April Fancies by AdmirableMonster

Pengolodh hasn’t laughed in a long time, and this isn’t a mirthful laugh, but it’s something perhaps better—a joyful one.  They never thought to see Lofar again, after their hasty parting in the wake of Eregion’s fall—not in Lofar’s current incarnation, at least, and the Dwarvish idea of reincarnation is strange and foreign to them, even after years of staying in the mountain.

“My journey,” Lofar’s hands say, their eyes twinkling as their feet take them down the first steps of the path to Imladris.  “My sweet sunrise.”

Pengolodh has cried more recently than they have laughed, but they wonder if they have ever done both together before.  Not in a long time.  Their hands catch at their spouse’s, pulling them close, kissing their mouth and nose and eyes and rubbing their face against that beautifully-cultivated beard woven with pretty stones and shells and beads.

“I have left behind the stones of my people and come to gather stones with you,” Lofar says in Khuzdul, mouth and hands shaping the words so there is no mistaking them.  An ancient Dwarvish saying, Pengolodh knows, but not one they fully understood before this.

“I greet you upon the stones of my hearth,” they reply, and they bend over again to kiss capture Lofar’s lips with theirs.

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It’s raining, ferocious, grey, and ugly.  Nimruzimir shivers with cold, trying to shelter himself with an old newspaper, which is rapidly becoming sodden, unpleasant, and no kind of shelter at all.  Winter in Armenelos was always like this: one long soggy smear.  In Lond Daer, where he grew up, the winds sometimes blew from the north, carrying heavy snows, which shone like bright diamonds beneath a cold Sun.  His mother used to take him outside to play, and he filled his pockets with snow and brought the snow back inside, marveling at the way the flakes quickly transmuted into water droplets.  Taking them back outside made them freeze, and if he spread the water carefully, it would freeze in a thin, shimmering layer, clear and almost reflective, but it would never again grow into those beautiful crystalline shapes that stacked altogether made white.

“Need a hand?” says a thunderous, hoarse voice, a little too close to his ear.  He jumps, and an unfortunate quantity of rain goes down the back of his neck.  “Sorry, man.”

It’s Lilóteo, swathed in a heavy black raincoat, his beard tucked beneath it, holding up a black umbrella, which he diffidently holds out over Nimruzimir’s head.

“Ah—thank you.”  Nimruzimir shuffles, feeling warmth in his cheeks warring with the cold of the rainwater.

“You’ll have to squeeze in close, the umbrella’s not very big.”

He’s kind, Nimruzimir thinks, squeezing closer—gruff, but kind.  He knows little of the head of his order yet, but some part of him stops regretting the loss of the winters of his childhood in favor of enjoying the sudden warmth of his present.

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The sea was already rising around him when Uilin realized he was not going to see another sunset.  It was funny, because he’d accepted he was going to die when the other members of his Faithful temple turned on him and the other worshipers of Ossë, so he did not bother to renounce his god, and he was able to keep the others safe, at least, when they did.  But it had not occurred to him until the sea was already here that he would be carried away beneath the cloud of ash that had risen to block out the sun.  And there would be no new sight of the Sun until after there was no Númenor anymore, either.

It was foolish for it to be that realization that broke him, as he sank into the waves.  He had already accepted that the folk of Númenor had lost the favor of the gods, but some part of him wailed with the loss of the Sun.  (The tide rose.)

Beneath the water, there was silence all around, and Uilin, despite the buoyancy of his plump frame, sank like a stone in his ragged, too-heavy robes.  Above him, there was only darkness, though he knew that somewhere there must be light, for the roar of the Meneltarma as the ocean struck the raw fire in the heart of the earth had been a sound louder than the loudest thunderclap.

No, something inside him cried.  Air bubbled from his lungs.

And then, hands caught his shoulders, carrying him back upward.  His head broke the surface.  (Around him, the tide fell.)

My faithful, the waves whispered.  My faithful! the white water roared.

Ossë rose, carrying his devout with him.

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The world is ending all around them: maybe that’s why Pengolodh is in bed with a kinslayer.  When they were young, they were fanciful and romantic in their imaginings of a lover.  Then, Gondolin fell, taking their innocence with her.

The man who gave only the name Erestor moves inside them, mouth opening, slim and still beautiful hands splayed across Pengolodh’s hips.  (He was not at Sirion, he said.  He was not at Sirion.  This matters.  No matter what else he has done, his hand did not bring flames to the lorehouse, his voice did not leave Dírhavel a dead shell on its floor.)

The world seems large beneath the stars, almost empty, nothing here but Pengolodh and their thoughts and their sharp-edged lover.  Morning will not come for a long time; perhaps it will not come at all.  Beleriand is dying, and they are all running from the truth. The truth is that the water will take them.  They bite down on Erestor’s shoulder, and he fucks them harder, pressing a sweat-soaked forehead into theirs.  The two of them found a scrap of blanket, laid themselves out in the field beneath the cold white stars.  At least it means Pengolodh need not trade barbs with Gil-Galad’s other advisor, at least they have one night of peace.

In Gondolin, Pengolodh sacrificed to Varda, laying pretty stones and feathers upon her altar, courting the favor of the distant lady of the stars.  Now, they wonder if she is watching now, or if the skies above them are empty.  They wonder which thought is more fearful.

Erestor’s nails scrape down their back, and he kisses them.  Pengolodh kisses back, fierce and lost.  He pulls back; his teeth carve a path of pleasure-pain down their collarbone and across their shoulder.  Pengolodh’s cunt twitches around Erestor’s cock in response, their eyes twitching shut, leaving them for a long and fearful instant trapped in the darkness behind their eyelids.

When they open their eyes, they are not alone.  Erestor pants against them, holding them, solid and sure, and they think they no longer care what he has done.  What would the young Gondolindrim who smiled too shyly for anyone to notice think?  (Doesn’t matter: they are dead now, like everyone else.)

The world is ending, but Pengolodh is not alone.

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Sleep, my love; may the river guide you.  You are silent now, my black-eyed beauty, and your eyes are shut.  I have searched for you, the world over, and this is our only reunion.  Your face is peaceful: more lined than I remember, a cliff carved from granite.  Your hair is white (do you remember how we jested about a white raven on our wedding day? Now you are the white raven.)  I should not have shirked from telling you the truth of our children’s fate—believe me, love, it was for me, and not for you.  You have always been the bravest woman in the world, and Arda will not see your like again.

I am sorry I was so delayed.  I know I made promises to thee I have not kept, but I hope that thou wilt believe that I have tried.  Sleep, my Morwen, my steel-souled love.  I will follow when I can.

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