Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry by sallysavestheday

Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry

Read Let Not My Love Be Called Idolatry

Orodreth is weary.

Never in his life has he been so bereft of counsel, of the warm weight of his brothers and his sister in his mind. Finrod is gone to darkness; Aegnor and Angrod to the flames. Galadriel drifts East, out of his confidence. He is alone. The governance of Nargothrond weighs heavy: he no longer trusts his ability to safeguard their people, even so closely warded under the stone. He wanders the carven hallways, wistful and wan, hoping for some sign of favor, some new door opening into light.

Instead, a hue and cry brings Gwindor, returned beyond all hope, aged and twisted and bowed. After the first delighted embraces, all eyes turn to the Man who accompanies him – that looming shadow, fair as the night before a battle, sharp and dark and wild. What fell, furious thing has Gwindor brought into the hidden city? Some deep part of Orodreth trembles at that simmering gaze, torn between engagement and recoil.

Túrin, for his part, stares and stares. He is accustomed to the delicate beauty of the Elves of Doriath: all fine floss and starry eyes. Beleg’s edges seemed to fade into the fog, sometimes, so soft was he against the light. That pearly luster balanced Mablung’s darkness, his eyes and hair of woodland shades, one moment here, another gone, like drifting air among the shadows. Hidden in their forest fastness, Elu’s people were of the gloaming, of shifting mists and glimmering thickets under stars.

Golden Orodreth is something else entirely.

He shines beneath the stones of Nargothrond like an errant sunbeam, radiant in the darkness. Haloed and resplendent, his first, bright glance a blow to Túrin’s heart. Calaquendë: strange and beautiful, lit from within. What marvels must he have seen, to hold that glory so close to his soul, to carry in his very eyes the captured light?

In such a presence, Túrin can believe the old tales: that this King’s brother was taken for a god, singing at dawn as their wandering ancestors woke to his enchantment. Fortunate Bëor, to be loved by such a one, and live out his days in these very caverns!

Struck and staggered, Túrin yearns. What manner of Man must he be, he wonders, to earn the golden King’s confidence – to gain his trust and cleave to him as Bëor did to Finrod? He haunts Orodreth’s footsteps, chases the faint trail of his perfume through the gilded caverns, craving that glittering presence, yet rarely drawing near enough to speak or touch.

Orodreth avoids him, as gently as his dignity will allow. Adanedhel he may be, fair as any of Nargothrond’s courtiers, but he is also Agarwaen, claiming his bitter victories, announcing the price of his sword. Orodreth has lost enough, and more than enough, already. He will permit no bloodstained stranger to pull him farther down.

Or so he tells himself, shut in his chambers, considering his own face in the mirror under the froth of his brother’s crown.

Men, he knows, were Finrod’s greatest happiness, bright sparks in Beleriand’s long night. Bëor, in particular: a steady bulwark against his fears. But none of them ever sought out Orodreth, lesser than his brother in age and grace and strength, a softer shadow of Finrod’s brilliant blaze. He has no experience of their kind’s rough tenderness, no sense of what Túrin’s persistent devotion truly means. Better not to venture where the path is shadowed, where the dark ground gapes at the seams.

Lone and lorn in the stillness of the caverns, Orodreth sighs, and undoes his braids, and turns away to dream.

With each month that passes, Túrin grows in Nargothrond’s esteem. Unmasked by Gwindor, the heir of Húrin sits at Orodreth’s high table, rides with the secret hunt, dances with the kingdom’s fairest maidens as the pipers play and the torches leap against the jeweled walls. But his eyes turn always to the King, as if to a beacon, a precious thing more longed for than can be told. 

In his own heart, he wonders at his daring. With what right does he approach this shining creature, drawn from legend, cast in all the glory of the ancient tales? Not in parity, certainly! But Balan knelt for Finrod, Beren for Luthien, in love that offered, and honored, and adored. So, too, might he, last of his lineage. Ever the House of Finarfin has been their gentle masters; let him serve now, and see that faith restored.

Orodreth trembles under the weight of Túrin’s grey gaze, cheeks and ears warming at his open admiration, his barely-hidden craving, his silent praise. So did Bëor caress his brother’s features with his eyes, he knows. In the dimness of his loneliness, Túrin’s longing glows.

It has been centuries since Orodreth was loved for his own self, for his gentler, paler gold, and it is an unfamiliar and provocative sensation. He is perhaps even more suited than Finrod to glimmering in the dark – he is of the earth, while his brother’s high heart and effervescence were truly things of water and of air. But their shared spark of foretelling tickles his spine. His reign, such as it is, seems only a stopgap, a half-hearted measure to hold back the sharper edge of time. What joy could there be, as they lurch toward their endings, in the fealty of a Man, so brief and bright? What price might such a small happiness bear?

Orodreth dares a smile across the table, a brush of the sleeve as he passes the wine. He dresses to dazzle, then watches Túrin from under his lashes, dreamy and languid. He feels his own lips curl, playing at his brother’s ancient game. 

Emboldened and enticed, Túrin maps Orodreth’s comings and goings, as if tracking a hart to collar and to carry home. He learns the King’s favorite haunts, the shadowy corners that he retreats to, glimmering, when the day’s long work is done. He plots his conquest with careful gestures that signal his yearning to serve: songs of his House murmured just at the edge of Orodreth’s hearing; garments worn in antiquated fashions; tales of his people’s great loves told around the evening fires. He grows the beard he once rued -- conjuring Balan, evoking Bëor.

Orodreth’s eyes widen when he notes the shadow on Túrin’s face; he bites his lip and flushes. And when the court next hales to the woods for a wild night’s hunt, the King lingers in the halls. Túrin tracks him through the caverns; finds him waiting in a well of moonlight filtered from above. He captures Orodreth’s hand, kisses the palm, lays those long, soft fingers against his jaw.

Orodreth explores the texture of Túrin’s beard, moving with and against the hair to watch it rise and settle under his touch. He traces the border between beard and skin, that soft line below the ears, along the throat. His fingertips ghost over Túrin’s mouth; the warm lips part, and draw him in. He is caught in that slick heat, trapped in those grey eyes, shivering. Bound.  

His bright King’s yielding is even sweeter than Túrin had imagined. That fair waterfall of hair winds soft as silk around his hands, draws Orodreth’s long neck back for tasting. His golden skin flushes as Túrin’s beard scrapes against it, drawing a path for teeth and tongue, leaving the marks of his obsession in the softest of places: throat, breast, belly, the sweet hollow on the inside of Orodreth’s thigh. The King writhes and cries as Túrin kneels in vassalage, his mouth and hands seeking. The Man’s touch is a benediction. All rapture, all praise.

Once begun, it is unstoppable. Orodreth cannot resist his longing to be seen, to be lauded, to be loved. Night after night he sends for Túrin, bends and sighs and splays himself for this incomparable Man. He needs those broad hands, that whip of light and heat that is Túrin’s tongue, those heavy hips like a battering ram.

Túrin treasures his golden King; he desires always to see him shine. He drapes Orodreth in every jewel he can find, until he shimmers in the firelight and casts broken colors into the corners of the room as they move together, the blinking rhythm of their coupling crafting its own soft song. He binds spangled carcanets around Orodreth’s thighs like garters, pressing the gems into that soft flesh as he folds his King’s knees back and sinks into him, the shapes of the stones and of his fingers mingling in sweet bruises that he will later kiss away. He winds fine gold chains around Orodreth’s waist and between his legs, leaves them to secretly tangle and graze under his robes as he sits in council, then soothes the small rash with tender touches and an eager tongue. He bites his King’s smooth throat so that Orodreth must don the Nauglamir, head high, cheeks flushed, the brilliant collar barely hiding the marks.

Orodreth, having chosen, abandons himself to his brief joy. He buries his face in the pelt on Túrin’s chest, rubs his cheeks against the fur of his legs, drags Túrin’s chin across his own skin, gasping at the rough heat of that subtle and unfamiliar burn. He tugs and tugs at the strange texture of Túrin’s hair, until the coarse rope of it and the movements of the mouth it guides blend in his dreams and send him surging to completion in his sleep, overwrought and sensitive as he has not been since long before the Sun. He rides Túrin like some sleek, strange beast of the wild, feeling himself kinged and crowned again by Túrin’s groans and sighs. Bëor! he gasps, as Túrin kneels behind him, laughing while his tongue works between Orodreth’s thighs.

It is madness. It is mystery. With their every joining, the pulse of foresight grows stronger: all smoke and clouds and fire. But for the first time in his life, Orodreth’s wistful heart revolts: he turns his mind away and shuts his inner eye. Túrin is a Man; this can only ever be a love in passing. He will take what he wants, permit himself to be worshipped. Let time and fortune lie down and wait. Ulmo’s warnings go unheard as Orodreth sings in his delight, his narrow hips taut and tense in Túrin’s powerful hands. 

Buoyed by devotion, Orodreth imagines greatness. Why should he not succeed at last where Finrod failed? Was it not a Man who stole the Silmaril? Whose love gave their ancient Enemy such a terrible blow?

Túrin spins songs of it as he braids jewels into Orodreth’s hair: the forests freed of Morgoth’s taint, the waters cleansed, his bright King enthroned again in light. The Enemy’s slinking creatures shriek and flee before the hunters of the hidden kingdom; if they muster all their strength and strike at once, they must prevail.

Where once Túrin suggested, now he commands: the bridge; the bright battalions. They will lay out their strength, forego secrecy, ride to a rising, clear the darkening lands.

Who among them does not believe in it, as the glittering host assembles to march on Tumhalad? If Orodreth wavers, he gives no sign. He rides out laughing, singing.

My King, my lord, my love, Túrin thinks, watching that fair head toss. I shall steal you the sun. Orodreth grins down at him and his breath catches, as it ever has when faced with those bright eyes. Ah, sweetheart! How you will shine!