaráto’s belly.

Carnistir raised his head and looked toward Findaráto’s face. Findaráto’s blond head was thrown back and his eyes were closed. He uttered a low moan at the sensation of Carnistir’s caresses. His hands clutched the top of Carnistir’s shoulders, his long fingers kneading the steely flesh beneath the fabric of his tunic. Carnistir pulled Findaráto’s hard length out of his trousers and began to suck it, twirling his tongue around the head and plunging his mouth over the shaft. He did this with rough, devouring strokes of his lips and tongue. His hands slid to Findaráto’s buttocks and grasped the fabric of his trousers, and he yanked them down over his cousin’s thighs and past his knees.

Findaráto gasped and cried out. “Ai! Ai! Carnistir! You shall have me coming before long!”

“No,” Carnistir removed his mouth from Findaráto’s cock and let its length bob in the air between them. “You shall not come until I am ready.” He got to his feet and stood before Findaráto, assessing him. Carnistir remained fully clothed, but his arousal was evident in his leggings, the large bulge pressed against his thigh.

“Look at you,” Carnistir said, and his expression broke like sunrise into his magnificent smile. Findaráto stood before him, naked, his chest rising and falling with every rapid breath. His skin glistened, the hard edge of muscle and sinew clearly defined on his body. Carnistir looked at him for a moment, appraising him. “You are more muscular. Your body is bigger,” he said. Then he began to undress. When his clothes were heaped on the floor, Carnistir moved to close the space between them and took Findaráto in his arms. “I love you, you treacherous Elf,” he whispered, and he held Findaráto close against his body, kissing him with renewed passion. Findaráto sighed, and threw his arms around his lover, holding him close.

Moving at a slow, deliberate pace, Carnistir propelled Findaráto to the bed, and when the back of his thighs touched it, he fell upon it with a cry of surprise. Carnistir adjusted Findaráto until he was lying on top of the covers with his legs dangling over the edge. He positioned himself between Findaráto’s thighs, spreading them apart as widely as he could, while Findaráto moaned with the anticipation of pleasure coursing through his loins. Carnistir began to stroke his cousin’s arousal with slow motions up and down its length. His own erection jutted forward like an insistent animal in need of a petting. He let go of Findaráto’s length in order to give his own a few needed caresses, and groaned with lust as he fumbled for a vial of oil on a nearby table. He bit off the stopper with his teeth and spat it to the side. With deft strokes he slicked his own length before applying some to Findaráto’s, rubbing it appreciatively up and down his smooth shaft. Grasping Findaráto’s lower legs, he lifted them to rest upon his shoulders, and began applying oil to Findaráto’s buttocks, smoothing it into his cleft, and spreading it over his sac, not leaving an inch of Findaráto’s lower body untouched.

Findaráto yelped when Carnistir inserted one finger, then two, into his passage and began stretching it open. “Now you are ready for me,” Carnistir hissed. He pressed his engorged member into Findaráto’s passage and pushed into him with one deep thrust. Findaráto cried out and rolled his head from side to side, his face puckered into a grimace.

“Does that hurt?” Carnistir asked, withdrawing his length until only the head was inside the tight entrance.

“No,” whispered Findaráto, “I want you to fill me, Carnistir.”

Carnistir thrust in again and again, driving his hips forward between Findaráto’s spread legs with such power that his hands clamped like shackles around Findaráto’s ankles to hold him in position. Findaráto’s face was a mask of pleasure mixed with pain, sweat glistening upon his brow, his hair a tangle of golden threads. His arms flailed, alternately thrown back over his head or clutching the bedcover. He cried out several times, “Ai! Ai!” in fevered anguish.

Carnistir watched him as he pounded with relentless lust into Findaráto’s passage, and listened to Findaráto’s cries. He saw that Findaráto’s own member was unsheathed and neglected, and lay swaying against his stomach. “Touch yourself,” hissed Carnistir, “Take your cock in hand and make yourself come. I want to watch you.”

Findaráto reached down and grasped his hard member and began to stroke it with quick moves, pulling its glistening skin upward when Carnistir drove into him, and pushing it down to the base when Carnistir withdrew. When Carnistir increased his speed, his hips driving like pistons, Findaráto increased his also, his cock turning deep red, a flush spreading over his face and chest, and he cried, “Ai! I am going to come!” He lifted his head as his shaft released a stream of milky fluid over his chest and stomach. When Carnistir saw this he gave one last thrust and one great cry of “Findaráto!” and he spent his fluids into his lover’s passage with one violent shudder. Then he pulled out and threw himself down on the bed next to his mate. Taking Findaráto’s flushed face in both of his hands, Carnistir looked into his eyes. “I will love you forever, Findaráto, no matter what foolish thing you do,” he said, his voice musical with emotion.

Findaráto sighed and grasped Carnistir’s wrist. “You are my one love, Carnistir. No one else,” he sighed.

They lay together for a few moments before they retired to the bath, where Findaráto lay in Carnistir’s arms, his head resting against his cousin’s chest while Carnistir soaped his hair and washed his chest and stomach.

“I am sorry, Carnistir, for taking Turukáno to my bed during that time I thought you were lost to me,” Findaráto said.

“I forgive you,” said Carnistir, kissing the top of his head. “At one time I would not have been able to bear hearing his name, but now I do not mind, for it is better to have you the way you are, than not to see you at all.”

“But I shall never stray again,” said Findaráto, and took Carnistir’s hand to squeeze it.

Carnistir smiled grimly, his lips stretched into a thin line. “No, I shall not,” said Findaráto, sensing that Carnistir did not believe him. “For some life is short,” he said. “While that may not be so for us, it is that way for the Atani, and it has made me realize that we must try to take our pleasure when we find it, for the rest of life holds too much pain and sorrow.”

“Yes, it does,” said Carnistir. “And foolishness also. Can you forgive me for being a fool?”

“Of course I can,” said Findaráto, caressing Carnistir’s thigh under the water as he lay against the comfort of his chest. “You have not been as foolish as I. I hope in the future we shall not commit any more foolish acts. My brother Aikanáro has fallen in love with a mortal woman named Andreth. He has left her though, because soon she will become old and die. He cannot bear to think of that, and he feels it is better to leave her now than to lose her to death.”

“That seems foolish to me,” said Carnistir. “I have met a mortal woman also. Haleth. She was brave and intelligent. The females of the mortal race are exceptional, I think. That Aikanáro would throw away even a few years with such a woman is great foolishness.”

“I have met Haleth too,” said Findaráto. “I believe Haleth and Andreth understand something that we do not.”

“And what is that, my love?” asked Carnistir.

“That for some, life is short,” said Findaráto, “and all too fast comes the speed to the end. It was my conversation with Haleth that convinced me to come here. Would you have preferred otherwise?” asked Findaráto.

“No, that is not at all how I feel,” said Carnistir, wrapping his arms around Findaráto’s chest. “I can love only one person, and that is you, Findaráto. To you I give my heart in its entirety. And I would thank Haleth for her part in bringing us together if ever I saw her again, before her end comes to her.”

“Let us make a promise to each other,” said Findaráto, pulling Carnistir’s hand out of the water to kiss its palm, “never to do anything foolish again as long as we live.”