The Last Night of the World by Dawn Felagund

The Last Night of the World

Read The Last Night of the World

It was the Gates of Summer, the night of celebrating the passage of growth and flowering into life, of things long working in silence, in secret, at last coming to fruition. Laitameldë of Gondolin, this night, stood in her rooms, gazing into the looking glass, busily smoothing her gown in hopes of not noticing how her hands trembled. Her pale brown hair fell in carefully constructed curls over her shoulders, and she hoped that they would not wither as the night passed. The lace of her gown tickled her neck. She was a librarian in the King’s library and unaccustomed to such frippery. But she had caught the eye of Lord Glorfindel—her heart pattered quickly at the thought, refusing to be stayed by a hand pressing her breast—and so she dressed with extra care.

She had long come to accept that—if the poetry was true and maidens were, in fact, flowers—then she was not one of the roses, nodding in the sun, nurtured by fat, doting bumblebees, but one of those who lay in the shade of such treasures, along the ground, worthy only of the busy ants and aphids. She was pretty in an ordinary way, in a way that meant that none of her features were glaringly large or misplaced in her face—but neither was she blessed in any way that might be called remotely “stunning”—but she was given to speaking softly and laughing rarely, and until now, she’d believed herself immune to love.

But Lord Glorfindel—who had, in fact, asked her to call him just “Glorfindel,” a task much harder than it seemed it should be, she’d learned—had been visiting the King’s library of late, at first to research Valarin  weapons in the early wars against Morgoth, and then appearing with more and more frivolous requests: a book of classical (if not slightly bad) Noldorin romantic poetry, a recipe book that used beans as the chief ingredient, a book on the evolution of the cobbler’s trade through the history of Aman, finally appearing last time to admit that he’d read none of them (except some of the poems, which he admitted were quite bad) and really only came to see her.

And so, against her better judgment, Laitameldë found herself hoping that Lord Glorfindel would show in public what he had been telling her in private for some weeks now: that he loved her, that he wished to marry her. She touched the place where a betrothal ring should lie, on the first finger of her right hand, knowing that it hung instead on a plain silver chain around her neck—as did his—for such a wedding could not be entered lightly. After all, they’d only known each other for four weeks, and he was a lord, she a librarian.

Four weeks: Laitameldë, long practical and logical in such matters, called no-nonsense by the few children she’d tutored—never liking children much—recognized the silliness of an engagement after only four weeks, just as she recognized the silliness of her gown or the tiny, silver dancing shoes upon her feet. And finding, surprisingly—logic and sense be damned—that she didn’t care.

~oOo~

The festival began in the King’s Hall, draped in flowers and rose-colored swags the color of sunrise. Laitameldë stood long outside the hall, pacing about in her impractical and slightly uncomfortable silver shoes, listening to the music winding with the warm breeze of the night. If I walk in and he does not look my way….

It would be the last night of my world.

Such silly melodrama—the stuff of adolescent woes—was worse than the Noldorin romance poems she’d lent to Glorfindel, but her heart felt as though it might be so, if he did not look upon her with the light in his eyes as he did in the library, that her heart might stop beating for sadness. So silly…but she was nearly weeping by the time an approaching crowd of revelers forced her to walk into the Hall; Laitameldë, who sometimes felt like two people, so distant could she become from her own emotions. Laitameldë, who was immune to love.

She spotted him almost immediately, holding a goblet of wine and talking to Lord Ecthelion, twining golden hair around his fingers—hair she’d yet to touch, for she did not want their first kiss to be in the library—laughing, his face radiant. Beautiful. He is more beautiful than I am, she thought, and thought it odd, for she’d always heard that men should always marry women more beautiful than they are.

He looked up then—and he saw her.

She waited for his gaze to flit past, for this was the way with men, as they found something more interesting to look upon than her. She waited for his smile to freeze in vague recognition, for him to turn back to Ecthelion without another word. She waited to be ignored, slighted; she waited—heart beating as though in anticipation of its last beat—for the world to end.

But none of those things happened. Their gazes held, and for a breathless moment, conversation ceased and the music fell silent, and even the warm breeze caressing the swags was still; just for a moment, just until his face broke into an eager grin and he made a graceless apology to Ecthelion, setting aside his goblet on a passing server’s tray, pushing through the throng of dancers.

And he was by her side.

“Laitameldë,” he said, taking her hand, “I was worried—” And there, he stopped, his eyes shining with something other than their usual radiance, and she felt that his fingers were actually quite cold.

“My…Glofindel?” she asked softly.

He laughed. “It is just that I was portended darkness in a dream, and I thought you would not come. But you are here,” he said, and shockingly, a tear slipped down his face, and he did not wipe it away, “and so it seems the world will not end after all.”

She reached to touch the tear, to touch his face for the first time, expecting his skin to be cold and like the graceful statues he resembled, amazed to find that he was flush with the same warm life as she. And he took her hand and kissed the back of her fingers—the first time she’d touched his lips—closing his eyes and letting them linger long, sending a shiver down her arm.

~oOo~

Laitameldë had never danced. Not with a man, anyway. In a time that seemed very long ago, she remembered being taught by her sister the basic steps of simple dances, sagging in shame of her gracelessness, trying to tug away. “No, Laitameldë! One day you will marry and you will need to know these things!”

Laitameldë, though, not only doubted that she’d marry but also failed to see how dancing was essential to marriage. Later, in the privacy of her bedroom, she had tried the steps alone, humming her favorite tunes and stepping lightly on the floor so as not to alert her family to what she did. She’d closed her eyes and imagined a man whose face she’d now forgotten, as all dreams are apt to disperse like smoke upon the harsh light of reality.

Glorfindel, though, wasted no time in taking her into his arms, in the middle of the dance floor, and her mind reeled to remember what her sister had taught her: chin up, shoulders straight, step lightly on your toes…of course, her foot came down hard on Glorfindel’s toe, and she blushed, but he laughed and said, “My apologies, my dear Laitameldë, for I am afraid that I am an awkward dancer.”

“ ‘Twas I who trod on you—” she began, slumping involuntarily, aware that the room had turned to watch her dance in the arms of one of their most respected lords.

“Only because I placed my foot beneath yours,” he whispered, and he drew her closer then, his hand on her back and his body against hers. She could feel his taut belly and his strong chest rising and falling as he breathed; his body was warm and she thought—with memory alone of this night—she might never be cold again. Memory of Glorfindel could carry her across the Helcaraxë with nary a shiver, and now—in the warm spring evening—she felt herself flush at his touch, a heat that began in her face and coursed down the length of her body, making her breasts ache suddenly to press against him, settling heavily in her groin, a sensation that was uncomfortable yet not unpleasant. She closed her eyes lest he see, but she leaned into him also, heightening the touch, and she felt his thighs now, his hips, pressing hers.

For how long they danced, she did not know; how many eyes stared at them, she did not know. Tilion soared high above them, casting silver moonlight through the skylights that made the dance floor shimmer like the moonstruck sea, and Laitameldë and Glorfindel danced as though upon water, feeling as though nothing held their bodies to the earth but each other.

At last, he led her from the dance floor, to the dark seclusion of the King’s gardens, behind the hall, where the air was heavy with the scent of roses and the crickets fiddled laments to their lovers. Overhead, the darkness was shattered by a thousand stars, the same stars that had watched the first lovers beside Cuiviénen and would watch the last lovers at Arda’s ending; the stars which now watched Glorfindel lead Laitameldë to a soft patch of grass beneath a cherry tree.

There, as the rose-hued petals of the cherry blossoms drifted upon them with the velvet touch of snow, Glorfindel took Laitameldë into his arms, and their mouths met, lightly, in a kiss like silk brushing silk, a touch so silent and light but shivery, the barest of kisses held for a duration painfully short, during which the world might end and neither would care.

Glorfindel reached for the front of Laitameldë’s gown, and arching, aching, her heart pounded at the thought that his hands would at last caress her breast, but he found the silver ring that she wore on a chain instead and—breaking the chain and letting it slip to the grass—he held the silver ring in the moonlight.

“I wish to wed you, Laitameldë,” he said. “It is not a whim but my heart’s truest desire, and I will give you a choice: You may wear my ring openly now, and I will wear yours, for love is beautiful and should be displayed for the world to see, regardless of matters of custom or status or—” he paused, and she saw that his other hand fumbled in his pocket, extracting something that he held tightly, protectively, in his fist. Opening his hand, moonlight kissed two gold rings, overlapping in his palm in a symbol of that which was to come. “Or we shall wed this night, on the last night of spring, the eve of the promise of summer, where the sun is perpetual and we are not often dampened by the rains that make things grow even as they make the world turn gray.

“So it is your choice, Laitameldë, and I will fault you for choosing neither: betrothal? Or marriage?”

She watched her trembling fingers move towards him, towards the silver ring held in one palm and the two gold rings—one small and one larger—in the other. She watched her hand drift to the gold rings, taking the larger and slipping it upon his finger with a hand that was suddenly steady, determined, even as he let the silver ring fall to the grass—removing his own and letting it drop beside it—and placing the smaller gold ring upon her finger.

“By Eru, I wed thee, until the ending of the world,” he whispered. Their hands linked, their golden rings gleaming in the cool moonlight. “By Eru, I wed thee,” she echoed quietly, reverently, “until the last night of the world.”

Their lips brushed again in a kiss, only this time, he did not remove his and leave her bereft of his touch. He deepened the kiss, pressing harder, parting his lips and nibbling hers, then letting his tongue slip across them, making her gasp in surprise as her body grew flushed with desire. She parted her lips and let his tongue twine with hers, and her hands rose and buried themselves in his hair, which she found as warm and soft upon her skin as the sun-kissed sea.

And his hands, at last, rose to touch her, to cup her breast, his thumb finding her nipple through the thin silk of her gown and teasing it to arousal, even as he moved his lips to trace the line of her jaw and then kiss the soft skin of her throat, pressing against her pulse, feeling it quicken as he caressed her more fully, easing her gown from her shoulder. She shrugged to help him, longing for the touch of the warm spring air upon her bare skin and—more than that—the touch of his skin on hers. The gown slipped from her arms easily but fell away with reluctance from her breasts, as she watched him appraise her body, bare for the first time to eyes other than her own, pale as cream, for it had never seen the outside light before, even as a young girl. He closed his eyes as though with pain, and frightened, she quickly drew the top of her gown over her breasts again. “G—Glorfindel, are you—”

“You are beautiful,” he gasped. “I feel I do not deserve you.”

She might have laughed—the sensible, practical Laitameldë who kept the books in perfect order and had neat ledgers detailing what had been borrowed by whom—for she was the one who did not deserve him: a lord, the most beautiful of their people, with hair that might be made of the golden rays of the Sun itself, noble and generous, a suitable husband for a queen. But she did not laugh; her fists loosened their white-knuckle hold of the front of her gown and, like water, the cloth slid down her body to her waist, baring her to there, baring her for his scrutiny and his kisses, which he pressed into the hollow of her throat, moving along her collarbone and down her chest to the tops of her breasts, which he lifted in both hands to let his tongue circle her nipples—first one, then the other—while she gasped at the unexpected pleasure of his touch, her head lolling back until the ends of her hair brushed the grass.

He moved his kisses back up her throat, to her lips, to move his tongue against the whorl of her ear, to whisper, “I should like to undress, but I do not want to leave you. I do not want to have to ever again be bereft of your touch.”

“But I,” she said, hearing words that surprised her, that might have been spoken by another only they were in her voice, “should like to see you undress.”

His delighted laughter was loud in her ear, and he embraced her. “Can I deny the wish of my bride?” he asked, and she retorted, “I shall never be but a bride—never a wife—if you do not,” and he rose, already undoing the lacings on his robes, as she lolled in the grass and watched him. A breeze slipped around the garden, cool on the places still damp with his kisses, making her skin rise in cold-bumps, longing for the warmth of his body. Her hands found her flat belly, moving upward and across the ripple of her ribs, to her breasts—chilled by the breeze, having been liberally loved by his kisses—and she stroked herself there while watching his robes come undone to the point that they slipped away from his shoulders and revealed his strong, golden-tanned chest and his taut, muscular belly, until all he wore were a thin pair of breeches that were tight over the tumescence in the front. Laitameldë stared at this swelling, and even as her cheeks flushed warmly, her body also grew hot with desire, and her hands caressing herself found nipples suddenly rigid and eager to press against his naked skin.

He saw her watching him and smiled as his fingers quickly undid the laces on his breeches and pushed them off of his hips, leaving his manhood to spring free. Laitameldë was no prude and had looked upon the naked male form in statues and paintings, for many were the books of art in the King’s Library, and she knew also of the love between a husband and a wife and had heard of the pleasures that it could bring, from the Telerin romances that had been collected there, but she had never looked upon a living man unclothed before, nor had she seen a man fully aroused, and even as she found herself a bit afraid of the first pain of their union, she wanted to explore him with her touch and—blushing—with her mouth even. She wanted to know the feel, the taste of him, and as he knelt on the grass beside her, having kicked away his boots and breeches—fully naked now—he took one of her hands and pressed it to his arousal, thrusting against her touch and groaning, his face grimacing with what might have been pain. The skin of his erection was soft and very warm, and she caressed him from base to tip, teasing the full, fleshy head that was damp at the tip and throbbed with her ministrations, until he grabbed her hand away, laughing: “Not so fast, my love, for I enjoy your touches too much, and we shall not achieve our union if we continue in this fashion.” He stretched on the ground beside her, kissing her mouth, pushing her gown from her body, leaving her in only her cotton underpants, moving again down her body but—disappointingly—not lingering on her breasts this time but trailing kisses down her belly to her navel, then putting his fingers in the waistband of her underpants and slipping them away too.

She shivered, more from the unexpected feel of the breeze on places never before exposed to the outside air, her legs involuntarily clenching together protectively, pressing the throbbing heat of her own desire and sending waves of pleasure from her center, through her thighs and belly, to her heart, which quickened in response. He put his hands between her thighs and gently eased them apart, and she opened her legs willingly, feeling a shiver of desire as she did so, opening her body to him, to culminate the path of his kisses, for—suddenly, with a shiver of excitement—she realized what he intended to do.

He opened her flesh with his fingers, gently, exposing the nub of her desire, and her hands were clutching the grass—nails biting into the soil—before his tongue had even brushed that hot bit of flesh. He flicked his tongue against her, making her cry out, even as his fingers moved back to her opening and one pushed inside.

She gasped as he pushed into the undelved tightness of her body, and he withdrew and said, “I do not mean to hurt you, my love. Please, do not let me hurt you, but concentrate on the pleasure of it, and let me prepare you, for I wish you to derive pleasure also from our union.”

She nodded, and he touched her again with his tongue, teasing her back into arousal in only a short time, and this time, when his finger moved inside of her, she concentrated on the mounting pleasure and not the discomfort of penetration. He began to move his finger slowly inside of her, and by the time he added a second finger, she was on the brink of climax and barely noticed, her hands clutching his hair and pressing him into her body, as though afraid that he would leave her. She could hear her voice crying out, could feel her body writhing on the cool grass, as the cherry blossoms fell ever upon them, clinging to his hair and to the places left sticky by his kisses on her belly, and even those barest of touches were unbearable to a body with every nerve afire, a body on the verge of release that flowered suddenly into ecstasy, longing for the complete union of marriage. As the spasms of her body dulled, he moved atop her, both their hands relentlessly and shamelessly exploring the other’s body for the first time: his hands grasping her buttocks and lifting her hips into him; her hands clenching his long, muscular thighs and drawing him into her, feeling his arousal at her entrance, crying out when he slipped easily inside of her.

He moved slowly, as though expecting her to feel pain and trying to avoid it, but she felt very little discomfort and began to enjoy the feeling of him inside of her. He kissed her tenderly and moved his hands with gentle reverence over her body, and she lifted her legs to circle his hips and encourage him to move deeper within her, moaning when he did so, making him pause and ask, “Do you wish to stop?” mistaking her pleasure for pain, and she laughed and whispered, letting her tongue dart into his ear, “Never.”

“My wife,” he breathed, “I love you,” and she felt it then, the union of their spirits, a new fullness to her being, the way one long hungry feels after eating to satiation for the first time, only this feeling would never dissipate. She felt the permanence of it, the strength of their bond, and knew that mountains would break and the tallest trees would fall and, indeed, Gondolin itself would fall before the bond of their marriage would be sundered.

And with it, the sensations of their bodies—the dual ecstasies—were shared, and she cried out at the depth of his feeling even as he cried out with hers, and involuntarily, they thrust harder and faster into the other, trying to achieve the fullness of the union, and she felt a climax deeper than the one she’d felt before, and her back arched and pressed into his chest—their hearts pounding against each other, so fast as to be in unison—and he shouted her name—“ Laitameldë!”—and spent himself deep inside of her, even as she felt her body ripple with pleasure, crying out her ecstasy into his shoulder, wishing to drown in his scent, his touch: her husband, her Glorfindel.

~oOo~

Mountains did crumble and trees did fall—the mightiest in the forest—and in the intervening years, the sea rushed to fill the ruin that was once Gondolin, eddying over the place in the King’s garden where stood the twisted trunk that had once belonged to a blushing cherry tree, and the water there caught the light of the moon and sparkled as though set aflame by a fallen star.

In a land far away, of perfect bliss, two lovers awakened side by side in the gardens of Lorien: Had, indeed, the world ended? They stared at the expanse of blue sky overhead even as their hands, sightless found each other and joined as were their spirits, even after death. Turning to the other with a smile, they knew: No, it had not. Perhaps, it never would.