Author's Notes: Written from a challenge on the Sons of Elrond mailing list. Warnings: Twincest! Implied rape. Angst. Anger.

::Fell Deeds::

Tomorrow our mother will sail for the Undying Lands.

She did not even allow us to come and see her board the ship. I wonder if she knows how much she wounds her family with this abandonment. We loved her with all our hearts, but that was not enough to make her stay. Perhaps it is wrong of me to think of our mother as being selfish. But when she leaves the company of those that love her, those that would die for her if need be, for the company of those she has only known in legend, how can I think of her otherwise?

In my darker moments I actually believe I hate her. She has destroyed my wondrous family. There is an empty place where my mother should be, a shadow where my father is, a grieving wraith that is my sister, and a brother broken beyond repair. The path of mortality seems all the more luscious with the knowledge I would never have to see her face again and know the betrayal she has sparked in my heart.

I do not share these thoughts with my beloved twin, my other half. He has always felt a strong connection with the Silver Queen and in his company I find that I do lament her loss. But it is his heart, not my own, that has been torn asunder as we lie in the moonlit garden and wonder if she thinks of us on her last night.

My brother tells me it is cold that I have not shed a tear for our mother's torment, nor for her departure. He is right and I tell him so as he kisses me, seeking comfort rather than granting it. I do not speak my thoughts, that our mother was weak, as his body covers mine. As elf and man I cannot abide by her failing, not when another so close to me has suffered similar anguish and remained.

He shifts against me and my mind travels to long ago.

It was some thousand years ago as Men count. My twin and I were hunting with the Rangers. I know not how I lost my brother, and it rends my heart to think I did not look for him right away. But my brother was prone to wandering off. He always made his way back eventually.

It was the mournful cry that first alarmed me to his plight. To this day I do not know if it was my elven hearing that allowed me to hear such terror when the Rangers could not or if the scream sounded only in my own heart. My feet carried me from camp before words of question could even form in the minds of the men. They could do little more than follow in my wake.

I tore through the forest until I reached the enclave where my heart nearly ceased beating. My brother lay on the ground, covered in blood and grime, his clothes shredded and his sword strewn uselessly out of reach. If not for the dark spill of hair and the slightly rounded tips of his ears I almost would not have recognized the being who has been my mirror since the day we were born.

My bow and quiver lay discarded as I dropped beside him, trying to find some recognition in the gray eyes. I did not want to touch him, there seemed to be no place he was not cut or bruised. The Rangers broke into the clearing then, letting out their loud curses as they scattered to follow the tracks of horde that had done such a thing to my much-loved brother.

I have a hard time remembering what happened next. I know we carried my twin back to camp and cleaned him, carefully binding his wounds. I remember snapping at Rangers left and right and even lashing out physically at one, but they forgave me under the circumstances and tried to offer words of reassurance that I would not hear.

It felt as if my world was crumbling about my ears as I daily changed the bandages and waited for my beautiful brother to wake. For days he would not and I feared I had I had lost him to sorrow and despair. Only pressing my ear to his chest and listening to the strong sound of his heart would console me.

I left his side only when the Rangers told me the trail of the horde had been found again. I know not how many orcs I killed in those days I awaited my brother's waking, but it was never enough. When the black blood stained the green grass as far as the eye could see, it was still not proper payment for what they had done.

The day came when he finally woke and joy filled me, only to be quickly squashed by the haunted look in his gray eyes. I tried to comfort him, as he had always done for me. But he would not be comforted, refusing to let me touch him, recoiling when I even so much as moved in his direction.

He wept in his sleep, struggling against unseen hands, and it broke my heart that I could do nothing for him. My concern for him was met with anger in the waking world. He would slap my hand away and tell me not to touch him, turning away and muttering in words that he thought I could not hear, that he was unclean and unworthy of such affection. He swore the Rangers to silence about what had happened and ordered me not to tell our family, which I foolishly agreed to.

I wanted to return home. The only reason I had not taken him directly to father after I found him so bloodied was I feared the travel would aggravate the grievous injuries. But he would not permit it. He would rage at me whenever I suggested such, telling me to leave if I wished to part from him so. I was not dealing with the brother I knew back them, but some fearful shadow that had taken his place.

For nearly a year we hid ourselves in the Wild as his wounds healed, sending the occasional letters to our parents to assure them all was well. It still sickens me to think of the pleasant lies I wrote at my brother's bequest. But during that year, when he placed a hand on my shoulder to argue about some phrasing, it was the only time he would consent to allowing us to touch.

Then came the night in the caverns near the Redhorn Pass. The Rangers had left us, seeking their families to abide the coming winter months with and carrying the latest lie infested message to our parents. Not having an elf's full immunity to the cold I lay in my blankets near the fire as a cold wind whipped flecks of the first snowfall into the cave.

I was miserably wishing for my bed in Imladris when his arms wrapped around me and he curled under my blankets, pressing his body close against mine. I had thought the touches would come back slowly, not all at once like this. I assumed it was the chill that forced him to seek the warmth of my body and by morning he would again be angrily snapping when I offered him a hand.

But then I heard his voice asking if I thought him dirty, if I wanted him to let go. I knew if I answered wrong I would break him, but I could say nothing except what was in my heart. I told him I thought of him as I always had, as my wondrous twin brother who I loved and admired. That I missed his embrace desperately. That I missed him.

His tears fell upon my throat and I twisted in his grasp until I could hold the like face in my hands and kiss the tears away, whispering soft words of support. It was he that kissed my lips first that night. I would never have initiated such a thing with such a beleaguered soul, but neither would I stop it as he rolled on top of me and began seeking our old bond of reassurance.

Our relationship until then, before my brother's torment, had been filled with incestuous touches and kisses. Nights of laughing and fumbling in the dark as we explained what we would do when we met lovers that suited us. I knew the feel of his hard flesh as well as I knew my own, but never had we dared to consummate our forbidden rapport.

I let him take me that night. He wanted it desperately and for the treasure of his touch I would have given in to any request he made. All the thoughts of propriety and wrongness that had plagued me over the years fled my mind. I felt as a condemned man must when granted a pardon. I reveled in the feel of his chilled skin against mine as I caressed the body so long denied to me. I whispered and told him how lovely he was, careful not to brush any of the still fading scars as he sobbed into my dark hair and dominated me completely.

From that day on he has clung to me as if I were his last shred of sanity and I have allowed it. The touches have increased and become tragically more public. The denizens of Imladris have seen fit to look the other way. Especially our family and closest friends. Father once suggested that it was unseemly for brothers to be so close, but he has done little else to discourage us.

The nightmares still come to my dear brother; though at times I delude myself into believing he is fully recovered from the ordeal. But I can tell from the persistence in which he now divests me of my clothing that mother's torment has stirred up the memories of his own. So I say nothing of our father's fair seneschal watching from afar as he penetrates me, hoping the valiant voyeur will hold his tongue.

I soothe and kiss the like face as my strong, darling twin begins to sob. No one else has ever seen these tears and I am honored by them. I tell him there was little he could do for our mother and nothing now that she has chosen a path out of our reach. He does not hear the bitterness in my voice as he says he must do something to pay the dark creatures of the world back for what they have done.

And so we shall, for I would never let him go away from me again. He may cling to me, but I hold to him just as firmly, if not with more desperation. I was deprived of my brother's closeness for nearly a year. I will not be denied so again.

Tomorrow we will ride out with the Rangers as our mother boards her ship and reek vengeance upon the foul orcs that have done us so many grievous wrongs. Our father will give us his blessing as he always does, and while I loathe to leave him alone with nothing but his grief and his wraithlike daughter, the rage and sorrow in my twin's eyes must be sated. And so my twin and I will ride.

He to seek vengeance for Celebrian and I beside him to seek vengeance for Elladan.