A Secret Chord by polutropos

Chapter 1

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.
- Leonard Cohen, “Hallelujah”

Read Chapter 1

When the world goes silent, my heart breaks. In Doriath, they blamed me for their fear when the nightingales ceased their singing; when the trees no longer hummed to one another; when my pipes no longer made beauty of disorder; when my stories no longer lent meaning to their confused thoughts. True – I have a gift for music and for tales, but I am not so great as that. I am nothing without love to awaken me to Song. 

Lúthien’s Song kept mine alive, but from the beginning our love was imbalanced, at times even discordant, though few would have known it to hear us together. 

I would not have known it if fate had not led me to find another – he still called himself Macalaurë then – in a swirl of heady celebration, to discover in the joining of our Songs and bodies a height of ecstasy we did not know was possible. We had been accounted great among our people even before, but after that night, and the nights that followed one upon the other in a haze of desire, we were peerless. We became greater still, over the years when we exchanged volumes of tender letters, on music and love but also on the innumerable ways we would bring each other pleasure, were we together. Most exquisite were those occasions when we met in the wild, liminal space between our realms, and chased higher and higher peaks of bliss in each other's arms. 

Then the knife of truth came down between us and I left that tapestry with loose ends, still sticky with the blood of kin. That was the first time the world went silent. 

This I now understand, as if waking from a long sleep: Lúthien's Song is lost to me. I am cutting that thread cleanly, at least, abandoning my companions in our search for her, in the middle of the night. I turn back to cross instead over the plains of Himlad alone.

He is the last hope I have of regaining my Song before I fade into nothing. I do not fear the disappearance of my flesh, for it is but a vessel. What I fear is that I will never again be able to give voice to the Song that comes from a place outside of me: notes of a far greater Music, that the One thought fit to weave into my soul.

For the sake of my Music, I will permit myself to forgive him, if only for a night. 

 

*

 

“Halt there!” the leader of the scouts galloping over the plain calls to me. “Name yourself.”

I have been journeying for many days, I do not know how many. The scorched lands still thrum with dark magic. Those are Songs I can still hear, for the Enemy’s Music preys on the weak.

“I am a minstrel. Aldëa,” I say; it is my true name in their language.* Their leader stares down at me, expression pinched with distrust, for who with my lightless eyes and silver hair would name himself in that forbidden tongue? Only a harmless wanderer, I tell her with a crooked smile before I ask, “Is the Lord Maglor at Himring?” 

I have not spoken his name for many years and it feels clumsy on my tongue.

She slides down from her horse, hands over his reins to another, and approaches me. She is deciphering me with the sharp mind of her people. A flicker of recognition; she thinks she knows me. Perhaps she followed her Lords to Mereth Aderthad, but she cannot place me. Back then, I was arrayed in silver robes and crowned in ferns and coloured with the glow of a reckless love; now, I am tired and filthy and slightly mad.

“He is,” she says, deciding she can trust me, “come with us.”

 

* 

 

The fortress of the Fëanorians is as cold and looming as the mountains that surround it. The Golodhrim have made it beautiful, in their way, with precision and subtlety, but it is a lifeless beauty that fills me with disquiet. I long to be cradled in the branches of an ancient oak.

A choked silence stretches out in the moments of waiting at the foot of an imposing staircase. But Maglor comes. He comes through the large doors and his gait is tired. He is too far away and guards himself too closely for me to feel anything from him.

He casts his eyes about, lands them on me only long enough to confirm that I am there, and turns away. He does not risk letting me hear his voice as he mutters something to his servant and disappears through the doors again. I wonder if in the depths of his grief he has forgotten us entirely; if I have come too late to save him – to be saved by him. 

I cannot hear the servant who invites me to follow her down a long corridor to a room with a window facing east. I cannot hear them when they come to light the fire, bringing in a basin of clear water, fresh clothing, and a tray of food. 

The silence swells like in a dream I’ve often had of standing in a cavern as cold waters slowly rise around me. With controlled, deliberate movements, I clean and change and eat, and then I wait. 

I feel him brush against my mind. It is only a single note but it is enough. I lift my head to see the sky already growing dark outside the window. The fire has gone out, but a seed of warmth is nestled in my chest. 

 

*

 

I need only follow the sound: passing a dining chamber, a library, a storeroom, and stopping in front of a door left slightly ajar. I nudge it open and step through.

Before anything, I am stirred by the sweet fragrance of ripening blackberries drenched in spring rain. He rises from the bed and the heady scent rises with him. He stares at me now, inscrutably, his hands brushing against his thighs. Like me, he is wearing only his breeches and a linen shirt, loose and unbelted. His hair falls over his shoulders in thick waves of brown, dark as loam. 

My heart pounds against my ribs and I am sure he can see it, because I too can see a pulse just above his collarbone. 

"You should not have left me waiting," I say, biting through the rising emotion.

An apology would be meaningless now, for this slight pales in comparison to all that he has done, so I do not expect one and I do not receive one. 

“No, I should not have," he says, helplessly. "I do not know why you have come here."

His voice: low and supple like waves lapping against the gentle curves of sandstone. It is the first time I have heard it in four centuries and my fear dissolves in the caress of each syllable. 

“Do you not?” I ask, more out of a desire to hear him speak again than to know. 

“Either to kill me or…” he fixes his eyes on me but I avoid meeting them.

The single note that called me here still rings. I strain to hear more, but there is nothing. Like mine, his spirit does not sing. He feels me groping in the silence. 

"That is all I have left," he says. "And you – you are so faint. What happened?"

I watch the rise and fall of his chest and I cannot answer for I am thinking only of what his heavy breaths would feel like on my skin.

"What happened?" he asks again, and my eyes complete the journey to meet his.

His face: no matter how grim the set of his jaw, his expression has been shaped from birth into one of curiosity and innocence. Round eyes, long lashes, and soft, straight brows; his cheekbones and the line of his jaw sculpted subtly, softly. Countless times have I seen those red lips, now a long, thin line, split his face into a wide smile, lighting up his eyes and dimpling the left cheek.

Looking into his concerned and lust-darkened eyes, I forget everything. 

"It doesn't matter," I say, "we are here now, and we will never live this night again."

I let him see what I am thinking: his face buried against my neck, one hand held firmly against my chest, the other trailing up the inside of my thigh… but he stays fixed to his position several paces away from me.

"Why do you resist?" I ask, my throat dry and my tongue thick in my mouth. I am giving myself to you. Do not let me change my mind.

His lips part slightly, his brow creases. 

“You are afraid,” I say, and in three long strides he is suddenly holding my waist with strong fingers, pushing me against the back of the door. It slams shut behind the weight of my body, of his body pressing against mine. He pins me to the door with his hips, running his hands over my hair. I gasp at the touch of his fingers brushing over my ears. He hovers his mouth over mine, his breathing hot and shallow, and he is pressing his hips into me so hard that I am nearly lifted from the floor. I can already feel the pulse of his arousal against my thigh. 

“You are right,” he says, so close that he is nearly kissing me, “I was afraid. Do not let me waste another moment,” and when our lips touch I feel it a thousand times over, a thousand tiny sparks flying where our flesh meets. I take his face in my hands and he grips my thighs, lifting me up and thrusting to position me above the curve of his hip bone.

“I need you mor–uuhn…” more than I ever imagined, I mean to say, but my speech becomes a wordless plea.

Our lips close around each other, his tongue slides along the length of mine and I circle it, tasting the clean earthiness of his mouth. I pull his face closer, tangling my fingers in his hair, and he drives me against the door and we are moaning into each other’s throats. I tear myself away to breathe and his body feels so right so close to mine that I want to scream. 

“You are perfect,” I say, because at this moment, he is. He has to look up to meet my eyes, and he does, a smile stretched across his face; but his eyes glisten with tears. 

“You are even more beautiful than I remember,” he says.

He adjusts himself, releasing me slightly, and as he does the hardness of his length grazes over the firm swell between my legs, and a flare of pleasure shoots through me. I make a sound like whining, and I close my eyes and wince at the sudden quickening, but the darkness makes me dizzy, so I open them and find his mouth again. My hands travel almost frantically over his jaw, his neck, his collarbone, around his strong shoulders, and I grasp at the fabric of his shirt. I want it off, I want to feel the rest of his skin under my fingertips, but the contact and the heat between our bodies feels too good to let him go. He is trying to pull away, to help me, but I arch my chest to press closer to him, wrap my lips tighter around his. When at last I release him, he gasps like one rising from the water for air. He lets my feet slide to the floor and he steps back so he can loosen the laces closest to his neck and pull his shirt over his head. As he does, I see his muscles tense and release and I am drawn back to him like a magnet, seeking his lips.

He laughs and leans away – for he has always had more control over his passions than I have – untucking my shirt and sliding his hands up my bare back. His fingers find the hooks of the stiff canvas bound tightly around my chest and his gaze softens. “Can I take it off?” he asks. 

“Yes, yes!” I say, and he turns me around, rolling up the back of my shirt so he can see, caressing my shoulders, tenderly placing my hair aside, undoing each tiny hook one-by-one, and placing a kiss on my spine as he takes the binding off and lets it fall to the floor. I shiver and turn back to face him, wrapping my arms around his waist. 

He rests his forehead against mine and looks down, grazing his thumbs over my nipples through the coarse linen I am wearing. I hum contentedly and he nuzzles his face below my ear, licking at my neck. He slips his hands up under my shirt and I am surging with joy because I know he wants me exactly as I am. I slide a hand between us, rubbing it over the stiff tightness in his breeches and he groans and bites my neck. It is the most natural thing in the world, as if we were always meant to be like this. 

“Let me take you to bed,” he whispers in my ear, brushes the tip of his nose over my cheek, and teases my lips with his.

“Yes,” I say, and I place little kisses on his mouth as I shuffle him backwards, running my thumb along his length and pushing him down onto the wide bed, layered thickly with soft wools in burgundy and grey, and I am on my hands and knees astride him.

He throws his head back against the bed and smiles blissfully, and he is trying to pull my hips down onto his but I resist, instead untying his laces with one hand while I support myself against the flat plane of his chest with the other, feeling his heart pounding against my palm. I have nearly released him from the constricting clothing and he arches into my hand as I guide his erection out to rest on his abdomen. I bend over and my cheek brushes against it as I kiss the silken skin of his stomach and run a hand up over muscles rippling and clenching in pleasure. I can just make out his fingers clutching at the blankets as he kicks himself up to lie fully extended on the bed. 

A milky drop leaks onto his stomach and I lick it, savouring the sweetness that takes me back to blissful years of secret, rebellious trysts on the borders of Doriath. He whimpers and pulls me up by the shoulders to lay me down on top of him. My shirt has bunched up around my chest and my stomach is naked against his, the heat and firmness of his arousal between us. 

“You have forgotten nothing,” he says, breathing heavily against my neck.

“Nothing,” I say, and I take his hand from my shoulder and place wet, gentle kisses on every knuckle, sliding my thumb over his palm. I move over the joints of each elegant finger, each deft fingertip, and then I wrap my lips around the middle one, my teeth softly scraping and biting. Curses tumble off his tongue but the purity of his voice shapes them into music. He is writhing under me, desperately seeking friction against my firm stomach, but I lift myself to hover over him and slide my lips off his finger, moving to take the next one in my mouth. 

“Yes, yes, oh please,” he breathes, then suddenly he cries, “No! Not yet!” 

I release his hand and nestle my ear to his chest to listen to the drum of his heartbeat, to feel the beating of it next to mine where our bodies are pressed together. His gasping breaths wash over the crown of my head as he holds me close. 

“I want it to last forever,” he says, and I slide up his torso and place my mouth against his neck where I can feel the soft vibration of laughter when he smiles.

“So do I,” I say, and I slide slightly to one side, my face buried in his hair and all my limbs still wrapped around him. 

We lie there, holding each other, and the blood keeps surging downwards but we breathe deeply - his chest rising when mine falls, his falling when mine rises - to slow our hearts. We do not move; even the slightest shuffle or caress and we would lose ourselves again. 

Eventually he begins to soften and I tentatively tickle his neck with a fingertip. He hums and strokes my hair, slow and deliberate. I look around the room that still buzzes with our voices and our passion. The walls are mostly bare, save a few tapestries: tall towers rising against mountains draped in glittering snow under a gold and silver sky; the sea, waves like rolling hills, massive and untamed and terrifying; a golden harp, its frame engraved with the likenesses of creatures and plants I have never seen before. These are the images of his home, his longings, the things he loves. He keeps several instruments here, where he sleeps, and I imagine that they are among his most beloved, even if not his finest. A simple seven-string lyre, a small lute, a wooden flute on the dresser. I had instruments like these in Doriath, and many more. Their music dead, I left them all behind. 

My pulse is quickening again already, his too, and I know from the rising rhapsody in my head that if I stay there longer I will be writhing against him in moments, chasing ecstasy in his touch – but I did not come here for that alone. Reluctantly and with great effort I slide off of him and swing my legs over the other side of the bed.

"Where are you going?" he asks, extending an arm towards me, his hooded eyes pleading. 

My back is to him but I smile and rise, walking across the room to pick up the lyre and flute. When I turn to face him, he inhales sharply and arches his hips, then rolls onto his side with his hands tucked under one cheek. Though he has nearly softened completely, his sex twitches at the memory of our music, or perhaps the sight of me, or both. 

“You will enrapture me with song,” he says, and it is at once a question and an invitation. 

“And you, me,” I say, handing him the lyre. Fold me back into the Song and I will take you with me.

He sits up and rests against the headboard. I sit cross-legged on the bed where I can see all of him. In the space between us, the air already quivers in anticipation.

"You start," he says, absently plucking each string. 

"Then stop playing," I tease, lifting the flute to my lips. 

He gazes at me as one drunk with wonder, and I smile around the instrument. 

I close my eyes and listen for my heartbeat. It is strong but steady. I listen for his breathing and when I hear it like a ripple over water my heart skips. I exhale steadily into the pipe and as my fingers move over the holes I imagine they are his fingers on my arms, trailing down my trunk, my hips, my legs. When I open my eyes to look at him I know he is imagining it, too.

He rests the lyre against his knee and joins its notes to mine. Though we sit apart I can feel the vibration of the strings as heat spreading through me. He raises his voice in song, a hymn of praise, and I can feel the breath of his singing, the movement of his lips all around me. My melody quickens, and his harmony keeps time, becomes richer, more complex, even as my playing turns frenzied, erratic, but he ties my notes together, he makes it into music. A long, piercing vibrato, the rush of a vibrant glissando, and we are falling apart in each other's Songs. Sound becomes the touch of calloused fingers around my wrists, the colour of his flush, the sweet taste of his seed, the scent of my desire.

I don’t remember when the Song became corporeal but I am lying on my back now with my knees bent, begging, and he is naked and sliding my breeches down my legs and pulling them off. He tickles the sole of my foot and I laugh and try to draw it back, but his hands are wrapped around both my ankles and he's pinning them to the bed. He lifts himself and the weight of him on the sinews of my foot hurts a little, but then he relaxes his grip, releases his hands, and his fingers are in my folds. He holds a fingertip firmly to my entrance and it is wet and burning. I arch my hips to force him inside me and he obliges, laughing kindly from his heart. 

"Please," I say, and I'm sure I've said it many times already. He slips another finger in and presses down with the heel of his palm. I buck against it and cry out, grabbing onto the top of his head by his hair. He lowers himself and replaces the palm with his mouth, sucking and drawing strong circles with his tongue. (It is exactly how I described it in those letters that would make me lose myself in thought alone.) 

His mouth still firmly around me, he draws his fingers out, slides them in again, twisting inside me. When he pulls them out they are wet and slick, and he finds my other opening. My pulse is there, inviting him in, and he starts with a single fingertip, tenderly relaxing me before he slips it in deeper. I cry out and move my hands to his shoulders, gripping the muscle that works to support his elbows on the bed. 

He sucks harder, and when he increases the pressure of his tongue he is singing against me, through me, inside me. My nerves fire like lightning through my abdomen, and he has slipped a second finger inside me, his single note now a harmony, and I am filled completely with sparking and the throbbing heartbeat of his Song; I feel as if I might be floating. 

His long fingers press deeper still and I drive myself up against his mouth and back down against his hand. My tears burn against my cheeks, I'm blind and weightless and I'm coming, hot wetness spilling from me with each spasm, and he holds his fingers inside me, presses his tongue down hard, carrying me through my release. I am enthralled, suspended there, and I feel like it might go on forever. I scream and buck against him, joining my voice to the crescendo of sound that overwhelms me. Then I'm done, and he's pulled himself away and the room is ringing with the echo of our Music. My legs tremble and my knees collapse onto the bed.

He lies on his side, looking at me, and I'm too spent to move but I can see him taking himself in hand, stroking slowly. 

"You've undone me. I cannot help you," I say at last, tilting my head to look at him, and he's smiling contentedly. 

"I can wait," he says, and with his other hand he strokes my cheek and tucks my hair back. “You are most beautiful like this.” He brushes the skin beside my eye with his thumb. “These beautiful, thick lashes, these shimmering brows,” he traces one with a fingertip and moves his hand down, “this sharp cheekbone, these soft lips. I could stare at you like this forever.”

I curl up on my side and we look at each other while my vision clears and the blood returns to my head. He's still holding himself, his arousal tempered and patient. It excites me just as much as his reckless passion, and I pull him closer, taking his length between my thighs. 

My wetness is still pooled there, and as he moves slowly, cautiously, he is coated with it, sliding effortlessly, and he increases his rhythm, each breath a groan. I clamp my thighs around him, wrap my hands behind and take one firm buttock in each, rolling against him and pulling him closer. His palms roll over and close around my chest before moving to hook his thumbs under my chin, his fingers at the nape of my neck, pulling me into a kiss. I leave a hair’s breadth between our lips and our tongues slip between teeth, flitting and circling and reaching. I can feel his smile when I close my mouth around it, sealing and deepening the kiss, joined above as we are joined below. 

One hand still hooked around my jaw, the other follows the line of my neck, trails down my chest, and I feel his groan thrumming in my throat, rising and becoming a cry of pleasure and dismay when he pushes against my sternum to tear our lips apart and slide himself out from between my thighs. He flips onto his back. "No, not yet!" he proclaims towards the ceiling. "I want it to go on forever." 

I brush my fingertips over the sensitive skin of his inner forearm and lace our hands together. “Finish inside me," I say. He looks over at me with wide, bright eyes and with sudden eagerness, he untangles his hand from mine and reaches for a vial of oil at his bedside, pours it into his palm and coats his fingers. He flips me onto my stomach, straddling my knees and lifting my hips from the bed. I am already relaxed and open as he prepares me with his slick fingers. When he slides in, he is so careful that I feel only a pleasant tug until he is filling me, and he is bent over my back, his cry loud in one ear. 

He starts short and shallow at first, then longer and deeper and I am clutching at the sheets and stifling my moans in the pillow. He pulls at my hair, lifting my face from the bed. 

"I want to hear you," he says between thrusts, "sing for me."

I smile, and he holds my head back only just enough to keep my throat open. I begin a low and ancient melody, and he adjusts his rhythm to it, now slower, shallower, pausing, shifting, holding. He falls silent, listening and breathing and moving with me. 

"Make me come," he whispers, releasing his grip on my hair, moving his hands to rest gently on my hips and stilling himself. I raise my voice, putting the thought of his pleasure into my Song and suddenly, without moving, he bursts and falls apart inside me, shuddering and gasping for air before he collapses onto my back, pressing urgent kisses to my neck as I finish the Song. Only then am I aware of myself trembling and jerking beneath him as a gentler wave of release washes over me.   

He rests on top of me, running his fingers through my hair, bringing it to his face and breathing in its smell. I feel him softening, the tissues contracting as the beating of his heart draws the blood back to his head, sends it out through his limbs. With a squeeze of my shoulders, he pulls himself out, rolling to lie on his side. I fold my arms under my head and rest a cheek on my overlapping hands. He reaches over and traces the line of my jaw. Strands of his dark hair cling to his forehead, his cheekbones, his neck. 

Pulling me closer, he wraps all of his limbs around me tightly. Though there are pockets of space still where the shapes of our bodies do not fit, we melt together, dissolving in the vibration of our Music, until I do not know where he ends and I begin.

“Do you hear it?” he asks (two steady notes, a lift).

“Of course,” I say (a harmony, a fall).

“I love you,” he says, and he laughs softly in joy and relief – three notes climbing –  and kisses me, the last of our desire unravelling between our lips. 

“I have always loved you,” I say when we pull apart.

Our souls retreat again into our flesh, subject to earthly sensations. The sheets are tangled and damp with our sweat and fluids and I’m suddenly aware of the chill in the room, my skin prickling in the cool air even with my shirt still on. I move my feet against the blankets that have been pushed to the foot of the bed, seeking to warm my toes beneath them, and he notices and reaches across my body to pull a sheet over me. 

“We should wash,” he says. “I’ll fill the bath.” 

I roll over and wrap myself in the sheet, sit up on the edge of the bed, and watch him walk, naked, to pick his shirt up off the floor and pull it over his head. He goes through another door at the opposite end of the room and disappears from my sight. He’s singing softly to himself, and then he’s drowned out by a rush of water, a squeaking tap, wood being stacked, the crackle of a flame. He walks back out, rubbing the back of his neck, and gazes wordlessly at me before picking his lyre up off the floor and returning it to its hook on the wall.

“Where is the flute?” he asks, looking around the room. 

I fall back on the bed and start laughing. He furrows his brows at me and I laugh harder, rolling onto my stomach and smiling into the mattress. I cannot remember the last time I smiled so wide, and my cheeks are hurting already. Then he’s scrambling to pin me to the bed, his fingers squeezing the sides of my ribs and he is tickling me. I laugh harder, breathless, and try to twist away, to turn onto my back, but my diaphragm is cramping against my lungs and his knees are pressing against either side of my thighs and I cannot move. He starts to laugh and ceases tormenting me, pushing down on my back as leverage to lift himself off the bed.

“That’s enough,” he says chidingly, getting up to resume his search. “Stop lying about and help me find it.” 

I twist to hang my neck and shoulders over the edge of the bed and peer underneath. The flute has rolled into the dust far beneath the bed frame. “It’s here,” I say, still dangling upside down.

“Then get it.” I hear him respond with mock exasperation as he crosses the floor back to the bathing room.

With the sheet still twisted around me, I climb off the bed and flatten myself on the floor, yelping at the coldness of the stone on my bare shins and forearms.

“Stop whining!” comes his voice, followed by the squeak of the tap as he turns it off. 

I reach for the flute, sending up a cloud of dust, and just manage to wrap my fingers around it and pull it out. I place it on the dresser where I found it and pad over the cold stones to join him. It’s much warmer there, the fire slowly heating the tub of cold mountain water, and I unwrap the sheet, leaving it in a bundle on a shelf, wearing only my linen shirt. We sit next to each other, waiting.

He doesn’t ask why I came here, or how; I don’t ask him about the war, the frontier, or his losses. We sit in silence, my hand resting over his on the bench, sharing thoughts now and then, of the present, affirmations of the ecstasy of our bodies being joined. We glance at each other, softly smiling. There is no shame, no fear, no bitterness. We have forgotten everything. We will forget everything for the rest of that night. 

The bath is not large enough for the two of us, so I undress completely and submerge myself in the steaming water first, and he kneels behind me, wiping a warm cloth over my back and arms, combing my wet hair. He stays there, allowing me to cover myself with the water lapping against my collarbones. I have lost track of time, and when he breaks the pattern of his combing, sliding his hands over my shoulders to dangle in the water, I am startled. 

“My turn,” he says, kissing my neck. He rises and holds a towel open for me. I lift myself out of the tub and I am wrapped tightly in the cloth. He sighs as he lowers himself into the water, splashing it over his arms, dunking his head under and rubbing his hands down his face, blinking. For a moment he looks drawn, tired, grieving, but calm returns to his expression as soon as he looks at me. 

I love you is all I can think, but it seems repetitive, unpoetic to say it again, so I say nothing. I just pull my shirt back on and let the towel drop, kneeling on the bench before him. I look down and I can see his sex floating in the water, distorted by ripples. I wish I could climb in with him, rub myself against it and feel it swell and harden under me again. I am left to imagine it, my breaths becoming shallower. He notices and grins, adjusting to draw himself closer, lifting my chin and kissing me. 

He reads my thoughts, “You want to wrap these lips around me,” and he traces them with a thumb.

I want to hear your Song again, and it's already humming in my ears. I slip a hand between my thighs, and he is kissing me, taking my lip between his teeth. He pulls away, climbs out of the bath and I can see he’s going hard before he covers himself with a towel around his waist. He wrings out his hair, watching me. 

I reach over and grab his wrist, yanking him onto the bench, using the momentum to swing myself onto the floor in front of him, and I unwrap the towel, revealing the erection growing between his thighs. When I grip them with lean, sinuous fingers, he gasps and rests his head against the wall. The fire still burns and it’s hot on my side, the room is full of steam. 

I cup a hand between his legs, sliding my palm up and wrapping my fingers around him and he swells to fill my grip. I can feel the blood surging through him, and he clutches the edge of the bench and moans. He opens a slit in his eyelids and looks at me holding him, hovering my mouth over him, and he bites down on his lip, resisting the urge to buck into my hand, but he fails and grows a deeper red in my grasp. I flick my tongue against his head and pass my thumb over the moistened tip. He bucks again and curses, another surge of blood filling him. My lips are burning to wrap themselves around him and I cannot hold off any longer. 

With him inside my mouth, I use a hand to pull back his skin and pass the flat of my tongue over his exposed head, and I remember how his careful handwriting always lost its form when he described it in the letters he wrote to me. He shudders, caresses my hair, apologises for the things he wants to do but won’t because he loves me, because he knows I like to have control, because he wants me to have it. I suck and circle him with my tongue, tasting him, moving my hand to massage his testicles, like swollen fruit, taking him in my mouth to the base, tightening my lips around it, holding back his release. 

I am sweating in the heat, tightening, sliding, sucking along his length; my neck begins to tense, the stone floor is hard against my knees. A whimper escapes my throat, and he strokes the back of my head; what he means is Are you alright? I place a hand over his other wrist, and I am answering Yes and Use me as you will. He bucks into my mouth, laces his fingers through my hair, and he is moving me to his rhythm. His Song is faster now, intoxicating, the kind of music that accompanies a frenzied dancing, and it fills me with fire. When he is at the very edge, he pulls away, as a dancer who whirls and leaps and suddenly stops, and I close my hand around his shaft, guiding successive rushes of his milky release into the palm of my other hand as he whines and convulses. When it’s over he slumps against the wall and rests my head against his thigh. 

We rinse ourselves again, drain the bathwater, and he finds us clean clothing to sleep in. But we won’t sleep, not when we both know that we will never live this night again. Sitting on the bed, we talk of Creation and Beauty and Dreams, exchanging metaphors in place of promises we cannot keep, offering up odes to eternity when all we have is now. 

Deep into the night, when the lamps have gone out and his eyes become the only points of light in the darkness, we take up our instruments again and we join ourselves until the dawn. I do not know where the Song ends and our bodies begin. In one moment he is over me and inside me, this time where he has never been, and I grip his shoulders and dig my heels into his back and I do not know and cannot care if he spills there, because I have never felt so complete. In another moment I am blind and only the sound of his voice fills me. In others, all is silent and I see past the brightness of his eyes into their abyssal darkness, deep as the ocean.

Later, when many long leagues lie between him and me, I will remember that he is bound to an inescapable oath that once drove him to spill the blood of my kin across the Sea, those who had followed Olu and the false promise of deliverance from death’s shadow. I will remember that he would do the same again. That he would kill me, too, if he had to. 

I will remember that Lúthien presses on towards the gates of Angband, and because I have known her longer and deeper than any other, I will remember that she will succeed. Because I tell stories and I know how they end (for such was the gift my Queen gave me, when she taught me my art), I will remember the cost: that they will both be lost forever. That a Silmaril will go to Doriath. That it will be the ruin of my people. I will walk away from the story, and I will live so that the tales may yet be sung, when the heroes all are gone. 

But now, when at last the fires of our passion have all burned out, I hold him in my arms, I feel his back rise and fall against my chest, I inhale the watery sweetness of his skin, and as the day breaks I lull him to sleep with my Song, because I want this to be the last thing he remembers of us.

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Chapter End Notes

Artwork by navyinks posted to story on AO3.

Thank you to firstamazon, Melesta, cuarthol, and IdrilsScribe from the Guild of Scribe for help workshopping this story.