Taming the Wildflower by Sulriel

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Rhavloth let her mare pick an easy way through the star-speckled dark along the rocky trail.  Night breezes caressed her with the over-green stench of the Fen of Serech; against that, the subtle hints of woodsmoke, warning her of a presence long before the flickering campfires came into view.

She stopped her mare in the deeper shadows to study the camp.  Noldor.  Her own people wouldn't have built the careful stone rings around the fires or even set up the elaborate tent city for a simple night's camp.  

The touch of watching eyes weighed on her – there, a guard in the shadows, and another one lurking farther back. 

Rhavloth slipped from her mare's back and met the guard's suspicious eyes with a properly regal gaze.  "I am Rhavloth of Doriath."  She glanced over his worn armor for an emblem, but his cloak covered it.  Not that it mattered; she was close enough to Fingolfin's lands.  "I carry a missive for your lord.  Is he in this camp?"

"He is."  The guard held out his hand for the pouch.  "I will see it delivered to him."

She raised one brow, the way she'd seen her uncle do as a warning that he'd been underestimated.  "The words of Elu Thingol will not be given into the hands of a border guard."  The guard didn't need to know that she'd been instructed to wait for a reply.  "You'll provide me an escort to your lord's fire."

His eyes flickered over her, pausing at her weaponless waist before he searched the darkness behind her.  Petty guardsmen, they were all alike, self-important and overly-cautious, it seemed, worrying at the wrong things – as if she would be a danger to his great lord.  .

"I'm quite harmless…"

He tensed at her smile.

"…and unaccompanied.  Your lord has nothing to fear from me."

His shoulders stiffened and he bade her follow.  After a quick word with his companion, he led Rhavloth through the camp.  Skirting clumps of loiterers, he led her toward a solitary fire set apart from the others.

Rhavloth slowed as she approached the fire.  She'd made a mistake.  This wasn't Fingolfin.  It wasn't any of the lords she knew. 

This one leaned up against a log, long legs stretched along the ground.  He watched her with the quiet, edgy gaze of a satiated predator.  As she neared, he rose, uncoiling to stand – she half stumbled a stride – taller than her king

His unbound hair, not even a single braid taming it, tangled, heavy and riotous around his face with tendrils teasing over his glittering eyes, to tumble down his back.  It gleamed in the dark, seeming to capture and hold the wavering dance of the coals rather than reflect the flickering tongues of his fire.

Heat rose in her cheeks when she realized she'd been staring, until her gaze touched his lips, curled up in a confident smirk, and snapped up to met his eyes

Bold!  Haughty!  Was he so used to being stared at?

The flush of embarrassment on her cheeks turned to the heat of anger.  Pride stiffened her back and kept her from looking away.  She swallowed the sensible nagging about being respectful echoing from a small corner of her mind and assumed the airs she'd seen her brother use in court.

His lips twitched, a subtle shift from arrogance to appreciation, and the corners of his eyes softened.

That look she knew, knew it well.  Amusement tickled in her belly that one of the so-called great lords of the Noldor looked at her in the same way as any of the younger sons that loitered about in Melian's gardens.

"Leave us." 

They spoke at the same time.  The guard startled and stiffened, turning offended eyes from the courier to his lord. 

Maedhros nodded and waved him away, taking the moment to temper his amusement at the impertinent chit's arrogance.  Arrogance?  Confidence or ignorance?  His amusement slid through curiosity into delight – only to be replaced with a growing smidge of respect.  She continued to study him with her silver-sparked eyes; as a dwarf would contemplate an unusual stone, with intrigue and a subtle hint of desire.  And without the flicker of fear, hesitance or doubt he was accustomed to commanding. 

These grey-elves, he had learned, were nothing if not refreshing.  She stood taller than most, balanced with a lean, easy grace.  Either from the court of these lands or from some wilder lands that knew no lords at all, he guessed.  Her height would compliment his, were she standing at his side.  Her dark hair was braided back.

She should wear it loose; it would soften the lines of her face.

A twinge of disgust and anger surged up, following the heavy twitch of interest stirring between his thighs.  What had he come to, in these dark woods, to even consider such a plain, dull little thing at his side?  The Calaquendi he'd choose to marry would be carefully chosen – strong enough to bear his sons, and strong enough to stand beside him … wherever his path led.

"Have you made your decision yet?"

The teasing lilt in her voice tangled down between his legs; the promised threat in her narrowed eyes distorted the anger to curious delight.  He suppressed a chuckle, but allowed a slow smile.  "Decision?"

"What sauce you would have me served with?"

Sauce!  He clamped his jaw in response to the tingling on his tongue at the thought of licking fresh cream from between her pert breasts.  Only the memory of court, with its forced small-talk, intolerable and tedious, kept him from laughing out loud.

"You have heard such things about the Lords of the Noldor?"  He added a note of offended surprise to his tone.

Her smile twitched.  Whatever her lowered lids hid, she disguised it as sultry innocence when she looked back up at him.  "I've seen such things in the eyes of many of the lords of my people.  Although I have not yet found one to suit my tastes."  Her shrug dismissed him as one of them.

Maedhros fought to keep curiosity, intrigue and amusement in the fore of his mind.  His shaft swelled and strained at his leathers; anger loomed over all. 

So he looked at her in the same base way as the skulking Moriquendi who slavered at the sway of her hips as she left them – no doubt savoring the memory and using it to stroke themselves when they were alone in their dank caves?  Not to her taste?  Who was she to judge him and find him wanting?

Half a step put him close enough; he reached out with his hand and placed a single finger below the tip of her chin.  She sucked in a deep breath and braced her back.  Insufferable, indominantable Moriquendi pride.  It didn't allow her to step back in spite of her trembling.  Her eyes flashed danger and anger at his wide grin – wide enough to make his cheeks ache.  He couldn't remember the last time…

"I think dark spiced honey would compliment such a tender young Sindë."  Maedhros leaned in to her as he spoke.  She'd slept last night in a lush meadow and ridden easily though the day – the subtle hints of both wafted up to him.  She'd tucked flowers in her braids.  Although they'd been lost along the way, their scent lingered in her hair.  He'd thought her face stark when he'd first seen her, only moments ago, delicate and refined, he thought now.  The long, elegant line of her neck mesmerized him.  His lips seemed cold and swollen with want.  He leaned down to her –

She struck – almost fast enough, almost strong enough.

His hand snatched closed on her chin as her hand closed on his forearm that she would have shoved away.  Her lips hovered so close below his, parted – she was holding her breath.  Taste.  She'd spoken of taste.

Maedhros brushed the tip of his tongue over her lips.  Sweetness and warmth flooded him with a rush of heated desire.  He opened his eyes to meet her glare.  "Definitely, dark spiced honey." he murmured the words, his lips brushing against her cheek.  His own hand didn't respond to his thoughts for a moment, but finally released her.  Still she stood her ground.

"I have business with your Lord Fingolfin."  Her young voice trembled, rough with emotion. 

How young? Innocent?  Had she never experienced raw, surging lust?  He'd betrayed her teasing and repartee, carried it too far, and it pained him.  Never lick the courier.  He'd add it to the list how to behave in his uncle's court.

"I didn't come to your camp to banter or be misused, only to see if he camped here before I passed on to Barad Eithel."

She still trembled with his touch.  He still trembled.

"Fingolfin is not here."

She spun to leave.  Some part of him spun inside.

"Stay," Maedhros called out.  "Our paths run together and you will travel safely with us in the morning."

She turned back to him, her eyes dark and questioning.  But what question?  She seemed not to know fear, in the way of a pet who had never been hurt.  Until he called her bluff and pushed past it.  Yet she stopped and turned when he called; and faced him again.  No.  No, certainly not.  The soft young bucks and rowdies she'd known would never be to her taste.  He knew that much about her already.

"You will be safe here if you can say I am not to your taste."  His chest tightened at the hitch in her breath and her hesitation.  The last vestige of remorse fled at the flare that flashed up in her eyes.

"My taste?"  Her voice rose.  "It was not I who sampled what was not offered."

She took a step toward him, strong, menacing.

He was the one trembling now.  What a magnificent temper.  Had she always been pampered and never denied?  Could he bring her another step closer?

"Lady."  He presented her with a courtly bow and upon rising, extended his hand to her.  "My manners have been remiss in this rough camp.  Your desires will be met if you make them known to me."

She flushed at his words.  Had he said too much?  The tautness in her body and her quickening breath said he hadn't.

"Come but a step closer," he whispered purposefully.  "Try the taste of me."  His deepened tone lured her as a silk cloth wrapped around would offer warmth and support but not escape. 

Still – she hesitated before she stepped past his hand.  One step, and a half.  Close enough he felt the heat of her all along his body.  Slow, but sure, she reached up one hand to touch below his chin, where he had held her.

His body sang like a bowstring strung too tight.  He couldn't remember such delicious torment.  Her fingertips caressed the line of his cheek.  In response to her light touch, he rested his hand on the small of her back and leaned down for the soft brush of her lips.  Her tongue flickered at the corner of his lips, then she took his lower lips between her teeth – as if tasting a berry.

Maedhros snatched her hard to him.  His world exploded – her lips, her neck, the taste and the feel of her.  He staggered back to standing.  He'd had her halfway to the dirt before he caught himself.  He threaded his fingers up the nape of her neck and held her tight around her waist with his right arm.  Her hands slipped up around his neck to tangle in his hair, her thigh slipped up over his.  She melted into him with a soft cry, opening her lips to his tongue, pulling him in as her hips moved against his.

 Surrender, complete surrender.  She was his and – NO! – 

He shoved her back, she stumbled a step –

No, not his.  Not this.  He'd meant to allow her to amuse him, to use her as pleasant diversion, to teach her a lesson.  She should have laughed or cried or pulled back and tried to slap him.  He'd only meant to steal a kiss and be on his way.

-- brief panic showed in her eyes, confusion and loss.  Then outrage.

He caught her wrist before the flat of her hand struck him.

#

Maedhros stared out the window, over the courtyard and battlements to the far horizon, seeing nothing, but turned at the clink of a stopper being dropped back in the neck a finely worked bottle.

"I heard you met Rhavloth."  Fingon turned from the sideboard with two filled glasses. 

Maedhros pretended a quizzical expression.  He was sure he didn't know anyone by that name.  Fingon – the lout – laughed out loud. 

"'Your cousin,' she said to me, 'is quite rude.'"  Fingon held out one glass to Maedhros.  "She said it in that quaint, understated way she has, as if you'd been very bad and our High King needed to know so he could dress you down."

Maedhros took his glass.  The courier, Rhavloth, had come directly to Fingon to complain about him?  He sipped the wine, holding a swallow on his tongue as if he were judging the taste rather than stalling for time and pretending indifference. 

"Do you mean the courier?" 

Usually, Fingon had a way with words, but he missed the mark with quaint and understated – if, as he undoubtedly was, he was speaking of the bit of sass that strutted through his camp the night before.

"We met on the trail a day from here, but I didn't learn her name."  He frowned in a way Fingon should understand meant the conversation was ended.

But Fingon only grinned.  "I guessed," he sipped his wine, "from the tone of what she said, that you had learned much about her."

"I learned of her temper."  Maedhros leaned back against the window frame as he studied his glass.  Thoughts of her had continually interrupted his day.  ...only because she'd managed to stir him up and then run away.  She undoubtedly thought she'd gotten the best of him.  He just needed a moment to set the record straight.  But he shuddered to think of seeing her in the clear light of day; plain and dull, like any bedraggled wild thing dragged out of the woods.  Certainly her beauty had been a trick of the starlight and the tall flames of his fire. 

"Rhavloth."  Fitting.  "From Elwe's court?  She must be Sindar but…"  Maedhros looked up. 

Fingon seemed much too amused.  He cocked one brow waved his drink in exaggerated encouragement for Maedhros to continue.

"… she has an unusual air about her I could not place."

Fingon was waiting, Maedhros knew, to have each tidbit of information dragged out of him by an endless stream of questions.  Maedhros waited as well.  He'd prefer to toss his cousin from the tower and read his entrails.  He wasn't interested in political games and small talk today.  Not when every word refreshed the memory of the taste of her.  And his balls ached.  More than his balls.  He all but groaned with the memory of the sensation of her thigh wrapped up over his hip – how could he still feel the heat of her moving against him? 

"It may be," Fingon's grin had faded, "that you're drawn to the reflected light of Melian."  He hesitated again.  "She seems to be a favorite of that court.  You'd be wise to stay clear of her."

Favored by the court?  Maedhros looked up from his glass.  Suddenly Fingon didn't seem at all amused.  Was his own expression that dark?

"She's kin to Elwe," Fingon said. 

More evasion.  If Fingon didn't know the intricate details of Elwe's relations, Maedhros would eat an Orc with no salt.

"If you've caused her distress – "

"Distress!"  Maedhros stood and paced to the sideboard to refill his glass.  "Their precious little favorite has been over protected.  I did nothing she didn't invite."

Fingon twirled his glass's stem in his fingers as though it were the most interesting thing in the world.

"A kiss."  As if it were any business of his cousin what he did in the dark in the woods. 

He wouldn't admit he had licked her first.  "Returned her kiss, if you must know."  After she had nibbled his lip and tugged the edges of it into her mouth.  He intended to fill her with more of himself than that, much more.  "And for that, I was informed that she would not be mounted like a mare in season but courted properly.  She implied I lacked the courage to face her king to ask for her hand."

He touched his glass to his lips before he realized it was already empty.  Again. 

Fingon pretended not to notice that he'd lowered the glass without drinking.  "As young as she is, I doubt she has been kissed before."  The worried look returned.  "Not the way you would have kissed her."

"She didn't say."  Maedhros shrugged.  "Whatever her age, she is full-grown and if, as she says, she will not be dallied with, then I judge she is of a mind to marry."

"She said only that your guards waylaid her and that you were rude."  Fingon spoke quietly.  "Nothing else."  That spot in his cheek just above his jaw line twitched.

Maedhros refilled his glass.  "She was waylaid as she came into my camp and – " He stopped short, even before he noticed the warning in Fingon's eyes, drained his glass and refilled it.  "And as for my rudeness, I will not compound it by speaking scandalously of a Lady of the House of Elwe."

"You don't intend to court her."  Understated, as always when he answered his own question by stating it in the form of the correct answer.

He shouldn't court her, Fingon meant; that he had no right to embroil her in their troubles.  The Oath.  The glass shattered in Maedhros' hand.  "No."  He stared at the glistening shards and bright splash of blood in his hand.  He wasn't free to make new vows.  "No…"  he wouldn't bring anyone else into the gristmill that was his life; he wouldn't balance anyone else on the glittering dark edge he tried to balance, "…of course not.  I'll marry one of our own people in time."

Fingon smoothly whisked a cloth from the sideboard and wrapped Maedhros' hand with a quick swipe before he knelt to pick up the shards.  "Just as well."

Just as well?

Fingon stood.  He started to speak again, but then didn't.

"Just as well?"  Maedhros asked.

Fingon shrugged.  And then he sighed, as if defeated.  "You know I'd be delighted for you to find someone to keep you warm."  He walked to the sideboard, stacked the shards on a cloth, selected a new glass and poured Maedhros another drink.  "But she's not going to be that."  He returned and exchanged the bloodied cloth for the fresh drink.  "She's close enough to Elwe, a granddaughter of his brother… You know Celeborn, she's his niece.  And the court keeps – "

" – so she's close enough to the court that it  would help cement relations."

Fingon drained his own glass before he spoke. "A marriage, Maitimo.  A marriage would help."

Weary anger rose up, clogging Maedhros' throat.  He didn't want a bond; he wouldn't take another chain to wrap himself in.  He only wanted a few hours diversion.  Was that too much too ask in these wild lands he now called home? He shook his head.  "She intrigued me, Fingon.  That's all."  She'd walked into his camp and yanked his leash.  "She sassed my guard and then put on airs when I offered to let her travel with us.  It's nothing to base a marriage on."

Fingon stared at him, unusually inscrutable.  "As I said," he repeated, "it's just as well."  Did he hesitate an instant too long?  "One of father's captain's usually escorts her when she's here; any one of them would be a good match for her."

#

Rhavloth had tried to keep a pleasant, interested expression, but suddenly realized her escort had stopped talking.  The expression on his face said he had asked her a question.  Why had she even bothered to accept his invitation to walk the gardens?  Only because she was insufferably bored.  How long could it take Fingolfin to pen a few lines and seal the pouch for her to carry back?   

Her escort's eyes widened for an instant and he stepped back.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible."  A delicious and unmistakable voice spoke from behind her.

Her world stopped spinning for an instant and restarted with a hazy jolt.  Just the sound of his voice made her dizzy.  The heat that flushed her cheeks came all the way up from her breasts.

"I offered you a taste of me," Maedhros whispered in her ear, "offered to fill your desires, and you left angry."   His breath brushed her ear lobe and cheek.  How could she feel it tingling between her thighs?

Where had her escort gone?  She suddenly couldn't even remember his name.

"You shoved me away," she murmured.  Immediately contrite, she mustn't murmur.  Her brother would never murmur when someone had wronged him.  She wouldn't either.  "Courage is when you persevere in spite of feeling weak and sick in your gut."  Oropher had repeated his lessons to her when she was still too young to go.

Maedhros placed his hand on her shoulder and she shuddered with the delicious, heated wave that swept her strength away.  

 Rhavloth regathered her strength, it took all she had, and stepped away.  When she turned, she was sure to mimic that insufferably arrogant expression her brother used when he meant to make her feel small and foolish. 

Maedhros' smile threatened to melt her resolve so she focused on his eyes.  A mistake. 

"I wish for you to dine with me tonight, and walk with me on the banks of the Siron." 

He seemed sincere.  She twitched her nose as if she smelled a day old hide.  "You still think I'll provide diversion for you."

He stepped close to her, too close, and bent his head down beside hers.  Close enough that her body prickled and burned with his heat.  He tickled his fingertips up her arm.  She swayed into him before she caught herself and she felt his smile brush her cheek.  "Would you prefer I call Fingolfin's captain back and leave you to your entertainment?"

Rhavloth pressed her palm, to the center of his chest.  She pushed him back and was rewarded by a flicker of doubt in his eyes.  His heart beat as fast as hers.  A shimmer of sweat beaded in the hairline at his temple.  She wasn't helpless against him.  "I've been lectured to practice restraint," she said.  "It is a lesson you need as well."

With a quick nod, he, stepped aside and offered her his arm, as a proper lord would a lady.  He made a small show of composing himself before he spoke again.  "Then, you will dine with me this evening, on the banks of the Siron, and we shall practice restraint."

The humor in his easy concession tickled her and she had to remember to keep her expression stern.  When she placed her palm on his arm, the glint in his eyes told her he thought she was his and she started to withdraw her touch but she saw such strength in the depth of him, it gave her pause.  He would test her, she had no doubt, but that same strength gave her confidence she'd be safe.  She closed her hand on his arm.

Rhavloth walked with Maedhros in Fingolfin's gardens, then outside the gates, along the edges of the wilderness and the green sparkling banks of the river.  She found him an easy companion – that he had humor without the silliness she found unappealing in the young lords of Thingol's court, and that he didn't seem to have a need to continually flex his strength or flaunt his knowledge in trying to impress her like the other lords of his people.

She asked about his missing hand, in a quiet moment, said that she'd heard Fingon had done that terrible thing to him.  A dark shadow twisted his face, but he shrugged it away and told her it was the truth, and how hard it had been to live after…

A great lurking sadness and anger swirled within him, it tugged deep inside her. Certainly there must be more to it than pain over the cost of his rescue – so she asked instead about Thorondor; if he remembered the flight, how glorious it must have been to fly, did they pass through a cloud, could he open his eyes against the force of the wind, were the great eagle's feathers soft…

When he turned to her, the look in his eyes caught the breath in her throat.  He held her gaze and touched her cheek.  She thought he meant to kiss her.  But he whispered something in the language of his people, and then the pain disappeared from his eyes.  "It was glorious," he said.  

He took her by the hand and led her along a meandering path to a grove.  She hesitated, it boasted a tumble of quilts and pillows, and a large hamper.  But she remembered not to murmur. 

"You're very sure of me."  She tried to tilt her head and look down her nose at him the way she'd seen Thingol do when someone had overstepped their bounds, but his smile said it didn't work to intimidate someone taller.

#

Maedhros realized he felt inebriated, but not.  He'd optimistically packed two bottles, but they had yet to finish the second.  That gentle, warm feeling was relaxed contentment.  He'd forgotten this pleasant sensation.  His erection had eased to comfortable anticipation, kept fresh by her smile, the sidelong glances when she thought he wasn't watching, and her soft voice and laughter.

She'd butchered his name in trying to differentiate between Maedhros and Maitimo.  Was this delightfully atrocious accent what Fingon considered quaint?  He'd laughed with her and made his own mistake – to touch his finger to her lips, soft, so soft and warm with a wet heat that the brush of her breath burned through him.  The flash of wanton desire in her eyes struck a bolt through to his core.  He knew want and desire and he knew that look, knew it too well.  She wanted him with her entire being.

Maedhros softened his smile and let the moment pass.  He moved his finger to hold up in front of her.  "Try again." 

"Your people have too many names, mother-names, brother-names…"

How long had it been since he'd considered pouting such a delightful trait?

"What would they call you in court if you hadn't handed away your crown?"

She'd been dismayed, earlier, to learn that his own sons wouldn't be taught they should reclaim the crown from their cousins and the question hit him harder than it should.  He shouldn't have ever had the crown; it only came to him through violence and death.  The loss of Finwë, and then Fëanor.  The dark thoughts of all that surrounded those deaths shredded at his mood with vicious and bloody claws – but her light, questioning touch on his cheek drove all that back to the past.

Her simple ambition and the sweet beauty of her innocence made him ache for what he and all his people had lost since the defilement of the Two Trees.  Certainly her people knew darkness and pain and death, but not of the sort his knew, not yet.  She didn't know of the deplorable depths he'd swam, or of the unendurable pain of betrayal he'd been part of.  He swallowed the bile that boiled up his throat at the thought of her learning.

"Nelyafinwë," he finally answered.  "In my youth, some called me Nelyo.  I would be pleased if you wish to call me that rather than my mother-name.”  She'd found it amusing Nerdanel had called him 'Pretty'.

"I would be pleased," she echoed.

Maedhros adjusted the pillow beneath his arm and leaned in as he traced the line of moon-shadow along her temple.  "Fingon accused you of youth," he said.  "But I told him you were grown and knew your own mind."

He couldn't read her expression in the shadow. 

"I'm not yet half a yen.  I was a young child at the first rising of the sun, I barely remember it."  Her words softened.  "My father urges me to marry, but … "

"Ah, yes."  Excitement surged and Maedhros tamped it down, most of it.  "The matter of taste."  He sat up and rummaged through the hamper.  "I brought a special gift for you."

She took the small pot he offered.  Her eyes widened when she opened it.  "Honey," she breathed.  "You brought honey for me."

Maedhros dipped his forefinger in the pot and strung a dollop to paint the hollow of her throat.  Her breaths quickened as slow streamers trickled down.  Her eyes locked on his with a depth of intensity that coiled through him, as though when they joined they would truly be one.  It seemed as though her heart pounded with his.

His entire being centered in his fingertip as he swirled it again in the spiced honey then trailed it to paint the bow of her lips; that simple touch more intimate than any he'd ever known.

Rhavloth closed her eyes.  Her lips parted and when the tip of her tongue touched his honeyed finger she breathed a sigh, a pleading groan – impossible to deny. 

He'd meant to go slowly with her, to tease her, to torment with his fingers and lips and tongue on her lips, and neck and breasts until she opened to him.  He had denied how she'd so completely surrendered to him at his fire, yet he'd been caught in her again.  He had meant to caress her soft belly and her thighs, as he suckled her breasts, until she cried out and arched up into his hand, begging him to fill her.

She reached for him and he met her, his lips on hers, licking and suckling the honey, pulling her lips between his, and her tongue – delving his tongue deep into her in promise of so much more.  Her hands wove up through his hair and held him to her demanding that more.  She followed his lead, open and trusting, throwing her head back as he devoured the honey from her chest; soft and willing as he rolled her beneath him; demanding, with her thigh pressed up between his legs.  He ground his swollen length into her like an animal as her teeth raked his cheek and his neck.  His hand tangled in the laces of her chemise.  When she nipped his ear lobe, he yanked, breaking the strings; he heard the fabric tear as if from a distance.

His world slowed and stopped, spinning as his hand tangled in her belt.  Her full breasts gleamed in the moonlight, glistening with sweat in the valley between them, more beautiful than any gems, large dark areolas, her nipples hard and swollen.  His mouth ached to taste them.

"Nelyo"

"Nelyo..."

She was calling him.

His gaze traveled up, her tangled hair, her swollen, ravished lips parted, panting; her wild eyes, wanton, trusting, lost in desire and confused.

He tried to speak.  When had his mind not worked?  Only once before.  This was different.  How different?  He didn't mean to hurt her.  He only intended what she wanted, to fill her with his hard pounding shaft so she'd scream his name until she was hoarse; and sleep, sex drenched and sweated, in his arms; and he'd have her again in the dawn.

"You…"  He had never stammered in his life, "… you cannot say you are unwilling."  Unwilling!  She had all but mounted him in her demands of his service.

Rhavloth shook her head, slowly, as if she were dizzy.  Her hand touched his where it rested in her belt.  Her mouth worked before she spoke.  "The blessings…"  She swallowed hard.  "Are your people above the law that you don't honor the blessings and vows that should be spoken?"

Her earnest pain and sincerity gouged out his heart.  She asked him to take a vow.  He patched the gaping hole in his chest like he had done for so many others … this wasn't a battlefield.  "Our people do."  He forced the words out.  "But I will not."

She clutched at her torn chemise, trying to cover herself.  "What have we done?" she whispered.  

 Nothing.  Yet.   

"I…"  She looked away.

He steeled whatever remained in the place that had been his heart.  "You have hidden in the gardens and been kissed and groped by foppish youths who have never known love and never known battle."

She blanched. 

Blood-tinged anger welled up, threatening all that remained of his mind at the thought of her with them.

Maedhros cleared his throat.  “I will escort you back to the fortress if that's your wish."  His voice sounded gruff and hoarse in his own ears, thick with want.  "But if you stay, know that I will not stop at the simple games some play."  He untangled his hand from hers.  "With my next touch, I will possess you completely.”

Dread and dark, empty fear clenched in his throat when she raised her gaze to meet his.  Hurt filled her eyes, but she held steady, strong and regal as any queen.  "I will not be toyed with and I will not be compromised.”  Her voice trembled and she steadied it.  “I know what is in your heart; yet you refuse the Vows with me?”  She stiffened her back and squared her shoulders.  

 That insufferable Sindarian pride. 

“You bring me here."  Her voice rose, dangerously.  "You hold me and touch me, intending to dishonor the Law?  Do not forget, Calaquendi," she sneered the term as an insult, "that my blood is no less than yours.  Your people deserted this land and now are back to beg for scraps of wilderness.  You are the usurpers here, the takers and the users.  I have not been groped in the shadows; I lower myself for no one, not for lords of my own court, certainly not for you."  She gasped a deep breath with her last word, stood and spun in one motion and disappeared into the woods.

Even though the soft footsteps slowed and stopped, Rhavloth tapped the chisel one last time and then blew the bit of dust from the tear shaped mark before she looked up.  Her queen stood beside her.  Rhavloth knew she should rise, but she'd knelt too long on the stone path before the bench to be graceful.

"Your work is coming slow," Melian said.

Rhavloth nodded as she rubbed her thumb in the mark she'd just cut.  Thirty-thousand, eight hundred and ninety-four.  She would add another one tomorrow.

Melian sat down on the bench and traced one of the tiny patterns with a fingertip, then another.  She studied the art on the bench as if seeing it for the first time.  Flowers of all kinds filled a meadow; Anar filled the sky.  And all around…  Melian touched the fresh mark.  "It's beautiful," she said, "but it weeps so strongly in echo of your heart that I fear for lovers who stop here to rest."

Melian hadn't asked her a question.  Rhavloth arranged her chisel's in their pouch as she searched for an answer.  Did she have to answer?  Her tears had dried long ago, or so she'd thought.  But they threatened now.  Melian took her hands and pulled her to sit on the bench beside her.

"You would not heed our warnings of danger in your riding outside the girdle."  Melian searched her gaze until Rhavloth turned her head away.  "We thought to protect you by sending you on well-traveled paths but never expected you to be burned by such a flame as swirled about to catch you in the foothills of Ered Wethrin."

The words burned through Rhavloth with the memory of her first sight of him, and then her last.  Her throat clenched so that she couldn't even breathe. 

"Haughty and fell I have called that House," Melian whispered.  "Did you think I would not see that you'd been touched by such a one?"

"The wound is still fresh," Rhavloth gasped.  "It will never heal."

Melian trickled her fingertips over the teardrops carved along the bench.  "You keep it fresh."

Yes, of course she did.  Want of him consumed her.  How could she not want what she wanted so completely?  But she mustn't.

"Galathil came to me," Melian said.  "He's distraught that you refuse to marry."

Tears blurred Rhavloth's world.  How could she be torn so completely?  "I have tried."  She swallowed her pain and forced the words out.  "I don't wish to go against my father's wishes, but I cannot suffer the touch of another."  She gasped a breath and the words came in a rush.  "The years pass, yet my longing only increases – "

"You've had word of him?" 

" …I've heard terrible things… "

A shadow crossed Melian's face, chilling Rhavloth to the core.

No!  A keening rose to obliterate Rhavloth's thoughts and she soundly rejected it.  "No," she said.  "There must be other truths.  He's noble and honorable."  She'd felt that in him.  But more.  "He has a hard strength, but also much that is kind and gentle."

Melian held up her hand to stop Rhavloth's words.

"They hold the borders.  They buffer us against the Darkness with much loss of their own."  

"Child."  Melian's eyes glittered.  "All the things you have heard are true.  All that and more."

Rhavloth stood and backed a step, Melian followed.

"He will never be welcome here.  Never.  And if you go to him, you will be snared in his doom."

"I do not fear him," Rhavloth whispered.

"You should."  Melian took a deep breath.  "I know what your heart demands of you," she said.  "You forget that their Oath but sleeps.  You must understand that when it wakes again it will bring unspeakable grief."

Clarity swept Rhavloth.  A fool, I've been a fool.  He'd offered her a moment's joy – it was all that was his to give.

Melian stepped toward her, pale-faced and taut.  "You must beware his promises."

"He promised me nothing," Rhavloth said.  "Did you come to forbid my travels?"

Melian stared at her a long while before she shook her head and handed her a pouch sealed with her king's mark on one side and the emblem of Fingolfin stitched on the other.  "I can not name your path," she said.  "You must choose the way you will take.  I can only tell you that pain lies on the way if you follow your heart."

#

Maedhros groaned when he saw the aide waiting outside his door.  He should have ducked down the first hall and gone to his rooms through the back.  He had unfinished correspondence he'd hoped to send in the return packet, but he still needed a half a day to complete his replies.  He dismissed the aide as he stepped through his door.  If the courier insisted on waiting in his office, it meant a long night –

 – the sight of her punched him like a Orc's steel-studded boot in his gut. 

A slender, cloaked figure stood staring out his window.  Did she search for him in the courtyard below? 

The memory of his last sight of her washed over him; her ravished lips, her flushed cheeks and her angry star-flecked eyes; how her hair had tangled and flowed as she'd spun away and left him; alone.  He'd searched for her and finally returned to Barad Eithel only to find that she'd ridden for Doriath before dawn.

Fingolfin had been tight-lipped and Fingon no where to be found so Maedhros nursed his frustration and anger in silence.

Just as well.

 – she'd haunted his days and dreams of her filled his nights.  

Only because she'd left him hard and unsatisfied.   

Only because she'd teased and run – again. 

But as time passed he realized his thoughts rested more on her pert smile and ready laughter than on the taste of her under the honey; that he smiled more often at the memory of the contrast of her curiosity and the boldness in her innocence than the way she filled his hand.  

 They had only spent a day together.  Her touch had given him back the memory of better times – if not thoughts of a future. 

But thoughts of a future encroached on his dreams.  Perhaps he'd been hasty.

He'd told her they'd practice restraint.  And he had.  For a day.  She was worth more, he came to realize. 

She'd challenged him to face her father, as any proper lord would do.  A period of courtship?  There didn't have to be vows, not then.  His blood quickened.  There wouldn't be a need for restraint. Then once the Jewels were recovered, she would have her vows.

As duty allowed, he had haunted the borders of Doriath, but found his trail twisted by the Girdle.  Fingolfin had stiffened and then, with a companionably sympathetic and painful sigh, admitted she'd been replaced, that a different rider carried the missives since.  Fingon suggested he speak to Galadriel to ask her to ask Celeborn to… but pride had stiffened his back.

It all turned to pain and despair when she couldn't be found, as time passed and she didn't seek him out of her own accord.  He had duties and responsibilities that didn't include chasing through the woods, mooning for someone who didn't seem to want to be found.

When she turned from the window and stared into his eyes the fullness of all his want of her jolted through him, but he braced his heart against her.  She stood silently, tension growing, tightening her body.

"You are far afield if you seek the Lord Fingolfin here in Himring.  He is to the west, as you well know."

Rhavloth dropped her head and let the sound of his voice roll through and wrap her in the memory of his touch, of being be lost in his fire.  The pain of having been apart from him and the pain of facing him again tangled inexplicably with the pleasure.  She let it wash though and consume her and she stood immersed in the moment.  In that moment, he faced her, he spoke to her – the sound of him warmed her heart and heated between her thighs.  He must know she didn't seek Fingolfin.  Was she not welcome here?  She'd thought she knew his heart.  What she'd felt in him, what she'd seen in his eyes …  he had offered her everything he had in that moment and she had soundly rejected him.  Her pounding heart stuttered and clenched.  Her faced heated and chilled, she closed her fists.  The ends of her fingers felt like ice.

She raised her gaze to his – hard glittering eyes, angry, his lips twisted in a tight line.  Maedhros stepped aside and motioned her to the door.

"I seek not the fourth king of the Noldor, but the Third."  Not Fingolfin but Nelyo.  Her voice didn't sound like her own.  How could she speak so calmly, so strongly when inside she quivered and shriveled and wanted to die in the face of his dismissal?

"Thingol does not treat with me."

She steadied her breath at the unasked question, the chink that could become an opening.

"If you have come of your own accord, your ambition is misplaced.  As ever.  Or have the Moriquendi who slaver at your heels proved themselves lower then a skulking beggar returning for what's no longer theirs?"

"If ambition was the reason for my travels, I would not offer myself to one who freely passed the crown from his house."

His breath caught.

"I bring not a message but a question.  Will you hear it?"

He nodded – just one quick twitch of his head.

Rhavloth's heart pounded so hard, she couldn't have heard an answer if he'd spoken one.  She opened her mouth, but her voice had failed.  She regathered and tried again to force the words out.  "I must know…"  she must not murmur, she must not whisper…  "I must know if there is one who has come to you during these years."  He would know what years she meant.  "One who bends your flame from me."

He stood silent, hard as carved stone.  His eyes burned through her.

Dizziness washed her strength away and her world blurred.  The door seemed impossibly far away.  Fifteen steps?  Twenty?  She could manage that.

Maedhros blocked her way.  Rhavloth stood easily before him, a willing captive.  She swayed close, closed her eyes and breathed deep.  She savored the sun and the day’s swordplay that lingered on him rather than the sweet scents that so many wore in the courts. 

He tilted his head so he could catch her gaze when she looked up.  “And if there were no one, what would you do with that answer?”

The auburn locks that fell about her held the scent of his work at the forge and she turned her head so they would brush her face.  “I would say that if you wished to dally with me… "  she did whisper.  She had nothing more left.  "I would taste your fire regardless of any vow.  If you grant me only one hour, I will have the warmth of that memory to hold all the rest of my days."

"The others who court you?"

"Have been turned from my door?"

"And your practice of restraint?"  His hand clenched at his side.

"…has brought me nothing but the torment of loneliness and regret."  Rhavloth reached up and tangled her fingers in the length of his hair.  He trembled.  She'd never known such strength to be so tightly wound.

He opened his hand and raised it, holding it beside her cheek.  "…you remember."  He was the one whispering in a ragged voice.  "You remember what I said."

"That with your next touch you would possess me completely."  She turned so her lips brushed his palm.  "It means nothing, I was already yours."

He swayed away from her and she stepped into him, wrapping her arms around the back of his neck and leaning her entire body against his hard, muscled heat.  The beat of his heart against hers completed her.  This is where she belonged. 

"I know."  She murmured the words, her lips brushing his cheek.  "I know of your deeds.  I know of the Oath.  I know you have done terrible things, but also that you are great and that you have the honor to see it through to whatever end.  I know you are bound by it and can not give the promise of your life to me."

His arms wrapped around and her held tight against him, trembling.  He buried his face her neck and took a deep breath before he steadied.  "There is no one else in my heart."  He raised his head so he looked her cleanly in the eyes.  "Once the Oath is laid to rest, there will be nothing that can stand between us."

#

A thundering crash and slam yanked Rhavloth out of sweet warmth and comfort – great arms encircled her as she bolted up, even before she came fully awake – Nelyo.  She turned and nestled against him, taking a deep breath of him, warm and heavy with sleep.  He tasted of her and dried sweat.

Excited voices and muted commotion sounded from the outer room.

She sat up beside him, tugging at the blankets. 

"My brothers."  He soothed her even before the question fully formed in her mind.  "They've gathered here to hunt."

Voices rang out and pounding shuddered his door.  Maedhros glanced out the window at the dawning and shook his head.  He muttered beneath his breath. 

"Leave me!"  He called out in a voice so hard and strong that Rhavloth would have bolted from his bed if he hadn't held her.

He added something in his people's language; they answered and the door burst open – Maedhros snatched her close, her cheek against his chest and drew a blanket up over her back. 

 Two rushed in as the door opened, auburn-haired, like him, they pulled up short and tried to back out, but those behind them pressed forward as one shoved through to the front. 

"It's not game we hunt but a fouler beast  - "  but for a quick shuffling of boots, silence fell.

 The words weighed on her heart like old stone and filled her with dread.  Rhavloth clung to Maedhros.  He pulled the cover up to her temple; she ducked and turned her face into his chest.  His arms tightened around her, granting her a safe haven.

"It's not my concern if you have taken a pet."  An arrogant, condescending sneer, slow as if wanting to be sure she understood well enough to be insulted.  "But you're still abed.  Has she left you too exhausted to defend your borders?" 

Insulted?  There was no room for insult in the wave of debilitating fear that swept her world.  It blackened and faded; pain slashed through.  Rhavloth shuddered and fought to keep from retching, gasping to draw breath through the clench in her throat.   

Maedhros arms tightened painfully around her and the fear fled.  Hard tension rose in him, his body grew hot.

"You will not speak of things that are not your concern, Celegorm."

A heavy silence weighed in the room before boots spun and stalked away.  A pair followed.  And another.

More silence. 

Maedhros shook his head.  "Leave us."  He spoke more gently.  "I'll join you in the stable." 

Boots whispered against the floor and the door swung shut.

"I have to go."  Maedhros whispered against the top of her head then turned her face up to nibble at the corner of her mouth.  "Do not fear them.  You won't be harmed here."  He stirred against her, but turned away with a wry grin.  "But he's right on one account, I have to keep my borders safe.  I'll leave instructions that you'll want for nothing and I'll be back within a few days."

 Days?  No. He couldn't think he would keep her in this high built cavern, any more than Thingol kept her in his sparkling grottos.  And she was already past due at Barad Eithel; she'd have to ride hard to return to Menegroth in time to avoid concern.

"I can't stay," she said as he slipped from their bed. 

He turned back to her and frowned, displeased and confused.  She rose and leaned against him, savoring his hard heat in contrast to the cool of the morning that chilled her back.

"I truly have messages and, as you said, I'm far off my route."

"You'll return to me."

A shadow of the fear she'd felt earlier swept her.  "I will if I can," she answered.

His expression grew hard.  Uneasiness tingled in her belly when he shook his head.  Melian had warned her.

"The trails are unsafe.  I'll send one of my own couriers and you'll stay at my side.  What Doriath fears is of no concern to me.  You're mine now."

"At your side?  As what?"  Anger tinged up.  "As your 'pet'?  A wild-elf leashed for bed sport?  You have forgotten I am a Lady of the High Court of this land."

Pain and anger flashed in his eyes.  He stepped toward her and she backed a step.

"Petulance is unbecoming in a lord of your status."  Rhavloth had to fight to keep a tremble from her voice as he loomed over her.

"You took my heart with your first taste of me.  You've held yourself apart, hiding in Melian's skirts – and come to me now.  Begging for an hour in my arms."  He took another step closer and she stood her ground.  "I gave you more."

His very being fired her blood.

"Were those hours enough to fill your memories through the end of Arda?"  He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her lightly against him.  "Or do you want more of me between your legs?"  His hard length pressed up against her belly.  "You came to me; you said it would be enough until the time comes that we can truly share our hearts."

Her heart broke and she collapsed against him.  "My heart is yours," she whispered.  "Truly.  I will return if I can."  She shivered with the memory of the fear that had swept her.

Maedhros held her gently and stroked her hair for a long while.  "What do you fear?"  He set her back so he could study her eyes as he spoke, his expression deep and sincere.  "What could keep you from me?"

She swallowed hard, setting aside all her dreams of the years stretching ahead.  "I came to you, as I said, for an hour.  Yet, I had thought there would be a day I could grace your table.  I see now it will never be."

He cocked his head in question.

Her eyes brimmed and filled, but she blinked them back. 

"I've seen my death – "

Maedhros frowned and shook his head, disbelieving.  She shushed him when he started to speak.  A dark wave swept her and was gone.  She had lived more fully through the last hours in his arms than she had ever dreamed possible.  If it was all they had, she would be content.  A calm settled on her.

"When your brother spoke, I …" she couldn't tell him she'd felt the sword.  Her voice faded and failed, but she found it inside herself and forced it out.  "When he spoke, I lived the moment of my death.  His words will bring my death.  I know it." 

#

Maglor waited, leaned back on the edge of a table as Maedhros tugged the lady's hood so it covered a fraction more of her face, then caressed a hidden cheek.  He loved this amazing new facet to his brother; in all their lives, he'd seen him gentle and compassionate, but never before so tender.

Maedhros finally dropped his hand.  "Go."  He suddenly spit the word out, sounding more hurt than angry, then, once she had disappeared through it, stood glowering at the empty door frame as if it were somehow responsible for taking her from him.

"If you are so distraught at her leaving, why not keep her here?" 

Maglor held steady when Maedhros rounded on him.

"Because I will not add a hostage to my list of crimes."

"You're baiting the wrong brother, brother."  Maglor knew from long past experience how to play this.  Maedhros was spoiling for a fight; the trick was not to give him one.

Maedhros paced through the door and glanced down the hall, then paced back in.  "It's her choice to leave.  Not mine."

Maglor simply waited.  Maedhros paced to the window and stood watching in the direction of the gate.  He tensed, gripping the window sill; and at long last, he turned back to the room, his eyes deep and melancholy.

"Will she be back?"  Maglor glanced at the closed door of Maedhros' bed-chamber.

"Yes."

The answer came hard and too quick, with only glowering silence to follow.  Perhaps a fight was unavoidable.

"Who is she, Maedhros?  What is she to you?  Why do you hide her – "

"Of all those who judge me, I did not expect this from you."

"I'm not judging," Maglor answered.

Maedhros sighed.  “When our brothers are gathered, we sometimes speak of honor."  He slowly shook his head.  “I failed in her case.  I asked too much of her.  She believed me to be so base that I would misuse her and still she turned away all others to return to me."  He took a deep breath.  "It was a chance meeting, but not here, not yesterday.  This was not a sudden thing.  We had held ourselves apart since before the Dagor Aglareb."

" … and the Blessings?"

Maedhros winced.  "No."  He shook his head.  "Not yet.  But our bond is no less for it."  He paused.  "Word has spread.  She knows."  It seemed that something inside him hardened.  “She understands that until the Oath is laid to rest I cannot take another.  But there is no doubt of the strength of our bond, in her heart, or mine."  He sighed then, and smiled.  He held up his hand.  "When we have regained the Silmarils, one will go in a circlet to be set on her brow – "

Maglor bolted up, but caught himself in the first step. 

Maedhros stared at his clenched fist.  When he glanced sideways at Maglor, a threatening cast shadowed in his eyes.  Maglor slowly forced himself to breathe out.  He lowered his gaze and stepped back against the table where he'd been sitting. 

"Maedhros…"  Even their mother had never worn the jewels.

"With a Silmaril gracing her beauty, we'll stand on a stage before all the hosts of our people and speak our vows.  And you'll sing for us?  You must sing so that the Valar are moved to bless our union.  She's had no part in all the harm I've done."

His brother seemed almost giddy, as strange as it was.  The closed bedroom door caught Maglor's eye.  That door had always been open, a haven for the brothers; a playroom when each had been small and later a sanctuary – but no more.  How much had changed?  Some things could not.  Not yet.

But if he were to judge anything, Maglor judged any bit of happiness well-deserved.  Other discussion must follow, but for today, it warmed him to see his brother happy.  "Of course, I'll sing for you, but – "

Maedhros turned a frightful look on him.  He'd never been so changeable.  Maglor answered it with a calming smile.  He would look forward to meeting this lady.

"Why isn't your betrothal announced?"

Maedhros frowned in the way that meant the conversation was ended.

"Why weren't we introduced?  I would have liked to dine with her.  How can I sing for her when I know nothing except that she wears a cloak and loves my brother …that she will one day make me an uncle with a little Fëanáro or Feanare?”

Maedhros turned sullen and paced back to glare out the window.

"I'm surprised at you," surprised and delighted, "twisted in knots over such a slender slip of a thing.  At least you should be relaxed after – "  he tilted his head and glanced obviously at the closed door.

"You are insufferable."  Maedhros said.

He had his brother back.  "I know."

Maedhros finally gave a wry smile.  "She is a young lady – "

" – young?"

Maedhros ducked his head and rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefingers.  Always a bad sign.  If he considered her so young now, Maglor quickly counted the years, she must have been quite tender at the time of their first meeting.

"Old enough to marry," Maedhros corrected.  "But she's certain, and I'm sure she's right, that her family will not condone our marriage, much less our … any other – arrangement."

Maglor sat silent, sorry now that he'd teased.  "What family, Maedhros?"  He knew, knew before his brother spoke, simply by the look that crossed his face. 

"She's a granddaughter of Olwe's younger brother."

"Celeborn's sister?"

"His niece." 

"Great-granddaughter."

Maedhros waved his hand vaguely toward the west.  "Fingon would know."

"So," back to where they had started, "why not keep her here?"

Maedhros shook his head.  "I won't parade her about this rough garrison as anything less than my wife, and – "  He gave Maglor a fell look.  "She fears Celegorm."  

"Celegorm?"  It didn't make sense.  He'd been rude. Maglor had heard that much and more.  But he'd been anxious for the hunt, surprised by the closed door and shocked – as Maglor had been – more that she had been hidden from them and secreted in than that he had taken a wife.  But not a wife.  A chill burgeoned up from Maglor's midsection.  A wife that would have one of their jewels.

 Maedhros waved his hand before Maglor could speak.  "I've already decided; I will not chance her.  The Ambarussa's lands run nearest Melian's fence.  I'll have a lodge built there where we can have peace.  Celegorm will not cross me to visit there."

.

Rhavloth slipped from her mare's back even before she slowed, and slipped the bridle as she walked past.  The mare shook and jogged toward the back of the lodge where there would be fresh hay and water.  Rhavloth dropped the bridle in a heap inside the door.  Was he here already?  It seemed she could feel his presence in the lodge.  The very thought that she would soon be in his arms heated her to the core; she imagined she could smell the forge, and the horse and leather that clung to him.

The lodge had been cleaned and stocked, as always.

The forge – it wasn't her imagination that she caught the scent of his work.

He'd said he'd be back here at the turn of the season.  She'd come early, impatient to see him again; to see him, to taste him – sweet with hot, honeyed drinks in the morning, hot and sweated before noon and again in the dusk, then cooled by the spring that bubbled up in a stone-built pond at one end of the lodge.  Impatient simply to be with him, walking in silence through the woods or resting wrapped together in the grass watching the stars in their dance.

Out of the lodge, across the small yard – she loosened the laces on her tunic as she went – and stopped in shock as she stepped through the door. 

The familiar riotous tumble of red curls, loosely banded, fell down between broad shoulders; he turned, a heavy dagger in one hand, a hammer in the other – a familiar frown, but not his face.  The table of elaborate braces and clamps her Nelyo had devised to allow him to work one-handed was pushed aside. 

A brother! 

She spun and bolted into a wall of muscle.  Two brothers!  Arms wrapped her; she fought.  They held her for an instant and then loosened – she staggered back a step, only to be caught and held by two strong hands.

Rhavloth clenched her teeth against the scream that threatened to burst her throat and refused the panic that demanded she fight free and run.  She forced herself to glare into the oh-so-unfamiliar eyes as if she could melt him into smoldering slag. 

"Release me."  She imagined how Melian would issue such a command to miscreants who dared lay hands on her.  

His hands burst back from her arms as if he'd snatched molten steel and he backed a step.  His gaze swept her up and down, appreciative, she knew that look too well.  Her heart pounded, but when he met her eyes again, his sparkled above a wide grin.  "You're the courier?"

"I want one – "

 She turned to glare at the one who'd come to stand behind her.  The twins. 

" – I want a courier of my own.  Please."

His look of contrite innocence and obedience failed completely.  Rhavloth fought the urge to back away slowly.  My brothers would never harm you, Nelyo had told her over and again.  She still felt the echo of the steel that slashed her at the sound of Celegorm's voice that first morning.  But she didn't face Celegorm. 

She squared her chin and looked him, one of them, in the eye.  They didn't have Nelyo's height.  He, wisely, stifled a smile in acceptance of what was supposed to be her most stern expression.

"Why are you here?"  You shouldn't be here, her tone said.

They exchanged a glance.  "To use the forge," one said.  She refused to study them well enough to tell them apart.

"It is our forge," the other added.

She shook her head.  "No it's not.  It's Nelyo's."

"It's in our lodge."

"It's not your lodge.  It's mine.  He built it for me."

"… on our land."

"Land that was granted to you by my king."

His jaw tightened into that familiar frown.  A chuckle sounded from behind her, the scuff of boots and then the first one appeared beside her, offering his arm as escort. 

"Lady, our brother has sorely discounted you.  If you were mine, I'd build you a tower of polished stone and gems, with crystal windows on a far mountain and dress you in silver and silk and gems and keep you there until the Darkness itself grew weary of waiting for us to emerge."

Her palm ached to slap him.  His smile challenged her to try.  These were the baby brothers Nelyo had talked of raising?  They were overgrown insolent piglets.  She closed her hands at her sides, spun and headed back to the lodge.

They paced her and after three strides she stopped.  "The stable is to the rear."

Silence.

"Since you are leaving, now, you'll need your horses.  I presume they are stabled."

"We're not leaving."

Her heart pounded in her throat with the echo of his words and she swallowed it back down.  They didn't belong here, she didn't want them here.  Where was Nelyo?

The smile faded.  "Amras."  He touched his chest.  "Amrod."  The finger flickered across her at his brother. 

They waited.  Had Nelyo never spoken her name to them?  Then she would not.

"Yes," she finally said.  "I'm 'the courier'."

"And you are pleased to meet us," Amrod prompted.

She couldn't decide if he meant to tease her, to bait her, or shame her for her manners, although their own were decidedly lacking.  When she turned to meet his gaze, he seemed sincere.

"Why are you not leaving?"

"We can't now," Amras said.  "Maedhros would have our heads."

He must have seen her confusion; a puzzled expression crossed his own face until Amrod punched his arm. 

"Oh," under his breath.  "Let's eat."  Amras started back toward the lodge.

Rhavloth held her ground until he stopped and looked back at her.  He sighed and shot a disgusted look at Amrod.  "We can't leave you alone.  You've been under guard since the first morning you walked out his door."

She managed to keep breathing.  Under guard?  She didn't understand.  Her shock stuttered enough to realize Amras was still talking.

"… and if you've arrived here without us having forewarning, then our captain missed you coming through Melian's fence."  He grimaced.  "He'll be sent to the north."

"If Maedhros doesn't just gut him outright," Amrod said. 

Guarded?  Gutted?  They both stopped to stare at her.  Her cheeks felt chill.  Was her face that white?

"He would never let you wander without protection."  Amrod said.  He seemed to sense her upset without understanding it.

Her mind whirled but she settled it.  Guarded.  "There has been a patrol of Noldor on every step of my trail?"

Amrod nodded, slowly, as if he sensed a trap in her words.

"Until today, and now you two are going to guard me?"

He nodded again.

Rhavloth's temper snapped and she fought to rein it in.  "From. What?"

Amras chuckled, cleared his throat and then laughed out loud.

She doubled her fist and – Amrod  grabbed her arms from behind, holding her as gently as he could. 

"There are worse things in this land than Noldor."  Although he spoke softly, the words seemed to come hard for him.  "If you wish the lodge to yourself, we'll lurk unseen in the woods, but Maedhros orders you will not be left unprotected."  His hands slipped from her arms.

She stepped out of his reach and turned back to truly study them for first time.

 They waited, as if they would do her bidding.  She had bossed the insolent young lords of Thingol's court since she was old enough to square her shoulders and glare.  These two were nothing – kinslayers – disposed lords, younger sons and exiles, tossed from the court by the actions of their own brother.  Nelyo. 

The thought cycled up through her confusion that she'd rather face them then know they were lurking in the dark.  "You left the forge hot."  She pointed at Amras.  "Go and finish your work and leave it clean when you are done." 

He stiffened, but a glance from his brother convinced him to nod to her in respect then return to the forge.

Amrod again offered his arm as escort.  "Come back to the lodge.  You can rest while I prepare our noon meal."  His gaze lingered on her cleavage. 

Her cheeks burned.  "I…"  She didn't owe him an explanation.  She raised her hands to tighten and knot the laces. 

An instant of regret crossed Amrod's face before he remembered his manners and looked away.  "I understand; you thought I was him."

"I thought he was here."  She corrected him in a firm tone.

"You wound me."  He placed his hand over his heart in dramatic fashion.  Handsome in his own right, and charming, perhaps, when he remembered his manners.

"Do not tease with me."

Amrod turned to her, his face falling solemn.  "And do not mistake teasing for more than what it is.  You are… beautiful, and more.  But regardless if you were Vala or Orc – you can not sway us from our brother's will."  He stepped closer to her, too close.  All the tales of their unspeakable deeds echoed through her.  She held her ground.  "You are his choice; you will be our sister.  He has charged us with your protection and you will have it.  If you choose not to allow us to be brothers, we'll be guards only."

How could he be so strong and tender and threatening all in the same moment?  "I have a brother."  What else could she answer?

He nodded in acquiescence and motioned her to the lodge, indicating he'd follow behind as her guard. 

Rhavloth hesitated.  Nelyo loved them.  He'd told anecdotes of their childhood as if they were a pack of overlarge puppies or a pair of raucous colts.  They'd teased her roughly, but come to heel when she yanked them down.  Nelyo believed there would come a time that they'd be her brothers. 

"If there comes a time that your brother asks for my hand – " her breath caught with the memory of having lived her own death – "it may be that there will come a time you will be my brother."

#

That day passed uneasily.  One or the other of them haunted her footsteps, keeping their distance, but keeping watch on her.  The evening meal proved even less easy until she called them to task, saying that only Lords dined at her table – Orcs must go out and grub in the woods. 

They stared at her, then laughed and set aside their ill manners for courtly ones. 

She left them splashing in her stone pond and complaining of the cold, to curl up and sleep in a chair beside her empty bed.  When she woke before dawn, stiff necked and aching, she found they'd spent the night tunneling beneath the edge of the pool and rocking a fire pit to heat the water.  A gift for their brother, they said, to spare him the embarrassment.

A sharp whistle sounded from the woods midmorning.  Their horses answered from the stable.  A rider charged into the clearing.  "Ambarussa!" he called out.  "Arma roccolyar ar lopa!" His sweating horse screamed, tossed its head and stamped as he circled and stopped.  

Between the first word and the third, the twins had splashed the mud from themselves and were belting on their swords.  Their horses charged the yard as the three lords spoke. 

The twins mounted and were gone in a swirl. What new trial was this? 

The newcomer approached Rhavloth in the sudden, unnatural quiet after the frenzy.   "My apologies, Lady, for stealing away your guard, I hope my single sword is an acceptable replacement."  He placed his hand over his heart and bowed low.  "Canafinwë Macalaurë, known as Maglor in these lands, at your service." 

When he smiled, she could see his brother in him. 

"You will wish to name me Cáno?"

 Maitimo, she remembered laughing when Nelyo said what his mother had called him.  Certainly she had misnamed them, for this was the pretty one.  Although it wasn't possible for his face to be as pretty as his voice.  He spoke with his hands; they captivated Rhavloth, strong and lean and elegant.  She swallowed the treasonous thought that his voice had more resonance even than Daeron's.

"Where is he?"  She meant to hide the foreboding in her voice, but his sympathetic smile said she failed.  

"Detained." 

She didn't want sympathy, she didn't want protection.  She wanted Nelyo.  Not another brother for distraction and entertainment.  And she certainly did not want to play evasive word games.   

"I am not a child.  Not like those two."  She pointed at the woods where the twins had disappeared. 

"Oh, no.  Most certainly not."  He glanced at the mess they'd left beside her pond.  "Mighty warriors, great and terrible, and yet always the youngest sons.  More of a curse, I think, than being the elder."  He raised a brow as if he'd asked a question. 

Did he know she was the youngest of three, always shadowed by the beauty of her sister and the brave strength of resolve in her brother?  It didn't matter.  She knew better than to play games of distraction and so answered him only with her own quizzical expression. 

"You arrived earlier than expected, little flower."  A mistake, his frown said.  "We'll be more careful.  You won't suffer them again." 

A chill wafted over her and she pushed it down to the pit of her stomach.  

"Your Nelyo is fine," he answered before she could ask.  "I've been anxious to meet you and he has business in the north of his lands."  Cáno nodded in the direction she'd just pointed.  "They'll gather enough swords on their way.  The business will be soon finished, and your love returned to you." 

The days passed slowly at first, and slower as the moon waxed and waned again. 

Cáno proved to be fair company, keeping a polite and respectful distance, and allowing her silence rather than pressing conversation, for the most part. 

He finished the stonework his brothers had started.  Rhavloth laughed at his delighted surprise to find her skilled in stonecraft and afterward they worked easily together.   

He seemed taken aback when she declined to test the warmed waters.  She unsettled herself with the refusal as well.  The baths in Menegroth were shared casually, but he hadn't taken offense when she said she'd prefer to wait for Nelyo.  He'd only nodded, fetched wine and settled along the edge between the lodge and the pool as if they'd just finished bathing. 

"I see a regal beauty…"  Cáno motioned his warmed wine toward her in the starlight.  He sipped it as he studied her.  "…a wild mountain flower that would flourish in rock or snow or sand if it had even the least spot of shade from a sheltering hand, a spot of water and a few grains of fertile soil."  His eyes glittered in the night.  "That Maedhros has found you here… it gives me hope."

Hope?  For their people's future?  What of the ones they'd slaughtered?  What of her people?  But he'd been kind during this time at her lodge.  He didn't deserve those thoughts, not for his too-generous words.  He humored her and so she held her tongue.

Cáno's lowered gaze said he guessed her thoughts regardless.  He put aside his glass for a lute and plucked a simple tune as if he meant to sooth her.  "I understand his care for you."  He wove the words between the notes.  "But what of yours of him?  Your people must be unhappy with your choice."

Unhappy.  Yes.  What little they knew.  But she only nodded.  She'd told Galathil she'd have none of his choices; that he wasn't to press her about suitors again.  She reminded him that her sister hadn't yet married and –

–  Nimloth didn't run wild through the woods, he'd pointed out, grim and stern-eyed.  But he didn't go again to Melian.

"When you speak your vows, will they come to the feast?"  The notes softened.  "Will your mother stand and join your hands?  Will she place a jeweled chain about his neck?  If your people follow these customs."

No.  Even if her mother had the temper to do that honor, her father would forbid it.  At any rate, Cáno asked too much, pressed to hard.  Did he mean to befriend her or did he poke and probe in concern of his brother's judgment?   His own past deeds made him ill qualified to judge her. 

"Nelyo has no father to stand beside my mother, if she would."

"I would stand in Fëanor's place."  Cáno's lute fell silent.  "If you allow it."

"We are not betrothed."  Rhavloth answered.

The music started again.  "What of your sons?"

She had to strain to hear him and so she pretended she didn't.

"Your father will not hold them?  He will not wish to know his grandsons?"

How did Cáno imagine he had any part of this?  His words gouged a deeply hidden wound.  Pain welled up, filling Rhavloth with renewed anger, ripping up an aching emptiness she had long buried.  She set aside her wine, calming her trembling hands.  Nelyo had refused her.  It was enough that she came to him, he said.  And that she would not be an unwed mother, that his sons would not be bastards, raised in secret, hidden away and unnamed.

"Nelyo has sons in his brothers."  She answered as the music fell away again.  "He said he has raised six and that raising more must wait until we have lasting peace."

Cáno forced a smile.

"What of your father?" she asked.

"We had two fathers."  The music swelled then, distracting, entertaining, a dancing tune of errant youngsters and a house filled with love and light and challenge; and he sang a rollicking song of a succession of younger sons, each having more fathers than the one before.

A single note rang out then broke off; Cáno sprang to his feet, sword in hand, before the echo died.  Rhavloth rose and spun – a fell shadow blacked the stars, as she'd imagined Tulkas would – arms wrapped her.

With the first touch, she knew him.  Nelyo.  Relief flooded and she clung to him as he held her, too tight.  He pressed his lips to her temple, took a deep breath and simply held her.  He seem road-weary and worn,  hard and still tense,  familiar with the scents of horse and leather, but his cloak stank of unfamiliar smoke, not that of a forge.

It seemed an Age and yet only an instant, before he shifted, reaching out to clasp hands with his brother.  Words passed between them in their people's language, softly spoken but harsh in tone.  And finally a question from Cáno. 

"No."  Nelyo said.  "She does not speak it and refuses to understand."  A hint of frustration colored his tone.  "She honors Elwe's edict."  He touched her chin and she looked up.  "The captain who left you unguarded has been replaced," he said.

She'd been angry at being stalked and meant to argue he had no right – but the grim cast in his eyes and the hard twist to his mouth quelled her thoughts.  "Cáno is acceptable company, well-mannered and entertaining."  She added a lilt to her voice and smiled, but his frown only deepened.

"Ambarussa?"  His gaze shot to Cáno then back to hers.

Her heart pounded.  She had never feared him, but she was unsure now, if there was a need for what she wanted to say.  They hadn't harmed her.

"She called them rabble."  Cáno said it for her, more politely phrased than she had said it to him.

Nelyo's angry frown turned weary.  "I can not keep you with me; I must keep you safe in the hands of others."  He shook his head.  "It's still better that you're not known.  I will not have you disgraced for what we have."

"We've had almost a yen of peace," Cáno said.  "Since we drove Glaurung back to Angband, and it looks to continue for a time."

"It doesn't matter," Nelyo answered.  "The Oath still binds us and will wake in its time."  His arm tightened on her.

A heavy silence fell and stretched.

"Then I'll return to my Gap and keep sharp the watch."

The brothers clasped hands again and then Cáno was gone.

#

The laces of his vambrace pressed into Rhavloth's back as Nelyo tightened his arm and lifted her up against his hard body.  Heat curled in her belly, burning away the endless empty hollow of waiting and wanting.  His hand curled in a tight fistful of gown at her shoulder.  It wasn't what she meant to wear for him, a day old and dusty from finishing the stonework, but it didn't matter now.  His mouth took hers, hot and demanding, tasting of a lonely forest trail, too long without rest or water.  He turned and took a stride, but groaned deep in his throat and stopped short of the door to fall with her against the wall of the lodge. 

Caught between his welcome weight and the rough-cut logs, Rhavloth clung to him.  She wrapped one leg around his waist, rolling her center hard against his shaft as she twisted to give him the curve of her throat she knew he loved.  His lips traced down in a heated trail, nipping as if he would devour her and suckling at her skin in passionate comfort.  She arched into him, aching and empty, needing him. 

Nelyo ripped away her gown.  His sword-worn hand cupped her breast, holding her and kneading with tautly restrained strength as she tore at his cloak and fumbled with his laces, unfamiliar with the leather and heavy layers he wore.  He snarled a foul phrase and yanked himself back from her to undo the fastenings.  She fell and stumbled with the sudden release, but he caught her and plunged his length into her.  Her legs wrapped his back as he pinned her against the wall with his thrusts.

She snatched handfuls of his braids, weaving her hands through them and clenched her fists, dragging his mouth back down to her, pulling on his lips with hers, and his tongue – demanding every part of him as hers.  Their pounding hearts beat as one.  As if at a distance, she knew the wall tore at her back with his rhythm.  He'd unfastened his garments but not removed them, the leather rubbed against her breasts, a buckle cut at her thigh and a hilt dug into her soft belly. 

She clenched around him, her face buried in his neck, as he climaxed in hot pounding waves.  He held still afterward, just holding her, his head close beside hers and whispered her name before he gathered her in his arms and took her to their room.

He fell with her onto the bed, holding her atop him, until she wriggled and complained he was overdressed.  He laughed and let her stand, standing beside her, but kept her hand in his, saying that she must undress him one-handed.  And when she was done, he loved her again, gentle and slow as if what they had that night they could have for all time.

When she woke again, he still held her, a curious expression on his face.

"You're watching me sleep?"

He nodded.  A smile tilted the corner of his lips.  A hint of a bruise filled one edge of his lower lip but when she moved to reach for him, her muscles screamed, her back tore and burned. 

His smile disappeared.  "I didn't mean to hurt you."

His tone said so much more than his words, I would kill anyone who hurt you. 

"You didn't."  It was worth it, she meant.

He narrowed his eyes, but didn't deny her.  "Is there salve in the pantry?"

Rhavloth nodded.  "The lodge has been well stocked, as always."  She stood, trying not to show the strain and the aches.  "There is cheese and fruit."  She held out her hand.  "Come out to the porch with me.  Your brothers – "

Nelyo stiffened and stepped closer to her.  "What did Maglor sing to you?  Cáno.  He delights in mothering and meddling.  Was he insufferable?"

Insufferable?  She nodded, trying to tease, but Nelyo's frown deepened. 

"He loves you," she said. 

"He shouldn't sing to you about sons and brothers," Nelyo answered. 

The pleasant warmth that had filled her seeped away.  She stepped to him and cupped his cheek in her palm.  She sought for the words, but had to turn away before she found them.  Even then they were hard to say. 

"You want sons, Nelyo.  As much as I do.  You should have more than your father's sons.  You should have your own sons.  We should.  You should have sons standing strong beside you on your borders, and their sons beside them."

He snatched her shoulder and spun her around.  His eyes gleamed with a terrible light.  Rhavloth trembled but swallowed her cowardice.  "I will die by the sword," she said.  "I know it.  I felt it when I heard your brother's voice.  The slice and the warmth of bleeding out – "

"No!"

"You take what you want – "  That wetness on her face – tears?  "Why will you not take this?"

"I will not bring them into this."  His voice rang so dark she fell back a step.

Pain shadowed his face when she moved away and he reached for her to wrap her close.  "What of a daughter?"  she whispered.  "A daughter with your fire and strength.  She would be safe with me behind Melian's Girdle."

The spring-coiled tension eased from his body as he considered it.

"She would be a companion to me when you're in the North.  And…"  Rhavloth fought to keep the pleading from her voice.  "… and if we don't have sons, you may still have grandsons once there is lasting peace."

Nelyo finally nodded, just a single quick motion of his cheek against her hair.  Then he released her and stepped back so he could look into her eyes.  His face seemed lined, tight with resolve.  "How well do you know the sword?"

The sudden joy that had bubbled up with his nod burst and shattered.  "I have some skill…"

He took her hand; he turned up her palm and studied it and ran his hand up her arm, then clasped his hand in hers.  "Come to the forge.  You'll have a sword made to fit your hand and the same training I gave my brothers."

#

Her brother was waiting when Rhavloth rode into the stables.  Oropher had been leaning against the door, but straightened when she came through the gate.  He strode forward and grabbed her mare's bridle as she slowed and stopped.

Her delight in seeing him again stuttered and soured as she swung down from her mare and turned to face him.

Angry!  He was angry with her?  She should have been intimidated by his glare, but no more. 

"You should be glad to see me."  She just wrinkled her nose at him.  He should be glad to see she was safe. 

His knuckles whitened on the reins.  He jiggled the leather.  The mare tossed her head as if he had yanked the bit.  "So where is it?"

Her offense at what she'd guessed to be righteous anger turned to concern.  Something had happened.  She tilted her head in question.

He waved a hand at her mare.  "I heard in the baths that you're riding a chestnut stallion – "

His head snapped aside; her hand tingled and burned with the strike.  Surprise flashed in his eyes; tears prickled in hers.  His brothers stood by him regardless of who she was, would hers not?

Oropher reached out and took her hand.  He turned her palm up; his thumb brushed her new calluses.  She closed her hand, but his glance bounced up to stare past her shoulder. 

At the hilt of her new sword.  "

Is Fingolfin arming our couriers now?"

She pulled her hand away from him.  "You spout there is too much danger for me to ride out with one breath and then condemn me for arming myself with the next -  "  She ran out of breath.

"I called them liars." 

He'd fought for her, again.  As he always had.  But she'd never before betrayed him.  He fought for her honor – believing she still held it dear.

His mouth twisted.  Too late he hid the hurt in his eyes.  He'd seen the truth in hers.  "Melian's waiting for you in her chambers."  His hand tensed again on the rein.  "You go on.  I'll care for your mare."

Melian.  Rhavloth tugged at her travel stained tunic.  Her cheeks heated with the memory of her last hour with Nelyo, there in the stable before she rode out.

Oropher choked out a garbled curse.  He dropped his head and rubbed his hand across his forehead, hiding his eyes.  He stood that way, too still, for a moment but finally took a deep breath.  "Yes," he said, "you reek of him.  Go and change.  I'll stall them, but hurry."

Rhavloth hurried to her apartments and rushed through a quick wash and change.  Something simple.  She discarded anything with gems – not humble enough – and anything white – virginal wouldn't help her cause.  Nelyo had given her a few copper beads to braid in her hair.  She couldn't bring herself to pull them out, deciding that she didn't have time to rebraid it, and so selected a soft gown that complimented their color and sheen.

Outside Melian's hall, Rhavloth took a deep breath to settle her racing heart as she waited to be announced.  Oropher came for her and took her hand.

"They're in the garden."  He tried to smile, but couldn't hide the seriousness in his eyes.  He escorted her to where Melian waited.  Celeborn stood at her side, grim and solemn.  Waiting.  For what?  Rhavloth glanced around, seeking her father, but Galathil was conspicuously absent.  Why did her uncle stand in his place?

The weight of Melian's gaze burned her and Rhavloth bowed her head.

"You have brought someone into our land without permission, someone who would have been denied entry." 

Melian's words, charged with tautly reined rage, filled the garden, buffeting Rhavloth.  Her skin tingled and burned.  She wrapped her arms over her belly as she sank to her knees.  Denied entry echoed through her.  She hadn't considered that chance.

"Kneeling does not become you, Rhavloth.  You have disregarded our ways and customs, dishonored your family and betrayed our people for your own simple pleasures.  Is there any strength in you or only impatient willfulness?"

Her vision swirled and darkened.  Denied entry.  No…  No!  She would not accept that.  She staggered up.  Oropher grabber her arm, helped her up and held her.

"Rhavloth, what does she mean?" he asked.

"You can not deny her."  She said to Melian.  "This is my child as much as she is his."

Oropher released her arm and bolted back a step as if she'd slapped him again.  A look of horrified rage twisted his features.  "His who?"  he hissed.  "The drunkards brag you can't tell the difference between them."

"Stand down," Celeborn called to Oropher. 

Oropher clamped his jaw shut.

"She is here; we will not deny our own," Celeborn said.  "But if your daughter is to be raised in Menegroth, she must have a father."

"Your own father has declined."  Melian's bright eyes pierced Rhavloth to the core; the words shredded her heart.  "Your uncle has agreed to share those duties if Oropher will take the other part."

Rhavloth tried to understand, at the same time refusing to understand.  She meant the child to be raised here, but …   "She has a father."

Melian strode forward – a wave of force and power swept Rhavloth, swirling about her.  It took her breath and blackness danced in the edges of her vision, but she held her ground.

"A pack of hounds of the West pace my southern fence – "

"You can not forbid me," Rhavloth said.  "You said you can not name my path.  I have chosen, whatever the cost."

"If it will cost your life?"

Rhavloth felt again the sharp slice, the deadly chill and the flood of warmth but she steeled herself against it.  "I have chosen, regardless."  She wrapped herself in the memory of Nelyo's arms and the bright warmth of the child in her womb.

Celeborn caught her gaze with his.  "What of the cost to your child?"  It seemed as if all the world held its breath waiting for her answer to his quiet question.  "Let her be raised here, with our people."  His gaze shifted to Oropher.

Her brother finally nodded, a single hard, violent jerk of his head.  "If it will keep her safe from them – " He bit the words off.

Rhavloth slowly shook her head.  They could not do this.  They could not make these decisions for her.  They could not replace her daughter's father.

"She will share their doom," Melian said.

"Rhavloth."  Celeborn spoke softly.  "When Maedhros calls them, they will go.  He will abandon you and your child when the Oath wakes."

Rhavloth opened her mouth and shut it again with the realization.  They had guessed wrong.  They didn't know.  Melian didn't know – not all.  She took a deep breath.  "I will return to him, his daughter will be born into his arms, and she will know him, but – "

Oropher twitched as if he needed the feel of a hilt in his palm.  She reached out and he took her hand in his.

" – but it is also his wish that our daughter be kept safe behind the fence.  I," Rhavloth swallowed hard, but found the words.  "I beg that of you for him, for all of us."  She took a moment to steady herself as the memory washed over her.  They had fought – the very forest had quailed – in time she may be able to laugh at the irony that he and they demanded so very nearly the same thing.

"It is his … wish… that she be raised Sindar."

Surprise flashed across Celeborn's face. 

Rhavloth nodded.  "She must know him."  She rushed the words.  "His daughter can not be kept from him and he will not be denied.  But he is adamant that she not know who…"  Rhavloth stopped before she stuttered. 

It had all seemed to make sense in the lodge: that he wanted his daughter kept out of the conflict, that he want her raised with love rather than being torn between two kingdoms, that he wished to wait until she was grown before she was made to choose which of those she would belong too…

"But he wishes her not to be taught of his part in what has come between our people."  Rhavloth held her breath.  Had she pushed too hard?  "It is for her," she whispered.  "He wishes her not to face condemnation for his deeds."

Oropher tightened his hand on hers.

Celeborn released a long breath before he turned to Melian.   "I have already agreed," he quietly reminded her. 

At long last, she nodded.

Chapter End Notes

 Thank you to Darth Fingon for the Quenya

Rhavloth paced the empty lodge. The memories filled her, she saw him in every room, felt the warmth of his touch running up her belly to cup her breast, the tickle of his breath beneath her ear… the taste of the forge in his sweat on her lips.

The horror of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad sickened her, but the years since – she cherished every moment she'd had him at her side. Their time had been too short, much too short.

She found herself at his forge and wrapped herself in his discarded tunic as she sank to curl on a bench against the wall, fighting her own mind against the regret of the time they had lost.

Thirty-thousand, eight hundred and ninety-four days she'd held herself apart from him – the memory now more painful than each day had been as she lived it. For three hundred and twenty-two days they'd lived for what few scattered seasons they could steal secreted away in this lodge. Although their daughter had delighted them, as her own young daughter now continued to do.

Rhavloth swallowed another twinge of regret that she hadn't insisted each time he shrugged, claiming the time wasn't right to say he was more than a reclusive smith; that his daughter didn't know the great things he'd done, that her raising had taught her only half of who she was.

Less then 40 years they'd had together, pretending they were married. Until Cáno came. The two brothers had talked through the night, of their Oath, of their brothers, of Dior and the jewel he kept; and ridden away in the dawn, both of them stiff, grim and hard-eyed.

A sob rose in her throat and choked her. For all the time that had been lost, the time that would be lost – she swallowed the sob and dried her eyes. She would not, she could not, return to skulking and hiding and having him only when other duties released him. That time was passed. She would stand at his side regardless of his ranting of her honor.

He had duties, Nelyo told her before he left, as he'd said so many times before. But he'd stopped and turned a final time before he mounted his charger. "I'll send a courier," he assured her. "If Dior will meet with us, I can leash my brothers." He pulled her close and tangled his fingers in her hair, kissing her deep as though he made love to her one last time. He held her, his lips brushing her ear.

"If he will give it into my hand, if our people can mingle… perhaps there will be hope again in the strength of Eldar."

Throwing off the tunic, Rhavloth rose and returned to the lodge to prepare to ride to Menegroth. She must talk with her sister. Dior was proud she knew – too proud perhaps. But her sister – it was past time Nimloth knew – knew Nelyo, time that she knew Maedhros. Nimloth would listen, she would understand. Melian had urged Thingol to give up the jewel. Dior would listen better to Nimloth.

#

Rhavloth left her empty lodge at dusk and rode alone under the stars though the woodlands of Doriath, yet before dawn hoofs sounded behind her, running hard. Nelyo called out her name and she reined in her mare so he could catch her.

Anger lined his face, wary resolve shadowed in his eyes. She'd never known him as a prince or a king, or even as a great lord; and she might not have known him, in the first instant's glimpse, if she hadn't already heard her name from his lips. Why was he dressed for battle? Remounts had galloped alongside, they circled and snorted before they stopped.

Nelyo swung down from his charger, grabbed her mare's bridle and pulled Rhavloth from the saddle only to toss her up on the fresher mount. "This one's faster," he pointed, "that one more steady. Ride hard. Do not rest them. Fetch our daughter and her daughter. Do not tarry. Return to the lodge, and do not leave there."

His hand lingered on her arm and he bit off what else he might say. Did he remember, as she did… the burn of steel through her flesh echoing in the memory of her foresight?

"Do not tarry! Return with them to the lodge, and do not leave there." He kissed her hard before he remounted. "Ride!" He motioned her down the trail, hesitating only long enough to see her turn her mount's head toward Menegroth before he spurred his own mount to the north.

#

“…and Celegorm stirred up his brothers to prepare an assault upon Doriath…."

~ The Silmarillion, Of the Ruin of Doriath. (JRRT)

#

Maedhros stood amidst the carnage, swallowing the bile that rose in his throat, trying to clear his head, trying to manage the anger and disgust that filled him.

His vision tunneled and focused with the braggart's obscene laughter.

"We left the mewling brats for the wolve – uuz…" Celegorm's captain's eyes widened in surprise at the sword in his gut; Maedhros twisted the blade before he yanked it back.

What did it mean that he felt more satisfaction in that one kill than all the others together?

Maglor stood beside him, the Ambarussa were near, wrapping each other's wounds. Celegorm lay dead, by Dior's hand. As did Curufin. Beside Dior lay Nimloth, she would have been his sister. How would he return to Rhavloth? If his guts were strewed in the gore he wouldn't have to face her with this.

They hadn't meant to fight, to kill, only to take the boats. They only defended themselves when the Teleri tried to drive them back, at the start.

They hadn't come to Menegroth to kill, they'd only come for the jewel… but they had come unannounced, with swords drawn.

Why had the Sindar faced them, fought them? Why wouldn't they retreat?

He tried to remember his last sight of Caranthir and couldn't.

The jewel had escaped them.

All those who died – they'd covered the escape of the few with the Silmaril. Dior's daughter? But not his sons, the young princes, kings now.

Mewling brats… Dior's sons. Rhavloth's now. His. His sons now. He had raised twins before, he would again.

"The children have no part of this," Maedhros said. "No part of holding the Silmaril from us, they should have no part of this doom. We took their father, we will replace him."

Maedhros spun on his heel, Maglor followed close at his side, out of the throne room and up through the caverns. He closed his mind as he strode through the gore. His folk and hers, mingled – it's not what he intended.

As he approached the gate, his step faltered and froze. His gaze locked on a hilt – he knew that sword – he'd made it with his own hand. His heart stuttered and stopped, his chest clenched and his lungs refused to draw breath. Blackness loomed to swallow his mind.

The pain – a hard grasp on his arm, the strong hand of a harper, his brother.

On the ground before him, blood-splattered, the splayed fingers of a delicate white hand touched the hilt… a spray a dark hair, braided with copper beads… Rhavloth.

Maglor yanked his arm and spun him around. "She is gone," Maglor said. "The twins may still live."

"What of my daughter?" Maedhros' world loomed and receded. His brothers dead, Rhavloth… "What of her daughter, my granddaughter?"

"There are no Sindar left in the Thousand Caves."

How did Maglor keep his voice strong and even? Yet the pain showed in his eyes and the lines of his face. "Any that live are gone from this place."

It seemed he tried to say it kindly, as a comfort. Certainly, he was right. They'd found few to take to the healers. The Sindar had fought through injuries that would heal, falling only with mortal wounds. And those had already been killed cleanly. His daughter wouldn't have fallen with a simple wound. If she lived, she was safely away. If not, as Maglor said, it may be the twins still did.

Maedhros regathered the husk that had been his heart and tucked it away. Rhavloth had known, they had both always known, that the Oath would come between them. Would she wait for him in Mandos' Halls, if he could gain that place? He loved her and he had failed her, and the Oath still bound him. She had loved him, she had known how dearly he held his honor, and she had understood that he would keep his word above all things. Did she still understand?

He shook his head as if the action could toss the thoughts out of him. "Gather the host away from this place," he said to Maglor. "I'll meet you in camp when I have recovered the young sons."

#

#

Rhavloth waited as the newly dead streamed past her. It was impossible to know if it was an instant or an eternity between one and the next. An Age or a day, it made no difference. Others waited also, searching the arrivals for loved ones they hoped not to find. Sometimes there were only a few with her near the gates, but there was usually at least one other. She had, in time, turned to him. He was so like her Nelyo that it made her ache, yet unlike enough that it was bearable to be near him.

“I know you,” she said to him, but he had not replied, only watched her face for what seemed an age. The hesitation seemed oddly out of place in such strong features, but he had finally nodded to her. When he smiled, when he spoke, she knew how so many had followed him on the strength of his words.

“Telufinwë told me who you waited for.” His voice held acceptance of her. They waited together without speaking again, for there was nothing to be said that would not bring more pain.

And then she saw him.

Nelyo entered the Halls. He stopped and stood just inside the gate, his gaze running over those who waited, until it met hers. And he waited. She'd never seen him uncertain.

She ran to him, crying his name, and clung to him. His arms wrapped her tightly and they stood in that timeless place with his face buried in her hair.

Feanor waited to come forward until Maedhros looked up to meet his gaze.

“I honored the Oath and it has been laid to rest,” Maedhros told his father. “There is another I will take now, if they allow it in these Halls or no, to keep this treasure I hold in my arms. I will not be parted from her again.”