I've Hungered for Your Touch by oshun

Author's Notes:

First, I am terrible at naming OCs, so I stole the name of the Elven singer, Calyaro, from “By Stars' Light” by Erfan Starled. (A heartbreaking story that I would highly recommend.)

I wrote this story as I did, because I relished the idea of creating a romance for Caranthir and Haleth. That was the story I learned when I first came around the Tolkien fandom and I loved it (despite knowing it had no basis in canon). It was told in fanfic as every bit of a tale of star-crossed lovers as Aegnor/Andreth and Beren and Lúthien. The tale of this Fëanorian brother and his lost love did not earn itself, even in fanon, the happy ending of Beren and Lúthien, but rather a heartbreaking tragedy similar to that of the ill-fated lovers whose separation is discussed in the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth.

The beauty and the diversity of fanfiction is that we are able to write the stories that touch our hearts. “History as the historians practice it is in constant motion, but history as the general reader remembers it is held down by inertia. Like Tolkien’s hobbits, we like to hear stories we already know, after all.” (James J. O’Donnell, Pagans: The End of Traditional Religion and the Rise of Christianity.) My aim is not to sell a book or promote an agenda; it is to entertain myself and small number of people at least who may find that story moving.

I apologize to readers who would have liked to read the story of Haleth which celebrates that she did not need a man to complete her life. Actually, even in my romance, she isn’t looking for one. In her brief encounter with Caranthir, she finds a kindred soul and falls in love. She did not want or need a husband and, being true to herself and her principles, she refused even to follow him to a safer land, closer to him.

But I have written her as a warm and romantic sort. Many, looking back at long, eventful, and difficult lives, realize that love relationships often need to end. Knowing that does not kill the romance for all of us. Some of us, like me, turn to fantasy to find comfort in the age-old story of star-crossed lovers. Perhaps, like the author said above, this impulse is held in place by inertia. It might be better defined as the transcendentally human desire to be soothed by the old familiar stories.

She loved him and he loved her, but they could not make it work. Well, perhaps the unwritten truth here is that through loving and parting, turning to duty and oaths sworn, they gained strength to go on alone and do what they believed was right. The memory of the heartbreak meant they could put sentimentality behind them and do what they believed was needed of them. As I imagined it here, to write that story or read it drew bittersweet tears from both but left them with a memory that they honored.