The Small and Secret Things by Dawn Felagund

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The Song

I have fallen woefully behind in the daily drabble, though the reason behind this is not entirely bad: instead of drabbling, I am working on full-length stories. Nonetheless, I am attempting to catch up with some past Words of the Day that I found particularly inspiring.

This one is for Unsung Heroine and is a (very belated) birthday gift. She asked for a surprise, which I knew to mean "Caranthir/Haleth, preferably with some angst" (and which UH quickly verified!) The following six drabbles, I hope, accomplish just that. In these drabbles, I have incorporated her AU unconventional view of canon with my AU unconventional view of canon: Caranthir and Haleth were romantically involved, and Caranthir was unusually prescient and perceptive to the hidden thoughts and emotions of others. So it's safe to assume that this piece is AU unconventional.

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I.

"Nothing should ever hope to stop you," Haldad used to tease his obstinate daughter, and he'd died in proving himself right.

But Haleth is stopped now, frozen in place with her hand resting against the canvas tent flap; even her breath has stopped, and if not for the frantic lobbing of her heart, she might believe herself paralyzed. Yet it is not an enemy's sword or voiceless, fathomless grief that seizes her so; it is none of the multitude of obstacles that have sought to waylay her--indeed, end her--in the past.

It is a song.

Just a song.

II.

"I wish to give you a gift."

Caranthir was always serious, his gray eyes intent as she struggled to keep impassive. We are political allies. To both peoples, they were not even friends. But he stared, like beneath her rigid countenance, something moved that no one else could sense, something that fascinated him. He could not look away.

Nonsense.

Yet her request was akin to a lovestruck adolescent, not a fearless chieftain. "A song then," she said, and heat rose in her face.

"No," he said, and at her stricken expression, elaborated, "You are deserving. But I do not sing."

III.

Rebuked, she never named a request, and he never asked again.

It is a full moon, and they always meet on the night of the full moon. He leaves his fortress to hunt and she goes to him, and only the jewel-bright stars mark their indiscretions.

Not tonight.

Tonight, she tells him that she is leaving.

In their nights of love, his inflections never shift; his countenance never changes. But yet she senses something stirring deep within him and it makes her ache inside, like the joy and grief it contains might stop her heart, if she felt it fully.

IV.

He does not sing. Trying to feel surprised at that. I thought all Elves sang.

But Caranthir is not like all Elves--or even much like his brothers, possessing none of their self-important bluster. He'd approached her after routing the Orcs with the same flat expression as he wore while he read accounting documents.

Even when he tells me he loves me--

And he cares little for Elven finery, preferring soot-gray, too-large tunics and crude farm implements, the latter used without mercy on the weeds plaguing the roses he grows between the corn and the zucchini in his kitchen garden.

V.

"Why don't you sing?" They'd had too much wine, and in the intimacy of his embrace, she felt she could ask him anything.

"Because my voice is awful." All was simple to Caranthir, never spoken with the overwrought profusion of his kinsmen. "Fëanáro made us sing at festivals, but I pretended, and he never knew. Like this."

His mouth writhed in the shape of silent songs in Quenya, and Haleth laughed and kissed him, where the words sang against her lips, then in her throat, then wreathed her heart, and she saw how wrong he was.

His voice was beautiful.

VI.

Stopped outside his tent, she hears that voice again, deep inside where she imagines their union lies, forged of love and indestructible, no matter how far she strays.

It is the song she once requested of him, and it was written in joy by one in love. In it lie one thousand touches and kisses, and full-moon nights that neither wants to end.

But it is not sung that way.

He knows.

The song has changed to one of grief: its theme, joy; its counterpoint, loss, which--tears bright upon her face in the moonlight--she steps forward to deliver.

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Chapter End Notes

Today's Word:

maudlin MAWD-lin, adjective:

Tearfully or excessively sentimental.

Maudlin is an alteration of (Mary) Magdalene, who in paintings was often represented with eyes red and swollen from weeping.