Elopement by Elleth

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Chapter 1

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Eärwen surfaced and shook the water from her hair. Her face and eyes were stinging from the salt, but seeing Anairë standing by the shore, she triumphantly thrust a fistful of pearls into the air above her head.

When she had made it to the shore, Anairë offered her a hand to clamber up over the rocks at the water’s edge, and Eärwen pulled her down into a patch of Tree-warmed sand.

“Wet as you are! You are getting sand all over yourself!” Anairë protested, laughing. “If I find that you tracked one single grain of sand into my sheets by tonight when you come gossiping, I shall take my revenge.”

Eärwen laughed in answer, still a little breathless from the dive, and lifted one sand-encrusted arm to wiggle her fingers menacingly near Anairë’s face. “And how - will you tickle me breathless again?” When Anairë nodded with a gleam in her eye, Eärwen propped herself up on an elbow, and leaned in to kiss Anairë’s cheek. It was good to see her so without cares for the moment, for as the situation in Tirion grew more and more fraught between Nolofinwë and Fëanáro, she had stolen to Eärwen’s quarters at night more than once. Usually they only tried to talk her troubles into nothing, but sometimes Eärwen whisked her away to Alqualondë for a few days.

Nolofinwë and Arafinwë had professed that they were not thrilled with the arrangement, but they both agreed that the situation had begun to wear on Anairë, and if she needed an escape she should take it; even better if she went in the company of the one friend who could lift her from her gloom.

The thought - not merely the thought, if she was honest with herself - made Eärwen reluctant to stop touching her lips to Anairë’s cheek. It was not helped by the knowledge that Anairë’s feelings were anything but unrequited. She hardly ever made the first move, but often enough she was happy to make the second, turning her head just so that she would nuzzle along Eärwen’s jaw and eventually come to rest on her shoulder. Never more than that, not since they had both been much younger, and even then only once.

Nostalgia rose warmly in Eärwen, and she sighed.

“Hmm?” asked Anairë, whose eyes had slipped half-lidded.

“I was thinking of the day in the spa,” said Eärwen. “Rather, missing it.”

“Is this not enough for you?” Anairë asked. “You know that it has to be.”

Eärwen had at times felt a rebellious spark, and sometimes given voice to it, too, leaning her forehead against Anairë’s and murmuring so close that she nearly touched Anairë’s lips, at the very least felt the warmth of her breath. It stirred in her again now, although if she were honest with herself, it could not come to pass any longer, not now that both she and Anairë were married, and were for all the world counted as sisters.

“I know. But we could at least pretend.” Eärwen opened the fist that still clutched the pearls she had gone diving for. “If we were to elope -”

“Elope?” Anairë puffed out an incredulous laugh. “Where?”

Eärwen grinned at her. “If you were truly opposed to it, you’d have objected by now.”

“We are not fifty any longer! Would they not miss us?”

“Token protests, and you know it! Anairë! Please stop trying to find excuses, just let us… let us… to Eressëa. I have never been there, and with so much of it uninhabited we could wander for months before anybody finds us!” Eärwen threaded her arm through Anairë’s and tugged her up into a sitting position. “You head to the palace to pack; I will arrange for our transportation. One of the wharf workers owes me a favour - her… innovations with the rudder were at fault that my boat lost so dismally at the races last time, and I haven’t called it in yet. If we are lucky, we won’t be found missing until breakfast tomorrow! Just don’t let anybody see you!”

Finally, Anairë began to grin. She was still shaking her head when she rose, and offered a hand to pull Eärwen to her feet, and then close to wrap an arm around her. Her fingers rubbed circles over the fabric of her swimming dress, just above her hip, perhaps without noticing, until Eärwen found it hard to think of an answer to Anairë’s quip. “Those who call me restless and overly nervous haven’t met the Princess of Alqualondë!”

“Well…” Eärwen said slowly, grinned, and freed herself. “Race you to the road!”

* * *

“Absolutely not red!”

“Henna and indigo, then,” said Anairë, biting her lips and failing to hide a grin as she steadied herself against the side of the boat when a wave rocked it. “It should make for a lovely brown even with you; Laitainë has been swearing by it, and her hair was not so different from yours.”

“Laitainë - your silk merchant?” Eärwen asked, deftly manipulating a rope and tying that into place. They had decided to go downwind along the coast first, purchase disguises in one of the fishing towns south of Calacirya, and then cross the shortest distance of open sea to Eressëa.

“The very same. She is Vanyarin, with some Telerin heritage in her past, but she has found that her sales go much better when she is perceived as one of the Noldor,” Anairë explained. “It’s the most common hair dye, unless you rather we gathered walnuts.”

“I’d rather not spend more time than necessary on this. Indigo and henna it is. And enough of my people have dark hair that I shouldn’t stand out as royalty - as long as it does not result in Nerdanel’s colouration; that would help no one.”

“Trust me,” Anairë said.

Eärwen sidled up to her and said, over the splash of waves on the hull, “I do.”

* * *

“I do not feel like myself.” Eärwen twisted the dark, wet strands of her hair around her finger and pulled them forward to look at. Her nose wrinkled. “And I do not smell like myself either.”

“You look lovely. You always do, but dark hair becomes you,” Anairë said in a low voice. “Your eyes stand out even more now.” It was obvious that she had problems looking away, and Eärwen felt a curious flutter in her stomach at the thought.

“My eyes, hmm? And pray tell, what is so mesmerizing about my eyes?”

“They are yours,” Anairë said. “I do not think I would love them as well in any other face. And,” she paused for full effect, “this is the only time I will humor you when you go fishing for compliments. You know I find you beautiful.” She ran a warm finger, stained dark brown around the nail, along the side of Eärwen’s face, over her jaw, and down her neck until it came to rest on the embroidery of Eärwen’s neckline.

“And what is this, now?” Eärwen could not find it in her to pull away, even though the lights of the fishing town were close behind them, and it was not unthinkable for people to come to the beach even in the gentle silver hours. The warmth of Anairë’s touch passed easily through the gauzy fabric and into her skin below. “Please,” she said, “Do not do that. Not if you do not intend to follow through.”

Anairë removed her hand. “I would, if not for…”

“... Arvo and Nolvo.” Eärwen could not help it - her voice ran tinged with regret. “We ought not be dishonest with them, but…”

“... if we are not, we’ll be dishonest with one another.”

It felt ridiculous, but Eärwen’s throat closed, and tears started into her eyes. She swiped them away with her hand, and leaned into Anairë’s hold. “We’ll need other dresses,” she said, trying to keep her mind from wandering. “The people on Eressëa have largely kept to their old ways, but even they will see that we are clothed much more richly than people usually go. And names. If we were to introduce ourselves as Anairë and Eärwen, no disguise in the world would keep us hidden.”

“Very true,” Anairë agreed. “There was a clothes-merchant on the market; if we are lucky she has not yet packed up for home.”

* * *

“Names. We still need names. I think I will steal poor Laitainë’s - it has a pretty ring to it, and I do not think anybody on Tol Eressëa will have heard of a Tirion silk merchant - now you,” Anairë said to Eärwen.

“Ciuravantië,” Eärwen said after brief contemplation. She tugged on the sea-green gown she had chosen before setting off, and paid for with some of the handful of pearls she had harvested in Alqualondë. Though simply cut, its colour nearly matched her eyes, down to the silver embroidery mirroring the silver flecks in her irises. She was very aware of Anairë’s gaze returning to her when she wasn’t watching the water below the boat with some distrust.

Anairë, who spoke enough Telerin to conduct business with Alqualondë’s couturiers, raised an eyebrow. “Is that a promise? Will this going-away renew anything?”

“If it makes you as laudable as your new name proclaims, perhaps?”

“We’ll see about either.”

* * *

They landed on Tol Eressëa at the early Mingling, and made to drag the boat high enough onto the beach so the rising tide would not wash it away. Halfway to a tumble of rocks that would make a good landmark to help find it again when they were ready for the return journey came a horrid sound of splintering wood. Eärwen straightened and assessed the damage with a glance, feeling ready for a tirade of unparalleled ferocity.
“The rudder,” she said, forcing the words through grinding teeth. “I am going to see Duimellë reassigned to cleaning out scallops for a decade before she ever gets to touch another piece of wood.”

“Can we fix it?” asked Anairë, taking the broken pieces out of the sand. “Or can we sail back without it?”

The questions had the desired effect; Eärwen’s mind focused and she calmed enough to examine the problem. “Drilling holes along the cracks and sewing them back together is possible if it is not too badly damaged,” said Eärwen. “It’s possible to sail without a rudder, too - but we would land in Avathar if we ever made it back to the coast at all - the two of us are not enough weight to keep the boat from pivoting, and with the currents as they are…”

“Then we should rather find someone here, and borrow a boat from them. If the rudder didn’t make it here without breaking while it was still undamaged, I’d rather not put my trust into one that’s already broken.”

“You are probably right,” Eärwen said. A sense of stubborn resignation had set in - she had been looking forward to this journey, and she would not be distracted from that now. And most importantly - Anairë was here with her.

She tossed one of the light packs at Anairë, followed by her bedroll, and once they had both shouldered them, they began to seek a path up the chalk cliffs to the mainland. The shadows were long, and the light from the Trees that filtered out over the Bay of Eldamar was much paler than in Aman, but nonetheless - wherever there was space for them to grow, plants had taken root, and nodded their flowers into the sea breeze. On the top of the cliffs trees grew, stretching their branches toward the light, and Eärwen eagerly vanished between them once she had gained solid ground.

Anairë followed her, smiling.

“It is almost like I imagine Cuiviénen,” she said. Even only a few steps in, the dense trees blocked the light, and overhead between the branches glimmered stars, small and silver in the gloom.

“It is,” Eärwen agreed. She had left her troubles on the beach below with the boat, and instead grasped Anairë’s hand and squeezed. “Come, this way!”

“You know where to go?” Anairë cried. “You planned this?”

“Not planned - but I may have wanted to take you to Eressëa for a long while now, it just… never seemed the right time, until now.”

“Now is the perfect time.” Still a little out of breath from the climb, Anairë slid her arms over Eärwen’s shoulders - and after a moment’s deliberation, leaned in to kiss her full on the mouth.

Eärwen did not pull away until the kiss was over.

* * *

They had been wandering for two days, staying on the western margin of the island, spear-fishing in the shallows and roasting their catch over open fires. If the change of the glow on the horizon proved a reliable way to tell the time, it was approaching evening again. Upland, Eressëa was heavily wooded, interrupted by open fields where, as Eärwen explained, the Teleri had once had their camps before they had made the last stretch of the journey to Aman. Those who had elected to stay were wanderers, and judging by recently-built fire pits, still came every now and then to these spots.

The light was silvering when Eärwen stopped and squeezed Anairë’s fingers, loosely curled in hers as they had remained for most of the time since the kiss. “Laitainë,” she said softly. “Do you hear that?”

“Ciuravantië?” The syllables came out in an uncertain hitch from Anairë’s lips. So far, being alone, they had not had to use their disguises, but Eärwen pointed ahead. There was a sheen of fire through the trees, sometimes dimmed by shadow when, apparently, someone moved past it.

Anairë sniffed. “By now I am fairly certain I know what roasted fish smells like. If I do not, I fear I may never learn.”

“And they are making music,” Eärwen added. “Shall we join them?”

Anairë gave her agreement, and soon after they found themselves welcomed with shouts and laughter by a family of seven, celebrating the newest addition to their kin. Eärwen made hasty apologies, but Gladanegdë, the leader of the group, laughed them away. “A wedding,” she said, drawing out the vowels in the lilting accent of old Telerin, “is celebrated better the more people there are. Give us your names and honour the brides, and you will be more than welcome!”

Eärwen’s heart hopped in her chest. “We will!” she agreed, wondering if there was truth to the saying it was possible to grin wide enough that one’s cheeks would hurt. If so, waking with an aching face would be a fate almost certainly awaiting her the next morning. She wound her fingers through Anairë’s, who looked surprised, but was likewise smiling.

“Our names are Laitainë and Ciuravantië. We have brought no gifts, but there are these…” She pulled out the remainder of the pearls she had with her. “From the other shore, the Swanhaven’s own. May they bring you luck and prosperity, and the good wishes of all of Alpalondë’s people!”

She poured some of the pearls into Anairë’s palm, and stretched out their cupped hands toward the brides who came forward hand in hand, both dark-haired and with laughing eyes. “Belturë and I thank you!” said the other, Gladanegdë’s daughter, who shared her mother’s rich, sweet laughter. “Now you are more than welcome - but tell me, are you lovers as well? It is not often that we meet folk such as us!”

“No,” said Anairë.
“Yes,” said Eärwen at the same time.

Stunned silence fell, and for a moment the only sounds were the crackle of the fire, the rush of the sea, and the wind rustling through the trees at the meadow’s edge.

“Well… which is it?” asked Belturë. She was still smiling, but the confusion showed through the goodwill in her voice.

“It… is a little strange. We kissed,” said Anairë.

“Twice,” added Eärwen, thinking back again not just to Anairë’s exuberant show of gratitude when they had landed, but also to the day in the spa, a memory she continued to cherish and refused to forget.

“Then you… would be lovers, but are not?”

“Yes,” said Anairë. Eärwen said nothing, too busy with the attempt to keep breathing.

“Alparë,” said Belturë to her wife, and the grin that spread on her face made Eärwen fear the worst - or best. She could not deny that whatever they held in store was something she would desire - but ought not. Even now, the thought of Arafinwë, and, more distantly, of Nolofinwë, made her stomach twist.

Belturë, whether oblivious to Eärwen’s plight, or entirely too devious for her own good, retrieved a clay bottle from among the array of bowls, cups and bottles by the fire, and handed it to Anairë. “Drink,” she encouraged, and Anairë took a deep swig, lowered the bottle, and hissed.

“What is that?”

“Licorice root spirits,” replied Belturë, cheerfully. “It helped us, why wouldn’t it help you?”

“It’s… like nothing I ever had,” said Anairë, clearly grasping at straws to find something to say, other than what was obvious on her face. She passed the bottle to Eärwen, who took a long draught, then another, and a third, that filled her mouth with wave after wave of bitter, pungent taste burning its way down her throat. Alparë pulled the bottle from her lips with a soft cry of alarm. “Enough, if you mean to make it through the night with your dignity intact!”

It took effect almost at once, perhaps owed to the fact that she had not eaten much over the past few days. From the heat swilling in her stomach, a tendril snaked up her spine, prickling at the back of her neck. Her eyes were watering, and she leaned against Anairë for purchase, who gladly granted it, nuzzling at her hair.

“I am not sure I want to keep my dignity intact, if this means to continue pining for you,” Eärwen said, and turned her face to rest it against Anairë’s shoulder and hide the way her tongue was already slurring her speech. The figures of the other Elves had withdrawn to the fire, and a new beat sprang up, accompanied by another woman’s song that throbbed in the rhythm of the flames. The thumping of a drum joined the music, and then bird-like piping. Belturë and Alparë began to dance, in elegant leaps and bounds around the fire, a stylized chase that made Eärwen’s spinning head spin even more to follow. Nonetheless, she tugged on Anairë’s hand.

“Come - let us dance, too!”

“No, let me watch,” Anairë said without turning her eyes from the spectacle, in a timbre that made Eärwen shiver.

The music sped up almost as soon as she had spoken, and rose into a crescendo. Another bound of Belturë’s, and she wound her arms about Alparë, who fell slack and then arched up for a kiss. The music faded with a beat, replaced by ribald yells and cheers from their family, and the two of them fled, pursued by more shouts and laughter, into the darkness underneath the trees.

Following the receding figures with her eyes, Anairë murmured, barely audible over the noise, “Do you know how hard it has been to keep myself from kissing you senseless? Perhaps I ought to give in.”

Eärwen shivered and tilted her head up in expectation, and nearly stumbled when Anairë pulled on her hand, breaking into a run in the opposite direction from Alparë and Belturë. Again there sprang up cheers and bawdy shouts following them into the quieter darkness, where Anairë helped Eärwen lie down in the soft grass, and stretched out alongside her.

* * *

“And you are certain you want this?” Anairë’s face was peering down at Eärwen from the shadows of her hair. Regarding her through half-lidded eyes, Eärwen nodded. “I want this. I want this. I am not so drunk that I do not know I love you.”

“But what about Araf--”

The words dropped into silence when Eärwen slid a hand over Anairë’s lips. “I do not know what the Princes of the Noldor have to do with us here. Laitainë.”

“Oh.”

Anairë leaned in once again, pausing just short of Eärwen’s lips, and when Eärwen looked up, her eyes were wide in the darkness of the trees. “Say my name,” she breathed.

“Ciuravantië.” As soon as the word had slipped from Anairë’s lips, Eärwen pushed herself up on her elbows and closed the distance between them, shifting until Anairë lay beneath her. Anairë’s mouth still tasted of the liquor, but her lips were warm and soft, and yielded easily, and she made the sweetest sound Eärwen could remember hearing in her life - not that there was much left of it, because the world rapidly was narrowing to the glade and the darkness and the warmth of Anairë’s touch on her face.

Both of them were panting for breath when they came apart, and neither spoke. Eärwen leaned in again for another kiss, but Anairë kept it teasingly short, breaking away almost immediately, kissing a path up along her jaw and behind her ear to her temple and nuzzling there, purring sweet, meaningless things into her hair.

“Kiss me again, come,” Eärwen said, but instead she kissed the column of Anairë’s throat and smiled to hear her breath shudder, then down until she came to the fabric covering the gentle curve of Anairë’s breast and against temptation did not give in to kiss there, rather sliding further down still to her stomach, where she rested her head.

Anairë kissed her hair. “You do not have to go on, dear heart.”

“I want to, if you will let me.”

“I will, gladly.” She had no intention of stopping unless Anairë voiced objections, but the quick heartbeat and swift breathing under her ear were too lovely, and the simple truth of it was that her limbs felt too contently heavy from the drink and the closeness.

“Hmm? That looks more like falling asleep to me,” Anairë said with a soft laugh.

“Falling asleep on you,” Eärwen rumbled, and pressed a kiss to her stomach. She did not truly feel like moving again, and it took Anairë rubbing her thumb in circles over the back of her hand to rouse herself a little more than the comfortable, half-asleep state she had been slipping into.

“Awake again?”

“I think I am,” Eärwen replied lazily, and lifted Anairë’s hand to her mouth. Her eyes fluttered shut when Anairë touched her lips, and she slid upward for another kiss, more languid than the first, and by the end of it Eärwen was the one moaning against Anairë’s lips. “Please,” she breathed. “Please.”

How she came to be divested of her dress and underclothes - and Anairë along with her - she couldn’t quite remember afterwards, but Anairë’s touch lingered warmly on the skin stretching over her hip-bone, a trail of wet, sloppy kisses down the center of her stomach that cooled in the night air, and Anairë’s fingers sliding over her inner thighs, until she began to laugh.

“It seems… it seems we have forgotten… what a mismatch.” She bent her head over the trail of remaining silvery hair, and Eärwen moaned, all her breathless laughter, objections and coherent thoughts vanishing under Anairë’s tongue.

* * *

Someone - one of the Teleri - had been kind to them. A blanket lay spread over her and Anairë, who still slept with her arm flung over Eärwen’s middle and her head burrowed between her breasts. Eärwen’s head ached a little, but she had felt much worse for wear after other festivals, with none of the pleasant thrum throughout her body that was following this night. She still had an aftertaste of salt in her mouth, too, and gladly reached for the water-skin set out alongside a loaf of bread and a leaf-wrapped grilled fish.

“Anairë,” she said once she had rinsed her mouth, speaking close against the graceful curve of her ear poking between tangled strands of hair and blades of grass caught in it. “Wake up, dearest.”

Anairë blinked at her, before the confused expression made way for a smile. “Is it morning?”

“It is, I think,” said Eärwen “- or day, over in Aman at least.” Between the trees, the light shimmered golden. Then she turned her head away in a decisive motion, and sighed.

“Regret, now? We have not betrayed them,” said Anairë, and grasped Eärwen’s hand. “And it will be a while until we can sail back. We can come to terms with it before we do.”

“I wonder,” Eärwen replied, burrowing against Anairë again. “But… it is not regret. Whatever it is we did, I cannot regret it. Not while you are with me.”

“I shall be, always.”