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Voronwë’s heart beat faster as he saw Tuor come up over the ridge. He had been fidgeting with his carving knife, but now his hands fell into his lap and the last light of the setting sun glinted in the metal. Tuor had his back to the reddening sky, but approaching their camp, he seemed to glow on his own. Perhaps, Voronwë thought, it was caused by some spell of Ulmo’s. Or maybe Tuor just was that perfect, a story-book hero back from scouting, still energetic and without thirst and hunger.
Voronwë remembered the hares again and looked down, sliding the knife along sheer, white tendons. In front of him, flames were clinging as best they could to the firewood he had gathered. The camp was half-hidden behind jagged rocks where all that grew were desperate, barren bushes and the ever-resilient lichen that was everywhere in these wilds.
“Back again,” Voronwë said. “Good. Got a campfire going while you were gone. See anything out there?”
“Not anything worth mentioning. It’s quiet.” Tuor acknowledged his companion with a nod and sat cross-legged on the other side of the fire. He scratched at a beginning beard, hands scarred and nails dirty. “So... How far?”
Voronwë shrugged and tore a piece of meat off of the animal carcass. “A few more days, if memory serves. But we’ll get there.”
It was strange to know, almost instinctively, that their journey would end in success. That Ulmo was on their side. Voronwë did not know whether to relish in it or to be unnerved after having sailed for years unable to shake the feeling that his quest was doomed. Now, there was hope, and while they ate they discussed the road ahead, not the dangers they had left behind. Tuor did not speak much of the marks at his wrists, and Voronwë had more pressing issues to talk about than the sea and the shipwreck. All that mattered was that their respective paths had led them here.
All that mattered was the fire and the outcropping sheltering them from the wind.
Even with these things, it grew colder and colder as night arrived. The darkness moved like water, flowing down from the sharp spines of the mountains. It seeped into valleys and cracks in the lowlands until it was at their feet, kept at bay only by the glow of the flames. Then it rose and surrounded them both. The only light was between the two travelers, and above and beside them, shadows rested soundly. Tuor began looking around as he pulled his cape tighter to his body.
“No need to worry,” Voronwë said quietly. “I’ve got better ears and eyes than you.”
“I know, I know." Tuor sighed. "Besides, it’s not the orcs or wolves I’m worried about. I’m just cold.”
Voronwë motioned to take off his own cloak, but Tuor shook his head.
“You still need that,” he said.
“I can stand the cold,” Voronwë replied, fingers once more touching the cool metal of the clasp. “I need to see you safely to Gondolin. It would be no use to have you arrive sick – or as a dead body.”
Tuor grinned. “I doubt Ulmo would let that happen.”
“So do I, but…”
But you are more important than me, Voronwë thought.
For a ship to sail, each man must pull his weight.
Tuor rose before Voronwë had a chance to say anything. He moved to Voronwë’s side, took one end of the cloak and said, “We can share.”
Their shoulders touched, and Voronwë hesitated before he leant in. It was not something he was used to – but in this wilderness with its far, open, empty horizons… Being close was not bad at all. He could feel Tuor shiver and hear him breathe.
“Am I warm?” Voronwë asked.
“Like a furnace,” came the reply.
“Are you tired?”
“Like Oromë’s dogs.” Tuor yawned again, and Voronwë felt the man’s chest expand and an arm jabbing into his side. “I might just fall asleep like this.”
“…Go ahead. I’ll keep watch.”
“You always do.” With that, Tuor closed his eyes and exhaled deeply, sleep coming easy to him.
Voronwë suspected that Tuor knew why he always stayed up. They just had an unspoken agreement that they wouldn’t talk about Voronwë brought it up. The truth was that he much preferred watching the stars to dreams where storms washed over him and the terror felt as if it had never left him at all. When he woke, only the faint sound of his companion’s breathing or heat from the fire could help ground him in the present.
Tuor’s weight was growing heavier on Voronwë's shoulder.
Voronwë looked at him, saw that he slept, and felt glad to be alive in this moment despite lingering fear and bitterness. There was something about Tuor’s trust and feeling another body so close to his own that brought him calm. Cautiously optimistic, he hoped there would be more evenings like this when they reached Gondolin. He wanted to take Tuor's hand, for it was so very near his own and he did not know when he would get the chance again. He would never have dared if Tuor was awake. All the man needed was a guide and perhaps a friend, and Voronwë knew that was what he had to be, then.
He did not know how long he sat, staring.
He took deep breath after deep breath, making the shared cloak move across both their shoulders as he couldn’t get himself to close the gap, to take Tuor’s hand. The man’s face was beautiful in the light of the dying fire. In the dark, Voronwë’s senses were sharper, and he could hear the wind and the birds, the shuffling, nocturnal animals breaking branches and the running stream on the other side of the cliffs. And if he could hear the stream, the stream could hear him.
“Is it you,” he whispered, “Lord of Waters, who gives me these thoughts?”
Tuor stirred in his sleep, but did not wake.
“Did you make me admire this man so much that it is almost…”
Feeling that words failed him, Voronwë looked up at the sky. He knew how to navigate by the stars. There were patterns; constellations and heavenly geometry, and he had a private theory that the rest of the world was arranged in similar figures in ways undiscovered. Some guiding principle made fates fall into place to create elaborate patterns - circles – palindromes.
Voronwë spoke again, but no louder than a breath. “Are these desires my own, or have I been placed under a spell so that I’d keep him safe? Have you made me love him?”
The stream, of course, said nothing.
It was impossible for Voronwë to know what Tuor dreamt. It could be a nightmare or a heaven-sent prophetic vision that made him gasp and shudder.
All Voronwë knew was the location of Gondolin and that the hand so close to his was cold.
"For I do love him."
So, slowly, Voronwë took Tuor’s hand. He allowed himself, resting against Tuor and relishing in the shared warmth, to fall into the state that was almost like sleep, though his eyes were open. And he waited for dawn, where they could both talk about what strange roads they had wandered during the night.
When he shared a bed with Tuor, Voronwë was glad he woke up early.
In the morning, low light barely filtering into the room, he could watch Tuor sleep. It was different in Gondolin. With no danger to watch out for, he could take his time admiring the lines and angles of Tuor’s face, at once familiar and foreign, free of tension and fear. The window with its green glass was a membrane between them and the city.
Voronwë was still in love.
He sighed and leant back against the wall, tying seafarer’s knots with loose threads from his bedsheets.
He still felt love, but things were complicated.
At least he had this.
Tuor looked beautiful as he slept, his body healthier and his lips curved upward in a smile. It was not always so. He spent the night with Voronwë to be free of nightmares and a kind of stress that often made him rest uneasily. He came in search of company, a cup of wine and understanding.
Voronwë understood - knew what Ulmo's voice sounded like, knew what cold and danger truly meant to Tuor. The man wanted someone who could lie by his side so he could let down his guard; someone who didn't mind seeing him tired and worn-out and thus, they slept together in the simplest sense of the word.
Outside, there was a faint sound of flutes. The city was full of lanterns and lighthearted revelry so far removed from the world beyond the valley – and last night, Tuor had had mead on his breath and flowers woven loosely into his hair. In the dark, he came as a familiar, cloaked shape that Voronwë recognized by gait alone. His eyes had been deep-set and distant, his head still humming with music. Voronwë imagined that he could almost see shimmering trails left by other people whose fingers had trailed along Tuor’s face just to touch someone touched by the Valar.
Daisy petals danced with drafts across the floorboards.
Voronwë had learned by now that he could not love this city like some of the other elves who lived there. His language was coarser and his hands rougher. He saw citizens with a particular fire in their eyes and spring in their step as they made their way down to the King’s Square. Those were people for whom the walls were built from the ideal of safety instead of brick; for whom the buildings were all monuments to beauty – and Voronwë could sort of see it. It was a well-protected and pretty place. But what he loved was not Gondolin – it was something that just happened to be in the city at the moment.
And even then, what Voronwë wanted probably didn’t have much to do with why he was there. Like a ship, he thought, the world has captains and officers who choose direction and speed while surrounded with so many smaller people who were instrumental in making the ship move, yes – but who have no control of the direction they are going. That was for the captain and officers to decide, and even they were subject to the movements of higher forces, the waves and the wind.
Tuor was at the helm, but Voronwë was just one of many smaller figures making fate and destiny unfold as it should. He had no claim on Tuor.
He had no claim… His fingers trailed down Tuor’s shoulder, light enough that the man wouldn’t wake. He had Tuor’s trust. He had shared memories and nights and emerald-green mornings when the sun shone into his bedroom. Something ambiguous that could not be presented to others as any kind of relationship in particular. There were no names for the space between one chapter of a hero’s tale and the next. And he had never said a word about his feelings, only expressed them in the language of his hands and eyes when he led Tuor along into his home or held him in his bed. Surely, Tuor would find someone with the same heroic glow, the same grand role to play in the history books. Voronwë had an idea about who that might be, and he wondered if he would one day no longer find Tuor at his door.
And, speaking of...
Tuor yawned and stretched. Arms that had been wrapped so tightly around Voronwë during the night reached for the low ceiling. His lips were drawn into a wry smile as he sat up.
“Good morning.”
“’Morning,” Voronwë replied. “Sleep well?”
Tuor cast his eyes down, eyelashes drawing fluttering shadows on his cheeks. “I slept through the whole night. Didn’t wake once.”
Voronwë gave him a small smile and watched as the cold daylight burned their intimacy away. Tuor looked around the room for his boots, and it did not take long for him to find his belongings in Voronwë’s small home. (The elf liked small, liked the wooden floors and the tiny windows. Too large places reminded him of open plains. The perfect bedroom was the size of the space underneath a willow tree's branches).
As Tuor walked around the room, Voronwë wished, as so often before, that he could read the man’s mind. With other elves, he had at least a slight ability with osanwe to rely on. Not so with Tuor, who ran his fingers through hair he was now growing long by choice instead of necessity.
“Thank you,” Tuor said, “for keeping your door open for me. For last night.”
“You don’t have to thank me. It’ll always be like that.” Voronwë paused. “I’m glad you came.”
As he dressed himself in silk, Tuor looked at the map hanging on one of the slanted walls. He always gravitated towards it. There was no way he didn’t know all the coastlines by heart now – but perhaps, Voronwë thought, he really did see something different each time. Some days, the map filled Voronwë with wanderlust and memories of distant places; others, it became nothing but a reminder of his own failed attempt at sailing beyond its borders.
“It’s almost strange to be so clean all the time,” Tuor muttered. “All these clothes, all these formalities…”
“As a species, we elves had the years to refine them,” Voronwë said. “Excessively.”
“You’re more direct. In the way you speak, I mean.”
Voronwë smiled. “Some of the people at court would call me crude instead."
“Don’t talk to me about court. All the titles and houses and – oh, heavens above, the way they look at you if you say something wrong. I don’t know if I prefer that Ulmo speaks for me or not. At least that way, I don’t make mistakes…”
“It’s so odd when the voice coming out of your mouth isn’t your own,” Voronwë said, his voice light. Then his smile faded as Tuor turned towards him, shoulders slumped.
“…Do I seem tired to you?”
He did not have any dark circles beneath eyes that were not red or dry, and his posture was the picture of ease. Still – the sight and the words made Voronwë get to his feet in a long, fluid motion. Laying a gentle hand on Tuor’s shoulder, he said, “You look exhausted. I don’t think others notice – but I can tell.”
It was in the eyes. A certain sheen to them, like back in the wilderness. Something you’d only recognize if you had seen it before, and Voronwë knew it party by the way it made his heart ache.
“You have it easier,” Tuor said. “And you can keep your eyes open when you sleep-“
“I get exhausted, too. Even though it's not the same, I suppose.”
Tuor did not answer, but his fingers followed a path from Hithlum south through the wild.
Voronwë said, “Still haven’t told anyone about your dreams?”
“No. And I should… I should probably just call them nightmares, right? That’s what they are.” Tuor shook his head. “But calling them that makes me feel like I’m a child. I should not be troubled by something that isn’t real-“
“But it was,” Voronwë interrupted. He let his hand move lightly towards Tuor’s, across the space between them. “It was all real at some point, right? The cold, the danger, the things that chased us – If I can have dreams about the storm, you can have dreams about all that.”
“But we were guided through it. We have Ulmo on our side."
“I think about Ulmo a lot, trust me -” Voronwë paused as he felt something like a gentle jolt run through his arm. Fingers entwined with his own, brushing over old scars and callouses. Tuor let himself be led towards the stairs. Wooden steps creaked beneath them, worn almost white by the years. “He’s not finished with us.”
“I don’t think so either.”
Their eyes met, and Voronwë could see the ocean in Tuor’s blue irises. He knew what it meant, felt a shiver down his back. They stopped by the landing, midway between the noise of the street and the quiet bedroom.
“The elves here – they don’t really see me,” Tuor muttered. It was not the King’s beloved who spoke – it was a man freezing in the wilderness, letting walls fall as he grew tired. “They speak to Tuor, son of Huor. The blessed, Lord of the House of the Wing… They've expected these things from me ever since I took up that sword. Remember at the beach? You hardly expected me to survive to Gondolin. ”
"I remember," Voronwë said, and with something like sarcasm in his voice, he added, “Praise Ulmo, we made it."
Tuor walked on down with heavy footfalls, skipping steps, letting Voronwë watch his back.
The sense of urgency, of something threatening approaching was not gone. It was only further away. Instead of being certain that they were being hunted, they knew that they lived in a doomed city. And before Tuor went out into it and was swallowed by the streets, Voronwë hurried to him, hands clenched into fists.
“I think Idril will listen to you."
She’s got the same light in her eyes. She'll understand, fair and fate-touched as she is.
“Maybe.” Tuor took his cloak from a peg by the door. “But what I was trying to say was... I know you're honest with me. And I can be honest with you.”
Voronwë took a step forward, bringing them closer, closer. “So be honest with me now. Are you happy here?”
“...I’m fine,” Tuor said. “I’m exactly as I should be.”
Their eyes met.
For a while, the room was silent. Old memories, as always, made Voronwë taste salt when he thought of them.
Tuor opened the door, and sunlight embraced him. He looked like an elf-lord, like a hero, like what the people on the street expected. He was born for the role, all his blood singing to him that he was doing what he was meant to do - Voronwë had no doubts about that.
But Voronwë had seen the son of Huor, from the house of Hador, when he was hungry, tired and had matted hair in the long, cold dark.
Tuor had seen his guide refusing sleep night after night from fear of jolting awake, ready to vomit the salt water he feared he had inhaled again.
They had seen desperation and blood and had slept close to keep the cold at bay.
“You can always come back,” Voronwë said.
But when Tuor left, as always, Voronwë felt his heart beat faster, making him want to reach for just a corner of that fluttering cape.