Any Wise and Wintry Thing by Elleth

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Chapter 1

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The music dimmed behind Evranin when servants shut the doors behind her. She breathed a prayer of thanks at both of them, and received wry smiles in return.

The midwinter feast in Doriath's throne room was overcrowded. The forest factions always sent representatives, and once the feasting had concluded they'd receive Melian's blessings for the newly-lengthening days. This year, Thingol also hosted visiting craftsmen and merchants from Nargothrond and the Havens, which in turn drew all the bored courtiers and curious gossips that might not otherwise attend. The air had become warm and heavy passing through many more lungs than common, the scents of food, wine and sweat under a myriad perfumes mingled into a cloying fume that made Evranin's skin feel sticky. Up on the royal dais, the voices mingled into a buzz and hum that made her head ache, and she was not the only one: She had seen many familiar faces make their escapes as soon as an opportunity presented itself, and finally could not stay any longer herself.

Out in the hallway it was quieter and cooler, and Evranin relished the breath of fresh air that always swept through the tunnels and underground hallways. It was a palpable relief to escape, but she regretted, as she made her way to her apartments, that she had given away her chance to meet the woman who'd been watching her from a place of honour among the visitors from Nargothrond - dark-haired and sharp-featured, a bright glint of mingled gold and silver in her eyes that stood out strikingly against the warm dark of her skin. She had reminded Evranin of the adage for the West-Elves, lachenn, flame-eyed, that some of her people used to describe them, perhaps most of all in how she had been forward enough in her interest that something might have come of it.

She felt herself blush at the thought and clucked her tongue in irritation. The Golodhrim had a reputation of being stuffy and inflexible; she was reaching for fancies and certainly had no intention to proclaim herself married, as was their custom - least of all to one of them, as the other woman certainly would expect if it came to any sort of encounter. It bewildered her, and brought to mind more overcrowded halls, this time for a wedding feast. The thought made her huff out a startled laugh.

Now far behind her, but echoing loudly along the corridors, the noise from the hall increased momentarily, then quieted again - another escapee, she suspected, especially when the soft scuff of footsteps on stone followed after her. Evranin paused in an ivy-grown alcove in the hall under a light shaft that opened into a starry sky, a trickle of water running down the side of the rock into a basin. She splashed her cheeks to refresh herself, and pushed a sweat-damp strand of hair back into place under her wreath of enamelled niphredil. She did not particularly feel like meeting anybody after the feast, but when the other escapee passed her alcove, she took a double take.

It was the Golodh woman.

Evranin made herself stay among the ivy until she'd passed, but her eyes didn't leave the other woman. Standing up, she seemed different - taller than Evranin had expected, and the fluency of her movements underscored a muscular build that sitting at a table had at least partially hidden. It'd been a glimpse only, but her short, smooth hair curled, as sweat-damp as Evranin's own, at the nape of her neck, just above the finely-worked golden pectoral necklace that was her only spot of ornamentation and drew Evranin's eyes to a throat that she imagined, briefly, working under her lips.

She shook her head, irritated at herself. She never indulged in too much wine - her duties did not allow it, as distant kin to Thingol and one Melian's maidens who could claim a smidgen of magic as her own, always encouraged to guard and listen to the forest and any distress that might befall it - yet here she was, besotted as if by drink.

She slipped from the alcove and continued her way. The feast and the woman's wolfish interest must have weighed on her mind more than she realized, and it would be good to rest until the impulse to follow this foolish notion had left her.

It did not occur to Evranin to question why a visitor was going in direction of the quarters of Doriath's inhabitants, rather than the guest rooms she would have been given, until she entered the corridor that held the gate to her home, and the Golodh was waiting for her by it, leaning against the wall with crossed arms and have a smirk on her infuriating face.

"Excuse me," Evranin said, perhaps rougher than intended. "I was not aware that I had invited you to my home, nor that I had given anybody permission to share where to find me."

"Ah," said the Golodh, and the smirk changed into a similarly infuriating smile in the way it lit up her face and sharpened her features even more. "I won't ask your pardon, but I couldn't help but notice you in the hall, and it seemed that you were more than a little interested in your turn, looking at me. I thought that might be a good sign. I saw no harm in enquiring after you… Evranin, is that right?"

Her voice, when the Golodh spoke her name, was a pleasant, amused timbre, as smooth as her eyes were sharp, and Evranin felt a shiver travel down her spine, the seed pearls on her dress chafing against the skin of her back ever so slightly.

"At least you could give me your name in turn if you know mine," she snarled. She felt as prickly as the holly leaves that adorned the woman's pectoral, picked out golden in a lovely contrast against the deeper colour of her skin.

"Gereth of Nargothrond, smith of the house of Celebrimbor son of Curufin, formerly of the following of Curufin son of Fëanor, and I would be glad to be at your service." Gereth smiled an easy smile, and Evranin's resistance crumbled, though her anger at being both surprised and overwhelmed did not. She moved toward the gate and pulled the keychain from her belt, but it slipped through her useless fingers and chimed to the polished limestone floor. As Evranin picked it up, she could only just make out her reflection in the material, spectre-like, but with a deep red flush in her cheeks.

"Well then, Gereth, how are you liking Doriath?" she asked haltingly, her hand poised to unlock the door but not moving, and "Have you seen the forest yet?"

"When I came here in summer - and I liked it well enough," said Gereth. "No other way here than to pass through it." She laughed, and Evranin's cheeks flooded with more heat. "But I haven't been aboveground much, since," Gereth continued. "There's good trade to be had here, and I'm used to being underground from home. Nargothrond doesn't quite afford the same freedom Doriath's forest does. It's a pity, in a way. I should find the time sometime."

When no answer came, Gereth gave her another disarming smile. "Would you like to show me? I hear it is lovely in winter, and lovelier in lovely company."

And just like that, Evranin was lost.

*

They had come to walk hand-in-hand at some point; Evranin was no longer sure when it happened, only that the chafe of Gereth's callouses against her own skin and the warmth of her palm were maddening. If Gereth noticed, she betrayed no emotion or desire, quite contrary to her forwardness in the hall.

And even so, it delighted Evranin how much interest Gereth took in the forest - learning about Melian's Girdle and the Queen's power that kept it intact, the borders that kept out those who meant harm to Doriath, and the creatures of Nan Dungortheb to the north that always strove with Melian. Most life was dormant in the snowy forest, a palette of white snow under the deep blue night sky studded with stars through a veil of mist, but that did not stop Gereth's questions and inquisitive mind seizing on the few winter flowers that Doriath was home to.

When Gereth bent to examine the unseasonal niphredil growing sheltered at the base of an oak tree, murmuring, "Are these the same you're wearing?" after a look at Evranin's hair ornaments, Evranin gave up her resistance, seized Gereth by the shoulders and pushed her upright against the bole of the tree.

An eyeblink passed.

Gereth stood pinned, and Evranin balanced on the protruding roots of the tree. This way, Evranin stoodd nearly of a height with Gereth, enough to be face-to-face, and found herself entranced by the way Gereth's generous lips opened, half in surprise and half in expectation, the soft smile-creases at the corners of her mouth and the luminous specks in her eyes that shimmered with the light of the Two Trees.

Gereth seemed no less entranced, to not resist. Evranin swallowed her final misgiving and leaned in to kiss her, artlessly and desperately until Gereth's lips opened further against hers. Their tongues brushed, and the touch was enough to send a jolt through Evranin, heat and the heady thrill of surprise. She took it as permission to deepen the kiss, slipping a hand into Gereth's thick, silk-smooth hair to hold her in place, and Gereth reciprocated in kind, grasping a handful of Evranin's silver and moaning into her mouth to feel Evranin's teeth close around her lower lip.

"I had not thought you had it in you," Gereth laughed when they finally came apart, breathless and flushed, and Evranin already missed the contact. She kept her hand cradled against the back of Gereth's head, between that and the rough bark of the oak, and pulled their foreheads together, relishing in the closeness and the scent of smoke and wine - forge and feast - on Gereth's skin, but it was not enough to last more than a moment.

"You must have bespelled me," Evranin muttered. "From the moment you laid eyes on me in the hall, you took a hold on my mind, and you infuriated me, and I cannot say why I want you so, but I do," she said. "So kiss me, or I must go mad."

"Mad perhaps, but I rather hope for a different kind of madness," Gereth said, and kissed her until Evranin tore her mouth away, lingering momentarily on Gereth's jaw and the hollow of her throat where sweat left a salt taste against her lips, on the cool metal of the pectoral, holly leaves and three white gems in between clusters of ruby-wrought berries, lovely craftwork under her lips that closed with the cream neckline of her dress. Gereth's head fell back against the tree, trapping Evranin's hand, and she arched against Evranin's tongue licking now at the exposed sliver of skin between fabric and jewelry, and Gereth's calloused fingers cupped her breasts through the collar of ermine and the filmy purple silk of her dress.

In some distant part of her mind she hadn't expected Gereth's fingers to be so deft, but her touches went straight to Evranin's head, making her feel, once again, besotted and lightheaded as if by too much wine.

She faltered in her balance on the tree roots, all but falling into Gereth's arms and pressing her further against the tree, aligning their bodies warm and close together. Gereth laughed at Evranin's startled sound and her arm came around Evranin, sliding from her hip to her ass, and she bent down to take Evranin's lip between her teeth.

"Shh, I have you," she said, when they stood comfortably again, Evranin now on tiptoes just to reach. The noise that she made, when the hand that had been on her breast now cupped the entirety of Evranin's cheek, was strange and unfamiliar to her own ears. She felt impossibly petite, overwhelmed and lost in the forest that was her home, suspended between desires, and kissed Gereth again with a force that quieted none of the hammering of her heart or mind.

She couldn't wait for Gereth's fingers to push their way into her until she'd be able to rock herself against the palm of Gereth's hand until bliss overwhelmed her.

She couldn't wait to taste Gereth fully, fill her mouth with taste, and see her overmastered until she begged.

Eventually, it won out. The image of Gereth's knees buckling under Evranin's ministrations, and the thought of bringing Gereth to her undoing bright on the forefront of her mind, she sank to her knees among the niphredil, pushed the creamy fabric of Gereth's dress up around her hips and her undercloths aside, and kissed along the trail of coarse hair leading downward from her navel to her center. Gereth's hands came down heavy on her head, in an exhale that left Gereth's entire body tense with lust and expectation. Evranin briefly thought of how they must look, the fistfuls of Evranin's silver hair in Gereth's hands as she pushed her forward with a breathy noise that left Evranin no more room to tease or even hesitate.

She found that she did not mind in the slightest.

*

The din of the fight and the screams of the dying dimmed behind Evranin as she ran, bend after bend headlessly through the corridors of Menegroth. Had Elwing not continued her frightened wailing, Evranin would have feared to have smothered her in the folds of blanket pressed against her shoulder and hiding the glow of the Silmaril around her throat.

Miraculously, they were not followed except by companions that had passed the child to her.

She burst into a forest that was stifling with fire and smoke; every breath as she continued running through soot-blackened snow rasped her throat more and more raw. Elwing had quieted, and next Evranin looked back, she had lost her companions somewhere in the trees. Only the weight of Elwing in her arms gave her a steadiness and purpose.

Nothing else mattered now.

She had wept and wept when the tidings of the first fall of Doriath had come to Lanthir Lamath where she had been serving Nimloth then, far from danger. She had never thought to return there, nor, when she made the journey back west, that it would fall a second time. Now that it had, now that she had seen the young princes seized and carried off, it lived only in Elwing.

She cast her senses out, and the misery of the forest nearly bore her to her knees in the trampled snow, but desperation gave her speed in spite of it. Evranin only dared to slow to a walk when the snow first became undisturbed, and then midwinter snowdrifts deepened and numbed her legs, often up to her thighs. Evranin could not say where she was; her senses still reeled and the night was clouded and starless, and a storm threatened. The weather would surely end her, and end Elwing sooner, if she found no help - the ill-considered, headless flight had let them escape from the swords of the Sons of Fëanor but the cold would just as surely slay them.

At last, perhaps near-morning lightening the clouds, when Elwing took up her wailing again, out of hunger and cold, Evranin leaned against the silvery-smooth bole of a tree. In a startled moment, she noted that she stood in a patch of niphredil, and with it came an odd and alien spark in between the misery and the leaden weight of tiredness pulling on her eyelids, a memory of herself on her knees overcome by lust.

She remembered trusting Gereth, could feel Gereth's hand in hers, when Gereth pulled her to her feet and kissed the wet mess that had become her mouth.

"Evranin - voices," Gereth had laughed and breathlessly pulled her forward, deeper into the trees.

The memory made her stomach churn with bile - the three white jewels in Gereth's pectoral, the same in the livery of all the House of Fëanor, slayers of kin, oath-bound and cursed. She had been a fool, then, to not even question her introduction, and to divulge so much about Doriath's defenses.

Why now, why so much vivacity of a memory hundreds of years old?

"There is a marchwardens' shelter nearby," Gereth said. "You'll be safe there; come."

That wasn't right. That had never happened. They had fled back into Menegroth then, to Evranin's chambers and into her bed.

She stumbled forward to the pull on her hand.

"Come! You'll freeze out here, and the princess with you! The Valar must love you, Evranin, to have escaped this unscathed!"

Desperation gave her strength enough to force Gereth against the nearest tree, for her shaking fingers to have a sure hold on the knife she tore from a sheath on Gereth's belt and to hold Elwing safe with the other.

"The Valar must love me so that I must bloody my hands on you?!"

"Evranin, look at what you are holding. Please." Gereth's voice pled quietly and steadily with her, even while the edge of the knife shivered a hair's breadth from her throat. "I am no longer with the sons of Fëanor. Not in heart since they were ousted from Nargothrond. Not in loyalty since Nargothrond fell and I came here a refugee. I am innocent of the carnage. Look at the knife. "

It fell from Evranin's shaking hand, the silver of the blade flashing before it dropped into the snow, etched with Gereth's name and the crest of the marchwardens of Doriath.

Tears pooled hot and sudden in Evranin's eyes, and relief overwhelmed her resistance.

"Lead the way," she said, and slipped her hand into Gereth's, tilting her head up when Gereth's lips warmed against her skin, kissing her tears away. Finally, Gereth led her into the newly-lengthening morning.

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Chapter End Notes

The title is from Edna St. Vincent Millay's Sonnet IV.