The Line of Kings by Michiru

One Last Meeting

***Sexual content-- moderate

At the Feast of Yavanna, Angaráto and Eldalôtë share one last night together. The next day, Darkness falls.

Valarin Year 1495

            He did not look up as she entered the room, intent on putting his thoughts to paper on the possible permutations and uses of þ/s in the language of those who had remained in Endorë. Though it was a topic that scholars written about exhaustively, their treatment of it had tended to disregard that the Teleri had greater insight into the issue than their abstract reasoning ever could. His interviews with King Olwë had yielded interesting contradictions to the accepted literature, and Angaráto hoped to finally have the treatise finished before the year was out.

            He had forgotten—or perhaps merely neglected to consider—how formidable Eldalôtë could be when the mood struck her. Having been ignored, his wife hefted herself onto his desk, one hand seeming to find its place just so over his manuscript, threatening to smear the ink.

            “Yes?” he asked carefully, watching for the tiny flexing that would ruin a day’s work.

            “Generally it is considered polite to make eye contact during speech,” she noted mildly, and he finally looked up. Eldalôtë smiled at the victory, carefully lifting her hand and brushing his hair from his face. “It’s late,” she said, wiping at his cheek, which had undoubtedly been smudged at some point.

            “The festival is still going strong—”

            “Ah. So you do then realize that we are celebrating the gathering of the first fruits,” Eldalôtë concluded. “And still you locked yourself away up here all day.” The was something hard and brittle in her voice, and Angaráto saw himself confront it, saw the evening descend into another cold silence, as had reigned in Tirion, before he left and she returned to her parents’ home.

            Instead he said nothing, and Eldalôtë eventually sighed, dropped her hand to her lap.

            “Come bathe with me,” she said, half a plea, half an order. He set down his quill after a moment and stood. Eldalôtë smiled again, more warm, and let him help her from the desk, and if his eyes lingered over-long on his manuscript, she made no comment.

            He noticed, with some amusement, that the bath had already been drawn as Eldalôtë shut and locked the door behind them. “Do I dare ask what would have happened if I had refused?” he murmured in her ear.

            “I would have taken a bath,” she said innocently. The added, “With your manuscripts,” did much to ruin the façade. He winced at the thought, and she pretended not to notice as she started undoing the many pins and bands he had tried to use to restrain his hair throughout the day.

            “Really, Melinnon, if you would just do this properly the first time…” He smiled a bit at the familiar fussing, beginning to undo the fastening of his tunic, only for her to slap his hand away. “Let me,” she said, flicking the last few pins away, carefully unwinding the final ribbon, moving on to his tunic.

            For bare seconds, her fingertips lingered at his collar bone, and then he was surging up to meet her in a desperate kiss, clumsily fumbling his way through the fastenings of her festival robes as she continued to deftly zip through the laces of his remaining clothes. He paused long enough to kick out one of the towels set out for them by the bath, and then they were entwined on the floor, only the thick down of the bath towel separating them from the cold tile, original purpose forgotten.

            Eldalôtë’s voice rose in the meager beginnings of a song as they reached their end, when he was trapped in the terrifying state of not being able to distinguish his fëa from hers and seemed to watch from afar as their hroär writhed together in an ever-increasing agony of pleasure. At last, with his raw shriek drowning out his wife’s more melodic bliss, they completed each other, and his whole body went limp, slumping over her, and he commenced the piecemeal process of putting himself back to order.

            She held him as he trembled, hands rubbing down his spine, her breath heavy through his hair but her fëa bright and undisturbed. “Water,” she murmured at last, stretching one hand out to their cooling bath. Still shivering, he heaved them both into the water, pulling her lighter frame into his lap and nuzzling at her head, his eyes closed.

            “Stay,” Eldalôtë whispered against his chest, as he combed his hands through her hair. “Here. Your son needs his father. And I have missed my husband.”

            “Forever,” he promised.

Chapter End Notes

I disappeared off the face of the earth again. Sorry about that; the semester got crazy, and I'm in to week four of a job with crazy hours. But, I will now definitely get back on schedule with uploading chapters that were written a year ago. (Something really doesn't want me to have one finished multi-chapter fic up. I will defeat It.)

I've also just noticed that I've notated dates in "Vanyarin" years as opposed to "Valarin" years... derp. Busy busy editing.