Of Elbereth's Bounty

Title: Of Elbereth’s Bounty – Part 6
(third in my unofficial series, after In Earendil’s Light and Under the Elen)
Author: Gloromeien
Email: swishbucklers@hotmail.com
Pairing: OMC/OMC, Legolas/Elrohir, references to Glorfindel/Elladan
Summary: What’s worse than a stubborn elf? A pair of them.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimers: Characters bg tog to that wily old wizard himself, Tolkien the Wise, the granddad of all 20th century fantasy lit. I serve at the pleasure of his estate and aim not for profit.
Author’s Note: It does help to no end to have read both In Earendil’s Light and Under the Elen before this, as otherwise you might not recognize any of the characters. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for keeping to the path thus far!!
Feedback: Would be delightful.
Dedication: To the moderators of Library of Moria, Melethryn, Adult Fan Fiction.Net, and other sites of their ilk for all their wonderful, tireless work and for keeping us up to our ears in fic.

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Of Elbereth’s Bounty

Part Six

With a grunt of frustration, Echoriath dashed ink over the sketch before him and jabbed his quill into its sponge. The dim light of the candle was amply sufficient for his needs, but his filmy eyes could no longer focus on the tea-tinted parchment. The failure to deliver this latest innovation to the woodcarvers they’d commissioned for their furnishings would further delay the readiness of their apartments, what with construction churning on at a furious pace, yet with one glance at the cornsilk strands splayed across the pillows of his nearby bed, Echoriath could not bring himself to regret this. Though his eyes were scratched red and burned with overuse, the mere sight of Tathren burrowed under his covers for the fifth night in a row was enough to wet them with joy.

Upon his return from a last, unsupervised audience with his grandmother, who sailed for Laurelin at dawn, Tathren had been deathly silent. Echoriath had longly sat, curled with him by the fire, sipping tea but unspeaking. These last, precious nights, the golden elf had found twin comforts in Echoriath’s arms, both the implicit tenderness of a faithful lover and the unwavering support of a friend. Tathren’s troubles could not entirely quench his fever for the young elf, nor delay Echoriath’s quest for bed-learning; indeed, the solace he sought in their joining naturally deepened the feeling between them. Their coupling became more sensuous, more heartfelt, Tathren all-too-needful of Echoriath’s skillful nurturing. His strident cousin may be well-versed in the act of love, but the darkling elf had mastered the selfless care of a loved one. As a result, Echoriath had experienced nearly a week of unparalleled regard, admired for his proficiency at the building site, for his sustainiompaompany in the evening, and for his keen willingness at night.

Their routine was so gratifying, that part of him guiltily wished Tathren might never reconcile with his fathers.

This slight blasphemy might have tempted further exploitation, if Tathren were not so visibly bereft at their estrangement. This recent episode had been the blackest yet. Earlier by the fire, Echoriath had been gathered to him with the sanctity of an immaculate, not even his most delicate, anxious sighs had wrought a word from the listless elf. Unbeknownst to his desolate cousin, the darkling elf had slipped a light draught in his tea; with a precipitous yawn, he now considered that perhaps he’d drugged the wrong cup. Nevertheless, Tathren had soon been slumped against him, his tea almost spilt when his hand finally, gladly, went limp. Their lurching journey to the bed was best swiftly forgotten, though hissin’sin’s knee might smart some come morherehere had simply been too many limbs to account for.

Quitting his easel and blowing the candle out, Echoriath tugged off his night shirt, as he ambled over to their bed. He wondered if he should doff his leggings, as well, or might the mere sensation of bareness against him cause Tathren to rouse too early the coming morn? So many simple, overlooked details to togetherness eluded him still, reminded him of how much further teaching he required. Luckily, Tathren’s problems had hidden any impropriety, where his own fathers’ attentions were concerned, to their sharing living quarters and his prolonged attachment to his cousin, as well as provided an easy excuse as to why he might, in the future, absent himself for a string of consecutive nights, without the notion of an unknown lover being ventured for their protection. He was little at ease with such deceptions, especially towards his own too-blithe fathers, but would willingly pay the price, when the time did come, for Tathren’s worthy affection.

With every passing night, Echoriath’s hope grew that this bliss might come to last his lifetime long.

Seconds beneath the covers quickly told him that the leggings were too cloying, after all. He had become accustomed to the caress of the sheets, to Tathren’s silky skin, to his wealth of ‘jewelry’ spread unbound across his thigh. Restriction of many kinds had begun to chafe him, especially the elastic tug of the hose. With the stealthiest of maneuvering, he swam through the sheets without a superfluous rustle, brushed a space of pillow free of golden hair, and twined their lank limbs gently together. Only when he lay his own woozy head down and turned to ghost a kiss over his lover’s lips, did his bronze eyes meet the glistening gaze that sought him. The pain that winced those fair features, that constricted the pale throat and blanched those angular cheeks, seized him such that his groggy senses instantly woke.

“*Echo*,” Tathren rasped coarsely. He clenched his teeth, fought to bite back a sob, but the effort only forced out his tears. Echoriath wrapped him in secure, unshakable arms, the gush of his dear cousin’s sorrow wetting his own neck, streaming down his chest. “…forgive me, I…”

“Hush, meleth-nin,” he cooed to him. “They have not forsaken you. I daresay their misery may be more vicious than your very own.”

“It is their fear that keeps them away,” Tathren retorted, as he struggled to steady his breaths. “I repulse them.”

“You challenge them,” he amended, his tenacious arms never failing. “Provoke them, cause them to re-examine decisions made in a different, more ominous time. Perhaps they do not come to you because they themselves are not reconciled to a certain course of action. Perhaps they cannot give you the permission you seek, so they await the… the tempering of your rage. For you raged, tathrelasse, by your own admission.”

“I am no longer angry,” he admitted, but could not yet ebb the flow of his tears. “Merely… I feel… I feel… abandoned.nnednned, like an unsightly thing…forever alone.”

“Who, then, embraces you now,” Echoriath whispered bashfully. “If you are so alone?”

With a whimper of regret, Tathren melded himself to him, not a speck of space allowed between them.

“Swear to me, nin bellas,” he begged him. “Swear that though our lust may one day be slaked and our bodies eternally sated… swear that you will always count me dear, as heart’s brother if no longer as lover. As friend as well as cousin by affi’s s’s sake.”

“I swear, meleth,” he vowed solemnly, and much more besides to his own heart. “If you, in turn, will think on all the milliard ways your fathers have shown their love, not kept it back, as well as all the burdens they bore to see you safely grown.”

Tathren sighed, then, so long and deep Echoriath thought he’d spent his entire lungs’ breath.

“I swear,” he exhaled softly.

He coughed out the last of his sadness in Echoriath’s vigilanter-yer-yielding arms, then let himself be sweetly kissed to sleep.

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

The magic was not in the constant flame of the lantern nor the sheer sweep of the diaphanous curtain, not in the hushly rasped words of the tale nor the dance of long, elegant fingers through the static air. The trick of it was simple enough: the dim of night, the lateness of the hour, the play of shadow and firelight across a humble sheet. That the storyteller survsurvived the events he now depicted held little import to the elfling that hung on every syllable that hissed from his lips, every creature that crept and leapt, by the cast of his nimble archer’s hands, across the tarp that kept his cot shroud from the rest of the patients’ quarters.

Arms raised up in a gesture quivering with might, thumbs jutting downward long and clean as a sword in the shadow behind, Legolas held Ivrin’s saucer eyes in rapt suspense.

“On but a slip of shale stone the wizard stood,” he intoned ominously. “The bridge of Khazad-dum. He lifted his longstaff, but a modest stick of ederwood, up into the brimstone face of the fiery Balrog of Moria, and bellowed as fiercely as the thunder rages… ‘The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udun. Go back to the Shadow! You. Cannot. Pass!!’ Then, with a deftness and agility none would account him for, he stabbed the rod into the very rock of the bridge and the entire mountain began to quake…”

As Legolas twined his fingers into the horned illusion of the Balrog, Erestor let his shrewd eyes flicker over Elrohir, at his side. While certainly not as enthralled as the tiny elfling on the cot, the darkling elf’s eyes shone with bedazzlement of a different hue, the unblemished aura of a lover’s affection. Both elves continued to prove themselves rather brave-faced before adversity. After the agonizing events of the last week, none would have expected them to so willfully and graciously play nursemaid to Ivrin this two-night, during Erestor’s brief but necessary absence from Telperion, but Elrohir had himself volunteered the service and Legolas had gladly accompanied him. Indeed, upon Erestor’s return just minutes before, he’d been astonished to discover Legolas in the thick of the first act of his thrilling tale, as Elrohir cleaned the examination table of tools, leftover herbs from the wrap, and old dressing shards. Both elves had eventually found themselves drawn towards the cot, as Legolas was a premiere raconteur, though they lingered far enough not to break his genially conjured spell over the little awed one.

Once the legendary Balrog was smote by the equally hallowed Gandalf Grayhelm, Elrohir clutched his arm with a chaste grip and nodded towards the healer’s study. The two elves swept away with nary a rustle of their billowing robes; once enclosed within, Erestor offered him a seat by the glowing hearth. As he stoked the crackling logs, he again observed, with necessary stealth, the comely elf-knight, who gathered himself into his armchair as if any loose limb might be lost to swift and merciless amputation. The serene face that had regarded his mate so reverently was pinched, uncommonly anxious, though Erestor doubted anxiety truly so uncommon to one currently estranged from his only son. Not since his days of questing had Elrohir sought a healer’s counsel from him, but by his strange, perplexed manner, twas not a Loremaster’s encyclopedic mind he would question forthwith. Disturbed by this sudden, though for the moment hidden, illness in one so fine and dear, Erestor quickly settled himself in the armchair’s twin and regarded his former charge with compassion.

“What troubles you, meldir?” Erestor cut to the quick. The darkling elf may ever be diplomatic in other relations, but he rarely countenanced aught but blunt honesty between them. “Even the bloom of your pinkish cheeks seems sallowed, when away from your luminous husband.”

“In truth, I…” he began, then just as quickly halted. With a cavernous sigh, he wrenched his eyes away, their cold silver light finding solace in the hot gold of the flames.

Erestor smiled generously at the reluctant elf, then rose to find his kettle. He spruced the fresh water with chamomile, lemon, honey, and a dash of athelas, suspended the iron pot from a winch in the brick dome of the hearth, and silently fetched two fat-bellied clay cups from a desk drawer. Elrohir’s argent stare never left the spitting fire, as he ruminated over facts, impressions, methods of explanation where nonsense reigned. Just as the first, steaming gush of tea was poured into his waiting cup, so the first rush of excuses tripped from his well-gnawed lips.

“You will think it nothing odd,” the still hesitant elf-knight dove in. “As did I, in the earliest days. A time of contentment, anticipating our son’s return. Our spirits sparked by his nearness, by his impending advent. Then he was returned, and was it not natural that we rejoice, as parents, as… lovers, in the feelings his brilliance and triumph wrought? It seemed so, to me, at first, but then time sped on and the routine settled in and yet still… still. Then Legolas broached the one subject I’d been avoiding all this while, in the embers of our passion no less, and I could deny it no longer, mellon-nin… It consumed me.”

“Forgive my ignorance, my brave one,” Erestor urged him to elucidate. “But of what particular ailment do you speak with such… what exactly has beset you, Elrohir?”

Elrohir sighed again, this last rather Elrondian in breadth, then pressed on. “I know not. I would not have even thought to consult you, but… the fever shames me so.”

“You have felt feverish?” Erestor pondered, still somewhat confused. “Are there chills, as well?”

“Nay, I do not fade, Erestor,” he snapped, then schooled himself. He twisted his fingers together, as if to clamp them still, then laid the resulting double-breasted fist in his lap. “Your pardon, meldir…”

“Please, go on,” the healer insisted, his concern mounting with every delay. “What other symptoms have expressed themselves?”

“Swelling,” he whispered, as timidly as Echoriath might. “Rawness. Chafing…”

“Might I examine this tender area?” he asked gently. The resulting glare, halfway between horror and repulsion, gave him his unwavering answer. “Gwador, you must be more precise in your description, if I am to allay this… this distressing…?”

With a curt nod, Elrohir shut his eyes. They found the blue of the flames again, before they began a far different tale from the sprawling adventure still booming from the main hall.

“For over a month,” he recounted tersely. “I have been what can only be described as… insatiable. I long, with a fervor unknown in my ample years of marriage, unmatched in my youthful adventuring, and more ardent than even the honey-time after my binding, for the most relentless intimacy with my husband. For a time, I thought this merely another crest in the waves of desire that flow through an elf-couple’s eternity together. I held no worries at all, as we both quite relished stealing extra moments during our daily chores to love. Though these soon became even more frequent, we were both quite giddy, quite besotted, and I thought little of other than reaping the benefits of my husband’s intense regard. In truth, I began to suspect all was not well with me but last week, when on a night of particularly involved coupling Legolas, exhausted past proper endurance, fell fast asleep and I… I wanted him again. Since that moment, I have not been able to stop, not even for the sparest slip of time, desiring his constant attention. Physical attention.” He paused. His cheeks were burnt scarlet from this heated confession, but, despite gut-knotting shame, he dug into the meat of the matter. “I am an elf of reason, as you well know, of measure and of meaning… yet I must force my mind, again and again, to attend to whatever action I am currently performing. I am hopelessly distracted from my duties with the Council, I have not accomplished a task in weeks that did not require double the allotted time, every mention of Legolas causes…” Erestor had not thought it possible for him to blush deeper. “During our family crisis, these days past, my husband has required the care of his beloved, not his lover, of his chosen partner and life-mate. I have coddled him the best I could, but never was the need to ravage him far gone. My tender husband, so abashed, so pained, and I looked upon him as a lecher would!! It is unyielding and ferocious, Erestor, this… this terrible lust!!”

Rather than be amused by this unsightly matter, Erestor grew severe. “This swelling you spoke of… where is it located?”

“My…my seed-sacs,” he admitted, his cheeks biting-red.

“Elsewhere?”

“Nay,” he stated, his throat clenched. “Unless I prove to be…”

“Aroused,” Erestor stated, with a clinician’s distance. “Forgive me, meldir, but I must inquire further. Do you recover with… shocking swiftness, from your release?”

“*Shocking*,” Elrohir confirmed, bearing the brunt of his questions with considerable poise.

For a short while, Erestor grew pensive. He poured the darkling elf another cup of the remedial tea, motioned for him to drink. He had immediately known what mischievous quirk of elven constitution had provoked the ‘fever’ Elrohir had described, the delicacy was in explicating its cause to one who may, in his inimitably decisive manner, bear considerable resistance to the suggestion. On the night of Ivrin’s gutting procedure, the insomniac Loremaster had overheard, from the cot he’d shared with Haldir, Elrohir’s impassioned self-defense regarding the debate that had concerned he and his mate long before Laurelith’s return from Mandos. Elrohir, nor his Lord Elrond, had not confided any further developments to him, but Erestor had little doubt the matter was not yet settled between Legolas and himself.

The unfortunate, all-too-physical consequences of his indecision had come to so terribly afflict him.

“Your courage in coming forth is commendable,” Erestor complimented him. “In my own time of intemperance, too recently past, I had not presence enough to query even Elrond’s counsel.”

“You, gwador, have been similarly beset?” Elrohir queried breathlessly, his relief palpable.

“Aye, two autumns past,” he recounted. “Both Haldir and I, myself, were quite acutely piqued by a most desperate thirst. The greater the frequency with which we lay together, the deeper the well of our need was trenched. We suspected all manner of madness, bedevilment, or skullduggery, but the remedy proved… rather wondrous.”

“But the reason, meldir,” Elrohir pressed him. “What was the cause? The resolution?”

“Be warned,” Erestor cautioned him, with keen eyes. “The results of my subsequent research may unnerve you… anger you, even.”

“Yet I must be told,” Elrohir insisted. “This torment must end! My dearest, my peerless husband -”

Elrohir heard the urgency in his own voice and sucked back a long draught of air. Between his necessary self-repression and the anguished events of the week passed, his patience was wore threadbare. Sage Erestor, however, held the knowledge he required to smother his too-potent desire and to succor his near-grieving mate. He blew the last of his agitation out between pursed lips, then folded himself back into attentiveness.

When steady mithril eyes met his own, Erestor proceeded to inform him.

“When an ellyth and an ellon are bound in love,” he educated him. “Their soul flames are joined, paired in flesh and linked in spirit. Though the love-act consummates this bond, the only true melding of their fea, as one soul, is in the conception of a child. Many ellyn, however, choose to delay this natural progression of their union, some forever, some merely for a time. If the couple tarry too long, one, or both, of the bonded be obe overcome with the need to beget children, even unconsciously so. Spurred by the feelings shared with their beloved, this desire eventually manifests itself physically. In the bodily expression of your love.”

After a precipitous gasp, Elrohir became statuesque in his stillness.

“But,” he objected, with tremulous calm. “What of ellon bound to ellon?”

“Bindings of same gender,” Erestor continued. “Are similarly sct. ct. The effects are often prolonged and doubly painful, as there is no quick method of resolution, no chance of conception within the bonded pair. Over years of time, if unreconciled, the need will become more bearable, then diminish, then disappear altogether. There is a tonic to allay the symptoms some, though there is a more ready alternative…”

“A child begotten with another,” Elrohir grumbled at the serendipity of it all. He snorted as fitfully as a soot-snouted dragon, his muddled mouth set firm. “How timely.”

“Indeed,” Erestor murmured, letting him mull over the wearying circumstance.

“Would that my waterlogged head,” he mused finally. “My capsizing heart be as easily resolved as my wave-tossed flesh and my frothing loins.” Erestor hiccupped a laugh, despite himself, which had the effect of putting the goaded elf somewhat at ease. He laughed himself, sharp and salty, then raised an inquiring brow. “Did you not mention that your own binding pact was once plagued by such brooding? By what method did you successfully overcome your need?”

With a bashful smile, Erestor admitted: “By giving in.” At Elrohir’s astonishment, he finally revealed his long-gestating joy to one outside his marriage bed. “I was not alone in my hot-headed folly, that autumn. Haldir also was aflame. By the first flakes of winter, we would abandon our cares to couple nearly the day long, such was our need to make our mated soul-fires material. At that time, if you recall, my sister Elerrina returned from Arda. Hers is a lonely tale. Two millennia my elder, she had the misfortune of begetting three sons before her chosen mate would bind to her. An unseemly elf, he abandoned her after their third child was born, to raise my nephews alone. But fortune would not yet favor her. All three evidenced their sire’s taciturn nature, were slain in battle and linger at Mandos still.”

“Yet of late she is quite courtly, for one so tragic,” Elrohir remarked, well-remembering the gentle and goodly elf he had had many a celebrant occasion to converse with.

“After centuries of grief, her fortunes turned at last,” Erestor proudly recounted. “A chance meeting, at Imladris, with Haldir’s fair cousin Alqualir. They have not hence parted company. Indeed, there was talk of betrothal, when last we spoke.”

“I am glad of it,” Elrohir dared a smile, though was not confused away from his inquiry by this digression. “But you skirt the issue at hand, Loremaster.”

“In a way,” Erestor considered enigmatically. “When we were in the fever’s thick and desperately searching for one to bear our child, my kindly sister offered a gesture of such heartrending generosity, I have yet to properly digest its impact upon me. After some deliberation, and no little consideration, she lay with my Haldir and begot our first babe last summer. A son. Orinath. I hastened to his birthing, yestereve, at the ancient seaside town below Taniquetil, where Elerrina and Alqualir reside, with my Adar.”

“A wily one, you are, to so conceal your joy!!” Elrohir exclaimed, rising to embrace him.

Both the shout and Ivrin’s succumbing to long-lurking slumber brought an inquiring Legolas through the door. “Elrohir? Are you well, meleth?”

“Fetch your broadsword, maltaren-nin,” he taunted mirthfully. “We have, in our midst, a purveyor of mysterious and colluding inveiglement.”

“How now?” Legolas queried, with feigned concern.

“Truly, meldir,” Erestor flushed, rattled by his teasing. “One hardly speaks of such things.”

“A son born of your bonded’s siring *night last*, Erestor,” Elrohir playfully accused him. “How long did you think to keep such glorious news?”

“Until the summer’s fading,” he confessed. “When both he and his sister will come home.”

“His sister?!” Legolas interjected. “I fear we may have to summon our Lord and Adar Elrond, if you do not loose your watchful tongue.”

With a flustered grunt, Erestor explained: “Our daughter… *my* daughter… will come in springtime. Alqualir is but newly plump with her. Both she and Elerrina will reside in our compound, amidst the soothing elms, soon as Echoriath and his builders can complete the commission. They share our long-vowed purpose in coming overseas, to found a school here in Telperion, where children of both new-founded elven realms can flourish in a safe environment. Children such as Ivrin and his sisters.” With a mightily contented sigh, he turned pensive. “*Our* children, and many more.”

Erestor did not fail to mark the shadow that then shroud Legolas’ congratulatory face. A cry from the hall beyond saved him from the poignant moment, from his husband’s steadying touch.

“Such happy news, Erestor,” he well-wished his friend, before escaping. “By Elbereth’s bounty, I know them blessed.” Fleet-footed, he sped away; back to the too-heartening need of the sickly elfling.

When Legolas was gone, the Loremaster grew sober. “You must speak with him, mellon-nin. Tell him of the trials you weather, find succor and strength in your bond-mate’s consolation.”

“He is too raw from Tathren’s scolding,” Elrohir shook his head. “My plight will only burden him further. And if I… if I choose to suffer on, until the fever abates… if I cannot grant him the second child he so longs for… He will never forgive me for denying my body’s need.”

“In elfkind, the flesh is but a physical manifestation of our hotspring fea,” Erestor advised him. “From this eternal flame emanates each and every one of our cares, our burdens, and our unspeakable desires. Perhaps in voicing your troubles to your valiant husband, you will at last resolve yourself.”

After some reflection, Elrohir asked: “Were you resolved, meldir, by your daughter’s begetting?”

“Gloriously resolved,” Erestor beamed, then heartily embraced his longtime friend.

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

In the gloaming onset of twilight, two sprightly elves waved a hearty farewell to their friends at the forking path and trod down the road less traveled. Merrily they trampled through the dew-slick grass, their muscles lank from the trials of construction, but their spirits airy-light. Though their challenging task was the most all-consuming effort either had undertaken in their short lives, they daily reaped the spoils: of brotherhood with the explorpartparty, of togetherness between the three cousins, of confidence from the esteemed members of the High Council.

Already further commissions were being floated under their too-keen noses, the most savory of which was a three-month trek and five season-cycle stay at the site for a potential eastern colony. The susurrations of shared gossip between Thorontir and loose-lipped Erechtilon, one of the council elders, upon the latter’s noontime visit, had reached the leaf-shaped ears of one Tathren Legolasion, who hastened to impart his ill-begotten knowledge to their newly-renown architect and master builder.

Who had, all-too-typically, flushed with amazement.

As they wove their way through the trees, speckles of the roseate sunset glinted between the meshed boughs, which dappled a path of amber, ochre, and vermilion before them. Without the hawkish eyes and wagging tongues of the builders to temper their oft too-evident regard, the blonde elf snuck a stealthy hand around the slender waist of his companion and tucked him under his arm, relishing the pressure of that weary body against him, the head that lolled onto his shoulder and the twin hold that anchored him in. Lured in by the crisp, seaside scent of that sensuous ebony hair, he rested his cheek against the darkling elf’s crown and drank him in like a connoisseur. Secure in the knowing that none among their kin followed this longer, more scenic route from river glade to high-borne talans, they meandered contentedly about, luxuriating, even, in the other’s easy affection.

Echoriath was particularly grateful to bask, if only for a brief while, in Tathren’s doting attentions, as the lion’s share of their downtime had lately been spent either in coupling or in his consolation. Yet the specter of another raw night did loom among the forest hollows; their lazy way led not to the willow thicket, but again to his fathers’ house. He expelled these black thoughts from his too-dizzy head, when Tathren halted their progression and caught him up close. The effortlessness of the smile that graced his cousin’s noble features made him even more loathe to take up the matter now. He rested their brows together, then spryly rubbed their noses as in the legendary, chaste kisses of the Immaculates of Lake Helevorn.

“Tell me truly, sweet one,” Tathren whispered. “Here in the forest shroud. Does my loving please you?” At Echoriath’s fearful gasp, his eyes tippled with mirth. “I do not mean to stave off our relations, my dear one, nor that I have not marked your passionate response, I merely… You are often too shy to voice your own suggestions, too eager in learning to question what you are taught, so I thought to open, as it were, the matter for some discussion. We are perhaps too newly coupled to consider improvisation, or some of the more… advanced techniques, but your desires are, I believe, mature enough to know when improvement is required.” When Echoriath’s comments was not forthcoming, Tat fou found he could not keep from blushing. “You are oftentimes so quiet, in completion’s wake… I simply wish to learn what pleasures you like best, and if there are some that might… in truth, I know not what you favor. Do they bear up to your imaginings? Less ardor? More lingering? Am I too coarse, at times, or too meek…?” When the young builder felt his cousin’s shoulders tense, he stole a kiss away. This, however, only served to aggravate him. “Valar, Echo, will you not answer me?”

“There is naught that specifically comes to mind,” he sighed, then kissed him more fully. “Nor has any act of our coupling aught but enraptured me. Are there moments when you doubt my… my interest?”

“Never,” Tathren conceded. “I merely seek guidance, in your tutelage. I would that you be thoroughly versed in the acts that most thrall you.”

“But *every* act you have so generously learned me has held my too sensate flesh in raging, blissful thrall!!” he giggled. To his relief, Tathren echoed his bemusement. “Truly, meleth, how am I to favor one act over another, when each succeeding embedment soars to heights of ecstasy I have never known before?”

Tathren snorted with affected exasperation, then mused: “I kindly inquire after your preferences, and you mock me! Imp!” Despite his rather forced haughtiness, he recklessly fondled Echoriath’s ripe backside.

Echo stifled a groan and murmured to him: “My language may be somewhat overwrought, but my meaning is pure, maltaren-nin.” He pecked Tathren on the tip of his aquiline nose, then honestly considered the question at hand. “I do have, upon reflection, two requests.”

“And these are?” Tathren queried, regarding him with such fondness and warmth that Echoriath’s hesitation was instantly banished.

“Firstly,” he began bashfully. “The orchard is parched from our sultry summer, and I must delay our progress with the apartments a day or two in order to attend the fruit trees. I will again perform the ritual which you so… so vividly interrupted, not yet a fortnight ago. After my communion with the trees I am often quite… tender. Sensitized to every drop of rain on my skin, every touch that might graze…”

With a wolfish grin, Tathren anticipated his request: “You would that I take you, immediately after. Under the peach tree, perhaps?”
ightight… might this be amenable to you?” he timidly inquired, his color irresistibly rising.

“Amenable?” his cousin teased, delighted. “Aye, somewhat.” With a laugh, he plucked a saucy kiss from his timorous one’s plump, red mouth. “What else, beauty?”

Echoriath’s lush face turned melancholy, yet his golden eyes full as a glowing harvest moon. His dark cousin’s hold tightened almost imperceptibly, his arms solid, unyielding around him.

“I swore to Ada-Dan I would dine at table this eve,” he told him. After a halting instant, he begged: “Come with me.”

Tathren tried to pull away, but Echoriath held fast; one look at the implacable, yet compassionate eyes told him it was the vigilant lover of nights past, not a lamb-pelted heathen, who kept him close.

“This wish I cannot grant,” he replied apologetically. “Forgive me, lirimaer. I know how our quarrel disheartens you, but-“

“Grandsire will attend,” Echoriath tried again, fluttering pliant lips over his rigid jawline. “Grandmother, as well. Your absence will be keenly felt, tathrelasse. None is allowed to take your seat. It is left empty, as if awaiting your return. Your fathers would be overjoyed by your attendance, they would not bother you… they may not even address you directly. The thought of their faces…”

With a forlorn sigh, Tathren remained immovable. “I canno

To his surprise, Echoriath bowed his head, as if in shame. “Why do you seek a tyrant’s favor over your gracious fathers’ regard? The approval of such a vile, selfish, ridiculous elf? I have been loved, this past week, by one of such blithe worthiness, such tenderness, strength, and skill… *why* does such an elf need a murderer’s blessing to count himself hale? To realize the greatness of which we all know him possessed? Can one as shy and humble as I be granted an explanation? For I have known the elf in question most intimately, and though he has my sustenance in every venture, I cannot, as you say, countenance this valorous folly of his.”

“To prove that I am alive,” Tathren croaked, too affected by his words. “That though he ten plo plotted my ruin and took every chance to smite my growing, I am here. I survive, whole and hale. I live on, despite him. To spite him.”

“And give you no care to the price of this meeting?” Echoriath continued soberly. “The heartache your Adar suffer, now and ever, at your estrangement from them? Do you no longer care for their loving?”

“I must know who I am,” Tathren insisted softly.

“You are their son!!” Echoriath exclaimed, gripping his arms with urgency, with breathless emotion. “You are my heart’s brother, my lover. You are beautiful and mischievous and strong and terribly stubborn… and you are breaking your Adar’s heart with this madness. They have fought so longly for you, Tathren, to protect you from Thranduil, from Mordor’s choking claw. They battled for centuries against the most wretched vermin to score Middle-Earth, to beg the chance not for your life or mine, but the lives of the peoples of Arda entire. For the land that birthed them, for wintering elfkind and nascent man alike. Can you not understand what it means to fight for the lives of all you hold dear, only to discover that the one you wanted most to protect cares not for that protection? Indeed, that this innocent would race to the very devil that most reviled him and beg his favor?”

“You were wanted,” Tathren countered morosely. “Born by your Adar’s purposeful choice, so rich in love that your very eyes bear the color of it!!” He tempered his ragged culls of breath, seeking not to accuse his simple-hearted cousin, but to illuminate him. “My Ada-Las has been… a prince among fathers, but ever the burden of my begetting weighs upon him. Over and again, I hear his heart plead that such a mendacious event had not come to pass, that...”

“Surely you do not believe that Ada-Las wishes you were never born, Tathren!!” Echoriath retorted sharply. The resulting desolation that paled his golden cousin’s face struck hard upon him. “Forgive me, meleth, but… but that is inconceivable! How can one so valorous, so ferocious as Ada-Las be aught but quaking with fury that the begetting of his beautiful and loving child has been so blighted, that this child of his making be deprived of his grandsire, once a loving father, now a vengeful scoundrel? He would be the first to welcome Thranduil, should he repent his actions, but that is not to be. Can you not see? He was prepared to give his life for you, in the War. Anything, for you to be safe. He would have gladly stayed eternity in Mandos, forgoing your love, forsaking his very beloved. He would bear even your most injurious scorn for this, for your safe keeping. For your life, meleth-nin.”

This litany of irrefutable logic, a first against him from Echo’s knowing, patient soul, struck him to the core. Tathren shut his brimming eyes, swallowed back a cutting self-reproach, a curse. The thought of the shameful consequences of his impulsiveness – the silence between he and his fathers, their estrangement - scalded his cheeks scarlet. As constant, balming arms enveloped him, his skin burnt off the last of its rage, sweat away the last of his despair; in its place came humility, temperance, and a sickening regret.

As Tathren sank further into the vigilant embrace of this, his most precious and astonishing of admirers, Echoriath allowed himself a grateful smile.

“I would be honored to join you at table, tonight,” his cousin rasped into the soft of his neck.

***

As their extended family gathered in the resplendent dining hall, their amiable chatter was too low-toned to vault across the high buttresses of the ceiling, to the oval window where Legolas loomed. He again thought to excuse himself, but, meeting Elrohir’s worried glance through the flickering candelabra, he masked his melancholy behind poised resignation and prayed Celebrian would not wax nostalgic this most trying night of all.

Turning his mind to the menu of delicacies his husband had so knowingly prepared to entice him, he desperately tried to stir himself an appetite, if only to prove worthy of later desserts. If his will were law, he would that the entire company of familiars be dismissed, in favor of a quiet eve alone with his beloved, curled under some willow tree as in times of old. Legolas found even his most carnal attentions remedial; indeed, a slow, sensuous penetration by his gifted lover would do wonders for his insomnia.

Clearing his mind of such heated notions, he schoolemselmself dutifully and ventured over to their assembled family. After embracing his bond-parents, he latched on to his mate, the absences among them suddenly too glaringly evident.

As if in compliance with this, Elrond inquired: “Is our party complete?”

“Echoriath is expected,” Elladan informed him. “By expected, I mean has agreed to join us, in theory, but as always with such an academic mind, might accidentally be so distracted as to forget us, without any harmful intent.” Many chuckled, as they made their way to table.

“Which may be for the best,” Glorfindel not“As “As one is never sure which Cuthalion may present himself, the joyous one reunited with his latest lover just moments before, or the abashed one jilted again that very morn. Echoriath is known to be exasperated by both.”

“A pity, though,” Elrond mused, as he guided his lady to her seat. “They will no doubt miss an exquisite meal, if the menu’s promises are to be believed.”

“In truth,” Elrohir gently commented, with an eye both to Legolas and to his father. “I would be as heartened by their absence as by their engaging presence, if the cause be that Tathren does not dine alone.”

“Indeed,” Legolas seconded, grateful to his husband for his ever-comforting wisdom, but unable to say more.

Before any could say more, Cuthalion himself sped in.

“My apologies,” he panted, as he scooted around the table greeting his elders. “The woodcarvers called on the site, after Echoriath had left. They are pleased, though, wiur pur progress.” Poised to take his seat, he spied his brother breach the entranceway. “Echo, the carvers came!”

“Did they?!” he exclaimed, but would not enter but a foot. When he veered back towards the entrance, all thought he would immediately depart again.

“They have gone,” Glorfindel reminded him, over his shoulder. “We wait upon you, ioneth.”

“I come presently, Ada,” he assured him.

The result of such a comedy was every eye fixed upon the strange dealings at the entranceway. Thus, the entire company held their collective breaths, when Echoriath lead Tathren within. Holding tight to his clenched cousin, they eased their way to the table, not one step unobserved by the tense, disbelieving party. Legolas alone cast his eyes down to his empty plate, lest his visceral emotions betray him in this precarious, yet vital, moment. Hidden beneath the ample table cloth, Elrohir clasped his hand.

With a meaningful glance at his uncle, Echoriath took Tathren’s usual chair, offering his more protected seat to his cousin. Tathren clamped rigid fingers over the sloping pewter back, froze in place.

“I hope,” he whispered humbly. “You will forgive our lateness, grandsire. Is my presence… am I welcome?”

Elrohir, despite himself, drew in a sharp breath; his son’s sorrowful words cut deep. Legolas wove both hands around his husband’s quivering arm, willing Elrohir to feed off what little strength remained within him.

“This is your home, my brave one,” Elrond intoned, as only a Lord and longtime grandfather could. “You are always welcome here.”

As Tathren soberly took his seat, Cuthalion launched into a sunny tale of the day’s most significant blunder. The younger members of the company were soon embroiled in playful bickering and one-upmanship, which had the threefold purpose of entertaining their grandelders, luring Tathren into the conversation, and allowing Elrohir and Legolas time to acclimate themselves to their son’s too-heartening presence.

When he was not concerned with his still trembling husband, Legolas found himself unable to quit stealing glances of his son. His glowing eyes viewed with unwavering awe as he slurped his soup, gingerly ripped off pieces of his lembas, and dunked them in the same absent manner as when he was but an elfling. He held his fork regally, as they had taught him, but his swordsman’s arm forced his knife too hard, which occasioned it to squeak faintly across the plate, like a mouse underfoot. Legolas never thought he’d find that squeak aught but aggravating, nor the gummy clack of Tathren’s tongue against his teeth after taking a sip of wine. Indeed, every imperfection, every idiosyncrasy was suddenly so enthralling to him, that he eventually forgot even Elrohir at his side and thus did not mark how his tender husband could not longer keep his countenance.

Elladan, however, watched his brother like a hawk, so when the elf-knight swallowed a mouthful down painfully hard and laid his napkin over his plate, he sat up warrior-straight, which in turn alerted Tathren to his father’s distress. Elrohir found he could not still his too-visible shaking; instead, he mumbled his excuses and rose on unsteady feet. To everyone’s astonishment, he warned Legolas off with a stinging glare, then gathered what little dignity still favored him and quietly swept from the hall.

Before he’d even cleared the door, Tathren was up and after him.

The clang of Legolas’ fork broke their stunned silence, as everyone struggled not to stare. The archer’s own sterling eyes would not quit the entranceway; his spirit fled with them even if his body stayed behind. He implicitly knew how ashamed his proud, ever-tempered Elrohir would be of the trouble he had caused. He pleaded with fair Elbereth that Tathren would prove a balm to his gutted soul, not a bilious accuser. He longed with every bit of himself to seek them out, but could not bear the thought that Tathren had not yet forgiven him, that he would only be reconciled with his more overtly giving father.

Elladan’s third and final summons pierced into his consciousness, but the words did not register until he met his insistent eyes.

“Go, you fool!!” he had bellowed at him, leaving the table resolutely agape.

As if ordered by a superior officer, Legolas leapt up to answer him, to finally quiet the urging of his tempestuous heart. While the collected party sighed in hopeful frustration, he strode out into the corridor, belatedly wondering just where his dear family had absconded to. They had not run far. Indeed, but a turn into the main thoroughfare found them, sobbing Elrohir entrenched in their tearful son’s embrace, as Tathren whispered pledges and apologies to him.

Swallowing back his own flintshod emotions, Legolas moved hesitantly towards them. Before he could announce himself, Elrohir was righted, ever sensible to his mate’s presence. Out of the corner of his eye, Tathren caught sight of him. He whirled around.

“Ada!!” Tathren cried, then sank into his waiting arms.

Legolas precipitously lost what little pride was left him and crushed his son into a fierce embrace.

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

Nearly listless with fatigue, Tathren lumbered across the midnight courtyard. The gigantic glass dome of the greenhouse before him glowed, with preternatural incandescence, from the torchlight within; sea greens and cool indigos complimented the dandelion wisps of white-yellow flame. With an easy smile, he recalled the filmy petals of the anemone, billowing like a maiden’s robes in the tide sweep, and he yearned for the hush attentions of the darkling elf within.

The thought of basking in the heady aura of those golden eyes awhile, of pressing his face to the peach-blush cheek and of twining with the lithe frame, urged him up the last of the stone steps. The ornate entrance was purposefully overgrown with spindly vines and clumped with fecund moss, the gardener’s giving touch evident even in the decor greenery. After long deliberations with his two visibly repentant, ever-loving fathers, the young adventurer, exhausted past even his boundless endurance in conciliation’s wake, had wanted for nothing but to be seized by lissome architect’s arms, but to sink into his bashful one’s doting embrace.

In eight confounding, spellbinding, revolutionary and anarchic days, Tathren had come to regard his genial cousin as no other before. Though a grateful peace reigned within him, the vital pact between fathers and son now resealed, he had found their quiet celebration missing someone essential, yet unheralded, to their reunion. The one who had succored him, with supple body, with ever-nurturing spirit, though his most scathing nights. The one who gave up every weapon in his arsenal, every trick in his sack without doubt or regret, every scrap of knowledge, every ply of skill, every draught from his wellspring heart and still had baleful reserves, whose peerless generosity only seemed to further enrich his character. Once the trust of this timid one was wholeheartedly earned, Tathren had discovered, there was no end to the dulcet gardens in which a tired soul could graze, no borderland nor firmament that bound his heart’s blessings.

He had but to deserve them, to earn through righteous constancy this everlasting heart.

He had been a great and gallant fool, he now knew, to break with his fathers over the bruising scorn of his most unworthy grandsire. It was his tender cousin’s worth he should have fought for, for the right to court him, their acceptance should he win him. A storm more bold and ominous than the one he had so recently weathered loomed over their but nascent relations, its black and brimstone clouds born in the forge of his heart. The knowledge of these further trials that faced him had sundered the last of his will, of his waking power. Sleep beckoned fierce, as did the plentiful folds of Echoriath’s silken skin.

As he lurched down the pebble-lined paths, through the misty air of the greenhouse, avid amber eyes turned from the examination of yet another sickly orchid and welcomed him within. Before he could summon the strength to blink, he collapsed into the steady, solid arms he had longed for, which ably guided him over to the waiting cot. With the murmured assurance that they would love come morn, he was caressed, petted, unfettered of his cares and warmed by a lengthy hug. Soon, the lion’s share of his garments were shed on the alcove floor, his braids loosed through by soothing fingers, and he was nestled tight in a hot bed of animal pelts, with the plump-lipped promise that he would not sleep alone.

By Elbereth’s grace, he prayed he never would again.


End of Part Six