This arose from a conversation with Borys. (My crack fics usually start from conversations with him or with Tommy Ginger). Both of us have a similar headcanon, namely that the fact that Middle Earth isn't wall-to-wall elflings is due to Ellyth being able to choose when they conceive. (Borys has a detailed biological explanation invoking female llamas by way of analogy; I just treat it as an unexplained plot McGuffin). Tolkien's answer is of courseLaws and Customs of the Eldar (aka Vatican II for Elves): Elves don't until marriage, do it for as long as it takes till they complete their family, then turn their thoughts to higher things for the rest of eternity. This has always struck me as more than a bit implausible. So, it was a dark and stormy night in Meduseld...
~0~O~o~
The beautiful blonde shieldmaiden felt a pang of grief pierce her heart as she realised the terrible truth.
"Hot damn! He already has a girlfriend."
As the evening wore on, however, her stricken heart and wounded pride (not to mention her yearningly unfulfilled loins) received salve from an unexpected quarter: she could see the ethereally beautiful blond elf prince who was her erstwhile love interest's BFF casting heated, erotically charged glances her way. Eventually, by a wordless mutual understanding, they left the Golden Hall together. Within moments, his lithe, muscular archer's physique had her pinned against the wall of her bedchamber as he kissed her with a fervent passion. Proud daughter of the house of Eorl that she was, it behoved her to check the morality of her actions before proceeding further.
"But I thought you and Gimli..."
"Fear not, I switch-hit, and we have an open relationship. He's probably shagging your brother right now," the Elf breathed against her neck as his lips left a fiery trail along her collar-bone (where else?)
But not only was the beautiful shieldmaiden a deeply moral young woman who feared to interfere with other people's established relationships without first checking that the other partner would be cool about it, she was also (as befitted a shieldmaiden) a committed feminist who was up-to-date with latest American thinking on campus relationships and enthusiastic consent. Thus it was (as the Elf unlaced her bodice with a deftness born of millenia of experience) that she felt moved to utter the words, "But what about The Laws and Customs of the Eldar?"
Fiddling with his breeches, the member of the Eldar currently trying to free his Eldar member nuzzled her earlobe and whispered huskily, "Anthropology – or should that be Elfthropology – 101. No society bothers writing down a prohibition on some piece of behaviour unless a lot of the society are already engaging in precisely that behaviour."
Her moral and feminist qualms assuaged, the shieldmaiden sighed deeply as their naked bodies finally made contact. "In that case – take me tonight..." She cast an eye over his chiselled, muscular torso, and added, "And maybe tomorrow morning as well."
