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There had been many a firsts for him in his long life, despite him lacking a few many a companions which had come and gone before him had experienced. Meeting his soulmate being the most prominent one of them all, but that was all but unfeasible and impossible for him, no matter the ache in his chest at the thought… However, having a short dark-haired woman throw up on his finest walking boots—that… that was something he had not quite been expecting, if only because his feet tended to avoid such messes.
That was how he had met Lothien, and he had not quite expected all which would follow in her wake. She numbered among the edain – she belonged to the second kindred, and the proof of it all ought to have been in her eyes, full of life and longing. There should have been a spark there, a lust for life so great which burnt so very bright, before, like all those of the race of men, she aged and was granted the Gift of Death which all of the Secondborn were entitled to. But that spark was missing, and a curiosity grated upon him whenever he met those green eyes of hers.
Oddly enough, she never seemed particularly willing to meet his gaze. He had supposed that upchucking the contents of her stomach upon his boots might have played a part. The thought often filled him with mirth, and his eyes followed her for reasons he could not quite fathom. What was there about a woman which had caught his attention so? Rare was it, that elves such as himself took an interest in the affairs of the edain. Truly, elves, himself included, were content to walk the well beaten path over and over again, stubborn and set in their ways as they were. The Firstborn were, as a whole, resistant to change unlike their younger brethren who had woken after them.
So why? He couldn’t help but ponder the question. Why did he keep looking back to find her amidst those under his command and the men who had accompanied them so?
Should he lose his concentration for more than a single moment, then when he returned to his senses, he found himself looking at her. She though, if she had indeed noted his gaze upon her, gave no indication of it. But he felt it far too often – the feeling of eyes upon him – and when he managed to turn quick enough to find the source of that… he couldn’t quite call it discomfort… then he found himself being greeted by a flash of those strange green eyes of hers as they swiftly looked away from where he stood.
Truly, they were an odd colouring. If he had to describe them, he would liken them to gems. Partially due to how they shone in the light, but also thanks to their odd colouring which almost bordered towards yellow at times. They were nothing akin to the golden hues of the Vanya. Yet that colouring plagued at his mind, tugging upon something in the depths of his memory, and those whisperings upon the eaves of his mind were almost unbearable.
To make matters worse, he knew she had to be the reason behind it, yet he had striven to leave her be – to supress the overwhelming desire which, frankly, terrified him in places – for nothing good came of humans who caught the interest of elves. It was why pairings between their kindreds had only tended to happen for those whose soulmarks bade it so.
His own soulmark tied him to Ancalagon. A dragon. He had despaired over it, wondering Valier why he had been given such a beast as a soulmark. That was before the answer had come to him – for he had to have been given a purpose. The only explanation for being bound to a creature of Morgoth’s creation would be that he had been anointed as their slayer. And so slay dragons he would, until such a time that he was recalled or perished once more. It was his reason. A reason why he would never be able to spend the rest of the time until Arda’s remaking with his soulmate in Valinor. A reason he had been permitted to follow the Noldor despite his strong ties to his mother’s people.
Noldo blood ran too thickly in his veins, and they, on the whole, were far too infinitely curious for their own good. Fixating interest also came with such blood, but Glorfindel much preferred to not dwell on that aspect, for it was ultimately that which had resulted in the kinslayings his kin wished they could forget. But elves did not forget. Rather they endured perpetually, collectors of history among other curiosities.
He would not subject Lothien to such a thing, to becoming a victim of well-meaning but utterly incomprehensible curiosity – to a mortal, at least, that was, given they were so young, and oftentimes naught more than a flame in the lives of elves, there for but a short moment, and then eternally snuffed out. He had sworn it to himself – kept his focus away from her, his concentration on doing such unwavering. He had thought that perhaps if he spoke with her it might fade somewhat… and then—
Then she had bodily jumped between a dragon’s tail and him.
It had been the last straw, the tipping point of the scales. He had seen her, speaking with a dragon, barely catching a glimpse of the way those green eyes had sparkled with how she had been hidden amidst scales coloured like jewels. But he had heard the words spoken so very quickly, and even as old as he was – he hadn’t been able to figure them out. And he had thought himself one of the most knowledgeable upon the topic of dragons… Lothien had proven him wrong, and his curiosity had become almost unsatiable.
Not least because he needed to know more about dragons in order to slay them, as the soulmark upon his back decreed. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, fascinated by a single mortal woman who would be nothing more than a fleeting existence when compared to his own. All the more reason to learn what he could before she perished, a voice in the back of his head whispered, tempting him so – tempting him to give up the resistance he was putting up against the irresistible, magnetic force which was Lothien.
And then she had thrown herself between him and certain injury, wounding herself grievously in the process, and she then had the gall to place him under her protection as such… The values nurtured within him could never ignore such a thing, not least because he was meant to be mighty in those times and those lands. Such an offer of protection had to be reciprocated, and thus the walls of resolutions to not involve himself with that green-eyed mortal had crumbled to dust.
He would involve himself.
And then, by the time such a decision had been made, it was far too late to save either of them from themselves.