Bouquet, for Femslash Bingo 2016 by Urloth

15th July - O37 Carnation: Fascination. Anaire/Earwen.

Set in Amber verse.

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“It’s alright,” Anairë reminded her, “not unheard of for a rich noble to have a few on the side. Even Finwë had a few on the side at that fancy brothel we sent the children to to learn how to fuck. We can be each other’s.”

She was just so blasé about it. Not a damn euphemism to be found. Out with things that most people politely pretended not to know. Her lack of guilt was just so stunning. Was there a way to monetarise Anairë saying completely scandalous things? Eärwen would pay to hear her read out a list of local scandals with her nonchalance.

She just did not care. It was amazing.

Eärwen twined their fingers together and just nodded, noticing that there was a pale eyelash amongst the black of Anairë’s eyes. She wondered why that would be.

“I’m not going to get any prettier if you keep staring,” Anairë teased her, kissing her neck but Eärwen just tugged her head up again so she could keep looking at her.

She was so plain, Anairë, bordering on ugly. Such a thin, sharp face, thick brows so wide they almost met in the middle, prominent nose. Her mouth was too wide. It smiled too freely, even when she was in pain. She had not been a court beauty, she had not even been born of the court, and Eärwen had wondered if Arafinwë had knocked his head when he had come rushing in to tell her that Ñolofinwë was marrying the daughter of a prostitute and a crippled carpenter.

She had not bothered to put two and two together from Anairë’s teasing lettings, and course she’d rushed to Tirion to see this new spectacle, only to find it was someone who had captured her attention years ago. How far they had come from their first meeting on a unfinished bridge. The former chief engineer of Tirion’s engineer corps had once again ascended rank and status without anyone realising it until it was too late

Her lips were soft for once instead of cracked. She had been using the lip balm Eärwen had sent her. It was so soft to kiss now. Eärwen took her time till she was caught yawning against Anairë’s mouth who did nothing more but laugh.

“Go to sleep love,” Anairë kissed her cheek and rolled away, standing up, her shoulders below the line of the mattress. There was a click, then another, a grunt, and Anairë stood at the original height that Eärwen first met her, towering over her by a foot and a half. Anairë sighed, stretching with the thin long lines of old scarring pulling white against ochre-gold skin, and as she walked the elegant and complicated gears and weights of her lower legs clicked and the sound of their weight just was not the sound of the long elegant feet and shins Eärwen first met.

There was a bruise over her left elbow. Where had that come from?

“What are you thinking Eärwen?” Anairë looked down at her, steadying herself on the dresser as she redressed. Baies, breast-band, then an underdress covered up her sinewy form; erased small curves behind straight cloth lines. Stiff collar to her chin, her dress proper covered in a fractal pattern of red carnations, then her hose, boots, gloves.

Her boots had carnations tooled into the leather as well. Eärwen raised her eyebrows. How unlike Anairë to coordinate her day to day outfits. She’d only ever cared about her court outfits. Outside of court she usually resembled a mismatched scarecrow. Eärwen would have suspect a maid but Anairë had dismissed all her household staff, again, and was resisting all attempts by Nerdanel, Indis, and Eärwen to restock her contingent with people to actually take care of her.

What was going on that Anairë had put thought into her daily clothing?

“You are as fascinating as you were when I first met you,” Eärwen could see the young woman who had charmed her; frightened her; rough hands, rough clothing, so tall and wide shouldered for a woman, accent still stubbornly clinging to the very darkest and dirtiest streets of Tirion though she had been doing her best to train herself to speak like a lady.

That accent was returning after a long vacation, forcing refined court speech to co-share Anairë’s vocal cords, after the years of muteness trying to adjust to what had happened to her during the Kinslaying.

Anairë was remaking herself again. Eärwen was unable to look away, wondering what she would become this time.

16th July - I12 Witch Hazel: A Magic Spell. Nimrodel/Mithrellas.

Of Mithrellas side ficlet.

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Nimrodel had ordered Hamamelis to be planted in a new grove of her own design. It was not a White Grotto, nor a duelling circle. It was for an entirely unrelated reason and she would not say what. The Lady of the Green Weld was threatening Nimloth’s rule over the River of Sighs, and yet Nimloth had time enough to plot out the grove, and oversee the planting herself.

Then she summonsed her Housekeeper.

Mithrellas was to attend it. No one else was to enter it.

There was a strict list of requirements Mithrellas had to fulfil and fulfil them she did. Though she made her displeasure at this extra work known till Nimrodel kissed her and kissed her and promised her silks and pearls and silver bangles, and when that did not erase her frown, promised her a new quilt, an extra rest day when the grove was deemed ready for whatever Nimloth wanted, and to take her when Nimloth went to pay maternal respects to the Lady of the Silver Ferns. 

And so the tiring tasks began. Mithrellas rose every day from beside Nimrodel, and reluctantly left the warmth her Lady’s body provided.  She descended from the House in bare feet and nothing but a belt of deer hide before the sun could pierce the canopy. The stairs creaked beneath her feet, and the air was always cold as she walked to the River of Sighs to draw water for the grove. Even in the height of summer it was cold and in the winter her skin began to crack and bleed.

Each step towards the new grove would get heavier than the last. It felt like dead hands were gripping her legs.

The River laughed in her ears.

When she reached the grove she knelt. She weeded the base of each swiftly growing shrub, and then ladled the water out, making sure each plant got an equal amount. She could not see at first how such plain plant could be of any use to her Lady. She had no memory of ever being told of rites that needed the plant. It was good for nothing but making an astringent but she wasn’t to pluck any of the leaves that were beginning to broaden as the plants matured over a year. Nor was she allowed to collect any of the twigs that fell and burn them. They had to be gathered in the centre of the grove and allowed to moulder.

Each wide leaf filled with fresh colour, and the first flowers bloomed red and yellow and orange.

They were beautiful.

It made the walk every morning easier.

The Lady of the Green Weld was sending messengers with every crescent moon. They presented and reiterated her claim over the River of Sighs. Nimrodel sent each one of them away red faced from her laughter.

A tiredness began to take over Mithrellas as she continued to dutifully rise before the rest of the servants, and tend to Nimloth’s new grove. It became just a bit harder to get out of bed, the stairs became a little too steep beneath her feet, and the bucket of water became heavier and heavier.

There was frost on the ground as she stared over the grove and realised every one of the hamamelis were flowering. It was so cold. And Nimloth had not asked about the grove she had added to Mithrellas’ duties even once, and that was a different coldness in itself.

Even news of the first flowering of the Hamamelis did not stir her interest.

“Keep watering it,” Nimrodel turned away, her hair braided with long cylindrical weights of green jade, brought from miles away where in cold mountain streams it was harvested by the short men born of the stone faced god.

The journey that morning had been hard. Mithrellas had tripped, fallen down the stairs and wrenched her shoulder. She had fallen on the way to the River. She had fallen on her way to the grove. Her legs, beneath her warm dress, were still bleeding. She could feel the creep of little droplets but they were not warm. They were ice cold.

She dropped her head but left her Lady to go tend to the rest of the day.

That night she crawled into her bed, closed her eyes, and the cold crept up her legs and between her thighs, delving straight inside her till it reached her heart and squeezed.

She screamed and there was a frustrated cry from quite a distance. It was Nimrodel. But where was she? She was stuck in her bed, muscles locked in place by surging waves of cold and anger that wasn’t hers.

“Lady?” she called out, “Nimrodel?”

But there was silence.

The house sounded less than silent. It sounded empty. There was chanting rising in the distance from where the new grove had been planted. Had she missed some message that she was meant to go there?

The chanting came closer. Even her eyelids felt stiff; resisting her need to blink them.

Warm hands lifted her from the sheets. Carried her from the house. There was the flash of torch light but faces were blurring together into the hungry mask of the Lady of the Green Weld’s face. The River of Sighs was laughing at her, even louder than it had in the mornings. She went into its water without a scream, felt her heart thud to a halt from the shock of its icey embrace, and she woke with frost coating her sheets and her eyelashes till they could barely lift them.

She groped at the cloth under her hands, sure she had been sinking into the winter slurry of the River.

“Wonderful! More than wonderful!!!” Nimloth caught her face between her hands. Mithrellas’ cheeks burned from the warmth of the skin and each of Nimrodel’s kisses on her mouth was like being slapped across the lips with a fire poker.

She made a noise of protest but Nimloth did not stop, hungry and eager, apparently.

“What did you do?” she asked, too familiar with how Nimrodel worked, and how the magic of all the Lords and Ladies worked, not to know that she had been the recipient of a spell.

“Diverted the Lady of the Green Weld’s attention, just for a while,” Nimrodel pulled away her nightdress and kissed her shoulders, “I did not expect you to be so very attentive in your duties my love, so absolutely devoted to every instruction I gave you would force the witch-hazel to bear fruit before its time. Though I suppose feeding them with your blood helped.”

 “Witch-hazel fruits?” Mithrellas pushed away Nimrodel’s face. Blood? Oh her scrapes. It would have been nice to be told this. Not that she could have prevented her injuries from her fall. Not with only a belt on.

“You cannot eat it, my ever attentive Housekeeper, do not think of adding it to our menus,” Nimloth was not being discouraged from Mithrellas’ skin, even though the frost had melted and it was uncomfortable to be sitting on wet cold sheets.

“You could have warned me,” Mithrellas gave up, perhaps a little pleased when Nimloth spread the warmth of her skin down over her stomach and thighs.

“You would have worried,” Nimrodel mumbled against her knee, nipping the underside till Mithrellas squeaked and smacked her with her foot, “and you will worry enough when we host the duelling for the next Lady of the Green Weld.” 

16th July - O43 Phylox: Harmony. Earwen/Anaire

A snippet set after Edebar.

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Anairë blossomed amongst the trees. Her face flushed and her appetite was healthy. They swung their hands together like schoolgirls on a trip and laughed at the antics of their sons. Eärwen was delighted, as Findaráto discovered the beehives and became obsessed with Anairë’s father’s apiary skills, that Angaráto seemed to take this as a challenge, and set about trying to outdo his older brother with what he could learn about the bees and all the flowers they could visit.

Formenos folded them in her mountains with a mother’s embrace. Eärwen wished heartily that they might never leave.  

Anairë’s third pregnancy had brought her a daughter at last, and her mind was bright and cheerful from the moment it touched her mother’s from within the womb. Eärwen smiled when she heard the news, and they packed up their sons and retreated to Formenos where Anairë had been born and raised.

Ñolofinwë had promised Anairë she could spend any pregnancy that produced a daughter with her own mother. Anairë had not forgotten.

It was the first time Eärwen had been able to see the great orchard town, and the flowers on the fruit trees were blossoming white, pink, cream, and blue. Spreading out beneath the trees grew great mats of creeping phylox in shades of brightest fuchsia and royal purple.  They spilled out of broken urns set into walls, and surrounded wooden walk ways that visitors could use to meander through the orchards.

“They have a competition,” Anairë told her, “for the vertical variety.” They were sitting with their arms around each other. Anairë had her head tucked sweetly against Eärwen’s chest. Eärwen was wondering if it was possible to die of happiness, in this bright happy place with a bright happy Anairë in her arms.

“Really?”

“Really,” Anairë kissed the bottom of her chin when Eärwen flicked the blossom petals away from her hair. “My mother participates every year. She loves it.”

Their sons were trampling wholesale over the clover mix that Anairë’s parents preferred over the creeping phylox. They chased each other around and through the orange trees, their laughter ringing in the air like the chorus to a song.

Findekáno was currently it. He wasn’t quite scaling the trees to get out of the other threes reach, but it was almost so and Eärwen kept an eye on that. She wasn’t sure that knocking all the blossoms off would be welcomed.

Eärwen was glad that they were happy here. This was where Anairë had been a happy child. This was where Finwë had first met her up in a tree, balancing on branches thinner than a finger.

With Turukáno looking more and more alike his mother, Eärwen had a good frame of reference now for how it must have looked. She could imagine such a bright sprite of a girl peering down at Finwë where he sat upon his horse.

“The way that my son looked up at that child and smiled,” Finwë had said, “my heart delighted because it had been a while since I’d seen pure joy on Ñolofinwë’s face. He is so serious all of the time. I thought it was good he thought to marry her older sister because surely a child so gregarious as this one before us would push her way into the life of her sister, even newly married. Such a child would not easily let go of her sibling and would be eager to know new family.”

That was not how it had eventuated but there was no need to think about that now.

Anairë yawned and wriggled in the way that meant that she was going to fall asleep very soon enough.

“When is the competition?” Eärwen steadied her and reached for a cushion.

“In maybe a month,” Anairë smiled, “so we can attend.”

“That will be fun,” Eärwen was already there. She’d never been to a flower competition! A Golodo flower completion as well!

The bees were humming persistently. Eärwen wanted to hum along. Perhaps they could harmonise.  

They were so far from the sea here but she felt like a child again, free and happy to do what she wanted.

“We have eight whole more months here,” Anairë giggled softly, a shy and rare noise, “well probably more. I don’t fancy riding right after having a child.”

“Eight whole more months,” Eärwen wondered happily. The tutors would be arriving for the boys soon. Fëanáro had threatened to visit them with his own brood. He had mentioned something about owning a small property in the region.

It would be nice if all the cousins could take lessons together for a while. It would surely be an adventure for her quieter lot.

Anairë and Eärwen could go off and have adventures off their own too, once the tutors arrived.

She smiled and curled their hands together. Anairë was breathing low and steady, already dropped off for a nap.

Who could blame her.

17th July - O41 Gladiolus: strength of character. OFC/OFC

Amber verse.

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It was a great deal to the people of Doriath that Eöl, son of Elmo, was so acknowledged by his mother’s kin, the Tatyar, and so upheld that they set aside the matriarchal tradition of their people and so crowned him a ruler independent of any Târî-

Winjâ-rossê’târî put down her pen and stared at the draft she had been putting into clean precise writing, intended to return to Rivendel as payment for the copy of their early texts on the people of Beleriand.

There was a moment of exhaustion. The draft was there, with all of her notations. It needed only copying out and she would do it herself for she felt it must be done by herself but today the thought of banging her head against the lies and misinformation that repeated itself in every text the little Târo of the River and Valley sent her… it made her want to cry.

She was not a woman who cried. She was not liking this new kind of tired old despair.

“Mithöl?” she tilted her head in half acknowledgement, realised there were few that would call her her childhood name and turned sharp and quick to smile at the woman who stood in the doorway of her study, a large smile on her own face.

Oh and how the light backlit her Gílnel, and brought to life the spear-lillies that climbed up the skirt of her tunic and twirled happily up to cup the bodice.

“Darling when did you return?” she rose from her desk and her back twanged like an out of tune harp. She had not realised she had tensed over her writing until now. Usually the back board Gílnel had made her and her own posture kept her untouched by a scholar’s maladies.

“You are writing about Lord Eöl again,” Gílnel cupped her face when she approached her. Mithöl slid her arms around her love, marvelling at how small her star-bell was. How delicate of limb and face yet strong enough to lift Mithöl in the air if she wanted.

“Yes,” she closed her eyes.

“Oh my love,” Gílnel rose on tiptoes to kiss both her cheeks, “I know you will do well.”

Mithöl smiled, feeling like Gílnel had bathed her in the starlight that had bathed Nan Elmoth in her youth.

“If I keep writing” she murmured, “one day there will be more books in Rivendel’s library that mention my father positively than the opposite. One day. As long as I slip it in subtly I will eventually dominate their reference section.”

“Of course,” Gílnel did not doubt her.

17th July - N19 Hollyhock : Ambition. Tauriel/Arwen

A precursor to 

Of A Certain Complication of Lady Arwen's Visit to Mirkwood And Of, After Moping For A While, How Tauriel Fixed it. (Though Not On The First Try. And Not Without A Little Help.)

Read 17th July - N19 Hollyhock : Ambition. Tauriel/Arwen

Ambition.

Tauriel clasped her hands over her stomach and stared at the sleeping back of her vice-captain. There were probably orcs out in the woods.

They were being kind enough to be silent.

Sadly that did not help sleep, only intensified the paranoia that being on this most important of duties brought to her.

She breathed out her nose rather than give their position away with a sigh, and scanned the trees and then down below.

Nothing.

She sat down again.

Ambition.

What was her ambition?

She had thought becoming captain younger than any other had been her ambition but that had come and gone and she was still unfulfilled.

Happiness?

She considered that for the child of Oropher’s unwanted daughter she was doing very well for herself.

She glanced down at her wrist guards, Legolas’ last summer solstice gift to her, embossed hollyhock in the leather, and thought of the prettier and less utilitarian spray of carved amethyst and citrine hollyhocks upon a platinum band of leaves from King Thranduil and the Queen Dowager together, since they had noted her aversion to the more prominent crowns and tiaras available to her.

She was wanted by some, she reconciled herself.

That band was in her hair now. Incongruously decorative and fancy for a guard position but she had to look her best for their most important and eagerly awaited guests. The Queen Dowager would hear of nothing less.

Tauriel was there as their representative, her role was ceremonial.

That had not stopped her taking the last watch however. It had given her time to freshen up and contemplate how her dress uniform was actually very well designed and would probably survive action quite well.

Light broke upon the horizon. There was, from the ground, a longed for greeting called out upon the morning breezes and she rose to see the cavalcade from Rivendel finally coming out onto the flat broad lands right before the forest abruptly swallowed the sky.

They were too far away yet to do more than hail them back and finger her bow and arrow, aware that being out in the open was an obvious chance for an ambush.

The light of dawn shone upon a raven head of hair, cape pushed back to enjoy the chilly autumnal breezes whisking around them. It caressed the face of a star born princess, highlighted the alabaster of Arwen Undomiel’s creamy skin as with a whoop and no care for her own safety she charged ahead of her party towards the forest entrance and the guard tower that only elven eyes would perceive amongst the trees.

Tauriel could not look away.

What would it take, she wondered, to be worthy of being by that Lady’s side?

20th July - G38 Cherry Blossom: Transience of Life. Aredhel/Elenwe

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Oh… oh the cherry blossoms on the hillside where her brother wed his wife. They will be blossoming right now. They must be blossoming right now, long spindly limbs of trees suddenly frothy with that pinkish lacy texture. There will not be a scent but there will be a sound, the frantic buzz of bees who find such a resplendent bounty there.

She can see the whole orchard as it was when the wedding took place. The tables of well-wishers in their finery, the tables spread with a feast, her family arrayed like a kinder version of the cruel constellations above her head.

The bride.

Oh the bride.

She wants to take that bride into her arms and steal kisses from her. She wants to see that bride again, and take in the light of her eyes and the warmth of her skin. The whisper soft brush of lips against her cheek. The desperate shiver of want held in check between them both.

Yes she’s there, amongst the blossoming cherry trees and Aredhel can just make out her hair beneath the veil.

Her dress and… her smile and… her laughter… and… it is so cold. It is so cold.

Aredhel shivers and her lashes freeze her eyes shut, causing her to scream, one more howl of misery to add to those who wail for the loss of Elenwë; swept away as easily as those blossoms were.

20th July - I11 Wisteria: Welcoming. Thuringwethil/Luthien.

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She was most definitely lied too. There is nothing here that speaks of dark or evil or death. Instead it is a cottage, quant and lovingly set into the roots of a giant oak. There is wisteria, framing the doorway, which is gently cracked open and the scent emerging is that of baking bread.

The woman who has come to the door is dressed in pale pastel blues and her hair is a fall of white-gold around a peach shaped face; plump cheeks, sharp chin, pretty blush. Her eyes are so blue. Lips a rose bud pink and the teeth behind white and small.

Luthien isn’t sure what to do. No matter how she spun this scenario in her head, needing the powers of the fiend her mother had not dared to cross, she had not envisioned this.

The air wrathe smiles at her, leaning her head against a drooping bow of wisteria, the purple lying across her hair, and reaches out one hand with dark nails glinting bright in the sunlight piercing the clearing her house lies within.

“Come in,” she murmurs and Luthien is stepping forward. The Wisteria is closing around her body and there are lips on hers.

A kiss to her throat. A chaise lounge covered in gold velvet and a warm sunny parlour with embroideries of lands Luthien has never seen but knows about. A vine twines up her leg and tightens around her thigh, pulling it over the back of the chaise. The blossoms slides down her skin as her dress falls to the sides of her when those dark nails slice down the front of it. 

21st July – O44 Red Rose: True Love. Arien/OFC.

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Arien does not know how easy it is to grow roses. She left earthly concerns behind and was not all too concerned with the raising of plants before that.

Below her gaze her love is tending to her mighty garden, with its multiple tiers and thousands of roses, the heart of said garden a bower filled with heart’s-blood red blooms with perfume so thick and heady it reaches even Arien where she glides across the sky.

She wishes she could sing her love a declaration of the joy it brings her to see that bowed head of hers as she kneels over the beds of flowers and cuts away the old growth, gathering choice blooms onto a cloth spread by her side.

Alas her earthly voice was burnt out of her when she took up the raising of her golden chariot and the song left to her now would make her pretty lover’s ears bleed. Instead she opens up the clouds and shines the light down solely upon her, even if it means Valmar must endure yet more cloudy, rainy days, too hot to be comfortable and scorching the back of the neck, but there is no move to get out of the light down below.

Instead a face it turned up to her, and her lover straightens her back and stands to spread open her arms, embracing the sunlight.

22nd July – N21 Thistle: Nobility. Varda/Nienna.

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There is a crown of fire about the head of Míriel’s fëa, it is sharp and painful to approach, lashing out with sharp spikes of heat whenever anyone draws too close to her. It can not be extinguished. Whatever broke her fëa the first time and was deemed unfixable, has created this vicious royal statement and even Namo finds it burns him to approach.

Like a thistle, the former Queen surrounds herself with sharpness that no one dares approach, not just the radiant crown of fire that is never extinguished but never chars her work, but the lilac cloth of her dress, sewn with embroidery that appeals to the eyes but cuts the hands to touch.

“Does it suit?” unlike the fire, the Þerindë’s voice is chilled till it emerges as frost on the balmy air. Varda runs her hands over the tapestry that she commissioned from Nienna’s halls.

Nienna sighs sadly behind her and holds her as revulsion ripples through Varda’s form.

Varda wished a tapestry to celebrate the final defeat of Melkor and his reimprisonment.

Míriel has done so but there is no missing the destroyed land this scene is set in, or the thousands of elven bodies not just beneath Melkor’s feet but also the feet of Eonwë and Arafinwë as they hold his chains. The bloodied and ripped standard of Finwë hangs like discarded rubbish over one arm of the throne Manwë has been sat upon, and Varda herself has bloodstains on the sleeves of her garment. The rest of her cohort have received the same noble depiction with unsubtle commentary laced around them that switches the narrative.

“You know this does not suit,” Varda murmurs, feeling the stars in the sky dim with her own dismay. At the same time Nienna reprimands Míriel for her lack of noble conduct. Nienna's voice rattles the windows and creates a iron laced wind that tugs at all their dresses.

Míriel sneers, unmoved. The fire about her head flares brighter, hotter, sharper and she flicks her hair, “I can do no better.”

She is dismissed.

As she passes an ornamental pot of geraniums, they wither and in their place springs a knotted ball of needle thorned briars. Thistles grow from the grouting of the tiling under her feet. The trees beyond the windows loose their leaves. The sky darkens with the onset of a hailstorm.

Varda sags with sadness a wretched burden to be left with when she had been filled with excitement for the morning.

“Perhaps I was too heavy handed when I told her she would have to be the one to weave but you wished for the best,” Nienna presses apologetic kisses to Varda’s mouth and takes the tapestry. It is so fearfully beautiful; so startling in its detail and colour.  “She loses more of her nobility and good spirit the longer she remains in my halls.”

“This is outright rebellion,” Varda turns her head away from the mocking treasure.

Nienna kisses away the tears that fall and ushers her away to a brighter room with no tapestry within it. They sit with sunlight falling where Laurelin would have once been reflected in the fountain’s mirrors.

“What shall I do now?” Nienna rests her head upon Varda’s shoulder, twining power around hers in an intimate caress.

“I suppose smile and thank her for her hard work,” Varda sinks into the touch, wondering if enough dignity and compassion exists when Míriel becomes, year by year, less a woman and more a knife between the ribs of Aman; more of a Power that Melkor would have happily used against them all, “she did fulfil every requirement of the brief.”