Chapter Text
PERHAPS, ELROND SUPPOSES, it had started when he’d accidentally bucked you off your horse on a race.
That would come to be centuries ago by now, when you were both children; and he can even recall your face still— drenched in lake water, tangled in a bramble he couldn’t quite pull you out of because he’d allowed the most unbecoming laugh to ever grace himself first before bothering to help you.
You’d been humiliated, and you never allowed it again since.
Payback comes tenfold just a season after, however. (Spring had yet to be in full swing— Elrond should have known better than to trust your claim of rare Niphredil blooming early by Lindon’s border.)
“Was it worth it?” he snorts, letting the rain wash the muck from his hair and wincing at the crumple of his scrolls under the hooves of your horse. “Your petty endeavour for retribution?”
“Indeed.”
“...You say this, after having fallen in the same bog you yourself have led me to. Incredible . Your pride rivals that of Man.”
A beat. You huff.
“...I admit, I had imagined this to go far more smoothly on my end—”
Elrond rolls his eyes.
“—But it is satisfying, nonetheless.”
“How childish .”
“You’re one to talk,” you snap, narrowly dodging a dirty pebble thrown your way.
“You ought to apologise!” Elrond hisses.
“ Apologise to the likes of you? Never .”
“Fool!”
“Half-wit!”
And so was sown early the seed of a rivalry between you both.
The High Elves watch it bloom through centuries of the Age.
The Valiant-hearted Maiden against the Vault of Stars; Locking horns by every way of competition and prowess— be it academic brain or athletic brawn, or in inanities of conversation, where every answer is met with a petty counter or a provoked jab.
A constant dance of bickering, bantering, barbing.
“Of us two, I’m the better scholar,” Elrond states once upon a time, during a practised-combat, amid one of your shared tiffs.
You side-step and knock him to his feet; catch the stroke of his blade with a hard swipe of your own. It sings— metal against metal— and pierces into the earth a pace away where Elrond crumbled defeated.
The smile you wear is triumphant as the tip of your steel hovers at his throat. “And I, the better swordsman.”
A curl of his hair falls between his eyes, and he blows it with a scoff. “Even if the High King blesses you one day as Marshal of your own Cavalry,” Elrond narrows his gaze up towards you. “I hazard I could fell more damage than you ever could, with a quill and my tongue alone.”
“Bold. Why ever need an army, then?”
“Betimes, a sword must still be drawn.”
“Or not drawn,” you counter.
As if in emphasis, you sheathe your sword and bent to offer him a teasing, albeit, helpful hand. “Hard to tell with ‘just a quill and your tongue’, I imagine. No?”
Quick-witted shrew you are, he thinks to bite. But you are right, after all, and Elrond is clever enough to know when to yield.
“The maiden thinks herself o’ so wise,” Elrond bristles, after you’d steadied him to his feet.
You laugh.
It’s bright and resonant— startles something deep in his heart far, far more than the kind hand you’d offered him. Elrond struggles to shake it off.
“Fool,” he gripes.
“Half-wit,” you volley.
And the familiar exchange follows again, wherever forth you go throughout the Age. Between field and fallow, lake and stream, and Kingdom to Kingdom.
Oaf to dullard. Troll-headed to lame-brained. Runt to mooncalf. Dimwit to —
“Aulë’s beard!” Durin cries aloud, following a stormy aftermath of you and Elrond’s brief visit to Khazad-dûm. “I’ve never seen his patience crumble as swift as soapstone! They despise each other, Disa!”
“On the contrary,” she dissents, amused. “Why would Elrond allow it, that his so-called ‘ bane of his existence’ meet you, Durin— one of his greatest friends— if he didn’t trust her at least one bit?”
“But that doesn’t necessarily mean he cares for the girl.”
“Aye, ‘til you remember trust is the naked stone of love.” There’s a twinkle in Disa’s eyes like that of pure quartz. “And I wager that Elf hasn’t the slightest idea of that yet.”
She’s right, of course. Elrond hasn’t.
Not even a decade later.
Or the one after that.
And to the next.
Until, slowly, something begins to gives way.
“Elmendëa,” Elrond hears you swear, exasperated. “Ává tuluvanyë! I know you are a fool, but even an idea as rash as this is beyond you.” *
“That has to be the kindest words I have ever heard you utter in regards to me,” he muses, unable to stop from grinning.
Elrond is intelligent. Cunningly so. He’s gleaned exactly how to push your buttons because he’s the only one well-versed to your short temper, buried somewhere under the sunshine of your adoring face, and the bell-like sound of your laughter he’s grown to—
“Remind me what it is your name stands for, again?”
The grip on your horse’s reins tighten. “Beríniel. Maiden of Valiant heart.”
A terrible move, in hindsight. You should have never entertained his question.
“Hm. I always admired it. A mighty name,” he agrees, shrugging lazily. “For a coward, that is.”
You scowl, fight a scathing remark. Elrond always gets childishly riled up whenever he tests your nerve; you’ve known him long enough to know it would not do to satisfy him with a reaction.
“Five stone-trolls against one lone elf in the blackest of night is not cowardice, it’s folly .”
“These creatures have eluded us too many seasons long, laying waste to these lands. The General said this himself,” he says, spurring his horse with excitement. “Now’s our only chance! Besides, I am far from alone, no? Come now; I have you, and you have me!”
Your heart stutters.
You might’ve had the time to mull that last line of his comment over, including that unexpected bloom of something in your chest, even, had he not bolted off straight into his demise.
“Elrond! Valyë —!” You snarl out a curse. “Wait!” *
You’re drenched.
So is Elrond.
You may have laughed at the sight if you weren’t so busy with being humbly contrite at the wrath of your Cavalry General.
And maybe if you weren’t drenched in literal troll-blood.
“Taking on five of those foul creatures,” comes the disapproving hiss. “At the height of the night!”
“General—”
“You are lucky, thick-headed colt that you are, Belírien, that I have decided only to suspend you of your rank.”
You flinch.
Elrond snaps his bowed head up in surprise.
“Forgive me for speaking out of turn, General,” he defies, much to your absolute horror , “But if you wish to exorcise your anger, I beg of you to do so against me—”
“No,” you override, furious. Call it competition if you must— but Elrond will not take a punishment from and for you. You had far more honour in you than to let anyone take your blame, even if it comes in the form of your childhood nemesis.
The glare you shoot that reads, Quit attempting to be a damn hero, goes unnoticed, however. (Or perhaps, more likely, now that you remember this is Elrond Peredhel, wilfully ignored .)
“—Belírien defied your order, but she did so only to protect me from my own folly. It was I who went after the trolls, and in doing so forced her hand—”
“I made my decision, you fool,” you protest. “Of all people you should know best that you could never force my hand to do anyth—
“If you would just let me speak, you half— ”
“Dínen!” The General snarls. *
Both of you snap to attention.
“Must you two always argue like whelps?” he thunders. “I will speak with Elrond myself. Meno! ” *
You practically deflate in your armour. “General, please, lá asanyë a —” *
“Every second you tally standing before me thins my patience, Belírien,” he says, voice strained with finality. “Do not test it.”
You grit your teeth, your breath a sharp exhale.
“Dúro di ,” Elrond whispers, before you can say anything rash. He can recognise all too well that tide of stubbornness in you— the same one that always rises ashore towards trouble. Then, gently: “Ilqua nauva mára .” *
You relent, only to surmise much, much later that evening, when the sun bled dusk over Lindon’s citadel, that it had not, in fact, gone ‘ okay’ .
“Manan nîn rehtanë tye, Elrond?” *
You can imagine the cheeky smile in his face for yourself, from where he’s peering up the gleaming stars, “Must there be rhyme or reason?”
“I’ve been informed that my rank as Marshal still stands,” you say, sidling to his side on the stone allure. “Was that your doing?”
“Yes.”
It’s said so easily . Sometimes you wish you could curse that slippery, literary tongue of Elrond’s.
“Then why is it I hear they’ve withheld yours as Herald?”
“Merely an abeyance,” he dismisses, but you can hear the disappointment in his voice nevertheless, even if his eyes are cast away from you.
It pains you more than you’d expected it would have— Elrond has spent centuries working towards the role, and just when it’s come within reach, he’d chosen to let it slip to defend you instead.
“Save your despair. In time, h—”
“Ánin apsene.” *
Elrond blinks in surprise.
Unbidden, an old memory resurfaces: of mud, and crumpled scrolls, and a pebble thrown your way, after which you’d claimed: I would never apologise to the likes of you!
You’d both been children then. Has so much time passed already? What a gift, he finds he couldn’t stop himself, That you are still by my side.
“There is nothing to forgive. I defended you, because I—” he falters. Something passes in his eyes you cannot decipher. “—I believed it just. On this I am certain.”
“You need not have, regardless,” you retort. “Especially with the price you pay now.”
“I know,” he shrugs. Shrugs. As if you hadn’t just been the potential end-all to his hard work. “But, alas.”
Alas? How stubborn you are, you resist. You silver-tongued, nonchalant, handsome little—
“Don’t you dare feel sorry for me,” he adds, pointedly. “Marshal.”
“I don’t,” you say. “I would never .” There is no way to turn back time nor the decree, afterall, so you settle with, “Just don’t get used to it. Defending me, I mean.”
Or, in plain: Thank you.
The corner of his lips tug closely akin to a smile.
“I would never,” he parrots.
That is to say: You’re welcome.
--- C R A C K !
Deep in another pass of Summer, in the fields of Lindon west where the capital towers stand, an arrowshaft splits perfectly down its middle, from the shot of another.
A bullseye on a bullseye.
You ready; take aim to fire, again—
“I gathered you would be here,” comes Elrond’s voice. “You always found solace in target practice.”
—and miss your mark.
The arrow splinters wood off the edge.
With a scowl, you turn to where Elrond sits by the root of an old tree, fidgeting with something in his hand.
“Endë intyë,” he recites Rúmil. “You draw your bowstring with anger. It needs conviction, to fly true.” *
The familiar sound of a nocked arrow reaches his tipped ears. Elrond lifts his head, meets your steel gaze behind your loaded bow, set dead-straight towards him.
“And would you like to test my conviction, Elrond?”
I would, is his instinctive jab of a response, for I’d wager you’ll miss .
But he can spot the slightest of tremor in your hands; the unseen waver in your voice. You’ve been gravely unsteadied— he recognises the suffocating weight of grief, rolling from you in waves.
“No,” he says, sincerely. “Not today.”
“So you’ve come to patronise me for one erred shot, then. Charming.”
“You know why I’m here,” he says, watching you patiently as you pluck your arrows and tidy the target. “Don’t—”
“Be a fool?” You finish for him, annoyed.
A breeze passes. It’s silent.
There’s no caustic remark, no spiteful words. It’s almost unsettling to not hear half-wit being said in reply. Even then, though, you find way to fault him even for that.
You curse him for his… his inherent patience . For bothering you here and now. For his damn face ; that always makes it so hard to stay mad, and so easy to forgive.
“Don’t push me away,” he corrects. “Is what I intended to say.”
A piece of you cracks. For someone who’s claimed to be irked by the very sight of you, Elrond could be frustratingly gentle to you when need be.
“What does it matter to you?”
You reach for your quiver. Focus, you tell yourself. Focus. If you looked in his eyes again you might just shatter.
“The village sent word,” he begins, striding towards you and standing by your side. “They plead for you to come and plant a seed in their land, in Îdhendiel’s name. A token of gratitude to her memory, and to you, the Marshal, who led the cavalry to save their lives.”
Something potent roars in your veins. A flame; A fire— burning white-hot behind your eyes, kindling them with tears; stoking a bloodthirsty anger in your heart.
“What worth is their gratitude? The person they ought to thank is dead,” you say, vicious. “It’s because of their recklessness that they roused the wrath of the beasts sleeping in that forsaken cavern. Îdhendiel’s life was—”
Wasted, you couldn’t bring yourself to say, as you draw and take aim.
But your vision is swimming, blurred by memory and unshed tears, taking the heart of the target along with it.
“They are innocent, you know this.”
Your shot will be poor. Likely, it would embed the stand. Maybe you should shoot Elrond, instead.
(You could never.)
“If you are here to argue with me, Elrond,” you whisper, a pained breath escaping you as you lower your bow. “Please, leave.”
“I am here to convince you.”
“And I will not be convinced,” you grit.
“Do not let your grief blind y—”
“Please!”
Your voice cracks. The arrowshaft in your grip snaps.
Elrond seizes.
“Please , just… Just go.”
You wait for it. For one last reproach from him. But instead, he unravels something with his fingers.
“I will not tell you your anger is misplaced,” he says, gently, stepping forward to place the object in your palm. “For that, I have no right. But I am certain of one thing—”
It’s a seed. An acorn. Cradled in threadbare cloth, weathered and worn.
“—Îdhendiel would have wished only for peace.”
It would grow to be an oak tree that can outlive mortal men by a thousand years. Elrond had been purposeful with where he’d placed the seed: right next to the broken arrowhead in your palm.
A proverbial choice. Grief, he seems to say, or peace?
“I hate you,” you answer, uselessly.
But a Herald's very art is to read between words, and better yet— Elrond has come to learn every lilt and cadence in your voice. It’s hollow. There is no malice meant in what you’ve said.
“This is but one seed, and yet it feels the heaviest thing in all of Middle-Earth.”
He softens at that. “Such is the weight of grief.”
Something knots in your throat. Stricken. You’re stricken. Reminds you of all your other, buried, unwrought pains; of everything you’ve lost and can never be able to forget; to only be allowed to be reunited with again until the Undying Lands.
“You—” Your hesitant voice calls out.
(You are the only one I trust. Would you bear this weight with me?)
“Would you accompany me? To the village?”
Your words are small. Almost fearful. As if he could ever possibly be so cold as to forsake you at a time like this.
He reaches out, settles his hand atop yours. It may very well be the kindest, most tender thing you’ve ever felt from him your entire life.
“I would never abandon you,” comes Elrond’s answer.
Then, to himself, candidly: I’d go anywhere with you by my side. He’d thought it. Realised. Swore. It had brought no surprise, no hesitation. My place is with you.
Elrond Peredhel had never been so sure of anything.
And he stays true to his word.
He journeys with you for a sennight North, with the acorn in his hold; had kept you steadfast all the way to the tilled grounds of the village.
And alas when the time had come: If your fingers didn’t shake neath the earth; if you didn’t falter your grip on seed and soil as you planted—
It was because Elrond was there, standing with you.
“I was a fool to think I can escape without Herald Elrond himself having one last word in.”
“That you are,” he huffs, breathless from the full gallop ride he’d taken downwind to the kingdom gates. The Winter season means the Northern air blows colder from the snow-capped mountains of Ered Luin.
It means more time between you two has passed, yet—
“And a half-wit,” he finishes.
—nothing’s changed. Or so it seems.
Astride the saddle of your own steed, you cock your head at him. “Well, what did you come here to say? Let me guess, you’ll enjoy the silence while I’m gone?”
Elrond almost grimaces. If you’d noticed, though, you didn’t appear to show it.
“No.”
“Or perhaps—”
“Why did you not tell me you were leaving? ”
(He says, instead of something unforgiveably sentimental, that is: Do I matter to you so little? )
And. Well. If his tone hadn’t startled you, the flash of betrayal in his eyes certainly did.
“I…” You blink. “I assumed you knew.”
“I didn’t ,” he says, uncharacteristically sharp.
Your brows furrow. “Well, I’ll be gone a mere blink. At best only six Sun-years, not an entire yén. Galadriel sent me to scout aways to the South before reporting my findings back to Lindon for our archives. I will not apologise for serv—” *
“I seek neither an explanation nor an apology,” he says, curt enough that your company sneaks a wary look from the gates; enough that his own very horse shifts uneasy.
“Then be plain. Why have you come here?”
The fight leaves his body.
“I…” He trails off. Blinks as his gaze darts across your face.
(I think— )
“…To bid you farewell.”
A lie. Blatant. Plain as daylight and as clear as the stars in their courses to your discerning eye, borne from the long years endured beside him. Dúath whinnies below you. He must have sensed the unseen discord, too.
Elrond purses his lips to smile. It doesn’t reach his eyes.
“And to you too, Dúath. Keep h— Yourselves— safe.”
Then, with only a nod and a fleeting glance, as if the effort to watch you depart might cut too deep—
“Elrond—”
—he steers his horse away and spurs into a leaping gallop before your sentence could take shape.
And he doesn’t speak of that day, not a word; not until Galadriel had brought it up herself.
“I have noticed,” Galadriel begins, after the season had finally ended, and the last of the snowflakes had come to fall. “You have never been more distant since the company left. If my sending them away has offended you someh—”
“No. Never,” Elrond says, cut to the quick. His gaze tears from the forests to his best friend. “I am merely… pensive.”
It’s the truth, and yet somehow he’d delivered it embarrassingly unconvincingly. So much so that Galadriel raises her brows him.
“Over?”
He flounders.
“...Lore.”
Galadriel deadpans. “Ah, of course. Lore. Then why have you been—” She’s careful to pick her words. “—Sulking?”
“I am not,” he insists, and manages to swallow back the instinctiveness of saying fool , or half-wit . (These are… words reserved solely for you.)
“It is unlike you to lie, Elrond,” she says, levelling her stare. “Was it not Rúmil who said absence makes the heart grow fonder?”
“Speak plain, Galadriel.”
“Your Marshal. You miss her,” she states. “You like her.”
“You are delusio—”
Galadriel pins him with a look.
“—Mistaken ,” Elrond amends.
She tilts her head. “Your brooding says otherwise.”
“First and foremost, she is not my anything . Secondly, I do not brood ,” he says, turning up his nose. “And lastly, I am confident I do not harbour anything but simple courtesy for her. She is insufferable.”
She hums, amused. “I see.”
“Truly!” he insists. (Too hasty, almost, to hide the obvious lie.) “Unbearably prideful, too.”
“And terribly impulsive?”
“As a colt in full gallop.”
“And distracting?” offers Galadriel.
“Endlessly.”
“Because she’s beautiful, yes?”
“Frustratingly so.”
A beat.
Elrond blinks, aghast.
“No, wait—”
Galadriel’s laugh is bright.
Reunion aligns perfectly with Mereth-nuin-Giliath.
The celebratory feast has the verdant halls and forest of Lindon’s Kingdom alive with moonlight and lantern; laughter and song. Elves alike are clad in their best: silver wreaths braided into hair; golden trims embroidered into robe.
And— you .
There’s you.
Donned in the finest cloths and the brightest garlands, seated at a small table spread with some of your closest companions, where Elrond quietly watches you laugh— Singing something of soldiers, poets and kings; how you’d been taught it from a migration of halflings you happened across during your time in the wilds.
But then there is Glórieldir.
Golden-one. Shouldered next to you, with his yellow hair and his glinting smile and his gilded garments. Everything that could possibly live up to his name, even in attitude. A perfect soldier. A perfect friend. A perfect Second-in-command.
Specifically, your Second-in-command.
“Any longer and you might burn a hole through his head,” comes a voice. It’s Gil-Galad, ever the omnipresent gravitas that comes with him. “Do be more merciful. Glórieldir has quite the talent for bowmanship.”
Elrond straightens in an instant. “High King.”
“At ease,” he waves, behind a sip— no, a gulp — of wine. “I am trying to escape from Círdan and his frivolous attempts to pester me so. Do humour me, why the withering glare? Glórieldir is no threat to your rather peculiar bond with Beríniel. Despair not.”
It’s said with such casual precision Elrond nearly buckles. He couldn’t have possibly been measured that swiftly?
“I do not— despair.”
A snort.
“Do you know why Glórieldir is only Second-in-command?” Gil-Galad says. “Because he bends too easily to higher authority. Much unlike your Marshal, who would not hesitate to question anyone and anything even under duress. I hazard maybe even toward myself.”
“She is not my— anything ,” he blusters, recalling his conversation with Galadriel those winters ago.
“Ach. She is the only elf in Middle-earth who could shake the very foundation of your being free from conviction,” he says, nonchalant, “Do you think me blind to your longing gaze and clandestine trysts—”
Elrond chokes. “Trysts?!”
(Had he not been burdened with the crown and its status, Gil-Galad may have allowed his Kingly demeanour to crack for a moment, just to laugh at Elrond’s scandalised look.)
“There have never been trysts. We are furthest from lovers. She is my— friend, at best. You are mistaken.”
“Of course,” Gil-Galad hums, wholly unimpressed, after which he sets his goblet down a passing tray and grabs two fresh cups, and hands them both to him, much to his confusion. “I whole-heartedly believe you.”
Then, to Elrond’s horror: the High King beckons Glórieldir from the table, and Elrond pieces together the cunning scheme too late as Gil-Galad sweeps the Second-in-command away for an oh-so-interesting discussion over archery.
That sly fox of a—
“Thank you,” you say, once the both of you are alone, out of sight and earshot from the festivities, and Elrond had handed you one of the cups of red wine.
You should thank Gil-Galad, he thinks. And his horribly wicked sense of humour.
“Seems you enjoyed your adventures to the South,” he says instead.
“I did. It gave me plenty of time to… think.” Of you. Of us.
“Must have been peaceable without me around,” Elrond muses.
You set your cup to the stone wall of the parapet overlooking the rivers. “Quite the contrary,” you say, and Elrond has to try to convince himself he’s only imagining that tone of wistfulness in your voice out of self-indulgence. Surely .
“The seasons ran surprisingly long. Summers less kind, less sweet. Oftentimes, it was too quiet. And I’d seek for your voice in conversation.” You pick idly at the filigree of the goblet. “…But no one in my company tests my nerve like you do.”
A sense of pride curls around his heart. “Is this your long-winded way—”
“Oh, here we go again.”
“—of saying you missed me?” he taunts, lips cut into a genuine smile. (Because I did. I missed you so; Never thought it possible that my heart could sing so longingly when I saw light upon your face again.)
You roll your eyes, but your laugh betrays you. It’s musical, dizzying. Has him stirring into another smile as he watches you muffle it into your palm, and the moonlight catches the jewels of your crescent eyes; the shining tresses of your hair he’s been fighting the urge to tuck behind your ear.
You’ve always been so beautiful. He couldn’t think of any other grand prose or way to describe it. You’re the only one who’s ever rendered the Herald speechless.
Elrond hadn’t known what to do with himself, really, when he first faced this revelation unravelling before him. He’d spent his days reflecting when exactly the tides had changed; at what hour he came to love, instead despise, the prick of every thorn and thistle that came with the flower that you are.
He’d thought perhaps something else was sown the day Îdhendiel’s seed was planted in the earth. Something between you two that was more gentler. Kinder. Fonder .
Or perhaps, Elrond supposes, it has always been there.
Yes, had come the realisation. Foolish of him, indeed. To have been remiss. To have been blind. To have tarried so long.
“You’re right, I missed you,” you finally relent, sighing theatrically. “I owe you that much, after… after the way I left things before. I suppose it’s high time I ask for your forgiveness.”
It’s said so sheepishly, he has to bend to chase your timid gaze.
“Elmendëa. The journey truly has changed you… I hazard this is the second time I’ve ever heard you apologise in my life, Berílien, you should be quite proud—”
“The audacity!” you bat at him, bursting into a laugh. “Thick of you to keep tally. You and Glórieldir are irritatingly alike.”
Elrond’s mouth clicks shut. He tries to hide the hard press of his tongue against his cheek; the sudden bout of sour and ire. “Ah. Right. Your knight in golden, shining armour. Tell me, has he plucked the courage to court you yet?”
You’re almost winded . “What?
He shrugs. “Word goes he’s head over heels for you.”
“Word is word . We— I— We’re not, no . He is more my charge, if anything,” you wrinkle your nose, disapproving.
He tries to tamp down the relief secretly bleeding through him. “Oh? Why, you’ll break his golden heart.”
(This time, it’s you trying to convince yourself that you’re imagining that note of jealousy in his voice out of self-indulgence.)
“Besides," you wave, "I’ve been told he’ll be settling all the ways to Eregion, by the end of the season. I imagine we would hardly ever be feasible. ”
And then, in a slip of his tongue, or in new-found confidence (foolishness?), or perhaps because Elrond simply cannot help it anymore—
“Why not? I have loved you from further.”
A beat.
The world stills.
Your heart stutters.
Even the stars seem to hold their breath to bear witness.
Manwë help me, he freezes. This is not how I meant for this to go.
Your eyes flicker to his lips. He catches it in a glimmer of hope. Was that confession? he wonders. Admission? Concession?
“Your wine is… speaking, Elrond.”
“I have had but a quarter of a cup.”
“It is First Age wine.”
“I digress. It would take more than that to master the tongue of an elf. Especially mine.”
“You're half-elve—”
“Must we dance this age-old dance?” he blurts, half-desperate, half-terrified. Elrond isn’t like Galadriel, who could probably make flowers grow by sheer dint of belief. He doesn’t have it in him to pretend. Not anymore. “Just. Tell me I am wrong. That I’m mistaken. Tell me if— Tell me I have overstepped.”
Eärendil’s star is blinding in the momentary silence.
The wind blows bated with white-winged birds. It breathes a strand to your cheek, compelling, almost. Reach for her.
He does. Slowly. Elrond gathers, finally, the conviction, to reach for that stray tress of hair, to tuck it behind the high-tip of your ear.
Then he lingers. In one hand his wine, and the other ghosting across your cheek; As if he fears this an illusion, as if he’d touch you and you’d fade into a ripple.
“Tell me to walk away,” he says from where he stands a foot from you, voice so quiet it nearly fell into nothing. “And I will.”
I will do anything for you.
Your answer is barely a whisper, and drowned in affection. “Stay.”
( Kiss her. Kiss her. Kiss her. )
“And is your wine speaking?” he dares.
You shake your head honestly.
Concession. “I’ve not had even a taste, yet, this whole night.”
A taste? “I see.”
And then, as swift and smooth as a breeze, Elrond moves to finish the last swallow of his wine, and let slip the goblet to clatter onto the floor, so he could hold you wholly in both hands—
And ducks his head to kiss you.
It’s like the world sighs in song.
You’re melting as he kisses you, urgent— a talisman of a kiss; fierce and unhesitating and like a wick lit aflame. It’s sweet, cloyingly so, laden either from the red wine or the weight of all the unsaids between you two, or maybe both.
“Melin tye,” he pants, when he pulls for a chaste breath. "I've always—" *
But then you’re leaning up to him again, running your hand up his nape and into the locks of his curly hair, and tugging him back down to meet him halfway. Words can come later. There’ll be time. You’ll weave it into existence , if you must.
Right now you’re content with this . With seeing his eyes slide shut and feeling the press of his palms and thumbs on your cheeks; with letting him fold you tight into his arms, and kissing you so desperately it feels as if he’s cleaving his very soul apart so he could tuck you into it forever.
You exhale his name. A thin, reedy sound, when he sidles you to a plinth. “I thought me the ‘bane of your existence’?”
He bumps nose and forehead to yours, eyes half-mast and pupils blown in naked admiration. “You misquote me, surely.”
“Oh?” you murmur, low and close.
He doesn’t bother with an answer. Just dips to kiss you, slower this time, relaxed— Like a tender apology for the wasted centuries, like he wanted to carve into memory the seam of your lips and the slope of it; trace every crack, crevice and curve of your face; memorise the warmth of your skin and the shuddering feel of you in his searing touch.
It’s slow and steady and careful and painfully endearing. You have half the mind to just stay like this with him forever, eclipsed by Elrond's lips, hands and shadow; and translate everything you’ve ever held back from saying into this one fervid kiss alone—
“High King?” comes an approaching call.
Both of you fly back from each other in alarm, just as a figure turns the corner.
(The sound produced from the both of you pulling apart that ardent, sealing kiss is damning .)
“Círdan!” Elrond greets just in time, voice a strangled, breathless rasp.
He clears his throat to try again. “Ah, I’m— afraid the High King is not here.”
You pray to the Valar Círdan doesn’t notice the harried way both of your chests rise and fall, or the way the circlet on your head has gone distinctly off-kilter, or the windswept tousle of Elrond’s curls.
He does, however, notice the empty goblet that’d been rolled to a stop, right at his foot. “…Are you two alright?”
“Very,” Elrond drags, and shoots you a there-and-away glance that leaves your cheeks hot. “We were just—”
Círdan toes the cup. “Having another petty row, I assume?”
“Yes,” you agree hastily. “Arguing.”
“As always,” the shipwright assents. “Right, well, don’t let me interrupt.”
Then, Círdan turns to face you and narrows his eyes curiously. Your lips are glaringly stained red.
“Do go easy on the First Age wine, Marshal,” he suggests, before finally disappearing around the corner.
Elrond fights back from barking out a laugh.
“Yes, go easy ,” Elrond croons your way, once you sink in relief. “Tell me, was I enough of a taste for you?”
“Snide little—” You swat with a laugh, but he catches you easily by the wrist, wearing that tight-lipped, boyish smile, and bends down to nudge you into another kiss once more.
You give in, ofcourse.
“Fool,” you whisper somewhere inbetween.
You can practically feel him smiling against you.
“Half-wit.”
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