Find Your Way Home by sabcatt

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Find Your Way Home

Warnings and full prompt in end notes.

This came out pretty experimental in style, but I think the style reflects the substance pretty well. Enjoy!

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He kisses her hand, and she strokes his cheek, the pads of her fingertips dragging gently across his blood-tacky skin. He kisses her hand, and she draws him closer, pulls up her skirts, guides his mouth to where it can be put to better use, she says. He kisses her hand and she draws back, letting him chase her; pulls away and slaps him; tugs him up and kisses him on the mouth, nibbling at his lip, speaking into his mind of the jewelry she will gift to him, the blades he will forge for her, the future they will build together. He kisses her hand and she looks at him in satisfaction, satisfaction, satisfaction.

Then she says: Tell me the way home.

And he says: Is any of this real?

Yes, yes, my love. Why do you doubt me? Do you not love me? Is our love not real?

He doesn’t know what’s real, what’s not, but his love is real, and so her love must be real and she must be real and he cannot deny her anything. She embraces him and he melts into her arms, the heat of her stinging his skin, leaving swathes of red across his body.

He remembers other pain; there is more pain now than there was before—before—something, but—wasn’t there always pain? Always. Ever since he met her. She soothed him then. She soothes him now; she always has. Sometimes she is too bright to look at; that’s new, he thinks, but maybe he is just close enough to see it (too close) for the first time. He is lucky to be in her presence, bright as she is, bright as the sun, as the glint of sun off the white marble of Gondolin. The only bright thing; like his mother’s dresses in his father’s forest, she glows in the—in the—in darkness, in daylight, all throughout the halls—hair alight, golden fire, and bare feet clinking across the stone floors, occasionally glinting like ice, like silver.

She is a blade. Like an unworked rod glowing white-hot from the furnace, like sharp, freshly-honed steel, she shines. Tell me the way home. Tell me you know the way home. At first he didn’t want tell her, though now he can’t quite recall why; but doesn’t she know? And why should she care? She’s never worried for his safety like this before. He doesn’t know why she’s so insistent he find his way back, doesn’t know why she followed him here to begin with, why she didn’t stay in her shining city and celebrate that he was gone, finally gone, but—

Why would I want to see you gone, my love? Do not say such things, do not, I cannot bear to hear you say it, as if I do not love you, as if you do not love me—

And is he not at home with her now? Home where she tends to his wounds, the whipping that she gave him for—for—trying to leave her, leave without her, leaving—this cannot be Gondolin, he thinks, he hurts so much but the only thing that doesn’t hurt is his eyes, until she comes into sight, the opposite of what he remembers, but—

I wish to go home. I wish you to guide me home, my Maeglin, my beloved cousin.

Her voice is always so loud in his mind. It drowns out what he thinks he is forgetting, leaves him thinking only of her, only that he desires to please her, and yet—and yet—

I cannot, cousin, I cannot. I love you; but I cannot take you there. I am sorry. I am here with you. I am sorry. Only do not send me away, only let me continue to serve you.

Yes, beloved, yes. You may stay. I will never send you away without meaning to follow. You shall serve me always. I will always return for you.

 

▼

 

They ask him where Gondolin is and he says nothing. They strip him and whip him and throw him in a cell to bleed. He only prays that he’ll die quickly, not slowly.

Something that looks and moves and speaks like Idril comes to him after, to tend his wounds, and he closes his eyes. It is not her. He says nothing.

He knows, perhaps better than anyone in Gondolin, the power of illusions, of sorcery, of the Eldar and of the Enemy both. His knowledge will not save him—has never saved him—but maybe it can save her. (As he could not save his mother, those many yet all-too-few years ago.)

He is left alone for a time. He doesn’t know how long; as little as the sun shone in Nan Elmoth, there were still the cycles of nature to follow—trees slowly shifting, flowers blossoming and closing again, insects sleeping away the warm day and chirping through the cool night. The stone of his cell is still, silent as he has never known stone to be. As if it, too, is afraid of what it will say if it speaks.

It is always cold here, or perhaps he just misses the warmth of soil, of rotting matter returning to the earth. There is enough death within these halls for that, or there should be, but it is wrong, somehow; not fiercely productive as he’d known it to be, in the forest where he grew up, nor compliant and calm as it always was in Gondolin. Here it shrieks and echoes, growing louder with time instead of quieter, and sometimes he thinks he hears the dead screaming. But no matter what he hears, he will not answer.

The sound and the silence hurt his ears like the sunlight in Gondolin hurt his eyes. What a strange city, he’d thought when he arrived, everything bright enough to make his head ache, leaving him forever squinting against the exuberantly bouncing light. Only when he looked at Idril did he understand why anyone would build such a place. She shone, was never dim, yet looking at her never hurt him. He would have watched her forever, if he could, because she is lovely and kind and beautiful and because he craves the peace that even seeing her visage brings to him, but—but.

Idril comes to him again after so many days. No; rather, something wearing her shape comes, and he turns away once more. (It is harder to do than he’d like.) The creature melts through the bars of his cage, this cell he’s found himself trapped in (just like his mother, he thinks, trading one cage for another, from shining city to dark, inescapable web, and he only prays he will die before his return, instead of after), and it presses against his bare and ragged back, its arms wrapping around his chest in a mockery of an embrace. On its wrist it wears a bracelet that he designed for Idril—to match her legs—but never made. He shudders, and says nothing.

They stay like that for some time. There is a pressure in his ears, like diving too deep in a lake, like the darkness is a dead thing itself and is trying to crawl inside his skull. Idril—not Idril—is warm and comforting against him. He is not skilled in arts of mind as his father was, as his cousin is, but he knows there is something happening—some battle being fought here. He does not know how long he can resist. He does not know how to resist. He can only wait, and be silent, and pray to die soon.

The pressure breaks.

“I shall return,” the creature murmurs, then melts away again, as if it was never there.

 

▼

 

He finds her again in Gondolin, sooner than expected. Perhaps he shouldn’t be surprised; she knows the way, after all. He told her and then at last she took him to bed in—in—in—she took him to bed and left bite marks on his chest, scratches on his stomach and bruises on his hips, and then she told him to leave, to go back to Gondolin. She told him she would follow him, that he would see her again, but before she could follow, he needed to go.

So he went.

Her marks have all faded by now: the journey back was long, and his way slow. But maybe… if she was amenable to one night shared in that way, maybe she’d be willing to give him another, now that they've both made it home from—from—now that they're both here again. And if not, he’ll be happy simply to serve her, as he did many times before that night, with his hands or mouth or any other way she wants him.

He kisses her hand and she pulls away, eyes tight in an expression that means she’s furious but refusing to show it.

What have I done wrong, dear cousin? Is this so troublesome? Have I not proclaimed my love for you, by word and deed, a thousand times already?

“I have never asked for your love,” she declares, and he’s too confused to demand an explanation for such a bold and blatant lie. “I want no part of your proclamations, and no part of whatever game you mean to play with me by any of this. I do not begrudge you your love, but I do ask that you do not begrudge me my own emotions and desires.”

It is no game, he tries to say, but her mind is closed to him, and he feels bereft. Why now? What have I done wrong? I would give you anything, have given you everything left of me to give—I thought you wanted it. You said you wanted it.

He would rather the whip than this scorn, this dismissal. It is all too confusing. He wishes to kneel for her, to serve her with his presence, not his absence—but it is not his choice, nor his place.

“I apologize for the misunderstanding,” he says. The words feel inadequate, after weeks—months—how long? He does not know—of living half in her mind, all artifice between them stripped away, his every thought bare down to its source for her to understand. It is so lonely in his chest without her. “I bid you farewell, cousin. You shall not see me if you do not wish to.”

He can wait. She said that she would follow, that she would return to him; she did not say when. It may be some time. But when she is ready, she will find him. She will always be able to find him. Of that much he is sure.

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Chapter End Notes

Warnings for non-graphic dub/non-con due to identity issues, references to torture, and suicidal ideation

See full prompt here.

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