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Chapter Text

The silence went on for a while, first comfortably, then with some tension as his own carefully-maintained poise thinned over unsettled worry. This was poor timing for disquiet: Annatar arched an eyebrow in mild question, undeceived by his outer calm. He cleared his throat, lightly pressed Annatar’s wrist, and told himself firmly that to ask this and have it answered would tell him a great deal about how foolish he’d just been.

“While I was elevated to my current position as Celebrimbor,” he said, “I do prefer to be called Tyelpe in private. And in … bed.” Annatar was normally unruffled, every inch the gracious messenger even in private; but he looked at Tyelpe with just a hint of shock. Tyelpe’s jaw squared. “You needn’t tell me it’s unusual to use a Quenya name in these days, nor that it’s childish to use a diminutive; should you find this discomfiting, simply refuse and do not –”

Annatar smoothly placed his fingertips at the join of Tyelpe’s lips, a swift, rather imperious, and surprisingly intimate gesture that cut off brisk and bitter speech. “I was only surprised you thought the name you know yourself by needed defending. Of course I shall call you by your preferred name, Tyelpe.”

Annatar had spoken every syllable flawlessly, neither slurring them together nor lingering too long over the vowels. Of course he had; Tyelpe was only surprised because he was used to it being mangled, for how often, these days, did one encounter a native speaker of Quenya? and Annatar would of course be fluent. Tyelpe paused a moment, reviewing what had been said. He hadn’t meant to reveal that it was the name he used in his mind for himself. He squashed his suspicion, reminding himself that Fëanor had gotten nowhere by being suspicious. “I am surprised,” he said carefully, “that you should say this as though it were granted, for I thought the ways of our naming were found somewhat quaint in Valinor.”

For a moment Annatar was looking through him. “What have we to choose in this world,” he said, not asked, “if not what names we shall be known by?”

Melian, already chiding and wan after the audience with Beren, had closed herself in her chamber as soon as Lúthien was found to be gone, furious with her husband – this can only end in blood, she told him, you have taken a curse upon the Noldor that could have ended and turned it into something to divide Beleriand's peoples forevermore, and our daughter is caught up in that turning. Elu, who had once found it impossible to take his attention from the Maia woman who would be his bride, now found it just as impossible to keep her words in his head when everything in him surged with hate.

His wife was his night sky and morning sunrise, his Void and his origin and his destiny. His daughter was his moon and sun. His daughter was his world.

He'd kept up with court business by rote. The isolation of Doriath did not spare Menegroth from messengers and ambassadors, and it meant more supervision by the king was necessary to see that their self-reliance was maintained as self-sufficiency. He arranged audiences, discharged them, rigorously kept schedule. He knew himself aglow with rage, and he felt his attention to detail slipping. Yet he carried on with his country's guidance on the momentum of his hurt.

The unlooked-for arrival of messengers from Nargothrond one morning at first stirred him to wrath – Nargothrond had wronged his family profoundly, and he did not think it would be a complete overreaction to send their messengers' hands home in a box. He'd last had word from the city to inform him of his daughter's capture – of Celegorm's proposal of alliance, as it had said. (It had been a free agent who informed him then of her escape.) Until Lúthien was brought home, no penalty quite seemed too severe for the elves of Nargothrond, whom he had cautiously trusted, and who had thought his challenge of Beren made him a man who would barter his child by way of alliance to some kinslaying Noldorin lord.

But, he was told, their message was something he would find of great interest.

“You have ten minutes,” he said as he entered the stark chamber where the visitors had been asked to wait, “for I little wish to give those who serve my enemies more of my time.”

The five Noldor who waited in the chamber scrambled to their feet at the sound of his voice, rising from the stone benches that half-circled the small chamber as if the men were startled hinds in a glade. One of them managed to turn the awkward leap into a half-graceful bow of obeisance; others managed semi-polite nods to the guards who flanked Elu as he entered. These gestures were not returned. “Hail, Elu Thingol,” the quickest said, “lord of the Grey-Elves and king in Menegroth of Doriath.”

“I will not say well met,” Elu said shortly. Three of the remaining messengers in the party looked abashed, uncomfortable; one of them only let his eyebrows lift a little. It was this one who drew Elu's eye; something about him was familiar, but Elu couldn't quite place it. There was something off about his hair, too; black and well past his shoulders, it was braided with a few star sapphires of a warm grey hue – unusually rich jewels for a bearer of messages, even in prosperous times; even if peace between their lands were assured.

“I beg your pardon, O king,” said the speaker, “for correcting you; but we do not come of your enemy. We are those loyal to Orodreth, brother to our king Finrod Felagund, and to King Felagund in his absence. We have received news that our lord Orodreth bade us bring you with all haste. Your daughter, the lady Lúthien, has escaped from her captivity in Nargothrond –”

“Think you her father does not know this?” Elu asked with quiet threat.

The messenger visibly groped to catch up the lost thread of his message. “We bear news that Tol-in-Gaurhoth, Sauron's Isle, has fallen by your daughter's hand.”

Elu's mouth fell open. He had long known that Melian's magics would blossom in Lúthien one day, and her escape from the great birch had stunned him even so – but Tol-in-Gaurhoth? The messenger who had caught Elu's attention looked him over, and he closed his jaw firmly. “Speak on.”

“It would seem, my lord,” said the messenger, “that by power of Huan, the hound of the Valar, and by the sorcery of the lady Lúthien, the Isle of Werewolves was brought to bay and Sauron surrendered before Lúthien's power. She opened the dungeons and cast wide the doors, freeing the captives who had dwelt there. But among them, Finrod Felagund had died in captivity, and at his passing ...”

What followed touched not upon Lúthien, and Elu only half-listened. He had cared for Finrod more as a good neighbor and as Finwë's grandson than as –

Finwë. He looked like Finwë.

Elu's eyes returned in startlement to the still-quiet messenger. His hair was charcoal-black, Finwë's same color, but Elu imagined it could not be the same texture, for it flowed over his shoulders like a slow river and not like a wave in the glassy sea. He had proud cheekbones, a high brow, a certain solidity about the jaw which were all Finwë's own. These were the features that had shown their familiarity to Elu; and while the man's eyes were a deep cerulean, unlike to those of Elu's old friend, they were large and slightly deep-set as Finwë's had been, and they bore a touch of the uncanny light that spoke of ancestry traced in Aman. Yet he was young – fully grown and well-made, but not more than three hundred years old. Hence the softness of the light, perhaps; he was of Aman’s blood but had not himself seen the Trees. He was dressed well – a nut-brown cloak of fine wool, a surcoat of madder over dark grey hunting leathers – and while the messengers had been pointedly relieved of their weapons, the fastenings at his belt showed he'd borne at least double knives.

The messenger was coming to the end of his tale, and Elu tore his eyes from the young man. “In Nargothrond many of the captives freed by the lady Lúthien spoke of her valor and lamented the passing of our king, and by their tale we saw that Celegorm and Curufin had committed a great treachery; so they were cast out, and repudiated even by their own people.”

Elu asked, “Where did they go?”

“It is our belief that they travel to the lands of their brother Maedhros.”

“Do they pass within my borders on their way?” Elu would ride out after them himself if it were so. His guards stirred; he knew they'd do likewise.

“My lord, we know not. They departed alone.”

“I deem, my lord, that they will not risk trespassing in Doriath,” said the one who resembled Finwë. “They will choose a less direct road.” His voice was calm and low-pitched, a little husky, but with a hint of power underneath.

“And who are you to claim you know the motives of the sons of Fëanor, but do not share them?” Elu challenged him.

“This is Celebrimbor, the only son of Curufin,” said the speaker.

Into the silence that fell, one of the small birds that dipped forever in and out of Menegroth's carved halls twittered a few mournful half-notes, its voice echoing in one of the carven shafts that admitted fresh air and light to the fair underground rooms. Elu took a deep breath of that air, collecting himself. He thought how the Kinslayers who had so offended his family might react to receiving the severed head of Curufin's child. He listed in his mind whom he might spare, whom he might send to bear such a parcel to Maedhros' fortress at Himring. He calculated the distance there and wondered if Melian could be persuaded to bring her power to bear that his messengers might arrive before Celegorm and Curufin. He regretted that he would not see the look of Curufin's and Celegorm's faces when they encountered such a gift as that. He tried to think of a way he might ensure that at least one of the messengers returned alive to describe it firsthand.

“I have come to offer you my service,” said Celebrimbor, breaking the silence, “as a token that Nargothrond would keep your friendship.”

“Is he a hostage, then?” Elu asked the first messenger, as though Curufin's son were not there. Celebrimbor's head raised a little higher, but his face stayed smooth. Elu, in contrast, was shaking with rage. “If so, Orodreth has taken a wise step toward regaining my friendship to Nargothrond.”

“I come of my own free will,” said Celebrimbor.

“Then you come foolish, for I will not tolerate – ”

“My lord,” a third messenger broke in, casting a nervous glance at Elu's guards whose hands had moved inexorably toward their blades, “we had no wish to offer insult! But we –”

“Enough,” Celebrimbor cut him off. In the single word his voice's promise of power was fulfilled, and Elu was reminded suddenly that not one of the sons of Fëanor could be called other than a military commander, and one of them was a bard whose skill was surpassed only by Daeron's.

Celebrimbor took one step forward and went gracefully to his knees. It was a controlled, elegant gesture, with no loss of balance or change in pace; and kneeling there he spoke again. His eyes remained on Elu's as though none of the others, guards or messengers, cowed or enraged, were there.

“I come as a token that not all of the house of Fëanor, nor every one of the Noldor, finds such offense against your daughter's freedom to be forgivable. I offer you my loyalty and my skill as a craftsman. I come bearing a gift, and a token of my abilities.” He reached calmly into his pocket and withdrew a linen-wrapped package, which he held up to the king.

No one spoke. No one moved. After a moment, Celebrimbor said patiently, “It is a gift. Not some vicious animal.”

“Do the house of Fëanor not call a 'gift' what others would call a curse and a burden?” Elu challenged him, but he took the parcel from Celebrimbor's upraised hand and untied the linen wrapping.

What lay inside was a cloak-clasp, a palm-sized piece that centered around a pale, dull emerald. It was not an especially fine such stone – Elu had seen many finer, and had many of better color in his immediate possession – but its color, though weak, was flawless; and it was cut to splendor and set to perfection, tiny facets sparkling like copper-glass as they came together in a delicate crown circling the oval central plane. The message was clear: even a subjectively inferior jewel could be made wondrous by a skilled worker. From the extremes of the facets where the light naturally gathered, rays of green gold had been brought outward, proceeding with geometric precision until the tendrils curled inward toward the center of the design like the lashes of a fair eye. This softened star was subtly set into an oval of pale yellow gold, finely worked, and the silver which flanked the central ornament turned out to be not only decorative, but the mechanism of the clasp. It was sturdy, well-made, beautifully incorporated into the whole.

Elu turned his eye upon Celebrimbor. Finwë's great-grandson he might be, but he was very young to have achieved such art. “This is your work entire? Not your father's?”

“From the stone's making to the final polishing,” Celebrimbor answered evenly.

He was about to ask another question, but then he remembered who he was talking to. Pleasantries were wasted. And yet …

He looked at Celebrimbor, waiting there impassively calm on his knees. Proud was his form, erect and broad-shouldered – and as he calmed himself Elu thought, semi-consciously, that he preferred it so, for Melian was no slip of a maid, but powerfully built and a little taller than he, and before her, Finwë too had been no small man. To Elu's eye, the youth was undoubtedly fair. And his skill was great.

And to add to that, Curufin was no doubt enraged by the disloyalty of his son. Would it not anger him all the further that Celebrimbor had offered himself here, and with such display of humility? Petty, perhaps, but any slight revenge against his daughter's captors …

And in any case, if Celebrimbor's offer of fealty proved a true one, to win such a smith for the service of Menegroth might prove a fine bargain indeed.

“Very well,” Elu said abruptly, and set the clasp upon the corner of the table. “We will speak of the possibility – in time. You will wait here for me. As for you, the other messengers of Nargothrond, you will come with me to my council-chamber and we will discuss this news further.”

The other messengers edged around Celebrimbor, taking care not to tread on the edges of the brown cloak that spread around him, and fell in behind the king. As he turned to go, Elu's peripheral vision caught Celebrimbor rising to his feet – just as slowly and just as smoothly as he had gone to his knees.

Chapter Text

The room had one window, which looked into what seemed to be a courtyard, but after some time of gazing outward, Tyelpe saw the opposite wall behind the shifting foliage, which caused an uncomfortable lurch of perspective as his eyes re-focused. The garden he was looking into was little more than an air-shaft, a dry well with flowering vines climbing its walls toward the sun a few storeys above. To Tyelpe, raised in a fortress lit by arrow slits but set amidst the clarity of the hills that made up the March of Maedhros, the effect was more intensely claustrophobic than a windowless room would have been.

The flowers were fragrant – and they weren't a type he'd seen before, though that might not have meant much, as he'd been only ten years in Nargothrond and unlikely to see a great variety of plants. Little enough would grow in the Pass of Aglon. His uncle, Amras, was the only one in the family who cared much for plants, and where the house of Fëanor now stood as a bulwark against the North, the winds were harsh and the winters long; Amras mostly grew sage and lavender, plants which could endure the sharp frosts.

Growing bored with staring into the narrow shaft, Tyelpe reached through the window and cupped a bloom in his hand. Unlike the hardy spikes he'd used to gather for his mother, and unlike the jewel-wrought flowers of Nargothrond beneath the ground, the petals of this one were as tender as a child's skin under the curves of his fingers. Its scent was curious, almost buttery, concentrated in a rich golden pollen that now dusted the cuff of Tyelpe's grey sleeve. No, this was not a flower that would survive the March even with an attentive gardener. He did think Maglor would have appreciated its moon-pale double petals, but while Maglor probably would have liked a garden, he had no time at all to tend one, and he gave all his limited spare moments to music, as Caranthir did to his dwarven contacts and Amras to looking wan and hapless. (Whether Maedhros actually realized he had free time was an open question.) Celegorm was forever out of patience with his brothers' pursuits, pointing out significantly that he spent his free time at the hunt, a commander's best preparation for war.

Coming away from the window with a sigh, Tyelpe picked up the cloak-clasp he'd brought. He was proud of this piece – it was one of his best – but he was beginning to wonder if he was being judged by the stone. He'd selected it because it was one of his favorites among those he'd made himself. Yet he'd always liked the softer hues best, and perhaps Elu Thingol preferred the rarer stones of deeper color – Curufin certainly had. Tyelpe's father had been given to crushing and calcinating paler jewels to seed his next gem, adding more minerals to amend the tone. Sometimes he did this without asking if Tyelpe (who was, in all honesty, the more dedicated jewel-smith) had wanted to keep that particular stone; they'd argued about it frequently …

He carefully set down the clasp, gripped the edge of the table painfully hard, and brought his free hand to cover his eyes for a moment, fighting to master himself.

The view from the window, then, was pretty but uninspiring. Thingol's guards had shut the door behind them, and Tyelpe had a suspicion he wasn't supposed to open it again. Instead he took up a seat in the corner on one of the stone benches and watched the morning sunlight shift over time, altering as clouds passed above Menegroth to cover the sun. The flowers he'd examined before didn't look translucent from a distance, but the light's change gave them an inner glow; he leaned back, his shoulders dropping, and watched, letting himself rest from the journey.

The road from Nargothrond to Menegroth was not a hard one, though passing through the Girdle of Melian was not always a pleasant experience. But this trip had been made more difficult by the sidelong glances of Orodreth's messengers, which Tyelpe had to school himself not to answer with a challenging stare. Perhaps they pitied him his self-appointed task of making amends for his family's crimes against Thingol's daughter. Then again, perhaps Nargothrond was just as happy to be rid of him. Fëanor's sons, not his sole grandson, bore the Oath, but Celegorm and Curufin had just ensured that this would not be seen as the limit of their curse.

It was fortunate that Tyelpe hadn't been born to the Oath – he knew from things overheard in his childhood that Maedhros had feared it, and had censured Curufin harshly for taking Tyelpe's mother to bed in the first place. (Perhaps in response, lewd jokes about Maedhros' preferred form of avoiding someone's getting with child had been commonplace from the brothers; Tyelpe still cringed when he remembered precociously repeating one of those jokes in front of Fingon. Fingon had thought it hilarious, which didn't help.) No, the Oath was not his; and that was exactly why this necessity had fallen to him. He'd pay for his father's and uncle's crime by the skill of his hands and mind; he'd find a way to reduce the enmity of the Sindar and the other Noldor toward the house of Fëanor, and he'd ensure that Fëanor's family was not clustered in one place, monolithic.

For he was not Fëanor, and he was not his father, and he would never allow himself to be, but he knew the grandfather who had not lived to see him born through the peculiarities of his sons. He had an innate understanding of how different they all were: Maglor with his strange switches from gentle tenderness to biting, scratching provocation; Amras with his quiet ways and sudden intuitions; Curufin with his private counsel and proud, compelling words. Beleriand would do better for knowing that not all of Fëanor's family were one, and for Tyelpe to go back to Himring with his father would have undermined that goal. Not only that, it would have expressed to Curufin that his own family would approve him assisting his brother in dragging another into their madness, and that was deeply unlikely from anyone else, even if Tyelpe hadn't been horrified himself. And Tyelpe feared what would arise between Celegorm and Curufin if they'd succeeded, if they'd had to confront each other with their goals in abducting the young woman … For all he wished people would see his father and uncles as separate people, Celegorm and Curufin were inseparable, and the idea of their working at cross-purposes thoroughly terrified Tyelpe.

It had been some time, he thought, that he'd been left here. The angle of the light had changed in the air-shaft.

He tried to make himself sit still, rehearsing his purpose, but his thoughts were racing now and his idleness made him restive. It was growing warm in the room; he unclasped his cloak and folded it carefully to drape over his arm. It wouldn't do to look as though he'd made himself too much at home when Thingol came back. (Or whomever should be sent by Thingol, it occurred to him. From what he'd seen so far, it did not seem unlike the imperious Sindarin king to have Tyelpe dealt with by underlings. He should be prepared for this.) The rust and grey he wore underneath probably looked a little too Fëanorian for the setting, too close to the heraldic blood-red and silver, but it was too late to second-guess that choice now. Instead, he gave the cloak-clasp he'd brought a good polishing with the edge of the cloak.

He considered re-braiding the plaits that adorned his hair. He was sure they were not so perfect now as he'd made them, but he'd probably make matters worse since he had no mirror – the only one he'd brought was in his saddlebags with his metal- and jewel-smithing tools, left in Menegroth's stables with those of the four messengers. He hoped someone competent was looking after his horse. The mare was one of the finest from Maedhros and Celegorm's mutual stable, and he'd left her long by now; Thingol had kept them waiting forty minutes in this room, while the other messengers muttered nervously about what it meant that they'd been brought to this plain chamber instead of the finer space in which they were usually received, and after he left – Tyelpe was fairly sure it had been a couple of hours by now.

After another fifteen minutes or so he gave in to temptation and found the comb in his surcoat's pocket, sharing space with a small flask, a steel needle, and a little cedar box of bowstring wax – the necessities according to Celegorm of a day spent in the saddle. He could at least smooth and neaten the ends. Nervously, he dedicated far more time than was quite necessary to this task, forcing himself to tuck the comb back away and sit still again; but soon he was pacing, covering the length of the room from one bench to the opposite one in five strides, running his fingers along oil-smooth ribbons of grain in the weighty table as he went. He reminded himself that it was unlikely Thingol had forgotten him.

After two more hours he allowed himself to engage in a few minutes of speculation on how Thingol would execute him if he'd decided to do so. He made himself keep “permanent assignment to a single-windowed stone room” off the list.

Maedhros had spent years suspended from the peak of Thangorodrim by a single shackle. As a child, Tyelpe had sometimes lain awake at night thinking about that. He could imagine the pain of the first few days – he'd been led to the forge for an education in smithcraft shortly after he learned to walk, and injuries were a part of that life – but even when he woke a couple of hours after midnight and knew his mother and father would make him stay in his bed until sunrise, knew it so thoroughly he didn't even bother to get up and ask, he'd been chilled and made small by the knowledge that those stretching hours until the late-breaking morning of a Northern winter were nothing, nothing, compared to nights stretching into months stretching into years …

He made himself stop thinking about that. It wasn't helping.

It continued not to help as the day wore on.

The shadows of the flowers were a bruised blue when Elu Thingol returned. This time he was alone; he must not fear an assassination attempt, then, though he carried with him a small and wondrous lantern of crystal with a candle flickering inside, and the metal chains from which it was suspended might make it a good weapon. Tyelpe held onto his absolute composure as he turned to greet the king of Doriath with a slight, courteous bow, but he suspected the relief showed in his eyes. He hadn't realized quite how dark it was until Thingol brought the light.

Thingol regarded him thinly. He had grey eyes of a more shadowed shade than the silver of Tyelpe's father; long, straight hair of a light pewter tone cascaded about his shoulders, and over it he wore a crown of leaves, carved finely from green stone –Tyelpe thought most of them were aventurine. Above a bold chin and refined nose, the leaves garlanded a high brow, the stone surfaces winking like aspens in the lamplight.

They stared at each other for a moment, then Thingol spoke. “Upon your knees I left you, and wondered if you were truly prepared to humble yourself, or if the display was just that: a display. What say you to this?”

“I say I am not one to dishonor a king I have offered to serve,” Tyelpe answered, the words coming fluidly to his tongue. This, he thought, was not shameful. Curufin would have found it so; but Tyelpe knew it for what it was, a demonstration that he knew the dignity to be found in keeping his word and keeping his self-possession. He lowered himself to his knees again.

Thingol turned aside from him as soon as it was accomplished. Tyelpe felt his eyebrows raise and smoothed his expression. Was this show of deference customary in Menegroth? So much so that the king should just ignore it? But Thingol was examining the cloak-clasp again. Tyelpe hid his anxiety as he critically judged the jewel.

“The setting is well-made,” said Thingol.

“The stone is well-made, too,” Tyelpe offered, only the slightest challenge.

“Yes,” said Thingol, and Tyelpe relaxed a trifle. “The question is whether you can make things of use as well as things of beauty.”

“I deem a strong clasp for a cloak to be useful.” He was warming to this, realizing it was the answers Thingol wanted. The work, then, he must have judged good. “But that is not the limit of my abilities, only a sample.”

“You are confident in your skill for one so young.” Thingol turned back to him. “What else can you do?”

“I am trained in weapon-smithing,” Tyelpe launched into the speech he'd prepared, “and I can craft jewels of my own making and cut those found in the earth as well. I can make all the tools necessary for the maintenance of a fortress. I excel in armor-craft, above all except jewel-smithing.”

Thingol nodded thoughtfully. “And you call yourself …?”

“Celebrimbor.” He called himself Tyelpe, actually, but he knew better than to give the name Tyelperinquar, or even the short epessë, in Quenya; across Beleriand, except in the private homes of the Noldor, this very king's ban was obeyed. Even in Nargothrond, he'd used the Sindarin form with all but personal friends.

Thingol's jaw tightened noticeably, and it took a moment for him to speak. “I'd have you be known by a mother-name instead in my realm.”

“Celebrimbor is my mother-name,” he objected.

“Oh?”

He met Thingol's eyes evenly. “My father-name is Curufinwë.”

He was expecting a reprimand, even an order to choose himself something different to be known by, but the hand that abruptly fisted in his hair was a surprise, and he instinctively choked down his cry as Thingol forced his head further back, putting painful pressure on the roots of his hair.

“And would you be known by that name?” Thingol asked sharply.

Tyelpe swallowed. “I came here because I repudiated my father. I use my mother-name.”

“Good. Celebrimbor it is, then.” Thingol visibly collected himself, but his grip only softened a little. Tyelpe worked to keep his balance, to keep his hands at his sides despite the craning of his neck. “And you rejected your father due to his insult of my kingdom?”

“His deeds against your daughter. I don't know that he thought of it as insult.”

Thingol huffed. His fist tightened again, and Tyelpe couldn't suppress a wince. “And what did you think of my daughter?”

The question was a dangerous one. Tyelpe was accordingly careful as he chose his words. “I was never allowed to speak with her, and barely to see her. From what I saw, she bore her hardship with … admirable courage.”

Thingol was silent for a moment. Their eyes still held. Then abruptly Thingol's hand rose again, dragging his hair up and making him flinch at the pain – but he did not flinch too hard to see a faint spark in Thingol's eyes at his reaction. He'd let go before Tyelpe recovered. Had the impulse been a cruel one, or another test, or merely a gesture out of order? It was impossible to say.

“You may remain,” Thingol said curtly. “I believe that Bronadur could use an addition to his workshop. Prove your skill; prove your fitness to dwell among us; and we will speak again.”

There'd been a guard outside, it seemed, for Thingol went to the door and ordered, “Show him to the quarters of Bronadur's workers.” Tyelpe refused to allow himself to scramble back to his feet, but rose calmly just as he had before. He had a sinking feeling this would not be the last time he had to exercise that self-control.

The smithy where he'd work was vast, and as soon as he laid eyes on the shadowed space with its neatly arranged rows of anvils, Tyelpe's heart sank. A journeyman smith who obviously had no idea who he was quickly taught him a series of movements to spare his tendons the worst of the strain of the hammer’s weight – exercises with which Tyelpe had started the morning and ended the evening since he was twelve. When that lesson was offered, he considered asking to speak to the master smith, but resisted. When he was set to making small barrel-rings, he considered actually fleeing.

Like Nargothrond, Menegroth was both a town and a palace; unlike Nargothrond, it was strictly organized, and there was a logic to its underground vastness that was carven into its layout. Where Nargothrond rewarded the wanderer with unexpected wonders at every turn – startlingly realistic aviaries of jeweled birds filling a remote corner, little communities springing up where they would amidst the fantastically wrought stone trees – Menegroth had rooms of predictable shapes and, after a while, predictable progression. The chill, flickering rooms at the perimeter, whose torch-bearing stone dragons had fascinated Tyelpe when they were led in, yielded to chambers of the same form, but with higher ceilings and wider floors of beautifully fitted flagstones. Tyelpe's guide the previous night had spoken for the first time to tell him that the matter of the stone marked the boundaries of districts governed by the masters of the markets, and that this was a useful aid to navigation; if he grew lost, he might follow the red-and-black flecked tiles to find the smiths' workshops again. (Tyelpe silently identified the colored spots as corundum inclusions.) Blue floors (mostly sodalite, he thought) would eventually take him to weavers' workshops and woodcarvers. Golden feldspar would bring him to the breweries and sellers of fresh provender on the borders of the main market. White marble defined most of the public areas, including the king's court; he was to avoid green stones, as those marked the path to the private chambers of the king and his family.

At first he thought Menegroth closer and less designed for leisure than Nargothrond, but then he'd begun to notice well-hidden stairways that wrapped over the ceilings of the halls through which he walked. Fresh air flowing down one of them confirmed his suspicion that these led to the surface; to fields, no doubt, and to groves and gardens like those which were rendered in stone and enamel and pottery in Nargothrond. He'd been accustomed to easy access to the outdoors in Aglon, and once he began to intuit which corners he should look around for them, the stairways were a comforting sign. Every few rooms, too, had a soft luminescence that he realized came through ceilings of well-fitted, tinted and leaded glass and planes of crystal. He was seeing mist-shrouded starlight; by day, these rooms must be glorious. These glassed-in spaces grew less common as they trailed along a descending path, deeper into the earth. Eventually he'd realized that the curvature of some of the walls hinted that the underground fortress was basically octagonal; and then the path they walked began to make sense.

The other matter that surprised him was the birds. They lived, and they were everywhere. They roosted in corners and flitted beneath the glass and stone ceilings, they wheeled neatly around one another and glared territorially at each other from opposite pillars; but they were silent. One nightingale had fluted sadly at their approach, but its voice faded immediately to a low mutter, and no other creature made a sound to defend its particular nook or bid good night to its neighbor.

Tyelpe's guide followed his gaze to the bird who had briefly spoken. “They are constant companions,” he explained, “for they like to be around the Lady Melian. There are air-shafts to let them in and out. They used to sing a great deal. But now ...” He spread his hands, let them drop. Tyelpe saw the pain that clouded his face and bit the inside of his own lip. It was not his father who had made Lúthien leave Doriath, but he knew it would be easier for the Doriathrim to fuse her absence and her capture in their minds; they were one in his own. And he dared not ask whether the birds had stopped singing when she departed or when she was held against her will.

The quarters he'd been assigned were humble; a bed, a wide desk which would also do for a table, a chest, a small hearth. His door could be locked from the inside but not the outside, no small relief. It was one in a long hallway of other doors, which opened at one end into what looked like a communal dining room. At the other end, a wash of heat carried down the hall from a dark, red-lit space. Even now the creak of the bellows and the clunk and clatter of tools being tidied away for the night echoed down the hall. The comforting smell of quench-water and fire and ash had tempted him to explore the forge, but he'd spent the day resisting a door; he resisted this open doorway, too.

After sleeping badly, he'd presented himself for breakfast and immediately found that he essentially now lived in an apprentice dormitory for the smith Bronadur's workers. And now he was being set to tasks that even Maedhros probably could have accomplished satisfactorily.

Barrel rings. Horseshoe nails. Woodworkers' nails. His father had used to assign him the tiny finishing tacks to punish him; he barely had to look at those. Fire-irons, carpenters' tools. He would almost rather have been assigned to make chain-mail, he thought. Then he was overwhelmed with relief the day he was entrusted to draw the wire for the coils which were snipped to make the mail loops, and he realized how stagnant his mind had been.

He forced himself to carry on as assigned. These things took skill (if not his skill). Should he complain that he'd been placed in what must be a reliable workshop, to produce so many necessities? Should he not await advancement? Perhaps this was not an insult to his merits, but an expectation based on his youth; he was only a couple of decades past two hundred, and he was among Sindarin smiths mostly of his own age. All this was far below his abilities, but he must render everything perfectly – this was why he'd come, to serve the people of Doriath, to make amends. He must do it well, even if they did not choose to use his considerable skill to its best purposes. Indeed, he could hardly do it badly if he tried. Even distracted, he knew the angles of these blows with his arms and not with his mind.

Between tasks, he stared enviously at those who worked in the better-lit regions of the workshop. Some of them were making shoulder-guards, bracers, even helmets. He had always liked small, fine work best, but he could quickly have learned to love making armor if he were given a chance.

Winter was coming early to Doriath. He would go up to the surface when he couldn't bear to stare at his repetitive tasks anymore and began to feel the long-learnt strokes going astray. If he passed out of the hallway where his quarters were, then walked five minutes past the threshold of the corundum tiles, there was a staircase with blue treads which led up into a field of flax. Here he would spend time looking at the bleak world, cherishing the solitude; born to the Pass of Aglon, he didn't mind the cold. A week in, he dared to go exploring in search of the stables. No one seemed to miss him, and once he found them he took to visiting his bored horse every few days, even as the snows came – even as the nights grew earlier. It seemed to him, even Northern-born as he was, that the nights stayed long a little later than they should have. Those nights his walks above the ground were pure and cold, and the occasional rise of fluttering wings through an air-shaft, the less frequent lone cry of a grieving bird beneath the earth made him see the lifeless vastness of unplanted winter fields and close, dense groves above Menegroth as empty, empty.

In time he realized that the days below ground were shorter than those above. Uneasy, he mentioned this to his neighbor in the forge and received a faintly pitying look. “The Lady Melian grieves,” the other journeyman said softly, “as do we all.” He said it as though this explained everything.

And through it all there were nails and coils and, if he was lucky, the occasional chisel.

At last, though it stung him – he hadn't had to ask permission to pursue a project since he was thirty – he requested the use of Bronadur's supplies for a work of his own. To his surprise, Bronadur gladly granted him leave. “For I know this isn't your preferred sort of work,” he said, “but you were assigned to my workshop and here you shall stay. I would speak for your assignment to another, for you're beyond the skill I could teach you without having you for an individual student. But the king is not likely to take kindly to a disruption of his day with my concerns, not now – even had I the heart to approach him.”

Much mollified even by the faint praise and slightly guilty for the deep sadness in Bronadur's half-smile – had no one been unaffected by this princess? – Tyelpe waited for everyone to be at dinner in the communal hall, then went with a measured pace to the cabinet he'd not yet touched. He was a little ashamed to be doing this. He should have enough self-discipline to turn his hand to what was given him. But when he opened the cabinet and saw the crucibles and the files and the carefully marked stoneware jars within, he couldn't continue to castigate himself before the flood of relief at having a challenge again.

The challenge was greater, for the supplies were rudimentary by the standards of a Fëanorian smith. He didn't technically have leave to take anything away, but he quietly lifted what he'd need to approximate the chemical setup for the more passive portions of the project he had in mind. Over several days of tinkering, this came to occupy a corner of his room, surrounded by carefully crafted reflecting screens to siphon heat from his hearth; in the evenings, when others had done with work, and sometimes into the night, he'd take the results into the forge for the necessary active adjustments. Even when other smiths worked at late projects, he gave no thought to protecting the secrets of jewel-smithing; he'd offered all his knowledge to these people, and besides, Curufin had never taught him what he'd need to know to make something like a Silmaril. About fifty years since, Tyelpe had ceased to assume that Curufin knew it either.

He was more than a month at the work – experimenting, testing, failing, keeping rigorous notes, denying himself sleep in favor of perfect duration – and despite the growing dullness of his days, he was happier through the nights of true craft than he'd been in … longer than he'd realized. He tried not to admit that he missed his father's praise. He put an effort into persuading himself that he knew his work well enough that his own satisfaction was good enough to make it worthwhile; and by the time the project was done, he'd mostly convinced himself.

At last he wrapped the result in a fine linen cloth – he'd bought it expressly for the purpose in Menegroth's market, a hall so large and colorful it was easy to forget that one was in a cave, if not for the eerie silence of the birds. The next day, as soon as his work was done, he dragged water from the pump for washing; he took time over dressing as he hadn't let himself do before. Then, by the expedient of wandering the white-tiled caverns through their ever-increasing wonders until he glimpsed flagstones of well-cut olivine, he found his way to the royal family's chambers.

It did not take much more wandering to nearly collide with Thingol, who stared flatly at him without a moment's show of surprise. “What?” he asked.

This was not a promising beginning, but Tyelpe kept his head. “I wanted to show you what I have been making, Lord Elu.” He'd heard others call Thingol this and learned that the king of Doriath preferred it from his own subjects. If among those subjects Tyelpe meant to account himself, it seemed wise to adapt.

“Be quick.”

“Yes, my lord.” Tyelpe passed him the cloth without further comment.

Thingol opened the parcel and looked emotionlessly at the contents. Tyelpe had made half a dozen jewels as long as the joint of his thumb, alive with a bright, new-leaf green as clear as pure water. Their curved, blade-like shape had developed almost naturally in the crucible; his faceting had only brought them out to fine edges and points. Tyelpe did not allow his eyes to flicker down to the jewels, keeping them respectfully on Thingol's face, alert to any sign of reaction – yet peripheral vision told him that he'd successfully replicated the color of the stone leaves in Thingol's grey crown.

“Has Bronadur any cause to complain of you?”

Tyelpe was startled by the question and shamed himself with a quick, defensive answer: “No! I … I think he should not, my lord, for I have – ”

“And why do you bring me these when I have not summoned you?”

“Because I wished to … to demonstrate that I have skill to offer. I remembered you were concerned that I had brought another's work ...”

“Mm.” Thingol examined the jewels, then passed them back to Tyelpe. “I must go.” And he brushed past, followed by an attendant who gave Tyelpe a long, appraising look, and another who paused to watch him as he closed his eyes for a moment, then turned with measured steps to find his way back out of the royal quarters.

Sleeping badly, he woke when breakfast was almost done and dragged himself to his anvil in the forge, hating the sight of it, repelled by the thought of another day behind it. But Bronadur stopped him, giving him a quizzical look. “I've been asked,” the master smith said with some odd inflection, “to give you a place nearer the door.”

Tyelpe went still. “You've been asked.”

Bronadur looked around at the other workers with some significance. “I've been asked,” he repeated.

With numb hands, Tyelpe gathered his tools. There was no point refusing – it would do nothing for his pride, nor for his popularity with his new fellows here, but – this was what his work had achieved? A vague reward of a little more fresh air, a change perhaps in some underlying hierarchy of workers which he hadn't even noticed, a different spot amidst the din of diligent apprentices and journeymen when even demanding Curufin had told him he would soon achieve a mastery beyond the dreams of most Sindar? And the master of this forge had not even seen the work – had not even realized the things that Tyelpe could do. To anyone else, if this change even meant anything – and surely it must, for the master smith worked by the door with the best airflow and light – it would look like he'd been given something unearned.

He bore the day in a dull, unreal state, his distraction making him feel stretched, light-headed and over-tall. He did not go to dinner, but disrobed in his room and folded himself onto the bed, his face pressed to his knees, rivets and rods and the polishing-wheel still swimming before closed eyes. Had he known any other way to distinguish himself, he'd have taken it. But the things that were given to him to do had not increased in difficulty. They took skill, but not the skill of the house of Fëanor. He saw no possibility of advancement to something that would be a challenge – not here.

Giving in to a temptation he'd ignored for months, he allowed himself just a few minutes to feel how much he missed working with his father.

This was killing him. Call it excessive pride, call it an absurdly low tolerance for boredom, call it mere loneliness, but this was killing him.

He'd try again, he swore to himself. He knew nothing better to do, and he would at the least show himself stubborn enough to keep trying. And if he could keep his composure as he did so, perhaps he'd leave his next conversation with Elu Thingol with a little more self-respect intact.

Chapter Text

Above ground the days had begun to lengthen. Some of Doriath's farmers shook off the lethargy of their mourning and began to spread straw upon the harvested fields, letting it decay above the frozen earth that the ground would be softer when the spring came – somewhat before time, but it was something to make them feel that winter might pass. Below the earth in the thousand shapely caves of Menegroth, Elu was not sure it ever would. Melian still kept apart from him, and the birds stayed quiet within.

A month had passed since the son of Curufin had come to him with his handful of jewels, and Elu couldn't banish from his mind the memory of it – of the hurt and confusion in the boy's eyes, of the obvious desire to please. It was troubling that he kept remembering it. It was infuriating that it intruded sometimes upon his mourning, the image arising in times he'd set aside to collect himself again.

He wondered sometimes if Curufin knew where his son was. He couldn't decide if he hoped so. Elu himself knew nothing of his own child's whereabouts, and it was a horrible reminder to wonder; but there was a small bitter cyst of malice in his heart which throbbed when he thought of the sons of Fëanor knowing their proud progeny was so humbly trying to win the approval of a Sindarin king.

He'd confidently expected Celebrimbor to seek him out again – he knew he'd left the boy no other option, but to forget he was a Fëanorian and accept humbler tasks. He did not think this likely from the proud young man who had faced him in the autumn. It was not that Elu would object to leaving him there and letting him learn his place, but he had little oversight of Celebrimbor while he was consigned to anonymity in a large works, and besides, knowing he was not using the bargain he'd made to its fullest irked him like a bite.

He schooled himself to patience, and felt the spite rise in him again when at last Celebrimbor appeared.

His current attendant was outside his study door, having been dismissed to give him a moment alone. When Eglachon apologetically tapped at the door-frame and said, carefully, that the smith from Nargothrond had asked to see him again, he nodded, rising from his desk, and gestured that Celebrimbor might be admitted. Eglachon gestured Celebrimbor in and stood at the inside of the doorway, discreet but without asking if he was wanted. Elu saw the suspicion in his guard's eyes and approved it.

“What this time?” Elu asked, glancing at the banded candle burning in the corner. As he'd thought, he could spare about fifteen minutes.

Celebrimbor was almost unnervingly impassive, blue eyes calm. “Another sample of my abilities.” He held out a squarish object wrapped in the same fine linen cloth as before.

He waited. So did Elu. Elu looked significantly at the object, then raised his eyes back to Celebrimbor's face, hands firmly still at his sides. Light, icy snow hissed onto Elu's multicolored skylights above their heads.

Blue eyes flickered about the room for an instant, then Celebrimbor crouched carefully and set the object down on the olivine tiles of Elu's study, positioning the parcel between two of the goblet-shaped marble inlays that studded the floor. Once he'd stood again, Elu gestured; Eglachon came quickly forward to scoop up the parcel and place it in his king's hands, then retired to his position by the door. Did Elu imagine that Celebrimbor's face had turned a slightly warmer shade? He unfolded the cloth.

The object inside was breathtaking. The exquisite leaf-shaped jewels from the previous offering were back, but now set amidst organic ripples that lidded a gilded coffer, sized just right to rest in his two hands, softened at the corners and alive with pale and vivid color. Elu tried to lift the lid and found it resisted him, though he could see the seam where it met the base of the coffer.

“Place your thumb upon the rightmost leaf, my king,” Celebrimbor murmured.

Elu did, and found that with this pressure – comfortable, but not quite natural – the lid clicked open. The interior gave him an answer to the forming question of how Celebrimbor had come by so much gold (Bronadur was kind, but unlikely to be quite so generous with his most precious pure metals). The outer layer was curiously thin, almost invisible in cross-section, but so perfectly plated as to be utterly smooth. The inside was a rich red copper, earthy and bright – but rippling with multitudes of colors like the interior of the shells that Círdan sometimes sent him from the edge of the sea. Last time he'd seen colors like this, it had been in a pool of filtered sunlight, caught in the apricot oil he'd spilled from the bottle while rubbing it into Melian's shoulders, while she turned them against him to bring the silky texture against his skin.

Celebrimbor's eyes had obviously noted his enchantment with the object, but Elu's voice came out harsh almost without his permission. “Why are you wasting my time with this?” Elu demanded.

The boy paled. “I offered you the best of my skill. I wished you to know what you had.”

Elu looked narrowly at the younger man. “I am not averse to being shown that I have made a good bargain – if I have made one. But what does it profit me –” he heard the anger gathering in his own voice as though from a distance – “what does it profit me to have lordship over someone who thinks craft is worth more than loyalty? Skill more than time? A trinket more than a life?”

Celebrimbor's brows lowered a moment, then his face smoothed to blankness. His hands came together before him, a childlike gesture, as he gave a shallow bow. “I understand, my lord,” he said quietly. “I wish you would keep the box as a gift.”

Elu gestured acquiescence carelessly (though in truth he found he coveted the thing). “You have produced something of use as well as beauty. It is progress.”

“Yes, my lord,” Celebrimbor said quietly, and turned to go.

The following day, Elu caused him to be sent a gift: a copper chain of inferior worth, such a trinket as a king gives when he is conscious of tribute, but not impressed.

The third time Celebrimbor came, he came late. Elu’s business for the day was done, and he was alone.

The single guard posted at Elu's door tonight was Mablung, who admitted Celebrimbor with the usual formalities. Elu, lightly robed as he prepared to extinguish the lantern on his desk and seek his lonely bed, waited silently.

Celebrimbor had a third cloth-wrapped parcel. He was dressed as well as the contents of his original saddlebags probably afforded him, with the grey jewels in his hair again – this time stacked down a single, thicker braid that swept above his brow and caught the loose softness of his long hair back. He gazed silently at Elu – half-let his eyes flick over his shoulder to the guard – then knelt with his hands still before him.

“Do you expect this show of subservience to impress me? When you first came here, it did not.”

Celebrimbor barely winced and didn't move at all. “I wish to demonstrate that my king still holds my utmost respect.”

“Very well.” Elu nodded to Mablung, who hesitated, confused, until Elu said, “Go.” His guards were used to his shortened temper in the last months, and in any case they'd known Lúthien well and grieved also for their lady; the guard lost no time in leaving and shutting the door. And then they were alone.

“What do you have this time?” Elu asked.

Celebrimbor opened the wrappings himself. Inside lay a simple object of steel and leather. Elu took it from his hands, their fingers brushing through the cloth. In Elu's hands lay an archery guard. The curves were hammered to unadorned smoothness, the leather straps well-cut and simply adorned with punchwork that was not just decorative, but also made them more flexible. Secure fastenings were subtly shaped to echo the mirrored curves at the bracer's edge. He couldn't resist placing it upon his own arm. It was only slightly too small. He was sorry it would not fit Melian; she might appreciate its fair smoothness.

“And what,” Elu asked, eyes on the arm-guard, “do you mean by this one?”

Celebrimbor took a slow breath. “That an archer may need a guard, and the guard should serve the needs of the archer.”

“Speak clearly,” Elu ordered. “I have no patience for riddles.”

“A moment, please.” Celebrimbor dropped his eyes to Elu's toes for long seconds. Elu waited impatiently. “I think I mean that … I understand that people matter more than jewels. An archer's need for a bracer more than how the bracer looks on the archer, and … the abilities of a skilled smith saved against future need, more than the fine things he can make. And I understand that my father's crime was not realizing that life or freedom are worth more than alliances or jewels.” He stopped as though waiting for Elu to speak – looked up after a moment – as soon as his eyes found Elu's countenance, hastened on. “You value your d – your people higher than what can be brought you, which is why you named the impossible as their only possible price. I offended you by presenting jewels as though they were the matter of my skill, when what I meant was to offer you the skill itself –”

“Enough.” Celebrimbor hushed at once, eyes fastened on Elu's face. Elu fancied a bit of supplication had begun to shine through the self-possession. The effect was … pleasing. So, it must be said, was his silence on command.

“You're offering yourself, then?”

Celebrimbor nodded. “Such was my intention when I –”

He heard himself interrupt. “Show me this isn't just pretty words.”

Celebrimbor's breathing grew deeper, harsher; the moment stretched. Elu told himself that he didn't have any idea what he wanted, but when the proud head began to bend before him, when Celebrimbor's hands met the tiles, something in him said, This.

Crouched upon his hands and knees, Celebrimbor brought his mouth to the leather that clothed Elu's left calf. His lips pressed there for an instant before he bent further, his jeweled braid and loose waves sweeping outward over the floor, and kissed the toe of Elu's boot. Below the curtain of his hair, in a flash of rose, his tongue drew back up to connect the two points.

Such a view was too pleasant, too peculiar, to be screened by a curtain of hair. Elu bent and gathered the dark tresses easily in his fist, then backed away from another awkward swipe of tongue to swivel his chair out from the desk, its paw feet bumping over the inlay. He dragged Celebrimbor with him, and Celebrimbor stumbled after on his knees, eyes wide and flickering on Elu's body. As Elu sank into the seat, drawing Celebrimbor's head almost against his calf, his hand shook at the softness streaming through his fingers, a ropey weight of braid, a downy fluidity – in contrast with the slight hard dome of a smooth gem from the braid’s heart, pressing the center of his palm like a painless blister. The broad shoulders beneath the Fëanorian's tunic were visible now, uncloaked; so was the vulnerable nape of his neck when he bent again, balancing himself with his hands on either side of Elu's advanced foot, pulling his own hair in Elu's grasp to bend to his task. Elu could hear Celebrimbor trying to slow his breathing (he himself had at some point grown breathless), and somewhere under it, the soft sound of his tongue lapping long, methodical strokes, a wet mouth meeting the leather at each movement's peak.

He let the boy go for a while, expectant of his attempt to refuse; but Celebrimbor appeared to have submitted utterly to the degradation, and he kept at the task even as Elu let the skein of his hair slip through his hand again, the adorned braid falling with a soft thud against his shoulder. Celebrimbor merely shifted his weight to his elbow to sweep the hair back out of his way and bent deeper. A compulsive shudder ran from Elu's groin to his head.

“Up,” he urged him, “let me look at you.” Celebrimbor rose cautiously, slow and measured once again, eyes focused and wary on Elu's face. Elu felt the arousal that was tight and heavy between his legs; he dismissed the urge to close his spread knees, the rising anticipation in his throat at wondering if Celebrimbor had seen it. He didn't care. He looked at the boy's face and, for a painful moment again, saw Finwë in his upturned eyes and high brow.

Elu paused. It troubled him to realize that this youth was his friend's great-grandson, but he let his jaw tense as though its pressure would push the thought aside. What right had Fëanor's get to claim kinship when it was their work which got Finwë killed?

And Celebrimbor was part of that legacy of death, but he was here; his skill was Elu's now by right and gift and allegiance.

Their faces came a breath apart as Elu bent and grasped the hem of the fitted wool tunic Celebrimbor wore, dragging it up. Celebrimbor resisted him a moment, tangled in the cloth, then let his arms rise so that Elu could strip the garment off. He emerged tousled and breathless, mouth colorful in a rapt face. Elu had a wild urge to kiss him, but instead buried his hands in the weight of the hair behind Celebrimbor's neck, stroking it back to bare the sides of his throat. The lacings of the thin shirt underneath came untied to his light pull – Celebrimbor's hands gripped his own thighs as Elu tugged the cloth from the waistband of the boy's dark doeskin trousers. Then Elu's hands could slide beneath the open collar, his rings disappearing under the fine linen as his fingers spread taut over well-muscled shoulders, tracing small feathering lines parallel to Celebrimbor's collarbones. He could see the youth fighting the urge to let his eyes fall shut, and it was fascinating. Elu's hands closed again, cupping the back of Celebrimbor's neck, then so-slightly scoring the sides of it with his nails as he felt the fluid lines of muscle that firmly cradled the fine bones beneath. Celebrimbor rolled his head back, hair falling in a soft cascade that nearly touched the ground as he leaned back, reaching to put the pressure of his hands on his own ankles, letting his chest arch.

Elu passed his hands wonderingly down Celebrimbor's torso, leaning down as far as he could reach, both of their spines straining in opposite directions, bringing them so intimately close as both their breath tightened to spaced-out gasps; when he looked directly into Celebrimbor's eyes the boy met his gaze, lips parted and parting wider when Elu's palms caressed bare skin over his belly. Handling him was intoxicating – his skin was warm and smooth – he hadn't the softness of Melian, but it had been so long since there'd been any touch in Elu's world –

Lest Celebrimbor detect the thread of his thoughts, Elu caught him under the ribs with a light graze of his nails, drawing a noticeably sharper gasp amidst his quiet, rough breaths, then leaned down almost double in the chair to sink his teeth into Celebrimbor's earlobe.

Celebrimbor writhed on the floor, his hips bucking silently as his fists – Elu could just see past his hair, over his heaving shoulder – went white-knuckled on his ankles. The relish of biting sent a high shiver through Elu and the scent of char and soft cedar in the hair that brushed his nose was an intoxication as deep as the still winter but thrumming furiously alive in his lungs. He dragged his mouth away, eliciting the first real cry, and shoved Celebrimbor down again, head swimming. Celebrimbor fell against Elu's knees, then slid back so he was half-lying on the stone tiles, bringing his mouth with every appearance of eagerness to the boot he had not yet licked and beginning almost methodically to lap at it.

Elu gripped the arms of his chair and tried not to rock in the seat, almost envying Celebrimbor the pressure of the tiles beneath him, cold as they must be; his body was crying out for friction, and it was all he could do not to order the youth onto his back, draw him closer and find him something else to do with his evidently eager mouth, anything to bring this encounter to completion. His resemblance to Finwë was not so obvious from the back of his bent head, but it stirred nostalgia still. They'd used to take each other, just as he now thought of taking Celebrimbor, close and safe and laughing together in the young days of what now felt like such an old world. Folded close in a grey cloak, sharing each other's breath, feeling the breath of the earth beneath them mist into the spaces between the stars as they talked of everything and nothing and the little realms they'd build to raise their children side by side.

He couldn't do this.

“Enough,” he said. Before he'd been harsher than he tried to be; this time he tried to be harsh and only sounded sad. “Enough, Celebrimbor.” The boy had stilled, but remained on the floor, head bent and hands on the floor. For lack of a better option, Elu used the braid as a handhold to draw his head up, letting the rest of him follow. One of Celebrimbor's hands stole out to take up the tunic Elu had removed, drawing it swiftly to hold in front of him as he rose from the floor and Elu from his chair. For a second they met each other's eyes.

“That's enough,” he repeated once more, no longer entirely sure what he meant.

The golden box with the leaf-shaped jewels came to rest on Elu's desk in the next days, replacing his pounce-pot. It held the sand more safely, for it would not tip and spill; and besides, it was something of a relief to admit how enchanting he found the green of a young leaf gleaming amidst sunlight gold – colors that had not much comforted him in this long winter.

Chapter Text

While some of the other smiths in Bronadur's forge looked askance at Tyelpe through his door as he gathered his things, he was surprised and gratified to find that most seemed happy for him. Bronadur himself helped Tyelpe carry his jewel-smithing setup to his new workshop, waving away his offer to return the wires and crucibles and copper rods he'd borrowed from the master smith's supplies. The in-process crystals were thus borne to their new location with a minimum of disturbance, which he couldn't have achieved alone.

He was still part of a shared workshop, but it held four smiths, not a dozen and a half, and each was his (or in one case, her) own master. The other three were named Morfind, Yridhren, and Emelin. They looked on – Yridhren neutrally, the other two with undisguised interest – as Tyelpe carefully arranged his tools and vessels over a scarred but level steel-block work surface. His instinct was to hide the methods – but he ruthlessly suppressed the urge, and by the end of the day he'd negotiated an exchange, teaching the others his specialized knowledge in exchange for the use of their ores and supplies until he'd won enough commissions (or sold enough in Menegroth's market; Morfind had a wife who kept a shop) to purchase his own.

In the larger workshop, he'd been figuratively chained to his anvil by respect and custom as well as by the danger of too much unexpected movement in a room filled with the heat and clamor of a dozen or more projects at a time. Here, he quickly found, the four smiths moved about as they would, speaking their names as they moved to signify that they were carrying something hot close behind someone else, or approaching on the other side of a cabinet door, or that they were about to make an alarming amount of noise with the shared quench-water. The dance that resulted enchanted him – how lonely it had been, he remembered, when his father was away and he worked alone in Curufin's forge! – and he felt the surety of his hammer-strokes increase when he began to hold in his peripheral consciousness the intersecting rhythms of his fellow smiths' dance through the ringing space. With four people in the forge, it was music and not cacophony. The sounds of his tools already rang more true. His skill stimulated but not overwhelmed by the surroundings, he spoke with confidence when he pointed out the seeded crystals and the coiled wire and the screens he'd painstakingly woven of pure silver to exclude impurities from his media, repeating the lessons he'd learned in secrecy from his father.

One of the vessels' seals caught his attention as being near – if not failure, then imperfection – and he took that one to set on the shelf by his bed. On his last trip aboveground, he'd seen a holly thicket heavy with dark berries; he'd always liked holly, and a handful of the prickly branches would make his new quarters feel more like home.

He still lived in a single room, but this one had wide floors and a pleasant place to sit, and one corner had a window into one of the narrower air-shifts. (He was two levels too deep to have skylights, but for the air-shaft, he did not miss them.) The window was only a hand's breadth wide, but it was set with a row of fine colored stones that glowed by day. Opening it admitted the cold and sometimes a scattering of snow, but the freshness of the air seemed to ease the chill gloaming mists that clung to Menegroth's ceilings. As the winter above began to lose its icy grip on Doriath, it grew no warmer below, but the changed angle of the sun pierced the latched pane and sent colored lights to arc through his room in the late afternoon.

His room was a fair walk from the forge where he worked, but the walk was pleasant. He lived now on the border where the change in the floors heralded the shift from the flammable crafts to the inflammatory ones; his neighbor was a carpenter. Across the hall was the house of a family with two shy children, and at the end of the corridor lay a shared bathing-chamber. The other end opened to a vast, wondrous cavern in which even one who'd grown up beneath the Northern skies could take a deep breath and feel himself unwalled. The larger caves, he was finding, had something of their own climate – and though he didn't think that this grand stone room was one of those roofed in glass and crystal, it had its own soft breezes, and, even through the haze of dead cold that he now knew signified Melian's grief, it had a glow in the morning and a gilded light in the evening.

All these things he was careful not to allow himself to think he had bought.

He could have read it that way, perhaps. His previous efforts to win Lord Elu Thingol's acknowledgment had brought rewards rather condescending in their specificity. He was confident, though, that his skill was enough to earn this place, if not a better one. It had been only a matter of demonstrating he could use the skill well and ethically. He was proud to have found a demonstration that worked well enough to earn him this more satisfying life.

And it was satisfying. There was a freedom in being seen as something other than his father's son, even if for some people the shift was only from “the son of Curufin son of Fëanor” to “one of the Fëanorians” – it was a change, it was a start! And for those who worked alongside, he thought, there was already some further shift.

He had to have a real place here. He had to have a life. And his show of humility had not been too dear a price for that; it had been a bargain he made with his eyes open.

No. He corrected himself ruthlessly. He had not been bartering himself or his submission. He had simply shown his loyalty to a lord, and had his skill recognized. That was no haggling in the market-place, but an expression of fealty and an answering one of respect.

There was pride, even, in having figured out what the king wanted of him. He'd been given only hints at it, but he had succeeded in doing what he needed to do – in adapting to Menegroth and his new lord. His family was not famed for adapting; this was a skill he had taught himself, and of which he might be proud.

And in any case, he kept finding himself distracted when he did not keep that in mind – kept remembering the feel of the king's fingers in his hair, of hands rubbing his shoulders and his neck.

He still visited his horse regularly, but otherwise spent less time walking, so it took a while to realize how much faster spring was coming above. He'd lost track of time somewhat, first with his focus on trying to please the king and then with the pleasure of having new people with whom to exchange methods and ideas. It was easy to forget that above the ground there was still a world.

But while much of Menegroth bloomed without light, certain field crops were still grown aboveground, and the trees down here had turned out to mostly be well-carved stone. Hunters went to the surface, as did arborists, and chandlers and carpenters seeking the materials for their work. And though Tyelpe had always heard Doriath described as a world unto itself, a surprising number of messengers came and went: from the edges of the region guarded by the Girdle of Melian, from neighboring kingdoms, from the other settlements that were a day's walk or more away from the hidden jewels of the Thousand Caves.

These messengers began to bring strange news as the slow spring shambled out of hiding. Tyelpe had found a vintner in one of Menegroth's markets who was happy to let a soot-smudged jewel-smith occupy a corner of his counting-board, and he'd taken to spending an hour there every other evening or so, watching the Doriathrim walk by and running up credit on elderflower wine. At this point his own fair chamber was so pleasant to him that he knew he’d spend all his time there otherwise, and learn nothing of Doriath’s people. The vintner’s shopfront was an excellent place to hear news – some of which made his throat catch a little. Someone spoke of minor stirrings in the North, a new fiefdom of strange people near Lake Helevorn – did they tell stale stories of the chieftain Ulfang's coming, which Celegorm and Curufin had heard of from their eldest brother more than a year since, or was the news fresh? Were Amras and Caranthir all right? More commonly discussed was the turnover of power in Nargothrond, which was faintly reassuring; the messengers rehearsed events to which Tyelpe himself had been witness. Why would word from the March of Maedhros be any newer?

Some things he did hear that interested him, though. The Isle of Werewolves was virtually emptied, and green vines grew already through the ruins. One visitor from the outlying settlements of Doriath, declaring that he had not dressed warmly enough for Menegroth's lingering cold, wondered aloud if it was Tol-in-Gaurhoth that had drawn away the warmth from this land's heart – for he had third-hand word that the isle had grown lush and green all winter. There was word of the grave in which the conquering Lúthien had laid Finrod Felagund to rest, and it was said that his place of repose was lush with new plants. “A fine honor she did,” someone murmured, “for a Noldo,” and Tyelpe grew very interested in his glass when the vintner nodded agreement. The glade was alive with flowers, it was said – and a hunter who had visited it said that they were not the flowers of the warming months, nor even of the late spring, but the hearty, slow-growing blooms of summer, come to their fullest flower before the days had even equaled.

Tyelpe wasn't sure how to feel about this particular bit of news. He was surprised to find that he missed Finrod a little. His father's cousin had always been a confusing figure for him; “you sound like Finrod” had been Celegorm's favorite dismissal when Maglor said something he considered overly optimistic. Tyelpe had irritated Curufin ten years ago by chuckling sardonically when he was told they were going to Finrod's realm after the fall of the Pass of Aglon, thinking it was a complicated joke about the impossibility of their position. To be fair, Curufin was easy to irritate in grief, and they'd only barely had time to begin mourning Tyelpe's mother then. Curufin had thought his son's reaction distinctly inappropriate; Tyelpe had argued that it was rather appropriate, actually, for his mother, a dark, regal beauty who showed she understood a situation by treating it to her mocking laugh, would have found it quite funny. Celegorm had abruptly grabbed Curufin's forearm at that point, restraining whatever he might have done next, and Tyelpe –

Tyelpe drained his wine-glass, straightened his back, and caught the vintner's attention again.

He'd been surprised to find that Finrod's merry welcome of them seemed actually sincere, and it had defied his expectations again that Finrod treated him like a young prince. He'd seemed tireless, a little whimsical, airy even when he was coping with the duties of rule – yet people had always left his presence feeling that they didn't have much choice but to do as the king of Nargothrond should decide to do. He carried both a golden harp and a fine sword with him in his own halls, and he'd idly play sometimes while he talked; sometimes he'd offer to sing for someone whose mood seemed dimmed, an old song of Valinor or a new one of Beleriand, for all the world as though he were a common minstrel. He'd been disappointed for some reason that Tyelpe wasn't musical; I'm not Maglor, Tyelpe had almost said once, just because we look alike, but he'd restrained himself. He still couldn't shake the odd, pervasive sense that the friendliness and fraternity of Finrod was meant not for Tyelpe but for his father or an uncle – or perhaps for Fëanor who Curufin, and in turn his son, resembled so much.

Finrod's brother Orodreth had been a little less courteous – not in any way that was apparent, just something in his manner – but Tyelpe had liked him better all the same. It was a liking that was confirmed now, for if Orodreth hadn't made an explicit point of treating with him separately from Curufin and Celegorm, Tyelpe might not have had much choice but to go into exile with his father.

He couldn't help, now, comparing his father's Arafinwëan cousins to the king of Doriath. Orodreth had given Tyelpe leave to yield himself up to Doriath as soon as he'd quite determined that Tyelpe wasn't offering himself as a hostage. That would have been politically disadvantageous – so Celeborn, his sister's husband who'd been born in Doriath, had counseled rather strenuously – but so would keeping him in Nargothrond, possibly, when Orodreth was surrounded by people who had temporarily shifted their loyalties to two of Fëanor's sons. Tyelpe still thought he might have been better used politically if Orodreth had thought matters through, but then, Orodreth had held private counsel with the surviving prisoners of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and the greatest loyalty to his new reign would be found among them. Perhaps it was for them that Tyelpe was an unpleasant reminder?

Elu Thingol, on the other hand, had not taken long at all to decide he'd keep a Fëanorian smith of his own, and with his new understanding of what the king had wanted of him, Tyelpe had to admit his new lord had handled it well. Much as it chafed. He'd required certain proofs, not the same as those a Noldorin king would have asked of him, and …

… and Tyelpe decided he needed a walk. The cold air might feel dead as the spring grew outside, but it was bracing enough to clear his head.

It was not long after this that he received a message from one of the attendants of the king. Lord Thingol commanded him to attend a meeting of counsel; he must present himself in the late morning of the following day. The bearer of the order was one of the guards who had seen him so summarily dismissed the second time he approached the king, and he acknowledged the message as calmly as he could, though the prickle of shame tried to make his hands fidget. At least it wasn't the guard who had seen him kneel on the king's study floor. He reminded himself he had nothing to be ashamed of.

After some deliberation, he didn't bother to go to the forge the morning of the council, but went for a walk (and confirmed directions to the king's council halls with his shopkeeping friend), then returned to his room to pace. It was better than covering himself in soot he'd have to wash off. He took the best of his clothes from their rack by the fire where they'd been drying since last night, then propped his little mirror on the mantel and tried to arrange his hair attractively in it – a daily struggle, for the mirror was oval and the mantel wasn't, but he felt he'd do himself no favors by looking slovenly. Not on a normal day – he'd been taught from infancy that he represented the House of Fëanor whether he was thinking about it or not – and certainly not before the king of Doriath.

As he worked his braids together, he rehearsed what he must do. Stand tall. Speak for himself, not for his family. Keep his composure. Keep his self-control, regardless of what the summons should entail. He didn't even hope that this was to be a commission. Perhaps Thingol needed to present him to some other lords who held a stake in the governance of Doriath? (He resisted an ugly clenching in his gut at the thought of what that might entail.) It seemed unlikely, though. Thingol looked to be in much sterner control of his people than Finrod had been – and from Tyelpe's observations, rather more authoritative than the sons of Fëanor over their vassals. Was there, in fact, anyone to whom he'd have to justify a decision? Well, there was Melian the Maia, his queen, but it was well known that she'd been in isolation since the lady Lúthien's departure – and even if she were emerging to take an interest in rule again, it seemed both excessive and curiously non-intimate for Elu Thingol to summon Tyelpe to a formal council just to discuss the acceptance of a craftsman with his wife.

Two minutes before the appointed time he was at the door of the chamber where the king held council, and he was instantly asked in.

This room was one of the most obviously cave-like Tyelpe had yet entered here, but it was also one of the most impressive. Sheer but not smooth walls of fine white stone rose steeply around a semicircular table, carved from dark wood with legs that branched in three parts like the great beech that presided over the entrance to Menegroth. The edges of the table were lapped in gold, set with small stones – alabaster and onyx, Tyelpe thought, from this distance – and where the half-moon of the table opened, a thick moss-green carpet was laid. A golden fringe yielded to grass-like pile so real that Tyelpe might, had he wished, have plucked a stem of it – and the weaving was so fine that the small spring flowers that patterned it might have been scattered freshly there that morning, had they not been edged in the same golden thread. The whole room was bathed in light from a round pane high overhead, clear enough to show a brooding sky, edged in pale-blue tiles. By the light, there must be more air-shafts cunningly hidden around the edges of the space – and Tyelpe supposed these were not glassed in, for the chamber was profoundly cold. All the people at the table wore wool and fur, so they had clearly expected it.

Thingol was at the center, silver hair sweeping over grey furs that fell sleekly down his tall frame, giving a clean solidity to his august, upright posture. A tightening in Tyelpe's throat made it hard to deny the effect was attractive. Most of the other chairs were occupied. Tyelpe tried not to make his examination of them too obvious, keeping his focus on the king, but in peripheral vision the features of the king's counselors felt slightly off. After a moment he had it – he'd noticed without really noticing that the people of Menegroth included many who showed some signs of Avarin ancestry, in skin tone and in the shape of their ears, and every so often he'd spy the amber eyes so common among the Teleri. It was uncanny to see a group of people who were so purely and distinctly Sindarin. They looked different from one another as individuals, but in combination they made it unmistakable that Tyelpe had gotten used to more differences between faces he met. He supposed it was partly because the population of the March of Maedhros was made from the dregs of many peoples that he even noticed.

There were eleven people besides Thingol, but it was the king who spoke. “We have called you here, Celebrimbor son of Curufin, to hear your news from Nargothrond.”

Tyelpe looked at him blankly. What news could he bear from Nargothrond that Doriath didn't have already? But he responded, “My lord, I am glad to share any news I may have.”

Thingol addressed the rest of the room: “The son of Curufin was close in the counsel of the sons of Fëanor who threatened the throne of Nargothrond after their offense against Doriath. He is an armor-smith and jewel-smith who offered his knowledge to us, having, I believe, some design to pay for his father's crime. It has been my conclusion that he will know of any sentiment among Nargothrond's people that may bear on the matters under discussion.”

Tyelpe was torn between surprise that Thingol had apparently listened more closely to his description of his abilities than he thought – and irritation that his blunt and honorable offer was being described as some hypothetical plan. He met his lord's eyes and repeated calmly, “I have offered Doriath my loyalty and I am glad to share any news I have.”

“A question for him, Lord Elu,” said one of the counselors – golden-haired, green-eyed, and giving Tyelpe a quick, kind smile as he leaned forward to speak, which startled Tyelpe into a blink he was sure was noticeable. Thingol gestured assent with a flick of his hand. “Celebrimbor, knew you much of Orodreth's mind in particular?”

Tyelpe opened his mouth, but Thingol spoke as though the question were addressed to him: “It is of the people of Nargothrond that I ask him, Lendon, for Orodreth has never shown himself to us strong-minded and he will not be immune to general sentiment, particularly not at the start of an unexpected reign.”

“Nevertheless, my lord,” said Lendon, turning the question back to Tyelpe.

This called for a careful answer; Thingol's interruption had given him time to come up with one. Still, he let the council see him pause. “Orodreth never trusted my father's family enough to keep me in his confidence,” he said after a moment, “so I betray him not by giving all of what I know to my new lord. Nonetheless, of Nargothrond's people I can say something.”

“Say, then,” Lendon encouraged him.

Tyelpe spread his hands. “What is it my lords would like to know …?”

Thingol spoke again: “Has Nargothrond any designs on Tol-in-Gaurhoth?”

Again Tyelpe couldn't hide his startlement. Again he castigated himself for losing his composure. “I cannot imagine Nargothrond having any interest.”

“And you heard nothing of a plan to proceed there, to explore or to reclaim or even to retrieve the body of Finrod?”

“The last we heard was that Finrod had been buried with honor,” Tyelpe pointed out. “Why should he have been retrieved from his –”

“You are here not to speculate but to answer,” Thingol said shortly, earning himself startled glances from a few others behind the table.

“Apologies,” Tyelpe said quietly. He'd worked out what Thingol wanted – and surely it should only increase his pride that even members of Thingol's council hadn't come to the same conclusion. “I heard nothing of such plans.”

“Not even in idle dreams or angry rhetoric?”

“Not in any manner,” said Tyelpe. “In fact, I should –”

“Then you are dismissed,” said Thingol, and looked down to run an elegant finger over a parchment on the table before him.

Tyelpe stared openly at the king before he remembered himself – and swallowing bitterness that he had once been the son of a lord, remembered at the last instant to bow before he turned and retreated from the proud, cold cavern.

Chapter Text

To Elu's considerable irritation, the other lords of his council were much more excited by Celebrimbor than he was. He had turned aside at once from his questioning to the next item of business, but his summoning the boy seemed to have brought him to the attention of others in Menegroth whose favor held some import. And suddenly he found himself encountering Celebrimbor everywhere.

Lendon, irritating tender-heart that he was (though so skilled an agrarian that Elu would have been a fool to leave him off his council), had apparently started it by commissioning Celebrimbor to render a sketch in metal and gems as a gift for Lendon's sister. Then the head of Elu's armory was talking about him; Celebrimbor, he said, knew several tricks with wire bracing that were meant for the Noldorin mode of armor, with decorative reinforcement laid over fluid chain mail, but which they were adapting to reinforce the traditional Sindarin hardened leatherwork. He'd spoken of it to a protégée of Mablung’s on a hunt, apparently. Ithilbor and proud Saeros, who hadn’t even been in attendance at that council-meeting – and on whom Elu had depended to share his sense that the Noldo should know his place in Doriath – spoke of commissioning him to work amongst Doriath's Laiquendi, and only a cold look from Elu and a firm reminder that they had much reason to keep the Fëanorian confined to the city quelled them. Still, Elu was peripherally aware that Celebrimbor had suddenly gone from spending almost all his time in the forge or in his room to being invited to dine with the Guest-elves. It touched a great unease with him that the Noldo should spend time with those who in Doriath held themselves most separate from the main body of Elu's people.

As the weeks of spring continued, wan and cold though they were, hope renewed amongst Doriath's people that their princess still lived, that she would return. Elu couldn't help but catch the mood a little, too. But as those who dwelt in Menegroth tentatively began to indulge themselves with small solemnities surrounding new marriages, with celebrations of significant begetting-days for their children, Celebrimbor kept turning up.

Melian raised the subject of his obvious distraction after a fortnight of this. She had quietly emerged from her distance over the winter to take up a place at his side again – and Elu had felt some of his tension dissipate as though he'd been holding his breath for months to spare his heart from beating. Still, she noticed. “Does something trouble you, my love?” she asked. “Apart from what I know?”

He gave her an abbreviated tale of the whole matter, including the night that Celebrimbor had made his offer of submission so clear. From Melian he had no secrets. “And now he's everywhere,” Elu concluded. “I wanted him to give the whole of his skill and knowledge. I didn't want to be unable to avoid him.”

Melian was lying facedown on her bed, the dark arms that propped her head up to look at him clad in blue-grey silk of transparent fineness; he reclined, surrounded by leaf-patterned cushions, against the wall that adjoined his own bedchamber. The communicating door, which she had firmly shut after Lúthien disappeared, stood partway open. She listened, apparently with no intention of speaking yet.

“After all this, after everything that's happened, I was hoping he'd prove a good investment in our people's craft and safety – not another outsider walking into Menegroth as though he belongs here and –”

“Elu.” Gently Melian spoke over the heat developing in his voice. “You have the power to pack him off back to Nargothrond whenever you choose.”

He considered that a moment. “I suppose you're right.” It did help.

“Perhaps you should forbid him armor-smithing and have him focus on jewels,” Melian suggested, turning so her weight rested on one elbow.

He tossed her one of his cushions, which she caught neatly and slipped beneath her chest to pillow the pose. “I don't actually want to. I have made a good bargain, have I not? The skill of a smith, however baseborn, for Doriath, with training from those unlikely to share their knowledge otherwise; and I've had him for no more sacrifice on my part than finding a place for him and putting him there. Even if he has made that a bit more complicated than I expected, it's for his art is more impressive than I first knew, and I would have him employ it for the best service of our people. It's just that I could leave a jewel-maker to his own devices. An armorer? Those he'll serve most are those closest to me in the minding of our realm.”

“Unless his new queen commissions him for jewels?” She half-smiled, though her eyes were still frighteningly hollow. The weak joke simultaneously warmed him and made him wish he could hold her close like a fallen nestling, protect her from the sorrow that assailed her – the sorrow their daughter's mortal had brought.

“Perhaps I'll just lock him in the forge,” Elu mused.

“You can chain him to his anvil by the neck. You'll just have to order someone to feed him and take him for walks.” Melian was obviously trying; she must have noticed his pleasure and its blurred, aching shadow. He rose and came to stretch out on the bed next to her, resting his chin on her shoulder, wrapping an arm around her back.

She smiled dimly at him. “I'm all right, my lord.” Rather than answer, he let his fingers catch in her dark curls, letting the corkscrews of hair twine around his fingers, drawing out the tight loops and letting them spring back so their blackness flashed green in the filtered light. He'd been slightly disappointed that Lúthien didn't inherit the texture of her mother's hair. Melian had laughed at him and wound a lock of the baby's around one finger; it had stayed curled for a moment before relaxing back into the softer, straight tresses, which matched his own except for their color. From that moment – even from before it – he'd never ceased to think of her as magical. Still, he'd never expected …

“We do need to talk about her,” Melian murmured.

He closed his eyes and leaned his head against his wife's. “I know.”

“I don't know where she is.” She rolled away a little, and when he looked at her face, her eyes were inky. “I have been scrying for her, all this time, Elu. I see nothing but darkness and smell nothing but the scent of her hair. I know she overcame the Lord of Werewolves – I know she lives yet – but I don't know where.”

“Is she –” He made himself correct that, grudging though it was. “Are they – not still in Tol-in-Gaurhoth?”

“I think they wander around it. So came the news from my handmaidens. And if she still – if she still does not wish to see us – she will make them scarce as rabbits below the ground, though she is standing before our faces.” Her voice was trembling a little.

“Where else could they have gone? Is our daughter to dwell darkling in the woods with her impudent mortal, when she should be here in her realm, in glory?”

“Elu, I don't know if he's still with her. I don't know where either of them is.”

He reached out to take her hand, ended up with her wrist instead, and just kept it. “So do we go looking for her?”

Their eyes held. He was prepared to shrug off the robe of office at that moment to follow her. Once he had stopped and idled with her for years; he would move with her too, at her behest or no, if she should go a-wandering, and it was all the truer when it was for their treasured daughter that she would wander.

The moment broke when Melian bent her head so their brows touched, her bare head disturbing the leaves upon his crown. “If we leave, Saeros will cast aspersions on someone and we'll come back to find Menegroth broken in half like an egg.”

“Think you I would not sacrifice every stone of my realm to have her home?”

“Elu,” Melian chided.

His jaw set bitterly, eyes falling shamefully shut. He wasn't angry with her. “I'm not angry with you.”

“You never are,” she answered almost before he'd spoken, reaching up to trace his jaw with fingertips as alive as sapling twigs. “But you are so very angry.”

“There is so very much to be angry about,” he reminded her.

Melian sighed her agreement and drew him closer with a tight arm. They lay together for long seconds before she said quietly, “If I do not see her from here, she does not wish to be seen, not even from a heartbeat away. Our forthright girl has not grown to a woman who would try to tempt us to come and find her, or hide herself to see if we would come. I know in my heart she is not leading us a dance; she is dancing without us. We can't go after her, can we?”

“I wouldn't even know how to start looking,” he said, his tone tightly layered with more fury than he could swallow, but this time she did not chide him.

It wasn’t two days later that he found himself seated across from Celebrimbor at a dinner. Apparently, someone had invited the Fëanorian to give his opinion on an heirloom arm-band which had been broken, and found him charming; so Elu, dressed in courtly robes and dearly missing the presence of his wife on his arm, spent the evening simmering and trying to avoid meeting the vivid blue eyes of the boy, whose face stayed blank and smooth throughout the meal.

Even when they were drawn apart by the occasion, it was hard to ignore him, and while Elu approved of the subdued quality of the feasting as an honor to the absence of his daughter, he would have liked some excuse to be further away, to be distracted, not to see him. He played at a hand of cards with his host and a few others, tried viciously, lost sorely; and the rest of those at the dinner noticed their lord's distraction, looked at him sorrowfully and gave him space – which made it even harder not to see the son of the author of some of his cares standing quietly against walls and holding soft conversations. Too, his inability to focus made him notice everything else. He was in the house of one of his highest-ranking guard-captains, honoring the man with his presence, and they were of course discussing the news of what occurred in the realm. It was news he'd heard, but he didn't need to hear it again in the form of rumor.

In all, his mood was foul when he departed, and he waved Mablung away irritably, telling his attendant his presence was no longer required. He might as well seek the rest that eluded his king, for Elu was in no humor for even more company.

He was in no humor to go to sleep, either, so he found himself directing his steps toward one of Menegroth's armories. Perhaps he was guided in part by what he'd overheard in the captain's house, for the place he angled toward was a combination guard-room and fletcher's workshop and place of storage for some of his rangers, and it communicated directly to the surface.

The room was bathed in cool moonlight, warmed in one corner by a lit lantern, and Elu felt a little better when he stepped in – though his eyes rose to the ceiling, where intricately carved stone yielded to tiny grass-shielded panes that admitted illumination, and a great root of Hirilorn bisected the ceiling. The soft, cool light seized him with a fierce fantasy of continuing upward, taking the stairs and walking along the ridge in the earth formed by the root of the beech which pointed northward. He'd walk until he saw some sign of her; and he knew it was the multiple glasses of wine he'd mechanically sipped after making the rather poor decision to try to attend the dinner, but this plan felt suddenly hopeful. He'd find her and he'd bring her home to her mother, promising never again to whisk away something for which his precious child put out her hand in desire. How Melian's power would grow when their treasure was restored to them! It would again become folly for any to trespass in Doriath, Melian's joy strengthening the Girdle and making Menegroth a paradise again that Lúthien would not wish to leave. None would tread unwary into his realm, and none would dare lay an insolent hand on its fair princess.

He was staring fixedly at the ceiling, trying to recall to himself all the reasons they'd decided against going to look for Lúthien – duty, impossibility – when the patch of warm light in his peripheral vision began to move.

Instantly his grief transmuted into fury. He strode toward the light – only to see, not an unlucky guard or ranger checking his equipment, but Celebrimbor examining the underside of a leather pauldron by the glow of his lantern.

Celebrimbor looked up, obviously startled to find Elu bearing down on him, and when their eyes met Elu heard himself raise his voice as though he were hearing a stranger. “What are you doing in here?”

“I'm looking at the bracing – I think I can improve it. I was asked to,” he added defensively.

“Asked by whom? Someone you're reporting to back in Nargothrond – or in Himring? You treacherous filth.”

The boy bridled. This time, he saw with an ugly thrill, he'd finally wounded Celebrimbor's ample pride. “I have done nothing to suggest that I –”

“Who asked you?”

“Many of the leaders of your city consider my notable skill a valuable acquisition on your part, my lord.” Celebrimbor's voice had gone icy, and his eyes flickered with searing rapidity over Elu's form, noting his still-courtly dress and returning almost scornfully to his face. He set down his lantern with an audible rap. “They are eager to see improvements to your defenses in times like these.”

“Oh, times like these? Then you have been listening to my guards speak of the news, and you ask why I should be suspicious of you?”

“I know of little news, and nothing that should make you so.”

“That bloody dog of your uncle's,” Elu said sharply, “has been seen heading back toward the east – to meet with his true master, no doubt – and if that doesn't show what promises of loyalty from a vassal of the Fëanorians are worth –”

Celebrimbor turned abruptly away from him, hands fiddling with the pauldron. But it wasn't quick enough to hide the mournfulness that lowered his brows and shrouded his eyes.

“Oh, and now you shall show a sorrowful face, you false son of a false father –”

“Celegorm helped raise me,” Celebrimbor half-snarled. “I miss him. But if anything that should make it more meaningful that I rejected his deeds, to any king who –”

Elu would imagine later that Celebrimbor must be grateful to him for stopping him there, before he said what could not be unsaid; but it was not with intention that Elu did it, and he saw the youth's head snap to one side before he registered that his hand had moved. But move it had, and he brought it back once more and slapped Celebrimbor across the mouth and cheek, bitterly relishing the volume of the crack in the empty room.

“Do you really think yourself any more valuable than your kinslaying family? Do you?” He slapped the boy's face again, his fingertips thrumming where they caught the ridge of one brow. “Hear this: you are worthless. What skill you have is nothing, nothing, to overcome the squalor you were born to. You are no more than the least refuse of a contaminated house, and you besmirch the name of Finwë.” This brought Celebrimbor's eyes up, watering and bright above flushed cheeks, and Elu viciously struck across his lips, both drawing and muffling a short, whimpering cry that did nothing but arouse his fury further.

He fell to cuffing the boy, forcing him back against the armor-rack, viciously eager to see him cower from the blows. His own breathing was labored now, and his hands ached. He kept on, a torrent of vicious words spilling forth, a hail of slaps; and when Celebrimbor's hands went to grip the rack at his sides, forge-scarred knuckles paling, Elu almost laughed, his chest hurting as though trodden on. “You are worthless. Your vaunted skill is tainted, and you defile my kingdom by dwelling here. Do you think, baseborn child, that you can win some praise for what can never make up for the crime that brought you into my lands? Do you think you can possibly cease to be filth?”

His palm was smarting, throbbing, and the marks of his hand were bright on Celebrimbor's face. He fell silent, gasping, abruptly and heavily aware that he had no idea how long he'd been trapped in this rage.

And Celebrimbor, who had knelt so readily at his feet, who had licked his boots without even being told to do it, looked battered but not cowed.

Their eyes met – Elu's hot with despairing fury, Celebrimbor's burning like frostbite – and Celebrimbor asked with extraordinary coolness, “Is this helping?”

Chapter Text

“Is this helping?”

The question left his bruised lips before he'd quite finished forming it to his satisfaction, but it got his point across. He held Thingol's grey eyes, their pupils open with fury as his own were with pain – and with shock. Curufin had been a demanding father, Celegorm a forceful teacher, but Tyelpe had never in his life been handled like this.

But he did not break the king's gaze – he had a half-formed sense that Thingol, who had just lost control of himself so thoroughly, didn't deserve the favor of privacy for his furious lapse. As Thingol continued to stare at him for long moments while Tyelpe held himself up by the rack, Tyelpe's resolve only hardened, his hands beginning to steady in their slight trembling.

Yet the question hung in the air, and he found he still wanted the answer. Tyelpe had given up his entire life in distaste over the same events that seemed to have touched off Thingol's rage.

Taking, enduring, controlling – was it helping?

Thingol swallowed visibly, and his jaw set. They stared at each other in the shadowy space, their faces warmed by the wavering light of the lantern and limbs outlined by the calm, faint shafts from the moon.

The king took a breath. “You will come to my rooms tomorrow evening,” he said. “Two hours after dinner.”

“Is that what my king would have?” It was a smooth answer, a courtier's answer. But a spark of nervousness, of anticipation, made his voice sound almost childlike in his own ears, and he inwardly cringed at it.

“It is,” Thingol said shortly, and turned on his heel to depart.

Once again he had an appointment with the king, but this time, instead of giving up a day's work at the forge, Tyelpe was the first one there in the morning, working off the dull energy of having watched the slow dawn after a sleepless night. His walk aboveground after the confrontation had cooled his slapped face and his overall temper, but not drained off the feverish humor of affronted dignity and disbelief that Thingol's blows had stirred in him. Still, now, when he let himself grow absorbed in a task that did not take his whole mind, Thingol's words would recur as though murmured directly into his head, and he'd feel indefinable emotion tug at his throat.

He only stopped for lunch because Morfind went and bought some and brought it back to him, sliding it onto his work surface with a meaningful look. He stopped in mid-transfer of a gem, holding it in dripping forceps, and mumbled embarrassed thanks, then cleared his throat and tried again. “Thank you for your kindness.”

“I will be less kind if I have to be,” Morfind said, and when Tyelpe looked at him with his eyebrows rising, he nodded at the stone. “Put that in the solvent before it cracks. Who is giving you such trouble? I will set Liria on them if necessary.”

Tyelpe had not realized Morfind's wife was so legendary, but he couldn't understand –

Oh.

His hand flew to his face, embarrassed, feeling the remaining tenderness under tense fingers. He hadn't looked in a mirror. He must have bruises rising. Hastily, he dropped the opal from his forceps into the next vessel with its fellows. “Thank you for your – ” He'd just said that. “I appreciate it. I'm fine, though.”

“Are you sure?”

Tyelpe wrested control from his humiliation and straightened. “I'm truly all right,” he assured Morfind. “I did something a little foolish with not enough light. Frankly, I'm touched that you noticed.”

Morfind gestured to the fire which was burning in the room's central brazier. “Shadows highlight certain things, Celebrimbor.”

He nodded – and allowed a little of his embarrassment to show in his glance at Morfind, who gave him a comradely half-smile. “Thank you for lunch,” he said. Then, with a vague rebellious thrill, he added, “It's – Tyelpe, actually. Short for Tyelperinquar.”

“Tyelpe,” Morfind repeated. He said it a little wrong, but even in a heavy Sindarin accent there was something about hearing his name that softened Tyelpe's feelings. And the slightly more conspiratorial tone his smile took on showed that he'd understood the gesture.

Tyelpe narrowly remembered to push his meal to one side before spooning vitreous powder into the cylindrical vessel where his opals would spend the next several months – stray ground glass would make the meal exceedingly memorable, as it was one of the few reliable poisons for use on the Eldar. (Finrod had pointed this out cheerfully at a meal once, for reasons Tyelpe wasn't at all clear on, and put the entire court off their food.) He set them for the daily heating that would force them to find their color faster, and checked the temper of his gold-work, then settled to eat – and once he'd eaten he realized just how exhausted he was. He glanced sidelong at Morfind, trying to decide how absorbed his companion was – and if he'd reinforce the other smith's idea that he needed a guardian if he chose to tie up the loose ends of the day's work and go take a nap.

“Never work in the forge when you're too tired to focus,” Curufin had used to admonish him, generally swatting the back of his hand. Once, especially irritated, he'd landed a light blow of his fingers against the back of Tyelpe's neck; stung, he'd asked his father, “You work in the forge when you're too tired to sleep. Am I not to do as you do in craft, or does that not apply when you're being a hypocrite?” He'd expected a lecture, but instead Curufin had smiled rather evilly, pulled Tyelpe close with the hand not holding the hammer, and kissed his temple lightly before ordering him to bed in a voice that brooked no argument at all.

This felt like an important day, though he couldn't find it in himself to articulate quite why; maybe it was only lack of sleep that magnified his sense of alarming consequence. Maybe he knew exactly why and didn't want to word it. Still. He'd do as Curufin said and not as he did this once.

As opposed to doing neither what he said or what he did, which accounted for the rest of Tyelpe's life now.

He breathed a sigh of relief when his door closed behind him. His bed was unmade, and the light through his narrow window was cell-like, and the handful of holly and heath stuck in the copper cylinder on his bedside table was wilting, and yet – as it had begun to when he came back to this place – his heart said home.

Undressing and lying on his back in the bed was a swift process, and he tried to focus on the colors that shone through his window to the far wall, conjuring the echoes of forge-noise to fill his ears and drown out the echoes of Thingol's voice. Baseborn child. Do you think you can possibly win praise? You are worthless.

His body was rigid with anticipation, but he had no sense of time having passed when he woke up. By the darkness of his window, it was nearing the dinner hour that was kept in Menegroth. Allowing himself a faint groan, he rolled up to a sitting position.

He wondered what would happen if he just didn't go.

But at the same time, he remembered the visible arousal he'd seen on the king. And – he shuddered and buried his sore face in his hands for a moment – he had been trying not to let himself remember what Thingol's hand had felt like in his hair. What it had felt like to be handled like something worth holding on to – how that had struck him to the heart. Thingol's furious words last night might have helped the king – and if it helped him bear his loss, Tyelpe saw the nobility in accepting that treatment – but his hands, that night in the winter, had said the opposite of what he claimed last night to think of Tyelpe.

Much as he might wish to, there was no point in dwelling on this.

Tyelpe went to the communal bath at the end of the hall and scrubbed his hands and his arms until they bore no trace of the forge's contagious soot, until the marks of the substances he forced into crystallization were no more than the faintest stains of blue and brown on his fingers. Back in his room, he brushed his hair until it felt like carded silk and then worked it in an ambitious series of plaits. If he was wrong about what Elu Thingol wanted of him, it would do him nothing but good to look his best, and if he was right – well, then, Elu Thingol would not be able to lightly deny that the Noldor had beauty, would he?

The walk to the royal quarters felt familiar, this fourth time in as many months, and like the previous times, Tyelpe had all he could do not to fidget with his sleeves, hoping he looked like he had reason to be here. It was worse, he found, without something in his hands. He felt that his fingers were shaking, forced himself not to look to see if they were.

“I've been sent for by Lord Elu Thingol,” he said to the guard outside the door to the king's study, and the guard nodded and gestured that he should go in.

The study was empty, and for the first time Tyelpe let himself take in the details he'd registered but not allowed himself to focus on. The beautifully carved chair was half-pulled out before the desk – he'd seen its paw feet quite closely, but took a moment to appreciate the fluidity of the rest of the design – and he was gratified to see the golden coffer on which he'd lavished such care resting amidst the paraphernalia of writing on the desk-top. Narrow shelves to either side held scrolls, blank vellum, a couple of bound books which Tyelpe itched to go and open – though he'd had plenty of training to ignore this urge, as the few prized books in Caranthir's study were even finer, and until he was grown Tyelpe had been forbidden to touch them without supervision. The inlaid floor of white and green had a dull satin sheen, and hangings on the walls depicted living forests within arching caves; he'd have called them idealized depictions of Menegroth, but in truth the palace-city's glory equaled the weaving's in the proper light. Two of the finest, narrow banners woven with trees that shone silver beneath delicately cut spangle stars, flanked another door which stood half-open. Three more chairs stood around a graceful table – three. Tyelpe felt another twinge of sympathetic sorrow.

“My lord?” he said aloud, tentatively announcing himself.

“In here,” Thingol's voice came promptly from the partly-open door. “Enter.”

Tyelpe obeyed, drawing the door open – his fingers slid quickly over the tangled carvings that bordered it, admiring their crisp bas-relief – and stepping into the next chamber.

This, clearly, was Thingol's bedroom. Opaque grey hangings were bound with green sashes to the spiraling posts of a large bed, which was spread with pale velvet and flanked by night-tables; a sinking-thick carpet in the same colors was spread over the floor. A chest and a wardrobe beside it lay adjacent to a small table on which he saw a few objects: a scroll, a hairbrush, an hour-glass of silver sands. Two more doors across from Tyelpe were closed.

Thingol was here seated in a richly detailed wooden armchair, and Tyelpe's breath caught half-pleasantly at the sight of him. He'd never seen the king of Doriath without his crown; somehow it made his pewter hair, which was usually unbound, seem more free, and where the pin-straight tresses cascaded over set shoulders, the effect was lovely. Thingol wore a light robe of grey over trousers and a shirt so finely woven it was nearly translucent. His shadow-colored eyes were frank and expectant on Tyelpe's face. Tyelpe remembered his bruises and vague shame touched him like a finger down his spine. He spoke perhaps in response to the feeling, perhaps to quell it: “Am I to kneel this time, my king?”

Thingol's jaw squared as though challenged, and he opened his mouth as though to speak – then merely looked at Tyelpe, his gaze hardening perceptibly. Tyelpe's eyes dropped to Thingol's hands without his bidding them. They were tight on the arms of the chair, the knuckles prominent. Tyelpe swallowed, feeling somehow exposed, a feeling that intensified when Thingol said: “You are over-dressed for this purpose.”

Tyelpe drew in his breath, forced himself to slow it. He thought he should ask what purpose, for it would slow his racing thoughts, but the thoughts themselves were too many. It hadn't occurred to him before this that he might be facing a beating, but of course he might. He'd all but said he would allow Thingol whatever he needed, last night, and the same back in the autumn when he'd first come – and the king had shown clearly enough that he found some ease for his tension in those blows – had he? There'd been a visible tightening in Thingol's trousers when Tyelpe had brought himself to lick the king's boots – the act had even occurred to him only because Curufin had jested to Celegorm about making Orodreth do it, one of those times when he thought Tyelpe wasn't listening or didn't care – but he'd seen its effect, and after that, he'd thought he could guess what this summons was for. He hadn't minded it, but it suddenly seemed more fearsome now that he was standing before Thingol, seeing the persistent irritation in the determined set of the king's mouth.

And relatedly, was he looking like some untutored innocent now, for having turned up dressed as though for court? A minor concern, he reminded himself – but it would do him no favors if so.

Thingol rose from his chair and Tyelpe had to clamp iron control on himself not to fall a step back. He felt like a child called to account for misbehavior – which he reminded himself was ridiculous, for he'd come here his own man, taking responsibility as an adult for the actions of those whose protection and approval he was long past needing to seek.

Without speaking, the king came close enough to touch – and touch he did, reaching boldly over Tyelpe's shoulder to finger the textures of his plaits, then weave his fingers into the loose hair. The intimacy of the touch made Tyelpe rock on his feet, toward Thingol, then away.

And then Thingol kissed him.

Tyelpe had occasionally been kissed by other youths around Aglon, young Noldorin men who helped Celegorm keep his stable, and a couple of the maidens of Nargothrond had shared kisses with him on feast-days – a pale shadow, Finrod had said to him once, of the sort of celebration and worshipful ecstasy they used to experience in Valinor, but his sister Galadriel had scolded him lightly for casting a shadow on the enjoyment of the younger folk. Tyelpe thought he'd come near to bedding one of Galadriel's handmaidens, whose lips had been satin-fine against his own, but then Finrod had departed and she'd dropped their acquaintance all at once, the soft touch of her mouth a mere memory.

Thingol did not kiss like she had. Thingol made Tyelpe intensely aware of the teeth behind his lips, of the force that lay in his jaw, of Tyelpe's own opening and yielding as Thingol's tongue intruded with an assumption of right that he could only accept. Tyelpe had no notion of what to do with his hands as Thingol's fingers dug deeper into his hair, forcing his head forward into the demanding kiss; he tentatively brought them to Thingol's shoulders only to have both wrists roughly seized and held there, his fingers suspended crookedly in the air as Thingol took his mouth – and Tyelpe gave, breathless, drowning, for he felt at once when the king handled him an inevitability – that he'd decided long since to give.

Thingol broke the kiss but kept Tyelpe's wrists, holding his hands raised at the king's chest, staring the younger man down as though challenging him to protest – or searching for something upon his face. He evidently did not see what he looked for. He said, “Show me what treasure you have brought this time, Celebrimbor son of Curufin.”

Tyelpe blinked. What?

“Take your clothes off, foolish boy.”

Oh. The answer warmed his face – and closed a taut inner grip around his midsection. He dropped his eyes and waited for Thingol to release his hands, which the king did, a bit more gently than Tyelpe had expected. Then he forced his eyes to stay down as he slipped out of his surcoat, keeping it in his hand as he drew his tunic over his head, careful not to muss his hair. “Where should I –”

“Where you are.”

He obediently dropped the cloth on the floor. And though he was conscious of Thingol's eyes on him as he undid his shirt, pulling it free and off with conservative motions, he did not allow himself to look up. Despite his inexperience, Tyelpe knew his own beauty, but he would not let himself watch for its effect on the king. He would not let Thingol see how much it suddenly mattered to him that his vulnerability should be found pleasing – how bone-deep went his awareness of his lord's gaze as weighty as the cool air upon his bared skin.

He toed off his boots, managing not to lose his balance, and unbuckled his belt. The muscles at the back of his neck drew tight as he bent to push his trousers down, stepping free of them, then stood nude before Thingol, not breathing, trying also not to think. He kept his head down, having a vague certainty that it would please Thingol to see him look humble. That he'd perhaps rouse Thingol's anger again if he met his eyes at such a moment of tension. That if he wasn't being beaten at the time, he could do this, could show humility for his king – if it would help.

Thingol's fingers were a shock, long and brittle-cold and dipping under Tyelpe's shaft to lift it upon the tips, examining him like a stock-breeder inspecting a bull. Tyelpe jumped at the touch – Thingol had startled him less by slapping his face than by going straight to his cock – then felt his ears heating with embarrassment and his neck flushing with anger at himself for being so childishly affected. His hands tensed at his sides. He was less than half-hard, and he wasn't sure if he would have preferred to be fully so – or not at all – but not this. It felt chokingly wrong to be lifted so, looked at so –

Thingol took his hand away and absently wiped it against the seam of his trousers. “This is what he left you to?” the king asked, low-voiced, as though speaking to himself in an empty room.

Tyelpe blinked and chanced to look up. Thingol was contemplating him rather distantly, his head slightly to one side. “My lord?”

Thingol shook himself a little. “So be it,” he murmured, then turned to the table and swept the stray objects up from the surface, moving them to the top of the chest. “On the table.”

Cautiously Tyelpe moved to the table's edge, moving delicately on bare feet. “How …?”

“Get onto it and kneel.” Thingol raised an eyebrow. “You know very well you are fair upon your knees, I think.”

“My lord is too kind,” Tyelpe couldn't resist saying, but he tested the edge of the table, found it relatively sturdy, and brought his knee up to climb onto it. In the exact center, as near as he could tell, he settled on both knees, resisting the urge to bring his legs together; he straightened his back and let his hands rest on his thighs. Thingol looked him over with open appreciation, and Tyelpe breathed more fully again. He could well imagine how he must look, poised like a statue in a garden upon the table, his hair streaming down his back beneath the network of overlapping plaits. Thingol's gaze did not feel so heavy now.

The king was looking at him rather raptly, though, the abstraction gone from his gaze. “I want you to stay there,” he said.

“Yes, my lord,” Tyelpe murmured, and he worked on breathing evenly as Thingol turned and crossed to the side of the bed. He came back after a moment with a green glass bottle, his steps impatient and quick – and, Tyelpe saw, slightly restrained by the swell of interest which was unmistakable before him. The sight of it made Tyelpe shiver, half nerves, half curiosity, all anticipation, and his resolve to breathe slowly deserted him as soon as it had come.

The bottle was swiftly uncorked and Thingol poured some of the contents into his palm. It was oil – something of a light golden hue, thin and lightly wavering from the bottle's narrow neck. Tyelpe swallowed, trying to stop himself from wondering what the consequences would be if he tried to call this off, scrambled off the table – he didn't want to stop this, but if he did –

Thingol's fingers were already gleaming, already reaching between his legs, and Tyelpe shifted slightly on his knees. “Hold still,” Thingol told him firmly, “for so I command you, and I would see you control yourself for me.”

And the resulting pulse, like every blood vessel in his groin had just silently snapped open, had nothing to do with the first probing of Thingol's fingertips between his legs.

Tyelpe held himself rigid, watching himself rise as he gave his attention to stillness even though slick fingers were rubbing over skin he could not remember any other person touching – and then sliding deeper, encountering his hole and circling it with the oil. He tried desperately to stifle his high, thin sound of surprise, only succeeded in lifting a little on his knees with it. “Still,” Thingol warned him, his hand pulling abruptly back and raising above Tyelpe's thigh as though threatening to slap; “I'm sorry, my lord,” Tyelpe gasped. “I've just never done this ...”

“No?” Thingol poured more oil over bent fingers. “I would have thought you were brought to this young, with the value you seem to have been given.”

“What is that supposed –” the unwise question ended in a low gasp as Thingol's fingers returned, this time more directed, probing searchingly for his opening then pressing firmly upon it.

“Control yourself,” Thingol repeated, but his voice was lower, more gruff and more intimate this time, and again Tyelpe felt his cock jump.

He tried to hold still, catching himself bearing down as he tried not to rise away from the pressure, catching himself rising when he tried not to bear down. His thighs were trembling without volition. Thingol held the pressure with a patience that Tyelpe had not suspected in him. His breathing shallowed and he felt a flutter of something akin to panic when his body began to yield, Thingol's fingertip sliding upward and into him. He could feel his own pulse in his entrance. Helpless, he let his head fall back a little, let his fingers tighten white-knuckled on his own thighs, but otherwise he did not move.

Thingol was in him to the first knuckle before he applied much pressure, and it hurt when he did, the oil only partially easing its passage, leaving distinct lines of pinching, burning pain where the skin chafed or stretched. It didn't worsen, though, as the finger began to slide in deeper, turning, making Tyelpe feel impaled. When Thingol withdrew and added the second, he noticed the stretch – but it was somehow less invasive to be opened wider than to have that single finger explore him, and he relished it, gritting his teeth, his eyes squeezing shut so he could focus on keeping himself under tight rein. Thingol withdrew, forcing another sound from his throat, and poured more oil over his fingers, making it drip onto the table – “Thank you,” Tyelpe whispered, and Thingol ignored him – and this time when his fingers pushed back in, he curved them and put them to work inside. Tyelpe's thin breathing dropped to his chest without his willing it, becoming shallow, noisy, guttural.

It still hurt. But he was beginning to understand something of the appeal.

Far too soon Thingol pulled his hand away. “Lie on your back.”

Tyelpe's eyes flew open, the room listing around him. He looked at Thingol uncomprehendingly for a split second, then swung his legs around – oh, he felt it inside him – levered his hips to the edge of the table, and laid back, opening his legs without thinking about it. His head fell back over the edge; he felt the ends of his hair brush the floor. His fingers gripped tightly to the edges of the table as Thingol took hold of his knees, then his ankles, pushing his legs back, opening him up upon the table. He splashed oil from the bottle directly onto the seam at the underside of Tyelpe's cock, and Tyelpe fought to hold still, earning a vaguely approving mutter as Thingol passed his hand through the slick splash and pushed his fingers back in.

Perhaps it was more fingers now, perhaps deeper, or perhaps only the position changed something – for where before the penetration had been infectiously close, now it felt exquisite, and Tyelpe felt drawn open and forth as though the most intimate parts of him were turning pleasantly inside out, the tip of his cock exposed to the air and the pulse within it alive to the movement of Thingol's hand. Then there was something more, something sharper, at first unpleasant – a light, quick stabbing inside him – then all-consuming, working him toward climax with an efficiency that his private experimentation had never achieved. He was still burning just inside his hole. He didn't care. He was grateful for the wide spread of his legs making it all but impossible to disobey Thingol's order by moving; otherwise he could have come off the table.

Thingol's other hand was passing up his body now, skating over taut skin, and Tyelpe's own fingers tightened as he pictured it, Thingol's palm against the slightly darker skin of his abdomen. But he kept still – until suddenly Thingol's thumb was flattening one of his nipples, making him gasp, plucking the other to a peak – “Hold still, boy,” Thingol told him, but he was turning his fingers inside Tyelpe again, making it all the harder to obey.

He recovered himself as Thingol's fingers left his chest and the other hand stilled inside him. His eyes came open, focusing on the join of wall and ceiling above him, feeling the tension in his neck – and half ready to plead that this should not be over, for Thingol's touch was like heat upon a crystallizing stone, moving him, making him new, showing him facets of desire he had not known himself to contain. He wanted the movement back, and it swiftly became just as hard to lie still with Thingol giving him peace as when he'd been working inside him. But the brush of cloth over the backs of his thighs told him this was a pause and not a respite, and he swallowed, hearing his throat click anxiously as he surreptitiously resettled his hands for a better grip on the table.

Thingol's fingers in him spread, eliciting a moan that Tyelpe immediately found shameful, then withdrew, replaced at his opening with something obviously larger. Tyelpe felt himself twitch again. “My lord?” he whispered.

“Do you still agree to this?” Thingol challenged him.

“I do,” Tyelpe said at once, breathy, fighting the urge to lift his hips to Thingol's touch – though he didn't think he had the leverage even if he'd tried. “Yes, my king –” He barely stopped himself before adding please.

Thingol's shaft was well-slicked, so its pressure into him was not painful, only strange, and Tyelpe desperately wished he could pull himself up to watch what was happening, but he held still, feeling the exaggerated tension of his arms pulling every tendon as he let Thingol slide inside him. He'd expected a swifter motion, but it still startled him when Thingol's hips came to rest against his, when oiled hands spread slickness up his chest. Both circled his nipples, making him shake, and then one came to rest on his throat.

“You submit yourself to this?” Thingol asked him softly.

Tyelpe could not tense further than he already had, and some instinct said that to answer yes would be right, would be proper, would please – but he took a quick breath and said, “I choose to take what you choose to give.”

“That will do,” said Thingol, and his fingertips pressed painfully above Tyelpe's collarbone as he thrust suddenly hard against him, then withdrew to let his hips snap forward again, shifting Tyelpe on the table. He set up a hard rhythm – slower than the hounds Tyelpe had seen in his uncle's kennel, but he could not say if it was slow, as such – yet it rocked him on the table so that one of his feet slipped, his leg falling downward. “Hold still,” Thingol growled, and shoved the other knee back almost to his chest, opening him wider than ever – changing the angle of sensation, sparking confused half-metaphors in Tyelpe's head about prisms and light as suddenly the pressure was so much more – and Thingol asked him, “Can you feel now what it is to be trespassed upon?”

“No, my lord,” Tyelpe managed between gasps.

Thingol's rhythm paused. “No?”

It took great strength to bring his head up in this position, greater still to keep himself arched enough to meet Thingol's eyes, but Tyelpe did it – slow, deliberate, powerful arms shaking – and looked directly at his king as he answered, “Even my lord cannot trespass where he is invited.”

Thingol reached abruptly for him – he couldn't stop himself from flinching – and cupped the back of his neck beneath his hair, supporting him; then the king bent close, his elbow tucking behind Tyelpe's back, cock still deep inside him, and breathed against Tyelpe's taut throat as he began to move again. The thrusts were more upward now, and Tyelpe moaned helplessly, the rubbing of Thingol's head inside him an intimate battering that he never wanted to stop; he cried out, far past shame now, when Thingol's fingers powerfully explored his nipples, twisting them even as he repeated, “Hold still. You invite me to torment you? Then torment you I shall, but you will lie still – do as you're told –” He was panting between words. “Control yourself, boy, I tell you –”

Tyelpe shook his way to orgasm clutched in Thingol's arms, his head falling back, his knuckles burning at the edge of injury as he tried to keep his hands on the table, his knee involuntarily pressing into Thingol's chest; Thingol's teeth scraped lightly over his throat, then pressed hard to the skin over his breastbone as Thingol followed him down, shoving deep in a ripple of heat, pulling fiercely at Tyelpe's nipples to make him cry out as Thingol finished. Tentatively he stretched his fingers as Thingol held him, preparing to take his weight again on sore hands.

Moments later Thingol appeared to recover himself, slipping out of him and drawing him up to let him sit. Tyelpe shifted his hips back, wincing as his spread thighs came back together, taking stock of the ache in his body.

“You're leaving oil-spots on my table,” said Thingol. Tyelpe looked down at himself. His thighs were glistening with oil; there was seed on his belly; the thought that he'd just been bedded did not yet feel quite real.

“Apologies,” he said. “I'll dress.” He slipped off the table and brushed past the king, moving a little gingerly, waiting to feel some pain inside – but it was the hinges of his thighs that hurt, and the tendons in his shoulders. He hadn't been quite prepared for that, and it made it harder to bend and gather his clothes, pulling them back on while Thingol regarded him silently, thoughtfully, as still as a hart.

“If … my lord considers me pleasing enough to be worth a little oil spilt upon his table,” Tyelpe said as he laced his shirt just enough to lie smooth beneath his tunic, “I would be happy to come back. Again.”

Thingol swallowed visibly and answered him, “I will … certainly think on that.”

And this, Tyelpe thought as he pulled on the last of his garments, with Elu Thingol, was undoubtedly a success.

Chapter Text

Menegroth was not blooming as it usually did. As the days lengthened, every tree's flowering, the blossoms sparse and late, was a bittersweet reminder of the sorrow of Elu's wife. The pale green stems rising in the channels that flanked Menegroth's streets – fewer than usual, more wan, and less vigorous – were signs of her loneliness, and they reinforced Elu's own.

Despite the curiously steady flames of the city's lanterns, Elu found he was aching for sunlight, which did not shine as strongly below the earth and through the air-shafts as it once had.

He was coming to the point where thinking of Lúthien brought ache and not anger, but as the spring carried on, reminders of her were at every turn. When he walked on the roof of his city – outings which he thought his attendants appreciated as much as he did – he wondered if the perfumes of the flowers were the same ones she smelled, if the stirring breezes were the same ones she felt. Had she and her mortal stayed in Doriath? Had they given up the quest which had come to be in his own furious words? Had the mortal died or otherwise deserted her now?

Much as he had hated the thought of anyone encroaching upon her – much as he knew she needed no guardian, for rumor said his child had made Gorthaur the Cruel do obeisance before her – he found himself hoping that the Man – that Beren – had not left Lúthien alone.

He feared for her, even though he knew something of her power; and he feared too, and more deeply, that if the vagabond stayed near her, he might have taught her to believe the insult he had tossed in Elu's face. That Lúthien might think her father had thought her something to be sold for a pretty prize. Or worse still – that she might have thought it before the Man said it – but that was an unbearable thought, and to quell it, Elu turned at once to descend back to his quarters in search of Melian.

He found her in the garden that adjoined her bedroom, seated on a stone bench, her eyes closed, her face turned toward the motes that drifted in the wide shafts of half-toned sun. This lush place was the heart of Menegroth in a way that the thriving markets, the king's court, and the parks where minstrels plied their trade could never be; such spaces only piped the vitality of Melian's private garden into the city entire. Here amidst the wands of greenery, the fern-colored highlights that rounded her luxuriant curls seemed deeper, giving her an otherworldly cast that took Elu's breath away.

At his slowing step, she turned toward him, her full lips curving a bit. When her mantle fell back, he saw she had a lapful of little white birds; two or three of them sang him low notes of welcome and another one answered briefly from somewhere overhead. They scattered as he sat beside her, giving him room to rest a hand on his wife's knee.

“You, too?” she asked, and looked ahead of her. Elu followed her gaze to the bank of niphredil flowers directly ahead and bent his head bitterly, acknowledging the question. From that very spot he'd gathered the delicate flowers when they bloomed the day of their daughter's birth, bringing a double-handful to his wife still reposing in the rust-colored waters of the bath with their flawless infant suckling raptly at her breast. He'd strewed them before Melian's feet when she rose from the bloody water and hung them over Lúthien's cradle, not even questioning the wonder that their tiny princess should bring a new bloom into being. He'd found out later that the new flowers were noticed blooming at morning and evening for miles in every direction.

Moving abruptly – though Melian was not startled – he rose from the bench and knelt on the stone path, careless of his courtly robes' pale grey nap. His long fingers plucked the tenderly arched stems with quick, crisp motions as he first gathered, then began to braid them, working in silence as the fresh, curious scent of the bruised herb rose around him. Minutes later he turned back to Melian and presented her with a garland of niphredil, the green-tinged white flowers a softly swaying fringe on the plaited stems.

“Some things,” he said as she reached up to take it, her hands caressing the length of his, “will not change. Will they, my love?”

“Some things will not,” she agreed, then pulled him to her and kissed him fiercely, her mouth lingering cool as spring-water against his face. “Not,” she murmured in his ear, “though all the world should change around us; never you and me, Elwë. Never you and me.”

“I am as lost in you as the day I met you,” he said, his voice low in his throat.

She laughed, and though it sounded a little forced, the birds twittered in response. “Say rather that we are lost in each other, my love.”

“I am glad it is so,” he said, pulling her wrist closer so he could kiss her over her erratic pulse.

She leaned into him for a moment, the flowers in her lap, her forehead pressing to his sternum, then looked up at a long series of chirps above them. Her full, freshly-kissed lips parted and she sang back, echoing the notes with an eerie perfection that others would try to call merely beautiful, but which Elu relished for its very uncanniness.

“I remember when we taught them to sing,” she said absently after listening to the bird's answer.

He looked at her curiously. “You've spoken of that before, but also of learning their language.”

She smiled a bit, thought, then chuckled. “One may inspire a song and still have to learn the words of it, no? With my lady Vana's help, I was honored to be the subject for the singer … but ...” Her smile turned a little roguish as her fingers walked up Elu's arm. “We made quite a variety of noises, you see, and so many variations came back ...”

He captured her hand and kissed her knuckles, his lips parting in surprise over her fingers. “You and the lady Vána …?”

“Frequently.” She turned her head so her hair spilled over their joined hands. Her voice was warm, a little wistful. “She was like a climbing rose, clean-limbed and red, and she tasted of honeydew.”

“And vigorous in her pleasures, I take it?”

“As I am,” Melian agreed with what he had not said, and then immediately caught the look in his eye and apologetically pressed his hand to her cheekbone. “I'm sorry, Elu, but I … don't think I can yet.”

“I understand,” he was quick to assure her. He did.

She closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again with a touch of mischief, her lashes flicking upward against his palm. “Of course, you shall be seeing your bed-warmer again soon, I think?”

Elu bent his head in agreement, his silver tresses falling forward over his shoulders. “Unless it troubles you.”

“No. You saw him today?” she asked.

He didn't bother to confirm aloud, knowing she could tell an affirmative answer. When he walked above, he'd seen some of his woodsmen coming in from a hunt. Celebrimbor had been with them, mounted on a fine black horse with an unstrung bow across his back and a brace of birds over his saddle, apparently discussing fletching with great enthusiasm, looking very much one of the hunters – if not for the rich darkness of his hair catching the light, the depth of the color so unusual among the Sindar and creating an impossible-to-miss shadow amongst the yellow, brown and silver.

“Will you send for him?” Melian asked curiously. “For I must know when I am to listen at the door.”

Elu snorted. He knew she was doing no such thing.

He'd had Celebrimbor twice more now, taking him rough on the table again, then the second time, pushing him to his knees on the floor and entering him from behind. He'd yet to find the limit of the boy's apparent hunger to please – but he'd learned again each time that being asked to keep himself still made Celebrimbor's enthusiasm spike. It was a convenient pleasure.

Melian had clearly caught his momentary distraction. Her glance now was playful, the shadow of grief almost – almost – fled from the light of her gaze. “Would your little bride be pretty with flowers in his hair?” She twitched the garland at him.

“With ropes in it, rather, for they better suit him,” he answered mock-imperiously, and Melian laughed again.

To Celebrimbor, it seemed, rope was not quite so amusing. He laid back on his elbows on Elu's bed, tense and resistant, his blue gaze dark. Elu stared back at him, jaw set, edging past irritation into the urge to strike him.

He'd sent for Celebrimbor in what was becoming their usual manner, by having a note delivered to his forge. At the same time he had prepared for the evening by acquiring lengths of pale silk rope – for it had begun to seem a little farcical that he'd bedded the boy everywhere except his bed, but he was reluctant to permit such an intimacy without some reinforcement of the boy's position.

As usual, Celebrimbor had undressed when Elu bade him, had submissively gone where directed by his king (though even as he complied, there was always a certain pride in the set of his head that made Elu suspect something underlying his obedience). But then Elu had produced the coiled cords, and Celebrimbor had all but scrambled off the other side of the bed before getting control of himself.

Elu was still fully clothed, but Celebrimbor lay tense and nude before him, his clothing – fine trousers and tunic, a pressed robe of slate-blue linen that Elu had not seen before – half-folded to one side. He was, as yet, mostly unaroused, black hair half-confined by braids pooling below the silk pillows on Elu's bed. Apart from the forge-scars that salted his arms and darkened his nails, he was infuriatingly perfect.

“I have instructed you to be still every time you've come to me,” Elu challenged him. “Why is it so different for me to ensure it?”

“Perhaps,” Celebrimbor came right back, rising a little higher on his braced elbows, “if you do not trust me to follow your instructions, you think I am not fit for the bed of my king. I wish it,” he added a bit hastily, “but I do not need to be –”

“And this time I instruct you to be still and let me restrain you.”

“Those don't go together,” Celebrimbor said, almost matching Elu's sharpness, “and I don't care to be bound, nor need I – I am not like your birds; I can remain where you wish me without being caged!”

The words rang in the sudden deathly stillness of the room. Slowly and very obviously, Celebrimbor's face paled.

Elu did not spare him the full weight of his furious gaze as the silence held – and as Celebrimbor's color blanched to its utmost, Elu said shortly, “Get on the floor.”

Without protest Celebrimbor slid himself off the bed, landing with a thud on his knees at Elu's feet, all but cowering – Good, Elu thought savagely, and alongside the fierce satisfaction, if he thinks I mistreated my daughter, let him see most clearly what his father has left him to –

“I apologize, my lord,” Celebrimbor was whispering, his face almost touching Elu's thigh, and Elu backed away from him, letting his disgust show. “I didn't mean –”

“I am not interested in what you meant,” Elu said coldly.

Celebrimbor looked up at him appealingly – and – did the boy dare gaze upon him with pity? The suspicion was enough to move Elu's hand, letting his palm crack across Celebrimbor's cheekbone, enough to clench his teeth on spiteful enjoyment as Celebrimbor choked off a pained cry. “Keep your eyes on the floor,” he snapped. “You have no place looking at me.” And when Celebrimbor at once obeyed, bowing his head with swift humility, “If you wish me to accept your apology then show me you regret your foolishness. Show me!”

Cringing as though lashed by his voice, Celebrimbor bent forward, his hair lying in heavy waves on the floor when his palms slid forward so he crouched upon his hands and knees. Elu had a brief vision of stepping forcefully down upon an outstretched hand. Would it break bones, or only bruise them? He resisted the urge, resisted too the impulse to press his boot to the back of the Fëanorian's neck.

“I am sorry,” Celebrimbor repeated to the floor, his voice ringing with miserable sincerity. “I had no intent to scratch at your heart. I did not think through the meaning of what I spoke. I ask –” he swallowed audibly. “I beg your forgiveness.” He leaned forward, bringing his face near Elu's calves; Elu backed away, unwilling to endure a lengthy show of supplication when everything in him was still clamoring to kick the boy even as he cowered naked and penitent on the tiles. But he wanted – what? He forced himself to follow his thoughts. He wanted the boy to know his place.

He wanted to defile Curufin's son, as he had from the first. But he wanted Celebrimbor to accept it. Since Celebrimbor had made that bold statement on Elu's table, had said he'd willingly want this – Elu had been hungering to hear him say it again, thirsting for proof of it. His hands flexed and fisted at his sides as he warred between his eagerness to hurt and his more defensible desire to see Celebrimbor grovel until Elu was sure he knew he needed this, deserved this, would teach himself moment after moment to learn by heart the lessons Elu taught him and hold himself at ready for further instruction.

Elu swallowed against the fury that still raged through his bloodstream and told himself this contrition was enough.

He had to take several deep breaths before he could speak steadily. “You know that you are fortunate? I do not accept such slips from my vassals. You are not much of a courtier, boy.”

Celebrimbor glanced up at him with an expression caught between hope and a grimace, which smoothed away when he saw Elu was still looking down at him. “I know it, Lord Elu. I have not been much taught to serve. But I will learn – I came here to learn it – you must understand, my king, I come to you with a desire to make amends for what my people have done to yours, so I will –”

“That is why I am being patient with you,” Elu told him curtly, and Celebrimbor shut his mouth. “You need to understand that I would not be so patient with just anyone. But I will make a good subject of you yet, though you have been taught so little of servitude. You are an excellent smith – can you excel in this too?”

“I can,” Celebrimbor nodded, his mouth firming with determination. It was an appealing expression, and it evaporated a little more of Elu's anger.

He lowered himself to sit on the edge of the bed, mind racing. Celebrimbor twisted on his knees to keep Elu within his line of sight; almost idly, Elu laced his fingers into Celebrimbor's hair and drew him nearer, making him wince and shuffle closer so he knelt submissively almost upon Elu's toes. Elu realized that he could still punish the boy, and part of him wanted to, desperately – but would Celebrimbor continue to accept it? Would it make him more or less worthy, more or less a good investment?

“Open your mouth,” Elu commanded after a moment, and Celebrimbor swallowed visibly again and let his tongue flicker over his lips before he obeyed, letting his moist mouth part. As soon as he had done so, Elu drew back his free hand, tightened the other fist to keep his head in place, and lightly slapped him. Celebrimbor winced but struggled to keep his mouth open; he'd fallen into the stillness that Elu had demanded of him those three previous times, a tense living statue connected by the softness of his hair to Elu's grasp. “Good. Now.” Elu leaned back a little, drawing Celebrimbor's head even closer so his cheek hovered a scant fraction of an inch from the fall of Elu's robes over his knee. “What shall we do to make a more diplomatic subject of you? Is it the forge that makes you ill-spoken, for you are so often silent there?”

Celebrimbor's eyes flashed true terror. Elu was startled by it – yet not so, for should the boy not recognize Elu's power over him? Still. But Celebrimbor was already speaking. “My lord, I do not wish my best talents to go unused among your people ...”

“Hush, I will not forbid you your craft.”

Celebrimbor let out his breath, his lashes dropping. “I am not unwilling to learn some other art or trade, but that I should not be kept from my workshop ...”

“Is it your workshop?” Elu asked a little archly, and where his thumb was in contact with Celebrimbor's temple he felt jaw-muscles momentarily cord. “No, I will not squander your talents; you are too good a prize for that. But perhaps we should have you taught to pour wine at table. Do you think you'd make a serving-boy?” Celebrimbor snorted, relaxing slightly, apparently thinking this a joke. It made Elu suddenly more tempted by the notion – to see one raised to think himself princely bidden to make himself unobtrusive in service. Still, it was a poor use of his time. “Or perhaps I shall make a minstrel of you, now we've lost Daeron? How is your voice?”

Again Celebrimbor laughed, but there was both self-deprecation and a bit of an edge to the sound. “I haven't the family talent for song or spoken word, my lord,” he answered.

“No?”

He tried to shake his head, but was brought up short by Elu's hand.

“No songbird are you indeed, then.”

He had the grace to wince. “No, my lord. My voice is better-suited to dwarf-songs, as we found – I know a little of their language, though not enough to be much use outside the forge.”

Elu regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. “There are a few texts that were left behind by the dwarves of Belegost when Menegroth was built. I would be willing to permit you access.”

“Really?” Celebrimbor's eyes flew to Elu's face as he rose a fraction higher on his knees. The excitement struck Elu as vaguely doglike – which left him imagining Celebrimbor on a leash. Now, that was a worthy image – and a way perhaps to teach him his place.

He had no leash, though, and with the remnants of his temper still trembling down his arms he was not sure it was wise to loop his belt around Celebrimbor's throat. Not now.

“I cannot promise I will know enough to make use of them, but I would be grateful for the chance,” Celebrimbor was saying.

Elu tugged at his hair again, making him sit on his heels, and Celebrimbor let his eyes drop pleasingly. “I will allow it,” he said. And gave in to temptation: “How shall you thank your lord?”

Celebrimbor's hands shifted and his head bowed further for a second – a pretty picture of what Elu was starting to recognize as controlled nervousness. He started to slide down and back, his head coming between Elu's knees as he lowered himself with a long indrawn breath; Elu allowed it with a lax hand in his hair, but when Celebrimbor bent toward his calves, his fingers tightened with an abruptness that elicited a small, choked-down cry. “No,” he said. “Show a little creativity, boy.”

Celebrimbor peered momentarily up at him, lashes heavily half-over dark blue irises, then shuffled nearer again. Elu helpfully parted his legs so that Celebrimbor could slip between them, shivering once – perhaps, Elu thought, because of the light scrape of Elu's insteps over the bare skin of Celebrimbor's hips. The restraint of his hair was more restrictive now as his wide shoulders came to fit between Elu's thighs, for he could not look up at his lord's face from so near a position; Elu found this was not unpleasing, either, for there was something of satisfaction in the demure look of Celebrimbor's bent head, eyes focused on his task as his hands rose to unfasten Elu's belt, then delicately cup the front of his trousers, taking the rise of his arousal into the warm hollow of a curved palm.

Lightly, Celebrimbor lifted Elu out of his trousers, gazed for a moment upon him – “To your gratitude, boy,” Elu whispered, overcome with anticipation at the faint stir of Celebrimbor's anxious breath – then took him in a loose fist and brought soft lips to circle the head of his king's cock.

Celebrimbor's mouth felt like a shared secret, the first flat draws of his tongue and the warm tension of his lips as delicate as the membranes inside his hole, which three times now had grasped Elu's shaft with desperate, yielding tautness. It took him an obvious moment to figure out how best to get Elu's cock in his mouth – it was not particularly thick, but even a minor breadth was more, he found, than most were accustomed to take in before learning this skill, and Elu winced and hissed when the boy's first effort drove his length askew into Celebrimbor's cheek and between his teeth. “Careful,” he snapped, and Celebrimbor drew back apologetically before taking a deep breath – the wind of it felt cool against Elu's laved and moistened head – and taking a more direct approach in which only glancing touches of teeth were noticeable as Elu slid toward his throat.

As Celebrimbor began to suck, Elu loosened his hand and brought the other to join it, resting lightly about the curve of Celebrimbor's head, then sliding down to caress the back of his neck. Not noticeably breathing, Celebrimbor began to move his head under Elu's touch – had he seen this done before, or was he acting on instinct alone? – creating a pulse of tight lips partway down Elu's shaft as his mouth continued to draw at the soft skin, creating a small, maddening movement over the firmness of Elu's proud arousal. His hands were resting on the edge of the bed, fingertips at the point where tucked-down trousers yielded to satin skin below the king's cock, creating soft points of warmth under which Elu's balls wakened with a thrum he felt deep inside his pelvis.

Elu relaxed into it for long moments, letting himself be serviced, letting the pleasure replace his anger. He felt the tension of his shoulders flow into his fingers as they wound themselves amidst small locks of black hair, catching one of the narrow, elegantly woven braids between his ring and smallest fingers. There was no slow exploration, no building of confidence here; rather, Celebrimbor quickly discovered a comfortable depth and kept to it, his head moving a fraction to keep a drawing pressure on the delicate skin, his lips conscientiously tight and thereby guarding Elu from an inadvertent bite. Yes, he must know something of the pleasures of the mouth, whether from having taken some advice, or from practicing upon his own fingers, or from having witnessed his father at some debased recreation with a Noldorin slut or two –

Celebrimbor's soft rumble of discomfort did not pitch high enough to be a moan, but alerted Elu that his hands had abruptly tightened; and after a moment he left them that way. Elu himself had learned to enjoy Melian's hands weaving through his hair in ecstasy as one of the greatest pleasures of giving her his mouth; Celebrimbor could learn to enjoy the same. He let his wrists flex a bit, encouraging the youth to a more profound bobbing of his head, working his mouth for him over the throbbing hardness of Elu's cock. Celebrimbor responded beautifully, his hands sliding up to brace on Elu's hips before one returned to his balls, working them tentatively at first, then palming him with more enthusiasm against the firm upward pressure of the mattress. His mouth, which had felt as curiously soft and vulnerable as the skin which lay inside him, was tighter and stronger now, like his resistant hole the first time Elu had forced an oiled finger into him, and his tongue rose in a strong arc against the pronounced ridge that strained Elu's cock upward –

He pushed the boy back just when the drawing-up of his balls stilled his hips, and let the salt of his climax splash over the well-crafted face. He had a glimpse of dewy seed catching on black eyelashes before Celebrimbor pulled back with a small, distressed whimper, his hands coming up to cover his face and catch the last intense pulse of come on the back of a wrist. For a moment Elu watched him try to resist the frantic urge to rub at his eyes and grind the stuff in, Elu's tendons gone lax with pleasure; then he leaned to the side to snatch up the slate-colored robe and pass it to Celebrimbor. “Here.”

Celebrimbor took it at once to clear the come off his face, careful around his eyes, wiping from the inner corner to the outer with a care that looked practiced. Of course; he worked with caustics and hot metal in the forge and would know how to handle something in his eyes. Elu shifted in the bed, skewing the velvet coverlet beneath him, and reached again, pulling the green glass carafe of water from the bedside table and using it to wet a corner of the robe, which he pressed wordlessly into Celebrimbor's fingers. The boy remembered to murmur his thanks as he carefully applied it, and Elu nodded approval.

At last he looked up with one eye red-rimmed and obviously sore. But he asked, “Did I please you, my lord?”

“Very much,” Elu said quietly, and as Celebrimbor's swollen lips made a surprised, pleased motion toward a smile, he realized he should probably qualify that. “You have much still to learn of using your mouth, but I wish you to begin next time by repeating what you've done today.”

Celebrimbor looked, if anything, more delighted with himself, and Elu turned his attention from the boy's pretty face to the robe, which was half pooled about Elu's legs and half in Celebrimbor's hands. He lifted a fold of it; the pale stain of come was already drying and was near the hem.

The boy always showed such obvious care when he dressed for an audience with his king. Did he otherwise?

“This,” he said, giving the robe a little shake, “I expect you to wear again tomorrow. Without washing it. I will know if you disobey.”

Celebrimbor's lingering smile faded. Yet his gaze had gone a little sharper, a little darker, a little more intense.

“You make yourself lovely for me,” Elu whispered, and Celebrimbor gasped half-audibly, then bent – a graceful, controlled bending – to rest his brow on Elu's knee.

He whispered, “That is so, my king.”

Chapter Text

“I'm not sure you've quite captured the texture,” said Saeros, his head bent close to the arrangement of steel bands on Tyelpe's work-table. The delicate arcs were burnished to bark-color and fused at their tips, splaying architecturally to accommodate the upper arm of an archer without restraining the stretch of the bicep or shifting upon the release. It was Tyelpe's habit, considering his own preferred weapons, to look to an archer's needs first, and this focus was rare among armor-smiths. This, he suspected, was a large part of the reason that Saeros had begun to patronize his workshop so frequently; the Laiquendi maintained several separate ranged-fighting traditions, some of which Tyelpe hadn't even heard of before, and while the leatherwork of the Doriathrim was a remarkable art, yielding armor nearly as impenetrable as mail and – Tyelpe had to admit – often much more beautiful, it was better suited to underbrush hunting and to the firm, unbroken line of weapon to core in dual-weapon combat than to the circular movements that many of the Green-elves' weapons required. Doriathrim warriors whose arts did not require silence or smooth movement through close growth had long since adopted touches of chain mail amidst their leather, and Saeros had proved eager to develop a similar mix.

“I'm a little more interested in proof-of-concept before camouflage,” Tyelpe objected. “Besides, it doesn't honestly work unless it's anchored right, so I'll need someone in Laiquendi dress so I can see how it should hook to the sleeve.”

Saeros nodded and promised, “I'll arrange it as soon as possible.”

“It also depends whether you're using leather to drape it – or,” said Tyelpe, the idea forming as he spoke, “if you were to adapt a fine mail such that it draped over the joints like a wing ...”

“Frankly,” said Saeros, “what I'd best like is for it to drape well beneath a textured fabric, such as we make for blending into the woods – I'll bring you a sample. As for what's underneath, what works best?”

Morfind, who had apparently done his apprenticeship with one of the first smiths to have developed new applications for chain mail in Doriath, leaned away from the shared quench to look. Tyelpe had drawn him into the project with Saeros' approval. While Tyelpe was enjoying taking commissions so independently as he now could, it was also a pleasure to have an occasional collaborator in the workshop. “What if you used larger, lighter links so they wouldn't weight or pinch here?”

“You'd need truly perfect scaling to develop a pattern that let you change sizes at the shoulder,” said Tyelpe, intrigued by the notion.

“Couldn't you accomplish the same thing by using very small links?” Saeros asked skeptically. “The arm is quite vulnerable when drawing, and larger spaces seem unfit.”

“You'd need a very flexible pattern, of course,” Tyelpe half-agreed, turning the structure in his hands, envisioning anchor-points. “We'd need to consult a mail-worker for what would be best – a specialty mail-worker, I mean. Sorry, Morfind.”

“Don't be sorry.” Morfind wove his way over through the workshop, neatly evading Emelin. (She was more a weapon-smith and tool-smith than an armorer, but Tyelpe had tried to consult her on Saeros' vision anyway; however, she was apparently unwilling to work with the son of the Green-elves' chieftain.) “Don't you oil the cloth to make it take that texture?”

Saeros was silent, his spruce-colored eyes flashing mistrust; the making of the textured cloth was evidently a closely preserved Laiquendi art. “Regardless of method,” Tyelpe interceded quickly, “I do think it has the chance of turning a point into the metal bracing if the mail was larger.” He recognized the excited focus that had prompted Morfind's question, but he was also distracted by the consciousness that Saeros had become his best customer in the past few months – and the proud, outspoken lord was a valuable ally.

Morfind, Tyelpe suspected, would not understand the quick kinship he'd developed with volatile Saeros – nothing so intense as even the early stages of … whatever he was doing with Lord Elu, but rare nonetheless. Tyelpe was the first Noldo who had dwelt here since his father's cousin Galadriel had left her service to Melian, bringing what she'd learned to help construct the city of her eldest brother. Saeros naturally understood something of that position as a rarity. Many Laiquendi dwelt in Doriath, holding themselves apart, but only a few in Menegroth itself – and when Saeros traveled back and forth between the Green-elven settlement and Elu Thingol's city, as he did at least monthly, he'd taken to dropping in to see Tyelpe as soon as he got back. Sometimes he had a commission, a request for a dozen deep-green stones or a pair of bracers suited for a spear-thrower; two or three times as the summer wore on, though, he'd come in just to see what Tyelpe was doing and mention some facet of the Laiquendi's unique dress traditions that might interest an armorer.

Tyelpe had asked among other smiths under the guise of being unclear on one of Saeros' instructions. They told him that there had apparently been some other smith he used to patronize, in an Avarin settlement on the edge of Melian's Girdle – the existence of such a settlement had been a surprise – but he'd been looking to Menegroth for much trade of late. Now it appeared that Tyelpe was almost the only smith he commissioned. Tyelpe flattered himself that he was offering Saeros something altogether new. And he worked to ensure it; endless hours he dedicated to re-discovering the things Curufin hadn't thought to explicitly teach him when they were partners in the workshop, to refining his own craft and finding the peculiarities of vision and skill that were not his teacher's, but his own.

A strand of Saeros' hair was swinging perilously toward an open vessel of aluminum solution; Tyelpe almost caught it before remembering how sensitive he was about his hair and moving the vessel instead. “If you bring me the sample I can figure out how to attach a cloth layer first, then choose what'll suit best for an underlayment,” he decided aloud. “If it's for archers chiefly that you think it will be fitting, I can test it myself.”

“I'll get some. Tell me when you test it and we shall go hunting,” Saeros suggested. “Perhaps we'll find a wolf-pelt and give it in tribute to the king's daughter.”

Tyelpe blinked at him. “What?” He had a brief, confused notion that perhaps Saeros meant Melian was with child – but he'd had the vague idea Lord Elu's bed was cold when Tyelpe wasn't in it. Certainly it had been a couple of weeks since he was last sent for, and certainly he'd never actually laid eyes on the lady close-up, and certainly the level of the oil in the bottle at Elu's bedside never changed when he wasn't there – not that this necessarily meant anything, he reminded himself, for he knew that women often did not require it … but Elu had him so often now, and – Tyelpe's shoulders tightened guiltily to think something so intimate about his lord – he never tasted of anything but himself.

Morfind and Saeros were both staring at him. He looked himself over swiftly for spilled chemicals and returned their quizzical gazes with open, questioning eyes of his own.

“How did you possibly miss this?” said Morfind.

“She's back,” said Saeros almost at the same moment. “The lady Lúthien. Returned from the North with her mortal beloved – and that golden hound of the sons of Fëanor.”

“Huan is Celegorm's,” Tyelpe said automatically before his brain caught up. His own quick glance picked up Morfind's odd look at Saeros, and Emelin's eyes rising from her etching-work behind him; did they look at Saeros, speaking of Fëanorians so freely before the youngest of them, or did they look at Tyelpe for his response? His hands were tense. “His hunt-partner, I mean. He came here?” He cannot ask, What of the Stone? But is it more suspicious that he should not? He didn't expect – he didn't prepare for how he should behave in this instance. The task set for Beren had been an impossible one. Finrod had lightly acknowledged the ludicrousness of his own errand when he went, plating a deadly merriment over grim knowledge so obviously that even Tyelpe, who found Finrod inscrutable after a lifetime of his uncles, could see it. He had not been prepared to be a child of Fëanor's favorite son in the presence of a Silmaril, and his gut twisted sickly at the thought.

Maedhros had evidently feared Tyelpe would be born to the Oath of Fëanor, a poison passed somehow from self to seed to womb to child. He hadn't been, but neither was he immune to having grown up in the care of one who would have given the brothers' five remaining right hands without a thought to hold the Stones again. When Tyelpe imagined himself in the presence of the Stone, the image was synonymous with bearing it to the hands of Curufin, of Celegorm, of Maedhros. To stand in the presence of Fëanor's best work, of what had been robbed from them at the price of Finwë's life, of the objects whose power and whose freight of hope had determined the fate of his entire family, his entire people, and not to … Tyelpe could have cried.

He'd repudiated his father and his grandfather and all that had to do with the Oath. This touched him no more than any other Noldo. Tyelpe squared already-square shoulders. “And the Man?”

“He won a Stone but lost his hand,” said Morfind, “but he claims the Stone is still in it, so Lord Elu is holding the bride-price paid. A good choice, if it were my place to say, which it isn't.”

“Odd choice,” said Saeros. “I wouldn't give a daughter of mine for that, but I suspect he'd already decided to let his daughter have anything she pointed to and named if she came home.”

Tyelpe nodded, not trusting himself to speak – he'd noticed the same.

“Anyway,” Saeros continued, “yes, they brought the dog.”

In the Pass of Aglon, Huan had been immense; clean-limbed and mist-golden, he'd patiently accompanied some of Tyelpe's first steps, his head chest-high to Celegorm and his feathery fur both whiter and warmer in color than his hunt-partner's hair. Tyelpe had always felt a dark, precious little object when he was held between Huan's paws; in games when he was an adolescent, whippy and broadening but not too old to play, Tyelpe had known what it felt like to be a clever black fox racing across open country, seeking bolt-holes, chased by the laughing bell of the rangy dog.

Huan had been a massive pursuer then. In the halls of Menegroth, he seemed even bigger. Tyelpe had not had any trouble believing the stories that the lady Lúthien had ridden him like a pony on her way to challenge Gorthaur, but when he found the great Hound of Valinor curled up sleeping in one of the exquisite pocket-sized gardens along the edge of the city's royal quarters, he appreciated anew what it must have been like to see the massive sunlight-colored dog loping toward the tower.

“Huan?” he said softly.

Green birds scattered from green foliage as the dog at once raised his head, muzzle relaxing into a soft-eyed, open-mouthed smile. He didn't alert; he must have smelt Tyelpe coming.

Tyelpe confined his response to a matching smile and a slight bow. He reminded himself he was an adult, a starting-to-be-respected smith, who could not possibly fling his arms around the dog's neck.

Huan seemed to disagree, however. He silently hoisted himself up on deer-like legs, revealing a tapestry cushion beneath him which had been completely hidden under his bulk; took two long steps toward Tyelpe and leaned heavily on him, placing a muscled shoulder in Tyelpe's midriff and pinning him totally against the wall.

Tyelpe couldn't help but laugh – a little breathlessly, as he was being crushed. Giving in, he curled down, draped an arm over Huan and murmured, “Greetings, Uncle.” Dog he might be and Maia, immense and silent except at the hunt, yet Tyelpe found in himself a well of joy that there was one member of his former family he could greet, and greet untroubled.

The thought was its own downfall, though; should this moment not be a troubled one? His grip tightened as he nestled for a moment against white-gold fur – soft fur, well-brushed, and with the pleasant scent of a dog recently bathed. The warmth of a loved animal overlaid a hint of lightning-strike, as always, but there was a distinct note of recently having been acquainted with good soap. Through his unease, he smiled a bit against Huan's nape. “They are taking good care of you, I see.”

Huan caught his mood. The short neck craned and the body bent so he could look up at Tyelpe with dark, mournful eyes, pressing his cheek meaningfully to Tyelpe's tunic-sleeve.

“I'm fine,” Tyelpe assured him.

The eyes did not cease to be mournful.

“Truly, Huan, I'm fine.” He changed the subject with a little smile. “Were you expecting me here? I was not expecting you, but I have heard of your doings. We heard you'd challenged Gorthaur himself with the lady Lúthien.”

Huan's eyes laughed and he playfully mouthed Tyelpe's wrist, then tightened his jaws just enough to tug him toward the tapestry bed. Tyelpe understood the gesture from long practice and followed until Huan had installed him on the too-small cushion instead, then lain down long and attentive and put his chin on his paws: the attitude of awaiting a story.

Tyelpe was glad to see him. He settled obligingly on the cushion, draping a hand on the back of Huan's neck, settling into the drowsy summer sunlight filtered by leaves above. This was a bright, pretty place good for sitting; he wasn't surprised that Huan had evidently made it his own. “The king of Doriath … was wise enough to accept me in his city,” he began. “Lord Elu knows the value of a craftsman, and of Noldorin knowledge, too, for all he forbids our speech. I couldn't stay in Nargothrond after – after we heard of Finrod.” Huan made a sound between a grumble and a moan, and Tyelpe cracked a sad smile and rubbed his ears. Huan's feelings toward Finrod had been complex. “I put the notion to Orodreth that I should come and try to mend the – the wounds of Father's – ” he swallowed, scolding himself for the stammering. “Of Curufin's and Celegorm's conduct toward Doriath.”

On his elbows, Huan inched closer, looking piercingly at Tyelpe, his ears down.

“No, of course you should have gone with them!” said Tyelpe, a little shocked at the notion – though he supposed he shouldn't have been. Was a son's bond to his father less than that of a Valarin dog to his partner at the hunt? Still. The idea of Huan leaving Celegorm for anything but the most profound offense … He'd followed Tyelpe's uncle across the sea, chosen him over everything; Tyelpe had been born to the family and to its obligations. “My choice was my own, as was yours. As a craftsman, I could not watch him poison and pervert a whole city, even if it was ...” He caught himself before finishing that sentence: Even if it was partly the doing of their captive. He'd absorbed something of the Doriathrim suspicion that Melian heard everything from the birds.

Not that he was altogether sure Melian would mind hearing it. Lúthien had every right to fill the halls of Nargothrond with her pain and fear and fury at her helplessness, to draw power from the denizens' remnants of courage to wrest herself free with Huan's help. The halls had been most haunted about the chamber where Celegorm kept the imprisoned princess. Tyelpe knew the tradition that violation of one's leave to be touched could kill, though he'd also heard it was specifically a Noldorin belief. What had Celegorm done to Elu's daughter in that chamber? Could her confinement have been enough to cause what Tyelpe sensed? Could the assault of a lady have been enough, or the attempt to force a whole kingdom to consent on her behalf – enough to do that to Nargothrond? Would an Oath beating in the blood of the perpetrator – if perpetrator Celegorm had been of more than kidnapping – have been enough to make it so? Or – and he'd pondered this more deeply since living in the city of Thingol and Melian – could Maiarin ancestry have done it?

Even knowing what Lúthien had overcome thereafter, Tyelpe could only half-convince himself she could have done such a thing to a place and a people. But whether it was her doing or Curufin's, or even – though Tyelpe doubted it was in his nature – the distant, tortured king's, something in the heart of Nargothrond had been dying, dying hard, rotting before it rested. To the ears of one who had listened to metal and stone before he spoke himself, who had learned to tell an animal in fear by its tracks before he could first draw a bow, every footfall had echoed wrong. And every flattened sound and whiff of skulking fear had told Tyelpe day by day over weeks that he couldn't countenance this. Orodreth's assumption of rule had made things only a little better.

He carried on, almost smoothly to Huan. “You were – in a position to give them another chance. I … assume they ill-used it, since you're here.” His throat tightened a little. He had almost forbidden himself to draw that conclusion, these past months.

Huan huffed, a low sad sound of disappointment. Tyelpe buried a hand in his fur again as the great dog inched closer to lay his head against Tyelpe's chest, looking up at him.

“Did Father –” No, he didn't actually want to know that. “I was afraid you blamed me, too.” Huan shook his head once and leaned on Tyelpe, who felt his shoulders drop a bit.

“I know it was the right thing to do,” he said after a moment, his voice dropping to a murmur. “So why can't I stop feeling that we both betrayed Curufin?”

Huan grumbled a little, making it clear that Curufin was not his central concern. Tyelpe chuckled a bit, wiping his hand across damp eyelids.

After a moment Huan nudged him again and settled his head on Tyelpe's thigh. He took the point. “Yes. Well. I've been living here since. They sent me to the journeymen's quarters in a large workshop at first – it was awful, Huan, I was making hammer-heads and drawing wire all day – ” Huan snorted. “But I made myself enough of a nuisance pestering Lord Elu – Thingol, that is – with gifts that I've my own quarters now, and a workshop with other skilled smiths, and good customers for armor and jewelry, too. I have much to teach these people, it seems, and we're learning to build on each other's traditions – it's … sorry,” he said to Huan, knowing the hound's lack of thumbs made the enthusiasm of the craftsman less relatable. He and Celegorm had listened patiently while Tyelpe prattled on about his childhood lessons, though, and Huan pressed his long chin down now in the signal to carry on, his sweep of tail stirring the leaf-litter. “There are other peoples in Doriath than the Grey-elves, too – some Avari, and the Green-elves – and one of their princes, though he isn't called so, has been bringing me commissions. A great honor. And as for the king –”

He hesitated, and Huan must have smelled a change in his manner, because his tail suddenly stopped half-curved. The blade of his lower jaw nudged harder into Tyelpe's thigh-muscle.

It seemed as though it would be an admission, to be other than frank. “The king has taken me as a lover.” Huan's eyes showed no alarm, so Tyelpe went on more easily, as he'd once have confided in Celegorm while Huan lay at their feet – though what he'd said then had been more along the lines of Such and such a soldier kissed me when Father was distracted with Maglor's last letter, not I spend many evenings naked on my lord's table or kneeling at his feet. He was unsure of the right words for it. “He has … I've discovered I've … I wish to please him, very much. And I am pleased in turn that he enjoys me so much. That I can make him enjoy me so much.” He raised his eyes to the light-dappled leaves that scalloped the air-shaft, wondering if that really did justice to the thing.

Last time he'd seen Elu, his lord had moved his hair aside, lifting the weight of it in one hand as if it were a skein of something precious, then slipped a wide leather belt around his neck. Lying facedown on the bed, limbs open, having been ordered to keep still, Tyelpe had been proud of himself for managing not to startle as it was slipped taut. “If you'd prefer it around your wrists, boy,” Elu had said – his tone was indefinable, maybe taunting, maybe admiring, maybe neither – “you have only to speak.” Tyelpe had held his tongue instead, his back hollowing as Elu's fingers hooked under his pelvis to encourage his hips up, gave him a firm slap at the upper edge of his thigh as one would do to start a horse homeward, then began the work of oiling him for Elu's use. He'd been trembling with the exertion of holding position and of pressing back to the intruding fingers by the time Elu shoved a cushion under his belly and bade him ask to be taken, and he'd spoken – begged, almost – past a tightening band, his breath rapid with the exhilaration of being appreciated to the point of being leashed.

He'd had to wear a high-collared tunic the next day – it wasn't much of a bruise, just a faint shadow, but he'd worried someone would see. Doing up the fastenings had reminded him of the particular nature of that enjoyment – and started the throb of shame.

It was easy to feel, in the moment, that his beauty was admired, that he was wanted, that he was summoned because his lord enjoyed as well as valued him. It was easy the next day to feel he was being treated like a dog.

Still, though. He ran a hand as far as he could reach down Huan's spine. Was that such a bad thing? Huan was a noble creature – a friend to those in desperate straits – and of like kind to Lady Melian, as well. Yet he'd never exactly shied from begging for table scraps – nor heaving himself into Celegorm's lap when he wanted attention and making horrible noises of long-awaited pleasure until he'd been scratched to his satisfaction. Such activities had touched his dignity not at all – nor had playing in mud and rolling in the occasional rotting carcass affected his white-gold beauty, for that matter.

But Celegorm broke with him, just as my father didn't bother to strive to keep me, a treacherous thought intruded. He shook his head at himself – Curufin wouldn't have been able to reverse Tyelpe's decision unless he threw him over the saddle and carried him back to Himring like game in a sack. Curufin was too oft underestimated by those whose eyes went first to one or another of his tall and deadly older brothers, but he was wise enough to see what was futile.

Be that as it may, Celegorm broke with Huan, the thought insisted. What is to prevent Elu ceasing to want me?

That thought was even harder to dismiss, and he tucked an arm around Huan's shoulders and leaned closer, rubbing his fingers through the fur. It wasn't as though the fact that Elu was working out pain and anger on Tyelpe was some subtle secret. Tyelpe was glad to help; Elu ruled his strange domain well, and gave it with his decisions and his care the life that Nargothrond had lost, and if help there was for Tyelpe to give, well …

But what would it feel like if it turned out that was all there was to this?

“Why am I surprised to find you here?”

This time Tyelpe jumped, and he felt the tension ripple down Huan's spine under the crook of his arm. He looked up at Lord Elu with – he could tell – visible guilt. He wasn't honestly sure if he was supposed to be in the royal quarters unless summoned. He smoothed his expression with an effort.

“I've been looking for you,” Elu continued shortly.

“My apologies, my lord.” He hesitated. “Why …?”

“Because I anticipated that you were at your craft, not dallying with ...” he gestured at Huan with the folded vellum he was holding. Huan huffed a laugh. The flutter of his ribcage reminded Tyelpe of his dignity; how did it look that he was half-sprawled on the floor? Or would it look even worse if he obeyed the impulse to scramble to his feet? He shoved at Huan entirely ineffectually. The dog was like a blanket of lead over his lap. Apparently he'd be staying.

“We haven't seen one another in some time,” he explained quietly. “Since Nargothrond.” Huan grumbled agreement.

“I will excuse it,” said Elu, “since I owe the dog a debt.”

Tyelpe looked down at Huan and up at Elu, surprised – then looked more closely. Elu had come further into the room now, and Tyelpe's quick gaze noted that the hard set of his jaw had eased, but been replaced by a certain weary tension under his eyes. He looked like a different man.

“My lord?” Tyelpe asked softly. “Are you … quite … ” Concern fought past his instinct toward courtly caution. He let it. “The reunion has been a little harder than grief imagined, I would think.”

Elu made a noncommittal noise, glancing for one pointed moment at Huan. Tyelpe took his meaning, but still winced when Elu answered with a hollow sharpness that didn't carry through to his expression, “The reunion has brought news of what more insult your father and uncle have attempted to offer my daughter.”

Tyelpe looked down and fought for control of himself as Huan turned to meaningfully mouth his bicep. In Huan's eyes, though he avoided meeting them, he could see there was no judgment; a relief, for how could he reply, but … “I have no father, Lord Elu. I assume you refer to Curufin the son of Fëanor.”

Elu gave a slow, approving nod, and Tyelpe's flinch relaxed. “I was ... somewhat concerned I would hear you'd decided otherwise.”

“I am not fickle in my decisions, lord.”

“It's not thought a family trait, I'm told,” Elu sniped back, but modulated his tone as his look dropped a bit further – “Though I am glad it is not foreign to those associated with the family.”

Tyelpe nudged Huan again; this time the dog stretched good-naturedly and slid off Tyelpe's lap, taking two short steps to stand looking up at Elu for a moment. (Something hurt a little in Tyelpe's chest at the sight of Huan silhouetted once more against streaming silver hair.) As Tyelpe clambered up, rather unpleasantly sure that he wasn't succeeding in getting off the dog-bed in a dignified manner, Huan became very interested in following his tail in a half-circle, ending up exploring the nearby wall. It was never entirely clear whether he did things like this because there was a smell or whether he merely imitated hound behavior for reasons of his own, but Tyelpe was grateful either way for the excuse to move closer to Elu. “My lord, you don't …” No. “Can I assist?”

“Are you loyal enough to trouble yourself to assist? Given another chance to prove your worth to me, will you?”

The question took him off balance – this again? – and now? When Lord Elu had been careful not to mention the terms of their relationship or to use his characteristic bluntness in addressing – ah. No. He wasn't making a general effort to keep personal matters private; he was trying to avoid insult to Huan. The realization brought an odd flash of offended pride. He'd behave himself in front of Huan but not in front of Tyelpe alone? Well, Huan had well proven himself before he came; Tyelpe had done so after. Fine.

“I think,” Tyelpe said in quiet, exquisitely modulated tones, “that my lord knows I will.”

“Mm,” Elu half-agreed, and brandished the sheet of vellum in an abrupt, curtailed gesture. “I am extremely curious why you're being asked after by your – what is she to you, cousin?”

“... what?” Tyelpe tried to think of people described by both “cousin” and “she.” Fingolfin’s younger son had a daughter, Idril – Tyelpe had met her on one occasion when both were children – but Turgon hadn't been heard from in decades and was the last person who would likely be in contact with Elu Thingol. He could have readily imagined Aredhel asking after him, but the last they'd heard from Turgon had been of her death, and anyway, she was his father's cousin. Didn't Orodreth have a daughter fostered somewhere? He drew a blank.

“The lady Galadriel, she of Finwë's house. She wrote to the lady Melian and asked after you.” Elu shook the paper slightly. “Now, why are my wife's handmaiden and her husband who was once of my guard asking after you?”

“Generalized concern?” Tyelpe responded evenly and far too quickly.

He barely saw Huan move. The dog was half-between them before Tyelpe had quite finished flinching from the rise of Elu's arm. Narrow knuckles tightened for a moment, hanging in midair, then elongated as Elu's shadow-colored gaze shifted to the dog. Huan was looking back at him – and, to Tyelpe's sick alarm, a growl was beginning in his chest, faint and subsonic like the trill of some immense subterranean bird greeting a preternatural day.

“Huan, enough,” he said sharply. “Stand down.” He'd spent his life around Celegorm's kennel; the commands came easily to his lips, as did the tone much like his uncle's. The growl cut off as though it had never been, a mere trick of echo from the birds still above them in the deep well of a garden.

Huan's eyes were worried, though, turned up at Tyelpe and highlighted by a lower edge of white. He returned his hand to the dog's scruff, rubbing soothingly over loose, sun-warmed skin.

It still seemed that Huan was slightly closer than Elu was comfortable with – Tyelpe caught an apprehensive look before Elu turned to pace in the small chamber, as though he merely had the urge to do so. “Celeborn and Galadriel are in the habit of writing to Melian with news from Nargothrond, but this is the first they've mentioned any closeness to you. Have you any idea why?”

Tyelpe shook his head, at sea. “Not the slightest – I don't even think of her as a cousin, really – more a distant aunt. She and my – my side of the family have never been close, even before they came to Beleriand.” He had picked up a vague notion that this was because of some offense given to Arafinwë’s daughter by Fëanor, but Elu Thingol didn’t seem like the person to whom he should mention this.

“So you've no notion why she's asking after you at all.”

His hand rubbed a little harder on Huan's neck. “I've never known her to take any interest in me, let alone trouble a friend over me. Celeborn didn't think Orodreth ought to allow me to come here, I know that much; but Orodreth didn't seem to take it much into account.”

Elu's pacing stilled as he turned back toward Tyelpe and the dog, nodding, apparently satisfied. “Interesting,” he said.

“I agree.” Tyelpe thought a moment. “In reply, I suppose that I should –”

“A reply,” said Elu, “has already been made on your behalf.”

Huan huffed slowly and looked up at Tyelpe, lips closed but tense. Again Tyelpe found somewhere else in the garden to put his eyes.

“Very well, then.” Elu tapped the letter once or twice in his palm. He still hadn't unfolded it, nor held it out to Tyelpe to see, though it was all Tyelpe could do not to try to discern handwriting through the vellum – an urge of both personal and academic interest, as he thought he might be able to recognize a familiar hand's cirth. “Very well. I shall see you tonight, an hour – no, half an hour after dinner?”

He tightened his hand on Huan's neck, a warning or a request. “Of course, Lord Elu,” he said. “I will certainly come.”

Chapter Text

Much to Elu's annoyance, he was discovering he liked his unwanted mortal son-in-law, which simultaneously helped and made everything worse.

She was home. That was what mattered. She was home, and she was with her mother even now, and she would not be parted from them again. The bounce was back in Melian's hair, the song back in her voice, and the answering song in Lúthien's did not speak of blame so much as Elu had feared.

He was not cast aside, nor denied. He could only now admit to himself how terrified of that he'd been.

But that was not a thing to dwell on; he'd dwelt already upon it, too many times. He'd summoned Celebrimbor at last – he should have done it days ago, but he'd spent his free hours in the delirious company of his wife and his daughter, who was now fully in possession of the powers she'd hinted at from birth, who was so like her mother and yet so unlike her, who had – it ached to admit – a light in her countenance that hadn't been there before. She knew herself now, knew what she could do. It was fearsome to see and somehow holy. In their delight at seeing each other again, too, Lúthien and Melian fed upon each other, creating a head-swimming drench of tangible birdsong.

Beren occasionally acquired a slightly blanched and peeled look in their presence, and Elu had found himself exchanging more than one empathetic glance with the mortal when neither of the women was paying them full attention. He held up well, though, Elu had to admit. And even if his dramatics over the Silmaril had been a touch irritating, they'd made it easier to bring a reasonably graceful conclusion to the whole untidy adventure of the past year.

It was also exhausting to feel so much, and when Elu had been in bed of late, he'd been asleep. This would be a long-needed respite tonight. A relief from the thoughts that distracted him from the tasks of leadership when he was neither sleeping nor floating in the vast relief of being with his family. (He tried not to let himself think about the things he could be accomplishing instead of an assignation with Celebrimbor.)

As usual, Celebrimbor was almost too prompt. Elu appreciated this about him.

He was at his desk, staring unseeingly at old council-notes, when the boy arrived. He was dressed differently than he had been earlier, Elu noted, but he was too tired to make much of it.

Instead he said, “Come into the bedroom.”

Celebrimbor gave him the slightest bow, then followed a half-step behind into the bedchamber. Elu noticed the rumpled coverlet as he crossed the room – well, never mind that. He lifted his crown off with care and set the circlet on the bedside table, then raked his hair back with both hands and dropped rather heavily into the armchair which had been dragged over beside it. A breath. Another. Fingers tracing the curvature of the chair's arms, he tried to shake off the day, to focus on the respite he'd promised himself even before the odd message from Celeborn arrived – to keep his mind in the room, even as Celebrimbor waited politely on the edge of the carpet with his hands carefully still at his sides.

Elu had begun to guess by now, eight – nine? – months from his arrival in Menegroth and three from bedding him, what it cost Celebrimbor to keep his eyes and hands so still – and Elu fancied that he found in Elu's touch a needed excuse to relinquish his hold on that annoying dignity, as much as Elu needed the salve of touching him – of demanding an obedience harder-won than everyday courtesies. He was a little too well-behaved, a little too much the courtier for Elu's taste today, and if it was pity that drove him, or some idea that he could charm his way out of – “You know the reason I sent for you, boy.”

“My lord?” His hands strayed toward the fastenings at the neck of his tunic. He was wearing the dark, high-collared one which Elu liked; it set him off well, lapping close about his fawn-colored throat. The sleeves fell back to reveal a slender cuff of grey and gold amber and black-silver about one wrist; Elu suspected it was new, for the Laiquendi traded in amber, and Ithilbor had informed him, somewhat concerned, of his son's season-old friendship with the Noldo. (Elu hadn’t been wildly sympathetic, reminding Ithilbor he hadn’t discouraged Saeros from association to begin with.)

“No,” he said, and Celebrimbor fell still at once, then lowered his hands uncertainly as Elu rose from his chair, shaking off his silver robe impatiently so the deep collar and bell sleeves of the garment settled cloudlike over the seat. “Let me do it today.”

Celebrimbor bowed his head in acquiescence – a gesture that made him more expressive, Elu half-noted, as though he thought his braided-back hair would screen the look of apprehensive excitement that parted his lips.

Maybe it was the earlier protectiveness of the dog that rendered the look suddenly obscene. He was quite aware of whose child Celebrimbor was; should it take a hound to which Elu found himself inconveniently indebted to change that clear awareness into an uncomfortable knowledge of him as someone's child? A strange, dog-mediated alchemy, that, and its result sat uncomfortably on Elu's shoulders as he lifted Celebrimbor's chin perfunctorily with one hand, then unfastened the amber studs at the tunic's collar. There was tension but no resistance in the proud lines of Celebrimbor's body – proud even in the show of humility – and something about that made Elu jerk the tunic upward, letting the boy tangle in the sleeves and be tugged impatiently free before Elu went to unlace his trousers. Wincing, Celebrimbor detached the tunic from one adorned braid as he let Elu continue to strip him. There was no shirt beneath the tunic today; clearly he'd anticipated he wouldn't be wearing it long. Next time, Elu thought, I'll fuck him fully clothed.

There were no undergarments within the trousers, either. Elu took Celebrimbor's cock in hand a little too hard, watched him flinch with weary satisfaction. “I'm glad you came,” he said. It didn't match the brusqueness of his tone, for it was not quite what he'd meant to say.

Celebrimbor looked up from his undressing to gaze at him surprised, pleasure lending a new brightness to his eyes. “I am always glad when you send for me, my lord,” he said softly.

Elu grunted noncommittally. Celebrimbor's trousers were half down his thighs, and Elu was in no mood to bend to complete the process.

Taking hold of Celebrimbor by the hair – the braids and lush tresses lay as downy and alive as ever in his fist – Elu took the necessary two steps back toward his chair and dragged Celebrimbor after him. Apparently the boy angled himself toward the bed with his limited mobility, for when Elu sat again, Celebrimbor fell, pitching forward with a noise small and panicked. Half his body wound up across Elu's lap, listing toward the floor; on one hand he'd caught himself, while the other gripped the arm of the chair, knuckles going instantly white. A red mark was already blooming at his ribs where he must have struck the end of the chair-arm; his breath hissed between his teeth, and Elu could see as well as hear his panting behind the hair pooling on the woolen rug.

Sympathy for that blow made Elu wait, allowing him the dignity of riding out the pain. He brushed his fingers over the rise of the boy's ass, though, cupping a hand around the far hipbone so he could take some of his weight off his one hand and toes, letting him settle the pressure on Elu's lap instead.

He knew Celebrimbor well now, it came to him again, after these months of seeing him four or five times in a fortnight. He knew what would touch the boy's pride, what would serve for a punishment, what would make him rouse faster and where he must grasp to keep him from climaxing just yet.

And did someone else know his daughter this well now? (His fingers dug in, but Celebrimbor's back went concave; though he was still testing it, he thought that was the good sort of flinch.) On the one hand, Beren had best please her. If Lúthien did not soften when he spoke to her, as Elu did for Melian, as Celebrimbor had just done when Elu said he was glad to see him, then let the Man suffer for the failure to please a woman who deserved his worship. On the other hand, to think that anyone should ever know his daughter so thoroughly –

If Beren thought that damned jewel had been a bride-price for an intimacy that in any wise resembled this –

Celebrimbor was recovering and Elu again took a fistful of his hair, using it to balance them both as he grasped the boy's calf and pulled it up, unbuckling his boot, shoving at the trousers. He was not sure he cared anymore how off-balance the boy was, but shifted to the other foot, impatiently finishing the process of undressing him. He passed his hand from upper thigh to lower back, returned it to slip his fingers deep between Celebrimbor's legs, making him gasp as the touch was drawn back up his cleft.

Over the sharp breaths as he pressed at the skin, feeling the tightness of the youth's hole, Elu heard contempt in his own tones: “You were only a proud virgin the first time you came to me. Now look at you.” He landed a deep slap, making Celebrimbor grunt and spasm over his lap – and evidently grip the leg of the chair in preparation for more, for when Elu pushed him up and stood, the grasp tore loose and Celebrimbor's eyes were wide and dark and wild. “Up, up! I want to see you.” The bed was close, and it took little force to make him sit on its edge. “Spread your legs.”

Disheveled now and nervous, but evidently trying to gather himself, Celebrimbor looked up at Elu as he obeyed, letting his thighs part until the mattress' edge tucked flush behind his knees. A light push to his chest put him further back on his elbows, his arms folding inward; he was leaning on his own hair now, which held his head back in a taut display. He lay dark against the rippled, moon-colored velvet, perfectly formed on the soft setting. When he tried to shift off of his tresses, Elu planted a hand on his chest and held him down, seeing his shoulders' soft shadows flex against the pressure.

Something was rising out of his exhaustion – something that felt half like restlessness and half like fear. He let it have his voice. “You're a prettily made slut, aren't you?”

The name made Celebrimbor jump, his eyes searching on Elu's face and dilated, but in this candlelight so richly blue. Elu couldn't tell how he'd reacted. He went on. “One day I shall forbid you clothing altogether – when you are not at some useful work, garments seem somehow wasted upon you.” How beautiful he was, half-back and surrendered to Elu with his painstaking braids shifted off-center! “Had anyone seen you so bared, before I did?” Had that dog’s masters? The thought took Elu by surprise; he shook it away. That was too much even to contemplate, and in any case it gave him a surge of possessive, choking near-anger to think it. He closed his hand lightly about Celebrimbor’s shaft, giving the grasp a few quick and feather-light upward twists. “Or was I the first to have you show your eager body, though you grew up so untutored in propriety? Was there some other who showed you what it was to be commanded?”

“Only you,” said Celebrimbor, low, his eyes fastened on Elu's face. “I chose my first lord who was not my kin, in you.” He'd slid some forward, skewing the coverlet further so its creases led the eye in toward his torso, and he used the change to part his legs invitingly further. Elu let his hand move faster along the hard length. “No other could command me as my lord does.”

He gave the foreskin a light pinch, tugging it up to rub briefly along the slit before he gave that spot the full attention of his thumb. Celebrimbor's abdomen tightened, his cock twitching up into Elu's hand. “And do you muse on your rarity, then? Fair you are, and greatly so, but I know your humility is false.”

“And all the better, that I work for it,” Celebrimbor shot back, eyebrows rising even as his hips tried to. “Would my lord rather have me spineless than submitting?”

He had a point, but … something about that phrasing soured Elu's pleasure. (I am not one of your birds.) “Your own father thinks you worth less than a trinket.”

Celebrimbor stilled.

His face blanked first, then the subtle tells of his body language went equally formal even as he stayed leaning back on the bed, even as Elu’s hand had not yet quite come to a halt. Elu had known already from the third word that he'd gone too far by twice over. All he could think to do was stoop upon the boy and kiss him fiercely.

Having none of it at first, Celebrimbor bucked against Elu's attentions for a few seconds, struggling careless of the hand on his shaft, his mouth firmly closed. But his lips parted to a savage bite from Elu, who raised one knee onto the bed to straddle him, shin lying across one of Celebrimbor's bare thighs. A handful of hair kept his throat bared; Elu bent deeper to bite at it, marking him, working his way down to imprint a forceful bruise on a clavicle. Celebrimbor made no noise, but Elu felt the cry surge into his straining chest before he could master it. Whence this self-ruthlessness? And how might it be dissolved? Elu knew he shouldn't have said that, but it wasn't exactly wrong, was it? That he should be left at the mercy of one who would say such things to him – Elu would never allow it for –

“You will do anything I tell you, won't you, boy?” he whispered in Celebrimbor's ear, using the grip on his hair to press the ear’s tender point to his mouth, then biting it. “You want to show me what you are so badly you'll show me anything, won't you?”

Celebrimbor's body was still tense, but it was starting to turn to a more moving tension. His whisper, though, was barbed, and not quite an answer. “I don't have a father. I belong to myself. I bring you only what's mine to give.”

“Orodreth would not have permitted you to come if he'd known how much you would give me,” Elu answered, tugging cruelly on his handful of hair – Celebrimbor resisted, his neck bending in counterpoint though he was trapped under Elu – and the boy hissed back, “More fool Orodreth then.”

The brutality lingering between them sang like the world awaiting a wind-storm. Elu took the hand from Celebrimbor's cock and sank down, pressing his clothed groin against the bare hardness of Celebrimbor, rutting against his long abdomen. “Orodreth,” Elu said, “was a great fool to give you up. Move, boy.”

He did move. His jaw was tight against Elu's cheek, but he used all his limited leverage to press upward into his king. Elu skated a hand across his chest, found the nipples peaked and dark, and began to pinch at them, the hardest twists making his thrusts more sudden. Words rose to Elu’s lips, but he held them back, oddly nervous – Celebrimbor had tried, for a moment there, to refuse him.

He was suddenly and clearly aware that it would be a deep hurt if Celebrimbor deserted his bed. It ought not to be. Now, with his family restored to him – grown even – he ought not to need this. He shook himself.

And yet. Was he the only one to need it so? Softly, he said, “I hadn't touched you before I found you hard.”

Celebrimbor shivered, sinking back another fraction, straining already-stretched tendons.

“All I'd done was strip you and slap you a few times. Is that all it takes? Can I really get you ready just by striking you?” He gave Celebrimbor's nipples a vicious twist; this time it brought a cry, thin and almost childlike with half-suppression. When Elu rose on his knees and reached down between them, delivering a small, sharp slap to Celebrimbor's shaft, Celebrimbor gave him a better response – a fuller-throated sound, a sharp instinctive jerk of muscles that couldn't take him far when he was thus posed with his arms still interlocked behind him and bearing much of his weight. Would he feel the pain of this tomorrow in the forge? Let him. “Can I make you so desperate now by abusing your body?”

Amazingly, Celebrimbor was apparently struggling for words, and Elu ran both hands up the well-muscled sides of his torso, then repeated it with his nails, bringing a keening breath out around the first phrase. “It would – ah! – seem … so, my lord.” The sentence dissolved into a moan as Elu cruelly pinched his nipples.

To take him now? Or to stay here, straddling him, feeling the well-made body straining between his thighs? Celebrimbor’s helpless posture was attractive enough to make Elu delay, though he couldn’t resist bringing the hand that played over the boy’s nipples to his own hardness, caressing himself through his trousers, grimly relishing the way Celebrimbor’s gaze caught there. “Do you want to use your mouth, boy?”

Celebrimbor’s eyes flicked up to Elu’s face again. He nodded against the pull on his head, his tongue tracing his lower lip before he visibly caught himself and closed his lips firmly.

“Shall I make you beg for it?”

“I –” His mouth snapped shut again as he shifted uncomfortably, spread now beneath Elu like a prized skin.

“Say not that I have found an end to what you’ll do, my eager serving-boy! Or have I just not used you ill enough yet?” Celebrimbor paled with shame; the sight touched Elu as thrillingly as his own hand had done a moment ago. Firmly he pinched pebbled nipples again, drawing a guttural moan as he let go Celebrimbor’s tresses to use both hands upon his chest. “I would never treat another attendant the way I treat you,” Elu told him, pulling slowly, forcefully upward to draw forth further half-suppressed noise as Celebrimbor tried to writhe beneath him. “No guard nor scribe nor advisor have I handled like this. And yet you come back for it, time and again – you look practically grateful,” he added with an unreasoning flash of true anger. The boy blanched from his expression, hard enough to pull his nipples sharply out of Elu’s grasp, or had he just found the grip at last too painful? He seized one of them again, closing the other hand lightly about Celebrimbor’s tense throat. “What would make you stop allowing yourself to be handled like this?”

The half-worded answer might have been I don’t know, but Elu could not be certain, though he felt the vibrations of the syllables under his palm. He found he cared more just now for the question having been asked than for exactly what the answer was. Reaching behind Celebrimbor’s shoulders with both hands, he tried to pull the boy’s arms out from under him, to lean him back fully enough that Elu might slide forward and take his mouth, but Celebrimbor resisted with an instinctive sort of strength that should not have surprised him. Elu found himself with his hands gripping locked biceps, his cock grinding against the smooth planes just below Celebrimbor’s throat, but there was nothing wrong with that, was there? Particularly not when Celebrimbor slowly tilted his head back, his hair now spectacularly tousled where it spread around him, surrendering himself to be used as he apparently struggled to still his limbs. That he would still give himself up so utterly, seeming to find it a point of pride to expose himself to his king for the asking! Elu shivered and drew back, shoving again at tense upper arms; this time Celebrimbor hollowed his back enough to rise up, his abdomen bumping Elu’s hips as he unlocked himself from the impossible position. Once he was satisfyingly precarious Elu shoved hard at his chest, knocking him back; he heard Celebrimbor’s jaw click as the back of his head bounced off the bedding, but was immediately prying his mouth open again, impatient to sink into the moisture of Celebrimbor’s clever mouth.

The boy understood his task, for he hastily went to unlace Elu’s clothes with fingers that shook with exertion, his lord’s thumb keeping his mouth parted all the time. He was taking the head of the king’s cock between his lips almost before Elu’s shaft was free. Elu’s eyes dropped shut, picturing Celebrimbor’s hands united by knotted cords where they worked at the base of his cock, a loop of rope behind his neck keeping him focused on his duty. Yet focused he stayed, his neck painfully stretched upward until Elu brought a leg around as though mounting a horse, hooking his knee behind the boy’s shoulder and thrusting into his mouth with a force that brought him agonizingly against the scrape of upper teeth. Celebrimbor choked, half-gagged, then kept sucking, his hair now spread around him in an inky halo punctuated by ropy braids, his eyes fully or nearly shut, his throat working on Elu’s shaft as the lashes fluttered in time with his earnest service.

Elu cupped the back of his head with a fervent caress that plunged his fingers deep into soft hair. He was coming in Celebrimbor’s mouth almost before he realized the utmost was upon him, but it came slowly and fully, the pleasure rolling down his spine as his hips rolled forth into the heat.

He let himself soften in the boy’s mouth, his muscles unknotting, his eyes dropping closed as softly and ecstatically as Celebrimbor’s had done. It was only the tight bend of his knee that made him move from something like a meditation, an upright sleep. He slipped free from their engagement, rolling back and away, relaxing for a moment onto the coverlet parallel to his lover.

When he looked over at him, Celebrimbor was gazing back half-lidded, turned so his knees pointed to Elu’s while he shoulders still lay flat. He didn’t look down from Elu’s gaze, but his fingers moved softly, choosing out a lock of grey hair and letting it lap over a clever forge-scarred hand. It was the smallest of movements, but an intimate liberty … and Elu found he did not much want to scold him, though after a long sighing moment he moved again so the strands slipped freely over the boy’s fingers.

He felt immensely better.

Elu looked back down at the languid creature beside him – or not so languid, but stilled and awaiting – for Celebrimbor was still hard despite his loose-limbed passivity. Elu ought to take care of that, but it had eased his endless lumbering thoughts to indulge himself, so he instead reached for a pillow and lay back down, closer this time, curled around Celebrimbor’s upper body in an arc that made it easy to again take a fistful of black hair and lightly tug. “I’d watch you bring yourself to completion, boy.”

Celebrimbor blinked at him, then looked a little disappointed. “If you like, my lord …”

“I would.”

Slowly, Celebrimbor reached for himself left-handed, slipping his fingers along a slim length of shaft, his head tipping back. Elu gathered up the slack of his hair, his hand closing on the locks as the boy’s did elsewhere. “Now, open your legs again – did I bid you close them? Pay me better obedience, and find better control of your body.” Celebrimbor shuddered hard enough, as he rolled fully to his back once more, that Elu felt it through his handful of locks; he tugged the dark hair lightly, with subtle control, like the rein of a spirited horse between his fingers. From this position, Elu couldn’t meet Celebrimbor’s eyes, but let his gaze feast instead on tense and open thighs, the shift of his fingers as they fell rhythmically into place. Already his hips were lifting – having Elu atop him must have been as heady for Celebrimbor as it had been for his lord – for he was moving as though there had been no pause in his being touched, the tension that he must have been suppressing in the interim trembling through his limbs.

“Finger yourself,” Elu murmured, hearing the words in his voice almost before his mind had formed the wish. Relieved of some of his own tension, he was free to let his eyes linger on the abrupt stilling of Celebrimbor’s hand, the taut momentary waiting – ah, yes, he’d need to be slicked still. Elu sat up to get the bottle from the table by the bed, stretching so that his chest was above the boy’s face – feeling a whisper of touch where the proud features brushed helplessly up against his robes. To Elu, the touch felt intimate; to Celebrimbor, still thrumming upon the bed, he thought it must be intoxicating. But then, Elu had stopped him for long moments untouched; what now would not intoxicate? He uncorked the bottle one-handed, reached as far down as he could to pour a little pool of thin and silken apricot oil upon smooth skin.

Craning his head back to get a glimpse of Elu, Celebrimbor swept his hand through the oil without looking down, his shoulders rolling briefly as he dragged his legs up to bring his knees back toward his chest. He caressed himself, a perfunctory indulgence, before reaching swiftly deeper, straining first with fingers, then with hips, his face going rather stern even as his fingertips must find their goal. Elu thumbed the cork back into the bottle and sat up on his elbow to see how the boy obeyed. His hand had pushed his cock aside; two fingers were slipping out of sight, awkwardly stretching.

“Is this how you do it when you’re alone, Celebrimbor?” Elu asked.

A hectic shiver at the sound of his name; an answer in strained tones. “I don’t.”

“No? You don’t take yourself with your hand, or with some object made to purpose?” There was a thought, and Elu looked him over with anticipation, an idea forming – what would the boy produce if bidden to create something for his own abjection? Ah, but he’d been given place in a shared workshop – though the idea that he might need to work strange hours or to reveal the project’s nature without speaking of its commissioner – that brought Elu a thrill like that of sighting the momentary flash from the silver underside of a leaf, from a face not usually turned toward the sun.

Celebrimbor was shaking his head, his lips thin with concentration, and Elu asked curiously, “You do not enjoy it?”

“It’s no easy task,” Celebrimbor answered through gasps, “and there is much else to do when I’m thinking of you – ” His eyes flew wide for a moment, then closed, his color high.

“Ah.” A fine revelation, that … though, why shouldn’t he think most of you? asked Melian’s voice in a sidelong thought. Who else has he to think of – after you deflowered him?

Who indeed, Elu answered the thought, trying to suppress his own fascination with the notion – what did Celebrimbor imagine? To have that knowledge from him … what a pleasure, and especially so if he was touching himself and dreaming of Elu’s bed. He would tell Melian of this specifically; it would amuse her, and she would find it sensual to imagine her husband’s other lover thinking of him in another part of Menegroth while Elu pleasured his queen. Elu found it rather sensual himself -- though it would have been less abstract at another moment. He’d just climaxed, and Celebrimbor’s dependence deserved to be lingered on … another time.

Celebrimbor had breached himself, was working in his fingertips, altogether too slowly for Elu’s taste. He thought of seizing the muscled wrist, working the hand at the pace he should choose for it, making Celebrimbor hurt himself. For now he kept hold of his loose leash of hair. Another time, another occasion … “You need practice at this,” Elu told him. “Shall I bid it? You might have better luck taking yourself from behind, and better preparation to accept your lord besides. You must give yourself some training for my pleasure, must you not?”

The question was half-mocking but the answer sounded breathily serious: “I focus my practice upon using my mouth to please you.”

“Have you a schedule and a training-plan?” Elu asked a little waspishly, half-expecting another such sincere response – but instead Celebrimbor was focused on his own movements, his back arched, his mouth falling slightly open as he searched inside himself with fingers that crooked and uncrooked gingerly within the hole.

His haste was not so very great. Elu found himself vaguely annoyed – then less vaguely – let the boy make more of his obeisance! And Elu himself, energized by his release, had other things to do with his refreshed mental clarity than watch his lover explore himself as though he were barely come to manhood. He wearied of lounging now, and his body was more awake than it had been.

He gave the boy’s hair a little jerk to get his attention, then sat up next to him, pleased but not mollified to note that Celebrimbor obediently held position: legs spread, knees up, head back. His nipples still pointed ceilingward, tight peaks against well-formed muscles, and Elu tweaked them firmly, generously paying out a little more of the abuse the boy seemed to so relish. Celebrimbor writhed a little on the bed, tendons visibly straining in the hinges of his thighs, framing the sight of fingers pressed cautiously deep in a flushed hole. Elu did it again, harder. “I have more important things to do than to deal with you, boy.” He glanced up at the banded hour-glass. “You have precisely five minutes to finish.”

Wide blue eyes flashed alarm at him. “Thus, my lord? I’m not sure I can –”

“You could if you had learnt properly to serve,” Elu told him shortly, leaning over Celebrimbor to see him flat and helpless beneath. “But as you will. Five minutes.”

Celebrimbor looked toward the hour-glass as well, though he apparently dared not crane his neck toward it and must barely see it; his hand slipped free of himself, then came to massage his cock again, spreading the thin oil over soft and stretching skin. He rubbed himself at first rather than drawing at himself – Elu had not noticed this habit, but it failed to long keep his attention. “In time you will be quite capable,” he said, “of finishing from what’s inside you alone – yes, capable and required.” He gave Celebrimbor’s face a light slap; the boy flinched but did not cringe, stoically accepting Elu’s discipline as he generally did. Elu massaged a thumb over the long throat, his gaze occupied for a moment by the contrast between the tones of their skin, by the paler mark he could leave amidst the flush if he pressed only a little. The flick of the wrist, the turn of the hand grew desperate – yes – how eager he was to follow his king into climax! And how fervently Elu found himself hoping this was a task at which Celebrimbor would fail. To leave him wanting, when Elu had taken his fill of the boy – indeed, did he owe him better? Proven he might be, but holder of obligations he was not; he had not been confided into Elu’s care to be dealt with gently –

“Four minutes,” Elu said, and Celebrimbor’s hand sped to a painful-looking tug.

He’d imagined at first that this task was quite possible, that he was simply limiting the languor which Celebrimbor might subsequently expect, but as the sands hissed down toward the next engraved mark in the glass, he realized with a surprising bloom of rich red satisfaction that Celebrimbor was struggling with the task – aching toward completion but not reaching it – and as the time ran by his breath was coming in shorter, faster gasps, his hand speeding, his neck tensing into the uncomfortable, bow-bent position as all his limbs tried to raise him higher into his own hand. “Can you not do as you are told, even in this?” he taunted softly. “Can you not obey?”

“I’m trying,” said Celebrimbor through teeth tending to clench. “My king, I’m trying – ”

“Think you I shall take pity on you when the time is up? Think you that you’ve earned my touch?”

Celebrimbor moaned, shortly and half-audibly, squirming obviously overstimulated against the velvet. His debased looks were intoxicating, and Elu really could have taken the boy’s shaft in hand himself, could have gladly pulled him close and thrust between his thighs until he’d splashed the claim of his seed in Celebrimbor’s most intimate places. He might rub the substance he’d spilled over the boy’s heart and into the hollow of his throat, lay hands on what he’d bought for the price of a little mercy. He might once again affirm his right to the one who had been recklessly given up in favor of the impossible thing Elu had named as symbol of the pricelessness of his own daughter – a right he meant to keep, and who should prevent him? There was none to say Elu no if he wished to dew his seed over every inch of this exquisitely made youth who promised himself so wholly to his king …

… but such images he carefully preserved for later, for tonight, he had much to do – no less than when he sent for Celebrimbor in the first place that he might drain out some of his need – and he had a point to make when the time ran out.

“Enough; you’ve had more than your share of my time,” said Elu, and he rose off the bed as Celebrimbor half-keened with frustration, his hand stuttering-still, his desperation to keep moving apparent. “You shan’t have further of my help to finish.”

And it was easy, so easy, to sweep out. So easy, now, to set into mental order the tasks that Doriath’s king needed to accomplish. Easy to find the focus to go and begin one while he left the Fëanorian brat whimpering upon his bed and deserted for his disobedient inability to make haste.

Perhaps it was strange, he realized later, that it did not particularly trouble him to have left Celebrimbor with free access to his rooms.

Chapter Text

A year into his tenure in Doriath, Tyelpe had begun to think of getting his own dog.

He felt at times a little jealous over Huan's defection to his new master and mistress, for all he understood it and knew his jealousy to be unreasonable. Still. Surely he need not remain jealous. He could inquire with traders about available animals – he was on good terms with many of them now, as Tyelpe made brisk business by relieving them of heavy, raw minerals and providing them with small, perfect gems that sold well in outlying settlements – or he could ask Saeros to look for him, for a dog ideally suited to his taste.

A hunting companion, perhaps, with a well-developed coat for warding off brambles, but not with fur too thick to be comfortable in Doriath' s mild seasons. Tyelpe still enjoyed hunting, and small enough game he might prepare for his own use or the animal’s, or larger be given to the rangers and wardens of the city's surrounding wilds, as Saeros was in the habit of doing when he wasn't planning on traveling home for a while. Yet it must be not be too eager a retrieving dog, but someone quiet enough to wait while he did his forge-work. An adult dog, he thought, as training a puppy would be impossible. Dogs were not widely kept in Menegroth, apart from those who were kenneled in the above-ground stable; Tyelpe suspected underground living to be a little hard even on Huan.

Too, a large dog would be a comforting weight in the night – he grasped that most dogs no more slept in their masters' beds than he slept in Elu's nightly, but in Aglon that had been Huan' s unquestionable privilege, and Tyelpe didn't think he'd deny it to a single animal, especially a beast which would be confined alone in his room two or three nights a fortnight.

You could take me with you, suggested the imagined dog.

Perhaps because there were so many requirements, he'd begun to imagine talking to the dog as he began to imagine having it – the specific needs meant he could assume a specific personality. In his mind, though, the dog talked back, using the words that Huan had reserved for others, and unfortunately it spoke in either Celegorm's voice or – oddly – Finrod's, though with Curufin’s mocking perspicacity.

Most assuredly I could not, he told it.

It cocked its head. Because you assume without knowing that your lord does not care for dogs, or because you cannot bear to have a witness to what he does with you?

That's not fair, he told it stubbornly.

It cocked its head the other direction.

Am I to be annoyed that my lover gets more than amusement upon me? he snapped. That I mean more to him than that?

The dog smiled that particular dog-smile, with wide eyes but with tension at the corners of the mouth, that was not terribly cheerful. What sorts of lovers have you seen, virginal Tyelpe, that your basis for comparison is one's amusement upon the other? “Upon,” even, not “with.” My.

After a couple of weeks, he reluctantly let go of the idea of the dog. It was for the best, he told himself. In Menegroth he'd be lucky to have a rabbit.

In any case, he was too ruthless with himself to become mired in the sorts of questions the imagined dog cared to ask him.

It was true that Elu had been hard on him lately. Since that night a season ago when he’d failed to finish in time – Tyelpe still felt his ears grow hot at the memory of how abandoned he’d been before the king as he tried – he’d been required to pleasure himself before Elu’s gaze often. Elu had been rough in his encouragement.

Interestingly, though, Tyelpe had begun to notice the difference between days when the king was feeling well and when he was frustrated. On the latter sort of day, Tyelpe was likely to find himself struck, taken forcefully, made to take himself while the king watched; sometimes he was made to use his own fingers, sometimes … otherwise. He’d had to use a candle the last time, his fingers slipping on the glossy wax, and Elu’s mood had been such that he bade Tyelpe be grateful it was unlit.

Other times, Elu would be engaged, verging on tender with him. The order to touch himself still shamed him, but in lying back with his head in Elu’s lap, his hair spreading out around both of them like a mantle as he took his own shaft in a generously oiled hand … in that he’d begun to find a curious sense of safety.

He was gratified, too, that while there were signs that Melian had been more often in her husband’s bed – an indentation in the mattress, a hair-ornament that looked more to the lady’s taste than to Elu’s left on the bedside table – his lord had neither ceased to send for him nor much reduced the frequency of the summons.

There was much otherwise to be gratified by, too. Saeros had declared their previous project a great success; he’d offered Tyelpe another design commission along different lines, while Mablung’s interest in his knowledge of mail-bracing had borne fruit in some fascinating discussions with Doriath’s specialized armorers, which Tyelpe hoped would turn into more projects soon – and given Mablung’s position, perhaps even for the city’s own guard, a prestigious charge. He kept busy with rings and pins and a couple of sets of fine goblets in addition to the armor. His opals were in some demand now, and he’d just completed a magnificent autumn necklace of tiny red spinels scattered along a delicate, sinuous vine of copper – his shopkeeper friend Liria had taken one look at it and placed it at the center of her counting-board’s display, a compliment that still had Tyelpe inwardly smiling.

So despite his lord’s recent distraction, it was with some cheer that he greeted Morfind and Emelin when they came in together: “Good morning! I hear your wife’s giving me your space in her shop for the winter, Morfind; what shall you do now?”

“Feed you to a goat and pretend to mourn you,” said Morfind with no pause at all.

Tyelpe chuckled at the specificity, turning his pincers to slip a loop of wire tighter over his mandrel, but Emelin warned him, her voice rich with amusement: “Careful, his family keeps goats above; he might mean it. What are you doing here so early?”

“Working,” said Tyelpe, and then, to make that less obnoxious: “I’m going hunting later, so I put in some extra hours this morning.”

Emelin gave him an arch look. “Sleep’s good for you, you know.”

“So is hunting.” He was being overly sarcastic; as Emelin had probably guessed, he hadn’t slept well the previous night, and he had just reached the point of weariness- and work-induced euphoria where sharp jokes were funnier than usual. An apologetic half-smile seemed in order, and he gave Emelin one. “I couldn’t find rest. You know how it is.” She nodded; she, too, was the sort to cure her ills with labor.

“I wouldn’t actually do that to them. The goats, I mean,” Morfind pointed out as he went for his work-gloves. Apparently he was not quite ready to drop the subject of goats. It made Tyelpe quietly a little jealous that he had animals to speak of; he reminded himself that at least he still had his horse, idle though the poor beast was growing in Menegroth’s stable. “His metal content is probably fatal. He’s mostly made of gold dust at this point, aren’t you, Tyelpe?”

“Most certainly,” said Tyelpe, and the final syllable coincided with a low, firm throat-clearing.

Elu was standing in the doorway of the forge. He did not look pleased.

Tyelpe replayed their greetings in his head while he tried to get past the moment’s incongruity of seeing his king here, and his hands went abruptly cold.

“I’d speak to you, Celebrimbor,” said Elu, standing erect and foreboding in the doorway, and Tyelpe abandoned the work in his hands on the bench-block with a murmur of assent, pulling off his gloves and coming to Elu with – even as he did it, he knew – the alacrity of a called dog.

Elu turned in a soft sweep of robes and led Tyelpe just outside the door, presumably back the direction he’d come; there was a blind corner near the forge, so it made sense that Morfind and Emelin had not seen the king coming. The guard who was attending Elu – Gowestor, Tyelpe thought his name was – had already stepped out of their way; he positioned himself between the door of the forge and the pair of them, then apparently found something very interesting to look at on a distant wall.

Tyelpe was expecting fury just as much as the guard obviously was expecting it, was already trying to school himself not to flinch and show himself afraid, but he was not expecting Elu’s hand suddenly below his chin. The gesture flooded him with the heat of shame. He had not tried to bend his head, but had kept it raised, his posture good; he was being treated like a child …

“You know,” Elu said softly, “that your damned grandfather’s tongue is forbidden. You know this.”

“I do not speak it,” Tyelpe answered, feeling the vowels press his jaw against the iron staples that were Elu’s fingers. “My lord, that was my name.”

“A name in the language I forbade – to everyone – and most of all to you.”

Tyelpe was giving more attention to getting his urge to pull away under ruthless control, so that he would not seem to struggle, than he was giving to Elu’s face. Once he’d gotten to the point of arranging a response, Tyelpe focused on Elu’s eyes … and saw that they were ablaze with more than irritation. His king was murderously furious with him.

He felt the weight of his head, turned up on Elu’s hand, grow a fraction greater; his knees had gone a little weak as he tried to master an animal need to stagger back from that threat. He could only whisper, the tendons in his shoulders starting a high tremor, “I am sorry, my king.”

There was a long moment where he still expected Elu to throw him onto the floor, here in public as they were, to make him beg forgiveness or worse. Time stretched to snapping.

At last Elu spoke in tight, forceful tones. “I had come to tell you that I had decided to allow you a larger project for the guard. You will no longer be the guards’ choice for this work, as you are no longer my choice for it. And as for your insolence: I bid you to show me you understand how you have trespassed. Punish yourself. Severely. Then come to me tonight – no, tomorrow night – no more and no less than an hour after sunset, and show me the marks. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, my lord,” Tyelpe whispered.

For a moment Elu’s lengthy fingers tightened, putting awful points of pressure against bone and tendon. His hand – where was his other hand? Tyelpe was expecting a slap or a backhand strike with such certainty that Elu letting go of him made him flinch just as violently as if he’d been punched in the face. His own hands had remained at his sides, but now he caught himself halfway through raising them to rub at the places that might bruise.

“Do not disappoint me like this again,” Elu whispered, staring keenly into Tyelpe’s face, then turned and strode away so quickly that his attendant had to hurry after him, still pretending not to see that Tyelpe was standing there. For a moment all Tyelpe could do was look silently after them, realizing he was panting a little, feeling both wrapped in cold and flushed with heat as his momentary panic worked its way out into a more distant dread.

Then his eyes jumped to the same turning by which Elu must have come unseen to the door. And with sick awfulness shooting up his spine, Tyelpe saw that Saeros had been standing right there.

Vána’s tits, he thought, an oath of Celegorm’s that pounded in his skull. How much did he hear? I cannot endure this, not in front of him, please, no –

“Don’t stand there like a slapped maid,” Saeros said, arching an eyebrow. “It’s not as though I didn’t know. Still for the hunt?”

Whatever Saeros had known was evidently not the whole of the matter. Tyelpe was, unfortunately, fairly confident that Saeros would scorn him if he knew that Tyelpe allowed Elu to degrade him quite so much. The proud Laiquendi prince probably could not be made to understand that his choice and leave were freely given; Tyelpe had trouble imagining him finding respite in such touch as Elu did, for that matter, so he probably couldn’t understand what this relationship meant to either of them.

Still, Saeros did not seem much troubled, and the fresh air with its crisp scent of wood and coming cold cleared Tyelpe’s head, even as the earthy leaf-mold beneath it gave him grounding. The morning’s awful collusion of awkwardly timed meetings could be left below ground, couldn’t they? He pushed aside the knowledge of his instructions from the king. The day was mostly clear; he had tonight for respite; and he refused himself permission to think of it just yet.

As they walked toward their preferred grounds, quivers well-stocked and hunting knives keen in their sheaths, he ended up confirming for Saeros that he and their lord were lovers, and telling him what had caused the dispute.

“Your very name, though,” Saeros said after a moment, shaking his head. “I suppose I understand the ban upon the tongue, but what can be secretly communicated by some childhood pet name?”

Tyelpe winced a little and decided against explaining that in many ways it was Tyelperinquar in full that was the childhood name, and the diminutive the name of the man. He’d mostly given up trying to interpret Curufin to others even before he’d forsworn his family.

“I agree, but I am in no position to make that case under the circumstances, and it isn’t so very important,” he said instead.

Saeros’ eyes were tracking something; Tyelpe assumed it was a bird and turned to follow his gaze in case it should be a flock, then realized he was looking in the direction of the Green-elves’ settlement, contemplating something he was seeing in foresight or in his mind. “I don’t want to watch that happen to the Laiquendi,” he said with unaccustomed softness.

Recognizing the troubled moment, Tyelpe spoke equally softly: “It will not. Your people have committed no crime that would make your speech hateful unto –”

“Our speech is gone.” The voice cutting Tyelpe’s off was harsh now. “We do not even have the armor of stubbornness to preserve a pocket of it. My father told me when I was young that my name meant ‘pride.’ Even he translates it now as ‘bitterness.’ We were not forbidden our tongue, so it does not live on, forbidden; it just … died. Unmourned and unwanted as a lost elder with no descendants left to grieve him. We are the Guest-elves, are we not? Guests forever in someone else’s homeland, so polite to our host – and if we do not wish to live on forever that way, well! We can always do as the Avari have done, can we not, and forget that we ever had a place of our own before the Hunter drove us to beg on another’s door-step. There is not a single Avarin settlement left in Thingol’s borders, in Melian’s embrace, and whether there are any without … who can say? And if any can, they say it in the tongue of the Sindar.”

Tyelpe stood silently by him, his mind playing over images. The way Celegorm had celebrated the Rite of Oromë with the same words he’d always used, the way Curufin had darkly questioned the choice in the same tongue. His mother, who had told jokes that only made sense in Quenya, making his uncle laugh. How Amras had named his plants in the old names for their analogues in Aman, adding Beleriand’s terms for them as an afterthought for his young nephew’s benefit. The day Tyelpe had first realized how wondrous it was that his lips and tongue could shape sounds whose form and flavor could then be understood, that his body – any body – could produce what could touch a soul. Caranthir, who wept when he was angry and apparently always had, choking out words in a language that meant he wanted to kill his brothers, in a language that they answered him back in to tell him they still loved him despite it. Would all of that complexity of things said and things unsaid have vanished, had Elu Thingol not laid the ban upon those he saw as trespassers, had Fingolfin not deemed it wise to honor it? Would they all have adopted Sindarin for family speech by now, had they not been told they had to do it?

Could Tyelpe himself have found the words to argue and the words to refuse, the words he prided himself on being able to find under his feelings when he needed them, had he not had Quenya and Sindarin both as tongues of daily use to think in?

“I would learn your tongue,” he said quietly, “if you would teach it me.”

Saeros tossed him a look of sour mirth. “Between assignations with the king? Come now. You know I’m no teacher. And even I don’t know it well enough now to help you use it well.”

Tyelpe got halfway through opening his mouth to point out that the Noldor had a well-deserved reputation for rapid language-learning, that he was still a linguist’s son and a greater one’s grandson, and that in any case that remark had been a bit uncalled for, then thought better of every objection and kept them to himself.

For a long moment he was treated to Saeros’ supercilious stare, but Tyelpe ruthlessly managed to return the gaze calmly, and in time his friend turned away, nodding northwestward. “Our quarry will be that way, I think.”

Tyelpe shouldered his bow and walked with him again, scanning for signs of well-grown autumn birds in the underbrush, automatically resuming the hunter’s quiet gait.

They’d found themselves a hidden spot by a pool to watch for geese or ducks by the time Saeros spoke again. Apparently he’d been ruminating on the topic. “It seems Lord Elu’s not quite so interested in preserving his family’s purity, however.”

Tyelpe took his eyes from the edge of the pond and looked over at him questioningly.

“That mortal?” said Saeros. “I still can hardly believe he allowed it.”

“I think that was the point of the Silmaril,” Tyelpe pointed out with a little snort. “He didn’t allow it. I am the last to remark on this, obviously, but that shouldn’t have been possible.”

“You really are,” Saeros agreed, a bit of humor coming back. “Still. I wonder what it takes for an elven maiden to allow such as that to touch her.”

Tyelpe blinked at him. “Such as … the Silmaril?”

“Such as a mortal. Do you know, I saw him in the bath and he has hair all over him? No wonder she fled him at first. Apparently they’re all like that.”

Tyelpe had forgotten that Saeros would be using the same bath in the royal quarters that all the royal family, save for Thingol and Melian themselves, used. He was always a bit touched to remember that Saeros came as far to see him as Tyelpe himself went to Elu, and for less obligation. Just now, though, that was subsumed under a hint of shock. Saeros’ tone was amused, disgusted, and it gave Tyelpe an oddly visceral urge to shudder.

“They are,” he said, controlling that reaction. “A number of Men served under my uncle. They find us fairly odd-looking too, at first.”

“I suppose they would,” said Saeros, “just as sheep think the shepherd strange for walking about on his hind legs and not growing a fleece. I wonder what the women look like.”

“Not so very different, except in the obvious ways,” Tyelpe answered.

“It must be like fucking a herding dog,” Saeros said, shaking his head. “In feel as well as in fact, no? Ah; there we are; to the left – only ducks, but let us see what we can bring back.”

The words weren’t altogether different from things Tyelpe had heard said before. Something about the tone turned his stomach.

Possibly because I’ve heard the tone before, too, and not in circumstances so innocent.

He kept his counsel and silently drew his bow, hating his hands for shaking.

Tyelpe’s bed felt particularly welcoming when he returned from his work the following day. He’d ceased at midday, and not only because he wanted plenty of time to rest and to obey his lord’s orders before evening came. He also couldn’t bear to be in the forge much longer: Morfind and Emelin kept giving him looks that might have been pitying, concerned, or (though he did not suspect it of them) mildly hostile, but they said nothing of what they had witnessed – Tyelpe dropping his work to be taken out for a lecture like a misbehaving child – nor what they might have overheard. (Yridhren rarely looked at him at all, and today had been no different.) Neither had addressed him by name today.

Too, while he’d forced himself to keep his usual routine after the hunt yesterday, there was no excuse now to distract himself from the command he’d been given, and he’d been unable to stop himself from a nauseated turning-over of the methods by which he might achieve what Elu asked of him. He’d departed in the short time when all three of the other smiths were on their midday break, for neither could then see him swiftly collecting a few implements to take back to his room with him.

He set these on the night-table, still bundled in a linen towel. He’d gone first to the bath. It was his custom now to bathe immediately before going to Elu’s room, allowing himself just an hour for his hair to dry, but he shared the bathing chambers at the end of the hall with two other households. Elu had specified visible marks. After Saeros had caught him being lectured, the idea of having to explain how he’d come by the marks of a physical punishment to his polite neighbor the carpenter, or to one of the children across the hall, made his hands itch with the urge to cover his face. Bathing first was better – and, it had occurred to him, might make him bruise better by bringing the blood to the surface of his skin.

A wasted notion, since he now dragged his wet tresses into a braid and curled into a tight ball on the bed.

His pillow-case smelled of the herbs with which he rinsed his hair, the rapidly cooling water bringing out the scent anew. He closed his eyes and pressed his face into the linen. He’d pushed his bed against the wall shortly after he moved in, and the stones of Menegroth felt solid at his back; fading autumn warmth wafted through the window, which he’d not bothered to close in days since it was too narrow to admit much rain.

For some time he just lay there, one arm lapped around his knees, his braid sticking to him through a clean, rapidly dampening shirt. For some time he pretended that he lay in some kind of sanctuary.

This method had gotten him to sleep last night. It wasn’t going to get him through this evening. Still it took a long time to force himself to stretch out again, to open his towel bundle and examine the contents.

Though he’d collected these items himself, it was hard not to flinch at what he saw: a pair of elegantly curved pliers. A hardened leather grading-plate, punctured with holes of varying sizes for easier sorting of stones and matching of wires. A silver ring, its prongs designed to wrap slightly to better present a faceted stone; the setting currently empty and the prongs wickedly long.

What first? he asked himself firmly. There is no point in further delay. What must be done, must be done.

The ring’s band was too small to sit in its proper place on his hand, but he pressed it onto his second knuckle. Tyelpe unlaced his shirt and worked his way out of his linen trousers without bothering to get up from the bed. He was more careful with his clothes, usually, but … not now. Then he closed his eyes, fisted the hand that wore the ring, and pressed it into the skin above his knee.

Elu’s eyes were severe, but not infuriated when Tyelpe finally stood nude before him, head bowed, hands behind his back. He’d been curtly instructed into this position while Elu waited enthroned in the bedroom’s armchair, and he felt oddly childish in it – but it was a comfort, too, to have been given the specific commands. To keep position gave him a slight challenge, but one at which it was not too complicated to succeed. And he thought Elu took great pleasure in commanding it – though no pleasure showed on his lord’s face now.

Elu’s long fingers brushed over the bloody scratches inside Tyelpe’s leg. Despite himself, he startled and hissed with pain. It had been difficult not to let his wrist go limp and move the ring away at the end of a stroke; there at the lower points, he’d overcompensated, and the weals were angry indeed. Though Tyelpe had not been able to control his response, the pressure of Elu’s fingers neither waned nor increased as he explored the scratches.

“Part your legs,” he commanded, and Tyelpe swallowed painfully as he shifted his feet outward, his hands tightening together behind him. Elu’s fingers pressed deep red, wing-shaped bruises, and Tyelpe’s breath hitched, making the king glance up at him. But Elu still said nothing, even as his hand drifted up to the still-hot flesh where broken capillaries speckled Tyelpe’s tender inner thighs with livid pink – the result of the leather drawing-plate, applied with all the force Tyelpe could muster by snapping it past his free hand.

Tyelpe’s throat was tight, his skin feeling hot and swollen even where it lay undamaged. He’d sobbed earlier, curled up on his bed like a child whose finger had been caught in a door, and he could still feel the hoarse traces of tears behind his nose and his palate. But he managed to keep his voice even as he spoke past it: “Have I satisfied you, my lord?”

Elu nodded without speaking, his hand still grazing the inflamed places between Tyelpe’s legs. Tyelpe felt his breathing deepen a little, his shoulders soften. He’d begun, too late, to wonder if it would look like he’d spared himself if he turned up with fresh, red marks. Had he obeyed Elu’s orders yesterday, he’d have been able to demonstrate that the bruises were deep enough to last. Those plier-marks would last, though. He’d accidentally caught himself in the jaws of such tools often enough to know it …

The king still wasn’t speaking. “My lord?” Tyelpe ventured softly.

“You don’t seem to have taken any pleasure in this at all,” said Elu, running perfunctory fingers along Tyelpe’s length.

His arms went rigid. “I … was I …” In fact he’d tried to touch himself toward the end, to distract himself when the tears came, forced from him by the vicious twisting marks of the pliers. In his own hand his shaft had been entirely unresponsive. He closed his eyes, his head swimming, and forced himself to organize a sentence. “Was I meant –”

“No, but I thought you might. You have never seemed to object to being left bruised before.” Elu’s knuckles grazed along one thigh, avoiding the scratches there; the gesture felt almost tender, a caress now rather than an inspection. “Perhaps you’d prefer marks left by another?”

Again Tyelpe’s throat thickened, and he had to swallow before he could speak. “Yes, my lord,” he whispered – he had not quite meant that to be a whisper, had he?

“In truth? Say it so.”

He bowed his head further, feeling the ends of his hair, which he’d brushed but not had time to braid, sweep over his forearms. “I cannot deny … I’d rather have marks from your hand than my own.”

“I rather thought you might.” Elu rose from the chair, and as he rose so close to Tyelpe, he casually placed a hand on Tyelpe’s joined ones at the wrist, supporting him or keeping him from stepping away. Tyelpe heard his own breath catch. “Come to the bed.”

Glancing briefly up at his king, then lowering his gaze again, Tyelpe moved toward the bed he’d lain upon or knelt before so often. Elu kept pace with him, his hand gliding up to take Tyelpe by the elbow. Though he was moving under his own power – by his own will – he still felt escorted, which might have been disconcerting at another moment, but felt curiously reassuring now – right up to the point that Elu sat down on the bed and pulled Tyelpe toward him firmly enough that Tyelpe lost his balance. His free hand went to the coverlet to keep him marginally upright, only to spasm and slip when Elu’s fingers hooked around Tyelpe’s thigh and pulled his hips toward the king. A harsh, short cry tore from his throat, his fingers clenching as his limbs dried to draw protectively inward. Elu’s grip stabbed bruises and burned over scratches. Yet his movement only served to leave him sprawled in an undignified heap over Elu’s knees, feeling the wool of his lord’s trousers and the velvet of his robe pressed abruptly close against hipbones and belly.

“Hands behind your back again,” said Elu, and Tyelpe obeyed, though it pressed his face into the silkier, more textured pile of the coverlet. He turned his head a little to the side so he could breathe better, one eye closed, the other seeing the creamy fabric crumpled beyond the fine dark curtain of his own unbound hair. The position slightly strained his shoulders, and worse when he had to shift his weight forward to get his other knee securely onto the bed.

Elu’s long fingers wrapped around his wrists. The king’s hands were not large enough to enclose both, and Tyelpe could have struggled free – but the grasp was firm, just short of painful, and stilled him more effectively than Tyelpe quite cared to think about.

Then, just under the curve of Tyelpe’s ass, the king slapped him. Tyelpe jerked on his lap, but had rushed out a hasty “I’m sorry, I’ll be still” almost before Elu snapped, “Don’t struggle with me.” A pause, then Elu went on, “You told me you wanted marks from me. And you told me that you understood you’d erred. Show me both.”

Tyelpe tried to nod against the coverlet, feeling the fabric move against his closed eyelid. He was halfway through yes, my lord when another slap turned it into a low yelp. And then the blows didn’t stop.

Elu had struck Tyelpe’s ass to encourage him to movement on many an occasion, like an impatient driver with a distracted horse. Sometimes he’d done it hard enough that Tyelpe found himself still tender the following day. But this felt different, and if the blows of the rigid hand over his hips were not as disorienting as the slaps to his face had been that time in the armory, they were just as degrading. Tyelpe found noises rising between his teeth whenever Elu’s hand found the tender skin at his upper thighs, for all he struggled to suppress them. Undignified it might have been, but he fisted his hands in the coverlet, buried his face in the velvet, and tried to breathe without going so far as to start to cry again.

But this was not a fight he was destined to win.

First the coverlet dampened humiliatingly under his parted, gasping lips; then it grew wet beneath his eyes, tears running from their corners over the bridge of his nose to drip onto the velvet. Elu still didn’t stop. When a pause finally came, it was a brief one; Tyelpe felt movement against his side and twitched, startled, his breath hitching, only to be shocked into a higher-pitched sound when leather cracked over his tilted-up ass. Elu’s hand must be hurting him. He’d taken off his own belt and was whipping Tyelpe’s ass with a folded section of it, letting the strap carry its force into skin already inflamed and burning as badly as his inner thighs, though the ache was not yet so deep.

Soon he lost track of not struggling, not moving, but he lost his grip on effective movement at the same time and was left just squirming, his right hand clenching bloodlessly around his left wrist. Elu kept his palm atop Tyelpe’s white knuckles as Tyelpe writhed in his lap, the blows rhythmic now and their force undiminished. When, after ages, his hand moved from there, Tyelpe’s shoulders started to slump in relief, but he was not to be released.

Instead Elu’s fingers parted his ass. The touch was delicate, but magnified by the long beating to a blistering pressure – and Tyelpe heard himself miserably moan at the shameful exposure before the leather came down again, slashing directly over his hole. At the first such blow, he choked. At the second, he yelped aloud.

He’d gone from uncontrollable grunts and cries to a storm of sobs by the time it ended, such that it took him several moments to realize that Elu was gently rubbing his ass instead of strapping it. Once he’d marginally quieted, Elu nudged him a few times, and at last Tyelpe understood him well enough to let Elu draw him up so Tyelpe was straddling his lap.

Tyelpe wept into Elu’s shoulder, struggling to contain himself, furious at his own helpless leaning into the embrace – and disgusted at his own weakness. But every shift scraped the scabs on his inner thighs against Elu’s clothing, bringing undignified whines from his throat. The searing pain in his spanked ass and tortured thighs seemed to change his gravity, weighing down his pelvis even as the most intimate parts of his body were so tellingly exposed above his lord’s knees.

But Elu’s hand on his back was kind, and he murmured in Tyelpe’s ear, “Hush now.” The infantilizing gentleness should not have been comforting, and in part it made him loathe himself all the more for this humiliating display, but it helped him quiet a little.

He was breathing better by the time Elu’s hand softly cupped his ass, making him gasp as his fingers clenched in the shoulders of Elu’s robe. “Have you learned your lesson?” Elu wanted to know. Tyelpe could only nod, something terrified in his belly. “Good.”

Tyelpe was quieter now, leaning heavily into Elu’s arms which had at some point gone fully around him, but he was still weeping, and eventually Elu gave him a gentle jolt. “Up for a moment.” Obedient, he slid carefully back, wincing with a tiny sound at the way even the low pile of the velvet caught his scratches. Standing tensed Tyelpe’s muscles differently, making him dread sitting down – making him dread how much various personal needs tomorrow were going to hurt. He waited there, naked and obedient with his hair falling into his face, his breath still hitching with whimpering tears, while Elu drew down the heavy blankets of the bed, revealing sheets of heavy white muslin. Still he watched as the king slipped out of his robe, and it didn’t even occur to him that he might be offered such a liberty until Elu was fully undressed and told him, “Join me.”

Are you sure? he stopped himself just short of asking out loud. He had to turn his back on the king to find a way into the bed that didn’t involve sitting down first, and he slid carefully onto the mattress, trying not to let swollen flesh scrape over the sheet. Elu climbed over him, momentarily trapping Tyelpe between his limbs; Tyelpe looked over his own shoulder and up at his king below swollen eyelids, feeling small. Then Elu was on the other side of him and dropping the blankets down atop him, their bare skin touching full-length as the covers settled against Tyelpe’s throbbing ass.

Elu pushed Tyelpe’s hair out of his eyes, prompting him to wipe hastily at his own tears. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, though his embarrassment was shaded by wonder at being brought into his lord’s bed instead of onto it.

“Did I hurt you so badly as that?” His hand slipped around to cup Tyelpe’s hip, fingers cool against the inflamed skin.

Tyelpe shook his head. “It does hurt – very much – but I’ve. Had. A difficult day otherwise.”

“Tell me,” Elu commanded, the tone more brusque than the gentle fingertips suggested.

Tyelpe took a breath. Their faces were close enough that he could feel Elu breathing, too, keeping him conscious of the unexpected privilege. “If you’re … I quarreled with Saeros yesterday.”

Elu arched an eyebrow, his expression otherwise unresponsive. “Oh? What over?”

“The lord Beren,” Tyelpe answered, remembering at the last instant to apply a courtesy title to the spouse of Elu Thingol’s daughter. Maybe Elu would care not in Beren’s case, but Tyelpe had seen the four chairs now around the breakfast-table in the study; he clearly had regular contact with his son-in-law. “Saeros made … an unkind remark about mortal men.”

“And this troubled you?”

Tyelpe nodded as he rubbed a hand across his face again. Speaking was already helping him cry less, but he wasn’t sure how to explain the way it had chilled him, nor the way he his mind now searched for some sign of such prejudices in Saeros’ prior behavior.

Elu looked at him with a slightly dry expression, but said, “I’m sorry you were hurt by it. I don’t think there’s much I can actually do to aid you, though.”

Tyelpe shook his head quickly. “I wouldn’t ask it of you, my lord. I only …” he took a slow breath. “Your people have been rightly slow to accept me. It can be difficult, though I know it’s justified. Saeros has been my friend.” Almost as soon as he said it he wished to amend it – Saeros is my friend, just for a cruel remark about someone I’ve never even spoken to – but he found himself shaken enough that he couldn’t find how.

“Mm.” Elu’s hand shifted, tightened a fraction; Tyelpe winced, but the possessive clutch was oddly comforting. “I know your support of Beren honors me – though I suspect from your face that is not the sole reason,” he added. “But I can do little about Saeros, not for a sharp remark that was probably true if ill-said – as is Saeros’ way. And frankly,” he went on, his tone heating slightly, “am I to be sorry if he’ll be sniffing around you a little less? He wanted you for his people, you know, and I had to be sharp with him to keep your art for my own.”

Tyelpe had to admit that this was gratifying. “Thank you, my lord,” he murmured.

After a moment, he let his knees draw up to rest lightly against Elu’s, and held his breath as he dared to shift closer and rest his brow against the king’s pale chest. The hand on Tyelpe’s ass grazed over its curve, making him suck in his breath, but came to rest then at the small of his back. Its touch was warm, light but solid above the still-sharp pains that shot at random through the skin from below his waist to the backs of his knees.

Tyelpe would sleep that night – not well, exactly, but with a sense of safety. And he slept often in Elu’s room thereafter.

Chapter Text

Once, Elu – Elwë then – had seen Melian and the rest of the world had melted away from him, all other concerns – all other goals – all other loves fading into his wonder. The mists of a grove that told them its own name, that was aware enough to be glad to cradle two lovers within the lofty-growing halls of its trees, had surrounded them, and they both had been lost, so enchanted that the first Elu knew of the time that had passed was the roof of branches being further above his head, the longer fall of his own hair. As the breath catches to see a shy animal gaze from the woods in the moment before she has decided to be afraid, Elu had caught his breath, and the timeless moment had stretched – how could he be aware of time when all of him was momentarily given over to wonder that she was there and warm and real. He hadn’t known then, what she was, and in his innocence had not wondered at time. She’d felt more remote and more alien when, after slow earthly seasons of returning to awareness, he’d realized what had happened. For a moment, he’d dissolved into helpless fury, but her uncanny loveliness did not allow him to harm her by raising his voice, like she was a shimmer of mist that might flee from his very breath. How unused to the Children she had been! Though he was not the first she’d seen, he was the first she’d touched, like a girl who knows she must not handle the stinging plants or crush the delicate ones but stands entranced by the garden’s colors. When he’d wept helplessly over the loss of his people, of the realm he’d meant to have with his brother, of Finwë, Melian had wiped the tears from his eyes, then licked them curiously from her fingers, all her senses fascinated with him. He’d had the presence of mind to speak to her some of his people’s nature before he let any of his remaining followers be seen by her.

Once Elu had looked into Melian’s eyes and he had known himself lost and found. Now he wished he had faded, unfound, into the dark.

He had barely allowed himself, since then, to lose track of the relationship between the passage of time and the rise and fall of the sun and the drum of his own heartbeat. But now every heartbeat said she is gone, she is gone, she is gone, she is gone, and he wanted that innocence back, that unawareness of time when every moment was a torment.

Lúthien was not to be found now. She was fallen. And as the bands melted from the candle, as the sands slipped through the hourglass, the snap of the flame and the hiss of the glass calling him ever back to consciousness and refusing him the oblivion that had preceded his greatest losses and his greatest gains, he could only, numbly, pray: A! Elbereth, guide her to a new home. Oromë, call her to safety. Lord of the Dead, conduct her to the place her holiness deserves. Finwë, Finwë, hold my daughter; let your sweet self and hers dwell together in peace. Tell her I love her. May she tell you how I still love you. I would have made you both everything, given you everything, and I failed you both. Find peace together. My love could not save either of you. Ah, no, Love took you both away from me. Sing to each other of something better than I could give you, for I will never have the chance to hear you sing again.

He had not asked Celebrimbor to attend on him, and he looked at the boy with naked skepticism on a face that felt as rigid as polished bone. It had been most of a season since Elu laid eyes on the Noldo boy. Beleg had admitted Celebrimbor without asking and now gave Elu a low bow. “I did not send for you,” Elu said, looking at Celebrimbor, though the rebuke was meant for Beleg too.

Beleg showed no reaction, but Celebrimbor spoke with a calm that, though Elu’s perception wavered in his grief, still struck him as slightly eerie. “No, my lord, you did not. The lady Melian sent for me.”

“Do you need anything?” Beleg asked, in the disconcerting direction of no one in particular.

“If I did, I would have sent for you,” said Elu, irritated. Melian was summoning Celebrimbor on his behalf now? He could never stay annoyed with her for more than a few moments – but neither Beleg nor Celebrimbor had the same assurance of his temper.

Beleg took this as his cue, apparently, to depart. The door closed behind him and Elu looked at Celebrimbor in the entrance to his study, knowing the bleakness of his own expression, seeing the blankness of the boy’s.

“Well?” Elu said tiredly.

Celebrimbor’s response was carefully polite, as the boy so often was; and utterly out of place in the moment, as everything felt now. “How are you, my lord?”

Elu could almost have laughed. He didn’t dare, for he was tired of weeping, and tears would come if he let his face do much of anything. He was tired, altogether, for his usual disdain for the necessity of sleep had become almost a fearsome loathing for it. Instead, he answered sharply: “And how should I be?”

“Completely dreadful, I expect.”

Toneless and even as the answer was, it actually did make Elu laugh for its prompt and deadly accuracy, and indeed, though he came close, he did not weep. “Did my wife really send for you?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t far from coming myself and accepting the consequences.” Celebrimbor took his eyes from nothing-in-particular to meet Elu’s gaze. “I thought I could furnish a distraction. Less importantly, I’ve missed you.”

Elu couldn’t judge how sincere that was; nor was he able to anticipate Celebrimbor’s next movement, which was to step forward and go to one knee, placing both hands on the arms of Elu’s chair and rising just enough to kiss his lips.

Elu momentarily froze, then wrapped his hand around the back of Celebrimbor’s neck and crushed him close, kissing him deep, deeper – deep enough to feel the boy’s uncertain balance through the changeable pressure of yielding lips. There was comfort in the velvet of his mouth.

He drowned for long moments in the boy, his other hand coming forward to bury itself in black hair as well – the damned braids caught on his fingers, and he tried to shake his hand free before realizing the trouble was that he was still holding his reed pen, that he’d blotted ink over the heel of his palm and perhaps on Celebrimbor’s neck, too. He tossed it behind him onto the desk, unseeing; his mouth was still engaged, the kiss wet and sharp and fumbling and driven by an urgent sort of need, and now his hand found its place in amidst the dark fall, the nubbled rhythm of a braid sliding between his fingers like a low chant that reached a crescendo as he clutched at one of the ever-present ornaments.

It ended only when Elu drew Celebrimbor too far up and his precarious position yielded a lurching sway. Elu caught him below the shoulders, fingers still tangled with his tresses – with some of Elu’s own silver ones, too; he felt them tug as he drew back. Celebrimbor was looking at him with his eyes grown to the dark, startled dimensions they acquired when he was thrumming with arousal.

“I’ve missed you,” Elu echoed him, belatedly and with the slight surprise of finding that it was true.

Celebrimbor bent his head and rested his brow on Elu’s knee, shifting so he was comfortably settled on both knees on the tiles. “It was over a year ago, last I was here,” he murmured.

Elu blinked. Panic closed a hand around his throat. “What?”

“What?” Celebrimbor looked up, then shook his head at once, tousled braids swinging. “I meant since I was here exactly. On your study floor.” He looked behind Elu to the jeweled box on his desk, then back up at him. “My lord? It’s all right.” Strong brown hands came to tug Elu’s sleeves down toward his wrists, a light concerned gesture as though Celebrimbor thought he was cold. “I was just remembering the time I – the time I brought you the box. When you asked me to show myself willing, and I …” Apparently he couldn’t bring himself to say it, but his fingers were stroking up toward Elu’s elbows now, a gentle double caress.

“What were you remembering?” Elu asked quietly.

Celebrimbor’s eyes dropped, abashed, into Elu’s lap, though his hands kept up their comforting movement on his arms. “How much I enjoyed being able to work out how to please you.”

“You did.” Elu looped a finger around yet another braid, settling a knuckle behind the boy’s ear. So many elaborate plaits. He was going to have to ask that Celebrimbor wear his hair undone more often; he’d liked the look of it loose and tumbling, the night of his punishment for using Quenya. That thought was so absent, that ordinary desire so mundane, that it sharpened his grief – and then he realized his eyes were already damp, the tears forced to fall by his momentary terror or by his earlier laughter or something else.

Celebrimbor leaned away from the touch a little, though his eyes came up to Elu’s face again, regarding him calmly and openly but without judgment. It took Elu a moment to realize that he was actively increasing the pressure on his hair. He liked that. Yes. Elu unwrapped the other fingers from their drowning-tight grasp of the chair’s arm and used them to pull Celebrimbor’s head back a bit.

“Why do I deny myself this?” Elu asked the still air, his tone hushed.

“Because you have a hundred other things to do and so you think less of your own relief?” The answer was all too prompt and a little pert, but it made Elu smile a bit. A touch of insolence was oddly soothing just now. Everyone was being so careful with his temper, now that he hardly had the energy to be temperamental through his sorrow.

“If you’re here to try to cheer me,” he warned, “I’m going to spank you again – or rather, just break something.” A finger or two would do, he thought, but he knew Celebrimbor well enough not to say it aloud – he didn’t want to frighten him when he was currently being an excellent distraction. Yet people trying to lift his spirits had consistently made him weep, and he’d have it from a Noldo least of all.

“I don’t mind being spanked when my lord enjoys it.” Celebrimbor’s cheek brushed Elu’s hand as he tilted his head. “But I’m not here to cheer you. I know how irritating that can be.”

“Do you?” Elu asked.

“My mother was lost when Aglon fell,” Celebrimbor said without inflection. His stoicism made Elu stroke his cheekbone with a sympathetic thumb, to which he did not react. “And she was given to mirth, which did not make it easier to hear others try to induce it in me.”

“Yes,” Elu murmured, his eyes rising to gaze restlessly at the far wall. He felt his hand move gently on Celebrimbor’s face. It was good to be understood; yet he was sorry that Celebrimbor did. The contrasting feelings, both unexpected, caught in his heart. “Yes, Lúthien was often merry too.”

“I’m so sorry.” The unfeigned sincerity of the words made Elu close his eyes for a moment. “I can’t lessen your pain. I can’t make you feel better. But let me give you something else to stop you thinking on it.”

“Please,” Elu heard himself say feelingly. He opened his eyes again, feeling his lashes cling in a film of tears, in time to see Celebrimbor’s hands move unerringly to the front of his trousers. “Not here, though. I had you in the study before – before I was willing to admit you to my bedchamber. I need to be away from my desk.”

“Of course.” Celebrimbor rose gracefully – hesitated – then put out a hand to Elu.

Elu looked at the hand for a moment, got up by himself, then as Celebrimbor’s reach faltered, enfolded the fingers warmly in his own. “Come,” he said, taking the candle from the desk, and brought the boy toward the privacy of the inner chamber.

The bed-curtains were unbound from the posts, as Elu had lately been drawing them when he tried to sleep; he had to shove them back in order to sit on the edge of the bed. “Undress for me,” he bade Celebrimbor, and felt the hunger in his own eyes as they lingered on obedient limbs. Supple Celebrimbor was, despite his obvious strength, and Elu still marveled at the lines of him even now. The body that could easily have put up physical resistance instead ... complied, turning as he shed his clothes and bringing the subtle honey of the candlelight to drape at every moment over another angle of his form.

Celebrimbor knelt at his feet again without waiting to be told, laying his cheek against Elu’s knee. This time when he moved to undo Elu’s trousers, Elu let him. The king’s eyes slipped closed as Celebrimbor elegantly bent to lay a kiss against his shaft, favoring him with soft and skillful lips.

“Should I have come sooner?” he asked, his breath warm against sensitive skin.

Elu toyed further with his hair. “Probably, but I expect I know why you didn’t.”

There was a wry flicker at the corner of Celebrimbor’s mouth. “I expect you do.” One hand massaged Elu’s thigh. “We are understanding each other well tonight, aren’t we? It is no surprise, I suppose, for we’ve both lost much in recent times –”

This time when Elu’s soul slammed shut it was not panic but fury that closed it. How dare he? “If you’re comparing your parting from your damned father to the loss of my child –”

The look he got back held utter shock. “No. Certainly not. I meant that I’ve also lost someone dear to me, and at the same time. Carcharoth ravaged many families as he raged through this realm, my lord …”

That appalled, maybe even wounded, expression stayed Elu’s hand from chastising Celebrimbor, but his broken heart still spilled rage into his blood. And if Elu didn’t quiet Celebrimbor now, he was going to be driven to do something he’d actually regret.

Celebrimbor choked – gasped – gagged when Elu’s cock, still not quite hard, was forced into his mouth. Elu expected him to struggle back; he made himself keep the hand on Celebrimbor’s head light, not forcing him. The boy, after all, had been thoughtful as well as thoughtless. But he didn’t pull back. Instead he just stilled. His eyes rose, looking up painfully high under coal-black brows, already watering but fixed on Elu’s face.

Then Celebrimbor reached for Elu’s waist, tightened both hands in his sash, and forced his own head down.

The spasm of the soft throat gripped Elu’s head with inexorable tightness, and Celebrimbor snapped back gasping after a moment, retching, his face pressing to Elu’s thigh as he shuddered. Elu recoiled a little from the harsh noise of the boy’s scraping cough so near his own skin, but he couldn’t bring himself to scold him for risking it when he could see the roll all the way up Celebrimbor’s spine as his body tried belatedly to repulse the invasion of his airway. And when as soon as he’d recovered himself Celebrimbor brought his wet mouth back to massage Elu’s shaft with renewed and desperate vigor – imperceptibly, gladly, Elu’s hips lifted to meet him.

Again Celebrimbor forced his head down, held it for long moments, and had to retreat. This time Elu, his shoulders quivering at the tight, struggling sensation, let the hand on the back of his neck flatten, keeping the head of his cock cradled upon the heat of Celebrimbor’s tongue as the boy panted through his nose. Noisy breaths slowed to a natural cadence, then past it.

It took only a little urging to bring him back down. Knowing he could use his throat at all seemed to invigorate Celebrimbor; well, with what Elu knew by now of his nature, it was no surprise he should rise to a challenge. He tried to swallow this time, the muscles at the entrance to his slick throat beating like wings with his abortive efforts, then managed a loud gulp. Elu pressed deeper, emboldened by the throat that tried not to revolt, and this time the sound was lower, more guttural, an almost animal grunt. Celebrimbor worked on, struggling to envelop Elu’s head. He most likely had not heard himself; the blood must pound in his ears, in his head, judging from the flush around his throat and the fluttering pulse beside his brow.

This winter past, Elu had drawn aside the lips of cut flesh from the belly of Carcharoth himself, dry-eyed then and not yet grasping the enormity of the loss happening around him, so that Mablung could reach into the carcass for the stone. A horror it had been, the still-twitching flesh speaking death to his fingertips, an ill-wrought thing horribly welded of the matter of fae and rhaw; the flesh flaked into shale-like layers and he knew he was touching things burnt past all sensation. Amidst his grief he’d wondered if he was feeling death in the aftermath of a battle between the stone and the beast – or something inherent to the creature Carcharoth. Elu had shuddered convulsively, abruptly thinking of Finrod, his erstwhile ally, his intense and singing neighbor-king who, they said, had died by inches under beasts like this. And he didn’t think his own flesh had for a moment forgotten that foul touch … not until now.

He cradled Celebrimbor’s head in his hands, re-learning the feel of his hair, his eyes falling closed as he gave himself over to being serviced so passionately. The struggle that Celebrimbor was trying to suppress but clearly couldn’t altogether control – it engulfed him, it surrounded him, leaving him warm and wet to the root. Like a bird prisoned in his hands was Celebrimbor’s head. And Celebrimbor’s flesh drove away memory, reminded him what the inside of a living body felt like. Elu pushed him back, still not looking, and thrust a long finger alongside his own cock into the moisture. His fingertip caressed a soft palate like a tight-stuffed satin cushion, and he trembled to feel himself disappearing into the gates of the throat.

A harsher, sharper gag repulsed his cock, dragged Celebrimbor’s lips back up and away, and Elu’s eyes opened to see that his vassal’s face was wet. He’d been weeping as he fought, instinct and service pulling him two ways at once. Elu’s cock pulsed at it.

Again Celebrimbor approached, but the angle must have been bad, or something gone awry in the timing. For a second after he recoiled Elu thought he would actually vomit. He was crying audibly now as he tried to return.

Elu held him back firmly for a moment, fingers iron on the boy’s well-built shoulders, and waited for him to manage eye contact. “Can you do this?”

Celebrimbor gasped and drew a few sucking breaths before managing an answer. “Not – not with any – self-control, my lord. I thought I – I’m sorry –”

With a gentleness that surprised Celebrimbor, judging from the flinch, and surprised Elu himself, he caressed the tear-stained face. “Did I ask it of you? You’ve long shown me you can refrain from reaction. Now show me you can trust me to make you react.”

The boy shivered abjectly at his feet, but he nodded – almost curtly.

“Are you ready?” Elu asked as kindly as he could manage while his unspent pulse pounded in his groin.

Celebrimbor nodded, pale and determined. When Elu’s thumb pressed softly at the corner of his lips, the boy opened his mouth wide.

This time Elu set the pace. Bringing Celebrimbor close, he moved his head as he might, another time, have moved his hips; he was taking the boy’s throat now, and under his control it went better. Commanded thus, Celebrimbor had yielded himself up utterly. Elu felt nervous fingers playing against his calves and knew how hard it was for him. But still Celebrimbor was limp on his knees, moving as he was directed, his throat still tight and responsive but as welcoming now as other holes. The inhuman grunting that rasped through his nose quieted, yielding a wet click in the throat at every thrust. Elu pushed him back to the tip, saw the tears leaking freely from closed eyes as Celebrimbor rushed to gather the tension back into his mouth – felt the throat close once, then give in to him with another slight, coarse glottal noise as Elu drove into him to the utmost, pulling his head forward, stretching his neck to make him a thing of pleasure.

Elu came almost before he realized the finish was upon him.

His senses went snow-blinded white with the climax. He thought it had been long moments when he opened his eyes again, but Celebrimbor was still collapsed against his legs, striving with himself, weeping. I’ve made a wreckage of that much-vaunted self-control, Elu thought, a child’s pleasure in kicking over a heap of stones rippling through his weariness. Still, things felt right in a way they had not in some time.

He took Celebrimbor by a handful of hair and almost used it as a leash to guide him up into the bed. Yet he hesitated a little, unusually concerned. Elu knew himself to be quiet in sleep, ordinarily, but he’d been restless of late; any presence but his lady wife’s was likely to trouble him if he woke, and he was sure he’d disturb the rest of Celebrimbor.

No. The boy had lost hold of his dignity. Let him lie there and feel it; let Elu lie and know the security of having him in his place.

He tugged at the boy’s tresses, pulling him toward the bed’s foot; Celebrimbor followed the pressure, knocked onto all fours and moving unseeing, no longer choking but softly whimpering in his chest. Did he know he was doing it? Could he stop?

An extra spread, left from the winter’s cold, was still neatly draped over the foot of the bed. Elu swept it down with his free hand, letting its folds settle onto the thick rug. The floor was not likely to be too cold through the wool. “Tonight you sleep here,” he told Celebrimbor. “Lie at your lord’s feet, faithful one; degraded, faithful boy!” Celebrimbor nodded rapidly, overeager perhaps to please him; Elu let the hair slide through his hand, and Celebrimbor curled up in place, gathering banks of blanket against bare skin, looking apprehensively at him. Elu reached down and thumbed away a drop of seed from the corner of a darkly flushed mouth. Celebrimbor licked it away, at once and apparently without thinking on the action.

“Sleep,” Elu bade him again, voice deepening with gentleness.

At the head of the bed he sought his own rest. Should he toss a silken pillow to Celebrimbor? No, he’d slept with Elu often enough now that Elu knew he was usually resting his head on his own folded arm by morning, or on Elu’s shoulder. He’d be fine.

And in any case, Elu wasn’t at all sure he could have conveyed a cushion to the boy before sleep – a deep and weary and fulsome sleep – had already claimed him.

Elu woke more gently than was his recent custom. The first morning light looked whiter than it had yesterday, bleaching colors to cleaner versions of themselves. He felt grave and empty, a bit more focused than he had before; he’d slept well.

Ah. Yes. Celebrimbor.

An unaccustomed twinge of guilt touched him. (Not that he minded, as such; guilt, he found, was a quieter and more bearable emotion than grief.) He’d been rough last night, though Celebrimbor had offered himself freely. He really ought not to have made the boy sleep on the floor, he decided. That might have been a little too far.

Was it, though? Celebrimbor had come here a year ago as a supplicant, and for all he prevaricated otherwise, little more than a political prisoner. Why did he have a right to a place in the king’s bed? No matter that he’d had it for some weeks last fall, he was still a guest in Elu’s bedchamber, subject to invitation … Besides, it was pointedly clear that he enjoyed rough treatment.

Elu dragged himself upright in the midst of arguing with himself and leaned toward the wide gap in the hangings at the foot of the bed.

Celebrimbor was still asleep, half-curled beneath the downy bedspread which draped smoothly enough to show the contours of the boy’s body clearly. His head was propped on one arm, his hair spread into an inky, tangled corona around him, and the blanket had slipped away from bare shoulders. He was not huddled; he had not been too cold.

Elu lay down further to dangle his arm over the foot of the bed and stroke the river of black hair. Celebrimbor murmured something, nuzzling into his hand. “Wake,” Elu told him softly. “Morning comes. And you have lain faithful in your place through the night. What a pretty sight you are there on the floor. I am pleased with you.”

Celebrimbor looked up at him – a flash of sapphire against the wood-and-leaf tones – and smiled softly, an innocent, not-quite-done-sleeping expression. Elu let his hand curve, stroking satin skin over the bold cheekbone.

Both of them started at a clinking from the next room: the chime of highly-fired pottery. Breakfast was being laid, and the night-guards’ reports with it. Celebrimbor’s apparently unconscious smile faded as he looked a little reluctantly toward the closed door, rolling fully onto his back. He was usually dismissed once the attendant who brought the king’s morning meal had departed.

Elu found himself oddly reluctant to send the boy out today.

“Stay there a moment,” he said. Shifting up from the mattress, he glanced toward the wardrobe; no, he’d slept mostly clothed, and this would do well enough for breakfast. He shrugged yesterday’s robe back on as he strode to the study door to look. Yes, the attendant had just departed, and a pot of tea steamed on the table alongside scones, cold venison, and early fruit – enough of Melian’s power was steeped into the earth that some trees were ever-bearing even in her grief. The spring harvest this year was more scant – one of the letters beside Elu’s plate no doubt concerned this subject once again – but sufficient, at any rate, to supply Menegroth’s nobler tables. There was enough set out for two, as usual, though he doubted Melian would join him today; she’d mostly withdrawn to her private garden, where she sat veiled and silent with her eyes empty, leaving Elu to rule the city without the advice of his queen.

Maybe she would come today, he thought wistfully. And if she did, perhaps it would amuse her to have company …

The guards’ shift did not change until an hour after Elu was accustomed to wake, and as it had been Beleg on duty last night, it would be Eglachon this morning – who could, Elu thought (still a little irritated), at least be trusted not to admit people to his presence unannounced. Elu returned to the bedroom. “Come,” he said. “Breakfast with me.”

Celebrimbor looked up at him for a surprised moment, then seemed to remember himself and rolled over, rising to his knees, already looking for his clothes. Elu stopped him with a hand on his head. Celebrimbor instantly stilled.

“No,” Elu told him. “Stay down.” He gave one of Celebrimbor’s braids a little tug. “You may stay, but you are to remember your place as it’s been shown to you.”

The boy shrank a little. “My lord?” His voice was slightly hoarse.

Elu knew he understood, so he tugged harder on the braid, but he said it anyway. Celebrimbor had pleased him; why make him guess? “Crawl. Let me see you humble before your lord.”

He went ahead of him and held the door open. Celebrimbor was staring at him, eyes dark and wide but curiously calculating; but just as Elu opened his mouth to give a more forceful command, Celebrimbor dropped to all fours, his hair hanging around his face. It took him another moment to move, but in time, move he did. His hands were crooked and nervous in their placement, the more so as he shuffled closer to Elu.

He paused in the doorway, his bare back a little arched under Elu’s gaze.

“Go to the table,” Elu told him, losing patience. Celebrimbor looked ahead of him for a moment – had his eyes been closed? – and quickly crawled into place, his shoulder bumping one of the legs. Elu closed the door and followed him, choosing the chair he was closest to, running his knuckles along the boy’s spine as he settled himself.

Celebrimbor remained on all fours as Elu poured his first cup of tea, dipped honey to sweeten it, and flicked through the small stack of papers on the desk. Night guards’ morning report; a late-arriving letter from an outlying master arborist, as expected; a brief list of travelers who had come into the city overnight, including Ithilbor and his son, as well as a couple of approved merchants.

Perusing the guards’ report more thoroughly, Elu broke a scone in two and reached down to tap a piece against Celebrimbor’s lips.

The boy recoiled sharply. Elu looked down at him in surprise and offered again. Celebrimbor was gazing at him apprehensively, as though he expected to be struck. “What’s wrong?” Elu asked him, letting a touch of his impatience color his voice.

“Apologies.” Celebrimbor lifted his hand to take the scone.

“No,” Elu told him. He hadn’t meant to be sharp, but there was an edge to the sound, and a quick spark shot in from his groin at the way Celebrimbor flinched and dropped his hand in his lap. He tapped the closed lips again.

Celebrimbor’s shoulders rose a little. He looked quickly around them, his eyes sweeping the room. He had a strong voice, normally, one that carried, but his speech now was almost inaudible. “I don’t wish to be … seen like this.”

Elu passed the scone-holding hand over the crown of his head, a brief caress. “You won’t be. This is my private study, you recall. And you were willing enough to kneel before me last night.”

“I know,” Celebrimbor murmured. “This just … feels a bit different.”

Elu gave him a look at that vague pronouncement, and he colored a bit. “Eat,” Elu told him.

Celebrimbor licked his lips once, then opened his mouth. Something about the sight of it gave Elu more interest in the game, and significantly less in his correspondence. He held the morsel a little away. Celebrimbor followed it with his eyes – then, just before Elu was ready to instruct him, he rose on his knees to take it. His lips felt firm against Elu’s fingertips, and he winced as he swallowed.

“Throat sore?” Elu asked.

Celebrimbor nodded.

Elu felt an odd urge to apologize for the lingering pain. He began it himself; I owe him no regret. Still, he sympathized, and offered his teacup to the boy’s mouth. Celebrimbor tilted his head up and sipped from it a bit awkwardly, lapping a stray drop from the side like a kitten.

That very mouth yielded to me as I took him in his throat. That very tongue resisted me when he choked.

Elu’s fingers were conscious to the bone of where Celebrimbor’s lips had touched, making his own movements feel more deliberate, more strange. Half an apricot came next, and he held it almost out of reach, making Celebrimbor crane and struggle for it. He allowed the boy to take small bites of the velvety fruit. “More neatly,” he chided – and, ah, the little shudder, the tiny humiliated moan that brought as Celebrimbor tried to straighten his back as though that would answer the command. When he presented his thrumming fingers, Celebrimbor licked them without hesitation, though with obvious economy.

Few things were distracting enough for Elu to forget he was being distracted. But, he had to admit, Celebrimbor endeavoring to please him came close. Closer last night than now – but still close.

He gave attention to his own meal for a few moments, making the boy wait. His correspondence awaited him beside the plate, and he looked at the papers somewhere between want and guilt. There might be something pleasant about getting some work done with Celebrimbor’s company. He ought to make use of momentarily feeling a little better to take care of as much as he could … Still, it seemed a little churlish. Celebrimbor had come when he was needed; would he respond well to being mostly ignored?

When he glanced back, taking up a morsel of meat to convey to Celebrimbor’s mouth, he found Celebrimbor toying with his hair. The network of braids he’d worn last night was severely askew; while sleeping on them surely hadn’t helped, Elu thought he could see just where his fingers had clutched when he’d thrust into the wet passage of Celebrimbor’s throat.

“Leave it be,” he said, holding the venison close to Celebrimbor’s face. Celebrimbor lowered his hands again and leaned a little to take it, his lips whispering lightly over the skin.

Elu swept any suspicion of grease from his hand on a pear-colored damask napkin, then ran the pad of his thumb over the corner of one of Celebrimbor’s shadowed eyes. He’d wept last night, but the lids were no longer swollen. Elu let his fingers rest against the line of cheek and jaw, reluctantly returning his attention to the guard report instead of his naked, disheveled prize.

He was distracted again moments later by a brush of locks against his hand. “Can you not stop toying with your hair for half a moment!” he exclaimed.

“I just don’t want to look careless!” Celebrimbor protested. “And it’s tugging – ”

“Hush. Eat your breakfast.” He pressed another half an apricot firmly against Celebrimbor’s mouth, cutting off continued protest. The thin juice of the fruit ran down between his fingertip and the boy’s chin. “And now you’re making a mess. Have a bit of patience.”

Celebrimbor clumsily took the fruit, trying to get the entire piece chewed, and winced visibly as he swallowed twice. He dashed a hand across his face, licked his full lower lip, trying to capture the juice. Though awkward, the effect was not unpleasing; Elu had often seen him do the same trying to swallow Elu’s own spend, and he associated these struggles more with other acts than eating. ... indeed, this was the first time they’d eaten together, wasn’t it? That seemed suddenly odd. Yes, the first time, not counting that disastrous dinner they’d both attended, after which Elu had struck him in the armory. That had been the night he’d thought of abandoning everything to follow Lúthien …

His eyes closed almost of their own accord.

Celebrimbor’s touch was feather-light on his knee. “My lord?”

Elu made a vague assenting sound and stuffed another bite of scone into Celebrimbor’s mouth. In dealing with it, Celebrimbor knuckled a crumb away from his mouth – and used the movement none too subtly to straighten a lock that was sliding over his brow.

Elu sighed and took up the next bite, crumbling it between his fingers over Celebrimbor’s head. Small crumbs showered down, showing up light and scattered against dark locks. The boy gave him a chagrined and perhaps mildly offended look, shoulders hunching. Elu held the smaller bit in front of his lips, but he maintained a momentary hunted stare before taking it. “Come, now,” Elu said, deliberately flicking another fragment into his hair, “I did tell you no one would disturb us.” He cut another bite of the meat. “Now, wait for me to give it to you; accept you’ll have it when I bring it to you.”

Celebrimbor sat back on his heels a little, defeated, and opened his mouth. “Wait for it to be given,” Elu told him again, this time more softly. “Don’t be impatient.” Celebrimbor pressed his lips together again and closed his hands around his own ankles.

Elu gave him most of what remained of the meal that way, enthralled by the boy’s efforts to eat neatly from his fingertips, scolding him on occasion for parting his mouth too soon. Celebrimbor was not much given to blushing, but the color in his ears and neck deepened a little as the play went on, more so as Elu fed him sips of tea from the edge of the cup, drank from the opposite side of it himself.

Once, striving to wait until the last moment to open his lips, he let Elu press a morsel to a closed mouth; Elu waited for him to accept it, then slapped him lightly as soon as it was in, making Celebrimbor jump in surprise and the grape he’d been fed fall to the floor. “Pick it up,” Elu advised him quietly, and saw the boy’s eyes close for a moment with shame even as he bent with all alacrity, took his weight on his hands, and took up the fruit in his mouth from the cold tiles. “Good. Don’t make me wait again.”

Celebrimbor didn’t.

They’d been through two cups of tea shared between them when Elu asked, “Have you had enough?”

Celebrimbor nodded slightly, his blue eyes fastened on Elu’s face. He was unmoving now, but a little arousal showed between his thighs. He liked such things, yes, though Elu was beginning to think it was the challenge that attracted him and not the pain of it.

“That’ll do, then.” He stroked the boy’s face once. “Fetch me a comb from the bedroom?”

He hadn’t thought of how he’d bid him move, but Celebrimbor turned on his knees and crawled back to the doorway, and at the sight of it Elu sucked in his breath as though he’d been underwater.

He came back quickly with both a comb and a hairbrush, holding them carefully in one hand and presenting them like a tribute. Elu took them, set the brush aside. “Turn your back,” he said, indicating with the comb.

Celebrimbor looked up at him with his eyes wide and sloe-dark, but obeyed. When Elu lifted the tangled mass of his hair, the shoulders beneath were tight and quivering, and ever so slightly, as though in anticipation, Celebrimbor’s back bent.

He jumped only a little when Elu found the ties at the ends of the plaits, cleverly hidden beneath fine black coils, and began to undo the braids. There were three different kinds of them worked together – “Why do you do this,” Elu murmured, not expecting an answer, but he got back a slightly acid “To look pleasing for you?” for his pains.

“I’ve seen you in your forge. You do it then, too.”

Celebrimbor made a vague gesture. Elu ignored it, working on separating the entwined locks of hair, keeping his grip steady as Celebrimbor’s head slightly turned as though attempting to see what he was about.

At the first long draw of the comb through dark tresses, Celebrimbor made a stifled, surprised noise – then gave a sigh of pleasure, his back arching to hollowness like a cat’s. The second stroke brought less response – instead he straightened, bowed his head a little, and Elu, bending to set the comb at the crown of his head once more, was leaning far enough forward to see that he clasped his hands, childlike, in his lap. But the third pass of the comb made him visibly relax, a little boneless now upon his knees even as the carven prongs caught small snarls amidst the strands.

Elu swept away the crumbs with long pulls, handling him gently. He’d never combed hair of quite this texture – Lúthien had never needed to brush hers, nor did Melian’s lovely spirals call for much arrangement (though he liked to do it for her anyway). His own was slightly sleeker than Celebrimbor’s, while Finwë’s had been glossier still. It was pleasant, the noise of the strands drawing through the comb’s teeth velvety and hypnotic. Celebrimbor appeared to be melting.

“I’m glad you came,” Elu said quietly.

Celebrimbor took a breath. Another. Elu almost thought he wouldn’t reply, would let that hang in the air between them. Then he said with soft, ringing seriousness, “I meant it when I offered you my service, my lord – I meant it wholly, and now more than wholly. I will always come when you call for me.”

“And sometimes when I don’t?” Elu asked, feeling the luxuriating shiver as he rearranged the part of Celebrimbor’s hair.

“And sometimes when you don’t,” Celebrimbor agreed. Elu couldn’t see the boy’s face, but he thought he heard him smile.

Chapter Text

Pearls were running between Tyelpe’s fingers like water. He plunged his hand boldly in among them, admiring their luminosity as they fell back into the dark wood chest – small, but overflowing with the little jewels sacred to Uinen. Grey, white, cream, pink, they shimmered against his skin, an effect he could not help but admire. They made a pleasant noise knocking together, too, like a musical facsimile of rain in a dry season.

“May I really take a handful, my lord?” he asked, turning on his knees toward Elu.

Elu waved a long hand in the gesture Tyelpe had come to recognize as distracted permission. He was at the table, finishing the reading of his day’s correspondence before going to dinner. (Elu had such a great deal of correspondence despite his kingdom’s relative isolation, Tyelpe had learned, because he insisted upon receiving a full record of every meeting held that concerned the trade or governance of Menegroth, and most of those concerning other regions of Doriath. He must have been keeping at least one paper-maker entirely in business.) “Take two hands full,” he said without looking up. “Círdan sends them to me from the banks of the Sea; I’ve no use for all the ones he provides.”

Tyelpe chose out warm, creamy shades that would suit the project he was working on: a new cross-guard for a cherished set of hunting knives, inherited by their current owner who was loath to confess to his family that he’d broken one – so he had come to the city’s Noldorin jewel-smith for greater discretion. As he made his selections, Tyelpe made a mental note to craft Elu a hair ornament or a clasp with three of the largest grey pearls. In fact, there was an open circle of aventurine he’d been saving to make his lord a gift next autumn; they’d pair nicely. “Thank you,” he said, looking about for a container he might use to carry the precious stones back to his workshop.

Elu gave him a bare, brusque nod. Tyelpe liked that as much as a verbal acknowledgement, for the intimacy of being asked to Elu’s rooms before Elu was quite finished with the day’s work or ready to undress him at once, of being allowed to make himself comfortable and to touch his lord’s things while Elu was busy, had become a particular pleasure of Tyelpe’s. The door into the study wasn’t quite closed, spilling a wedge of the brighter lantern-light from without into the bedchamber. On the other side, Tyelpe knew a guard was awaiting the king and probably able to hear most of their conversation – but unless there had been an unnoticed change of posts, it was Beleg, whom Tyelpe had come to like, and nothing untoward was going on just now. Tyelpe’s blanket lay neatly folded upon the rug at the foot of the large bed, waiting in the candle-light for him. The sands were hissing through the glass, as Elu had an appointment to dine with one of his captains that night. Tyelpe wasn’t entirely sure if he was to join him. Certainly Elu had been making more visible use of his knowledge in the past couple of seasons, occasionally even asking him to sit as a guest and advisor on the king’s council that he might offer opinions on Doriath’s armory and its defenses. It would not be strange now for him to be invited along.

Too, Elu had taken to sending for Tyelpe differently. He wouldn’t have said more openly, precisely – but some odd combination of more casually and more formally. Where once Elu had sent curt notes by an ordinary city courier with a dozen other messages to bear, now he was just as likely to bid one of his personal guard to drop by the forge when he had business in that part of the city. “My lord asked you to attend him tonight,” they’d say, or, “The king would like to see you tomorrow after the dinner hour.” Even if it was just before those who shared his workshop, and occasionally in the marketplace, it felt good not to be hidden, and good to be able to nod as though the request were an ordinary one. (It would all have been much less pleasing had he been unable to treat it as ordinary.)

Tyelpe had been engaged in an odd conversation last time, actually. He’d inquired with Beleg and Mablung, off together on some errand to the outer guard, about the hunt this year. The season after Carcharoth’s rampage had been bad for deer and good for rabbits; this one, it seemed to Beleg, was turning out to be the opposite.

The three of them had been standing outside Liria’s shop, the two guards with their bows, Tyelpe with a pair of rings he’d been asked to re-size for the buyer. And after they’d told him he was wanted that evening and passed a few remarks about the scant snare-lines, Beleg spoke without transition, as though it was equally ordinary: “Cel – well, Lord Celeborn who wed your cousin Galadriel was a comrade of ours, you know. He sends to us on occasion; he asked for news of you.”

“Oh?” Tyelpe was startled. He’d heard nothing of his relations since … well, since Huan’s arrival. And the impetus, then, had been much the same.

“Apparently the lady Galadriel worries over you.”

Mablung put in, one eyebrow slightly raised, “She’s sent more than once to the king, as I hear it.”

“I only heard of it once,” Tyelpe answered. That had perhaps been too open for diplomacy, he scolded himself, and set his face more politely. “I hear not from … former relations. Not even the king Orodreth who gave me leave to come here.”

Mablung made a noise that might have been the beginnings of a laugh. “Possibly,” he said, “Orodreth was glad to have you out of his hair?”

Tyelpe chuckled a bit, too. “I have absolutely no doubt that’s the case.”

“Celeborn tells me he and his wife objected to that choice,” said Beleg, who was not laughing.

Tyelpe wasn’t sure what they wanted him to say. “And … what do you tell him?” he asked.

Mablung had shrugged. Beleg just looked at him for another, expectant second, then nodded with an odd expression – was that dismissive? Wry? – and both men had gone about their business, leaving Tyelpe standing there holding his rings with the distinct and disconcerting impression that he’d missed something.

Elu had risen from the chair behind him. Tyelpe put the conversation from his mind and turned to look at him, his fingers still playing amidst the shimmering spheres. “I must go now,” said the king, “but I shall be back in an hour – no more than two. This is not likely to be a lengthy conversation.” His fingers caught for a moment in Tyelpe’s heavy hair as Elu passed by him, picking up the mantle he’d earlier dropped on the bed. “You will stay here.”

“Yes, my lord.” Tyelpe hadn’t eaten, but he wasn’t exactly in the habit of regular meals; like Curufin, he tended to focus too long. He’d likely breakfast with the king in the morning. Elu always gave him enough from his own plate, which Tyelpe had learned to see for the sign of affection it was.

Elu lingered a moment, looking at him, and Tyelpe half-thought he was about to be invited after all – but then Elu reached past him, trapping him for a moment, to scoop some of the pearls from the chest.

“You look well on your knees tonight, boy,” Elu murmured, too quietly now for anyone in the next room to hear. He was using the tone that meant a challenge; Tyelpe’s pulse quickened with no other impetus. “Will you stay, and keep still? Patience is still not one of your stronger points.”

“Then I shall practice while you’re gone,” Tyelpe murmured back. He rose slightly on his knees and tilted his head up, exposing his throat. Elu obligingly caressed it, then bent to kiss him, forceful against the corner of Tyelpe’s mouth.

The kiss had not yet broken when Tyelpe jumped a little at the patter of falling stones. Elu had cast his palmful of pearls into the corner behind the bed, where they rolled into a subtly gleaming star-chart on the patterned stone tiles. As Tyelpe looked back and forth between Elu and the thrown pearls, Elu followed them with another handful, then fisted a hand in Tyelpe’s hair. Tyelpe gasped and straightened, knowing what that meant. “Take off your trousers,” Elu told him. Tyelpe obeyed at once, undoing his belt quickly, awkwardly leaning against the pressure of Elu’s hand to work the cloth down his legs. He licked his lips as he came back to stillness, slightly nervous despite his underlying excitement. Why was he being only half-undressed? Surely Elu wouldn’t leave anything inside him while he dined, would he? Not for up to two hours. But he had to slow his thoughts and focus upon movement as Elu began to pull his hair, using it as a rein to lead him on his knees toward the corner. Tyelpe had learned to crawl gracefully over the past year on the occasions Elu required it, and he followed his lord’s lead with relative nimbleness.

Elu brought him all the way to the wall, where a grey hanging woven with leaves softened the masonry of the corner. On the last few shuffles of his knees, he felt the scattering of pearls beneath his shins.

Gently Elu rearranged his hair, smoothing it down again. “I’d like you to stay here. Amuse yourself with thinking on the nature of patience, if you will.” The mockery in his tone was light. Tyelpe tipped his head back to give him a whisper of an answering smile.

“Look forward,” the king told him mock-sternly.

“I am,” Tyelpe assured him, settling into a waiting position with his fingertips resting on his thighs, his eyes ahead of him. “Enjoy your evening, my lord.”

“Enjoy yours.” Elu tweaked his hair and left him.

As Elu departed, saying a few indistinct words to Beleg and receiving an indistinct response, Tyelpe smiled a little at the gesture. Elu rarely petted him so except as the direct prelude to lovemaking; that he’d slowly begun to do it more often was an unexpected pleasure, and he was touching a great deal tonight. It boded well.

All the better, he reminded himself as he heard their footsteps fade, for he had something to discuss with Elu tonight. He’d need to remember to bring it up. (Serious matters, he’d learned, were best raised in the evening. Though Elu rose early, he was not actually at his best in the morning hours, and Tyelpe was more likely to get a response if he asked after things by night.)

In truth, Tyelpe marveled that he’d come to the point of being able to discuss weighty matters with the king at all. Elu had trusted him far enough to bring him to bed within half a year of his coming, but to compare their recent relations to, say, that night after the armory …

Tyelpe only hoped he’d earned this, that he deserved the change – that it was in response to something he’d done, and not to the convenience of him or to Elu’s loneliness.

The pearls were a little uncomfortable after all.

He considered that last a bit further. Gradual though it had been, now that he gave his mind to it while otherwise idle … the alteration in Elu’s behavior toward him over recent months was profound.

Once, with his cock deep inside Tyelpe and his hands buried in dark hair, Elu had begun to speak in Tyelpe’s ear in words he did not understand. Tyelpe was not the innate linguist that Curufin would have liked him to be – he had the Noldorin skill for picking up languages quickly, but nothing to approach the mastery of Fëanor – but he knew enough of the subject to recognize that Elu’s syllables were ancient ones. By now he did not need to hear a name to know of whom his king was thinking.

Boldly he’d reached up, taking his hands from the plush coverlet where Elu had placed them, wrapping fingers hard around the back of Elu’s neck and about his hip. When he sought Elu’s lips with compelling force, Elu had responded, and their mouths had locked perfectly as Tyelpe’s spread legs came together to wrap around Elu’s waist.

Since then Tyelpe had occasionally caught himself thinking of what it would be like to take his lord. It was a guilty thought, for he hadn’t forgotten his original purpose in coming to Doriath, now more than two years since; it was his errand to serve the pleasure of one who his original family had wronged. Yet he could serve well, he thought, and please Elu well, other than by spreading his own legs …

And by bringing knowledge to the city’s craft, he reminded himself sternly. That was the point of this, not to go to bed with the king. It was still true. But he’d felt he was working more for himself, lately, making discoveries, making innovations, sharing them directly with Doriath’s other smiths and arming its warriors rather than going only through its leaders, through Elu and Saeros and Mablung. It was a good feeling and an exciting one.

He shifted upon his knees, his discomfort reasserting itself. There was one pearl just under his kneecap that was pointed and throbbing pressure into the nervous tissue; he’d have moved a little, just to ease that single point, but Elu would not be pleased if it was clear that Tyelpe hadn’t been still. He might have time for the mark to fade, but since he’d been positioned facing into the corner with his back to the hour-glass and the banded candles by which Elu had been reading, he wasn’t certain. He’d hold still.

And he knew it was better to control his own responses than to allow them to be controlled, though the result should be the same. He was no child who needed to be threatened into obedience. He’d be still because he chose to be, and because he, too, liked the notion of Elu returning to find him still neatly placed where the king had left him, the baubles spread shimmering around unmoving knees, the candlelight warming his skin and playing in his hair.

He quested for the thread of his previous thoughts and took it up again. He was much closer, really, to his original goal now than he had been a year or two since. When he first conceived of the idea of offering his service to Elu Thingol, he’d pictured himself being naturally recognized as an asset for more than his repudiated blood, probably being trusted to relate his skill accurately and given a position accordingly, perhaps even serving as an advisor to the king. What a naïve picture it had been! Tyelpe still knew that he possessed an unusually broad and refined education, but he’d imagined, then, that competency was enough. That was still a little embarrassing to recall, and he deliberately reminded himself again that he’d achieved most of that now. Even if it had required a longer and more circuitous path than he’d thought.

With the flushed irritation of stung pride, he wished Finrod hadn’t indulged him so as to let him think such a role would be more immediately attainable. He’d been over two hundred years old, and the king of Nargothrond must have thought him such a child when he believed Finrod’s play that his opinions would be of value to the rulers of cities.

He tried to put that from his mind by reminding himself that part of his life was over now, and by focusing on the grey hanging in front of his eyes. He could see the different weights of the fibers used to create the leaf pattern, though he was close enough to it that it made his eyes ache a little to try to follow the motif.

The pearls hurt. He’d seen that some of them had protrusions or points, that only about half were perfect balls, but surely it defied all concepts of balance that as many of the points be turned upward as it felt like.

No one was here to see, so he let himself toy with the bracelet of white moonstone cabochons about his left wrist, watching the different flash in each smooth dome. It was a distraction.

With an effort, he turned his mind from the current discomfort to the future. Elu would be back soon (surely not more than an hour and a half now?). They’d discuss the matters Tyelpe had heard about in the marketplace. Then would come lovemaking – if the dinner went well, Tyelpe anticipated he’d be asked to touch himself, or that Elu would take him while asking to be still. This game of self-control was a favorite for both of them, as Elu’s orders to keep to the rule made it ever harder. Had it gone poorly, Elu would be more rough, but it eased the king to treat him so. His tenure in Doriath had taught Tyelpe that being useful was as satisfying for him as being handled gently. He suspected that for others it was not so. It would have been nice if someone had told him it might be for him, though …

Well. Huan did, in his way. I just assumed that that was part of the nature of being a dog.

He smiled a bit sadly at the cloth in front of his eyes.

Although, to be honest, Huan had been less … less of something … to Celegorm than Tyelpe was now to Elu. He’d slept at Celegorm’s side, for instance. Tyelpe always cringed a little when he woke at the foot of Elu’s bed to Melian slipping out of the actual bed, departing for her adjoining chambers. It was reassuring, anyway, that the lady clearly had no objection to him; he’d have hated to offend her with his service to her husband, but he wouldn’t have dared ask …

Perhaps that was why Tyelpe was not so carefully hidden now. If Melian did not object, who else could? Not that he’d want everyone to know him as Elu’s lover, and certainly not to know exactly what they did together. Bad enough that the king’s guards were probably quite conversant with both of their sexual preferences by now.

His breath was coming a little more shallowly now, his knees and shins throbbing.

But why shouldn’t he wish to be known, really? There was no shame in the service he did for Elu. And how many people did know? It was a matter, he supposed, of whether Gowestor and Beleg and Eglachon and the rest of the king’s honor guard of attendants considered this private. And Tyelpe was skirting the uncomfortable realization that even after more than two years of dwelling in Menegroth, he wasn’t sure whether such a matter was considered private by the people of Doriath – or how much difference it made that one of the lovers in question was the king. It was a discomfiting thing not to know, but how could one just ask?

Surely not much longer now. Not too long …

---

When at last Elu had returned, Tyelpe was quivering a little, his shoulders tight, his hands tense and gripping his thighs. He could have whimpered in relief when he heard the door open, but confined himself to a long, harsh exhale under the light sound of Elu’s familiar tread moving from the green and white stone to the wool of the carpet.

When Elu had come far enough into the room to see Tyelpe around the bed, he said with brusque approval, “Very good.”

Tyelpe mustn’t shame himself. “I – thank you. Please, my lord, may I get up now?” He struggled for a conversational tone rather than a pleading one, managing incongruous formality with only a slight waver in his voice. The pain now was not as bad as it had been twenty minutes ago – the worst points had spread and numbed – but the ache that had developed in his ankles was a nagging hurt.

“In a moment.” Elu came closer, toyed with his hair again, lifted it in both hands so he could feather his fingers over Tyelpe’s nape. Clearly he’d only wanted to see him obey, for after a few seconds he bade him, “Rise now.”

Tyelpe tried – and momentarily failed, his balance going as shocks shot through his calves. He made a tiny noise between his teeth. Elu offered a draped forearm; shamefully Tyelpe clung to it, dragging himself up against the solidity of his king’s arm. A few pearls had stuck to him and dropped, one and two at a time, back to the tiles.

Elu’s arm slipped forward around Tyelpe’s waist, enfolding one arm and drawing him back so they were pressed flush together. Tyelpe staggered a little into this support, the fall of Elu’s robes whispering against him as he tested the strained tendons in his ankles. Once he’d found his feet, they stood close, both looking down at the results. Dark pits like dripstone marked Tyelpe’s legs, shallowest toward his feet, with a few startlingly deep ones just below his knees. With his free hand Tyelpe reached down to touch the tingling, burning skin around them. The marks were disconcertingly crisp – though as he watched, some began to fade.

“Did you move?” Elu asked in his ear. Were Elu a little less tall, his chin would have been on Tyelpe’s shoulder. Tyelpe shook his head. “Good. I am pleased.” Tyelpe dared to lean back into him a little and was rewarded with a squeeze of Elu’s arm.

Elu broke away again after a few moments and made Tyelpe back toward the bed, seating him on the edge of it. He pulled Tyelpe’s velvet tunic and linen shirt together over his head, muffling him momentarily in fabric as he was wholly stripped. By the time he emerged, shaking his hair back into place, Tyelpe had recovered himself enough to ask, “How was your dinner, my lord?” He placed his hands on the bedspread, willing himself not to bend and rub the throbbing marks.

“Well enough,” said Elu, leaving him there to go and shrug out of his robe and mantle and set aside the leafy crown. “More council than dinner. There’s much news of alliances changing outside my borders.”

“I’d actually meant to ask you about something of that nature,” Tyelpe responded evenly, though inwardly he was eager to seize the chance – so much so it was a distraction from the urge to press on the dents in his skin. “I’ve been hearing rumors in the marketplace.”

“Oh?” Elu asked, looking over at him, suddenly more still.

Tyelpe shrugged marginally. “Not that it’s right to be much concern of mine, but I am an armorer. They say that – the Noldor are building toward a new assault on the Enemy? Emboldened, perhaps, by …” He let that trail off.

“By Lúthien and Beren’s acts,” Elu agreed, permitting the topic. “So they say. It’s Maedhros making noises of an alliance of all Beleriand. In allegiance to him or to Fingon, well, there’s some question there – and Nargothrond is having none of either, by the sound of things.”

“And I expect you’ve more eyes and ears in Nargothrond than Maedhros has, especially now,” Tyelpe speculated.

Elu made a not-actually-denying-that noise. “I suspect he’s overplaying his hand from his lofty Northern perch. We shall see. Do tell me if you hear anything to contradict that, though I doubt it’s much spoken of in front of you.”

“People do tend to trail off from the subject when I’m about,” Tyelpe agreed with a breath of irony. “I can’t blame them, though I wish I could hear more of the news.”

“You don’t need to,” Elu said somewhat curtly. Tyelpe held his peace a moment, until Elu spoke more mildly: “I’ll let you know if this calls for any changes in our approach to arming Doriath. The Laiquendi are speaking highly of your work.”

Tyelpe allowed himself a bit of a proud smile.

Elu had set aside his outer garments and wandered restlessly about the room for a moment. Tyelpe stayed where he was, watching the king move. The chest of pearls still stood open, and again Elu reached down to take up a handful, letting the smaller ones trickle through his fingers as he weighed the larger in his cupped palm, gazing at them. Tyelpe shrank a little, his shoulders curling in. Had he said something? Surely Elu wouldn’t make him do that again …

But the king came to the bed with his hand closed. The other hand came to the hollow of Tyelpe’s throat, caressed him once, then pressed at his collarbones. “Lie back,” Elu told him. Tyelpe did, shifting to his elbows then to his back with grace and no small relief. His knees drew up naturally as he settled; he kept them parted trustingly for Elu even as the king sat next to him. When Elu reached for the bottle of apricot-kernel oil on the night-table, Tyelpe knew he’d been correct to do so. But what were …

Oh, no, surely not.

“Close your eyes,” Elu told him, and Tyelpe let his head fall fully back as Elu’s knuckles came to rest on his wrist, lightly holding him down. He looked ceilingward for a moment, then his eyes shut. “I can’t see what you’re doing from here anyway,” he protested softly.

“You already know what I’m about.” Elu’s fingers were slick now and stroking along his cleft; the cool glass of the bottle-neck fell against Tyelpe’s thigh. His cock jumped at the twin sensations, pulsed when Elu began to dip his fingertips into the hole. After a moment the bottle lifted and he felt a second splash of oil trickle over him.

Otherwise Elu did not prepare him much before the fist on his forearm moved, showing Elu’s certainty that Tyelpe would lie still as he’d been instructed, and the light pressure of something that could have been the tip of Elu’s thumb, were it not so smooth, was at his entrance.

It slipped inside more easily than he’d expected, but Tyelpe shifted uncomfortably nonetheless. He could feel it like a bubble of pressure just inside him – and when Elu’s finger abruptly pushed the oiled pearl deep, his hips lifted with a little cry of startlement.

“Hush.” Elu was working more into him – smaller ones, it felt like, and two or three at a time – and their sliding rub against one another surely should not have been noticeable, surely should not have made him so aware of his own pulse. There had been a few quite large pearls in the chest, though none approached the reputed size of the jewel for which, tales said, Elu had bought the making of Menegroth. There had also been many that were tiny – like the ones Elu was crowding into him now, following with another larger bauble, this one causing a glancing throb of pain where it caught him with an uneven ridge that the oyster had not smoothed …

No. This was madness. Surely he could not feel these details. Even the largest of the pearls weren’t the breadth of Elu’s cock. It was foolish to think himself still so sensitive there.

And foolish, too, or at least impractical, to dedicate much thought just now to how those were supposed to come out again. Elu had inserted some odd things into Tyelpe, including once the toe of his boot (Tyelpe’s ears still burned when he thought of that; he had not particularly enjoyed it at the time, either). But they’d been things that, notably, one kept hold of.

Two of the king’s fingers were in deep now, a burning intrusion despite the thin layer of oil; the movement inside him was like sparkling wine swallowed too quickly, not a necessarily pleasant sensation. Now as otherwise, though, pleasant wasn’t the point, nor was pleasant necessary for pleasure. His hips lifted involuntarily, making himself available to Elu’s hand, the shift of his pelvis changing something inside. Elu’s knuckles grazed him just as the stones did. He hadn’t opened his eyes since bidden to close them, but his lashes fluttered a little now. Not fully opened, he was more conscious of depth, and it left him feeling deliciously intruded upon.

Elu withdrew his fingers, and Tyelpe’s back bowed, seeking the pressure back as the pearls settled inside him. “Push them back out,” Elu ordered.

Tyelpe’s jaw tightened. “… really?” he managed.

It had sounded a bit sarcastic. He probably deserved the slap Elu landed on his upper thigh. “Yes, really. Did you think I was leaving them in? Do as you are told.”

Tyelpe dug his fingers into the coverlet, frozen with humiliation.

“Do as you’re told,” Elu repeated dangerously.

He tried, really. But his thighs were trembling with weariness and his muscles would not obey him. He couldn’t collect himself to a strong effort, and when Elu next slapped his face, the flinch only drew him tighter, his cock losing its tension.

“You can obey me,” Elu told him (and his face was impassive when Tyelpe opened his eyes and looked up through the film of startlement from being struck), “or I can punish you until you do. Which is it to be, boy?”

He waited, allowing Tyelpe a moment to collect himself; Tyelpe, splayed and gasping on the bed, needed the moment. He tried to slow his breathing in hopes it would relax more than his lungs.

I can do this, Tyelpe told himself. I have learned to hold myself still when he’s touching me where no one else ever has. I have learned to admit his fingers and more. I have learned to let him fuck my throat without choking and to control my voice when he’s driving me to the edge of ecstasy. I can do this.

Quivering and mortified, he bore down. For a moment nothing happened; then he felt the little spheres slipping free and Elu’s voice, warm and dark, said “Good.”

He was not surprised to feel the pearls pressed back in, though it was more startling when he managed to expel them again – and felt Elu hold half of them in, giving him Elu’s fingertips to work against, then pressing them back deep and bidding him to keep them. It was tiring to be so conscious of his clenching. When at last Elu let him press all of them out – he hoped, desperately hoped that was all – and shifted himself between Tyelpe’s spread legs, Tyelpe felt he’d already been much used. He was not precisely sore, and he had not been stretched even so much as usual, but the thrust of Elu’s cock slipped into a ring of muscle that felt thin and unresponsive around the shaft – though conscious, so conscious, of the movement that pressed Elu in.

Lying in the price that had purchased Elu’s realm, their pale arcs littering the bed around his hips like drops of spend upon the velvet coverlet, he parted trembling thighs and gave himself up wholly to his lord. His hands lay palm-up beside his head. Should he draw his legs back further, that less of their weight should press Elu back? But then the king whispered, “Perfect. Lie still for me. My perfect, faithful prize,” and Tyelpe stopped wondering about much of anything at all.

Chapter Text

Engaged in a bitter contest with his desire to sleep a bit longer, Elu squinted foully at Celebrimbor when the boy rose from his blanket. He didn't smell tea brewing in his study, and his attendants knew to bring breakfast promptly. He must have a few more minutes. But he resented Celebrimbor for being up first and toyed with the idea of bringing him into the bed – to spank him or pry him open, to begin his day by leaving him sore from Elu's fingers, of course. Not because he was warm and it was an excuse. (Elu didn't even believe himself.)

Celebrimbor had stretched, disappeared momentarily into the shared garderobe, then gotten himself into his trousers while Elu considered this, and he peered into the bed to see if Elu was awake. “My lord?” he asked softly. “May I use your hairbrush?”

“Go ahead,” Elu gestured, a gracious turn of the wrist from amongst the pillows.

The youth went to his dresser for the brush and came to perch on the edge of the bed, shaking out tresses that were badly tangled where Elu's fingers had clutched in them the night before. “Is it all right if I do it here?”

“I take it you've no urge to leave the room in such a state, then.”

“Only if my lord should command it,” Celebrimbor said, demurely and with pleasing swiftness. “But to be honest, if I'm seen leaving the royal quarter in this state, people will think me disrespectful to appear here so unkempt.”

He had a point. Elu ran his fingertips over Celebrimbor's side and turned on his back, considering the business of the day ahead.

The business would have largely to do with Dorthonion. Maedhros the son of Fëanor had spent the late spring reclaiming the territory beyond Nan Dungortheb, without so much as a courtesy message to announce his intention. Elu had had word of the completion of his campaign not a fortnight past. While it was obviously not a bad thing for the great swath of land in the north, nearly the breadth of Doriath itself, to be taken back into better hands than those of Morgoth, it left more southerly kingdoms uninformed. Council meetings had been frustrating since the news was received. What did this mean? everyone asked each other. Had the sons of Fëanor been building their alliance in past years in order to re-conquer this territory? Was there an option in between that goal and something more ambitious by far?

Celebrimbor, invited to give his opinion, had expressed that he thought this a move to offer solidarity with mortal Men; much of Dorthonion, he reminded the council, had belonged to the Edain by Finrod’s largesse, and Maedhros had been long in the habit of making allegiances far outside the bounds of his own people. (Ithilbor snorted a little at that remark.)

Still, Lendon had pointed out in response, would such an offer include a commitment of his forces to keep the territory? Would that be a dangerous distraction to those keeping the northern watch, or a first step in a longer campaign?

“A longer campaign, if I know him,” Celebrimbor had said. His inclusion in such councils was of recent date, and his seat was at the end of the table, but he’d so far kept hold of his wits and his tongue, and thus his place in the chamber. He spoke with that confidence Elu had noted when the boy was first admitted to Menegroth.

Still, this was the first he’d been asked to give his opinion on anything but the maintenance of the armory. (Mablung had finally prevailed in his pressure to confide the city guard’s armor to Celebrimbor’s appraisal; Beleg had long since started to supply the outer guard and the huntsmen with the boy’s work.) He was a jewel-smith by habit and training, as he was quick to say when asked of his abilities, but his armor had passed muster. He’d proven surprisingly shrewd as a strategist that day, too.

Elu had turned the talk away from Celebrimbor, reluctant to let him have too much time to speak on other matters. His tenure on the council was still very young.

He’d told Celebrimbor later, though, that he’d done well, and the boy had smiled with surprised pleasure and had even boldly stepped in to kiss him. Elu, surprised, had allowed it, though he chided Celebrimbor lightly for presumption – then brought him close to kiss his mouth again.

But that had been later.

It was easier to allow Celebrimbor to speak of the sons of Fëanor outside the bedchamber, where his ancestry could be seen, now that he’d been longer in service, as a political asset. The thread of Celebrimbor’s bloodline might be permanently woven through the fabric of their interactions, but when in private, unpleasant incidents came of either of them mentioning it.

In council, too, he might have let Celebrimbor speak to the minds of his uncles more often if his uncles had made any inquiry after him. But no word had come from anyone but Celeborn and his wife – and Elu had stopped answering their questions, though both of them doggedly asked about the boy each of the two or three times in a year that they sent some other word of news or greeting to Elu or to Melian.

Which was a little annoying, but significantly less so than the actions of the sons of Fëanor. Even if he only counted the recent ones, which he was not quite prepared to do. Even were they merely neighbors, Maedhros ought to have informed him. Even had Elu no reason to be suspicious of Fëanorian movements, Maedhros ought to have let him know of his plans for Dorthonion.

What of the debased Celegorm and Curufin? Their territory of Himlad had lain closest to Dorthonion’s woods before the fortress at Aglon fell. Would Maedhros – and here was the potentially great difficulty – would Maedhros dare to name his cur brothers as lords again in territories that neighbored Elu’s own?

Too, it oddly compounded his irritation to think that Beren had dwelt there before the Enemy’s creatures forced him into Nan Dungortheb and, ultimately, into the sight of Lúthien. Beren’s right to the place had been ancestral, though it had been lost before the late son of Barahir ever ruled it, and Elu had himself granted the land to the Noldor. That was the rub, really; even if Maedhros had so few contacts in the south that he knew nothing of his only nephew’s tenure there – even if he did know and had already given Celebrimbor up as a deserter – one would think he’d still recall that his kin had only ever held Dorthonion by leave of Elu Thingol.

Maybe he didn’t care about that desertion, for that matter. Rumor had it that Fëanor’s ruthless eldest had come back from Angband a wreck of himself, and it was not impossible that he did not keep alliances or relations or things owed very well in mind. Honestly, though Elu held him partially to account for the behavior of his younger brothers, he couldn’t bring himself to blame Maedhros too excessively for losing track of a nephew; he knew a fair amount from the Guest-Elves of the being they called the Hunter in the Dark.

Then again, Lúthien had stood against Morgoth.

Elu's hairbrush had left a strand of silver clinging to Celebrimbor's black hair, and Elu delicately took it up and drew it away, though the contrast was pleasing. Celebrimbor's shoulders moved, a tiny luxuriant roll in response to his light touch. Elu shifted closer to his side – to the side he occupied – of the bed, curling around the warmth where Celebrimbor's hips dented the mattress. As his grooming continued, Elu reached onto the side table and played idly with the stones that Celebrimbor so often braided into his hair, turning them over on the table so the cedar-wood glowed through their translucence, making tiny suns of the asterism.

“Why do you always wear these?” he asked. “You must have dozens more.”

Celebrimbor raised an eyebrow at him as he began to work the first of the day's plaits. “I don't make all my jewels for myself, Lord Elu, and those match almost everything.”

“Water-colored sapphires, though? Not so fine an advertisement of your skills. Is it not customary among the Noldor to match your jewels to your eyes?”

“It is for – for the Noldor, too.” Celebrimbor glanced over at him, appraising Elu for a long second, then dared, “I expect such matching must be difficult for you.”

“True enough,” Elu agreed, eyeing the soft light now slanting through the study door with some loathing. “Such a shade is rare. But your eyes are blue.” He reached up to rub his knuckles none too gently over Celebrimbor's cheekbone; the youth leaned into the touch. “Why not wear blue in your hair?”

Celebrimbor hesitated, his gaze slightly wary on Elu's face; Elu nodded to show him he was really asking, though he was surprised there was apparently a complex answer. Celebrimbor's gaze went slightly inward for a moment as he chose his words. “It's … a matter of blood, actually.”

Elu made it clear he was waiting.

“I think you know I very much resemble my father Curufin in countenance –”

“Why do you think I like slapping your face so much?” Elu asked, and Celebrimbor's mouth gave the quirk that half-hid a snort of laughter.

He went on, “What you may not know is that I don't share my father's eyes – they're my grandmother's.” That, Elu thought, finally explained where those had come from. Most of the rest of them had inherited Finwë’s silver. “The only other one in the family who had black hair and blue eyes is Maglor, so there's a clear resemblance. And, well – ” Celebrimbor gave a wry shrug. “The house of Fëanor is universally hated in whole or in part. Those who tolerate Curufin dislike Maglor, but for poor Finrod, I think; those who find something to respect in Maglor's leadership hate Curufin. I can't not resemble my father, but I can downplay the trait of Maglor and at least reduce the number of people who find me discomfiting. I don't wear blue because it brings out my eyes.”

Elu tugged an end of the forming plait, pulling the tension slightly askew. Celebrimbor smoothed away his embarrassed look and went expressionlessly to adjust it. “But what is Maglor's appearance to me? And I think blue stones would suit you.”

“Then I shall break the habit, my lord,” Celebrimbor murmured.

He always had an answer, didn't he? Elu rolled out of the other side of the bed and dressed while Celebrimbor finished his hair. When he was clothed, Celebrimbor was laying the brush back on the end-table. Elu came to take the boy's upper arm in hand and pulled him in for a hard kiss, close-mouthed but given with a force that surprised himself. What had possessed him to do that? Viciously he bit at Celebrimbor's full lower lip as he let him go. Celebrimbor made only a small sound, a small flinch. What a prize he was, at times.

Elu said, “I think you have armor commissions to finish. Go away, boy.”

Celebrimbor gave a small smile despite the rapid flush of his lip and bowed gracefully. “Yes, my lord.”

“I will see you in council tomorrow,” Elu reminded him.

“Yes. And I will have something soon to tell the council that I think you will like to hear.” With a brightening of his look over his shoulder, he turned to depart before Elu could organize his prior-to-having-tea thoughts into another question.

He’d been right that Dorthonion would furnish most of the matter he had to think about in the coming days. Perhaps it was a mark that Celebrimbor had been pleasing him well that he’d kept in temper with it for nearly a week.

“Enough!” he finally burst out, cutting off the discussion of yet another messenger’s news from the North. The man himself had departed already, but naturally they must pick over another stale morsel, like winter sparrows sure that there was something better at the center of the crumb. “Surely there is more to concern Doriath than Dorthonion?”

“Oh, surely not,” muttered Saeros, earning himself a sharp look from his father. Elu elected to pretend he hadn’t heard.

“What other business?” he insisted. Members of the council looked at each other awkwardly.

Beleg, standing to one side, cleared his throat and helpfully volunteered, “One of the huntsmen in my command found a messenger from Nargothrond who appeared to have killed by a bear, and late in the season for a beast to hunger so. With the king’s permission, I will place a stronger watch on the western rivers’ fork.”

Technically he was speaking out of turn, but the need was met: Talk turned to other matters. As discreetly as he could, Elu gave Beleg a nod and got one in return.

There was not so much to be said on subjects less apparently fascinating than that of the reclaimed land, but there was business enough to justify a council. Each in turn presented matters from his area of particular concern: Alagos the heralds’ distribution in the city, Lendon the projected harvest, Lossiel the schedule of regular repairs to maintain the city’s structures. The masters of the markets spoke most briefly, though some showed relief at turning back to internal matters. Those of lower rank spoke longer, as it was Elu’s habit to go from council to holding court, and his closest counselors would accompany him there. He had recourse to their expertise when he granted all but the most private audiences. This was one of the ways Celebrimbor had erred in their early meetings; it was not Elu’s habit to receive such suits alone.

Speaking of whom …

“And you, Celebrimbor?” Elu said at last, rounding off the meeting with an address to the last councilor at the end of the table (who, Elu couldn’t help but notice, had small carven spirals of lapis amidst his braids today). Celebrimbor had not volunteered whatever news he bore, instead being impeccably formal and attentive throughout the council meeting. But Elu had learned to read excitement in the quick flash of his eyes, and it was clear that he had something he wanted to say.

Celebrimbor leaned slightly forward. “As my lords are aware, I have been engaged in the work asked of me by Mablung to supply the guard – and in discussion with Osgaron,” he nodded to the chief of the ore-workers’ guild across the room, “about those alloys which are both sufficiently plentiful to readily outfit the full company of the city’s immediate guard, and sufficiently strong and light to serve the purpose when the fighter must move with ease from our wooded surroundings to within the city walls as the need arises.

“We’ve developed an improved design for a tasset, for which I am requesting that the commission be awarded to my workshop and to that of Rîben, whose skill is more than adequate and whose forge stands near mine for easier collaboration.” He glanced at Elu a little nervously as he began his next sentence, though there was no pause in his speech. “In addition to basic materials, we will solicit the use of two assistants apiece from another forge – preferably intermediate journeymen of quick mind, as they will need to be prepared to learn an unusual method of plating that should improve the function of the armor considerably.” He looked to Hedril, who was master of the market where potentially fire-causing trades were practiced. “Is this a good time to offer such training?”

Hedril, who had warmed to Celebrimbor considerably in the past couple of years, nodded agreement at once. “I shall select a few. Tell me briefly, if you will, of the nature of this process?”

Elu could see that Celebrimbor had anticipated the question. “It’s a laminate-billet process adapted to lightweight armorcraft. It’s a jeweler’s trick, essentially, for replicating wood-grain in metal for a more seamless setting.” Ah. This was what he was so excited by. “Yet there’s a method by which it can be made on a larger scale, stronger and more fit to the wearer, the better to protect against the low shots favored by the Enemy’s stealth troops.

“Much is done,” he continued, “with smith-chants in pure metal. Just as workers in chain mail may sing lightness into the work amidst the rhythm of the tools, so is done with armor of steel. But with a mixture of metals – it’s steel as well as nickel and a little silver, and a few other things – the song of the smith may infuse his will into the metal like roots running through earth, becoming one with it.” His slight upward flick of the fingers, referencing the presence of Hirilorn, was a distinctively local gesture Elu hadn’t seen him use before. “I’ve discussed the subject with a few of Menegroth’s master smiths, and all have agreed that this is worthy of pursuit. I know of no other place where this is done, and it may give Doriath a power that enhances its longtime expertise in martial woodcraft. If we continue to innovate upon this process, we may be able to impregnate metal with our will. We could achieve what hasn’t been done since the hallowing of the Silmarils, and achieve it for Doriath’s sake alone.”

“Does it matter what metals precisely, at that point?” Osgaron asked. “If so, we could re-think our –”

“What.”

Elu heard his own voice ring flat, and both Celebrimbor and Osgaron looked at him in obvious surprise, their conversation stuttering to a halt.

The king rose. Ithilbor, sitting opposite the masters of the markets, leaned back with a here-we-go-again sort of expression – a vaguely inflammatory detail in the corner of Elu’s eye as he looked back and forth between the two.

Everyone at the table was looking at Celebrimbor and Osgaron, too, and both showed marked trepidation, by the time Elu spoke. “There are subjects,” he said, “on which I do not wish to hear my counselors casually remark.”

Osgaron looked stricken, Celebrimbor as smooth-faced as if they were discussing a game of chess. Neither spoke for a moment; eventually Osgaron realized he had seniority and attempted, “Lord Elu, I believe the comparison was –”

“Silence.” Osgaron was silent. “The trespass that concerns me at the moment is not yours.”

Celebrimbor’s hands flexed on the table in front of him, his only visible reaction to having every eye in the room upon him. Others around the council-chamber were visibly uncomfortable; Elu saw their discomfiture peripherally as he leveled his gaze on Celebrimbor.

Unbidden, an image flashed into his mind of Celebrimbor kneeling on the grassy carpet at the center of the room, penitent on the floor in front of everyone, with the ends of his hair tangling among the flowers Melian had worked with her own hands.

It was only a flash; Celebrimbor knocked Elu’s picture away when his chair scraped softly back. He rose measuredly only to bend his head in a slow, reverent slight bow. “My apologies, Lord Elu. I spoke out of turn.”

“Yes. You did.” Those uneasy glances were directed at both of them now. Elu could have shouted. Perhaps he should shout. “If you will make such points aloud, who knows what you are thinking about them? You owe more apologies than only for speaking thoughtlessly to me.”

Celebrimbor paled, his jaw tightening. Then he turned slightly, toward the room’s center and not toward its head, his hands coming to grasp the sable edge of his cloak. He repeated his low nod. “I apologize to the council for my overenthusiasm, and to each of you for any pain I have caused by it. I regret my careless words in sincerity and I will ask that you speak to me of any individual amends I can make to you.”

It was not quite what Elu had meant. It was – damn the boy – prettily done. Elu took a sharp, irritated breath. “You are dismissed until the next meeting of council. I believe that concludes today’s business; I go to receive the plaints of the people.”

This was his customary announcement that he was moving from council to court, and most of the table rose. Celebrimbor bowed once more and slipped from his place out the door, a swift retreat. It was easy to forget, Elu reflected inanely, that the boy was a skilled hunter who could move so quickly and so quietly when he wasn’t being formal.

Some of the counselors were still looking after Celebrimbor, uneasy. Some of them were looking at Elu uneasily too. They ducked their heads, embarrassed, when he met their eyes.

He’d expected the tension to relax with Celebrimbor out, and it hadn’t. He had not been quite prepared for how much his counselors were looking at him, nor for their odd air of shame. Some of them had grown fond of the knowledgeable, eager-to-please smith – Elu knew that – but it couldn’t be only that, could it?

… more or less everyone knew, didn’t they.

Elu shouldn’t have found himself tightly embarrassed by that notion. What had he to be ashamed of? He was the king, and Celebrimbor his subject; it wasn’t as though he was taking the boy against his will, anyway. And he was not unfaithful to his queen, but only found respite with her permission in the company of one quite different. What shame was there in that?

He started for the throne room where he heard his people’s suits for justice or for arbitration or for favor, Beleg falling into place at his side.

Melian too joined him once he’d come into the white marble corridor that led there. He reached for her hand when she did, still uneasy, and she gave him a lukewarm smile, a reassuring press of the fingers. Something else was on her mind, but when he opened his mouth to ask her what, she gave a slight shake of her head, the curls flickering about her brow. “Only that I feel as though something is coming,” she said.

That could be almost anything – her eyes laughed wry agreement when he thought so – and he let it be. They settled in to hold court with their fingers still loosely knit.

His mind still turned over the meeting. He didn’t like to think about the idea that someone might dare to disapprove of his keeping Celebrimbor as a lover. Nor did he like to think that his choice to do so might truly have been a poor one, still to trouble him even four years later … but that the boy should speak so profoundly out of turn suggested …

Fortunately, the approach of the first appeal to his power took up his attention, and he did not need to think long about it.

He had intended to wait three or four days for his irritation with Celebrimbor to cool. He ended up waiting one. For the first time, he caught himself considering with whom the boy might meet on his way to the royal quarters – a difficult thing to calculate, since Beleg had told him that Celebrimbor had a number of idiosyncratic routes of his own through the city. He thrust the thought angrily aside. The Noldo could come when it was convenient to Elu; who was to lay judgment upon the king? He bade Gowestor tell the boy to attend after dinner.

He deliberated for a moment before dismissing the guard. He’d an errand to the leather-workers as well, but it was not exactly a subtle one, and he wasn’t sure if it was more appropriate to go himself or to send one of his attendants. He’d have made that consideration even before realizing Celebrimbor’s service was apparently common knowledge.

Finally he sent Gowestor on his way, summoned Mablung in his place, and went to subject Beleg’s men to a surprise royal inspection. The guard-rooms on the city’s highest level and the communicating aboveground workspaces of Doriath’s rangers and huntsmen included the stables, the kennels, and a number of fletcher’s quarters that connected to the wood-mills along the banks of Esgalduin. He’d find what he needed there.

So when Celebrimbor made his appearance that evening, Elu was ready for him.

He’d been admitted without ceremony to the study – Elu heard him exchange a word or two with Mablung at the door – and he came to the bedroom and peered in the partly open door, his hand poised as though to rap lightly on the frame. Elu was at the bedroom table, leafing through his endless correspondence. A flat case beside the papers held the things he’d earlier acquired. He beckoned Celebrimbor in wordlessly before he could knock, and the boy entered with a care in his movements that evinced a quite appropriate nervousness.

Celebrimbor’s hair was half-up and he was wearing that high-necked tunic again. “Come here,” Elu told him, cutting off his quiet greeting, and pointed to the floor. His free hand went to rest on the case. “Open your garments at the neck.” Celebrimbor approached at once, though in no hurry, and dropped to his knees before Elu, hands already undoing the fastenings, deftly freeing the lacings of the shirt beneath and spreading the fabric to expose a long triangle of skin. He held the cloth to the side. While his posture overall was fairly casual, almost sitting on his heels, he kept his jaw tipped up, his throat exposed. Expressionless and open, his blue eyes held a steady aim on Elu’s face.

The fact that he already knew what to do – the odd calm with which he silently obeyed – would once have aggravated Elu, not already begun the work of appeasing him. Curious how comfortable Celebrimbor’s proud obedience had become. It was almost irritating to find himself not irritated. With a sigh, he dropped the lid of the case back and brought the hand instead to give a brief caress of the boy’s jaw. “Do we need to discuss what happened yesterday?”

Celebrimbor’s eyes had narrowed in a preparatory flinch when Elu’s hand moved. Now the gesture was commuted to a more sensitive wince. “I hope not. I understand how I offended.”

“Good.” Elu pressed his palm to Celebrimbor’s cheek a little.

One of Celebrimbor’s hands lifted from his own chest to steal forward and caress Elu’s knee. It was an intimate gesture, not least in its assumption of permission. “You know …” He sighed a bit. “You know that I never mean to hurt you, my lord,” he said. “I just … I’m apparently not as good at thinking before I speak as I like to believe I am. I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t hurt me,” Elu said shortly, “you angered me.”

“That’s good,” Celebrimbor said softly, then immediately corrected himself – “Not good that I angered you, of course! Only that … I do realize what an unpleasant reminder I can still be at times. I’m glad I didn’t …” He pressed Elu’s knee with his fingers.

Impulsively, Elu took up the hand and kissed the knuckles briefly before firmly repelling it. “We’ll leave the matter. Now do as you’re told, will you?”

“Thank you,” Celebrimbor murmured, though it visibly took him a moment to remember what he was supposed to be doing. He reached up to open his garments again.

Now Elu lifted the lid of the case and brought forth the worn leather collar. He’d found a broad one, the strap heavy but not too stiff. Clean and supple but spidered with use, it was flexible in Elu’s hands. He brought it into place quickly, seeing Celebrimbor’s eyes flash to follow his hands but not sure the boy could interpret what he saw when his head was tilted back. When he slipped the leather past Celebrimbor’s fingers and around the column of his neck, it lay beautifully against skin of almost the same color. The heavy buckle settled against Celebrimbor’s larynx, and Elu easily drew it tight. “There.”

Celebrimbor’s fingers moved again, this time brushing over the collar. He smiled a little.

This was not quite the reaction Elu had been expecting. “You like it?” he asked.

“I like that you like it.” He touched his own throat at the edge of the leather again.

“Would you like it still if I bade you wear it to a council-meeting, so you could better remember that you are suffered to hold that place at my pleasure?” At his sharpness, Celebrimbor flinched again, a satisfying sight – though Elu hadn’t meant his tone to be so tart.

Celebrimbor’s head lowered as he thought a moment, then his eyes rose to Elu’s face again with his answer. “It would … trouble me to trouble others, my lord. I think for it to be visible to others … that would be – discomfiting to some, for all I should know it for an honor. And it would bring others into something that is between us, between me and my lord.

“Although, if it were thinner, and wouldn’t show …” The slight smile came back.

Elu hooked his fingers under the collar and tugged Celebrimbor’s head toward him. With a gasp Elu could feel against his knuckles, Celebrimbor rose a little on his knees, leaning in, his eyes dilating visibly. The buckle pressed a pale line into his throat; it moved infinitesimally when Celebrimbor swallowed, even as he so slightly shifted his knees apart. His body was a line of responsive tension connected by the collar to Elu’s grasp; he moved, a small recoil, a small sway toward his king, the collar held just where it stopped him finding a place to be altogether still.

Elu regarded the boy thoughtfully. He’d meant this as a demonstration, a degradation, but could not have anticipated how good it would be to see Celebrimbor accept it instead as his due. It was pleasing to see the boy pleasured – the more so because Elu now knew the signs of his enjoyment so well – and pleasing too that he was so ready, still, to take what Elu gave.

As the silence opened up around Elu’s appreciation, Celebrimbor seemed to grow a little concerned. “My lord –”

“Quiet.” Elu’s voice fell across his like a knife across a reed. “You are collared like a hound now; like a beast you are not to speak.”

Celebrimbor reared back a bit, putting pressure on the strap. For an instant his lips stayed parted, then closed taut.

Ah; Elu had reminded him of the Maia hound. He eased his pull on the collar by way of apology. “Perhaps this will teach you to keep quiet on subjects that do not concern you,” he said, magnifying genuine (if fading) aggravation to distract the boy. A distraction it was; Celebrimbor’s eyes dropped, embarrassed. And successfully brought back to the moment.

Elu slid one of his boots between Celebrimbor’s parted knees, rubbing it along his thigh. He dragged the boy forward by his collar, making the warm strength of his body lean in against Elu’s shin. Celebrimbor’s eyes were half-closed. “You like this?” Elu asked him again, his voice soft now.

Celebrimbor looked up at him helplessly, breath catching in a barely audible note of frustration. His fingers folded down to catch the hems of his sleeves, knuckles against Elu’s knees.

“Show me. You know how to do this.” The grace of Celebrimbor’s obedience had never lain in words. To remember this might serve him well now – and it was a reminder that Elu found he needed himself, for how good it was when Celebrimbor turned his head, laying his cheek against Elu’s knee, and licked the inside of Elu’s wrist. The flicker of his tongue was swift and discreet – some years ago he’d made greater obeisance – but even the single touch of it gave Elu a startling pulse at his groin.

Now perhaps he understands more thoroughly than he did that he has not the power to promise one kind of loyalty and withhold another.

He pressed his leg forward harder, applying pressure between Celebrimbor’s legs, pulling him down and forward by the collar as he did, then releasing it. Celebrimbor looked up, his lips parting, his voice just beginning to emerge as he lost his balance – “Silence, boy,” Elu warned him, and he swallowed his noise, spread his legs, and let Elu take his weight. “Take your shirt off.” Celebrimbor obeyed in haste, tugging the layers of fabric out from between their bodies. Elu let the collar go long enough to help him get the layers over his head, then took it again before Celebrimbor could straighten. Celebrimbor tugged at the collar but didn’t resist it, as such. He stayed bent down, not needing to ask before he discarded tunic and shirt and was left with the length of his bare back exposed below tossed-aside hair.

“Good,” Elu told him. “Good, Celebrimbor.” He reached over with the free hand to lift the lid of the case again, this time bringing out a coiled strap. He tugged the collar up a little higher, making Celebrimbor catch at him as the boy’s back bowed more deeply to compensate, and secured a clasp to the buckle. Then he lowered both hands, letting the lead uncoil through his palm.

Celebrimbor’s eyes came down again, and the sight of the leash that now connected his throat to Elu’s left hand made him jump. He crawled backwards over the wool rug, recoiling. Elu closed his hand on the leash, bringing Celebrimbor sharply short. Elu stood, his hand still resting on the table, and as the lead shortened he was dragged unwillingly closer.

“Show me you can obey,” he challenged.

Celebrimbor reached up to touch the taut leather strap that connected them. “I don’t –”

“You’re not to speak, boy,” Elu reminded him sharply. Celebrimbor flinched, snatching his hand back from the leash into his lap and looking with wide eyes from Elu to the leather loop in his hand.

Elu’s fingers had risen in preparation for a slap; now they dropped to brush over the lid of his case again. There was a braided leather breaking bit in it, too. He’d chosen the gentlest article the stables’ harness afforded him to complete his lot of implements, but for all it was a light choice for a horse, it was likely to be a cruel one on Celebrimbor. Elu thought Celebrimbor would be more affected by the indignity of having his mouth restrained than by whatever pain it would cause him. He’d save that for a punishment if Celebrimbor proved intractable over speaking out of turn.

Celebrimbor, still kneeling nervously at his feet, opened his mouth then firmly shut it, his hands working anxiously. “Is this so hard for you?” Elu asked curiously.

Celebrimbor gestured helplessly at the leash, leaning back, then flinching forward as the strap caught him.

Elu bent and caught him below his jaw with a cupped hand, tipping his head up. Celebrimbor went rigidly still. “You can do this,” Elu told him quietly.

It hadn’t been a question, but Celebrimbor nodded a little. When Elu removed the hand from under his chin and tucked a stray lock behind the delicate edge of his ear, he shivered, a quick hectic movement.

“Off,” Elu told him, nudging Celebrimbor’s knee with a boot. Celebrimbor opened his belt and began to work the rest of his clothing off as Elu held the leash, keeping it tight around the boy’s throat. The room was silent as he struggled to undress on his knees, checked from bending too far – silent but for the faint rasping of the boy’s breathing, hastened by his anxious movements and thinned by the tension of the collar.

Once he was left naked on the rug, bare except for the collar and the fall of his hair, Elu gave him a moment to rest, then pulled firmly on the leash. “Shall I take you out into the garden for a walk, then?”

Celebrimbor cringed on his knees, shaking his head rapidly enough that his braids swung. His hand came up to lightly touch Elu’s – “No,” Elu said sharply.

Celebrimbor closed his eyes for an instant. Then he leaned in and licked Elu’s hand pleadingly. Elu let the boy lap at his fingers, turned his palm over and received a soft kiss and more swipes of the eager tongue. It was a strangely vivid reminder of Melian, so soon after they’d met, tasting Elu’s tears. Elu wondered if Melian was observing them now.

“Is that all you can do?” he challenged Celebrimbor in a dark undertone. He fingered a braid as Celebrimbor looked up helplessly at him.

The leash, he thought, he’d use again. It was a pleasure to pull Celebrimbor back, to choke the bewildered expression, to force him toward the bed with so little effort. The boy crawled clumsily beside Elu, heeling behind him, scrambling onto the bed when Elu slapped the curve of his ass. Elu set his hand at Celebrimbor’s tailbone, pressed it upward in a long stroke and shoved his face down. Celebrimbor’s thighs parted automatically, trembling, as Elu bent over him, keeping tension on the lead. “Cry for me,” he whispered.

Celebrimbor froze under him, but for hands clutching convulsively in the velvet coverlet.

“Come now, pup,” Elu said, tugging hard on the collar, holding Celebrimbor’s head down with the other hand so he heard the hitch of the boy’s choking. “You’re permitted no words, not now, but you make so much of the power of your voice, no? Now what is wanted of you is to whine for me, like the little pet you are. Cry for me!”

Under his final, sharp command, he heard the beginnings of a small, painful whimper, a sound which grew higher and sharper as he let go the boy’s hair and brought the hand down to part his ass. “You don’t need speech to tell me you know you’re mine,” said Elu, bringing his hips against Celebrimbor’s in a sharp grinding motion. “Do you?”

Celebrimbor’s voice rose to a sharper pitch then choked off into the jerk of the collar. But he pressed his face down, arched his back, and lifted his hips, offering himself in shameful display. Elu gave him a little slack in the leash, before he should forget to let it go, and seized Celebrimbor’s hip in bruising fingers.

“Let me hear you again,” he said, and reached for the oil bottle.

Melian’s worry seemed to have eased by the time of the next public court. Elu’s tension had softened too.

He dealt first in disputes and in requests – an engaging ritual and a curiously soothing one, for all he was often exasperated when his subjects took far longer than was necessary to identify their plaints. (By Melian’s recommendation, he’d taken up the habit years ago of making appointments for the first half of his time holding court, and accepting all comers in the second. It had helped.) Still, part of the point was to reassure the people of Doriath that their king would still be there when they needed him, and if they came to see him when they didn’t quite need him yet, just to reassure themselves that they could … something about that was reassuring for Elu, too.

So he’d sunk sufficiently into the rhythm of empathy and thought that he didn’t quite register Melian’s sudden stillness; he felt her go quiet beside him, but didn’t realize he should be alarmed until she clutched bloodlessly at his arm.

Elu raised his eyes to the main entrance to the room and saw Beren Camlost.

It could not be. It was so. The man in the throne room’s door looked none the worse for wear, though Elu had buried him with his own hands: neither older nor younger in the two years that had intervened since the Hunting of the Wolf and the loss of Elu’s child, with no advance of the silver frost upon the darkness of his hair. He wore weighty garments, with a worked glove upon his one hand and a matched cuff upon the other wrist. City guards to either side of him were white-eyed and high-strung like deer escorting a wolf. Beleg, off at Elu’s left, cursed softly, his hand moving to a place between bow and blade.

Behind Beren and half a head taller, with noiseless tread in tall boots of doeskin, walked Lúthien. Her hair curled short again about her face, soft and moving in the torchlight. A gown as green as beech leaves fell open about a starlight-silver shift, revealing a belly rising to the prominent bulk of the last season of pregnancy.

“Father,” she said in a voice that carried effortlessly through the hall, “Mother,” and as her tones played uncannily against the walls, Elu felt his heart halve like a cloven shell.

Chapter Text

As the last crystal of blue vitriol of copper slid down the white-hot wire into the crucible, Tyelpe let out the breath he’d been holding despite the protection of the watered-silk cloth tied over his nose and mouth. It took a moment to blink away the after-image of the hot metal, and he let it clear, evaluating himself for eye irritation, before using the same forceps to lift the wire clear of the vessel and set both wire and tool in the small brazier fire beside his anvil. A thread of ocean-colored flame rose and dissipated.

“Done,” Tyelpe announced to the rest of the workshop, and Morfind and Yridhren began to move again as Tyelpe capped the crucible and set it aside, then undid the knot that secured the cloth amidst his braids at the nape of his neck. “All right,” he called toward the door, “come in.”

Saeros pushed the half-door open and entered. “That looked exciting.”

“It’s for this.” Tyelpe lifted a canvas to reveal a pair of delicately worked vambraces, watery silver and earthy silver subtly contrasting along the length of them in designs that were geometric toward the elbow, then blended and swirled until they were streams of organic color as the wrist. The compound he’d just finished would be ready in a few moments, its reactions complete and its fluid visually inert. Once poured over the metal, though, it would permanently alter the nature of the alloy’s surface, making those subtle designs spring into rich contrast.

“Hm.” Saeros nodded appreciatively. “Those weren’t my commission, though.”

“No.” Tyelpe dropped the cloth back. “Mablung asked for those for a new captain who distinguished himself. It’s meant to coordinate with the city guards’ armor. Yours is here.” He went to the dented cabinet in the corner to withdraw the work he’d finished for Saeros: vambraces and greaves set with small, deep green jewels that winked darkly from scant facets, scattered amidst inlays of spring-green gold patterned with the venation of leaves.

Saeros examined the work. “Well done, Celebrimbor.”

“My thanks,” Tyelpe replied. “I’m proud of them.”

The careful normalcy of their talk was familiar by now, but still discomfiting, like a pair of boots that seemed only to be stiff with newness, but would turn out to be poorly fitted. Tyelpe remained Saeros’ favored smith, but they no longer hunted together or spoke much on other topics. Not swiftly had Tyelpe reconciled Saeros’ strongly worded opinions about Men. By the time he’d recovered his equilibrium – or rather, by the time he’d grown lonely enough, when Elu put him aside after the deaths caused by the great wolf, that he found a way to justify allowing himself that companionship again – Saeros had cooled markedly toward him. Their conversations now kept to matters of work. They hadn’t discussed the return of Doriath’s princess or the jewel she wore upon her breast, nor had they spoken of the mixed-blood child who was generally in her arms. Though Tyelpe enjoyed the discussions they still held, talk of the Green-elves’ ways and the challenge of working out improvements to their armory that would preserve the heart of their traditional combat, it wasn’t quite the same.

So it was odd that Saeros, who always paid in advance and had already taken the work he’d ordered in his hands, was lingering near Tyelpe’s work-table now. Tyelpe looked around him to see if one of the other smiths had come unnoticed to start a conversation. No, but Yridhren was watching them, and his expression might have been suspicious.

Saeros drew closer and spoke quietly to him. “What do you think of the way that things are proceeding? The king lets you speak less often in council now than he did, but I’d know your mind.”

Tyelpe regarded him for a moment, carefully keeping his expression smooth.

“I’m talking about the war against the Hunter,” Saeros said impatiently, with a sweep of his hand. “Do you not know? Or will you not speak?”

Tyelpe had known what he was talking about. He hesitated another moment, but … Why not be honest? “There have been too many suspicious reports in the past month, and I think war’s coming,” he said. “I think it will not stop at the Girdle, and if it does we may be in deeper water than we were treading before. Whether the Noldor are provoking the enemy or the enemy is gathering of his own accord to strike, things are about to change.”

“We think the same thoughts,” said Saeros, in an unusually subdued murmur.

Tyelpe nodded, half-reaching to toy with a mandrel, then forcing his hand back to stillness at his side.

“I just don’t know what to do,” said Saeros, frustrated. “We will speak on this again – and soon – make me a couple of dozens of blue stones, will you? A pale blue, faceted, about the size of an apple seed?”

Tyelpe nodded agreement as Saeros carelessly took a pouch from his tunic-pocket, leaving it on the work-table. He didn’t have to feel it to know it would hold a sufficient weight in Doriathrim metal. “Of course.”

Saeros left with unaccustomed speed, the door clapping shut behind him, and Tyelpe looked after him for a moment, uncertain if he’d been meant to learn something more from that.

There was little point in wondering. He had things to do.

Tyelpe had gotten a great deal of practice at shrugging things off and returning to work lately. Since the birth of Elu Thingol’s heir, Elu himself had been scarce in Tyelpe’s sphere. Tyelpe suspected he was spending more time, not only with his grandson, but alone with his wife. Melian, it was said, had taken herself apart from her family, for Lúthien was doomed to a mortal fate and it was impossible for the queen to cope with their eventual parting. Tyelpe thought this behavior somewhat counterproductive on the surface of his mind; deeper in his heart, he remembered how Celegorm had used to take him south into the lower hills and their mighty forests to teach his generation’s only child all he could, and he felt how complicated those memories were for him now – felt his mind shy away from recalling them. Though he’d still never spoken to the queen, he thought he understood.

Indeed, on the rarer occasions Tyelpe had been allowed to meet the morning in his lord’s bedroom lately, there had always been a warm place in the bed where Melian had lately left it. This had been uncommon before – “She doesn’t sleep as much as we do,” Elu had explained. That information was given before Tyelpe could ask, on the one occasion he’d arrived a little early to the king’s summons and accidentally seen Melian departing through the adjoining door. He’d looked at the closed door for a moment, struck by the thought that when all three of them had been there she must have lain sometimes awake, breathing as her husband breathed, waiting out the night.

The king had been more relaxed that night, softened by her sorrow. Lately he’d been harsher overall, so it had been surprising that he spoke unprompted to Tyelpe of Melian’s nature. That openness had been unusual for him even before, and now that Lúthien had come back he was clearly watching the sands slip through an hourglass only he could see. He was grim and intense of mood when he wasn’t focused on the necessities of rule, clinging to time with his daughter, her husband, the grandchild – clinging with a fierce tenacity as though he could hold them back from the current of fate by his fingernails and will.

So it was understandable that Elu sent for Tyelpe more rarely now.

Entirely understandable.

Even though it ached in Tyelpe’s chest that Elu ignored him now for weeks at a time, only to handle him more roughly than ever. Even though he’d caught himself thinking – treasonously – that he began to understand what his uncles had said of Fëanor after Amrod’s death. They’d described him as fell and fey and fierce – “a mad sort of determination that no reason could quell,” Maglor had said once. But then Celegorm had looked at Curufin with a terrified tenderness that Curufin did not turn to see, and Maedhros had said abruptly, “He embraced us a great deal then. He was always affectionate, but he’d catch us up – Even when we didn’t quite want to let him.”

“Like he was trying to stop us flying apart,” Caranthir had said.

“Like he realized one of us already had,” Amras said very softly, and all six of them had avoided each other’s eyes for a few moments and changed the subject to something more contentious and less painful.

That was the only time Tyelpe remembered the subject being discussed in his presence. For that alone, perhaps, he’d remembered it, and he saw that heat in Elu now.

So how could he blame his lord for rougher affection – or for giving his time to his family and not to a lover? How could he, when he understood?

Though Saeros had begun Tyelpe on this train of thought, it was relevant now – he’d been summoned to Elu again and was to attend him at sundown the next day. Eglachon had brought the message early that morning, looking rather tired. “Were you on night duty?” Tyelpe had asked curiously, and instantly wondered if that was too far.

But Eglachon had sighed and nodded, giving Tyelpe a crooked smile. There were those among the king’s attendants who had still been distant with Tyelpe, but as Elu’s temper had shortened, even most of those had instead grown relaxed and informal toward him. It was a curious camaraderie. “I’d be on time, if I were you,” he said. “He’s not sleeping well either. I’m for bed.”

Tyelpe had returned the smile with a small one of his own. “Rest well,” he said.

Eglachon would probably like a slight variation on this formula’s patina, judging by his other choices, Tyelpe reflected as he uncapped his crucible and began the preparations to finish the vambraces. Perhaps he should volunteer to make something for the king’s guard? He’d bring it up with Elu next time the king’s mood seemed even.

It wasn’t that he liked being – no, that wasn’t true. He liked being used to soothe the king’s unhappiness, when it was successful; he liked being useful to Elu. He didn’t like being – say it – neglected. He would have preferred to be sent for more frequently, even if it meant that the occasional bruise did not have time to heal between summonses.

And he would have preferred that dismissal and the appearance of contempt be kept in private between them. For every time that Elu chided him or scorned him in front of others – in council, in a corridor – it was as though the floor sank from beneath Tyelpe’s feet and left him there.

But to say anything, to protest, that would be a lapse in self-control by now, wouldn’t it? And Tyelpe couldn’t – wouldn’t brook that.

The hiss of the compound over the alloys was as satisfying as a gust of wind on a stale day, and Tyelpe threw his mind into the work after it.

When the sun sank behind the forested horizon of Doriath the next evening, Tyelpe was on his knees at Elu’s side, his brow resting against the king’s thigh.

“Come here,” Elu had said when Tyelpe entered to find him at the desk with the lantern already burning, and Tyelpe had approached, then knelt effortlessly when Elu pointed to the tiles. He’d been here about five minutes, his hair falling away from the back of his neck where Elu’s fingers occasionally brushed. The room was quiet save for the scratch of Elu’s pen, the faint hiss of the candle behind the glass lantern’s walls, and both their breathing. The silence made a space for them – a softer place between the overwrought peace of the royal family and the knowledge of hard things said at past meetings.

Tyelpe knew this quiet wouldn’t last – he knew as well as anyone that such quiets couldn’t – but he was not quite expecting the door to shatter it so abruptly.

“Forgive me, my lord,” said Mablung over Elu’s exclamation, not even looking at Tyelpe scrambling to his feet, “but I thought you had better hear this at once.” Mablung’s face was white and set, and while his captain’s jerkin was on straight, the tunic below was askew as though he’d yanked it back into place. Tyelpe noted this with quick flashes of his eyes even as he backed into the corner, because Ithilbor was following Mablung closely, and Beleg, still dressed for the hunt, was following Ithilbor, and every instinct honed by Tyelpe’s centuries as the youngest Fëanorian told him this was not a conversation that was likely to welcome an extra voice.

Elu’s eyes were flashing. Tyelpe guessed that, like him, Elu didn’t believe for an instant that Ithilbor, who appeared to be in high – no, towering – dudgeon, had been admitted unannounced and at such speed. Beleg scrambled to take up his customary position of guard by the door; Mablung didn’t seem to realize this was an option, and stuck close to Ithilbor. Elu demanded, “What is the meaning of this, Ithilbor?”

“My lord,” Ithilbor said, “how you choose to defend your demesnes is your affair, but I am not best pleased to hear reports of my people being accosted by Noldorin parties.”

“What?” Elu snapped.

Ithilbor drew himself up, eyes cold. “What, do you know nothing of this? Where are your guardsmen?” Beleg, evidently stung by the aspersion cast upon the woodsmen who reported to him, stirred in the background, but Ithilbor spoke on. “Three days to the north my scouts were traveling, as they travel ever by your leave at this time of year, and they were stopped and questioned by soldiers of the Noldor who claimed to be on errands of alliance across Beleriand. No such alliance has been offered us, and it was my impression that such offers had been rejected when made to you.”

“And so they have,” Elu said sharply. “You’re telling me that there was a Noldorin war-party within my northern border?”

Ithilbor waved a hand dismissively. “Within it, upon it, who can say with Dorthonion under their control again, and the Girdle waning upon the land?”

“The Girdle stands inviolate,” Elu said coolly. “It was never a wall of stone; it is a circle of more subtle protections.”

Ithilbor made a helpless, frustrated gesture. “Call it what you will, then! But Lord Elu, you promised us that their warmaking would touch us not. I will not see the Laiquendi turned to vassals of the Noldor, not with the threats arising at their instigation growing every day nearer to us!”

“Then perhaps you had better deserve the grace of Melian,” Elu snapped.

“We’ve done everything you asked of us!” Ithilbor protested. “How do we not deserve it? And how deserve to be stopped and dealt with like criminals by trespassers? Something must have given them the idea that they might stay my scouts!”

“Who am I to say what gives them which ideas? They had the idea they might make other trespasses, too, but I will ask you not to lay the blame for that insult at my feet if you wish to keep your place of privilege in the same chambers where my daughter dwells!”

Ithilbor shook his head a little, sharply, as though dislodging a moth from his hair – a proud gesture of disbelief he shared with Saeros. “Presumption in their haughty lords is one thing. But rangers and soldiers who take similar liberties upon your land? My lord, this is concerning.”

“Do I look as though I am not concerned?” Elu nearly shouted.

Tyelpe couldn’t read Ithilbor’s expression, though he could see that the chief of the Laiquendi was white-lipped with tension. He examined hands instead, and shoulders. Ithilbor’s throat was tight, his jaw forward, his posture forceful and forward with anger; but his hands were trembling and his shoulders were high as though expecting a blow. He was frightened.

For all his sharpness, for all the skill with which he played (he must know it) upon Elu’s fears of his own territory being violated, Ithilbor was bearing up under intense fear of his own.

Yes, Tyelpe remembered, there had been other peoples who had asked Elu’s aid, Liria had told him so, told him that the few Avari in the city were descendants of those who had made it into the protection of the Girdle in time, and only the Laiquendi had been preserved in full by the Sindarin king’s grace. We are the Guest-elves, are we not? Saeros had said that awful day three years ago, and To do as the Avari have done … before the Hunter drove them to beg on another’s door-step.

Yes. Ithilbor must have seen war threaten his people, destroy others; it was no wonder that a threat of it should terrify him like this.

Of course, my people have seen war with the Morgoth too, and I have never seen anyone but his brothers burst in on Maedhros like this, nor on Finrod.

Spending his life among different kings was not a reason to compare their subjects and find fault, but a means of learning what best to do himself. Tyelpe deliberately straightened, made himself formal and unobtrusive.

And yet it seemed to be that slight motion that caught Ithilbor’s eye.

“My lord speaks of concern,” Ithilbor said, regaining slow momentum to his fury. “But I, a lord among your subjects, come in with my concerns to find one of them in most informal private council with my king – who swore to my people his preference and protection?”

Elu looked at Ithilbor as though he’d just ridden into the room astride a goat. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about him.” Ithilbor gestured angrily to Tyelpe, who fought to keep his expression to a courtier’s calm.

“Him?” Elu turned to look at Tyelpe, incredulous. “Celebrimbor is barely a Noldo at this point. He has served me faithfully these five years.”

“And how long have the Laiquendi been faithful under your rule?” Ithilbor almost shouted. “Are we to be abandoned to Noldorin aggression, left to twist in the wind of the Hunter and the Northern watch, after we have done everything you asked of us? Your borders which were to be as thickets impenetrable now soften and leak like cloth – and here in the heart of Doriath, where you choose with whom to hold counsel, there has never been any account from you of what this Noldo actually wants – ”

“My lord,” said another voice, “does not need to explain himself to you.”

Tyelpe barely caught himself from swiveling around to see who had spoken, barely confined himself to a more leisurely turn even as Mablung and Ithilbor both jumped.

Melian stood in the doorway from the bedroom wearing a light kirtle of moss green, her hair an unbound dark halo. Taller than any man in the room, she was gazing at Ithilbor.

Standing to one side, Tyelpe could see both the queen’s calm, piercing look and the way that Ithilbor blanched. He could not pity Ithilbor much, but nor could he blame the Laiquendi lord for how he quailed before her. He’d been speaking dismissively of the Girdle, upbraiding the king her husband in their own private quarters. Tyelpe looked up without meaning to and met Beleg’s eyes, saw there the same apprehension at what might be to come.

“No,” Elu said measuredly. “I do not. No explanation is owed you, Ithilbor, and I expect everyone in this room to think long and hard on his place before I see any of you again. Is that clear?”

There was the space of a breath. “Yes, my lord,” Ithilbor said unwillingly. “But –”

“Who brought this report?” Elu demanded.

“I did, my lord,” Beleg spoke before Ithilbor could, making the Laiquendi chief shut his mouth again. “I brought it directly to Lord Ithilbor when I heard of it, and intended to come afterward to you. I knew Lord Ithilbor would wish to address the matter with all alacrity, considering the situation.”

Tyelpe took a moment to approve of Beleg’s diplomacy before Elu began speaking again. “Your concern is noted, Ithilbor. I too am concerned by the increase in the audacity of the Noldor as they make their war. But you will wait to be announced before bursting into my private study in the future. Now. Let us discuss the matter of Celebrimbor, for though I do not owe you an account of my choice in attendants, I wish to assuage your fears that I have any intention of sacrificing the Laiquendi to Noldorin purposes.” Elu turned to Tyelpe. “Are you loyal, Celebrimbor?”

“Absolutely, my lord,” Tyelpe responded at once, feeling the shape of the words in his mouth as he spoke them, feeling how they in turn changed the shape of the conversation.

“And faithful?”

“I offered my service to Doriath, and to you. You honored me by accepting my offer. I have not reneged.” His voice sounded calmer in his own ears than he expected. It began to calm him in truth that the words came so easily, soothing the hammering of his pulse that had begun when the door slammed open.

“Demonstrate to Ithilbor that you belong to me.”

And the calm deserted him.

Tyelpe blinked at Elu, unsure how to respond to the order. Elu beckoned him impatiently, and –

– oh fuck –

He gestured Tyelpe toward the floor.

Mablung made a very small sound of discomfort. Tyelpe could only stare.

“Celebrimbor,” Elu said warningly.

The dizziness of disbelief was buffeting him a little, making it easier to feel that he could sink to the stone floor. And amidst the uncomprehending haze, Tyelpe felt a sharper chill, abruptly remembering the way Yridhren had looked at him the previous day – at him, and at Ithilbor’s son when they spoke together in the forge.

What was going on? Why would Elu not take up the opportunity Melian had brought of simply dismissing Ithilbor from his presence, or chastising him for his rudeness? Something else must have happened to make this necessary, mustn’t it, some political shift that threatened Doriath’s fragile, patchwork cohesion? … or worse, had something happened to Saeros? It had been years now since they’d engaged with the same friendliness, but still Tyelpe felt a rising hint of horror at the idea of his former friend having been harmed.

Regardless, he knew his responsibilities. Doriath was his home, too, now, and Elu was quite right: his service belonged to its king. If by this shame he could somehow help to preserve the fabric of his adopted homeland … then he must count it a small price, and an honor as well as a duty to pay it.

Swiftly, Tyelpe knelt. The movement echoed the formal gesture of his first day in Menegroth – a conscious choice, though Ithilbor might or might not know much about that encounter. And it did not feel the same. The position was slightly different, though, as he bent lower, resting one hand on the floor, striving to make this choice look casual. Casual it was not. He’d dwelt here half as long as he had in Nargothrond, but he had not felt himself quite so much amongst comrades there as he felt with Elu’s attendants; it had not made his gut clutch anxiously to be degraded before Orodreth’s messengers as in this exalted company.

Mablung and Beleg looked at each other worriedly behind Ithilbor’s back, not even bothering to hide it. The queen, Tyelpe could not see, for he’d turned his back on the door to face Ithilbor and the king fully. Ithilbor looked stubbornly assessing, perhaps disbelieving; Elu’s eyes were intense and had not left Tyelpe at all.

“Well?” Elu said quietly.

Tyelpe knew his king well by now, and he knew something of the performance of court. He knew at once that if he made Elu press him, he’d reduce the effectiveness of this demonstration. And he was sure of the consequences – if not their nature, then how dire they would be – if he failed Elu now.

Best to let this happen all at once.

Sick with degradation, he dropped his head, dropped his hands, and crawled like a called pet to Elu’s feet. The floor was winter-cold under his palms. Elu was still wearing the embroidered silver mantle that he was always so quick to discard once they were safely in the bedroom. Tyelpe took the hem of it in hand, raised it a bare few inches, and bent lower still to press his lips to the cloth.

Somewhere above him, Mablung murmured something not quite audible. Ithilbor gave a sarcastic snort.

“That will do,” said Elu, perhaps to Tyelpe, perhaps to everyone. Tyelpe, unsure, held his position another instant until Elu stirred, stepping away so the cloth slid through Tyelpe’s fingers and fell back into place. “Melian, please take Celebrimbor from here. Mablung, you’re dismissed to your usual duties. Beleg, Ithilbor, you’re here, so we might as well discuss this now. Sit down.”

Elu’s boots crossed the floor toward the breakfast-table. Tyelpe, unsure what to do, heard the scraping of chairs and the closing of the door before Melian’s hand brushed his shoulder. He had never been touched by the queen – but the scent of lightning-strikes and crushed green leaves, a summer breeze in winter, was uncanny enough to tell him it was she who stood close behind him.

Come with me, she told him, and he was halfway up to his feet before he’d realized she hadn’t spoken aloud. It was singularly disconcerting to know he was to follow her into the bedroom without being told – and nearly a distraction from the knowledge of what he’d just had to do. Of how much worse it could have been.

Melian closed the study door behind them both, then proceeded to the door that adjoined with her own bedroom, giving him only a glance that conveyed a non-specific reassurance before she passed into her space and left Tyelpe there.

He stood for a moment, taking in the room where he was now alone, with slow breaths controlling his urge to gasp for air – how long had he been holding his breath? And how had he caught the scent of something not-quite-elven on Melian’s fingers if he had not been breathing at the time? Through the heavy, carved wood of the closed door behind him, he could hear muffled voices – Elu in his council persona, briskly beginning a needed discussion. Ithilbor’s answer, still audibly strained, though the words were indistinct.

The room was composed, already softly lit, the green and white candles bringing out the glow of the dark woods. On the rug, the pale coverlet on which Tyelpe slept was neatly folded. Tyelpe took in the setting for a moment, then mechanically pulled his tunic over his head and smoothed his half-braided hair again. He toed off his boots, too, and picked them up, walking softly with a hunter’s instinct for a hostile wood so that his steps would not be audible. Boots and tunic alike he left beside the chest in which Elu stored his robes. Then he went to his blanket and lowered himself to sit on the floor, his back to the footboard of the bed, his eyes fixed on the far wall. Slowly, he brought his hands to his face, rubbing them over his cheekbones and jaw.

There must be something that Ithilbor hadn’t said; there must be some reason he was so troubled, something behind the intensity of his reaction, something beyond the movements of Noldor at war. Surely, despite Tyelpe’s initial worry, nothing had happened to Saeros? He’d have given some hint – that would have been higher on his list of things to bring up than the presence of Tyelpe in Elu’s rooms.

And what had drawn Noldorin patrols into Doriath? Surely Maedhros hadn’t been so foolish as to compound Elu Thingol’s hatred of him – it had been months and months since the re-taking of Dorthonion, surely no confused patrol could have wandered out of the northern woods into Doriath and past the Girdle by accident – and past the Girdle, indeed. Surely that was impossible.

What was going on outside of this place that would lead someone to risk it?

Thinking of Nargothrond – and of the last few times he’d seen someone set out from it on any errand at all – he felt a twist of real unease.

For ten years Finrod had invited him to consider Nargothrond home. He did not like to think it was under threat.

Perhaps he could send to Orodreth – would Elu allow him the use of a messenger, for this purpose or any other? Surely someone must be going toward Nargothrond soon who would bring him back news – and after tonight, maybe Elu would even trust Tyelpe to serve as emissary himself. It would be a good use of him. After what he’d just done …

Tyelpe drew his knees up and let his head thud back against the wood. Part of him wished he’d looked up enough to see the expressions of the watchers as the demonstration was made, even as he knew it wouldn’t have been physically possible to see – so he wouldn’t have had to wonder, now, what those he’d long since begun to like and respect were thinking of him now.

With the thought came a flare of old impatience. He had just done a great service to Doriath by helping smooth over a difficult diplomatic moment. Mablung and Beleg would recognize that, even if Ithilbor thought it just a calling to heel of a hostage – and what should he care for Ithilbor’s opinion, in any case? Where did he think Saeros had gathered the views he’d expressed that had made Tyelpe cease to trust him? And it was not Ithilbor who was trusted to aid Elu when his moods were dark – not Ithilbor who was called to the king when his day had been long or the night ahead seemed longer still.

Elu would obviously recognize how much he’d just asked; naturally he’d also explain why it was so important to ask it. There was no point whatsoever in sitting here speculating.

Sit there he did, though, while the minutes flowed by. He thought once of rising to light a lantern and brighten the place past what candle-flames could accomplish, but he did not do it. It was hard to gather the impetus.

He was still there – he judged it to be a quarter of an hour later, though as soon as he’d thought so, he began to think that sounded too long – when Elu came back in.

Tyelpe straightened, though he didn’t rise. “Is all well?”

“Well enough. He left some chastened. There’ll be more to do about the matter, and soon.”

Tyelpe waited while Elu shrugged out of his robe. He waited while Elu lit a lantern. He waited while Elu gave him an expectant look.

“Well?” said Elu.

For a moment, Tyelpe’s face lost feeling.

“Get up,” Elu said impatiently.

There was some refuge in obedience. Tyelpe clambered – gracelessly, he could feel how clumsy his movements were although he couldn’t smooth them – to his feet, disturbing the folded blanket.

“Well?” Elu demanded. “You are not entitled to my time, Celebrimbor – kindly undress instead of standing there gazing at me.”

He thinks nothing of it, Tyelpe thought. Nothing.

His hands rose to the lacings of his shirt, numb with humiliation.

It had meant nothing.

He heard his own voice even as his hands moved, the tones small and weary and insistent. “My lord, there’s something I’d speak to you about.”

He saw the flash of irritation in the shadows of Elu’s eyes, but the king took a half-step back from him and asked with restraint, “What is it?”

Tyelpe looked up at him, dropping his hands to his sides, refusing himself permission to work his fingers together. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he said, a rasping edge coming into his voice. “Ithilbor seemed afraid. I do not seek to excuse what has been done to you, to your family, to your people – never that – but Elu, I beg you, think on this separately from their crimes. What is happening out there? Are we under threat? Are the Laiquendi? Please, send to Maedhros. Doriath will need to have strength on all sides if war begins again, and can be the strength at the sons of Fëanor’s backs, as they still could be at ours –” His words grew faster, albeit higher and more pleading, as he saw Elu’s hand move. “I don’t want to see my home be overrun again as Himlad was –”

The slap he was expecting did not come from Elu’s palm. Instead it was his knuckles, a brutal backhand across one cheekbone, that snapped Tyelpe’s head to one side and rocked him on his feet. “How dare you,” Elu said with fierce and tranquil contempt, his eyes afire.

“My lord,” Tyelpe said through the tears that had sprung to his eyes, “she lives, and I serve you alone – if there is some reason Doriath should not –”

Elu stepped abruptly toward him, seized him by the throat, and reached as though to embrace him with the other arm – but his hand dropped low and slapped Tyelpe’s ass instead, hard enough to sting even through his linen trousers. Tyelpe startled, his gasp no doubt perfectly audible when his mouth was so close to Elu’s ear. Another slap, and he felt his back bow, pushing his hips helplessly toward Elu; a third, and the spreading heat had ceased to be pain – Tyelpe separated his feet a little to balance, bracing himself for more.

Apparently this did not satisfy, for Elu stepped back away from him. He was reaching for his own belt, his jaw set. “Bend over the bed, you treacherous baseborn filth.”

“As you wish,” Tyelpe said, his face equally stony, his eyes meeting Elu’s even though he could feel they were overbright. “But I just showed you – and everyone – that my interests are yours, and I could not fail to speak.”

He turned away and went to the foot of the bed, placing his hands on the mattress – then, because he knew it was what would be wanted, lowering his upper body so it was his elbows that rested there. His face pressed to the covers, trying to dry the tears without moving. He was presented for punishment now, but even in this embarrassing position he felt his posture firm. His lips pressed resolutely together.

“I am going to make you regret your impudence, boy,” Elu said softly, his voice dangerous.

Tyelpe raised his head a fraction, his hair pouring like a double river around him. His back was tightly arched, but it was only that tension in his voice: to himself he sounded calm. “No,” he said. “Not this time. You’re not.”

“No?” said Elu.

“I am serving you as best I can. Even if it’s not what you would prefer.”

There was silence after Tyelpe spoke. Lengthy silence. Enough that he grew anxious, his calves tense. Was Elu still there? Tyelpe hadn’t heard him move … He shifted a little, knowing it made his ass sway in the air, but needing to ease the taut position.

“No,” Elu said thoughtfully, startlingly close. Catching Tyelpe with steely fingers around a shoulder, he dragged him back and off balance, then forced him to his knees.

Now the anger had returned to the king’s voice. “It’ll have no effect on you, will it, you little Noldorin whore?” Elu hissed at him, making him recoil from the name. “Too accustomed to being given consequences for your trespasses and treading right over them? You are mine. You are less than a pet spaniel. And by my realm itself, you will learn your place if I have to teach it you letter by letter.” His free hand yanked at Tyelpe’s hair. “Wet yourself.”

For a moment Tyelpe didn’t understand, then his mouth opened of its own accord. He stared at Elu’s furious face.

“Do it!”

“My lord,” Tyelpe whispered, his stomach churning, “you can’t be serious.”

Elu jerked at the arm he was holding, shocking Tyelpe’s shoulder, rocking him upon his knees as Elu dragged the arm up with both hands like a rope. His thumb dug into the center of Tyelpe’s palm; the other shoved between Tyelpe’s fore and middle fingers. His grip settled just below the creases of the forefinger’s knuckle, bending it so slightly back.

Tyelpe understood the threat and tried to seize his hand away, crying aloud in horror. But Elu’s grip was inexorable – and already painful enough that even a smith’s strength couldn’t tear him away before the initial twinge and its promise of dreadful damage stopped him moving.

“Do. As you. Are told,” Elu whispered flatly, “or I swear, you insubordinate pup, I will work my way through these and start on the other hand.”

Tyelpe’s eyes fell shut.

He was sure it would be too hard to let go, sickly certain he’d leave this room with snapped bones as a badge of failure to do this appalling thing – at least, his thoughts whispered darkly over the racing clamor of his heart, until pain or terror made him yield.

But his body was long used to obeying Elu’s commands, and once his frantic mind could find the muscles involved, it was shamefully easy.

At first he felt warmth but not wetness. The tear that slipped down his face was more obvious a sensation. But the spreading dampness clung to him, and when he moved at all, he felt sticky and befouled, lapped in wet fabric, the discomfort from belly to knees grabbing his attention even as Elu let go his hand and seized his head.

There was no sense of relief at having his fingers spared. Perhaps there should have been. He still had his eyes closed and he did not see what was wanted, but he felt Elu’s cock bare against his cheek. It made him open his mouth, yielding dumbly to what was expected of him. Even in this moment, in the familiar taste of the king’s shaft there was strange comfort.

Elu forced it deep, making him gag a little, making fresh tears spring up at the corners of his eyes. Ready, too ready. Elu was speaking to him: “Shall I invite Ithilbor to watch this, too? Since you would seem to be insincere in your other protestations, perhaps this one will teach you your place. Let me have that filthy mouth, boy. Would you serve another with it, too?” Tyelpe tried to protest, was forced down again. “He came first to me while our protection erodes; insubordinate he was, but faithful as you cannot even understand – shall I use you to reward him? There are others who might see you on your knees where you belong, too. For whom shall I send to see you finally realize it?” He was not given space or breath to answer, but horrible answers flashed through his mind. Apparently, after all this, Tyelpe could still be mortified.

He moaned a little, only to feel it stifled by a thrust that made his stomach drop and his nose lock shut; he panted for breath around the slick, withdrawing shaft.

He was crying in earnest now, gasping between dips of Elu’s cock into his throat, but he tried to suck – both to quiet himself and to serve. Ever to serve. He worked his tongue against the underside, though it made his throat spasm; he licked, as had long been his pleasure, at the depth of Elu’s pulse. He was wet, he was weeping, he barely dared to move, but this he could still do; this service he knew well and could still perform.

Maybe it was only that Tyelpe was lost in sightless, thoughtless misery that made it seem so quick that Elu’s bitter spend filled his mouth. He did not wish to believe that to see him in this condition could make Elu finish faster. Tyelpe coughed, but barely lost a drop. A trembling hand came up to wipe across his mouth; he numbly licked an escaped trickle of the king’s come from the back of it.

He stayed on his knees, unable to move, crying with his eyes and mouth closed. His fingers were crooked on his own thighs – but the cloth beneath them, he realized with sudden loathing, was also damp with that spreading, rapidly cooling wetness, and he scrubbed his palms along the seams that enclosed his hips, trying to scrape away the sense of his own filth against the dry fabric that remained.

Again there was silence, and Tyelpe thought with a jolt of what the last silence had brooked for him; his eyes flew open. Elu stood before him, fully clothed again. He was looking down at Tyelpe – not with disgust as Tyelpe briefly, abjectly feared, nor with – no – nor with continued anger. Perhaps he was missing some tell, but Tyelpe’s eye was more practiced upon Elu’s face than it had been upon any countenance not related to him, and to Tyelpe, the king only looked tired.

“I hope you’ve managed to learn your lesson this time,” Elu said wearily, and turned to leave him there.

Tyelpe’s posture buckled under a spasm of soundless, loathsome sobs. He didn’t even see which door Elu left by – whether he had gone to finish dealing with something he’d previously paused to be with Tyelpe – or whether he’d spurned his misbehaving lover to go instead to his wife.

He felt repugnant. His hands twisted together like a penitent’s, like his fists were trying to destroy each other, a gesture from the deepest, most senseless hurts of childhood – but the pressure on his own knuckles hurt too fearfully, and his fists gripped instead into the hair at his temples, holding his head down as his body writhed through a silent howl of grief.

The wet cloth between his thighs was a torment. There was a bath, shared between the bedrooms of the king and the queen – no, don’t even think it. In any case, he probably couldn’t have gotten himself there. The best he could manage was to crawl fully onto his blanket, curl into a wincing ball, and press his wrist to his mouth again – this time to hush himself as he cried his way toward sleep.

He was shaken viciously from exhausted depths only for his arm to be taken in a bruising grip again. Tyelpe cried out, higher and sharper than at any time yet that evening, his hands tucking down hard against his belly. Still clutched by sleep, he was limp for a moment as Elu dragged him to his feet.

“Perhaps,” the king said between his teeth, “it is my fault for not explicitly dismissing you. So I will not discipline you for still being here. But get. Out. You do not deserve your place beside my bed.”

Elu half-dragged, half-marched Tyelpe across the room to the study door. “If you have learned your lesson, we will speak again in time. If you have not, we will do far more than speak on it. And do not think you will not be watched for treachery, boy, now that you’ve shown what slept behind your false compliance.”

And the light from the bedroom was abruptly darkened when he was roughly put out the door and heard it clap shut behind him.

It was deep dark. He was still wet. He felt as though he’d slept for hours, felt as though this chill below his feet was the bony pre-dawn cold, though who could say in the realm of Melian what the cold should do?

He could not linger here.

Tear-blind, fouled and miserable, he stumbled through the study, his steps uneven on the tiles. His boots were still in Elu’s room. How long had he slept? It had been late before – surely he would encounter no one – no one would be awake to think there goes Lord Thingol’s slut, damp and bedraggled as a half-drowned kitten, no one would see his slapped face or the stains of his weeping –

At which point he nearly collided with both of the two guards who were currently posted outside Elu’s study door.

Both of them stepped back from him. Gowestor it was, and Beleg; one, presumably, posted here for the night and one having paused to speak after being dismissed from attendance on the king. Tyelpe stared at them, he could feel, like a hind sighting a hunting-pack, but he could not recover himself, only mutely look. For an instant the tableau held.

Beleg stepped toward him so purposefully that Tyelpe flinched, his hands half-rising to ward him off even as he scolded himself for reacting so violently – for cringing like a craven, for trying to elude whatever his lord’s guard could possibly wish, and after what Beleg had seen a few short hours since –

– and Beleg was pulling off his own cloak, sweeping it around Tyelpe with a remarkable efficiency of movement, clasping it close about Tyelpe’s throat. “Come,” said Beleg, his voice quiet. “Come. Let me take you home.”

Chapter Text

The previous audience on Elu’s court agenda had been a simple one – a question of whose harvest-right lay upon an orchard that was due to begin its early bloom a fortnight hence, mired in family crossings and made more relevant by signs that appeared to presage a late spring. It had been the sort of audience he best liked to hold – a clear, fair decision to be made from known evidence. Trustful subjects who looked to him with confidence he’d be there to arbitrate justly between them. And a quick, painless execution of his will, with no wasted time.

Next on the list of those coming to see him in court was something new, though, squashed into the margin with a blotchy pen. Elu squinted at the paper, which had been passed to him by Lendon as his hours in public court began. The handwriting was hasty. Whose was it?

“My lord?” said a quiet, carrying voice in the center of the throne room.

He knew the tone almost as well as he knew the voices of his family. And even as he heard it, he identified the name in the margin: Celebrimbor. The words that followed were blotted.

He slowly raised his eyes, regarding the boy with a skeptical brow. Yes, Celebrimbor had erred those years since by coming to him in private – but it was late to correct that. What could possibly bring him to a public audience? Too, he was dressed as though for the hunt, but his hair was – curiously for him – unbound and unadorned.

“Yes?” said Elu.

“I have come to report,” said Celebrimbor, “that I have lavished my skill upon Menegroth’s armory to the fullness of my ability in the past weeks, and that I believe Doriath to be well prepared for any threat that comes from enemies of known nature. What is left to do is best consigned to the skill of my lord’s specialized weaponsmiths.”

“… yes?” Elu repeated.

He realized, with a strange sense of memory layering upon reality, that Celebrimbor was wearing the same hunting leathers and cloak he’d worn when he arrived in Menegroth almost five years ago. He realized this at the same moment Celebrimbor said, “I believe that I have fulfilled the service I initially offered upon my arrival: to give the utmost of my art to Doriath. I now ask my lord’s leave to return to the lord Orodreth in Nargothrond, or, if Orodreth will not have me, to offer my aid to the alliance under Fingon Fingolfinion. It is said that there is war to come; I ask permission to go and make myself useful in it.”

Perhaps Elu should have told him he was not done with his service. Perhaps he should have said that no other king was likely to have the boy. But these obvious protestations failed to come to his lips.

He forgot the watchers, forgot the public place, even forgot for a moment that it could please the king to dismiss the boy and watch him depart unsatisfied.

“You told me,” he said, with eyes only for Celebrimbor, “that you would always come when I called for you.”

Not even the birds spoke as Celebrimbor blanched. After half a dozen heartbeats he found his voice again: “My lord, I offered you my obedience in all sincerity – ”

“You told me you would always come.”

Again, silence, loud in Elu’s ears, coalescing before the gaze of every watcher. Their eyes held each other’s.

At last Celebrimbor dropped his gaze and sketched a slight bow. The room was quiet enough now that everyone heard his whisper: “I did, my lord.”

He was turning to go, his movements stiff and submissive, taking his dismissal as said. Elu toyed with the idea of bidding him to stay, making him stand in disgrace before all – letting everyone see him try to hold onto his composure while he thought on the consequences for this rebellion, as Elu meant to think on them with all the creativity he could muster –

But Celebrimbor had not completed his turn, nor Elu his thought, when another voice arrested them both. The speaker was Lúthien.

His daughter stood forth with her son perched in her arms, Dior’s eyes ink-green and curiously shining through tumbled dark hair that matched the spill of Lúthien’s locks today. “Father,” she said – and behind her, Melian stirred with evident displeasure, making Elu wary. But Lúthien, never quelled by displeasure and still less by her mother’s now that mortality had introduced another tear into the fabric of their bond, spoke on. “Father, I believe you should let Celebrimbor go.”

Elu gazed at her. Why should she say this? Why should she care?

Lúthien shifted her son onto one arm and used the other to gesture gracefully toward her heart, then toward Beren. “Did I not find a way, with my own talents, to overcome a foe we had thought insurmountable? To take what was thought unclaimable? It is by following our own need, and the needs of our hearts – our skills – and our deepest loyalties that our enemy can be overcome, Father.”

She turned to look out over the assembled court. Beren, on Elu’s other side, bowed slightly to his bride and their child. Lúthien, Elu noticed, seemed to be avoiding looking directly at Celebrimbor, but he was included in the sweep of her gaze before her eyes came to rest on Beren again.

“Loyalty,” she said, “is much to be valued, when it is unforced. From Finrod I learned that, and from Beren – and from my mother and you. If we can finally overcome our foe, it will be by placing our loyalties where we will … and by ever questing to learn more of what power we may have without knowing we have it. There is no other way.”

A flash of foresight came upon Elu then – a gift that he rarely if ever had, and he thought in part it was a burst of unsteadiness from Melian that caught him in its eddy. But he knew for an intense instant that Lúthien would leave him again – that the dearest treasure of Doriath would take herself into some secret place and depart from him –

It passed.

Elu forced his attention to return to Celebrimbor, standing alone in the middle of the hall.

He’d done well to make this request publicly, Elu thought bitterly. What was Elu to do, turn the boy over his knee in front of the entire court? There was no doubt Celebrimbor richly deserved it. But Melian, he could tell, was already unsettled, and Lúthien was staring at him, and …

… he abruptly, inanely, realized whose handwriting had crabbed Celebrimbor’s name into his schedule. It was Beleg’s.

But it hardly mattered, did it? It hardly bloody mattered.

“Very well,” he snapped, gesturing impatiently at Celebrimbor. “You may go. To Fingon, though – I doubt Orodreth has much use for you. His sister dwells at Fingon’s court and will presumably have you.”

Celebrimbor gazed at him for a moment, his face too smooth – covering, Elu thought, a bit of surprise. Well, where had he expected to be bidden?

At last Celebrimbor bowed low. “Thank you, my lord. And I hope my service this handful of seasons has pleased you.”

His back was straight when he left the room. Unsure of why it mattered to him so much, Elu willed him to look back. He willed himself to call the boy back. Neither of them did.

Beleg asked a few days later, not in public audience, for a post that would let him leave the city more often. Elu, disgusted with absolutely everyone by that point, granted the request. A slight shift in responsibilities only – Beleg would dwell outside Menegroth, but not far; he’d travel much, but always come back.

“I’m surprised you’re willing to be separated from Mablung so much,” Elu commented.

Beleg looked at him with a soft, sidelong expression. “We’ll still see plenty of each other. Our duties will overlap heavily. And Mablung is as hungry as I am to know more of what goes on outside the city; he’ll be glad of more immediate news from me.”

“Very well,” Elu said impatiently. “You’re permitted, you knew you would be, what else?”

“I went through Celebrimbor’s room,” Beleg said neutrally. “I thought you would wish to know it had been done. He’s left almost everything behind.”

“That’s of no concern to me,” Elu said.

When he gave his attention to Lúthien and Dior – to Doriath and Menegroth – to the present and the future – the words were almost true.