Candlelight

Candlelight


Disclaimers: Middle-earth and all its inhabitants belong to J.R.R. Tolkien and his estate. I own nothing, am making no money from this, and intend no infringement of copyright.

Rating: NC-17.

Summary: Bad news awakens old memories.

Pairing: Elrond/Celebrían.

Thanks to Mahari for betaing this.


And …. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ISIS!!!!!


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The stone was cool beneath the elf-lord’s fedampdamp with the approach of winter, and the air was musty, heavy with the scent of dying leaves, and the sweet tang of the chestnuts hanging from the laden boughs. But for now it was dark, the night stung by the occasional star through the occluding clouds. Far off, there was the sound of laughter, the chink of glass against glass, and then merry silence, but here there was nothing but the still soft swish of fabric against tiled floors and the beating of his own heart, vivid in his mind. The scrawl of parchment almost slid through his idle fingers, butter-soft, and he grabbed at it hastily.

The brush of the silken breaches was soft against his legs, but there was a bitter chill in his heart, as if some demon wrought of ice had closed its claws about him. He smiled ruefully into the distance, but his grey eyes were grim, and the lines of his fine mouth set fast.

The wood grain was comforting against his brow as he leant his head against the door to his chambers, steeling himself to enter. In his mind’s eye, he could see her, waiting, her affection clear in her eyes. In pride, he shrank from the pity therein, for all that it was born of love.

He grimaced, scolding himself for such fear, after so many years, and closed his hand around the door handle. The latch slid easily, as well made as anything in the fortress-haven he loved so dearly. The chased metal was rough and smooth beneath his fingertips, and he knew he could trace the patterns without sight. The door opened soundlessly, cool air spilling from the room beyond into the warmer corridor as the waves upon the sea-verge.

Elrond stopped, his foot halted where it was, suspended across the threshold.

The bed curtains hung in graceful swathes, but the bedclothes were twisted into something closely resembling a nest, a hurricane-eye of wool and linen and pillows. In the centre of the maelstrom of soft cloth rested an open book. And on the open book rested a silver head.

It was that which had arrested the elf-lord’s attention, even as it had the first time he saw it. The silver hair, fine as the purest silk, rose and fell with the quiet rhythms of sleep.

Slowly, tentatively, he took a step forward, brushing his own hair back from his face in a slow fall of darkness. And yet Celebrían did not wake, merely turning her head into the pillow, one balled fist clutching at the cloth. But a smile touched her mouth, slow and sweet and secretive, and Elrond, watching her, felt his heart turn over, a bright fire beneath his ribs. He reached out one hand towards her, knowing that that smile was for him, even as he knew the leaves would turn amber and gold, and that the next year’s eaglets would grow feathers.

Moving closer, he could see her profile, a delicate line of nose and temple and cheek betwixt parchment and cloth. So pale, so very fair, her blue eyes lidded now in sleep.

He could not but smile, an expression which lightened the lines of his face, and brightened the starlight in his eyes. Slowly, so slowly, he stepped closer, gazing down into her face, tracing the lines of brow and cheek, memorising the colour at her lips, and the flush at her throat, the very palest tinge of pink, less even than the sunset blushing the clouds. He caught the angle of her shoulders, slightly hunched beneath the warm fabric as she burrowed into the nest she had built.

The curtains flapped at the open windows, as a cool breeze gusted up the valley, and she shivered, a furrow creasing her forehead, then quieted as the wind died.

He smiled, and sat slowly so as not to disturb her peaceful rest. How fragile she seemed in sleep, although he knew as well as any the strength of her heart. But in that moment it seemed that the very mists might break her, take up in a double-handful that silken hair and extinguish forever its light. He sighed, and settled himself more comfortably, his long legs stretched out before him, his head tilted to one side as he watched her sleep, the even rise and fall of her chest such a marked contrast to the sharp pain which seemed to burn in his throat every time she drew breath. Even here, in his own chambers, among the deathless, even after more than three thousand years, the pain of mortality pursued him as if it were a physical ague, not merely a presence in his mind. Tears pricked his eyes, much though he fought against them, as he thought of his brother, so long dead now, so long gone to dust and dirt, in a land lost beneath the sea. There was no cure for this ill, and even time would not banish its pain. And here, in the dark watches of the night, his Celebrían asleep beside him, he found he did not have the strength, for once, to fend it off, and send it fleeing back to the furthest corners of his mind as he was wont to do.

And she … she looked so wan, as the moonlight flooded across her, and her beauty seemed almost transient, as it never had before. He shook his head to dispel the foolish fancy, but it would not depart. He remembered her dreams, when she would awaken terrified, crying aloud, and clawing at her shoulder as if she had taken some mortal wound, and fear took hold of him again, stronger than before. Not for the first time, he wondered if he had been selfish in wedding her, he whose fate was so much tied to all things mortal and passing, to the fading of the years and the passing of the seasons, and to the fleeting of the winds. If it would not have been better to remain unwed, to allow her her freedom, and her safety, far away from here….

Again, he tried to shake off the malaise that gripped him, but, born of fresh grief as it was, it would not leave him.

And a hand closed over his, small and warm, long, delicate fingers prizing his clenched fist apart, soothing the crescent marks of his nails.

“If I were apart from you, I would not be truly free,” Celebrían said softly. Her lips curved into a drowsy smile, but her half-lidded eyes were serious.

Elrond’s eyes widened in startlement.

“You think loudly when aught distresses you, my love,” she reproached him, turning his hand over in hers.

“How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough.” She smiled crookedly. She shifted to face him, the sheets furling and unfurling around her. She shivered as a cold breeze caught one bare shoulder, prickling the pale skin with the faint dimpling of gooseflesh.

Elrond sighed. “If I had known, I would have thought more quietly, meleth-nín.” He attempted a grin, but his joking words echoed hollowly like dripping water in a cavern. He relinquished her hand, and stood slowly, folding his arms into his trailing sleeves. Without conscious thought, he paced the chamber, his gaze flickering from place to place, wood, and stone, glass and silk; anywhere but her face. His hand alighted upon a tinderbox, and, almost absent-mindedly, he lit the candles which stood waiting about the room, warming the rich hues of Imladris to life.

Only then did he turn back to Celebrían.

She propped herself up on one elbow and regarded him with steady blue eyes. The candles in their sconces touched the pale skin of her back with golden light, and set a flame in her silver hair.

Elrond shifted uncomfortably beneath the intensity of her gaze, and touched one hand to the weary throb growing in his temples. “I…” he began, and stopped abruptly.

Still she watched him, and waited. For a long time, he was silent, his eyes fixed on the guttering candle flames. His feet carried him restlessly back and forth.

“Eldacar is king in Arnor,” he said at last, his back to her, and his head bowed. “Valandil is dead.”

For his sake rather than her own, Celebrían stifled her cry of grief.

“I … I was blind not to see, not to have noted how tired he seemed…” Elrond continued haltingly. He turned back to her, and she could see that there were tears in his fathomless grey eyes. “Must mortality always come upon us unawares?”

“I think it must, when it comes upon those we love the most.” Her voice faded. “And, I, too, loved him. He was a true friend to me, but to you, I think, something more akin to a beloved nephew.”

Elrond uttered a choked cry, and tangled his fingers in her outstretched hand. He seemed to fold inwards, the great and glorious elf-lord melting away like a summer mirage, as he knelt beside her, the tears falling freely from his eyes.

‘Tis different, somehow, to know that one more generation stands in the darkness between Elros and myself. That he fades further into the darkness, while I remain in the Elven twilight…

I know. She soothed him, dropping lightly to the floor beside him, pulling the folds of the crumpled sheets about her. It is different, for he was more than a stern-helmed soldier-king to you, more than a tale in missives from the West.

Gradually his silent tears subsided, and she pulled his head into her lap, combing her fingers through his dark hair. He gave her a watery smile, and clasped her hand in his own, brushing his lips to her fingers.

For a long time they simply sat thus.

“I hope I have never given you cause to believe that you cannot trust me, El-nín,” Celebrían murmured, twisting the wedding band on his finger.

“Nay.” He frowned up at her. “Never that.”

“Then do not be afraid to speak to me of matters such as this, for I shall never decry you.”

He smiled wryly. “You are asking me to overcome the habits of a lifetime. I endeavour ever to do as you wish, rían-nín, but I fear that it shall take more than a yén to do so.”

“Then I shall wait for you.” She grinned, and tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. The pale skin of her long, slender arm seemed luminous in the dim half-light, and his breath caught in his throat at the brief flash of creamy flesh where it disappeared into the bedclothes which enfolded her.

“How could I do aught but hurry to meet you, when you show such beauty and wisdom, Celebrían?” he whispered hoarsely.

She laughed, and flushed with delighted embarrassment. “Your tongue runs away with you, Elrond Peredhil.”

“Really?”He quirked one eyebrow, and a smirk twitched at the corners of his mouth. “Perhaps my lady wife would care to instruct me as to how to remedy that.”

He sprang lightly to his feet, his robes a flash of deeply hued velvet around him, and reached out both hands to her. She placed her hands in his, feeling heat pooling within her at the unmistakable glint in his grey eyes. Tensing his arms slightly, he tugged her to her feet, and, with a deft twist of one wrist, pulled her flush against himself.

With the familiarity born of so many years, she coiled one arm around his neck, and met his gaze frankly, the glint now matched in her blue gaze. Aye, there was still sorrow there, beneath the veil of his thoughts, and old grief, but he was at least free of its toils and temptations. With a contented sigh, Celebrían leant up and let her lips meet his, hot with that familiar fever. One arm kept up a gentle pressure at her waist, while the other hand moved ceaselessly, caressing her through the soft cloth, now toying at the sensitive skin at her breasts, and now stroking her buttocks with an insistent rhythm.

She groaned quietly, and succumbed to her own mounting arousal, to the fleeting instant of the now.

And yelped, as Elrond took advantage of her distraction to divest her of the sheet. He grinned unrepentantly, the expression oddly boyish on his normally somber countenance. Lifting one hand, he let it fall gracefully to the floor beside her feet. “I fear that I must inform you that you are not entirely suitably attired, my lady.”

“And I fear that your behaviour is most undignified for one of your stature, my lord,” she retorted tartly.

"I fear I am most weary of dignity this night," he murmured.

"Weary?" She cocked her head on one side and regarded him with amusement.

He laughed delightedly, and, catching her wrist, brought her hand to his lips. "You undo all my reason, my lady." And with a deft twist of his wrist, he drew her closer still.

It was a while before either spoke again, and they had at last found the bed which they had sought blindly, too caught up in one another for sight or words.

Elrond traced the flickering blade of candlelight on Celebrían's arm as she leant over him. His eyes were wide and deep with desire, but his hand was steady as he followed the course of the faltering light inwards. "What thanks can I give you for that which you have given me, rían-nín?" he asked in a low voice.

She smiled softly, almost sadly, and cried out as his fingers found her nipple, twisting it gently until she moved against him without conscious thought or volition. "I have given you nothing but my myself."

"Even were that true, it would be more than enough." He propped himself up on one elbow and kissed her shoulder as if in benediction.

There were tears in her eyes for his loneliness of old, driving away the last vestiges of sleep, but she closed them, refusing to permit him that sight. 'Twas enough that she knew, and loved him none the less.

She draped her other leg across him, moving laconically, acutely aware of the tension in the lean hips beneath hers, the insistent warmth seeming to burn her through the last remaining layers of cloth. Her hands sought and found the fastenings of his tunic, and the fine silk slipped aside with barely a whisper.

He did indeed look to be a child of the stars, there, beneath her in the soft light, his skin silver-white, and his hair as dark as the void between the stars, some fable told when the elder children first walked abroad by the waters of Cuiviénen. But the unveiled hunger in his eyes was all too real, and at her waist she could feel the calluses on his hands from sword and pen.

Meeting his eyes for a bare instant, she grinned wickedly and, ducking her head, grazed her teeth across his exposed nipple. His response was instantaneous, and as eager as hers had been moments before. He groaned, his eyes flickering shut, his hands tangling convulsively in her hair. Liquid fire flooded through him, more deadly than quicksilver itself, tracing an inexorable web of heat about his loins.

Celebrían murmured soothingly to him, stroking her hands from breastbone to hip, but did not forego her task. He cried out again as her hands found the waistband of his breeches, and swiftly divested him of them. The coolness of the night air, and the sweet warmth of her body against his was nearly his undoing...

He struggled up through the miasma of desire, aware that the least of movements from her could bring this to a conclusion that he did not yet wish - or wished rather too well. With a wrench of will and a sly smile, he closed his hand over hers and drew it away.

She smiled down at him, her cheeks flushed, her blue eyes wide and hazy, and flowed with him in practised movement as he rolled her onto her back. She lay there, silver hair spread out about her, mischief playing about her lips, one knee crooked slightly upward. Elrond smirked at the tacit invitation, only too aware of the flush in his own cheeks, the hunger in his own eyes. Gently, seemingly tentatively, he stroked the soft skin of her inner thigh, a teasing pattern practiced and proved true over almost a yen. Her mouth worked silently as she tried not to call out. Not yet…

But his touch was insistent, his fingers as clever as they had ever been, the slight calluses only adding to the sensation, and she moaned quietly, her legs parting in acceptance, waiting, watching him through her slitted eyelids.

She saw a dark fall of hair veil her stomach, the rich hues glinting in the half-light, and then his hand crept higher still, and she heard her voice harsh in her own ears as one slender finger sought her out, teasing, tormenting….

A sudden rush of heat engulfed her, and she fought against it, knowing that she must lose.

The world seemed to darken as he bowed his head and his tongue darted out to tease at her.

Meleth-nín…Speech aloud seemed a very impossibility. Her fists clenched in the disordered pillows, and she pressed up against him, seeking to prolong the contact, but he held her still, suckling at her, his fingers moving in desperate concert with his mouth. She called his name, beseeching…

And when it seemed that there could be nothing more than this, when she could no longer even frame a thought, and desire was an ember burning in her mind, he joined her at last. She felt the familiarity of his thoughts coalescing with hers until she would be hard put to say where one began and the other ended, and then he drove slowly into her, and she clutched at his shoulders, winding one leg around his hips to bring him closer yet. Urgency seemed to seek to consume her, and she moved with a frantic pace, arching against him even as he thrust into her with a steady rhythm.

The muscles of his broad shoulders were tense as they writhed together, and she could smell the spicy-sweet scent of his hair falling about her.

Their mouths met even as their bodies, together, fëa to fëa, and hroa to hroa, until they were crying out in one breath, with one mind…

Their names a litany, a chant beyond all thought, all reason, seared from their very lips…

Burning, burning, they fell together, as the candles burnt low in their sconces. Joy took them, and they fell, sweating, and trembling, and struggling for breath. Long they lay together, bodies moulded one to the other, even as the first grey hues of the dawn lightened the sky to thet.
t.

At last, he slept, and she watched him, as the trees emerged from the night-shadows, and the horizon took on a deep umber hue, and the candle flames flickered and died, and then, satisfied of his peace, she, too, slept.


FINIS


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rían-nín – my queen, a play on Celebrían’s name.
meleth- nín - my love.
el- nín – my star, a play on Elrond’s name.


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