Further Tales Of Elbereth's Bounty

Author's Note: Greetings, loyal and exceptional friends! I want to take this chance to thank all of you who have followed me thus far. Please know that I thrive on your reviews and that I could not write more juicy fic without your support, especially that of Deathangel, Kitty, Keekercat, and Eresse, though there are so many others who deserve as much thanks.

I just wanted to announce that I have *finally* set up a Live Journal (www.livejournal.com/users/gloromeien), where I will be posting new pieces of fanfiction, along with the stories so far (eventually). Should AFF indeed close down, all my fic will be found there - probably within the next month.

Thank you again for your support and know that I cherish you all!

-G ;D


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Further Tales Of Elbereth’s Bounty

Ciryon’s Tale – Part Two


Early Autumn, Year 196, Fourth Age

With a knotty smirk hewn on the blood fields of the Gorgoroth, Legolas dove into the prime of the river’s rage. He surged as only such a gifted warrior could against the awesome squall of the rapids; arms spearing into the deeping swell, sinuous frame twisting through the wild stream, muscular legs kicking up a storm of froth in his wake. His focus sharp as a dagger tip, he sliced through the bracing, frigid waters of early fall as his slit knives had once so keenly gutted a legion of snarling orcs, the flinty charge of adrenaline coursing through him like he was made of pure mithril. With the preternatural agility of one of his own lethal strikes, he shot up over a ridge of jagged rock, whipped a glinting arc of spray through the air, then slipped back into the raucous flow with nary a splash. He swam the most treacherous leagues of the river as deftly as he had once scythed through enemy ranks, this late afternoon ritual a vital exertion, a necessary cleansing both of rank body and of impetuous spirit.

With Elrohir away on a surveying mission down the coast, his overabundant fount of energies was only too eager for even the most uninspired of expenditures. Elbereth be praised for blessing him with such distractions as brothers, mother, and children, else every passing minute would wait on his elf-knight’s return. Already he was tarrying far too late about the forest haunts, ever reluctant to slink back to their empty bed, to seek solitary consolation in the lingering traces of his mate’s ederwood scent upon their pillows. His reason knew very well that Elrohir’s trip was for but a fortnight, that his firsthand observance of their tests to the sandstone shelf was essential to the Council’s approval of Tathren and Echoriath’s future plans, to erect a seaside suburb to central Telperion beside an increasingly crucial lighthouse watch at the mouth of the river. His strident heart, however, still after all their years of binding brooked none but the briefest separation from its darkling mate, to say little of his perspicacious loins, which but for the daily chores of peacetime living and the joy of rearing their rambunctious brood were altogether insufferable when any thought of Elrohir was roused. Only the most entrenched and pointedly ignored recess of his mind had long observed that such absence only precipitated a rather seismic reunion; he took what pleasure he could in the meticulous plotting of this scarlet eve’s playing out.

His vigor spent and the rapids vanquished, Legolas allowed the river rush to careen him towards the verdant banks. When he wrenched himself from the water’s thirsty suck, the cold of coming twilight braised over his limber, dripping frame; a shiver snarled up his spine. The tall grass lapped at his heels as he ambled over to his abandoned pack and raiment. Though his skin was still prickled by the chill, he waited for the wind to dry him fully before tossing his garments loosely on, as the downy warmth of his woolen bed-robe awaited at home. Such blunt exposure to the elements was, for certes, a fundamental part of the trial’s endurance; a Mirkwood elf’s warrior instincts would never be fully sheathed, even in such an extended time of peace.

Indeed, as he overtook the home-bound path, an unnerving sense of disquiet pricked into his chest; some manner of trouble beckoned through the ether. Any frantic pulse from Elrohir’s heart would pound, clean and visceral, into his very core. Any threat to Tathren or Tinuviel would likewise pummel him into action, the same for any of his blood kin, even his bloated sire. This distress did not wail, but ghosted about the outskirts of his consciousness, as if too ephemeral to but seep into his sentient mind, which led Legolas to plainly guess at its triad of gamely, precocious sources.

His triplets had found mischief again.

Releasing a seasoned sigh, Legolas strode forth with amplified resolve, somewhat alarmed, despite his bemused idea of their latest ruse, that his spirit had heard the call of their distress, however faintly. Such a summons had never been effected before, though he wondered if Elrohir’s distance was the cause. Ever the empowered warrior, he braced himself for shock, for calamity. While the insistent cries of quick-to-tear elflings of early years were hardly the stuff of otherworldly signals, the impassioned beckoning of proud, independence-minded adolescents was another beast entirely.

One Legolas prayed he possessed skill enough to slay.

As he pushed through their garden gate and brisked through the shadowy aisle between their willow thickets, he spied two raven-haired figures by the base of their lone mallorn sapling. To mark the tree as a youngling was mildly disingenuous; although yet of tender years at forty-five since its planting, the trunk was already three stories high, its boughs limber and its leaves lush. Its height would stretch up a further five lengths before the splendor of maturity, though, from the modest cabin perched on its eastern side, the view already extended over the bauble-roof of their family home.

Unlike any other tree in the vale, this one had a guardian, a parent of sorts, who oversaw its growth. The triplets had each been gifted a root of their choice upon one of their earliest begetting days, to plant and to tend into fertile grace. Rohrith had taken on the challenge of a mangrove root, which presently flourished just outside his bedchamber window. Brithor, true to form, had added a willow to the southern thicket in honor of their elder brother, whose mate had been the mastermind behind as well as the benefactor of their potent roots. Ciryon had uncharacteristically chosen a mallorn, which he had nurtured into a sanctuary of his very own, as the cabin above housed his private study. That he had to dislodge the cabin every autumn, then affix it anew every spring to allow for the tree’s growth, mattered little to one of his sage dedication. He alone among their sprightly threesome craved a private space of his own. Something in his character needed to disengage, ever so often, from his relentless association with his brothers, from their firm-soldered conception as a triad. This was not to suggest that he did not require their companionship just as tirelessly; an overabundance of either circumstance would most certainly unbalance him.

Ciryon was, in so many ways, ever the gentlest of the three.

He was also, to Legolas’ mounting concern, the child missing from the cinder-faced gathering beneath his beloved mallorn.

“Ada!” Rohrith bleat upon seeing him, his relief glaring. Both he and Brithor launched themselves into Legolas’ arms with a fervor he had not felt since they were infants.

“Ada, Ciryon is terrifically dour,” Brithor quickly appraised him, though neither twin gave even the briefest consideration to pulling out of his hold. “He retreated to his cabin above just after luncheon and will not come out! Nor will he accept that we climb up to comfort him, indeed, he shuns our care, though we know deep within he is suffering most viciously from some seething sorrow.”

“We attempted to sneak up,” Rohrith seconded with ever-intensifying urgency. “But he collapsed the ladder!” The ladder was indeed nearly embedded in the lawn beside. “His pain is gutting, Ada, I have never felts its like!”

“Ever has he sought sanctuary in our twinness in times of strife,” Brithor finished breathlessly. “He growled at us to leave him be and has not spoken a word since!” For one of Brithor’s compassionate nature, the need for privacy in grief was an impossible notion, especially where his brothers were concerned. “How can he survive such devastation without our succor, Ada? Verily, it strikes me to the bone.” This last was whispered with such foreboding, a chill squeaked down Legolas’ spine.

His softest son had never behaved in such an overtly hostile fashion, most certainly not towards his dearest brothers. Legolas could not help but be struck by similarly frightful torrents, though he steadied himself, as ever, in the face of parental fear. Though he inwardly wished Elrohir was at home, he was of mettle enough to deal with even this peculiar circumstance; he needed to assuage his frazzled younglings long enough to consult, in true privacy, with Ciryon.

First above all, however, he required certain nuggets of vital information they had overlooked in the thrall of emotion.

“But how did such a tragic mood come about?” Legolas calmly questioned them. “What precipitated his distress? His retreat?”

“I know not for certes, Ada,” Rohrith explained. “Though we suspect – however strangely – that the contents of a parcel delivered to him just before noon were the cause.”

“I was just set to return home from the archery grounds,” Brithor elaborated. “When Orniath caught me up. He gave me a package for Ciryon, from whom he would not say. I felt that the parcel contained a book of sorts, so I assumed it had arrived by courier for Erestor or that the Loremaster himself wanted Ciryon to peruse it before resuming their work on the morrow. As we three brothers had convened to lunch together, I delivered the package, as requested. Ciryon instantly spirited away to his bedchamber, swearing not to tarry long.”

“A howl, Ada, such as I have never heard afore, soon sounded from his rooms,” Rohrith pressed on, his black eyes wet. “We crept down the corridor, thinking we had mistook despair for glee, but soon Ciryon blazed past us, muttering his excuses and racing towards his tree. We followed him, wondering at the trouble and urging him to let us succor him, but to no avail.”

“He shrieked at us, Ada,” Brithor underlined, with too-evident remorse. “I have never heard him so fierce with sorrow! We begged him to come down, to allow us up, *anything* to staunch the pain…”

“Which we know, Ada, as if it were our own,” Rohrith completed the bleak picture. “Such agony as I had never thought to be stricken with, such…” He hesitated a moment, his eyes flickering but an instant over to his twin for approval, then back to their imploring of Legolas. “Such *grief*, Ada.”

The dire conclusion made Legolas’ blood run ice. Such a feeling, if prolonged, if unremedied, among such tenderlings could spread like a plague between them. Few mere twins were bonded as his triplets were; for all their individuality he oftentimes felt they could indeed share a soul. If one even but flirted with grief, amidst the tumult of adolescence, then they could all suffer, all sicken, all… what in Elbereth’s name did that package contain?! Yet not frustration nor ire would serve him in the present circumstance, he must repress his fatherly instinct to brash action and instead cultivate his woeful son’s confession. He must, above all, bring him down before nightfall.

“I regret I was so long away, ioneth,” he apologized to his fretful ones. “Why did you not summon me from the start?”

“We feared he would only retreat further into melancholy,” Brithor admitted. “Or worse, become despondent and refuse to speak to anyone. We thought that if he would not confide to us…”

“Aye, you are his confessors in most things,” Legolas assured them. “But Ciryon has ever desired some slight measure of privacy in his most heartful dealings. Ada-Hir has often told me of his timidity, in these affairs, of his need to prove his worth to you both. Perhaps, in this calamitous matter, he merely required a more experienced ear.”

“I pray you are right, Ada,” Rohrith mused, though seemed somewhat unconvinced.

Legolas, however, was appraised of a certain liaison of his shy son’s upon the ocean vast, of which even this bright twosome knew naught, as Ciryon had sought his fathers’ advice in secret and thereafter sworn them to abject secrecy. Only Elrohir knew the name of the elf involved, though Legolas had guessed easily enough; indeed, he marveled at how Ciryon had managed to keep the entire affair from his ever-goading brothers for over two years, especially when correspondence from said enamored elf was quite regularly disguised by a trusted emissary, received by them, and thus forwarded to their gentle brother.

He could only hope this last letter did not contain the black news Legolas now suspected therein, for what else could so unravel his usually poised and considerate son? He suddenly longed to gather his sorrow-wrecked elfling in his arms, in the manner which these two were still ensconced, and to bear through his thundering, quaking wrath in the seafarer’s stead, so that he might find an outlet for his pain. To carry his exhausted body home and to rock him into fitful slumber, to wait in vigil the night long, as any caregiver would. He swore to himself he would accomplish this, and more, for his beleaguered son, but first he must sneak an audience with him.

“Go to your grandmothers,” he urged to the wrought twosome. “Tis miserable luck that both your Ada-Hir and your Nana are away at such a time. Await my summons there, but fear not that I will summon you home, whether I meet with success or no. Tell your grandsire of the trouble, also, have him stir up a sleeping draught.” Before releasing them, he whispered into their ebony hair. “Be at ease, ionethen, I will soothe him.”

Though quite obviously loathe to depart, the two quit him in haste, linking their arms in solidarity as they ambled through the willows.

Twas little trouble for one reared in Greenwood the Great to scale the ladder-less tree, the natural knots, curves, and branchlets serving as barely necessary grips and footholds for the wood-elf. His entrance, from the small balcony, was effected soundlessly; a mischief-marred life did have its accomplishments. The figure crouched over the ornate writing desk was surrounded by a veritable cyclone of leafs, crumpled balls, and shards of torn parchment, though his quill yet scratched out another ink-smeared missive; his latest attempt to answer in strained, simple words what had upturned his entire world. Ciryon’s already lank frame seemed withered to emaciation, as if sorrow had scored the very meat from his bones. His once nimble scribe-fingers trembled as they scrawled across the page, they dabbed the quill in the ink pot as if a crow beak pecking out an eye. His pallid face, though half obscured by a ragged curtain of hair, was severely set; his black eyes festered with determination. He had fought a title-bout against weeping and won, this was plain enough by the bulging veins of his temple, the puffy, purple swell of his eyes. That he was rabidly furious was clear, but Legolas had not considered that the object of his fury was his own, perilously weak, despicably vulnerable self. He was not being corroded by mourning over a lost love, but by self-berating over his inability to behave in accordance with his ideal, to accept his lot from said absent love.

Legolas knew such a feeling all too well, having been fed on by it himself; its bleak travesty evoked such memories as he would rather not recall, though he would do what he must to aid his son, even this.

“By the Valar, nin pen-ind,” he announced himself, leaving little enough space between them to catch a fleeing elf. “What in the heavens has befallen you?”

With a gasp, Ciryon wrenched himself around, his weary eyes disbelieving that relief had finally come in such fond, fatherly form.

“Ada,” he bleat, then flew to his feet, quill, parchment, and ink bottle all spilt to the floor in his haste.

To Legolas’ incredulity, he soon had an armful of shuddering elfling, whose thin, seemingly impotent grasp nearly crushed him to gristle and dust. Ciryon was soon almost entirely burrowed in his embrace, when Legolas gathered them both up into a waiting armchair. He still stubbornly refused to shed a tear, though he quaked such as to shake off his very skin and whimpered like a wounded pup. Through every means possible, Legolas infused his brittle son with his warmth, even balming his frayed spirit with the cozy heat of his soul flame. Only his sire, Elrohir, could truly engulf him in such paternal affections, but his distress left him open to any influence and Legolas took heartful advantage of his affliction.

After a time Ciryon righted himself in his arms, even smiling faintly when their eyes met. Legolas kissed his swollen temple and pet his messy head, with such softness that Ciryon soon squeezed his lids shut, though he again conquered his sorrow.

“What is the trouble, dear one?” Legolas essayed, after a time. “Your brothers are incensed with worry, and I am not far behind them.”

Ciryon lingered on a lonely sigh, bowed his head as if in shame.

“Tis but a… tis ridiculous,” he struggled to explain. “I knew very well the consequences… that there was but a slender chance… but still I had hoped… but I knew. I *knew* there could be naught but promises, not… certainties. Not sureties. Not facts.”

“The letter you received,” Legolas attempted to fill in without upsetting him too much. “It was from…?”

“Aye,” Ciryon whined morosely. “I should have calmed myself beforehand, but it has been nearly a sixmonth since… I should have taken luncheon, then opened it.”

“You *should* have summoned me at once, pen-neth,” Legolas chided gently, with another peck to his temple. “You should not have suffered so without proper consolation.”

“I deserve to suffer, if I cannot counsel myself,” he insisted, his brow quite reproachfully furrowed. “I knew what I undertook. I knew the chances. I knew…”

“What did he write of to upset you do?” Legolas asked, almost without breath himself. “Did he break with you?”

“Nay,” Ciryon exhaled, though one wondered whether such an alternative was attractive to him. “Though I will not see him again for… for an impossible time. He will not, as once thought, be allowed leave to… to celebrate my majority.” Legolas himself sighed with new sobriety, all becoming quite vividly clear to him. “His ship is already en route to Laurelin. They have received quite a considerable commission from the King. The last stragglers from Greenwood have reached the Havens. They await safe passage to Aman.”

“He will sail to Arda?!” Legolas started, himself afflicted by this strange news.

“Ten times over,” Ciryon elaborated, cringing at the very thought. “Lorien is also put to bed, those that wish to remain having moved south to Ithilien. Those that wish to come home are numerous. The ship, though sturdy, will not fit them all comfortably. There are many Sinda nobles finally rejoining their King, many stalwarts who require accommodation… the repeated voyages will take… over eight years.” As Legolas fully absorbed the implications of such an unprecedented event, Ciryon drifted out of his arms, towards the sunset-glow of the window, as if he might find consolation in the enclosing twilight, as if even his father’s touch seared his skin through. “I know I show my innocence by being so affected by such a… an inevitability. I would be brave-faced if I could, I would take measures to… I think of the fraught time of your own coming to majority, Ada, how you waited for Ada-Hir, how you took every advantage to claim your maturity, to learn what manner of elf might be best mated to him. You did not even know, from month to month, if he yet lived!! And yet you never lost heart…”

“Twas a more visceral time, pen-neth,” Legolas related, as he rose to follow him. “The years flew past like a flock of crows; the threat of war loomed large, true, but the fight itself was entirely captivating. To tell you true, I remember very little from that time, though I was of majority. My life began with your Ada-Hir. Before his heart filled me I was but a ghost of myself. And you pointedly forget a rather salient fact of our great stretch of absence.”

Ciryon finally tuned to him, his eyes once again inquiring: “Which is this?”

“That we knew each other in love, ere he parted from me,” Legolas appraised him. “He had my majority with him where he roamed, and I had given of it freely. We had not but a smatter of kisses between us, but a love. We were betrothed after a fashion, even bonded by a simple blood rite. There was no mistaking that we would have been mates, regardless of whether either of us fell. We could not have bonded with another, as we would have been reunited here in Aman. Indeed, even after our binding… I always expected to fall, in the Ring War. I never truly thought I would survive the final battle.” Struck to the core by this revelation, Ciryon went deadly still. “Your own situation is far more precarious, I do not wonder that you are so afflicted by it. You expected, quite rightly, to be given your majority by the one you hold dearest of all. Instead… you must either delay, or act traitorously towards him, to say nothing of the uncertainty of your ship-hold vows to one another. Were I given a similar decision, I would certainly be overcome. I would allow myself ample time to grieve, for how else could I see my way clear to him?”

The tears came on like a flood; at first the clatter of his teeth, then the clench of his jaw, then a wrenching mewl dredged up from the very pit of his being, and at last such heaving sobs that Legolas dashed over to catch him, lest he faint away. They lasted through the setting sun, through their careful descent from his cabin sanctuary, through the swift walk to their house and into the dusk-shroud confines of Legolas’ bedchamber. They began again after a daring cup of tea and a spare-worded summons to his waiting brothers, who found him cradling their bereft third as if a babe in his arms.

The midnight hour struck bold, when finally Ciryon relinquished his strangle-hold on consciousness, though Legolas did not dare release him. Elrohir, alerted through the siring bond, slipped into bed soon after, having raced back from the coast.


Buffered by his caring fathers, Ciryon slept long past the dawn; heartened by a bond that would outlast even the Halls of Waiting.

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Winter, Year 196, Fourth Age

A fierce blade of lightening scythed through the fuming cast of cloud, singeing an electric fault through the seizing sky. The heavens roared with the charred, smiting fire of a Balrog, spewing torrents of rain, cinder, and ash into the tempestuous sea.

The wiry captain of the Gray Gull had sailed every league of ocean along the inhabited coast of Aman, but never in his time had he witnessed such furious skies, not even when Taniquetil raged with Valarian malcontent. An evil of some ancient origin must be afoot, though he had little chance to contemplate its provenance, as his hull scraped perilously close to the incisive coral shelf that surrounded the Isle of Omen. Swerving manically to avoid the cyclones and whirlpools that threatened to sunder them, the ship was being held together by the sheer will of his sailors, their agile, clenching bodies strewn through the rigging, yanking in the sails, and battling the elements with barbaric audacity. Barking orders through the gale winds, the captain attempted to grapple up to the helm to add the force of his weight to the near colossal task of steering.

A titanic wave lashed up above them like a liquid tongue; if it crashed the sea would swallow them whole. With a violent lurch starboard, the deft helmsman careened the ship along the curl of the wave, gliding them so airily over the crest that everyone took a breath, before the jolt of slapping back onto the ocean threw them into an unwitting forward summersault. Though a few fumbled the landing and one tumbled from the rigging onto the hard deck, far more would have been drowned if the wave had broke over them.

The captain, however, had not another breath to spare in admiration for the cunning elf’s maneuver, as they were assaulted by a shower of lightening bolts, each more acutely aimed than the last. Bounding the ship through shoals of sizzling sea, his keen helmsman, emerald eyes like otherworldly beacons in the coal-black night, rode the pummeling waves as a bareback rider on an unbroken colt. Swishing their rudder like a whip, he thinly missed blast after blast of blinding light, though a swarm of sparks hovered above the deck almost becomingly.

By the time the captain finally clamped hands onto the feeble portside rail and staggered up to the helm, the ship was racing far too speedily into the blunt face of a cliff. He only had eyes for the towering, barnacled rock they plunged towards. He muttered a hasty blessing to Elbereth before bracing for the shattering impact; when none came, he thought himself in Mandos. Fluttering his eyes open anew, he discovered that the suffocating blackness was, to his astonishment, caused by their retreat into the mouth of a cave, though their clip was still dangerously quick for the uncharted depths of a fire mountain.

The expected slam-stop came seconds later, accompanied by a cringing crack of wood, but only a manageable throw into the stair planks for him.

A wild urgency overtook his crew, to light torches, to survey their surroundings, to account for every elf and to unload stores onto the slender bank of sand before the ship sank. His fleet Gray Gull, his purpose, his livelihood, and his longtime companion, would not survive her wreckage, though his sailors were yet determined to. Ever an elf of action in times of crisis, the captain hurled humble-voiced commands at his seconds, before leaping up to the helm; to no doubt pry the yet gripping fingers of his brave helmsman off the wheel and guide his groaning, exhausted self to safety.

Their rescuer, however, was not to be found at first glance. Instead, after a frantic search, the captain uncovered his prone frame from beneath a wayward shard of sail. Tendrils of mahogany hair splayed like seaweed around his viciously bruised head, the young elf was pale and limp as the white canvass that had blanketed him like the ominous portent of a death shroud.

With no time to consider the extent of his injuries, nor even prod for signs of life, the captain gathered him up in his arms and fled for the uncertain shelter of the cave’s inner shore.

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With a ponderous sigh, Elrohir sunk further into the downy climes of the armchair and drank in the tipsy celebrations around him. At Brithor’s behest, a dancing round now swirled before the minstrels, he chief among the revelers. The surrounding tables of well-wishers were otherwise subdued, chatting, debating, and jesting in small groups of familiars. The most raucous among these was the central round of youngling swordbrothers, where his bold Rohrith held court. Ciryon lingered on the outskirts of these rapt loyals, in hush confidence with Miriel and Cuthalion at the adjoining table, where across the way Tinuviel whispered rather conspiratorially with his own, radiant Legolas.

As the proposed invitations for their begetting day festivities had been carefully vetted by the triplets, the gathering of elves was by all intents a humble one, consisting only of extended family, the dearest of friends, and a few deferential acquaintances. All parents had heartily approved such restrictions, proud that their sons, after blazing through the societal wilds of Gondolen, had learned to distinguish beast from beauty, fondness from falsehood. Despite their rather daunting collective talents, his triplets were never ones to flaunt themselves, preferring the kindling of their common bond to the fire of celebrity. Though Elrohir did not doubt their chastening of the guest list had ruffled more than a few plumages, he doubted that those hawkeyes overlooked had themselves the purest of intentions on this most predatory of nights, as the wolfine triplets of Elrond’s line were now free game. He could not help himself from feeling a tingle of paternal pride at the gracious manner in which each one was facing the perils of their majority rites, though he also suffered an echoing prick of sadness at their boldly evidenced maturity.

His babes had once again grown far too swiftly.

As Brithor ably spun a comely, shale-eyed maid about the floor, Elrohir thought it increasingly unlikely that his most amiable and romantically adventurous of sons would indeed pass the night, as promised, with his brothers, in Tathren and Echoriath’s care. Twas not the first occasion on which the lovely ellyth, a distant relation of Nenuial’s lately come to visit the vale, had been observed in his son’s glaringly bedazzled company; the pair’s coy flirtations had been gathering steam for over a month. Brithor, despite his guarded reactions and his playboy repute, was smitten. In her glowing presence, on this magic night, he could not properly school his too-evident desire, whose intensity, upon their first encounter, had so taken the young elf by surprise that he had, astoundingly, sought out Elrohir’s confidence. Brithor had never been known to confess himself to other than Tathren, whom he outright worshipped, but he was so shamefaced at his heart’s subtle rousing that he could not admit, even to his golden brother, that he might fancy the maid.

For all his renown prowess, Brithor had never before felt pure loving towards his bed-partners, merely the by-products of bodily tenderness. The feeling had stunned him, frightened him, and sent him sneaking into Elrohir’s study upon a chill midnight after one particularly poignant stroll by the river with his maid, his face pinched and his manner fraught. Elrohir had counseled him to proceed with caution, though he himself did not doubt that this was but a passing interlude in Brithor’s many future romantic pursuits. Regardless, the mating of bodies in love was no simple pleasure; he had done his best to clear tensions and obstacles from Brithor’s path. By his son’s shining eyes, he skipped rather gleefully towards this heady destination, never one to be long bested by even the most grating anxiety.

Rohrith, himself renown for his brashness of action for all his controlled logic in debate, also appeared to be headed towards a fleeting indulgence, this night, though at the moment he was yet far less convinced of it than his merry twin. Unbeknownst to his strictly guarded heart - for it was pledged, most tragically, to one who might never return its fervor - he currently swam in shark-infested waters. Though loyal to him in the battle-sense, friends to a fault, and devout to his many righteous causes, the training soldiers about him were not at all oblivious to his rabidly luring self. Indeed, Elrohir’s seasoned eyes spotted at least four among their ranks who displayed rather overt hints of besotting, two of whom, he was sure, were half-cocked enough to make a play before night’s end. Rohrith, for his part, was slowly becoming cognizant of their appraisal, though his abashed personality could not yet quite conscience such implicit information as fact. Though of fearsome skill on the training grounds, his mind was of too philosophic a makeup to entirely admit to his own comeliness, nor had it yet resolved to a course of action, for his heart – that insurgent organ – was yet embroiled in its own overwhelming melodrama of unrequited affection.

Rohrith was rather painfully enamored of one who, Elrohir judged, would forever remain at large. Dioren was his son’s closest confidant, his most brutally loyal friend, but the longly troubled elf was also fixated on maids as suitable bed-partners. As the many mysteries of Dioren’s true nature had yet to entirely unravel themselves, only Elbereth knew if there was even the bleakest hope, the sparest chance of their future togetherness. For the moment, Rohrith held a quiet faith in, but also grieved terribly over, the faint glimmer of jealously in Dioren’s pale eyes as these others coveted his dear friend’s charms. This was the crux of his mounting despair: to give in to his curiosity, learn his bed-lessons well from a trusted friend, and be later empowered should Dioren become convinced of his unknown affections’ worth, or to remain true to his heart, chaste in body, and perhaps forgo his own betterment, his own physical fulfillment, for naught. As the evening glided on and the wine flowed generously, Rohrith, though hardly drunk, seemed to be leaning towards the former. The more forcefully Dioren repressed his strange, riotous emotions, the more disheartened Rohrith quite visibly became, thus the comfort of a ready bed-teacher appeared all the more enticing. That Tathren and Echo had earlier surprised the brothers with the gift of a barge sail along the river after midnight, to spirit the triplets and their closest friends to the shore for a short holiday, only further attracted him. Dioren would no doubt be all-too-aware, in such close-quartered cabins, of what indulgences were taking place just doors down. While Rohrith was by no means a vindictive elf, his acute despair over the situation was slowly overtaking him, making such immature, though sharply pointed, actions all the more inevitable.

Elrohir, however sympathetic to his ongoing agony, could do nothing but wish his son a night of pleasure and of relief; none was more deserving than his sterling little upstart of some sensual enjoyment, some relaxation.

Excepting perhaps the sweetest of the three. Though Ciryon’s circumstance improved upon his brother’s in that he knew very well of his suitor’s adoration, his unexpected absence had cut the poor dear gut-deep. By all appearances, Ciryon was in festive spirits this night, but these were hard-won after months of devastation and a slight depression. Each member of their tight-knit family was on strict orders to cheer him if but the merest frown shroud his lush features, but outwardly there seemed to be no great need. Ciryon had, since striding into the hall with unusual confidence, kept himself relentlessly occupied, in lively conversation with his brothers, in fetching mead for his elders, and in gaming at cards with his naughty uncles, who had been stunned into poverty by his victories. Glorfindel had even suggested that his talents were wasted in research, that he had the keen mind of a master strategist, though unfortunately no war in which to ply his skills. Legolas had riposted that fortune rather *was* his, and indeed had blessed all their sons, to flourish in such peaceful times. Ciryon had simply chuckled in his own, bashful way, while setting down yet another winning hand.

At present, some Mirkwood mischief was afoot. Legolas and his Tinuviel were quite blatantly in cahoots over some ribald ruse, snickering mercurially between hush, frantic exchanges. Elrohir never ceased to marvel at how their daughter was, but with another gender, her sire reincarnate. Tinuviel was possessed of mirror-image looks and temperament to her ethereal father: mirthful, shrewd, ferociously protective, immovably loyal, a girlish gallant of laurelled honor, and secretive in her tight-held affections. An archer of unsurpassed skill, with the exception of Legolas himself, Tinuviel was the heir apparent to her father’s preternatural ability with the bow. As soon as her talents became plain, Legolas had swiftly taken reign of her tutelage, relishing the chance to impart all the tricks of his long-plied trade. Though his heart belonged to all of his children, Tinuviel was Legolas’ treasure. The pride he took in simply being with her was a stunning sight to behold; one that, time and again, nearly bested Elrohir.

For the moment, the elf-knight remained but a passive observer, sure as he was that some comedy was about to unfold; indirectly intended, as all of Legolas’ ploys were, for his amusement.

Indeed, Tinuviel then sprung rather gleefully to her feet. She sauntered over to her unsuspecting brother, crouched over to whisper to him, and tugged quite emphatically at his sleeve. Ciryon was, at first, extremely nonplussed by her proposal. He struggled to be kind, to be cool as they debated, though her request met with the expected, virulent reluctance. Tinuviel, vessel of Legolas’ impish spirit and wily wood-elf in her own right, would have none. Knowing well how to wield her influence over even this most sage of brothers, she twinkled cutely at him, pouted with a convincing, quivering lip, then implored with the fervor of the faithful. Ciryon had unwittingly lost the battle before it had even rightly begun, none of the triplets could ever dare deny her anything so hotly insisted upon.

Before he himself knew what to make of his acquiescence, Ciryon rose to dance with his sister.

As he was energetically yanked along behind her, twin touches of silken softness glided down the sides of Elrohir’s face, over his arms. With an unctuous purr, the elf-knight slipped elegantly aside to make room for his mate, who yet bristled with the potential of his sly sleight. They nestled in quite snugly together, easy as always in the other’s warm embrace, content to watch over their budding brood from the lofty confines of their armchair.

“You are wicked to prod him so,” Elrohir chided him good-naturedly.

“He only required some soft encouragement,” Legolas countered. “Look how he is joyful! He will thrill at his boldness, come morn.” Ciryon’s reserve was indeed lost to the moment, to the merriment of clopping about as unofficial maid to his sister’s leading steps. “She’s enchanted him, as always, and she will not let him up until midnight, when they must depart for the barge. He has forgotten his trouble in seconds.”

“I wish I could so easily forget it,” Elrohir mused, in confidence. “I am yet haunted by visions of him cradled in your arms, melethron, ragged-eyed and despondent with grief. I had hoped the fates might have yet shined on him…”

“Is he not fortunate enough to have found such a worthy elf to love with?” Legolas remarked. “Their future bond would be for naught without some strain, some trials to overcome, their joy unearned if ever blissful. They are well matched, we knew it from the start. We were so pleased when we discovered the tenacity of their friendship and guessed at their love with the foresight of elders, in Gondolen. We must take heart that our timid one has found such a mate. His strength will come in weathering his absences.”

“I, however, may not weather them so well,” Elrohir chuckled, but was serious in intent. “It saddens me so that he will be alone, this night of nights. Even among friends, he will be lonely in heart.

With a pained sigh, Legolas acknowledged the truth of this.

“Perhaps he will be lured elsewhere, for teaching,” he commented, though seemed to doubt himself even as he spoke. “Rohrith seems almost convinced to follow such a course.”

“In the face of such ardent rejection, how else could he react?” Elrohir underlined. “Ciryon could not even hit upon such an option, in his adoring state.”

“Yet he attracts as many admirers,” Legolas insisted. “You have marked them well as I, melethron. Perhaps, in the confines of the barge, he might be swayed.”

“Do you wish that he be swayed, and suffer the consequences?” Elrohir asked outright, surprised that Legolas would champion such resorts.

“I wish for his pleasure, for his ease in mind,” he assured him, emphasizing his words with a soft kiss. “By whatever means he finds suit him best, be they abstinent or indulgent. I would lessen the burden of his heart. That is all.”

“Then in this, as most things, we are in rapt accordance,” Elrohir murmured to him, his apology for his sharpness implicit in his gentle tone. “But tell me… will his fathers similarly find their ease in abstinence, this night, or will they also fall prey to… *carnal* indulgence?”

“My thoughts, as well as the requisite, baser regions of my rather covetous body,” Legolas smirked predatorially, licking a hot tongue up the delicate slope of his ear. “Are rather unanimously resolved towards your thorough and ruthless ravishing, Elrohir-nin.”

“Then the midnight hour, my golden one,” he saucily responded. “Cannot strike swiftly enough.”

They sealed their intent with an incendiary kiss, but soon counseled themselves. There were still, after all, so many tenderlings to yet watch over.

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

The somnolent winter woods had never been awakened by such a ruckus, at such an unconscionably late hour, not in all their seasons of ageless sagacity. The scurry of a stray critter had perhaps disturbed them, the patter of a hurried journeyman had perchance roused their protective instincts, but rarely indeed did such trampling, such a cacophony, such bawdy songs, bellowed in an unseemly slur, and such uproarious cheers, the mating-calls of rowdy ingrates, disturb the sterile air of the first snow. While they understood that the frost had not yet settled in, encasing them in fragile, yet blissfully soundless ice, they had never thought that *elves*, especially ones so young, with such brittle limbs, that could so easily miss an branch in their over-energetic bounding and fall quite ungraciously to the hard, injurious ground, would be so neglectful of the delicate ecology of a wintering, midnight forest.

Ciryon, lagging behind his wine-drenched company, heard all too acutely the trees’ imperious distress. A woodsman’s warning trill had done nothing to temper the merry-making mob, lead by none other than his own, mirth-enflamed twin, so instead he hummed a soothing song as he followed them. Dioren, quite gallantly, had offered to escort him to the barge; they strolled along arm in arm. Ciryon suspected that Dioren felt shunned by Rohrith, who himself was engaging in a necessary, desperate act of self-protection, and wished to confidentially inquire of things he had no right to be privy to, for no reason he could properly convince himself of, which therefore precipitated his abject silence. Ciryon, though sympathetic to both their plights, was not about to betray his brother, but he could offer Dioren, possessed of a treacherously delicate ecology all his own, some quiet support.

Besides, the night was cold!! A warm body, however aloof, to supplement his cloak was doing wonders for his shivering, fatigued frame. He was beginning to consider coupling with a familiar just to keep his blood from freezing solid. He also bemoaned, but could not entirely begrudge, Brithor’s forgoing of their trip to lie with his likely lass, as his brother would most certainly have curled up in downy security with him, otherwise. He hoped he could somehow coerce Tathren and Echoriath to allow him to cuddle up with them for a while, though he did realize the perils of positioning himself as a barrier between them for the entire night. He was, after all, an elfling no longer, and they could not be counted on to school themselves in sleep. Not that he would be witnessing ought he had not come upon before, say under the thatch of shady elms by the forge…

Ciryon took a moment to reflect upon his rather boundless cheer. He had never thought the night would pass so happily for him, nor that he would be in such high spirits by the time they schlepped towards the barge. Tinuviel had cast her usual sweetly spell upon him, verily she was a charge of purest light in their lives. He must remember to thank her, upon their return, and gift her with some treat or other. Indeed, he felt so gleeful that he could presently swing Dioren into step and swirl about the snobby trees, though the somber elf might very well smack some sense into him if he tried. With no little forethought, he had snuck the pack of cards and the satchel of chips into his sack; a night of gaming suited him fine. Besides, a doting brother did have to do his part in distracting the other suitors from barging into Rohrith’s cabin and dragging out the lover of his choice to suffer their hotheaded wrath. He snickered some at this silly image, but swallowed his mirth when an elderly oak let out a snort of reproach; verily, this wood was an ornery lot!

Despite his buoyant attitude, a hidden part of him did wish, rather desperately, that Ivrin traveled with them. More than just the opportunity to enjoy him physically, Ciryon would also have cherished the chance to simply play with him, his wry humor and his cunning jests ever engaging to all about. Ciryon felt well-partnered with him; when out in society, an accomplice to his merriment, a co-conspirator in his hastily whispered, often rather scathing commentary. Even in earlier years, before their affections were revealed, they were as one against the uncouth hordes, blessed with the sort of intuitively complicit friendship that united them, elevated their bond above all others. They had known, of course, that this was not entirely so, but that it seemed so had heartened him greatly, had paved the way to the love he now felt so vividly; even without the centrifugal focus on its most revered object.

Though at present he must shift focus from such potentially ruinous thoughts. He had not felt so light since learning of Ivrin’s Laurelin-commissioned obligations; he would not quit the sensation to retreat back into melancholy. There was yet a considerably stretch of night before him, along with a barge full of loyal friends and a rapidly coming holiday by the sea. Glowering was strictly forbidden!

Somewhere ahead, the first boot clicks pattered over the dock. The torch-lit barge loomed, like a spectral shrine, in the distance, swathed in a smoky mist. The raft was larger and more elaborate a construction than Ciryon had expected, but then Echoriath was seeing to the comfort of so many dear ones, he should not have doubted its design would be suitably majestic. Of greater urgency and import, its center glowed as if its heart were aflame, though he knew well it was only the coal hearth that would heat them. Heat was more than welcome aboard! He could not help but squeeze Dioren’s arm at the sight of it, though the peredhel bore the pinch in sober stride, as ahead the riotous others clamored onto the deck. Catching Dioren by the hand, he almost skipped over the dock such was his glee, as from the helm a piercing whistle sounded out, to incite them to make haste. Tathren and Echoriath waited, arm in arm, atop the step ladder, ready as ever with a warm, affectionate embrace.

It was Tathren himself who marked the manic gallop of hooves, after the first rope was thrown off. Despite the pilot’s insistence that they press on, he stayed him, peering out with keen, hunter’s eyes into the blackness. Though Dioren had gone below, Ciryon tarried awhile, linking arms with Echoriath while they waited out the arrival of what none currently doubted was a messenger, or some other providence, racing to catch them.

At last, a fearsome rider emerged from the barren trees, bearing down on his steed as if Sauron himself was chasing him. The poor, overworked horse skidded to a halt but a step before the dock, his hide mauled by clinging icicles of congealed sweat, though he was still streaming, steaming vaporous clouds into the night. The heavily cloaked rider dismounted with care, cursed upon his landing; when he lurched forward, none could mistake how his left leg was slightly lame. Though none aboard recognized his colors – few could be earnestly perceived in the dim torchlight – or his hooded countenance, Tathren leapt down to aid his progress, greeting the grateful elf halfway and supporting him on his wounded side.

Despite his ongoing haste, the rider struggled as mightily for breath as his horse; he had obviously been unwell when he undertook his journey and its strain had not been kind to him. Nothing, however, could have prepared Ciryon for the shedding of his hood, for the revelation of the unexpected, and frankly shocking, face cloaked beneath.

It was Ivrin, of course, but scarred as if viciously beaten, though this did nothing to temper the intensity of his handsomeness. Ciryon flew down the ladder, but stopped short of the wild embrace he had envisioned for their reunion, struck as he was by his beloved’s fragility. Instead, he crept forward as if towards a startled horse, locking eyes with the exhausted elf to assure him that it was, indeed, his heart before him; that he had, at last, reached his destination. Ivrin looked fit to weep, if not from relief than from the tumult of the ride; Ciryon did not know from where he had departed, but he doubted he had stopped but for the briefest respite. This heartened him so that he moved a bit faster, unable to keep longer from his love, from the one who had risked so much merely to be at his side, this celebratory night.

No words could truly speak of such gallant intentions, of his gratitude for them, so he carefully cupped his battered face and softed the blithest of kisses over his needful mouth.

Ivrin whimpered, but not from pain. He loosed his arms so that Ciryon might weave his own around him, parted his lips so that he might taste his sweetness. Without warning, he collapsed against him, groaning such that Ciryon thought him somehow afflicted. His crushing grip, however, could not be rightly pried from him, not until Ciryon hugged him ardently and thoroughly, whispering that they were indeed together, that all would be well from thereon. Ivrin rallied some brittle hold on himself, then, realizing that he was frightening the very elf he’d sought to comfort with his presence, though he would not - verily could not – bring himself to entirely release his hold on Ciryon.

Nor would Ciryon himself have desired this. He had not had but an instant to process the fact of Ivrin’s arrival, though Echoriath and Tathren were already aflutter with altered plans. Unbeknownst to the reunited couple, Echo had slipped in to inform Rohrith of this strange development; his tale had met with a resounding cheer. A compromise had been struck, though their holiday by the sea was postponed indefinitely. Ivrin was, by ample evidence, in dire need of some medical examination. Ciryon could not be left to tend to him alone. The barge, therefore, would sail up and down the river until late morning, when it would return to the dock. Tathren and Echoriath would remain ashore to help Ivrin to their apartments, to where Elrond would be summoned. If all was well enough with the state of his health, he and Ciryon would sleep there and stay at their leisure; Tathren and Echo would find some other accommodations for the following few days.

By the time even this brief recitation was told them, Ivrin’s head lolled upon Ciryon’s shoulder, his eyes flittering in and out of consciousness. Sleep weighed so heavily upon him that they had to ease him to the ground while waiting on Tathren to fetch fresh horses; Ciryon cradling him all the while and caressing the crown of his silky hair.

He could not help, despite Ivrin’s haggard appearance, but spark with excitement at the potential of the coming days ahead. Even the chance to laze the night away with his beloved wrapped in his arms spoke of such promise, he did not think he could dare sleep.

The Lady had, somehow, impossibly, answered his most fevered prayers.


End of Part Two