Disclaimer: All characters belong to Tolkien with the exception of Arphenion and Elwandor.
Forlond, SA 200 - Part II
The narrow strip of sunlight before the window tells Celebrimbor that morning has all but passed. Dull pain flits through his consciousness. He remembers wine and its inevitable melancholy; he remembers a youth of two hundred who bore the faintest resemblance to the High King.
He seeks cover, a mask behind which he can hide from himself, but a glimpse of silver cord flashing over the heads of courtiers alters his path to the forge.
They present a stunning tableau together: the handsome young King, stripped to vest and leggings that cling with the sweat of exertion to his sinewy form; the formidable Captain with dancer-like grace in his swordsmanship. Yet Celebrimbor senses a tension between the pair that intensifies when they become locked for a moment in close combat. Raw and bestial, it throbs just under the awareness of most of the spectators, but pricks like needles at Celebrimbor's skin. He can almost smell the musk of this territorial dance.
Arphenion yields to the honour of the High King, but his mouth distorts in the leer of a predator who only toys with his prey. Gil-galad is snappish in victory, humiliated; he will not meet Celebrimbor's eyes.
"Your cloak does little to disguise you when you wear the ring of your House."
"What are you playing at, Arphenion? You continually undermine the High King, yet now you seek a place in his bed? You are a little old for such adolescent games."
A serving girl sets a glass on the table. Arphenion samples it with an expression of distaste. "I see now why you are so fond of this place. Even the liquor offers no comfort." He sets down the glass. "Worry not, the High King has no interest in me. He remains under the wise but hopeless conviction that he should marry some elf-maid who will bear him an heir."
"Then do not stand in his way." Let Gil-galad marry, let him put an end to temptation.
Arphenion laughs. "It is not me who stands in his way, but you."
Celebrimbor reddens. "I have never-."
"You have never seen how he looks at you."
"You disgust me. I knew him as a child - we are kin. It would be incestuous."
"Oh, please. Must you find your guilt in everything you do? He is no longer a child, Celebrimbor." He inclines his head toward a farrier speaking of the new tax code. "He is the High King, by the Valar. Do you think he is some ingénue to be seduced?"
"Yes."
Arphenion snickers. "There, you are perhaps right. But all the more reason to seduce him before someone less worthy - like me - does so."
"I have known few elves so utterly without conscience."
"And that is no small compliment from the son of Curufin."
Celebrimbor bares his teeth. "It was not a compliment."
"Nonetheless, I am right."
He cannot blame Arphenion for his moral failure, not entirely. 'At the base of our minds are the instincts of the hroa. Cleave away the love of beauty, arrest the conscience that feels the pain of another and the love of Eru, and Elda becomes Urco,' Rúmil had once taught him. Wax he might, and eloquently, of love and yearning of the fëa, but he is too prone to introspection not to recognise the fleshly desires that pave the way beneath his feet. (1,2,3)
He meets the Gil-galad's valet in the rotunda. A moment of near-disastrous, near-comical juggling of tea things and elbows ensues as the Falathren elf tries to stop Celebrimbor in the antechamber in order to properly announce his arrival. In the end, the precarious state of the tea forces Elwandor to give way.
"Hîr Celebrimbor requests an audience, híren." (4)
"Indeed," Gil-galad says dryly. "Leave the tea in my chambers. You may retire for the night, Elwandor.
"What brings you here so late?" he continues when his valet has left, pulling his hair free of its silver cord.
Celebrimbor, caught by the sensuality of gleaming tresses tumbling forth as Gil-galad unwinds his braid, does not answer immediately. Kin, they share the heavy locks of indigo-black, the sardonic curve of eyebrow, the high forehead. Kin, they differ still more in look and circumstance. Gil-galad is taller; Celebrimbor is stronger. He has the firm, elegant chin of Míriel; Gil-galad has his Sindarin mother's high cheekbones. Celebrimbor's eyes have just a touch of Finwëan blue; Gil-galad's eyes are nearly blue. Both scions of Finwë, one would be High King, were his line not forever dispossessed; one is High King, still young and uncertain in his step.
One is mithril, the other tarnished.
His courage fails. Rather than profess his love, he speaks of taxes. "A bold move, you made today."
"Do you think I did right?"
He catches the note of anxiety. Still, Gil-galad turns to him for approval, clings to him as family.
Gil-galad's eyes drop too quickly under his scrutiny - yet not so quickly that Celebrimbor fails to see the sentiment in their depths. Possibility overcomes proscription; what neither dares to say threatens to overwhelm.
Celebrimbor brushes his hand over Gil-galad's cheekbone, caressing the tip of his ear with his fingers. "I think you did right," he says thickly. "But your counsellors shall be furious."
"You…think?"
He suppresses a smile; clearly, the blood has deserted the brain. In the innocent reaction to his caress, he finds something sweet and yearning. The younger elf wears the look of one who wants to be kissed and Celebrimbor must summon all that remains of his will to pull away. "Artanáro."
Gil-galad stares at him in confusion.
"I am centuries older. I should know better."
"Do you think it is so wrong?"
"It is damnable in me. I knew you as a child."
"I am no longer a child."
"I betray your trust. I lead you into forbidden lust, and snatch away its sanction. We cannot bind, as lovers ought. You know you must have an heir, and I would not taint another fëa with my crimes and those of my kin." (5)
"The Laws-."
"To Angband with the Laws! The heart is not so reasonable, Artanáro. That is what you wish me to say, is it not?"
"The Laws are only part of it. Much more stands in the way than your guilt." Gil-galad stands, running his hand distractedly through his hair as he paces.
In asking Gil-galad to set aside all that is right and wise, Celebrimbor shifts from mentor to seductor, but he has now fallen too low. He can but wait on the other elf for rescue or ruin.
Finally, Gil-galad stands still. "Tyelpë-."
And Celebrimbor is reaching, pulling him down to kneel opposite him, silencing the cry with his mouth.
Lips explore, curious, brushing his collarbone, tracing the hollow of his breastbone. Celebrimbor flinches slightly as Gil-galad's tongue leaves a wet trail across his midriff. "Ticklish," he admits.
Gil-galad looks up at him with a grin and Celebrimbor at last feels resistance melt away; this is right.
His skin feels tight and constricted, wrapped in bands of shame. His very existence seems a perversion. Yet this, the taste of skin, the music of a moan, the flutter of a vein under his lips, this is right.
They find the bed in a tumble of discarded clothing and long, fierce pauses in which Celebrimbor thinks they might consume one another. They lie face-to-face, flesh losing the last of its shyness in the shadows of a single candle.
Long dark lashes beating against pale cheeks, Celebrimbor's thumb, his tongue caressing the underside of stiffened member, shudders as his throat contracts, callused pads kneading lean buttocks. Semen-coated fingers and oil; a murmur of protest.
"Artanáro, ányenen himyat." (6)
Yes, he trusts Celebrimbor. Easier now, though uncertain, awkward with innocence; when he comes his cry is relief.
In the way of first such experiences, it is not perfect, but not so unpleasant, Celebrimbor guesses, that it should discourage further ventures. 'Sooner, rather than later,' he thinks, as Gil-galad brings him to life again with the finest pressure of lips against the hollow above his collarbone.
The western sky glows indigo in the moment before dawn. The candle still burns and he can make out a hand curled under a cheek, a tapered ear poking between strands of hair.
He slips out of bed and sorts out his clothing.
He should not return.
He will be back.
(1) hroa
body (Q)
(2) Urco
Orc (Q)
(3) fëa
soul, spirit (Q)
(4) Hîr, híren
Lord, my lord.
(5) 'We cannot bind, as lovers ought.'
Bodily union accomplishes Elven marriage, but the name of Eru is also invoked when Elves bind to one another. I've gone with the theory that if they fail to mention Eru, they are not bound. Strictly speaking, this does not conflict with LACE, but I doubt Tolkien intended this interpretation. (Morgoth's Ring, 'Laws and Customs Among the Eldar' p 212 pub Houghton Mifflin)
(6) "Artanáro, ányenen himyat."
"Artanáro, trust me." (Q). Lit. 'abide by me' (himya-, 'stick to, cleave to, abide by'; á is part of the imperative construction; nye, 'me', rendered as nyenen in the instrumental case).