Taming the Wildflower by Sulriel

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~ 150 First Age ~ Ladies Love Outlaws

Bessie was a lovely child from west Tennessee
Leroy was an outlaw wild as a mink
One day she saw him starin' and it chilled her to the bone
And she knew she had to see that look on a child of her own.

                                                  Waylon Jennings.

---

 

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."

 

.