Suffering

Suffering


Chapter Eight

Thanks to Nemis for betaing this, and for help with the Elenath and with ‘scores’ ;)

~*~*~*~*~*~

Summer slid with an ancient grace into autumn; autumn faded to winter, winter brightened to spring and spring exploded into summer. Green, and golden, crimson and bare black. With neither fuss nor ceremony, the years marched on in ceaseless progression. Men aged and withered, greying and shrivelling in upon themselves, passed their honours to their sons and, each at his end, succumbed to death. Anar’s lamp swung overhead, lazy loops of light scored with darkness. The Shadow waxed and waned in the East, e’en as the moon in his phases, but in the haven of Imladris, peace was a constant, a lulling harmony voiced by a hundred throats.

~*~

Elladan and Elrohir hunched themselves over the chessboard, as much from concentration as to escape the cool of the air beyond the glowing nimbus of the fire that blustered cheerily in the fireplace. Outside, the autumnal winds battered the snow against the window until the glass rattled and chattered in its frame. Piece chased piece across the board, black and white flickering before the intent gazes of the twin players. A long-fingered hand clenched convulsively around a mug of mulled wine at some blunder; dark eyebrows drew down over serious grey eyes in concentration, and then abruptly flew skyward, as some hitherto unforeseen move was revealed. Evening drew slowly in, darkness beginning to veil the vulnerable lands, seeping into every nook and cranny. Unseen behind the banked clouds that rose, castle upon castle, into the dim West, Anar sank lower, his face shadowed with a timeless melancholy of amber and scarlet. And still, the two young Elves played on, almost perfectly matched, their usual camaraderie frozen in the competition of the game. So great was their concentration that they did not notice their visitor stride through the door on silent feet, hooded and cloaked, a faint smileely ely visible on his darkened face. He placed a hand on each bowed set of shoulders, and the young Elves yelped, surprise robbing them of their dignity.

“Are you certain that you wish to make that move?” the newcomer asked in a gentle tone of voice, his attention turned towards Elladan’s ebony bishop. He shivered slightly as the melt water dripped down his legs and slithered inside his boots in discomforting rivulets. The younger Elf, relaxing at the other’s voice, hurriedly put down the playing piece. This was not advice to ignore.

Lady Celebrían walked through the corridors alone, listening to the whisperings of her skirts against the finely polished wood and stone. She had spent her afternoon absorbed in a book deep in her chambers while her sons, yet again, played chess. They claimed that it was to practice their tactical and strategic skills, a suggestion she met with an amused smile. ‘Twas more likely that they wished to compete with each other without their father near by to keep the peace. She turned a corner, the candlelight shining softly on her unbound hair, and stopped suddenly, confounded by the dark figure standing in the middle of the library, hovering ominously over her sons. She stepped forward, one hand raised in warning, yet a glad hope sprang into full flame in her heart, and she wondered why she felt no sense of unease at this bizarre stranger.

He turned slowly towards her, his face nothing more than sharp planes of shadow beneath his cowl, and bowed low. Straightening he let one slender hand creep up and sweep the hood back from his face, revealing a head of soaked black hair that glinted in the firelight like a vaulted heaven lit with stars, and a pale countenance. High colour was painted along his cheekbones from the biting wind. He inclined his head gracefully, a smile just touching his grey eyes. “My lady wife.”

Celebrían smiled gently despite willing herself not to. Her fingers entwined themselves in the soft lace of her cuffs as a chill ran through her, but she raised her chin stubbornly.

Elrond went to turn from her, but his time on the road in this bleak weather had been long, and longer and bleaker yet had been the years. His heart, deep-buried, was sore, and he had awoken that day to dreams of her that had galvanised his heart to feverish rhythm and warmed his blood so that he scarcely noticed the frigid wind sweeping down from the snow-bound wastes. He paused, and, with an uncharacteristic flash of impetuousness, caught one of her hands in both of his. It was very warm against his chilled skin, and he could feel her pulse beating beneath his fingertips, in the pale blue veins that threaded this way and that beneath her skin. He steadied himself, and brought her hand up to his mouth for an entirely proper kiss.

“My lord husband.” She locked eyes with him, terribly cool, seemingly entirely coted ted despite her swimming thoughts. Her face showing neither rancour nor pleasure, she freed her hand and tucked it back inside her sleeve. “I trust that your journey was pleasant.”

He gazed upon her sharply for a moment, as if about to say something, reflected fire captured in his eyes, and then he turned away, his face unreadable. The fire died.

Acutely aware as ever of the tension burning through the room, the twins leapt upright, towering over their slight mother although they did not match the broad-shouldered height of their father. “Adar! We are glad you are home.” They spoke in unison as they often did, and the Lord and Lady of Imladris were engulfed in an impetuously youthful embrace, crushed together. Celebrían tensed angrily as her face brushed against a damp shoulder, trying with all her might to ignore the sudden thrill that ran through her, reeling backwards. A cold, kindly hand caught her sturdily, and she jerked bsligslightly, stubbornness marring her features.

Finally, they broke apart and a broad smile split Elrond’s face as he gazed upon his sons. “I have missed you, tithin pen,” he said fondly.

Celebrían, standing a little back from them once more, tugging at her gown with unsteady hands, imagined that this was the first time in a very long time that she had seen that particular smile, untainted by any sadness or anger. As the years had spilled past in an endless torrent, he had smiled less and less, looked upon her less until it seemed that she did not see him from one day’s end to the next, even when they had been in the same room.

“Lady Celebrían.” He shrugged off his travelling cloak, draping it across the back of a chair, absent-mindedly flicking off the light dusting of snow that clung to the front of his tunic. He stamped his feet briskly to dispel the cold that had begun to possess his toes during the last few minutes of the ride. “I have…”

But he got no further. There was an oddly muted clamour in the hallway and the leaping firelight caught and flared for a brief moment on pale hair and silver fastenings. The Elves stood side by side, their fingers touching but not quite interlinked. The shadows of old grief in the room seemed to fall away from the light surrounding them.

"Adar! Naneth!" Her skirts gathered up in one hand, Celebrían hurried across the room, her face alight. No more was she the Lady of Imladris with the weight of responsibility and sorrow lying heavy upon her; no more was she the wife of wise Master Elrond.

Galadriel's mind brushed against hers, that familiar maternal caress, while Celeborn gathered her close, discarding his usual reserve in the privacy of the family. He shot a suspicious look in the general direction of his peredhel host as he felt the slenderness of his daughter in his arms, a fierce glance which spoke of serious retribution if her sleepless nights and long days were the fault of her husband. Elrond let his own gaze fall away, none too sure in himself that Celeborn did not have the right of it. He stood back while his twin sons embraced their grandparents. His clothes dripped softly, soaking the floor around his feet.

“I did not expect you to be here.” Celebrían’s delight exclamation broke his soggy reverie. “I had thought that you would be in Lothlórien this Yuletide.”

“Your husband offered us your hospitality, and the chance to use his library.” The Lady made no reference to her reason for this sudden bookishness, but, half-shaded by her cuff, she rubbed reflexively at the shank of a ring.

“And what of your daughter?” Celebrían teased, her hands on her hips.

Galadriel smiled quizzically, and when she spoke, it was with a laughing tone. “I should imagine that you have read the entire library, sell-nín, and your advice will be most useful.”

Her daughter grinned. “Ah, I would not presume to claim that I know everything that the library holds. For that I must defer to my lord husband.”

“Hervess-nín.” Elrond bowed. “Your modesty is most flattering, and most untruthful.”

She laughed as he took her arm, and the ghosts of a thousand books, a hundred thousand silent hours, littered the air between them.

~*~

Ribbons of ivy hung from rafter to rafter in the Hall of Fire, entwined with scarlet ribbons. The pillars were festooned with garlands of ivy and mistletoe, glossily green in the dancing firelight. The rich, heavy scent if cinnamon clouded the air pleasantly, rising in trailing columns of steam from the mugs of mulled wine clasped in many a hand. Near to the fire, his gestures vivid, his blue eyes brimming with unholy amusement, Glorfindel was regaling a circle of younger Elves with wildly exaggerated tales. Their laughter and their yelps of dismay echoed about them with equal volume.

Elladan and Elrohir, on the fringes of the group, turned their eyes heavenwards at his lurid exaggerations. Above them, between the festive decorations that were almost gaudy in their splendour, hung a veritable forest of banners. Here, written in tattered cloth, one could read of all the glory and eminence of the Elder Days, of Beleriand in its wilful youth, and of sorrow and loss. There, was the banner of the House of Finwë, ancient, revered and dread; there, a field of deepest blue emblazoned with countless stars for Ereinion Gil-galad. High above Celeborn’s head hung the arms of Turgon the Wise, frayed and charred. When they were younger, the twins had once asked Glorfindel why he refused to look upon it, and had received an answer that they would really rather never have heard. The Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, it seemed, was neither all-powerful nor that patient. Doriath. Fingon. Fingolfin. Finarfin who ruled yet in Elven Tirion beyond the seas. And, looking almost shy beside all the display of the Ages, Elrond's own banner fluttered a little in the warm draft from the fire, blue and white and grey artfully intersected. And yet it held within it the heritage of all the great Houses, a tie of blood and memory as old as Isil and Anar. Together, Elladan and Elrohir smiled a little. Elrond, who had followed their gaze, allowed himself a small grin. The banners, and the firelight… and even the old wounds did not run so deep this night, with Celebrían’s icy formality thawed by her parents.

If I could but know what I should do, what I should say, that I also could penetrate that ice… He snipped that thread of thought off abruptly. There was neither joy nor hope to be found in such wonderings, and the quest would ruin this night. He turned back to his conversation.

“But, my lady, if it is as you and I both believe, then we should not trust to these powers that were vested in us, for fair or foul.” He resisted the urge to peer over his shoulder to seek out any ill-intentionestensteners; his words were veiled enough, and the music and laughter loud.

“We are empowered for a purpose which is greater than our own, by a consciousness and wisdom which far exceed it. Do you doubt that they see further than we ever can?” Galadriel’s face was soft in the firelight, but her voice was incisive.

Elrond glanced over at his wife, gesturing animatedlyshe she talked to the twins, and chose his words carefully. “More even than I, you know that the Valar do not interfere so lightly in the affairs of the Outer Lands, nor with light hearts and easy gifts endow us. Caution, Lady Galadriel, for I think this is no gift of the Powers, nor gift at all. Their aid may not come, for we have received its bounty once before, and it was hard-bought with blood and sorrow. He caught her gaze, seeing at once the wisdom therein that overawed him, and a power so terrible as to chill the marrow. It was a look that he had seen once before, in a very different pair of eyes, under the stars of Beleriand, when he was a child and a hostage. He shook himself to dispel the notion. “Come, ‘tis not the time for such melancholy thoughts.”

“Celebrían has informed me that you broke your arm earlier this year,” Galadriel said with a glint in her eyes, her face a mask of innocence. “Pray tell me how that came to be.”

Elroelt elt that she had had her revenge for any sense of superiority he might have exhibited earlier, and he smiled ruefully. “I was restringing Elrohir’s bow with my mind on other matters.” He did not mention that he had been lecturing his younger son on the necessity of paying close attention to one’s weapons when the force of the tense string had snapped his arm like a green twig.

The Lady threw back her head and laughed, a crescendo of soft mirth. For half a moment, her countenance was so like that of her daughter that it wrenched his heart, and then it was gone.

~*~

“Sell-nín,” Celeborn rested one hand on his daughter’s arm, very pale against the deep green velvet. “Will you have speech with me?”

“Of course, Adar, have we not been speaking?”

“Not here. Walk with me under the stars. Let us have speech that goes unheard.”
lebrlebrían rose gracefully, her skirts lapping round her ankles. Not one glance did she spare for her husband although her eyes lingered on her mother sitting beside him. No one could have hoped to see the faint light of sorrow hidden in her eyes, and, wordless, she led the way from the seething laughter of the Hall of Fire.

The corridors beyond were startlingly chill. A curtain flapped in the sharp breeze from an open casement. Almost automatically, Celebrían moved to close the offending window. Tucking her hands back into her flowing sleeves, she paced onwards.

If the corridors had been a shock, it was nothing to the bitter surprise of the winter air, as sharp and cold as new-cut crystal. Their hair, such a similar shade of silver, shifted and stirred, and the stars high above them were cruel and bright, crowding the heavens with an hundred thousand lighted pinpricks. Gil-estel flashed and winked far above them, brighter than the starlight, and the vei the the Elenath seemed almost to touch the treetops with Varda's passing benediction. The clamour of the Hall of Fire dimmed into the distance behind them. Silence thickened the air, almost a thing alive.

Celebrían folded her hands close to her body, shivering slightly as the arctic breeze tousled her hair. Her father made as if to speak, and then seemed to think better of it. His silver hair shonrenerenely in the starlight, untainted by any moon, but his usually calm face was ruffled by unease, as the surface of the ocean beneath a brisk wind.

“Do you plan to speak ere the world’s ending?” Celebrían laughed, an odd sound in the silence.

The elf-lord squared his shoulders. “Are you happy here, tithen pen?”

“Oh course.” But she ducked her head to hide her brittle smile.

“Do not lie to me, sell-nín.” He paused and seemed to search the deep shadows for inspiration. “There hat hat in your eyes which troubles my heart. It has been six score years and ten since I suggested to Master Elrond a marriage between his house and ours. I believe that you think I did so for politic reasons.”

Celebrían looked at him sharply, her blue eyes narrowed.

“’Twas not so, although I knew of no other way to accomplish what I saw fit to do.” His eyes did not meet hers, and his movements had an unaccustomed nervousness to them.

“And what was that?” she prompted gently.

“I thought that you would be happy here, as no other place might make you. I thought that this peredhel lord might satisfy your heart and your mind both, and your mother agreed with me, although she had no foreknowledge of this. I… Why did you not speak to us before the year was out? Why did you not make it clear that this match was not of your desiring, nor ever could be? There would have been no shame attached to your choice, nor even harsh words, and you would have been free again.”

Celebrían traced a line in the snow with her foot, black on white. Without warning, a spate of giggles broke free from her. She held one hand against her mouth as if to stifle them, but it was to no avail. Her cheeks, when she looked back up at her father, were damp, her eyes wild and dark in her wan face. “You could not set me free, Adar; none could, and I would neither have asked nor gone.”

“Why?” Celeborn’s mouth was set in a grim line and his right hand twitched as if hungry for a sword hilt, and even more eager to throttle his host. “What hold has he over you, my daughter?”

“What else, father?” she asked with some asperity, goaded beyond reticence. “What else but that of the heart?”

Astonishment washed across the elf-lord’s face. “And?”

“And? I love him, but he loves me not. Your motives were good, but you found for me a hus who who married for blood and duty, no more. I have born a scion of the line of the Noldorin kings, more than one, and things are at an end between my husband and myself. There is no more to be done, and my regrets will avail me naught, even though what is given can never be taken back. I am who I am, and he is who he is; thus it is and thus it must be, although all my tears fall upon the high desert.” She finished in an exhausted whisper, her hands trembling.

“I am sorry, iell-nín, so very sorry.” He spread his arms wide in a desperate gesture.

Her face softened. “I know Ada, I know.” She rested her head on his shoulder and wept into the night.

~*~

Elrond slipped through his chambers, his body exhausted by sleepless hour after sleepless hour, his moddloddly alert and restless. His unshod feet made no sound on the tiled floors, although his silken robes rustled slightly with his movement. The great bed seemed almost empty, for Celebrían was curled into a tight ball on one edge, her face buried in the pillows, snuffling slightly with some unhappy dream. He simply gazed upon her for a moment, his hands clenching and unclenching within his heavy sleeves. So innocent she looked, asleep in a wordless coil of silvered hair, one shoulder exposed to the gilding candlelight. She shifted slightly in her sleep, and he could see her face, the fair skin beneath her lashes, the curve of her mouth compressed in some imagined sorrow. Helpless, he felt his body tighten in response.

Cursing himself, he stripped off his ornamental robes, discarding them in a heap in one corner, and pulled a loose linen tunic over his head. Pausing, he swayed with the sheer need for sleep, and eyed the loose under-garments that he had yet to don with revulsion. He was too tired, too much in need of surcease for his overburdened brain. Setting the loose trousers on a chair, he collapsed sideways onto the bed, tugging the sheets around himself. The last thing he saw before sleep took him was his wife’s face, the double furrow running deep between her brows.

~*~

The waves lapped the shore, following one another blindly into rhythmic annihilation, beneath the waxing moon. The dunes shifted a little in the breeze like some weary beast, and the sea oats whispered and sighed. His footprints dappled the silvered sand, already falling back into oblivion, and the soft air of summer caressed his face. He knew this place although he had not set foot here in many a year: Balar, looking west across the Sundering Seas, where he had sat with his brother, awaiting in childish impatience the vessel of a father who would never return.

Elrond smiled, and tilted his head back to let the moonlight fall full on his face. Somewhere in the distance a maiden was singing, an ancient tale of love lost and won, of a lass dancing on the shore, but the sorrowful melody mattered not to him. The sky was vast, the air kindly and the moonlight bright on his skin and the crests of the breaking waves. With a small smirk, he loped down the beach. When the first ripples washed his toes, he sucked in a harsh breath at the chill, but pressed on, contending with the will of the sea. It was a simpler song than that of the maiden, but strong and clear in his ears as he ducked his head under the water, throwing it back in a starlit cascade of droplets.

When he turned back to the shore, deep in the water, he saw her there, the maiden clad all in burning silver beneath the high moon of summer. Her bare toes were buried in the sand, the hem of her gown a little damp. Her hair was free and unbound, her eyes unreadable, and he went to her then, back through the parting waters, and bowed before her, unselfconscious.

“My lady Celebrían.”

~*~

“Melethron-nín,” she greeted him, her eyes lingering a little on the smooth lines of his body, highlighted by the water still draining from his sodden hair. She blushed a little and made to turn her head away, but long fingers pinioned her chin, and she looked up into his face, noting tickeicked smirk dancing round the corners of his lips. “I see that you are very pleased with yourself.”

“I beg to differ. I am more pleased with the sight that meets my eyes.”

“Oh really?” She tossed her head skittishly, and her husband decided to answer her in the simplest way possible. His lips were hot on hers, although the hands framing her face were cold. She groaned a little against his lips as he moulded the length of his body to hers, her head light. But she was determined not to cede victory to him so easily, aware that she was at a disadvantage, having come upon him all unawares and seen him pale against the midnight sea. Her hand sought and found the gap between their bodies, her fingers enclosing his desire, flexing teasingly. He gasped and his eyes flew shut as he leant back against her other arm which she had wrapped around his waist.

“I am amazed that the sea has not left you indisposed.”

“Mandos take the sea,” he managed hoarsely, and sank to the sand, pulling her with him.

~*~

Sheets cast in disarray liberally decorated the floor, spilling down from the bed as they moved closer together. Blindly flesh trembled towards flesh. Kisses bestowed and granted by fëar locked behind lidded eyes.

~*~

His silver maiden … he had no more thought than that as she squirmed beneath him, and for a moment he simply gazed upon her, running one hand along her clothed curves. But she was more impatient than he, reaching for him again, her nails digging into his back in a sharp reminder. He chuckled, trying to calm his racing heart back into a state where he might have some semblance of control, and kissed her lingeringly, running his lips along the exposed skin of her neck, nipping at the point of her ear. Somewhere, in some hidden corner of his mind, he was aware that something was different, something was strange in this, something beyond his comprehension. And yet it scarcely mattered to him, as she pressed up into him, turning her head to mirror his kisses.

His hands were unsteady as he cradled her to himself, deftly reaching behind her back to unhook the fastenings of her dress, and as she shrugged to free herself from the filmy fabric. He lowered his head to one breast, encircling the nipple with concentric rings of kisses before she firmly guided his mouth towards it, her fingers moving in languorous circles beneath his damp hair. She whimpered, and he felt his readiness increase, his heart thundering in his ears.

~*~

Sweat-slicked skin smooth against skin, limbs entangling in a fury of unknowing desire. Soft pillows shoved to one side, hair falling across the sheets, silver and black intermingled. Thick lashes fluttering momentarily over blue eyes, revealing a heartbeat of desirous confusion, and then sliding shut once more.

~*~

Raising one hand, she brushed the salt-rimed fall of hair from his eyes, and locked her ankles together behind his knees.

“Now, El-nín. Please.”

He trailed his hands briefly over her thighs, gently parting them. Positioning himself atop her, he kissed her almost tentatively and buried himself within her in one smooth movement. She nodded at him when he paused, and he began to move, rocking against her until they had found their rhythm, almost ing ing now against the rough sand and the smooth sheets. She could feel the heat pooling within herself as he thrust deeply, and urged him onwards with an inarticulate crooning moan. As her pleasure spilled over, she tightened around him, her words a whisper against the sensitive skin of his neck. “I love you.”

He sank himself into her once more, his dark head dropping limply against her shoulder, and abandoned all constraint. With a groan, he surrendered completely to this bliss. “And I you. And I you, meleth-nín.”

~*~

Hearts slowed once more as the fire died in the grate. They slept in an exhausted, satiated heap, so close together that it was nigh on impossible to tell where one ended and the next began. Their breathing stumbled, seemed almost to halt, and then matched pace, each with the other. And it seemed almohat hat the wind bore laughter from afar, older even than the world.


~*~*~*~*~*~

fëar – souls, spirits.
Elenath – lit. ‘the starry host’, ‘all the stars of heaven’. Here, I am taking it loosely to mean the Milky Way. (Taken from here: http://www.uib.no/People/hnohf/vocab.htm#Sindarin).


Review? *grins*