This is a sequel to The way you touch me, chapter 4 of this work, but should be enjoyable also without reading that one first. Written for Fëanorian week 2018.

Summary: After a few months of stolen moments, Caranthir and Cedweril go on another of their playful swimming trips and find themselves wanting more.

Some keywords: romance, (re-)negotiating a relationship, implied sex and talk about sex but nothing remotely graphic, elf culture & customs, life in first age Beleriand during the Long Peace

A/N: The Noldorin and Sindarin views on sexuality, marriage etc. that Caranthir and Cedweril discuss here are not necessarily my firm headcanons on these matters, or my favourite interpretation of LaCE. They are what fit this fic well, so I used them here.

Caranthir curses in Sindarin again (Ai, rhaich) because I find it difficult to choose English profanities for elves. Other Sindarin used here: fae and rhaw = equivalent to Quenya fëa and hröa = spirit and body.

The way you hold me

The water is dark and close to still, reflecting the wispy clouds on the brilliant blue sky and the high wooded mountain slopes surrounding the lake. A few plumes of smoke rise from the fortress nestled into the mountainside and the town around it buzzes with activity, but on the short bit of rocky shore some way away from the fortress, there are no living creatures to be seen, and it is quiet.

The quiet is broken by an elf-woman walking briskly out of the trees clad in nothing but a knee-length linen shift, looking back at someone behind her. 'Come on, Caranthir!' she calls out, grinning. 'If you don't catch me now you never will. I am still faster than you in the water –'

'I would tackle you here if the ground wasn't so rocky', threatens the man that follows her out of the cover of trees. He is likewise clad in nothing but his undertunic, though he carries a long sword in one hand and a short dagger in the other.

'Then it is a good thing that it is.' Cedweril dances away from him, beaming at him still. 'Ah, but it is a beautiful morning. I am so glad that you could find time away from your duties to spend with me, my lord.'

'I thought I'd managed to convince you to stop calling me "my lord"', Caranthir grumbles, but adds, 'I always want to find time for you. It is only the dwarf-traders' visit that kept me away from coming with you here for the past two weeks.'

'I know, and I bear you no grudge for it. And you did visit me in my humble infirmary.'

They've arrived at the waterline, and Caranthir sets down his weapons by stabbing them firmly into the narrow sandy strip between water and rocky ground. Far enough from the water that they are not lapped at by the small waves, and close enough that he can grab them as soon as he gets out of the lake, if need be.

Then he turns to his companion who hasn't, despite her threats, sprinted into the water for him to try to catch, but is waiting for him with a smile still on her lips and the sun in her dark hair. He cups her cheek in his hand and kisses her, twining his other arm around her waist, holding her to him.

'I couldn't do this in the infirmary', he mumbles into her neck when they have to separate for breath.

'And that is why I like here on the lakeshore better', she replies, shivering from his touch. 'But, my dear, I think we should go into the water now or we will never get around to it.'

'Hmm', he replies, taking in the scent of her sun-warmed skin before raising his head and agreeing, 'Yes, we should'. And then he lifts her into the air and tosses her into the water.

Cedweril surfaces quickly, gasping from the sudden cold and sputtering from laughter. Caranthir grins in triumph and wades in to stifle her protestations with kisses. She allows him to, for a moment, and then wriggles out of his arms and swims away as fast as she can.

Her limbs warm quickly with the exercise and she enjoys the sensation of the cool water surrounding and supporting her. She has always loved swimming.

Caranthir follows her. He has become a better swimmer since they started coming to this quiet shore and swimming together, though she can still stay out of his reach if she wants to. She doesn't want to today, so they swim side by side for a while and then float on their backs like she has taught him, staring up at the sky together.

Cedweril closes her eyes and almost begins to grow sleepy in the sunlight and her own contentedness. It is good to be here together with Caranthir.

At length, Caranthir speaks of something he hasn't spoken before. Few of his people speak to Cedweril's of their life in that tree-lit land across the sea.

'When I was a child, the water where I learned to swim was warm even in winter', he says.

Cedweril considers her reply carefully. 'I find that hard to imagine. As you know, this lake often freezes over in the winter.'

'It was warmer there', Caranthir says. 'Winters were less like winters, more like… the absence of summer, of the growing season.' He is quiet for a while, and then says, 'Where we swam was a small lake inland close to where my mother's parents lived.'

'Did they teach you to swim?' Cedweril turns to look at him, taking care not to upset her balance.

Caranthir's smile relaxes to the neutral expression that Cedweril has learned is practically a smile for him. 'My brother did, mostly, while the adults were busy. Maitimo – Maedhros, I mean. Maglor wasn't old enough to be a good instructor, but he tried too. Celegorm, though, mainly distracted me by splashing water onto me.'

Cedweril wiggles her fingers, flicking a tiny amount of water at him, and smiles at his surprised expression. 'That sounds delightful', she comments. 'Like a good memory.'

'It is.' Caranthir's expression focuses suddenly, and he flips around in the water and starts swimming for the shore. 'Try and catch me, Cedweril', he calls over his shoulder. 'There must come a day when I am a faster swimmer, and it might be today.'

The time to reminisce seems to be over, Cedweril reflects as she begins to chase after him. She isn't too disappointed because while learning something of Caranthir's closely guarded youth was nice and felt like something important, she knows that when they reach the shore they'll make new memories, less innocent but no less pleasant to dream of on days to come.

Caranthir does his best to win the race, no doubt, since he never does anything half-heartedly, but Cedweril is still the first on the shore by the space of a few heartbeats.

'I swear, you must be a water-spirit of Ulmo masquerading as an elf-woman', Caranthir grumbles when they reach the shore.

Cedweril wrings water out of the hem of shift and laughs at him. 'You are not used to being bested at physical pursuits, are you, my lord?' As always, she uses the title teasingly.

Caranthir raises his brows. 'Not by elf-maidens whom I can easily swing across my shoulder.' He proceeds to do so and then, holding her in place with one hand, pulls his sword from the sand with the other hand. While Cedweril is still gasping from surprise, he tells her to take the dagger.

'Just let me down, Caranthir', she says between giggles. 'This is silly.'

'This is retribution for all of your teasing of me. Take the dagger, girl, before I drop you.'

'I know you wouldn't.' She reaches out carefully anyway. 'Move a little to the left.' She picks up the dagger and tells him to let her down.

'Not before we're in the forest.'

And as if this was all completely normal, he carries the sword and her carrying the dagger across the shore, sure-footed and steady-stepped even though the rocky ground must feel unpleasant under his bare feet and the additional weight he carries. He only lets her down once he reaches the spot where they left their clothes.

Cedweril hands him the dagger and he takes it and sets it down a few paces away together with the sword before returning to her. He kisses her once and then sorts out the tangles in her hair with his strong fingers that are always gentle with her.

Cedweril raises her hands to his hair to do the same though there is little there to untangle, for his hair is short; even when soaking wet, it doesn't even reach his shoulders. He has it chopped short every few months. The last time he wanted it done, he asked Cedweril to do it. While she cut it with careful snips of her sharpest scissors, she asked if he had always worn it so short. He replied that he first hacked it off, with a bloody dagger after a battle, after the first time it got into his eyes during fighting and put him in unnecessary danger.

To Cedweril, it sounded exactly like something he'd do.

Now she grabs his wrists and says, 'You are doing work that is doomed to come undone soon, Caranthir. Or are you not going to kiss me again and lay with me?'

'Of course I am, my impatient fair maiden.' Here in the quiet little forest, holding on to each other, warm with anticipation of what is to come – what always comes after they go swimming together – his eyes are brighter than stars and his cheeks are flushed as he gives her a real smile. She treasures those smiles more than the jewels he has given her.

There is something that has been bothering her, though. 'You keep calling me a maiden', she points out. 'And a girl. I am neither anymore. Surely you are aware of that, as you are the one responsible for my not being a maiden anymore.'

Caranthir sighs and rubs a hand down his face. He has been avoiding this conversation – not because he is afraid of it, but because he doesn't know what to say and has been waiting to find the right words. But it is possible they might never arrive, given the difference in his and Cedweril's cultures and upbringing. That difference sometimes causes a distance to suddenly appear between them, even when they had been close as can be just moments before. When it does, there is a temptation to create a physical distance as well. He refuses to give in to that temptation now, winding his arms around her waist and holding on to her.

'I never gave it much though before but to me, maiden is an unmarried woman', he says. 'And we are not married, though we have lain together. You told me that to your people, those two do not have to mean the same.'

'No, they do not', she replies. She does not fidget – she never does – but stays still in his hold, her fingers resting on his biceps and her gaze on his chest. 'To me, a maiden is an inexperienced girl. I am not that anymore though I am not a wife either.'

'I see', Caranthir says, adding this to the long list of blunders he has made with others who have different customs from his own. He has learned to learn from them, though, and he has learned to be curious about differences. He strokes Cedweril's back and asks, after analysing their interactions, 'What is it, more specifically, that bothered you about me calling you by that word?'

Cedweril thinks for a long moment. 'I suppose that hearing you call me a maiden makes me feel like our experiences together aren't important. That they don't count.'

'Cedweril', he says and grabs her chin, tipping her face up and making her meet his eyes. 'Look at me, don't be shy. I don't know how to deal with shyness from you. And – of course they count. The times we have lain together. They… I… I was as inexperienced as you were. I held on to the customs of my own people for a long time in this land. I wouldn't have given them up for something insignificant.'

'Good', Cedweril says. 'Because even though lovemaking doesn't necessarily mean marriage to my people, it is still a meaningful act.'

'I don't see how it could be otherwise', Caranthir says. The hand that was on her chin strays to her hair again, to the soft, dark strands that are curling gently now that they are damp rather than wet. 'It is… I give and share so much of myself with you when we make love. I don't see how I could not.'

What an odd word the Sindar use for it. Make love. It seems odd to Caranthir since the Sindar are the ones who think it possible and acceptable to separate the physical act of making love and the institution of marriage. In the world where Caranthir grew up, love, marriage and making love were inseparably woven together. But he left that world behind him, and he can discard its rules and customs as suits him.

It hadn't been a hardship to accept a new meaning of marriage when Cedweril asked him to, but it is growing harder rather than easier, every time, to part without any bond as soon as they leave the little forest that is their private refuge. It may be time to change again the pattern they have fallen into.

'It is meaningful to me too', Cedweril says. 'It is not like I imagined.'

'How is it different?'

'It is harder to let you go than I thought it would be.' She looks up at him, her clear grey eyes dark with emotion. 'And after every new time, it is harder.'

'Yes', he replies. 'Every time it is harder to go back alone, and every night my bed is cold, and every time I have to nod a polite greeting at you it feels wrong. I don't want to keep doing it.'

'I understand.' Cedweril drops her hands and pulls away from him.

He doesn't let her go. 'You don't understand. Ai, rhaich. Cedweril. We have always been straightforward with each other, so let us be so now. I want more from you than these swimming trips and secret love-makings in the forest. When you asked me if we could be together without the formal celebrations and binding ties of the Noldor, I told you that we could, but I've realised that what we have now isn't enough.

'It is nearly autumn, and we want each other more than we did at the beginning of the summer, not less. I don't want to give you up –' he could say, I cannot give you up for you have become as dear to me as any part of me, but he doesn't because his straightforwardness has its limits and those limits are at the border of sentimentality '– so I ask you to give me more. I want you to be mine every day. The only way I know that you could be is marriage, so I am asking you to marry me. By every last complicated Noldorin rite or any Sindarin one, I don't care, as long as you will be mine not only in my eyes but everyone else's too.'

Cedweril says, 'I am no high lady and I don't want you to make me into one.'

'I want you only as you are', Caranthir promises. 'I love you as you are. With your foul-smelling herbs, and your swift fingers that pierce skin and push bones back into place to heal my warriors, and your dedication to your work, and the way you hold me tight when I enter you. I would change nothing of you but to make you my wife.'

Though she smiles, her voice is solemn when she replies, 'I would happily be married to you by the rites of my people.'

'Good. Good.' In relief, Caranthir leans his forehead on hers. 'What do they entail? I have just realised that I have never witnessed a Sindarin marriage ceremony.'

'It is because it is private. No parents present, no jewels or rings exchanged, no large celebration except perhaps afterwards, if the couple wishes for it.' Cedweril leads him to the spot covered by soft moss where they had quite intentionally left their clothes.

'The marriage ceremonies of the Noldor were like that once upon a time, I believe', he says. 'But then we went West and found stability and wealth, built cities and came up with elaborate proceedings for every occasion. At the heart of a wedding, though, has always been the same thing.'

'The oaths.' The slight tremor in her voice tells him that she knows the weight that word holds for him.

He makes it explicit anyway. 'I have already sworn an oath of which I will never be free; I can swear no oath more binding than that.'

'I know', Cedweril says with surprising serenity. 'I know, Caranthir. I know of your oath, and I am willing to take whatever piece of you it leaves free. Even if that is only a few happy shared days.'

'Are you certain?'

She takes his hands into her own. 'A few days together is better than nothing. I had a brother once, Caranthir. He was betrothed but never married. He was waiting for the war to end for good, as he believed that the wisest course. His own end came before peace, and his beloved grieved all the same than if they had been married, but she never lived a day as his wife.'

'I didn't know', is all Caranthir can think to say.

'I never told you. Now.' Suddenly she is all business, the brisk, pragmatic healer-woman who caught his eye. 'Do you wish to say your oath first, or shall I?'

'You should. I should have one example to follow so that I don't make mine too Noldorin.'

Cedweril's lips twitch before she grows solemn again. 'Very well. Now, I know you had other names when you were young, but I will only use the one I know you by.' She glances at him, asking for approval, and he nods. 'Caranthir, I swear to you in the name of Eru All-father and all the powers that are below him, and by my own fae and rhaw, that I will love you and hold you as my own as long as there exists any of me to do so, until the breaking of the world.'

She is a smart one, his wife-to-be, Caranthir reflects as he looks into her eyes and squeezes her hands and composes in his mind his own oath out of the pieces of hers that he can use. She gave him many such pieces.

'Cedweril, I swear to you on my own fae and rhaw that I will love you and hold you as my own as long as there is anything of me that can do so.'

She smiles up at him, stars in her eyes that might be tears, and stands slightly on her toes to kiss him, and he kisses her back gently, lovingly. She deserves more than that promise that is so much less than what she gave him, but she chose to make hers first anyway, and Caranthir isn't selfless enough to not take what she offers. He'll leave that sort of self-sacrifice to others. This new oath does not lie heavy on his heart like the first one; it makes him feel light like he hasn't felt for a long time. Even if it is an illusion, it is a sweet one.

He'll do everything he can to make the days he has with her as happy as they can be, however many or few of those days there are to be.

They lay down on the soft moss and he kisses her all over until she is trembling and begging sweetly for more of him, and he gives her everything she asks, because here, now, he is hers.