In Earendil's Light

Part Seven

Middle Earth, Third Age, Year 2,718

Under the ethereal light of his valorous father Earendil, Elrond surveyed the binding feast with a pregnant hear
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Stealing a moment alone with his thoughts on the terrace of the resplendent banquet hall, the Lord of Imladris’ noble features took on a serenity rarely witnessed since Celebrian’s passing to Valinor. His comely face pearled in the argent beams of the silmaril, his sage gray eyes took little note of the ensorcelled woods beyond the crescent-shaped balcony, as they were fixed on the revelers inside.

As their gathered friends crowded the dancefloor, Legolas and Elrohir held near-surreptitious court by the hearth, tucked into the twin-cushioned armchair the elf-knight had once shared with his brother. Though Elrohir was entranced by the billowing flames and Legolas was engrossed in Orophin’s battle re-enactments, the couple was entirely and utterly together. Elrohir lazed against his husband’s lank frame while contemplating the fire, their arms linked, the roots of their fingers indiscernible, they were so entwined. Although characteristically animated in his intermittent remarks to Orophin, the archer’s every gesture in conversation was completed by a squeeze, a caress, a gentle touch to his dark beauty’s person, ever-concerned that Elrohir’s quiet reflection not turn maudlin.

This insight into his new partner’s tendencies was great comfort to the once-anxious father, a sign of the depth of Legolas’ commitment to, and understanding of, his ever-tempered son. Elrohir, though far from cowardly, often allowed himself to be led in action: by his father and tutors in his youth, by Elladan after their majority – it was his nature to defer, to comply, when not embroiled in lengthy council negotiations. That he was the same in matters of love little surprised Elrond, though this same quality had no doubt long ago caused him to win Legolas’ heart, through patient, considerate wooing. Now that the bold prince of Mirkwood had bloomed into a sterling maturity, Elrond believed he would take the lead in their relationship, offering peerless, intent affection in return for Elrohir’s unwavering support and blithe regard.

As Orophin took his leave to find out Haldir, Legolas welcomed Elladan to their side. In this, as well, the archer proved his intuitive skills. Knowing Elladan had long cared for Elrohir’s more gentle heart and would chafe somewhat at his binding, Legolas had made a point of including Elladan in some of their private moments. His need to befriend his fellow guardsman was effortlessly genuine, since the two warriors had, on the surface, more in common than the bound couple. Legolas, however, wasn’t blind to Elladan’s vital role in the shaping of Elrohir’s self-image; the Mirkwood prince was too shrewd a marksman not to realize that such a changing-of-the-guard would viscerally affect both Elrohir and his twin, thus, as the truest lover would, he sought to ease the transition for both brothers.

Elrond currently observed one such finely-balanced transaction, as Legolas, after a tender kiss for his somnambulant husband, eased away to refresh thgoblgoblets, offering Elladan his seat in his stead. Elladan, clearly grateful, received an equally affectionate slap on his back before Legolas’ departure. Snuggled as tight as two scheming elflings, his twins bunkered quickly down and hastily shared their secrets, complicit as ever.

“Precocious as they day they were born,” Glorfindel remarked, suddenly a pale, startling apparition at his side.

“Incorrigible,” Elrond agreed, leaning back on the railing to include his friend. “May they always remain so.”

“Legolas is shrewd,” Glorfindel went on. “Do you mark how he lingers near enough to keep them protected from interlopers, but far enough to allow them some peaceful time?”

“Aye,” Elrond nodded, curious as to Glorfindel’s intent with such keen observations. “They are expertly matched, if this joyous day allows me some self-satisfaction.”

“Indeed,” the guard-captain smirked, well-aware of Elrond’s sporadic prideful indulgences. “Though I fear Thuil’uil’s reaction.”

“Legolas, no doubt, will weather it as all other things,” Elrond commented wryly. “With his mother’s graceful resolve.”

The two shared a hearty chuckle at a shared remembrance of the Mirkwood queen’s tempering of her husband’s renown will, the only creature in Arda, save her youngest son, who could manage such an awesome feat. Glorfindel’s laughs, however, soon grew somewhat forced. Elrond, feigning diplomatic restraint, took a moment to better examine his newly-creased features: once crisp lines withered, eyes rimmed scarlet, jaw clenched, yet formless. His cloudy, cobalt eyes fixed on Elladan, whose unnatural color his own skin mirrored, though no sickness had plagued him for centuries. Elrond grew pensive, wondering at the time’s rightness. He uncrossed his arms to appear less severe, less judgmental, then exhaled with measured precision.

“Before their raucous begetting,” he began. “I thought long on paternity. Celebrian and I deliberately delayed our children’s conception, we feared the world too unstable for elflings. Even before they were born, I was wrecked with a father’s protective instincts. How may I keep tsafesafe? Away from the Shadow’s claw? From danger? From the threat of war, perhaps even between elven tribes? When they reached their majority, that ever-encroaching fear took on a different shade: how can I ensure that the one they bind their lives to will cherish them as I have, will keep safe their hearts and form an honest, fulfilling partnership with them? As I look upon them now, grown, gracious, and magnificent as they are, it gives me no end of heart-warmth to know this has come to pass. That they have chosen well, and rightly, for their mates.”

Glorfindel’s soft protest went unspoken, as guilt braised him through. Elrond furtively took note of his discomfort, then shifted his tone.

“Elladan looks particularly well,” tlf Llf Lord proceeded on. “This injury has siphoned some of his more corrosive fury at his mother’s… undoing. I feel he has at ldiscdiscovered some measure of temperance, though I hope some remnants of his tenacious nature linger on. This is perhaps merely a father’s jaded compliment, but, in many ways, I feel his potential for greatness is as stunning, as ardent as that of Gil-galad himself. Though he is my second-born… if the necessitruckruck, I would name him my heir and Elrohir as his seneschal. I’ve often thought the Valar knew of Elrohir’s even-handedness, and sent Elladan along to shield him from life’s crueler lessons. I mean no disrespect, of course, to my dearest star-rider… but, when Elladan’s wisdom comes of age, there will be none to better him.”

“Aye,” Glorfindel muttered. He dared not withdraw his rapt stare from the twin-seat, lest the proud father mark its winsomeness.

“Such stubbornness, even in his youth, yet always such bravery,” Elrond praised. “I often knew not what to make of his relentless will. Do you recall our first hunting trip, when he insisted on bearing his own bow and broadsword, only to later slay an oxboar twice his size!! Then, at his majority, when you so suddenly departed, he would not hear word of comfort or slander against you, though his heart heaved with pain for years after. It was he who saved Celebrian from the orc-nest, and he who bore Elrohir on his back the entire road home, as she rode their only horse. When we debated your binding, I offered to speak at his behest, but he would hear none of it. ‘I would not have a formal union. I have no need of another father,’ he insisted, to his merit.” The pointed intent of this latest arrow struck the unguarded Glorfindel dead-true. Still, formality held that he not speak against his Lord. “Even on this last bout of questing, after years of torment, his bravery held fast against the Shadow. Before they were forced to flee, Elladan stood tall on the hillside and summoned the Nazgul to him, goading them, fearless though they preyed on him alone. He would have taken the nine of them on, had Elrohir not begged him down.”

“You know the toll of it, then,” Glorfindel stated dully, when Elrond fell silent once more.

“I am Lord of this Last Homely House,” Elrond snipped, though without menace. “Two hundred years of estrangement does not go on without my notice. Do you judge me so easily deceived?!”

“It was not my intention to decei-“

“I care not for your intentions,” the Elf-Lord reprimanded, then sought a moment’s composure. “Or your excuses, of which I have heard little, so beloved are you by your companions. They would not speak a word against youen ien in this grave matter.” He turned towards his guard-captain, demanding his unwavering attention as only such a compassionate ruler could. Glorfindel obliged, waiting for the axe to drop. “One last remembrance, and my tale is told. Receive it as you will. On the eve of your binding, plagued by the expected nerves, Elladan came to me for comfort. I thim,him, then, of my error on his first begetting day, the accident led led to your overabundance of feeling for him. I explained that your regard sprang from this well, and perhaps no other source.”

Glorfindel, struck dumb but desperate, demanded: “What did he reply, Elrond?”

“He considered the matter for but an instant,” Elrond explained. “Perhaps more for my satisfaction than of his own indecision. But, in end end… he cared not. Indeed, it seemed only to solidify his resolve to love you well, and quite thoroughly, as if to justify my error as preordained by the Valar. He sought only to deserve this happy accident, the mentor that always was, and would forever be, bound to him.”

His trenchant stare retreating indoors, Glorfindel attempted to reckon this news with his cold behavior. He found he could not; that, faced with a father’s heartfelt confession and his husband’s rashly chosen fate, he could no longer cower from the decision before him. To live boldly, and in bliss, or to sacrifice the one he held dear, by whichever cause, for the sake of withered, misguided honor.

In that moment, he knew he would suffer Sauron’s most unforgiving wrath, if only for a minute of Elladan’s care.

He turned to thank his life-long friend, but found Elrond had disappeared. When he re-entered the banquet hall, Elladan had also taken his leave of the festivities, though a studied Legolas thought him simply retired to his chambers, for some rest.

As if the Nazgul themselves were on his heels, Glorfindel flew after him.

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

Somberly, Elladan regarded himself in the elegant, pewter-framed mirror. Rarely did the elf-warrior consider these florid features as his own, or bother to contemplate them beyond mere utility: the evenness of his braids, the cleanliness of his teeth, the tone of his skin when feverish. The courtly face now reflected had always belonged to his dearest Elrohir. Elladan himself thought any primping so base he never linked the righteous elf in the looking glass with his known self, a prodigious, arrow-swift, and horrifically able soldier.

As the stark, gray eyes of this hollow borebore into him, not a glint of his brr’s r’s harmonious face was apparent, his sallow cheeks, over-emphatic lips, andil jil jaw-line barely an echo of the elf-knight’s stately grace. The severance of their twin souls completed by Elrohir’s binding, Elladan, for the first time in all of his existence, felt a savage isolation claw his chest, scavenging for the last of him. He’d shroud his innermost self, this last, vital week, in a veil of peaceful resolve, in order to properly engage those he held dear, without fear, without thought of his passing, without regret.

Nobly, he had judged; but the ghost in the mirror told another talee ofe of abandonment, of merciless dread, of love unrequited and crudely reformed. These latest hours on Glorfindel’s arm had little served their intended truce, instead reviving two centuries worth of resentment, dissatisfaction, and ache unbound. The scornful elf under his rapt eyes seemed as rapacious as a starved falcon, but Elladan felt like a carcass, bones long ago picked clean of meat. Though he’d not dared admit to it, the sec secret part of him had clung to some dim hope of salvation, even up until the ceremony itself. That the rapturous aura that surrounded Legolas and Elrohir would engulf Glorfindel’s misguided virtue and, caught in their heady swoon, he would see true.

Elladan, however, was evidently the bedazzled one; deluded by his very life’s blood into cherishing one unintended for his most tender regard. His love-culled sickness was merely a manifestatio the the wretchedness of his purpose, to woo the one heart which would ever-elude him, the one soul never meant to be claimed. Glorfindel was right to cite his passage to Mandos as the barrier that held them aloft; perhaps, if he had lived beyond his Balrog-slaying, through the millennia to the present day, then they would be joined, and blissful. In this, Shadow had warped the Valar’s pure intent. Thus, when the resurrected Lord of the Golden Flower consumed the very matter of his intended’s making, the seed there planted was poisoned at the root. When later their budding marriage went unconsumede Nae Nazgul were sent to reap of the rot Shadow had sown. Only another, more vital link saved him so long from falling; his bountiful twin, now plucked from their common vine.

Even hope’s ever-bloom could not survive this bleak winter.

Elladan released the horsehair clasp that held his braids, unwound their sheer, obsidian lengths, careful to remove the two winds of leather from hallowed Tuor’s scabbard. These he employed as sash for the thin scroll of parchment before him: a final word to Glorfindel. He might have gifted them to Legolas, as valorous as a throng of Tuors in his estimation, but his usage had cursed them. Instead, they would return to whom they had originally been given, in lieu of a lover’s embrace. Perhaps Tuor, and not Sauron, was the Shadow looming over their contentment; Elladan held few doubts on this other matter. The parchment rolled and secured, he positioned the scroll on his night table, then allowed one last glance at the forlorn elf in the mirror.

A trick of the mind, surely, was reflected there; not he.

Behind, a familiar, welcome form peered through the doorway.

“Have you become so self-enamored that you would leave our wager unmet?” Erestor teased from the study. The first maneuver of his Battle Game was deployed across the desk, awaiting the elf-warrior’s challenge.

Elladan secreted away his melancholy, then rebuked: “If I were so easily distracted as you yourself commonly are, I would be glad my trouncing be delayed by a moment’s vanity and seek not to waste valuable time for strategy with belabored, if witty, interruption.” Feeling more himself, the darkling elf rose, then moved to join his fondly-held Loremaster.

“Such confidence!” Erestor snorted. “It will be your undoing.”

“Not as fitting an end, perhaps, as on the morrow,” Elladan shrewdly retorted, indulging in an overdramatic air of resignation. “But far more reasonably explained to our Lord Elrond.”

“Aye, at that,” the Loremaster sighed, growing fearfully accustomed to his boof dof dark humor. “Though my own end might grow nearer, as a result.”

“Indeed,” Elladan noted, poised to give the matter *careful* thought. “A small price, what say you?”

At this, Erestor dangerously sobered. “One I’d pay gladly, if given the chance.”

Elladan exhaled longly, gathered his esteemed Loremaster near. “We need not rally, if you would rather converse. Perhaps we should summon Haldir, and Orophin, some distraction…”

“Would you be glad of their company?” Erestor asked, anxious to please.

“In truth…” Elladan began, but knew not his own mind. Though their presence would hearten him, such companions would onlyerscerscore those absent by necessity: his Ada, Arwen, Legolas, Elrohir… even Glorfi. /E. /Especially Glorfindel./ “I know not, Erestor. I would not burden them.”

“They need not be burdened,” he insisted, hoping to dispel the fugue of loneliness clouding around the prince. “The game will be enlivened by their skill.” When Elladan became mired in inner-reasoning, Erestor again drew him close. “I think you disregard, perhaps intentionally, the effect your passing will have on this Homely House, on Arda entire. You will be at peace, true, but for those far away, those who nev never know the reason of your chosen fate… and even those who will… none will truly comprehend why such a brave, honest spirit could be so carelessly allowed to pass, undefended. As, I confess… I do not. I will never understand it, nor will I seek to, though my vow to you is sealed and kept dear.”

“We should begin,” Elladan commented, hearing his words but unable to properly digest them. /Perhaps, on the hill, I will recall them, and be heartened./ “I would go soon to Ada, and stay the night at his side.”

“And I would not forgo a chance at long-deserved revenge,” Erestor agreed, having made his last stand.

When they were poised to sit, an urgent knock sounded.

“Come,” Elladan called, almost eager, hoping Elrohir sought a final word before his bedding.

He struggled to temper his sparked nerves, when Glorfindel swept in.

Both elves instinctively strode towards the other, as if a message of vital importance had arrived. Erestor felt his stomach cinch when he spied the stormy blue of Glorfindel’s widened eyes, locked intently on expectant, yet fortified, Elladan.

“Here you are,” the guard-captain mused, relief washing over him at the sight of Elladan, safe and well. “Such a sudden departure-“

“-I was fatigued.“

“Are you well?”

“Well enough,” Elladan assured him reluctantly. “You need not concern-“

“-I am concerned,” Glorfindel barked, unsure of how to proceed in this crucial business. “Your affairs, your well-being, have never ceased to concern me, El-“

“Cease your whinging,” Elladan commanded, as if to his lieutenant. “State your cause.” The lonely prince glared at Glorfindel, his exasperation plain. “I would have no trouble from you, on this of any night.”

Chastened by this blunt reprimand, momentum lost, the Noldor questioned softly: “Am I but trouble to you, then?”

“I meant no quarrel,” Elladan snapped, his patience flown. “Do I hold no claim to peace, even now? May I not pass without issue, or abasement? Does the sacrifice of my life’s flame not meet your price, Balrog-slayer, or would you have my mind and mirth, as well?!”

The elf-warrior’s harsh words stabbed into the thick of Glorfindel’s resolve, his skill in versparsparring as lethally acute as his swordsmanship. Barred from explanation, both by Elladan’s order and by the faultless stone of his eyes, the guard-captain abandoned any planned delicacies, engaging the dauntless prince in the full-throttle assault that bested the fiery Balrog.

“I like the sweet cream of your reason, your frothy mirth too well to part with,” Glorfindel remarked, though he kept his temper. “Even for a drop of your sour wit.”

“Yet part with them you must, at dawn,” Elladan morosely reminded him.

“I defy such forced necessity,” he shot back, crystalline eyes flaring with the volcanic blue of his soul’s resurrected flame. “No natural force in Arda or aloft in the heavens would dare bind my rogue spirit, not the Firstborn, nor the wind, nor the needs of this blithe sanctuary, this Homely House. Not the only death known to elfkind, nor the all-hallowed Valar above. Only you, Elladan. Only you can claim me.” He knelt, then, at the baffled, sorrow-gripped prince’s feet, deferring to his will. “I am, as ever, yours to command.”

“Why have you come?!” Elladan demanded, too brittle to stand even the stench of further heartache. His eyes, sharp and keen as Rohirric spikes, warned the Balrog-slayer back.

Instead, Glorfindel rose anew, closed the distance between them. “For you, melethron. For your heart, at long last…” Before Elladan could utter a squeak in protest, Glorfindel wove willful arms around him and pressed a brash, decisive kiss into his stunned mouth.

Erestor, swallowing an unsightly cheer, snatched the nearby key, snuck out into the corridor, and bolted the door behind him. /My Lord Elrond’s healing arts are unmatched, even by blessed Valinor./

Elladan’s body, hard with shock, rigidly self-protected, loosed and sank further into the guard-captain’s rapt hold. The fervent kiss turned supple, giving, as both pairs of lips lingered, reluctant to part, to distance and therefore be forced into required confrontation. Resolution. They did, however, ease back; though Elladan, fearful, overwhelmed, gave eager chase. He inundated Glorfindel’s lips, chin, cheeks with thick, willing kisses, breathtaking in their sweetness, their breathlessness beckoning him forth. Unable to long resist, Glorfindel curled his fingers through the sheets of raven hair and took his mouth, relentless, unbound.

When Glorfindel slid lissome, affectionate indexes over the downy peaks of his ears, Elladan struggled to stifle a raw, ready moan.

“Now,” he pleaded to his reawakened husband. “It must be now. Now, or never again.”

“At your order, husband,” Glorfindel smirked, knowing the time for fluttery nothings and reverent indulgence had long past. Elladan would that his soul be ferociously revived; not completely without artfulness, but with unyielding ardor. The guard-captain, roused beyond his oft-caging reason, would dutifully comply.

Bliss-drunk, they staggered over to the prince’s turned-down bed, lips and arms engaged as if in combat, neither desiring other than to further entangle themselves. Both fought, fumbled to unlace the other’s cloying formal garments as they held their bruising embrace; in the end, Glorfindel tore off his own tunic in maddening frustration, his muscle-ripped chest and wrung nipples waiting far too long on Elladan’s lush lips. As these were peerlessly attended to by the giddy prince, Glorfindel yanked off boots, unlaced both their tenting breeches, then, leagues beyond restraint, slipped lust-quaking fingers below Elladan’s slick navel and palmed him.

Unlike the sword-ready Balrog slayer, Elladan, weakened by his sickness, had been slow to fully deploy. This mere clutch rushed his simmering blood to an aching boil, his hot seed surging through his now-ready engorgement. His parched mouth, savaged crimson, began to pant with need, dissatisfied with the hard planes of chest, the slight buds of nipple, wanting thick, moist, tart. The elf-warrior collapsed onto his knees and peeled down findfindel’s open breeches. Glowing mithril eyes fixed on the elegant ivory shaft revealed to him, as broad and sterling as an elephant’s tusk. Hungry lips, a famished tongue teased the pearly length, until its veins purpled fat and its head glistened with an unctuous white fluid, soon lapped clean. Its second bud was just as fiendishly devoured, as was its successor, the rabid mouth now milking small, controlled spurts from the taut shaft, but not the decadent soak it sought.

At his edge, Glorfindel grabbed his tormentor by the scruff of the neck and wrenched him to his feet, his aquamarine eyes flaring, wild with want. His kiss hit like a blow to the face, buckling the elf-warrior’s knees and shoving him back onto the rough embroidery of the coverlet. He crushed their sweat-slick bodies together, dangerously undone, then ground their hips, their tight-swollen erections in a riotous, break-neck rhythm, one only a rider of Elladan’s relentless skill could dare match. The soldier-prince matched it, bettered it, quicksilver eyes locked on luminous Glorfindel, his passion, now unleashed, a glorious, ravaging ecstasy, the t oft of sights for a lover to behold.

Their concurrent release, though awesome and volatile, gasping and wrecking, came fast. Glorfindel, shame-sick in the thunder’s wake, gripped into Elladan’s scarlet-flush flesh and sobbed out his heart. Elladan, engulfed in the heady flow of their reunited soul flames, curled lazy, comforting arms around him, but could not stifle a smile.

Both soon found sleep, sheathed in the other’s snug embrace.

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

Echoes of his brother’s resonant reconnection rippled the undulating streams of feeling flooding through Elrohir’s heightened senses, as if a pebble tossed into the Bruinen. Though their twinness had ebbed to a sparse trickle, their spirits still flowed from the same deep-bedded river. When the rites of mature life had divided its furious course, their common wellspring continued to ease them through the rapids. Thus, as Elladan sank into the somnambulant bath of satiation, Elrohir felt his twin’s long-earned serenity wash over him.

Sprawled across the satiny lilac sheets of his marriage bed, the darkling elf raised his head, his placid gray eyes to the smoldering hearth not ten paces away. There stood his new husband, haloed by the fireglow, the sheer flax of his cornsilk hair taking on the rich, golden hue of the vaporous flame tips. Clad in a sarong of porous sea-green embroidered with willow bows, the diaphanous fabric wafted over his slender hips, his sinuous thighs, like sheathes of spun birch bark. An archer’s feral grace blessed him, as he thanked his intrusive brother, as he accepted an unexpected letter, as he wished him a fond but resolute goodnight. The same lissome, lethally acute fingers that would soon smooth over his stomach and stripe the willing skin of his back cinched the sturdy Rhovanion parchment, then nimbly untied the double-knotted sash of Mirkwood-silver hue.

With a studied, defensive smirk, Legolas read his father’s letter.

Their unmooring visitor gone, Elrohir rose, naked, and was swiftly at his side. Though Luinaelin’s companionship had ably guided Legolas in his formative years, the youngest prince of Mirkwood rarely had overt praise for his eldest brother, Crown Prince Mithbrethil. When both had turned up a week before the ceremony, none had been more surprised than Legolas himself. The poised archer had judged it a fair omen, invited their attendance, but all among the Lords of Imladris had had their reservations. As Legolas perused the scroll’s pointed contents, Elrohir could not help but wonder how long the correspondence had been in Mirthbrethil’s possession, whether Thranduil was so self-besotted as to dare lord over his son’s mind on this, his binding-night.

After emitting a sigh tinged with worthy bemusement, Legolas tossed his father’s letter into the fire. Elrohir stood behind him, close enough to be sensed, waiting. The fair prince’s contemplative eyes watched the parchment burn, unwavering until the last cinder meshed with log ash, and for some time after. Satisfied, he turned decisively towards the bed, then was struck by the beauteous sight of his bare, bold-framed husband, in full glory before him.

This vision his keen eyes appraised far longer than the flaming scroll.

“Elrohir,” he gasped, but could not say more, as his elf-knight came into his arms.

“What kingly woes did Thranduil’s letter impart?” Elrohir queried, his tongue sharp. “Or did your kindly father write?”

“Neither,” Legolas told him. “Though I doubt not some fiery tome of disapproval is being transcribed by Selath as we speak.”

“Who was’t, then?” Elrohir inquired. When Legolas’ eyes cooled, he regretted the intrusion. He was the archer’s husband, not his keeper. “You need not-“

“It matters little,” Legolas assured him. Yet he instinctively tightened their embrace, affectionately resting his brow, his warm cheek against Elrohir’s own. “My mother composed it, before she passed, and charged it to my brother’s keeping.” Elrohir swallowed hard, gripped his dearest one even harder. Both had weathered a mother’s loss in their lifetime; they were brothers in this misery. They had had occasion, in the long-passing weeks, to speak of this common sorrow, only one of the many tihat hat valorously bound them.

Unlike Elrohir, Legolas had little memory of his mother’s sweetness or of the attack that caused her grief, though he had often enough wished, as he matured, for her counsel. That it came at the moment of his greatest happiness soured him somewhat, but he was grateful she had thought of him. He had believed, throughout his youth, that she had considered him little, having surrendered to her wounds as she did. Though he knew nothing of their severity, he could not help wonder why she did not cling to his love, to his peerless regard for her, in order to find strength. He doubted any postulated answer could satisfy this tormenting question, in present circumstance or at the fraught time of her death, thus he had long abandoned this particular quest.

Until it had come courting.

“Why burn your mother’s words, meleth?” Elrohir asked, before his nose nudged his temple hollow. “Were they so unwelcome?”

“Unbidden, perhaps, but not unwelcome,” Legolas murmured. “They have their place in my heart.”

“They will be gracious company, there,” Elrohir attempted some mirth. “I vow to keep them well-entertained.” At this, the mercury re-emerged in Legolas’ keen eyes.

“It does not stress you to accommodate them?” the prince inquired mischievously, lips poised salaciously before his own, for maximum taunt. “You are so very… well-endowed. Such fine meat, I would hate to see it restrained. It must be allowed to unleash itself…”
uns unsuspecting, flaxen-haired archers?” Elrohir chuckled. “By the river, perhaps? Or, no, in haylhayloft, after hours? Between the backmost shelves of the library, on Erestor’s meal-break? Or perhaps simply… by the hearthfire in the Healing Halls?”

Legolas blushed a cloying scarlet, recalling this particularly risky encounter. After a day of forced separation, he’d been so bewitched by Elrohir’s lush countenance that he couldn’t keep himself from pouncing on him, consequences be damned. Dismissive of this heady negligence, Elrond had missed their more riotous coupling by a lark’s call. As it was, the Lord of Imladris had heard his full of their groanings and counseled them to keep their vow-breaking confined to chambers, where the greater populace of the Homely House would miss them.

Legolas had been so ashamed, he hadn’t touched Elrohir since.

However, as they again caressed before a hearthfire, memories of that molten encounter began to stir, along with the notion that he had not bedded his beloved, now husband, in three entire days. Elrohir’s fingers had crept beneath the folds of his sarong, slackening their weave, teasing the netted hem over the soft of his thighs. He longed for their knowing, generous strokes, longed to feel their hot clench on his arousal, but also knew they must settle their minds before such peerless indulgence.

“Elrohir?” he beckoned, his sober tone drawing the elf-knight’s rapt attention. “Do you ever wonder if… if, had such calamity not befallen our Nena…? We would certainly not have been betrothed, or you presence ever required in Mirkwood…”

Elrohir’s sage eyes quickened to shimmering silver, the intensity of his love so raw, so bare that Legolas couldn’t stifle a heartened exclamation. He recalled the very moment of their binding, when those haunting mithril orbs had bathed him in their blithe regard and their souls had surged f int into one pure flame. Elrohir shushed him with a gentle hand, whose fingers he kissed in lieu of the too-tempting mouth.

“I am yours, melethron, by the will of the Valar above,” Elrohir implored. “A drop of blood is no heart’s promise, nor could a disloyal elf-king’s schemings keep yours from needing mine. We are princes. Our lives are by design calamity-plagued, whether by those we have known, or others that were intended and failed. But know only this: I would have found you. I would perhaps have wooed with more difficulty, a path similar to worthy Elladan’s, but I would have won you, in the end. On this very day, at this very hour, would we be bound and blissful…? Perhaps not. But would we have known each other? Aye. Would I have loved you at a second’s glance? You know the truth of this, for yourself and on my part. Our hearts have been ever-joined, will *forever* be joined as one. This is our committed path, this is our vow. Do not waste these precious minutes on what may have been…” Elrohir slowly backed away, the fallen sarong trailing after him.

“I am here,” he whispered, before Legolas hurried to claim the first, sensuous kiss of their lush evening. “I am yours.”

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

As the blessing light of the silmaril gave way to the peachy blush of Arien’s dawn, Elladan bade goodnight to his vigilant grandfather and silently welcomed the morn. Weary, sleeping Glorfindel still burrowed tight in his arms, after a brief rest Elladan found that no dream could lure him away from the sight of his husband returned, even in penitent slumber. Thus, he’d waited-out the night in admiration of Glorfindescarscarlet-lidded face, his kiss-bruised lips, fusing their heated palms together when his healing soul-flame waned and murmuring reassurances against a sallow temple when the elder’s nightmares struck.

After several hours of stillness from the guard-captain, Elladan remembered his seed-slick thighs, the clammy stretch of his abdomen and his tear-salted chest; on this first, crucial morning, he would greet his new lover with freshness. He cautiously extricated himself from the somnambulant elf’s embrace, then ambled over to the wash-basin, bare as the day of his birthing. As he cleansed his cranky limbs, he again had occasion to observe himself in the telling mirror. Though his skin’s length was relit with an opalline shine and his frame recut with slabs of sinuous muscle, he appeared battle-worn: his hips and his thighs braised, his biceps striped with scars, his bottom lip red-swollen. This last only gave his rising smirk a wanton voluptuousness, which would no doubt prove wickedly useful in late-day seductions. Satisfied with both his rejuvenation and his self-refreshment, Elladan anointed himself with yasbrinth balm, tugged on – but neglected to fully lace – his tattered riding breeches, downed a waiting glass of oarberry juice (Erestor, no doubt, had seen to it), then trod out into the rose-tinted mist of the balcony.

Though Arien’s boldest rays but peaked through the dense forest of the eastern ridge, the air was crisp, bracing. A lush autumn stirred in these late September days, soon the cool emerald forest would unveil its most flattering colors: maize, rust, ochre, vermilion. Elladan was glad of the coming frost, eager for a winter spent breaking the spring-born colts, smithing the patrol’s dulled armor, and tending the stables. Only hours before, he’d forgotten the coming, snow-bound tasks he treasured, thinking this brisk day his last. As he leaned over the carved oak railing of the high balcony, he dared imagine future months spent in familiar tasks, chores both nd Gnd Glorfindel relished. In his learning years, they had wiled away many a winter afternoon in the stables, tending to the horses, stocking the armory; Elladan starved rabid by intuitive curiosity and Glorfindel ever-ready with knowledge. Their friendship was forged in these formative years, a friendship oft ignored when love’s shrill cry deafened him to its import.

Since love’s consummation, Elladan thought of little else than the renewal of this cherished routine, all the sweeter now that emotion underlay shared action. They might pause, for instance, over the expansion plans, to indulge in a caress, confirming their unspoken contentment at a long-desired initiative fulfilled. Despite the endless wars he’d waged and witnessed, Glorfindel had never soldered a broadsword nor restrung a longbow; perhapsadanadan could demonstrate the skills he’d acquired among the roughshod Rohirrim. Indeed, he would be glad to recount any of his travels and was eager to hear of Glorfindel’s own adventuring these long years apart. / I marked not how I have missed his company, as well as his care. /

A lilting whistle sounded from the far gate; the elf-warrior peered across the training fields. There astride two chestnut warmbloods lingered Elrohir and Legolas, moments from overtaking the path to the hilltop cottage. Elladan was surprised they rode with the dawn, their binding-night revels being – he assumed – quite engrossing. However, he knew Elrohir particularly longed for their shared solitude above the Rivendell valley; perhaps they had not bothered to sleep. He shouted a hearty goodspeed to them both, and felt their tender response in the deep of his chest. He, too, sent a surge of warm feeling through their tenuous link, suddenly remorseful at having to wait a two-month to confess his newfound joys to his kindly twin.

At one with the hallowed sunrise, his heart full to bursting, Elladan felt the sting, both of light and of tears, on his face.

He would live.

As they guided their steeds into the valley wilds, Elladan felt a tremulous presence behind him. Their bond mightily reformed, Elladan could sense each of his husband’s myriad emotions: ferocious shame at his past behavior, a grating need for reconnection, his badly scarred pride, dismay at the thought of Elladan’s potential reproach, and - a shadow lurking over these gray moods - needful, soul-gripping love. With uncharacteristic timidity, Glorfindel moved to join him at the rail. Elladan deliberately filled his mind with the glowing remembrances of moments before, thoughts of the future and hopes for their daytime preoccupations this coming winter. He dared not conjure his nighttime wishes, lest Glorfindel turn predictably noble.

Elladan held little place for gallantry in his bed.

“The air is sharp,” he commented, when Glorfindel was indeed at his side. “Ada and Lord Celeborn best conclude their summit before the leaves turn, else Lady Galadriel will pass a lonely winter.”

“It may take all of the fallen season to countermeasure the Mirkwood threat,” the guard-captain remarked. “Arwen rides for Lorien, on the morrow, with most of the Galadhrim. Only Celeborn and Haldir will remain.”

“Then we best wait-out the springtime with them,” Elladan suggested. “Thranduil may not sleep through the winter, with news of Legolas bound. Though I had not thought to plan otherwise.”

“As I well recall,” Glorfindel voiced, rather skittishly for one typically so bold. “You had made no plans after… after…” His eyes dipped down into the brush below, the memory clouding his vision.

“Yet this morning, I am ripe with anticipation,” he beamed, straightening himself and turning his gaze to his hush lover. “Plans, schemes, strategies…is it not strange?” With a soft laugh, Glorfindel raised his head, but waited on Elladan’s overture. None came, worrying him the more. “Will the Mirkwood princes depart soon?”

“Later, if I’m not mistaken,” Glorfindel ventured, with considerable restraint. “I wonder at the true nature of their acceptance of their brother’s choice.”

“If they are any like my constant brother,” Elladan conjectured. “They’ll hold their tongues, or defend Legolas to the last.” Few Few are bonded as you and the elf-knight,” the guardian noted. “So named for the peerless valor you both effortlessly display.” Elladan appeared to grow pensive, then flashed a wry glint to his tense, oblivious husband.

“*I* was named by one of such valor,” Elladan insisted. “His surpasses even that of my noble twin. An elf of such surly devotion, he would rr sur suffer an eternity’s torment than see me harmed by his loving. But even such a golden elf can mistake needless sacrifice for loyalty. Even he can be spared the pangs of guilt, as I like too well the felicity of loving the one that named me, that reared me, that taught me all my skill and sheltered my foolish heart, in youth, from his boldest desires. The first face I saw, on waking from my Nena’s womb, a sight beckoning me to fully engage this land and its two-edged wonders.” The pools of his silver eyes shimmered with tender resonance. “But now I am grown, Glorfindel, and have at last known your ferocious passion. Melethron, why do you not come to me? Are you so felled by unwarranted shame as to deny yourself the bliss of our reunion?”

“Would you have me, then?” he inquired, his voice quavering with tenuously held feeling. “I have behaved basely. Even last evening, when I came to be reconciled…”

“I would have died for love of you, Balrog-slayer,” Elladan reminded him, almost playfully. “I would most certainly live for it.” With a look of pure gall, he sat a haunch upon the rail, waiting for Glorfindel to come to him. /If he cannot breech this small distance, then he has not yet truly bested his fear./

With a quiet smile, Glorfindel met with him, lacing their arms around one another and brushing a soft, needful kiss over his bite-swollen lips. Elladan cupped his face, deepened their embrace. He carefully slid open his mouth, smoothing in a thick, languorous tongue. Glorfindel shivered, sighed; a sense of heady, blissful completion flowing through him, eradicating the last few knots of tension not burned away by Elladan’s giving kiss. On the previous night, the beauteous prince had known the force of his lust; on this rosy morn, he would know his most loving touch. With considerable reluctance, he pulled back from their rapt caresses, his eyes soliciting Elladan’s sweet attention. The boundless affection reflected in his stunning mithril eyes almost withered his resolve.

“Melethron,” Glorfindel whispered. “Have you ever… known another love?”

“None as you, lirimaer,” Elladan vowed.

“I need no reassurance, meleth,”amenamended. “I do not ask this pridefully. I merely… have you ever coupled in the love of another? Have you been in the love-act’s thrall?”

“Aye, there were others who momentarily captured my heart, in my travels,” Elladan admitted, then guessed the question’s astonishing reason. “Glorfindel… have you never before coupled in love?”

“I have not,” he confessed, some bashfulness returning. “I have coupled, for certes, in lust, in loneliness, but never in love. In this, my dearest one… you must be *my* guide.”

At this news, Elladan could not repress an exclamation of sheer, boundless delight. He grabbed Glorfindel’s by his loose wrists and pulled him away from the rail, towards his chambers, towards their waiting bed, his eagerness infectious.

“Come, then, melethron-nin,” he beckoned, a wolfish smile spread from ear to leaf-shaped ear. “Come to me, now, and I will learn you the weirding ways of the love-act… But be forewarned. You will shudder, and bay, and keen, and beg for the merest flick of my tongue across your tender thigh. For days after, you will think of nothing else than another taste, another chance at our quickening. You may never recover… and never again wish to be parted from me.”

“I already wish for this,” Glorfindel replied, indulging in a grin of similar wickedness. “What binding of our bodies could match the song of your gentle heart?”

“I will show you, my beauty,” Elladan purred, as they slunk through the entranceway. “Come inside.”

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

The ghostly cast of Earendil’s star loomed over light and shadow in the night’s stillness, purpling the tongues of smoke stilmingming from the snuffed hearth, blackening the far, secret corners of the quiet cottage, washing the darkling elf’s skin blue as the river over shallow banks. The lank, limber body lay like a shard of ice before the dead fire, angular limbs tucked in tight, his dormant length sleek as an ivory slit-knife across the bristled warg-pelt. In the moonlight, the sheen of his obsidian hair contrasted with the coarse, ruddy fur, the regal slant of his jaw and the sheer slope of his cheek slashing deep into the hide, as if beauty had indeed slain the beast.

Elrohir lay naked, unbothered by the rising chill; his skin, though pearly white, warmed from within. Wisps of his peredhil heritage were matted to hisck cck chest, dark, damp hairs framed his face, his mouth bit thickly red, his phallus slack across his hip; only these told the lusty evening’s tale, these mere traces. Gathered into a drooping ederdown blanket, into himself, on the window seat, Legolas ignored the tranquil night beyond, intent on the bedazzling effect the starlight had on Elrohir’s unique beauty.

Many times, in his long memory, had he observed the elf-knight in rapt slumber; each occasion marking a particular event in his development. The first night of their reluctant acquaintance in the Healing Hall of Imladris: Elrohir ailing from his near-fatal Nazgul wound and Legolas, but an elfling, threatened by the strange groaning form in the other bed. That same stranger so humorous but days later, snoring ath ath the Bruinen-bank willow, under which they would one day be lost in coupling, collapsed from fatigue while ostensibly caring for his infant charge. In Mirkwood years later, from the sanctuary of his own talan terrace, peering down at the alluring new visitor asleep on his chaise-longue, in his own sky-lit talan, Legolas caught in the mire of confounding infatuation. Later then, on the night of his undoing, waking to the feel of his new lover over him, to the sight of his taker revisiting their loving in his dreams. Just months ago he’d guarded his vital sleep by their campfire, fresh from the black riders’ chase and needful of replenishment; Legolas himself in need of some sedative drought, so vociferous was his racing heart at their recent reunion after centuries of separation. Weeks later, under that recurring willow, content and thoroughly sated by their lovemaking; every single night since.

Every night since, and every night for the foreseeable future… the momentous matter of his fraught waking just minutes before being that Elrond had, indeed, seen the future, and shared some of Legolas’ part with him, the afternoon of his binding. A handful of peaceful centuries awaited them, tasks at home, questing in the field, togetherness as long sworn beneath the ever-present willow. A time, however, would shortly come; a time when the Shadow’s reach would spread like a plague across Arda and when each elf would be forced to chose his allegiance: to Middle-Earth or to Valinor.

Their most potent soothsayers, Elrond and Galadriel, knew not the outcome of the final battle; only the actions, the choices, the valor of those chosen to lead the charge would decide their beloved land’s ultimate fate. Legolas, whose near-miraculous birth heralded his destiny, would be among those chosen, but no path is certain. Should he remain with Elrohir, should he cling to his husband’s skirts, the leaders may fail in their task, but he and Elrohir might escape to Valinor, together. If he depart with the chosen few, with one of mighty heart but not yet born, Arda may be saved. None knew if Legolas would survive the war, so closely nested was he with this kingly savior; Elrohir’s survival, though naught was ever guaranteed in forecasting, was strongly predicted, as his fate was ever-twined with Elladan’s.

On this night, Earendil’s star haunted their humble cottage; with his sallow light came visions of Gondolin’s fall to Legolas’ dreams, vivid reproductions of the kinslayings, of the later war against the Shadow, where the Ring of power passed to men’s weakness and Gil-galad the elven king fell. The volumes of history he had perused these last months, waiting to be bound, had returned to him in this honeyed time; the tales denied him by his arrogant father’s obsession with the tools of past wars and not their crucial lessons. Upon his return, he must further learn from Imladris’ ample library, must insist Elrohir teach him of their people’s wrong-sightedness. Only then would he know the path of his choosing, only then could he fight without fear of loosing the one he cherished most dear. For, since their binding, this fear gripped him as never before, dagger-sharp terror cutting to his very core, that the master-archer would miss his shot, that the most vicious knife-wielder would be cut down, that despite his every effort, his every hope for victory, he would err in carelessness and be slain. Elrohir widowed before his time, cursed by an eternity of longing in Valinor. For now he knew the ardor of his husband’s plentiful heart, knew its sole, unwavering purpose: to love him for the rest of his days. Nothing, not death, not Mandos, not some twinkly power-ring, would keep his constant elf-knight from that vowed quest.

Greatest of all in this, Legolas feared his own weakness, his own kept, devout heart, that longed to follow in this historic charge, whose mettle longed to be tested by the intemperate hand of this promised destiny. Was it weakness to abandon Elrohir with fate as gross comfort, or to escape from these troubles to Valinor with their love intact? Would he be able to leave Arda to ruin, the land he loved nearly well as his mate? Could he leave Elrohir to months of worry, of scorn, of regret, after only a few centuries of marriage, for callow adventure?

Legolas wrenched his eyes from the beauteous sight of his somnambulant beloved, forced them up with the stars, to the sky. Though hundreds of years waited his choice, he felt the decision’s weight as acutely as the day he’d cement it with a proffered bow. /Peerless Earendil, light my way. Bless me with the guidance that has led your hallowed kin to their heart’s joy, know me now as one of your honored lineage and help me accept the pthe the Valar has seen by my birth…/

“Yo gon gone cold, meleth,” Elrohir chided, sneaking in behind him and covering them both with the fallen blanket.

The darkling elf wrapped himself around his golden one, sinuous arms, lank legs, then hugged to his back, aquiline nose nudging the edge of his pointed ear in the chaste kiss of the puritan Avari elf-tribe – or so Elrohir had oft been heard to drunkenly argue to a scoffing maid at Barrowman’s Close, in his rambling youth. Grinning at this giddy recollection, he replaced his nose-tip with a cunning tongue, cool-steamed breath wafting after. The gambit was usually the first in Legolas’ tortuous undoing, but the archer showed no sign of arousal, his gaze fixed, pleading, in the heavens.

“Legolas?” Elrohir gently summoned him back.

The Mirkwood prince blinked, twice, came back into the present with a heavy sigh. He leaned back into his husband’s steady arms, allowing their tender sanctuary to hearten him. Elrohir, though eager to comply to this unspoken request, studied him, silent. In the seven days they’d been so happily sequestered here, not a false or discordant note had been struck between them. They’d rode, hiked, swam, conversed, mock-dueled, and ravenously coupled, some often simultaneously, without argument or incident. Even the matter of their absent mothers had been chewed out and suitably resolved, Legolas fervently offering his most painful remembrances for the solace of Elrohir’s healing words. His estrangement from this new sorrow greatly concerned him, as not a trace of its existence had reared this last, blissful week together.

Thankfully, the archer himself plunged into the thick of the matter.

“My apologies, melethron,” he excused himself. “I did not wish to exclude you…”

“Save your explanations for what troubles you, my brave one,” Elrohir whispered awaWhatWhat new agony could possibly shadow your constant heart, now that we are bound?”

“The woes of Arda,” he told him. “The Shadow’s ever-steady rise over our fair land, and the winds of war that blow along behind.” Legolas bunkered down, rested his head on the elf-knight’s chest. “I am young, Elrohir, begot with one purpose.”

“A new charge against the Shadow,” the darkling elf commented, without emotion. “I knew this before I knew you, meleth. What of it?”

“Has your Ada spoke to you of… of his visions? Of my foreseen destiny?” he asked tensely.

“Often, and quite thoroughly, Legolas,” he noted. “Ada would not have me blindly bound. Indeed, this was the very reason for our betrothal, so that I might steady your course, guide you to the ready path, and hold you tight to resolution. Support you, in your charge, from afar. I have always known of your predicted… your participation, in the final battle. I was bound to you in hope that our union might tip the odds in favor of your survival.”

“And if I wish to guarantee my immortality?” Legolas insisted. “If I chose… another path…”

It was Elrohir’s turn for a mighty sigh, as he fell eerily pensive a good, long while.

“I would caution you against this,” Elrohir finally murmured. “But I know not how. If you say, when the time is upon us, that our love’s continuation is of ultimate import… that you would not part from me, no matter whae coe cost…”

“I know it now, Elrohir,” Legolas vowed intently. “I would pay the price in dear Virgor’s foals, if I must, in forests or cousins or entire mines of mithril. I would not part from you, no matter what the cost, to Arda or to our people here.”

Elrohir bowed his head, only to face a mouthful of fragrant, flaxen hair.

“I would not part with *you*, lirimaer,” he near-sobbed. “But what if this, your choice, is what leads our love to bitter, in Valinor’s hollow splendor? What if the only way to ensure our eternal happiness and contentment there, is to fight, is to part, is to win the war… and to reunite in the aftermath and be fulfilled by the salvation of our land and our wintering people?”

“You have needled the very thorn in my side, Elrohir!” he mused, bereft. “Each night, after our most impassioned coupling, I have thought on this… been haunted by this very tormenting question. What if. *What if*. We cannot vow on supposition.”

“Then we must trust in our betters,” Elrohir counseled. “In the very protectors who saw us joined, against all odds, against our kindred’s angry history, against our death-hardened hearts, against easy infatuation, against your maddening father… against the creeping Shadow. We must trust in the Valar’s will, which we yet know not. Which will be illuminated to us both, in time.”

“Cursed time,” Legolas grunted, but was calmed by his reasoning.

“The time for cursing will indeed come forth,” Elrohir remarked. “But the time allotted to us for bliss, this is at hand. I would not spend it in fear of things to come.”

“Well judged, my dearest one,” Legolas conceded. “Nor would I.”

“Then cast away this cloying darkness, maltaren-nin,” the darkling elf rasped suggestively, as he urged them both to stand. “And come to bed. My wilding ways will tend to your bewildered soul, I promise you.”

“I doubt you not,” Legolas dared a mirthful smirk, but quickly sobered. “My mind would welcome such heady distractions… but… may we not converse awhile? Tell me more of your exploits, with Elladan, in youth… or of your pillaging of Lorien, with Haldir…or of Arwen’s lovers…” A thought struck him. “Has Arwen had lovers?”

“To speak of a fraught destiny!” Elrohir shook his head. He gathered Legolas close, allowed his fair archer a lingering kiss, full of another, more dizzying promise. He pressed their warm bodies together, felt them both begin to stir: hope was ever-constant, where their love was concerned. “Come then, melethron. I will hold you dearly and tell you tales of woe and wonderment, for your comfort, as on the night when first we met, in the Healing Hall…”

“Must we exchange blood, as well?” Legolas teased, as he let himself be led into their bedroom.

“Blood? No,” Elrohir considered mischievously. “Though you may yet have some draught to quench me…”

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

Middle Earth, Third Age, Year 2,719

From the stable-stalls below their makeshift chamber, Virgor’s comely mate, Leiliva, mewled in voluble discomfort.

Above him, Elladan’s own primitive baying echoed the horse’s intensity, but none of her pain. Indeed, as he ardently impaled himself on Glorfindel’s wrought shaft – hips bucking wildly, meaty muscles flexed, streaming from fevered exertion, skin flushed rose-raw, he seemed to relish in his own feral groans, every jolt to his sweet core eliciting a charge of blinding pleasure. Glorfindel, nearly joy-sick with keening pleasure himself, basked in his young husband’s thorough undoing; though, when Elladan’s fearsome quicksilver eyes bore into him, they left little doubt as to whom held the reins in their furious riding. Grabbing the thick of Elladan’s hard-swollen erection and thrusting deep into his devastating heat, Glorfindel thought to finish them both before serious injury was incurred.

The elf-warrior, as was increasingly customary these last months, had taken him without balm or aid, later savoring the ache of his internal bruises. He wore them as a hunter his most prized pelt, as a dragon-slayer’s neck was adorned with the creature’s teeth and claws, as spoils of valorous war. In times of uncertainty of purpose at the strategy table among the Elf-Lords, Glorfindel had lately observed his lover lean back in his seat and slide his hips beneath forward, applying pressure to his love-scars, the nail-stripes on his flanks, for confidence in this field of inexperience. His eyes would then darken to storm-cloud gray, but the pain roused him, remembered him his courage. Even Celeborn himself could not object to his subsequent arguments, the elders often struggled to justify themselves in the wake of the elf-warrior’s knowing observations. Glorfindel liked to believe his sage counsel, as well as their insatiable physical indulgences, had had effect on his dearest mate, but this little flattered Elladan’s own experience on the battlefield.

In the months since their clumsy reunion, the prince had proved to be, in all things, his equal; a partner of multiple, monstrous skill. The elf-warrior had had the somnambulant winter he so craved at their reunion. Both partners occupied themselves with gradual modifications to the stables and the armory, infrequent attendance at council meetings, occasional patrols, and much horse-rearing. They came to cherish their quiet routine: morning exercises on the training field, early afternoon chores, late day strolls through the snow-swept woods, evening merriments, and rapturous nights. To Glorfindel’s continual astonishment, Elladan never tired of his companionship, instead mourning the short time they need spend apart; though Elrohir’s company was especially welcome by his brother and the twins kept regular hours in secret, impish conversation in the high hayloft. In Elladan’s bravul, ul, Glorfindel had found a kindred flame. Never before could he share a warrior’s frustrations with another of similar mettle, pride reigned supreme in matters of honor. A husband’s heart, however, kept every shame-clogged confidence secure; when cocooned together in their most protected intimacy, Glorfindel could confess his past shortcomings to one of experience and of ample understanding.

This quickly became a comfort no other could hope to match.

As Elladan raced them towards quaking completion, Glorfindel distanced his mind from their mad grinding to gaze up at his glorious husband. He had passed centuries repressing himself, never daring to truly look upon him, upon the lush, ebony beauty that broke him. His was the body of a warrior, but the face of a king. His blitheness defied his roughshod adventurer’s soul; his beauty was ether, and mist, was of Ithil and of bounteous Elbereth, even in fault, or uncertainty, or hast-quickened anger. Elladan’s gallantry was not forced as some, but he liked his resilience too well. His was a fragile, needful heart, which he often secreted away from those he regarded most fondly. Glorfindel, however, had at last found him out; this quest had yielded treasures such as he had never thought to know.

The hot, sudden wash of seed across his abdomen woke him back, as Elladan howled out his release. His body surged, wrecked, and his passion coursed from him, coursed through him, raging, visceral, immaculate. Elladan coughed, once, then collapsed against him, woozy, laughing with delight.

Below, the fat-bellied mare groaned anew.

“She is ripe for birthing,” Glorfindel remarked, his collar stuck with slick strands of raven hair. “Tonight, perhaps?”

“She will wait until I am sated,” Elladan grinned mischievously, giddy with crippling desire. “You are ever mine, melethron. I will have you again.”

“Again?!” Glorfindel protested, but not whole-heartedly.

“Do not feign indignation, Balrog-slayer,” Elladan mirthfully accused, sucking fitfully at his mouth. “I have long held claim over your ragged heart. You are at my mercy.”

“This I do not protest,” he murmured. “But that does not oblige you to be merciless, limiraer. Think of my age…”

“You are more limber than I!” Elladan snorted, stifling a ready smile.

Before the golden elf could summon a playful retort, his husband pressed a gentle kiss to his red lips, full of rich affection, of his most secret sweetness. The prince lingered on this sensuous, needful caress, still eager to prove even their most relentless coupling heartfelt. After a solemn retreat, his mithril eyes turned a gleaming argent in the lone candle’s glow; Glorfindel could not resist their rapt, tender gaze.

“You have my love, most dear husband,” Elladan vowed, his earnestness almost too sharp to bear. “You *are* my love, Glorfindel.”

“I know it well, melethron,” he replied, with equal fervor. “I know not why, after all that has passed between us; I know not how you can forgive my many millennia of ignorance… But I have sworn not to squander another second of our togetherness, and I will not waste it now on doubt or regret. Not when my precious love lies here, in my arms. Not when his eyes flare with desire, and he would love me with all of his bold, beauteous self.”

“I do,” Elladan whispered. “I would…”

“Then have me now, for I would be yours, over, again,” Glorfindel beckoned him, his azure eyes light with abject reverence. “I would be yours, forever.”

With a sigh, Elladan lowered tear-heavy lids, and sunk into their kiss.


The End