.
Amber and Glass
Canticle of the Haunted: 7th Chapter
They held each other and kissed and pushed
each others' darkness into the corner,
believing in each others' light, each others' dream.
- Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream
Author's note:
WARNING: THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS EXTREMELY GRAPHIC CONTENT
Hi guys, I did not plan for there to be such a delay in publishing this chapter. My mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly after I published the last chapter and so my personal life has become quite hectic. I will probably be updating much more slowly because of this at least until my mother passes away, which will probably be around December. Sorry to be slow with updates but dealing with this family situation is consuming much of my time and energy.
"I've heard there's ale to be had around these parts." Celeborn, said, coming to a halt before the place where three young elf lads were playing at some sort of game, moving little figurines of wood and stone across the top of an ale barrel about which they were all sat.
His appearance had caused a stir, as he had presumed it would, and he rolled his shoulders, adjusting the strap of the dulcimer that hung across his back. His cloak concealed his hair, and much of his face, but it could not conceal his accent and that was most likely, nay indeed it was certainly, that which had startled them. Of course, Celeborn never thought of himself as having an accent but to these Mithrim he was sure that the Doriathrin tone of his voice must have been quite prominent and the dour looks that suddenly appeared on the faces of the young elf men before him only lent further credence to what he had surmised. What exactly a Doriathrin accent sounded like was highly dependent upon the listener. Galadriel insisted that it sounded quite proper and regal, Círdan that it was harsh and volatile, and he had heard Denethor, back when Denethor was still alive of course, assert that the elves of Doriath, and most particularly of Menegroth proper, sounded like backwoods bumpkins. That particular assessment had always intrigued Celeborn, given that his people held similar opinions about Denethor's people.
But, whatever his accent might sound like, the one thing most everyone seemed able to agree upon was that it was quite strong. In these long months they had passed here at the mouths of the Sirion, he had found himself having cause to repeat what he had said far more often than not. The concept was novel to him and slightly unnerving; Celeborn had never been a patient man, most particularly when it came to repeating himself. These Mithrim lads, however, seemed able to understand him well enough but they made no move to welcome him, which was unsurprising really, given the tenuous relationship that had always existed between the Doriathrim and their northern cousins.
He leaned back against a barrel, sitting ever so slightly on the rim of it, shoving his hands into the pockets of his breeches and eyeing them with interest. He had rarely ventured into the North and the Northerners had rarely ventured into the South and thus he was quite unacquainted with the Mithrim save by reputation. Their faces were thin, he noted, distinctly different from the broader faces of the Doriathrim, and their bodies were more wiry, built with a sinewy sort of power that spoke to their livelihood in the northern wilds.
"Take down your hood," one of the boys said, crossing his arms over his chest and jerking his chin up in an aggressive manner. "Take it down."
Celeborn complied, reaching up to pull back the hood, knowing they would be displeased with what they saw, his suspicions confirmed by the sneers that tugged at their lips at the first sight of his silver hair. One of the young men turned and spat, not at him but near enough, not a challenge, nor an affront, but a very clear sign of exactly what he thought of the elves of Doriath.
"Who says we have ale?" The lad said, mimicking Celeborn's posture now as he leaned back against a barrel, sizing up the big Sinda. His friends shifted behind him, crossing their arms. "And more importantly who's asking?"
"People say," Celeborn said, "and Celeborn of Doriath is asking."
"Don't signify anything to me," the lad replied.
"Must it?" Celeborn asked.
"Doriathrim alright," the lad laughed sardonically. "Can't get a straight answer out of them when you want it but they'll be happy to speak for you when it's in their best interest." His friends murmured in agreement.
"Celeborn, Prince of Doriath," Celeborn supplied and the young men stiffened, not from fear but from distrust, quiet for a while as they surveyed him.
"If you're a prince and it's ale you want then you'll pay a pretty price," their ringleader said at last. "Else we don't have no business with Doriath or with her princes and we'd be much obliged if Doriath and her princes had no business with us either."
"I haven't any money," Celeborn replied with a benign smile. Taking offense here would serve no practical purpose. This was a game after all, a negotiation of sorts in which they each tried to ascertain the measurement of the other.
"Then you haven't any ale," the boy replied.
"I'll wager it takes like weak piss anyhow," Celeborn said with a grin.
"You speak as if you know the taste," the boy said, uncrossing his arms at last.
"You should come with us to the Isle of Balar," Celeborn said, simply and abrubtly, letting the thought hang in the air between them. The statement was less innocent than it seemed and he waited patiently to see how they would respond and what he would be able to discern from it.
The boys made sounds of protest, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes as if they were privy to some information to which he was not. "Live amongst the Sindar?" One of them asked. "Live amongst people who called us spies of Bauglir? Better to take our chances here with the Noldor. They haven't been half as bad to us as the Sindar. Besides, there's that git Oropher there." One of the other boys said something under his breath, something that must have been some off-color condemnation of Celeborn's cousin, and they all laughed.
"You don't like him?" Celeborn asked curiously, trying to be careful not to let it show that this was in fact the reason he was here and not, as he had said, the ale.
"Sindar for the Sindar and a return to our 'natural' way of life before the coming of the Noldor," the boy said, malice gleaming in his eyes. "What he means is Doriath for Doriath. When did he, when did any of you ever care for our welfare? Which lands were it that Thingol gave away to Fëanor's sons? It was our lands, and given without our consent. Suppose he thought it a lost cause after you Doriathrim had withdrawn behind the girdle. Suppose he thought those lands he considered a lost cause were no good to him any longer because they were overrun with orcs and with Bauglir's creatures but they were good to us. They were our homelands and it was the Noldor who slaughtered the orcs who tormented us, not the Sindar. And aye, kinslaying we do despise, but Oropher speaks of the Noldor as if they were foreign devils and yet we know them as the people who made our lands habitable again." His friends grunted their assent.
"What is your name?" Celeborn asked, eyes fixed on the boy's, and he stared back, unafraid.
"Nauthir," the lad said.
"You are much given to thought indeed, Nauthir," Celeborn remarked upon the name and the lad shrugged.
"These are my mates, Lagoron, Tithindir," Nauthir said and Celeborn nodded to them.
"You've seen my wife?" Celeborn asked and the boys laughed.
"Didn't know who you were, Lord, how should we know your wife?" The one called Tithindir, a tall lad with lank black hair and sallow skin asked.
"If you've seen her you you'd have remembered her," Celeborn said with a grin, teasing them now, watching the grins that slowly dawned on their faces.
"The lady with the golden hair?" Nauthir asked. "But she's a Noldo…"
"She'd be a fine field to plow is what she is," a voice rose up from the back and Celeborn's eyes lit on the weasel-toothed, copper eyed lad named Lagoron. At that the other boys had stiffened. They might have been insolent but their insolence had known its bounds and this boy's had not. The silence persisted for an uncomfortable moment before Celeborn laughed.
"Like golden wheat in summer," Celeborn quipped with a broad grin and the lads gave him tentative smiles.
"You friendly towards the Noldor then?" Nauthir asked, reappraising him. Celeborn shrugged.
"I won't pretend as if I have any love for the sons of Fëanor," he replied, "not after what they did to my wife's people, not after what they did in Doriath, but I have no quarrel with the House of Finarfin, I count Gil-galad as friend and kinsman, and the Lady Idril of Fingolfin's house is dear to my wife."
"Now he's politicking," Nauthir said to his friends with a laugh, but their smiles were friendly now, not hostile.
"Come with us, with me and my wife," Celeborn said. "We mean to put an end to this business of Oropher's, to finish this pointless bickering and hatred between our peoples. I am not Thingol," he said, "nor will I treat you as he treated you. I will not lay claim over what is yours nor shall I give it away or allow it to be taken from you."
"An empty promise," Nauthir said, "seeing as we have nothing to claim as our own, not anymore."
"But you will," Celeborn replied, the fire of conviction burning hot in his voice.
"How do you mean?" Tithindir asked, crossing his arms over his chest yet clearly intrigued.
"No more bloodshed," Celeborn said. "We've all been caught up too long in it and war is coming. So let it come; we will not be part of it. Why should any more give their lives in this feud over jewels? We wish to go eastward to the mountains and there establish a place where whomever wishes for peace may safely dwell, free of the politics of princes that have for so long embittered our peoples one against the other."
"You know Círdan?" Lagoron asked, testily, and Celeborn nodded. "His woman is one of our folk," the young man said.
"I have met her," Celeborn replied, "and she showed me great kindness." The boys nodded, on the cusp of decision, exchanging glances.
"You have been frank with us, or so it seems," Nauthir said, "so I shall be frank with you: how do we know you are as you say?"
"I'm here listening to you aren't I?" Celeborn asked. "No one else has done that, have they?" Their silence confirmed it.
"Then why should our support matter to you?" The lad asked. "Why should you care about the opinions of three ale brewers without a single copper to any of their names?"
"Because you matter," Celeborn replied. "Because my wife and I wish to build this place where all are welcome but how can we welcome the Mithrim properly if we do not know them? Come with us, teach us of your people, teach us what you need and you shall have it." The lads were silent for a while again and then Nauthir laughed and uncrossed his arms, placing his hands on his hips.
"Why do you want the ale?" He asked.
"For my wife," Celeborn replied. "There are some luxuries she misses. I thought it might cheer her spirits." The boy cracked a grin.
"You still wager it tastes like weak piss?" Nauthir asked.
"I'll wager it does," Celeborn said, laughing.
"Doesn't taste like weak piss. You ain't even drunk it yet," the boy protested.
"Don't need to," Celeborn said. "I've never had a beer made by the Mithrim that didn't taste like weak piss."
The boy grinned. "Alright," he said, "alright." He scratched at his chin, turning to his friends with a conspiratorial smile. "Alright," he said once more and produced a drinking horn from his belt. "You'll have your wager. You manage to drink 10 horns and I'll give you a cup for your wife," Nauthir said. "What's more, we'll come with you to the Isle of Balar. But if you can't stomach it then we don't go with you and you shan't have a cup for your wife neither."
"Sounds like a fair wager," Celeborn said, "and it sounds like you're admitting it tastes like piss."
"Piss, aye!" Nauthir laughed. "But it ain't weak piss."
The fire crackled merrily, embers popping, sending their gold-glimmering sparks bursting up into the night air, and Celeborn felt the heat of it on his face as he approached. His wife sat with her back to him, watching the bright flames that licked at the night, a small smile on her face as she watched the people gathered round, laughing, the children that pushed one another and darted about, weaving their way amongst the crowd like minnows in a tide.
He paused for a moment, watching her while she was yet unaware of him, his eyes lingering in the glimmering gold of her curls that tumbled down her back, tracing the curve of her neck. The memory of the taste of her skin, the feel of her bottom firm and soft in his grasp, surfaced in his mind and his body howled at him to sate his desires, to take his wife to bed, to undress her, to slake his thirst in the heat between her legs. That was the alcohol dancing in his veins that had ignited such thoughts. He cleared his throat, taking a long and steady breath, waiting for the thought that always came after, and it came – had she ever thought it when he was joined with her? In those moments where their bodies were united had she ever been repulsed by his darkness?
He shook his head slightly, pushing the thoughts away, refusing to let them ruin the merriment of the evening, and approached quietly, wrapping an arm about his wife's shoulders as he took a seat beside her. She turned, a hint of surprise lingering in her eyes, and offered him a smile. I did not sense your approach, she murmured in his mind.
His response was wordless, only to offer her the cup that he bore and wordlessly she took it, her eyes dancing over the rim for a moment, meeting his. A brief smile of fascination darted across her lips before she raised the cup to her mouth and drank. And then a moment later she was coughing, fingers to her lips, tears in her eyes, but a smile on her face as she turned to him.
"It tastes like piss," she choked out.
"You speak as if you know the taste," he spoke the borrowed line with a grin and she rolled her eyes. Nevertheless, it was with reluctance that she allowed him to take the cup back. "I thought you didn't like it?" He said after taking a long drink. He very much agreed with her assessment of the flavor, indeed, the potency of the ten cups he had already drank was still burning in his veins and perhaps it was only because he was slightly drunk that he did not mind the flavor.
"Not particularly," she said, prying the cup from his fingers and drinking from it again. "But, it is the first ale I have had since…oh well decades now…"
The battle for control of the alcohol resumed as he took the cup from her and drank. The clay was still warm from her lips and he caught her eyes over the rim, winking at her. "We would have had such ale at our wedding," he murmured, merriment twinkling in his eyes, and Galadriel laughed.
"Well I certainly hope not," she said, biting her lip as she grinned, watching him from the corner of her eye, she cast her eyes down for a moment, shaking her head at his antics with a private smile. It had been a long while since he recalled having made her laugh, having seen her look at him in such a way, and the joy that welled in her heart burgeoned in his own.
"No, it would have been much finer," he said, surprised at the gruffness evident in his voice, and he cleared his throat. It seemed he was ever reminding himself not to dwell too long on what could have been, but the thoughts would not leave him all the same, not only of what could have been, but what could be as well. His gaze shifted to the elves who sat across the fire, to Gil-galad, laughing merrily with Elwing and Tuor, to Círdan lost in deep conversation with Eärendil.
Círdan was right of course: were Galadriel to fall pregnant their position would be assured. And he wished that security for her, most particularly in these tumultuous times, yet…his gaze lingered to the children that played around the campfire, and he knew it was not only for the security of an heir that Círdan's suggestion of a few weeks prior had planted the seed of thought in his mind. But he did not allow his thoughts or his mind to dwell long upon children lest Galadriel discern them and be injured by the implications.
"Where did you get it?" Her question startled him and the sound of drums and distant singing grew as did the silence between them while he struggled to rethread the course of their conversation in his mind.
"The ale?" He said at last, abandoning the thoughts of past and future to return to the present.
"Mmm," Galadriel affirmed, reaching for the cup again and he handed it to her. She drank slowly this time, contemplatively, savoring the flavor. The ale was potent enough to send steam billowing from even a dwarf lord's ears and yet Galadriel drank it with gusto. It reminded him of so many years ago in Doriath when he had seen her down a crystal glass of amber whiskey in a single gulp with more tenacity than any man.
He watched the brush of her lips against the rim of the cup, the way they tightened ever so slightly as they drank, the movement in her throat as she swallowed and he would have given his right arm to see those azure eyes turned up to his, to twine his fingers in her golden hair and gently hold her head still, watching the ripple in her throat as his cock passed between those soft supple lips of hers and she swallowed him deep in her throat – she does not desire you – you – a Moriquendi. The thought flashed in his mind again, mocking him, making every act of intimacy between them seem as if it was nothing more than a farce, and he rankled with it, struggling to push that baying hound of memory back into the cage of the past.
"A few of the Mithrim have been making it," he said once he had conquered his mind once again, "the ones who live down by the butcher's market," he said. "They weren't too keen on speaking with one of the Doriathrim, most particularly one with silver hair, but I've always been rather charming." He punctuated his sentence with what he believed to be a winning grin.
"Well I hope they improve, indeed, they have ample room to do so," Galadriel said and Celeborn laughed.
"The let us hope the beer is better on Balar," he said.
"What did they have to say?" Galadriel asked, lowering her voice, driving to the point, her eyes flickering to his as she drank from the cup again.
"The Mithrim don't care for Oropher," Celeborn murmured. "They resent the things he says about your people and they dislike the divisiveness he has fostered."
"And what do they think of our idea of moving eastward?" Galadriel asked him, cup balanced on her knee now, watching him intently.
"They seemed to like it," he said. "And I think that if some of the Mithrim are willing to accompany us then the rest will follow."
"And who, precisely, are they," Galadriel asked, ever shrewd, even in her softest moments.
"Three young lads," Celeborn admitted, somewhat abashed, and Galadriel took and released a long breath that said, without any words, exactly what she thought of that situation. "But think of it Galadriel," Celeborn implored her quietly so that the others would not overhear their conversation. "Why spend so much effort trying to convince the masses, trying to turn old Mithrim chieftains and village elders to our cause? Such men have long-held prejudices that will be hard to overcome. Instead, let us lure the people to us. The old prejudices the Mithrim have against the Sindar are not so deeply ingrained in these young lads. They are more malleable, more open-minded. Let us bring them into our household, give them positions of honor. They are too young for it to be suitable to make any of them a chamberlain…" he mused, "and yet to appoint them as pages is not prestigious enough to achieve our purposes, but they might do as valets."
"You think that if the Mithrim see that even the most common amongst them have an opportunity for position and advancement that they will flock to our cause?" Galadriel asked and Celeborn nodded.
She smiled with a little sigh and shook her head. "Oh Celeborn you are shrewd, you are shrewd indeed."
"I will not have any more of this divisiveness between our peoples," he said, reaching out to take her hand, "not only Sindar and Noldor, but Mithrim, the Green Elves, the Avari, everyone. That is my plan, Galadriel, and I hope it will be yours as well. We have both long feared and suffered because there was no place for us and for our love amongst our divided peoples. We have ever been attempting to negotiate our place amidst a jostle of laws and decrees. But I think we have been looking at things the wrong way around by trying to live with one foot in the sea and the other on the shore, so to speak."
"So we're not going to change the rules of the game then?" Galadriel asked, a gleeful smile of comprehension creeping across her lips, her eyes sparking with keen interest.
"No, my Love," Celeborn whispered. "We're going to change the game."
Galadriel took a deep breath, excitement fluttering in her stomach as she watched the flames of the bonfire climbing in golden arabesques into the night sky, feeling for the first time in a very long time the same sort of fierce hunger and yearning hope that she had felt so long ago standing beneath the Mindon. Celeborn too was watching the fire, his eyes dark as pines and reflecting some savage light that caused sparks to lance through her blood. "Celeborn son of Galadhon," she murmured and he turned toward her, "sometimes you light such a fire in me."
He laughed softly, but to her slight yet bitter disappointment, turned the conversation away from that topic. The wound in his heart was still fresh and unhealed, the lingering pain of the words she had spoken some months ago taking refuge in the shadows of his eyes, and yet she had seen it there all the same. She was forgiven, but he was still reticent to share his body and heart with her so fully as in the union of flesh.
"Have you spoken with Idril and Tuor?" He asked, changing tack. "Will they be coming with us?" Galadriel paused with the cup halfway to her mouth, sadness flitting through her eyes before she shook her head.
"No," she said, lowering the cup back to her knee. "No they will not." She turned the vessel in her fingers, looking down into it, and Celeborn placed a hand on the small of her back, pulling her close. "They are leaving," she said, "even as soon as we are leaving. My cousin tells me that Tuor's health has been ill of late, that age wears upon his body. They will seek Valinor and she will plead for his life, or at least that she be allowed to join him in death as Lúthien did."
She lapsed into silence and he felt the pang of hurt in her heart. It had been so very long since she had been with family and he knew she had pinned her hopes on Idril, that she had been able to share things with her cousin that others could not understand, that even he struggled to comprehend. The last of those who remembered her homeland were slowly being wiped from the face of Middle Earth and soon she would be alone. He drew her close, pressing a kiss to her temple, allowing her sadness to take refuge in his heart as well, and yet still there was the matter of their future to attend to.
"Then you know what you must do?" Celeborn asked her. Sympathy would only go so far with his wife, it was purpose that she needed to rouse her from her disappointment, purpose and his confidence in her. "We need the support of the Noldor."
"You would willingly send me into the lair of the wolf?" She asked, turning to look at him with a hint of trepidation in her eyes. "You know he loves me still, that he ever will. Even but a few months ago the mere thought of my continued associations with him was enough to cause you to shout at me." A muscle ticked in her jaw and he could tell that the taste of the memory was still bitter.
Celeborn turned to her, brushing his thumb gently across her chin. "What does a lioness have to fear from a wolf?" He asked. "I was foolish then, Galadriel, and jealous. I imagined you must long for the ease and comfort that marriage to one of your own would have afforded you, that you must rue the trouble that marriage to me has caused you. But in my own weakness I had forgotten your strength."
"And part of me did," Galadriel admitted the terrible truth, but knowing that both she and Celeborn knew it to be true made admitting it far more simple now than before.
"It doesn't matter," Celeborn whispered. "I trust you." He pressed a kiss to the top of her golden head that she rested against his shoulder.
"It isn't your fault, Celeborn," she said and she wasn't quite sure what she meant by that, whether it was the debacle with Celebrimbor or her own conflicted ideas over what she wanted, but she felt his silent acknowledgment in her mind and they sat for a while, him holding her close, her head on his shoulder, and for the first time in a very long time Celeborn found himself feeling content with the world and the voice faded, that voice that whispered that she desired him not at all, for at the moment all he could think of was the warmth of her body nestled against his own, the softness of her hair on his cheek, and the quiet peace that flowed between their hearts. He smiled, watching the way that Elwing and Eärendil were flirting with each other on the other side of the fire, remembering so long ago after the hunt when that had been him and Galadriel.
"She's with child," Galadriel whispered, having caught the train of his thoughs, and, startled, Celeborn turned to his wife.
"Truly?" He asked her and Galadriel nodded with a wistful smile.
"Idril told me," she said. "She said it was what they wanted, no grand displays, and I think I can understand it. What if we had married in Doriath? Of course there would have been our friends who supported us, but there would have been just as many so willing to condemn our union, to criticize, to tear our day of happiness apart before it was even through. What we had was just for us; it was ours and ours alone. It lives only in the sanctum of our two memories."
He stroked her hair, listening patiently. "I don't regret it, Celeborn, despite the awful thing I said," she whispered, turning her eyes up to his. "I wouldn't have wanted it any other way." He swallowed and in a fit of passion brought his mouth to hers, parting her lips, and he felt her swallow his kiss, felt her fingertips brush against the clasps of his tunic and the racing of his heart in response. His body flushed with heat, his hands trembling as they made their way down her body, his fingers tightening about her slender waist, drawing her to him as tightly as he could, longing to feel her soft skin dimple beneath his hands, to make her call his name as he settled between her thighs.
"Celeborn of Doriath! If you plan on taking a midnight ride might I suggest you do so somewhere more private where there are no younglings about!" Círdan's voice cut through the din of conversation, as did a stale bread roll that knocked Celeborn in the head and he and Galadriel broke apart, breathless. He looked up to see the laughing faces of Tuor, Idril, Círdan, Rhosell, Elwing, and Eärendil and picked up the roll, lobbing it back across the fire at Círdan, who ducked and thereby avoided his punishment.
My apologies, he murmured as he turned, grinning, to Galadriel and saw that his wife was blushing red as an apple. I know you do not enjoy such public displays.
I don't mind, Celeborn, she said, not as much as I used to at least. He could feel her racing heartbeat in his own chest and brushed his thumb across her knuckles soothingly. For a moment he dared hope that this time that particular thought might not intrude, that if they were to quit this place and he were to take her into his arms then perhaps, just perhaps…do I disgust her?
The insidious voice had broached his thoughts yet again. He knew, of course, that he did not disgust her, that she wanted him, and yet the intrusive thought would not leave. He could not make himself forget what she had said. How much longer will you punish me? Galadriel asked and he turned to see tears burgeoning in her eyes but a moment later her apology crept into his mind. I am sorry, she whispered. I did not mean to snap at you. It isn't your fault, it's mine for the wretched thing I said and you have every right to still feel the pain of it. She took a deep slow breath that rattled in her chest and he clasped her hand ever the more tightly.
I'm trying, he pleaded with her. I'm trying to move past it, Galadriel, I swear to you. As much as he relished the sensation of his and Galadriel's thoughts moving in concert, one of the more negative aspects of such a union was that their worries too rose together and at the moment they had reached a fevered pitch, his shoulders tensing in response to his concerns magnified by hers.
I know, she replied, her thoughts thick with anxiety. And I am trying to be patient with it Celeborn, truly I am. I wish I had never said such a thing. It was so stupid and cruel.
"It is the past," Celeborn murmured, taking a deep breath to steady himself, "and we cannot change it now, but we shall conquer it, Galadriel. In that I have full confidence." He smiled at her, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair behind her ear and tenderly tucking it into place, his heart still pounding, his hand trembling from the tension caught in his muscles. "Besides," he said, "you were right about me, about my expectations of you. I am more like Thingol at times than I realize."
And there was such bitterness in his voice that Galadriel was taken aback for a moment. "He does not define you," she murmured, reaching out to thread her fingers between her husband's, "and yet I see his best traits in you…"
"He had none that I could discern," Celeborn said, his voice taut with resentment as his hand tightened about hers, too tight. She offered him the cup and he took it, draining it, while Galadriel smoothed a hand over his back, sobered by how quickly his mood had changed, by the dark glimmer that danced now in his eyes as he stared into the fire.
"Perhaps," she suggested, "if you were to play the dulcimer you might find some relief from such dark thoughts. After all, Elwing has not yet heard the sound of it and it would make her heart glad, I think, were you to teach her the notes."
"I can hardly carry a tune," Celeborn protested dourly, but a look of gentle reprimand from his wife at last caused him to shake his head in surrender as, grinning, he unshouldered the dulcimer and laid it across his knees. The movement was met by whistles, shouts, and laughter and Galadriel had the rare pleasure of seeing her ever confident and brazen husband blush redder than a summer's rose.
"Play us a song then Celeborn!" Círdan called, his voice gruff from liquor and salt spray and filled with laugher. Elwing stood, making her way around the fire to sit by Celeborn's side, Eärendil in tow.
"Well then," Celeborn said, with a sidelong glance and a grin at Elwing, "if Master Círdan wants to hear a tune then we shouldn't disappoint him should we?" Elwing grinned, a grin so reminiscent of Galathil's that for a moment it took Galadriel's breath away, and whispered something in Celeborn's ear. Whatever it was Galadriel could not hear it, but she felt the ripple of laughter that coursed through Celeborn's mind.
With a mischievous look across the fire at the gray-haired shipwright, Celeborn placed his fingers carefully upon the strings but with such natural ease and precision that it proved his claims of ignorance in the musical arts for the falsehoods that they were. "Like this," Galadriel heard him whisper to Elwing, and the studious young woman bent forward, quick eyes memorizing the placement of his fingers as he began to pluck the first few notes.
The tune started out mournful, each note plucked in careful slow rhythm, and Galadriel did not know the tune but from the whooping and laughter of the elves gathered about she could tell that it was a well-known song. Faces gathered around the fire now, drawn by the music, elegant and refined Noldorin faces, broad Doriathrin faces with high cheek bones, the weather-beaten faces of the Falathrim, the thin sallow faces of the Mithrim, the soft round faces of the Green Elves, and here and there, scarce but present, the bony hawk-like faces of the Avari.
The firelight caught Celeborn's eyes and the gleam of mischief within them and Círdan bellowed out a curse followed by a great booming laugh, apparently aware of what was to come. "You're low, Celeborn, you're low! You're a scoundrel!" He cried, but Celeborn only grinned and cleared his throat.
"Ah the rest you shall know!" He called. "But this first part shall be of my own invention and for that you must forgive me for I am no poet!" He brought his fingers strumming slowly across the strings of the dulcimer and then began, the elves gathered about falling silent as his deep baritone filled the air.
"There was an elf named Círdan,
though Nowë he was known of old,
who longed to see the distant lands,
but came to late unto that strand."
"That doesn't even rhyme!" Someone shouted from the crowd, eliciting a raucous chorus of laughter, but Celeborn held up a hand.
"I have already said I am no poet!" He called, laughing. "But bear with me a moment longer!" Still plucking the dulcimer slowly he continued.
Now legend says and so says he,
that 'twas Elu's fault he was delayed,
yet I have heard from more than three,
that 'twas because he overlaid."
That elicited another chorus of laughter and much chatter, but Celeborn continued unperturbed, a grin of mischief curling his lips.
And when I queried as to why,
the answer I got in reply,
was that the old elf is quite the boozer,
and he succumbed to whiskey's stupor.
At that the crowd burst into laughter yet again and Círdan, still laughing, hurled a half eaten apple at Celeborn.
"Oh….." Celeborn held the next note out, waiting for the crowd to join in, and they did with glee as the melody picked up into a lively, jaunty tune that all of the Sindar and Falathrim alike seemed to know.
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Early in the morning?
Weigh heigh and up she rises,
Weigh heigh and up she rises,
Weigh heigh and up she rises,
Early in the morning!
By now the rest of the elves had caught onto the tune and had begun to sing along, Noldor and Avari, Green elves and Mithrim all chanting the words along with Celeborn, laughing and clapping. Círdan sat grinning, the good natured butt of the joke as Celeborn's fingers flew across the strings of the dulcimer and Elwing, ever studious, watched intently, a small smile upon her lips but otherwise quite serious.
Shave his chin with a rusty razor,
Shave his chin with a rusty razor,
Shave his chin with a rusty razor,
Early in the morning!
Weigh heigh and up she rises,
Weigh heigh and up she rises,
Weigh heigh and up she rises,
Early in the morning!
Put him in a long boat till he's sober,
Put him in a long boat till he's sober,
Put him in a long boat till he's sober,
Early in the morning!
Weigh heigh and up she rises,
Weigh heigh and up she rises,
Weigh heigh and up she rises,
Early in the morning!
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
What shall we do with a drunken sailor,
Early in the morning?
Celeborn finished with an aggressive series of chords and the people laughed and clapped, the air filled with such merriment and joy as Galadriel had not felt in a long while, and Celeborn flashed her a grin as he passed the dulcimer to Elwing. "You're a smart girl," he murmured to her. "Do you think you have the hang of it?" Elwing nodded with an eager smile, her fingers already poised over the strings. "I've made it for you, you know," he told her, crouching beside her to correct the position of her fingers. "It's yours to keep."
"I know," she said quietly, with a happy nod. "It is just as my grandfather had?"
"Just exactly," Celeborn told her with a smile. "Now if you can, I should like if you would play a song so that I may dance with my wife."
"I'm sure I shall manage," Elwing replied, her dark eyes merry and lit still with wonder at the beauty of the instrument she held in her lap. Eärendil sat beside her, his hand gentle upon her waist, and Elwing plucked her first note, testing the instrument, a slight frown creasing her fair face as she wondered what to play.
"I could never pretend that I don't love you," she began, her voice clear and beautiful as Lúthien's had been, the sort of voice that silenced a crowd with its unparalleled magnificence, the notes lingering in the still air for a moment before the next line came to her lips.
You could never pretend you'll stay on land.
That's exactly the way that I want it.
That's exactly the way that I am.
And you tell me in the morning 'bout your troubles
And you leave me for the sea most every night
I could never place the stars at night above you.
I got my hands on the ground,
And you know I'm right.
You wait so long.
You wait so long.
You wait so long.
You wait so long.
The tune was fast and already elves had taken each other's hands, leaping and dancing about the fire, laughing, full of joy. Celeborn stood, offering Galadriel his hand, and she took it, drawing him close as he wrapped his arm about her waist and led her in the dance, her hair a dazzling shimmer of gold as it spun about them, their feet quick over the warm earth, Elwing's voice clear as a star. Celeborn's eyes glimmered with joy, with that sort of wild recklessness she had first seen so long ago, that comfortable grin of old sitting upon his lips as he took her hand and spun her around, catching her in his arms as she came about.
This was far different than the stately dances of Menegroth's court or of Tirion and yet different still from the wild inventions she had danced in the gardens of Lórien or the opulent display she had performed before Thingol so long ago. These were the dances of the wood elves, the dances of those who had lived on the edges of the girdle mixed with the sea songs of the Falathrim sailors and the country reels of the common Noldorin folk. These songs echoed with the beat of Avarin drums and trembled with the echoes of the Green elves' wooden pipes.
And you know that I'm doomed to repeat this
With all the bad habits that I've learned
But I'm just a raindrop in a river
Just a little bitty grain of sand.
And you wait so long.
You wait so long.
You wait so long.
You wait so long.
Someone, most probably a Noldo, had procured a fiddle, the sort with a keening wail that Galadriel had often heard Finrod play, and it rose in harmony with the dulcimer, the voices a symphony of accents now, each heightening the other, magnifying the beauty of the song. She felt Celeborn's hand tighten about her waist, the pull of his fingers at the fabric of her gown, the heat of his chest against hers, and looked up to see a bead of sweat trickle down to settle briefly in the hollow of his throat before it ran down his chest to disappear beneath his tunic.
She felt the pulsing of his want move from his body to hers even before she looked up into his eyes and saw his need blazing there in eyes that mirrored the savage light of the stars. "This is it," she whispered to him. "This is everything that we want. This is our kingdom. These are our people." It felt as if their dreams had materialized, as if they were living now in some glimpse of the future they planned to craft and as if some urge in both their bodies was screaming that this moment needed to be sealed in something more indelible than memory; it needed to be writ in flesh and blood and bone and body.
Slowly their feet came to a stop and Celeborn drew her closer, so close that she could feel the heat of his lips against the shell of her ear, the tightening of the fabric against her waist as he wound his fist tightly in her gown, holding her tight against him. "All night, Galadriel, I have been at war with my own mind," he murmured, and Galadriel felt her heart ship a beat. There was some nascent energy burgeoning in him now, growing like thunderhead rolling in from the distant sea, strange but not unfamiliar: it was something she had not felt in a very long time, not since the earliest days of their courtship.
"Yes?" She asked him, swallowing hard, her breathing a mere tremor in her chest.
"I want you," he whispered, "my body, my mind, my soul, my heart wants you with a ferocity I can hardly bear, not the wanting of wistfulness, but the sort of wanting that makes me want to taste your mouth and your cunt and put my fingers inside of you until you beg for me and then at last when I give you what you desire I want to take you hard against the earth until your legs quiver and with each thrust I force a gasp from your lips and a plea, a plea for me to never stop."
Galadriel's heart stood still at his words but her body trembled with wanting. There was rawness in him, she knew it, had seen it, and yet he had never spoken such words to her before. Until now it had ever been entreaties of love and affection, gently and properly proclaimed. But this felt different, this felt as if it came from some place deep inside him, deeper than she had heretofore ventured, deeper perhaps than he had ever dared go himself, and her body rose in response like a flower unfurling its petals in spring, her breathing grown heavy, her skin flushed with heat. "Then take me," she whispered against his ear. "Take me as hard as you like and as much as you like until curses and pleas fall from my lips and the sun rises in the east."
"And therein still lies the crux of the problem," Celeborn murmured, moving back now, the two of them joined, moving in tandem through the crowd but with no notice or care to give save for each other. "I want you and yet the cruel whisperings in my mind are ceaseless; they torment me. As soon as my desire for you rises so does the echo of your words…a dark elf…"
The cursed words that had slipped so carelessly from her lips lingered in her mind now and she felt the pricking of tears at the corners of her eyes. If I could unburden them from your soul then gladly would I do so, she told him and he brushed a finger over the ridge of her cheek, not gentle, but the hard press of desire just barely contained.
"All this time I have been waiting for forgiveness to arrive in my heart," Celeborn said. "Yet tonight I have been beginning to think that it never shall." They had moved now far beyond the fire and the revelers, though they were still visible in the distance, and on to the black sand shore of the ocean, where the light of the stars shone down not in softness, but in some fierce and savage light, as she imagined they must have looked at their birth.
"Celeborn…" Galadriel breathed, frightened by his words, by what they implied, terrified beyond belief by the notion that what she had done was beyond forgiveness and an eternity of suffering the consequences lay before her, but his next words brought with them a sense of immense relief that her presumptions had been wrong.
"We shall not create this kingdom of ours by waiting about for it to arrive," Celeborn whispered, his lips tracing the tip of her ear, his hand firm against her back as the other reached up, deftly undoing the laces of her gown to slip inside where he groped her breast and she realized that when he had said he wanted to take her, he had indeed meant it in the primal sense of claiming her. "But because we work for it, we strive for it together. Nor, I think does it do us any good to sit about and wait for forgiveness to arrive. No, instead let us craft it ourselves, let us fashion it from our bodies and our souls, let us force it into existence, misshapen though it may be still it is our own. For when we go to Balar we must be united, and united wholly. I cannot do this without you, Galadriel, you in your entirety, nor can you do this without me; you know it and I know it."
But she did not let him finish before she interrupted him, his words having inflamed what embryo of fire had already been kindled in her body, having reminded her of dreams from so long ago of kingdoms over the sea and worlds yet unseen, of the slow and potent fire that had burned between them in the earliest days of their courtship, unacknowledged at first because to speak it would have been to cause the world to burst into flame, of the dreams and visions and promise and stark nakedness of the world that she had first glimpse when she had traced the carvings of strange fell beasts and distant lands in the corridors od Menegroth's caverns. In all of it was some remembrance of who she had been and now the offer he was extending to her – not to create herself anew, but to grasp the seed of metamorphosis. "I want you in me until the sun rises," she gasped, breathing hard, her hands fisted desperately in his tunic as they at last came to a stop far out on the strand.
"It will hurt," he murmured into the skin of her neck, his teeth nipping at her.
"Is not all life birthed from pain?" She replied, claiming his lips, licking hotly into his mouth, her hands already pulling the clasps of his tunic open, trembling from want.
"Everyone might hear," he continued, biting hard now into the juncture of her neck and shoulder, his fingers tugging hard at the laces of her gown until they loosened, "and what will you tell them? Will you act as if you are ashamed of our union? Will you act as if it is below you to join yourself with a dark elf? I will not suffer that again, Galadriel." His teeth grazed the tender skin of her neck, sending a shiver down her spine.
Galadriel shook her head, desire pulsing through her as hot as molten earth. She brought her lips to his once more, not kissing him this time, merely touching them to his mouth, teasing him, nipping at his bottom lip, her eyes fixed on his. "I'll tell them that I love this dark elf, that he is my husband and gladly so," she whispered. "I'll tell them that I lie with you because it feels good to have you inside of me. I'll tell them to rot in the ground if they speak against you. I'll tell them that I'm yours, and I'm yours, and I'm yours."
They stood alone beneath the wheeling splendor of the heavens, feet bare in the dark sand washed up by the indigo sea. "They can say all they like about what it means to be a Calaquendi, my love," Celeborn whispered the forbidden word against her mouth, his lips plying hers, his tongue tracing the tip of her own, hands tangled in her hair, holding her head still as he swallowed her moans one after another, "but I mean for my darkness to claim every last bit of your body."
He needn't have said anymore, he needn't have even said that, for Galadriel had already sank to her knees in the sand, her fingers desperately working at his breeches until she had freed him, and her heart did not stop its frantic pounding until she tasted him on her tongue and felt him in her throat, until she felt his hands fisted in her hair, tight against the back of her head, holding her still as she swallowed him, her eyes, filled with some sort of feral desire she had never felt before, turned up to his in which a storm raged.
"Do you hear it now?" She whispered when he withdrew at last from her mouth so that he could strip her bare. "Do you hear those careless words I spoke to you?" He pulled her roughly up from the sand to kiss her, his lips so demanding against her own that she knew in the morning they'd be bruised.
"I hear them," he murmured, pushing her back to her knees and she felt an overwhelming surge of passion in her abdomen as he did so, reveled in the grit of the sand on her knees.
"Do not listen to them. Listen to me," she commanded and he looked down at her as she took him in hand. "They're false," she whispered, her voice strong as steel as she stroked him, shaking her head. "They're false. I want you, a dark elf, yes, I want you. I want you in me." And she took him in her throat as he groaned, his hands wound tightly in her hair once more, until he trembled, and shuddered, and lost himself in her and she swallowed him with relish, holding him until he withdrew, breathing hard, but whatever madness had enveloped them had not abandoned them yet and he stripped off his clothes, pushing her down onto her back in the dark sand.
He straddled her hips, hands tight in her hair, his eyes fixed upon her own as he brought his lips to hers and whispered, "I would taste you, my Galadriel. Every part of you, so that in the morning you still feel me in your body, so that on the morrow when you go to speak to him you still feel the heat of me in the creases of your skin."
"It has always been you, Celeborn, only you," she gasped, as his lips trailed down her throat. The chill seawater washed at her hair, mingling the gold with the black of the sand and the white of shells that glistened like peals in the moonlight, the cold of it a starling and delightful contrast to the heat of her husband's lips that pulled roughly at the peaks of her breasts and trailed down the trembling muscles of her stomach.
He parted her legs, hands rough with sand on the insides of her thighs, spreading her open for him, and she arched her back, sitting up, her hand wound in the silver of his hair that glistened in the moonlight, breathing hard, her small breasts heaving. "And do you hear them still?" She whispered. "Do you hear those hateful words I spoke?"
"Still I hear them," he replied, the starlight fierce in his eyes, as his gaze met hers, "though their echo grows fainter."
"They're lies," she said with conviction as unshakable as the earth beneath them. "They're lies, only lies. Taste me and know the truth."
"He surge up like salt spray, teeth tearing at her lips, tongue hot in her mouth, and then hand about her throat he pushed her back into the sand before settling between her thighs, his hands wrapped about her hips, holding her still as his tongue moved within her in mimicry of how he had just claimed her mouth.
Galadriel found she could hardly think anymore for the pleasure of it that overwhelmed her senses, that caused her to arch her back and push her head into the sand and the surf, her hands wound in his silver hair that glistened across the curves of her thighs and the flat her stomach as her hips trembled and thrust and twitched against the heat of his lips and tongue until she found herself screaming his name to the wilderness, hands tight in his hair, so lost that forbidden Quenya tumbled from her quivering lips but Celeborn seemed beyond caring as be moved up so that she felt the strong muscles of his thighs beneath her own, his hips and hardness pressed against her as he washed the slick of her from the tributaries of his hands in the coolness of the sea foam and pressed his fingers into her wetness.
She gasped, her gaze, still slightly lost in the ether of pleasure, resting upon his, her chest heaving, body covered in sweat though the night was cool, black sand and glimmering white shells awash in her golden hair like flotsam on the strand of the sea. "And now," she said, voice more a breath than a whisper. "And now, Celeborn, my love, now to you hear those wretched words I spoke to you? Do you hear them still?"
"Only a whisper," he replied, voice deep in his throat and heady with want.
She reached up, her finger grasping for his face, and pulled him down against her so that their lips touched and the power of wanting flickered from her eyes to his. "Oh Celeborn," she said, her throat feeling oddly choked with the beginnings of tears, her words a gasp, "oh Celeborn my love, my husband, those words were the worst of the lies that have ever crossed my lips. But no lie is this: I love you, I love you, I love you." The darkness of the forests moved like a current across his eyes as he thrust into her body so hard that she cried aloud from both pain and pleasure both.
"I love you," be murmured into the skin of her neck, his lips blazing slowly across her cheek, her throat, down to the cleft between her breasts as he wrapped an arm about her waist and another about her hips, drawing her close as close could be as he rose to kneel in the sand, pulling her up with him so that she straddled his hips, thrusting hard up into her as he held her to him. She wrapped her arms around him, wanting more than anything to feel the warmth of his skin against her palms even as she felt the storm of his soul deep within her own, her nails biting into his flesh, her lips hot against his, her hands tangling in his hair. "Oh my Galadriel, my wife, I love you more than I can say," he gasped into the hollow of her throat while she pressed a kiss to the top of his head.
It was not until the sun crested the horizon in the far east that they collapsed spent upon the shore, curled about each other face to face, and Galadriel asked in a whisper, "Celeborn am I forgiven?"
And he stroked her hair, and looked into her eyes in which the horizon of morning was reflected and said, "a thousand upon a thousand times."
When she awoke that afternoon, Celeborn stood on the rocky strand looking out towards the thunderheads that roiled, pregnant with the greenish flicker of lightning in their bloated dark bellies, hovering low over the iron gray ocean. Hands tucked in his pockets, feet firm in the black sand, eyes keen as a hawk, he surveyed the storm's approach, and she stood, slipping into her damp sandy clothes, crossing her arms over her chest against the chilly gusts of wind that whipped the ocean dampened hem of her skirts about her ankles. The sand was gritty against her skin and she looked down, watching as the white fingers of foam darted up from the sea to lick at the spaces between her toes, before she looked up at Celeborn once more.
Sometimes she thought he was more elemental than anything and there were moments when she saw the rawness of him laid bare, like naked lightning or the howl of the wind against the shutters at night he held some kinship with the torrent of a storm in all its violent majesty – the way he washed over her like rain and puddled in the hollows of her soul. Celeborn was the world torn loose in a chaotic symphony of raw force. And Celebrimbor – Celebrimbor was fastidious, and exacting, and ambitious, and every bit as concerned with perfection as she.
It seemed fitting that the gale was rolling in now. Celeborn commanded the wind, and the rain, and the earth as if it were a dog that he had called to heel, and one that would obediently accompany its master to the Isle of Balar where he would unleash if need be and himself sweep through and decimate whichever of Oropher's carefully charted paths were too flimsy or frail to withstand him. He was like Thingol in that way, she mused to herself, Thingol as he had been before the madness had come upon him: sheer force of will wrapped in flesh. And she would be by his side, even as Melian had been at Thingol's, but with Celeborn it would be different, that she had seen last night when his soul had joined with hers, with Celeborn she would stand as equal.
And Celebrimbor, she smiled to herself at the absurdity of the comparison and the notion that she had once loved him who now seemed so inadequate, …he was no tempest to be unleashed, but would carefully tread the roads that others had built, crafting his future as painstakingly as he crafted his ornaments, calling his materials to hand and coaxing them just ever so precisely into the shape he had designed them to assume, either unwilling or unable to accept anything other than the flawless. She opened her heart, allowing the thoughts to flow freely; Celeborn had a right to know them even if she would rather not have told.
"You loved him once," he said, not a question but a statement made with certitude and yet lacking any sting of judgment.
"Yes, once," she came to stand beside her husband, arms still tight about herself against the chill. Celeborn was silent for a long while and she turned, her gaze soft upon him, watching the flicker of lightening in his eyes.
"He's what you wanted to want," he said slowly as if the words were forming in his mind even as he spoke them, and yet his voice did not lack in certitude, "but he isn't what you want." She could tell by his tone that he had said it because he had wanted to be sure that she understood and because he wanted her to know that he did now as well.
"Yes," she said again, a smile broaching her lips at the realization that Celeborn had looked into her heart and read it so well, as turned to look at him, but Celeborn was looking out over the sea, hands still in his pockets, some sense of relaxed ease in his shoulders. "Does it upset you?" She asked him and Celeborn pondered the thought for a moment, his eyes narrowed in contemplation.
"No," He said at last, turning to her with a grin so reminiscent of that he had first worn in the earliest days of their courtship, but now it was tempered with pain and wisdom, and thus she found it more beautiful and wonderful than all of the grins he had favored her with before.
"Storms take no prisoners," she said with a low laugh, the corner of her mouth turned up ever so slightly in a smile, bittersweet not for her, nor for Celeborn, but for Celebrimbor that despite how carefully and exactly he had tried to craft his fate and twine it with hers, fate had nevertheless dealt him a card so hopelessly beyond the realm of his control – he could never have anticipated Celeborn, "nor do you, Celeborn."
He was quiet for a moment, the hint of that grin dancing about his lips as he looked down at the dark sand, digging his toes into it, watching as the water washed them clean before he turned his eyes to her. "Everyone thought me half mad for pursuing you all those years ago," he said with a small laugh. "Indeed, I thought myself half mad."
"Did you think you would not triumph?" Galadriel asked with a smile.
"No, it wasn't that," Celeborn replied and she laughed, shaking her golden head. "Indeed, it was precisely because I knew that my victory was assured."
"You were never a modest man," she said. "But were my feelings so easy to discern?"
"Perhaps they would not have been had they not so exactly mirrored my own," he told her and she cocked her head, looking at him for clarification. He supplied it. "I felt as I did last night when I was with you, as if I was getting myself into something that was and still is too big for me to comprehend."
"Yes, that's exactly it," she murmured, reaching out tentatively, offering him her hand and he took it, his fingers warm and rough, and he raised her hand to his lips, brushing them across her knuckles.
"And now I feel as if we stand upon the cusp of that titanic unknown thing, about to plunge either into darkness or glory," he whispered across her knuckles.
"Melian warned me so long ago," Galadriel murmured, "you had not the gift of foresight, she said, and yet your gaze was far keener than any of those who could peer into the hearts and minds of others. And oh, how I feared you for it, feared you would see my murderess's heart, the blood on my hands, this pride that…" she shook her head again, "blackens my soul like a cancer." She took a rattling breath, turning her eyes to the approaching night and then back to him. "What a strange fate, and how desperate I was to hide away all of the parts of me that I never wanted you to see."
"I want every part of you," Celeborn murmured, the corner of his lips quirking upwards in the beginnings of a grin, the creases about his eyes deepening, creases that had not been there when they had met so many centuries ago, "even the parts I do not like, even the parts you do not like." He reached out to catch a loose tendril of gold that the sea breeze had swept loose from her chignon and it curled about his finger. "I want your bloodstained hands, and your black cancer pride, and your murderess's heart. Could you not tell last night when I took you?"
"You did not always want those parts of me," Galadriel said, recalling his anger at learning of the kinslaying, how she had been cast out of Doriath and shunned, and Celeborn contemplated her for a moment.
"Storms take no prisoners, Galadriel," he murmured, "nor do I. I will have you whole, all of you, ever bit, both the good and the bad, or I will not have you at all."
"Then you have me," she whispered with a smile, wrapping her arms about his waist, pressing her head against his shoulder, her forehead resting against his temple as together they looked out across the dawn and the ocean to where the Isle of Balar lay waiting, unseen but imminent.
