To Dream of Fire by Dawn Felagund

To Dream of Fire

Read To Dream of Fire

Fëanáro awakens, and for a brief moment, he can see nothing. So it was not a dream, he thinks, and he is unsure of how he feels about this revelation. Thrilled? Frightened? He touches his eyes. It was real. I am really blinded.

But then he realizes that he is inside of his tent and so the light is blocked. But not entirely: it leaks between the fibers of the material stretched overhead, and in the ghostly silver light, he can see the shape of Nerdanel—his wife of only one week—sleeping beside him, her hand pressing the center of his chest.

And then shame flowers within him and courses through his veins, overtaking him, for he realizes also that the thin sheet covering his lower body is sticky with his own fluids, that it was the dream again, only he should not be having such dreams. Not anymore. Not when the hand that he lifts in the direction of the mist-colored light twinkles vaguely with the light of a gold wedding band upon his finger, not when he and Nerdanel had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep after tirelessly making love for the better part of the evening.

Not when he is wed to another.

The dream has haunted him for more than ten years, and by wedding Nerdanel, he had hoped that it would stop. Lying in her arms, that first night, upon the fragrant grass with naught but the spring breeze to clothe their flushed skin, he had pressed his face against her breast and his first thought had been “Now, I shall be free of it.”

Not love or gratitude or peace or any of the acceptable emotions for one to feel after one’s wedding but relief: as though Nerdanel had opened a cage door and set him free from an irksome fate. He had been ashamed by his feelings and had buried his face against her, while she held him tightly and soothed him from what—she thought—was mere exertion. “I love you,” he’d whispered because he had to—it seemed the right thing to say—and perhaps, it would ease his guilt that, on the night of his wedding, his first thought after bonding to his wife had been a thought of her.

Of another.

And the last week has been blissful, peaceful, as Fëanáro can finally spend himself with one who is real, not dancing across his imagination like a tongue of flame, and just as unapproachable. But this night…he touches his belly and the sticky remnants of his dream and hates himself then. For he loves Nerdanel—truly, he does—and so he must hate himself for the wicked infidelity of his dreams.

~oOo~

He first saw her when he was thirty years old, with his father, visiting Ezellohar. Many times before, he had been with his father to see the Two Trees—indeed, they loyally attended the annual Vanyarin festival in their honor—but never before had he seen her.

She wore a gown of splendid, shimmering gold. Fëanáro was reminded of the quay at Alqualondë, where he would hold a lamp over the dark water and, for hours, stare at the flame that seemed to be captured in the water. Fëanáro, though, was not stupid and knew this to be impossible—still, that tremulous ball of light captivated him, and many times, he was awakened as though in a stupor, his foolish fist plunged into the water and the reflection scattered into hundreds of winking lights around his hand. Her dress looked like that spot on the water, and the air around her quivered as though likewise excited by it, until she was blurred, and he blinked, thinking her a mirage. But she was still there.

Her hair was of molten gold and her skin the color of bronze, like nothing he’d ever seen on an Elf. Of course, she was not an Elf; this he knew, for she stepped towards Laurelin and—taking one of Her leaves in her hand—tipped a leaf until a gold-bright stream of dew trickled into the vessel she held in the other. No Elf could do that, Fëanáro knew, for once—very young—a gust of wind had broken free one of Laurelin’s leaves and he’d reached to touch it before his father could grab his hand away, his fingers immediately welling into blisters. Still, it hadn’t exactly hurt, and as Fëanáro watched the woman tend to Laurelin, he unconsciously began to rub the fingertips that had been burned, feeling them tingle with the memory.

“Who is she?” he asked his father in a whisper, and Finwë replied, “She is Arien, one of the fire-spirits, a Maia who serves Vána.”

Arien…. He dared not whisper the name lest the reverence in his voice alarm his father. But in his mind, he let the name leap and swirl like the beginnings of a flame, the first hungry licks that consume the kindling and cannot be sated but by smothering. Leaf by leaf, Arien made her way around the perimeter of Laurelin, until the jar she held was filled with a fluid like molten gold, like light, if light could be captured in such a vessel. Fëanáro felt his heart stir eagerly at the thought.

“But the fire-spirits…they were corrupted? Were they not? By Melkor?”

If his father, like so many Elves, was cowed by the name, he did not show it. In fact, he laughed. “Some were, yes, Fëanáro. You know your lore well, I see. But some remained true. The fate of fire is not always to destroy, my son.”

She turned then, to look at Finwë and Fëanáro standing there, and Finwë’s big hand had quickly pushed his son’s head to look down at the ground. “Do not look…her eyes,” he whispered. “No Elf can look upon her eyes.”

“And what will happen if they do?” asked Fëanáro.

“Her eyes are too bright. We would be blinded.”

Blinded…and so that last memory of sight would be her face and her blazing eyes within it. Fëanáro shuddered at the thought of being blinded: of never seeing his father’s face again nor the splendid rainbow of gems that he’d created and kept tucked away safely at home. A thought of Nerdanel—one of the other apprentices at Aulë’s forge—swam across his thoughts for a moment, for he would never see her honest, homely face again either. Still, he thought of the Maia’s eyes, I would know what burned within them.

That night, in the peace upon Taniquetil, abiding in the cool splendor of the King’s palace, Fëanáro could think of little else but her. He tossed restlessly, unable to sleep, his mind a maelstrom of thoughts through which a single name wound: Arien.

He wore white silk nightclothes, and they were cool against his heated skin, unbearable, like water on fire. Kicking free of the bedclothes, he rose in the direction of the fire that kept his room warm, stripping off his nightclothes as he went, until he was standing in front of the blazing fire on the hearthstones that were warm enough to hurt the bottoms of his feet. On either side of the hearth, there were two wide windows looking out onto Taniquetil. It was snowing again—big, fat flakes falling silently to the unfeeling ground. Fëanáro, though, stared into the fire, even stretching forth his hand to be licked by it, recoiling and hissing with pain. Sweat beaded on his body, through which coursed heat and desire like none he’d ever known.

He returned often, then, riding to Ezellohar in hopes of seeing her, watching her collect the dew of Laurelin but always averting his eyes when she sensed him and turned to face him, his heart pounding in defiant excitement, for momentarily, he’d considered blinding himself, just to know the look of her eyes.

Once, he went and another was there, in silver raiment and with a bluish pallor, and Fëanáro turned to leave before being spied, but the other turned and beckoned him closer. “The son of Finwë, are you not?” he said, and his eyes were downturned and sad. “So I am not alone in my love for her.”

By his bearing, Fëanáro could see that he was a Maia. “But you…you would be suitable for her, for you are of the Ainur.”

“But ‘tis our fates to be sundered, for her kind can do naught but wound me.” In his hand, he twirled a blossom of Telperion, full and lush against his cool skin. “Fire can be joined with no other, son of Finwë. It either destroys that which it touches or assimilates it, making it indecipherable from itself. As for me,” he smiled sadly, “I would be one of those destroyed.”

~oOo~

It never feels like a dream in its beginning, when he awakens and completes the menial tasks of his day, washing his teeth and eating breakfast and going about his studies. But, inevitably, he rides for Ezellohar, for her.

It is Laurelin’s zenith, the time—Fëanáro has learned—when most of the Elves visiting Ezellohar stay away, for it is the hottest hour of the day and the air itself feels as though it might be molten. Fëanáro secures his horse away from the Trees and the heat and goes on foot from there, pushing through air that seems to have a weight the weight of water. His hands, held in front of his face, shimmer, their edges blurred as though he is melting and becoming one with the heat. The hot air scalds his lungs, but it is not a feeling of pain; his skin craves the feeling of the heat upon it and something deep within him hums, much as a crystal will hum if the proper pitch is sung to it. I am meant to be here. I am meant to be one with the fire.

Laurelin blazes, Her leaves so fire-bright that they are indistinguishable from each other, and She is but a ball of light. Golden fingers of fire leap and stretch for the heavens. They would grab the stars and devour them, if they could, for the fire is hungry. Fëanáro strains against the low fence that keeps the Elves from getting dangerously close to the Trees. So many times, he has mocked its presence, but as he leans over it now, nearly toppling into the enclosure: It was put here for me, for people like me. He might laugh but for the fear that—if the fence were not there—nothing would stop him from walking directly into the burning center of Laurelin. A flash of pain and it would be done—and he would feed Her passionate flames, if only for an instant.

That perfect instant—or life forever: Fëanáro’s fingers stretch forward, toward the fire of Laurelin. This close, his hand becomes not a thing of flesh but of pale red light shining through his skin, exposing the intimacy of his blood within. One of Her leaves breaks free, then, of its branch—a molten slip of golden foil—and drifts towards Fëanáro’s outstretched hand, where it lands on his palm in a blaze of agony.

Or is it ecstasy?

Fëanáro is the age where he is not a stranger to the pleasures of the body, to dreams where he awakens—crying out and pressing his hips into the bedclothes—his body wracked with ecstasy so great that he cannot escape and can think of nothing else. It becomes his mind and so becomes him, bleeding away slowly and leaving him weak and gasping with its memory. The leaf upon his hand stabs him with a feeling of such intensity that he does not, for a moment, know whether it is pleasure or pain. In hope, his hand curls around the leaf and keeps it from drifting away; his mouth is twisted open into a breathless scream; his body is wracked as though with spasms. The leaf in his hand cools, giving to him its heat even as it takes from him his coolness—give and take—until he is exhausted by the intensity of feeling, and the leaf is crumbling in his blistered hand.

Just when he thinks that Laurelin must have reached Her zenith, that there is no place higher to go and she must come down, to eventual disappointment, she blazes even brighter. Suddenly, his clothes are too much upon his body; they have an irritating, itching weight. He tears his tunic over his head, and his hands fumble the laces on his breeches, surprised to find that he is hard beneath. His skin craves Laurelin’s warmth upon it, before She cools and subsides, and like a drowning man, he flounders, feeling every moment that he is bound as an eternity, until he kicks aside his boots and lets his breeches follow, and Laurelin is finally able to caress his skin that burns from within, establishing at last a fiery equilibrium between body and spirit.

He moans with contentment, aware that his hand has stolen between his legs to caress his arousal, as he does not normally allow himself to do. But this time, desire builds inside of him with a frightening, ferocious pressure, and he seeks release, quickening his strokes until he is on the brink of climax but unable to achieve it, like Laurelin climbing with tedious slowness to Her zenith, he seems destined always for something greater, and he aches for it.

Something hot then presses his neck, as startling as a spark, coursing fire from the veins beneath the touch to fill his entire body: a kiss. Bronze-colored hands circle his naked waist and move his hand aside, leaving a burning trail across his skin, culminating at his manhood, which throbs at the heat of the touch, even as he cries out as though with pain.

Arien….

“Close your eyes,” she says, ghosting her fevered hand across his eyelids, tipping his head backwards to meet her in a kiss. Her lips burn him, but judging from the way she moans with his touch, he does no less to her. She strokes him gently as the kiss deepens, until he feels as though they might melt together and become one. He longs to touch her likewise, but she is poised, pressing his back, and his scrabbling hands cannot find her. “You want more than this?” she whispers, moving her lips inside of his ear, letting her tongue trace the delicate whorl to its tip, which she sucks gently.

“Yes,” he gasps. “I wish to give to you what you give to me.”

She laughs. “And you—barely a man—know what that is?”

On the brink of release, he stays her hand. She nuzzles aside his hair and kisses the back of his neck, pressing each vertebra in turn. “We are both beings of fire, Fëanáro,” she says, whispering his name with a reverence she should give only to the Valar. Her hand still holds his manhood but she caresses him no longer; still, at the sound of his name in her voice, he is almost doubled over with pleasure.

“Yet your body is made of flesh and susceptible to the same weaknesses as are others of your kin. And so you must swear not to look upon my eyes, lest you be blinded,” she says, and he nods furiously, unable to bear remaining at such dazzling heights for much longer without—he fears—exploding.

She falls away from him, and even in the oven-hot air alongside Laurelin, he is bereft of the heat of her body. He hears a rustle as she tugs her dress over her head and casts it aside. She wears nothing underneath, and her body is as hard and beautiful as the bronze statues made by Master Mahtan. She lolls onto her back, her legs splayed open, revealing her body as Fëanáro—still a virgin, still having done naught but kiss the daughter of Mahtan and just once—has never seen before. To save his sight, she closes her eyes and lets her graceful hands caress her thighs, her belly, up to the firm roundness of her breasts, teasing her nipples with her thumbs, leaving her opening untouched and unexplored, for Fëanáro’s taking. His heart is beating so fast that his blood roars like fire in his ears—or maybe his blood is gone? Maybe she is right, and he is a being of fire, and like two flames that meet upon a stretch of dry land, they are meant to become one.

He goes to her, and kneels between her parted thighs. With her eyes still closed, she takes him in hand and guides him to her entrance, her lips parted and waiting to be kissed. As he leans over her, he claims her with his manhood at the same time as their tongues meet in the depth of a kiss; they moan simultaneously into the other’s mouth and thrust against each other, her legs tight on his hips and her fingers scratching scalding trails up his buttocks and back, making him shiver with the heat of it, unsure whether it is ecstasy or agony that makes him writhe beneath her touch.

He is unsure what to expect, half believing that she will hurt him when he enters her, but the heat wraps him in a tight embrace and he has to concentrate with all that he has to keep from releasing inside of her with the first thrust. They move together in a graceful rhythm that quickens as the pleasure wells inside of them both, and he is taken to the brink of climax again and left unfulfilled, screaming out in his frustration, digging his fingernails into the earth, even as she comes easily, pushing him deep inside of her. Gasping, she moves her mouth along the pulse thundering at this throat. “It takes time, my love, to reach the heights of passion that you desire,” smiling there at the rumble of a frustrated groan in his throat. “Let me help you,” she says, wrapping her legs around his waist and tumbling him over until she sits astride him, still joined, with her hand over his eyes.

Her hot, firm flesh is his for the taking now, and he lifts his hands to cup her breasts, sliding his palms down the iron-firmness of her belly. She has been sated, but she wants more, and she takes his hand in her burning grip and pushes his fingers against the throbbing heat between her legs, and he opens his eyes to see the pleasure etched upon her face.

“No!” Her hand is clapped over his eyes, but it is too late then; he has seen the white hot fire that is her eyes, burning, swirling, made brighter by him and his touch, and his back arches and he releases inside of her, closing his eyes against the searing pain inside of his skull that merges with the throbbing ecstasy radiating through his body until he cannot tell one from the other, until he thinks that it might never end—nor does he want it to end; he believes that he might die like this, his heart pounding against his ribcage until it will surely explode—a flash of feeling that feeds, becomes the fire.

~oOo~

He opens his eyes, but sight has been robbed of him.

I am blinded!

His belly is sticky with his own fluids and his groin is heavy with satiation, and slowly, grayish light fills his vision. No, not blinded, but safe in his tent, with his wife lying in his arms, beginning now to stir and slowly awaken, already sliding her hand against the silky skin of his hip, pressing her lips to his throat in a kiss.

He rolls away from her, his eyes bright with that which she will not understand.