THE FORGOTTEN

Paeth, Miru, a Ainn

Speech, Wine, and Gifts

Author's Note: The chapter in which – It's Lothril's turn to get 'the talk' and Lothril finds out what an elven pre-wedding party is like. Re/reading date: October 25th. It is not elfling friendly. It is also not advisable to read at work. Reader discretion is advised. This chapter and chapter 88 are why I changed the rating to M.

"Now, we are certain Lord Elrond has spoken to you, but he is an ellon and I do not care how many ages he has been a healer, he is not an elleth," Cîlwen said by means of introduction.

"True… but what does that have to do with anything?" Lothril asked, thoroughly confused at why Linnrien was now coming in with a bottle of wine, three cups, and apple cake.

"Here you go," Linnrien said as she handed Lothril a full wine cup and a slice of cake on a small plate.

"Thank you," Lothril said reflexively, setting both down on the dining table in front of her.

"It is just this," Cîlwen said, "Ellyn are never going to know what it is like to make love as an elleth. Especially for the first time."

"It is true," Linnrien echoed.

Alright, this was starting to make sense to Lothril. In the back of her mind she thanked her lucky stars and the one who made them that Elrond had broken her of shyness on this topic. Otherwise she was certain she would have died of embarrassment. "True, so then, what should I know before my wedding?"

"Do not let him rush you!" Linnrien said immediately.

"And speak up about what feels good or does not!" Cîlwen added. "He will have no idea."

"That is right. Not a clue," Linnrien seconded.

"Ellith take longer to reach farthannen (satisfaction) than ellyn, so he simply has to be patient and put in the time, but you have to help him along by telling him what feels good and does not," Cîlwen said.

"And it is trickier to get an elleth to that point too," Linnrien said. "That is why you must make him work patiently and not let him rush you and must tell him what you like and do not."

"Not that we think Legolas would intentionally be impatient or rush you or disregard your comfort-" Cîlwen began

"Not at all!" Linnrien affirmed.

"But rather the natural assumption with ellyn is that if they are feeling good, they are going to assume you are too. They only know their own experience at first, that is why you must help them learn your pleasure. Once he learns your cues and your body, you will not need to speak up as much," Cîlwen continued without missing a beat.

"That is right," Linnrien affirmed. "And the marriage bond helps."

Well, this all seemed logical anyway. Lothril nodded and took a sip of wine. "That makes sense."

"Good!" Cîlwen said.

"Now, before you join the first time, there are a few things you ought to know," Linnrien said before pausing to take a drink and then she continued. "You have never been so breached before, and somehow, I doubt the son of Thranduil is poorly endowed."

"Most likely he is not," Cîlwen agreed.

"Therefore, you need to be stretched out," Linnrien said.

Lothril had figured that out with Elrond as soon as she had seen that one table in that illustrated book on anatomy, but they knew nothing about that, so she simply nodded in agreement. "How do you suggest I go about it?"

"You? You just relax and breathe," Cîlwen answered. "Make him do it."

"But slowly!" Linnrien said. "And if he does it right, it should be very arousing and feel amazing!"

"If it does not, you need to make him stop whatever he is doing and try something else until it does feel good," Cîlwen said.

"That is not to say it will not sting a little," Linnrien quickly added.

"And it will," Cîlwen interjected.

"But if he does it right and you are relaxed, it should only sting a few seconds until you stretch and adjust," Linnrien clarified.

"And it might sting each time you stretch a little more, but each time it should be a little less," Cîlwen said.

"So I take it you are suggesting he use his fingers," Lothril said in a matter of fact tone.

"Definitely," Cîlwen and Linnrien said in unison.

"And knowing Thranduil, I am sure if he has not already, he will very soon be giving Legolas a thorough tutorial on how to do it properly," Cîlwen said with a grin.

"Oh, without doubt!" Linnrien said. "And instructing him to bring you to farthannen before even joining with you."

"Most likely. Thranduil loves you to bits, Lothril. I am certain he wants to make sure you are pleased just as much as Legolas is," Cîlwen said warmly.

"Of that I am certain," Linnrien added. "Elior told me after we wed the advice Uncle Thranduil gave him and I must say – if he gave such good advice to his nephew, I have no doubt he is giving even better to his son!"

"Indeed! Lauríel never went into great detail, but we were close and things she did say and hint at – well, Thranduil was undoubtedly an astounding lover. And that is where you are likely going to be most fortunate – Legolas inherited his father's patience and studiousness," Cîlwen said with a wink.

"So then why were you both so adamant I make him be patient?" Lothril asked, slightly confused again.

"Because sometimes when a new couple goes to wed, they get impatient and hasty and their fire gets ahead of her body only to abruptly throw cold water on the flames," Cîlwen answered. "We want you both to enjoy yourselves."

"Thoroughly," Linnrien added.

"And above all- enjoy yourselves! If you are communicative, Legolas is clever and will quickly figure out what is working and what is not and you will both fall into a mutually pleasurable pace and rhythm, even if it is not perfect at first," Cîlwen said.

"And remember – it will be a little awkward the first time, especially when you go to join," Linnrien said.

"It cannot be helped. Both of you are doing something completely new," Cîlwen added encouragingly.

"It will be less so the second or third time," Linnrien assured. "After that you will likely be able to join blindfolded."

Lothril wasn't embarrassed exactly, but this was a lot of information given in a short amount of time, so all she could really do was nod and say, "Well, I thank you both for telling me this. I truly appreciate it."

They both smiled and each gave her a hug. "You are welcome, Lothril," Cîlwen said with a smile.

"Anything else I should know?" Lothril asked.

They looked at each other then at Lothril and Cîlwen asked, "Did Elrond give you any particulars in how to pleasure Legolas?"

"Well, I – we – no particulars, just some generalities," Lothril answered. She never was sure how to answer those kinds of questions.

They grinned. "Then I am glad we asked!" Cîlwen said with a wink.

A couple hours, two bottles of wine, a thorough explanation of different ways a hervess (wife) can pleasure a hervenn (husband), what reaching farthannen was like, and one blushing Lothril later, Linnrien announced it was time to go to Lothril's night before the wedding party. Linnrien had told her about the family tradition a few weeks ago. As far as Lothril could tell, it was the elven version of a wedding shower and a bachelor/bachelorette party rolled together but with both the bride and groom and all the family present. They showed up in the drawing room, which was decorated with garlands of flowers, to find the better part of everyone already there, including Legolas and Thranduil and Elrond and the twins – all five of whom seemed to be in a merry mood and were all holding wine cups filled with varying levels of wine.

"Lothril! Meleth nín! Come here and join us!" Legolas hailed as he saw her enter the room. He held out his hand to her and she detached herself from Linnrien and Cîlwen and went over to him. As she came beside him he slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close. "Are you ready for our night before party?"

"I have no idea," she answered bluntly.

"Did you have any such tradition in your old world?" Elrond asked.

She frowned. "This is like a couple things rolled together and I only have experience with one of them."

"And believe me when I say – whatever experience she has had is not comparable to whatever our traditions are," Legolas added.

"Truly?" Elrond asked. "Which part do you have experience with and what did you do?"

"The wedding shower gift giving part," Lothril answered. "Aaaand mostly we sat around, ate picnic sort of food, watched the bride-to-be open gifts largely geared towards helping her set up house, and listen to a devotional."

"What is a devotional?" Thranduil asked, thinking the word sounded a bit… ludicrous… at least in context…

"A speech where someone takes a passage of their sacred book and reads it and then talks about something else vaguely related and moral for at least five minutes past when the point was actually made and little to none of it has anything to do with what is going on," Legolas explained.

"No, it is related… usually…" Lothril interjected.

"Explain then to me what verses about those who acted by faith had to do with playing whirly-ball," Legolas quipped.

"I said usually!" Lothril retorted.

"What on earth is whirly-ball?" Elladan asked.

"Chaos, mostly," Legolas answered.

"Could we play it here?" Elladan asked, looking a little excited at the prospect of a little chaos.

Legolas shook his head. "No, I am afraid not."

"So, how exactly do these pre-wedding parties go?" Lothril asked, changing the topic. The last thing she wanted to do right now was think about whirly-ball and youth group activities with accompanying devotionals.

"Now that you are here, we shall open gifts, eat, drink, and make merry," Legolas answered. "Worry not, it shall be fun!"

"Why are memories of the hunter's feast last year coming to mind?" Lothril asked rhetorically.

Thranduil laughed. "It shall be fine, I promise! And you will have a full day to recover before you wed."

"What happened at the hunter's feast?" Elrohir asked.

"Nothing worth repeating," Lothril said quickly.

"Oh, meleth nín, I do not know why you insist on hiding the fact you had a good deal of fun," Legolas teased.

"Mostly because I prefer what happened after," she said quietly in his ear.

He leaned down so he could say in her ear, "I absolutely love that!"

"Now, now you two – no starting early! You get to wait until tomorrow night!" Elladan teased.

Perfectly stifled smiles and laughter from Thranduil, Elrond, and Legolas were unobserved by Elladan. Lothril flat out laughed. "You keep thinking that and get back to me the night before you wed!"

"Ignore my brother," Elrohir said. "Come, Lothril! We all have gifts we wish to give you both and we grow impatient!"

"Especially if you are not going to give us tales of the hunter's feast," Elladan joked.

"We can do gifts now," she said with a smile. Though, she honestly couldn't guess what on earth they'd get a they lived in the palace, he was a prince, it wasn't like they needed to furnish a house... Surely not…

The drawing room was rearranged so a love seat was in the middle and that was where they were directed to sit. Legolas seemed to be anticipating this quite a bit, but Lothril wasn't sure how to feel. The uncertainty of what to expect left her feeling agitated. She should have asked when Thranduil mentioned this was a thing last week. No, she should have asked Elrond after Thranduil mentioned it was a thing. Thranduil would have just smirked and said 'you shall simply have to wait and see.'

The drawing room was comfortably crowded with family and a couple of friends between their wedding attendants. There was the uncharacteristic presence of servants, but Lothril noted it was Marion, Alphon, Estelneth, and one or two others that attended the king directly. That it was them was comforting knowing those servants wouldn't breathe a word. That it was them was also discomforting because it clearly meant they were looking for optimum discretion from the servants… Right?

The first gifts were handed to them, one to each. Lothril unwrapped the basket to find candles. Candles. What is more, small candles in tins. This felt like the Middle-earth equivalent of getting a nightlight.

Mindonith caught the look of blank confusion on her face and quickly leaned in and whispered in her ear, "The candle burns and turns into a warm massage oil."

A grin slowly spread across her face. "I see," she said aloud, quietly enough that only Mindonith heard her. She hadn't told Mindonith everything about her past, but she had let on this sort of thing wasn't discussed much, which was why Mindonith seated herself close enough to Lothril to explain things if she needed it.

Now that she knew was given self-warming massage oil and not Middle-earth nightlight, she looked over at what Legolas had opened. "Oooh! A bottle of mead!" she exclaimed.

"From Elrohir. Your favorite as well," he said, showing her the pasted on label.

"Thank you!" Lothril said to her brother.

"You are welcome!" he returned with a smile.

"What did you open?" Legolas asked.

"This," she said, handing it to him.

He smiled. "That will certainly be useful. Who did it come from?"

"I did not see the tag," Lothril answered.

"I did not attach one," Mindonith said with a wink.

Lothril then realized it was the exact same fabric used to wrap this as that box she sent some weeks ago now. The next gifts handed to them were from Legolas' grandparents and they were a portrait of the two of them together and a woven blanket that shifted color like the cloaks from Lothlórien. Lothril was relieved to see no hidden spells embroidered on it. After that though, the gifts became a bit more mixed for Lothril… mixed between being sweet and her just wanting to hug whoever gave it to her and her really struggling to remember everyone here thought this was perfectly appropriate. After being given a decorative set of nipple clamps from Linnrien, and being simultaneously severely turned on but also completely flustered by them (because good Elbereth, her father and father-by-marriage are six feet away and her very unmarried brothers are right freaking there!), she decided she wasn't nearly drunk enough yet to survive this and motioned for a servant to top off her wine and keep it coming. Somewhere in her mind where sarcasm and references to things nobody in Middle-earth (or regular earth for that matter) were going to understand, she heard a little voice say, "Wine isn't the answer. Wine is the question, yes is the answer!"

Yes, yes it was. And thank goodness she was already four glasses deep into the night, because a quickly downed fifth glass started to take effect immediately and made her relax about the clamps that, according to the note in the box, could double as hairclips. Yeah no. They were very pretty though… looked like beech leaves. Lothril was clearly learning on the fly, but she had figured out right quick, absolutely no one was asking to see anything, everything was in some sort of box or basket big enough to conceal what it is, and fun everyone else was having was based on the amount of alcohol they had consumed and the looks on the couple's faces.

She looked over at Legolas who had a large thing he was opening, but it clearly wasn't very heavy as he seemed to be moving it with ease. She leaned over his arm to look and saw what really looked like a wedge pillow. She had seen one similar to it at the chiropractor's office, but this one was a little bigger, she reckoned. Nightlights, blanket and pillows… she giggled to herself. Goodnight, everybody! "Who is that from?" she managed to say.

"Gladhrion," Legolas replied.

"Thanks, Gladhrion!" Lothril said with a grin. Never mind she was grinning like an idiot thinking of Animaniacs, let them all think she was just giddy about the wedge pillow… which latently registered what it was likely to be used for, which thrilled her to the core and she was suddenly really eager to try it out.

Realizing she had hit the perfect sweet spot of mildly drunk but still functional, she managed to discreetly whisper to Estelneth to keep her right there with how sloshed she was. Estelneth, the consummate professional, merely nodded. After gifts was music and dancing and eating and thank heavens, the gifts being taken directly to Legolas' room, and the carrying on lasted well into the night. However, at a still quasi sensible hour of roughly midnight, Thranduil reminded everyone there was a wedding to prepare for come morning and everyone headed to bed, including Legolas and Lothril.

"You, meleth nín, are drunk," Legolas declared as they walked back to their rooms.

"I am a very controlled sloshed… just enough to not die over the fact your cousin's wife gave me beech leaf shaped nipple clamps, but still sober enough to form sentences, thank you very much!" she said with a giggle.

"You decidedly took all that better than I thought you would," Legolas commented with a grin.

"The wine helped take the edge off. Though, I still want to have you and pleasure you within an inch of your sanity," she replied with a wicked grin.

"And that is why we are not sharing a bed tonight. I am afraid I have had just enough to make the two of us in bed together a dangerous proposition."

She frowned. "You're probably right. Besides, last night unmarried and all… seems only fitting I ought to be alone in my own bed like a good girl."

"You are a good girl anyway," Legolas replied. "In every conceivable way," he added, stopping her to kiss her smack in the middle of a passageway before stopping himself mid kiss and quickly pulling her into the royal wing and then into her antechamber where he promptly pinned her against the closed door. "You are a very good elleth… beautiful… kind… witty…clever…sensual and desirable… ai elenath!" he whispered as kissed up and down her neck, her moaning and squirming beneath him. "We wed tomorrow… as soon as the sun begins to set, we go to the clearing… we celebrate with our kith and kin… then the blessings are exchanged… we exchange our rings… then we wed… And then I am your husband and you are my wife until the breaking of the world." He looked her in the eyes and found only love, joy, and excitement. No fear, no trepidation. "I love you and all that you are with all that I am, Jennifer Lynn Erickson Lothril Elrondiel, and I shall love you until the breaking of the world."

"I love you too, Legolas Mellothon Thranduilion. I love and appreciate absolutely everything about you and I cannot imagine – well, my life as utterly changed since I first met you. I gave up a world for you, and I shall love you beyond the breaking of the world."

He smiled at her hyperbole. "A lovely thought, but we die with the breaking of the world."

"Death cannot stop true love. It can only delay it for a little while," she quoted with a grin.

"The Princess Bride, correct?"

She nodded. "Yup!"

"That was a good story. But we have our own story we are forging and you are a little bit drunk, and so am I, and so I shall kiss you goodnight and see you at breakfast, meldis nín." (my beloved bride)

With that he kissed her, long and slow, then left her at her bedroom door.