Hyemation by sallysavestheday

Hyemation

Against all counsel, Fingon rides to Himring in the snow.

Most who crossed the Helcaraxë avoid extremes of cold. Too-tender fingertips and wind-blasted skin can trigger memories far better avoided, or spark a descent into lingering horror and regret. But some secretly yearn for the test of that punishing weather – they seek in the winter the lost parts of themselves that still wander, mourning, on the Ice. Fingon is such a one.

He surrounds himself with others like him. The chilly pilgrimage to Himring amid the season’s early blizzards only excites them, spurs them on to canter coatless through the howling winds and laugh as the flakes cluster in their hair, weighting their eyelashes, stiffening their horses’ manes.

At night, Fingon sprawls on the floor of his freezing tent, sheltered yet only barely there. He lies with his belly to the ground, torches unlit and brazier unkindled. The cold earth sparks memories of the crossing: of times when the bitter wind had scoured the surface clean and he had fallen thus, finding himself face to face with some great creature, its eye baleful and wise as it rolled beneath the ice and heaved away. All his life he will long to feel that bitter, cleansing gaze again, chasing its echo in the cold, in effort’s tang, in risk. The frozen ground pushes back at him, urges him to action. It drives him on.

Fiery Maedhros just laughs in sympathy with Fingon’s restlessness. His years on the peak only reinforced his understanding of the power of extremes. Ice; flames – both burn, without and within.

He indulges Fingon’s frost-roused passion on arrival, cold and fast and hard on the flagstones before the empty grate in his rooms. He bows to his lover's need to couple in frozen courtyards and under the snowy canopy of Himring’s rare groves of hardy trees, steam rising from their exposed skin as they pant and grapple, dangerously vulnerable in the icy air.

Maedhros knows that, after that first freezing burst of satisfaction, Fingon will ease and soften against him, seeking out Maedhros’ warmth to soothe and gentle him into peace. While the storms hold the passes closed, Fingon will burrow in, fond and pliant, a small beast gone to ground in Himring’s fastness. He will glide from snow to sanctuary with the ease of an acrobat, balancing trials with tenderness as he always has, bright-eyed and brave and grinning.

As the silent flakes frost Himring’s battlements, Fingon will use that cold to spark heat, to test the truth of their mutual pledge and tighten their bonds. He will become all silky skin and coaxing fingers, melting and yielding, his brittle edges smoothing under Maedhros’ touch. He will cling and murmur, mouth and hands and body storing warmth and sweetness against the apple blossom’s flowering, the thunder of the ice breaking, the signs of spring that must always call him home.

Chapter End Notes

Hyemation: 1) the passing of a winter in a particular place and 2) the act of affording shelter in winter.