"The Music of the Night," for juno_magic

[dawn_felagund]

Juno provided for me an interesting holiday gift challenge: write a story containing a purple scarf, a nightingale, a waterfall, pointy ears, and the naked Elves of my choice.

Well, my choice of a naked Elf is more a naked half-Elf, if we want to keep the lineage of the sons of Elrond simple, but given that Juno is likely Elrond's number one fangurl, I somehow didn't think she'd mind.

In this tale, Elladan succumbs to a strange calling and discovers certain hurts are healed by love...given the challenge on which this story is built, it gets an adult rating for sexuality.



The Music of the Night

Elladan sniffed his arm and decided that Elrohir was right: It was a necessity that they bathe. Not even a luxury or an inclination but a necessity. “We smell like horses,” he’d said, “or orcs,” widening his eyes dramatically at Elladan, who shrugged-secretly agreeing-and followed him to the edge of the water.

Elrohir wasted no time in stripping off his clothes, but Elladan took his time, carefully undoing the ties on his tunic and folding it on a rock where it would surely be kept dry. Elrohir happily splashed into the spring, stepping high and sending a spray of diamond-bright droplets high into the air. There was a shelf of rock that extended a ways into the spring before abruptly dropping off, so the water through which Elrohir trudged was only knee-deep; at the opposite side, cascading from the silvery rocks in a silken curtain, was a waterfall. Elrohir’s skin was tanned by the sun but his bottom was very white, and Elladan had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at this as he removed his boots and set them side-by-side with his socks rolled neatly inside of them. Elrohir, reaching the end of the rock-shelf, took a deep breath and dove forward into the deeper water.

Elladan shimmied out of his breeches, folded them, and minced into the water. He expected it to be cold-for it was still only spring and winter had been long in departing this year-but it was as pleasantly warm as his bath at home. Their father had spoken of this place, of the waterfall, claiming that it was fed by a cold mountain stream from above and a hot spring from beneath; he’d smiled when he’d spoken of it.

Elladan headed for edge of the rock shelf and Elrohir popped out of the water not far from him, laughing to see his prim, modest twin still more than half out of the water, and said, “I can see your thing.”

Elladan blushed and fell off of the shelf into the deep water, forgetting to take a breath first and so having to pop like a cork immediately to the surface, his face still flushed. “Do stop, Elrohir,” he gasped, and Elrohir rolled his eyes and replied, “It looks exactly the same as mine, Elladan. Come here and I will wash your hair for you.” He’d set a cake of scentless soap on the rocks beside the spring and now rubbed it between his hands, coaxing forth a rich froth. Elladan obliged him.

A joke, Elladan thought, would dissipate some of the discomfort. The only problem: Elladan was no good at making jokes. That had always been Elrohir’s domain, to command the attention of others-especially women-while his twin slinked away to huddle in a corner and watch the seemingly effortless interactions of his peers. I should be able to do that-wave my hand just so or toss my head and laugh or take a woman’s hand so that she looks into my eyes like that…but he could not.

A joke. Elladan thought and then blurted out, “Well, your arse is very white.”

“And yours is not?” Elrohir grinned and pushed his soap-slick hands into Elladan’s hair. His fingers felt good against Elladan’s scalp, massaging away a week’s worth of grime-sweat, orc blood, worse-scratching lightly, sending little tingles coursing down his spine and making the hairs on his arms stand on end. Elladan wished to sigh and give into it-but he jerked away. “I can do it myself, you know.”

“Still, it is easier to let me do it, is it not?” Elrohir called as Elladan swam away and ducked under the waterfall to rinse his hair before he had the chance to hear Elrohir’s disappointed sigh.

~oOo~

There was a clearing not far from the spring that was covered with a comfortable lining of pine needles, and-made drowsy by the soothing, warm water-the twins decided to make camp there for the night. They still had some salted venison and a bit of bread left over from their last visit into a town, and so they had a quiet supper, lounging on their bedrolls and watching the stars brighten overhead.

“Who has first watch?” asked Elrohir. “I think that we should each name the most outlandish thing that we have done and whoever has the less outlandish takes first watch.”

Elladan had to think long to remember the time when, as a small child, he’d gotten into a temper and stolen his father’s best boots, trudged down to the stable-through mud and manure-meaning to ride to Lothlorien to live under the kinder rule of his grandparents. Unfortunately, he’d quickly discovered that he was not tall enough to lift the saddle onto the back of his pony without assistance.

Elrohir laughed and began his own tale: “Do you remember the night I tore my breeches on those briars? When we stopped in the town for the seamstress? Well, I only got so far as taking off the breeches before-”

Elladan declared him the winner with haste, before he need say any more about it, and grudgingly took his place on the ground away from the fire, while Elrohir snuggled into his bedroll with a happy sigh and fell almost immediately asleep.

Taking watch was a lonely time, but Elladan was not averse to it. He liked the way the shadows danced with the moonlight on the ground, keeping rhythm with the swaying of the trees. The music of the night, he thought. Here, anything was possible, and Elladan need not be graceless and awkward, fearing less a gruesome battle where his life could be taken easily than asking a maiden for a dance. He’d never danced, never been kissed, certainly never enjoyed the greater pleasures to which Elrohir liked to allude. But in the music of the night, the moonlight waltzed with the shadows, and Elladan imagined himself as confident and gracious as his brother, with a woman held snugly in his arms, their bodies presses close enough that even the air was denied entry between them, each of their steps matched perfectly to the other’s, and the warm caress of her breath-not the spring breeze-against his ear-

A nightingale trilled and Elladan was disturbed from his reverie with a start. The night was very still all of a sudden, heavy as though to portend something. Elladan knew such feelings, for many times, they had saved his life or Elrohir’s, but this was different. A light mist had settled over the forest, blurring Elladan’s perception of the trees and the forest; the shadow and the moonlight became a silver sheen cast over everything. He blinked and squinted, rubbed his eyes, but it made no difference. Even the sounds-the brave chirps of the spring’s first crickets and the creaking of the ancient trees-seem blurred, as though they were being rubbed away by something stronger and greater. The air was suddenly full of the sweet aroma of honeysuckle, but Elladan knew that couldn’t be right: The honeysuckle wouldn’t bloom for another month at least.

He felt the quivering of an emotion deep inside of him, and he sought to dissect and classify it. Fear? Apprehension? These were what his brain told him he should be feeling, yet that was not quite it. He stood and walked closer to the trees. The mist swirled around him but it was not cold, not unpleasant, and still-strangely-it was scented of honeysuckle.

The nightingale trilled again, and Elladan became aware that he could also here the chatter of the water falling into the spring, reminding him of the bells that were playing in quick, trickling notes at the Spring Festival. Deep within him, something twisted and ached, as though longing to be freed of confinement. Elladan clasped his belly as though expecting a pain-but nothing-only a weak fluttery feeling.

And then it began: the voice, rising, twining with the sound of the nightingale, the notes of the waterfall ringing upon it like rain, his heartbeat keeping time like a drum. Elladan saw the mist-shrouded trees drifting past him before he realized that he was moving his feet, he was abandoning his post and his brother to walk to the spring, but though his mind cried out in protest at the betrayal, he couldn’t stop, and like a soothing hand upon the neck of a frightened steed, he was allayed: Do not fear. And so, grateful and suddenly obedient, he did not.

The mist oscillated and swirled to the sound of the voice, wrapping Elladan like a pair of arms, drawing him forward. He was close now; he saw his thin, pale fingers reaching out to push aside the last barrier of branches and the moonlight throwing ice-sharp sparks of light from the surface of the spring. His heart beat faster and the music answered by quickening also, until he might have been convinced (except that such a thing could not be) that the waterfall was also falling faster until it was a glissando playing upon shards of crystal, each note heightening the ache within him until he could hardly bear it.

At last, he pressed forward into the clearing, beside the spring, ready to plunge into it, fully clothed, if that would ease the ache inside of him. But he stopped, in awe, for the music he heard was being sung by a woman who sat on the rocks at the far side of the spring, beside the waterfall. Her silver hair was the color of the starlight upon the water, and it spilled into the spring; her skin was as alabaster-white as the low-slung moon just beginning to creep above the trees. She wore naught but a silken cloth wound and draped across her body, leaving very little to Elladan’s imagination. He could not see her eyes, for her face was tipped forward to gaze into the water, but there were two bright winks of starlight upon the surface of the spring, and he imagined-despite the fact that he knew how foolish was the notion-that these were the reflections of her eyes.

Elladan moved forward, toward the water, and his foot happened upon a twig-treading gracelessly upon it, carelessly snapping it-and with the sound, the music broke and stopped. Elladan also froze, and his heartbeat was the only sound in the night. Even the nightingale sang no longer; even the waterfall seemed muted.

But the woman-she looked up.

She smiled.

Elladan, son of Elrond. I have called; you have come.

“Elrohir…my brother….” His eyes could not leave her face, but he tilted his head in the direction of their camp, where his brother slept unguarded. But the woman raised her fingers from the water and stretched them to him. Do not fear. By the Powers that watch over this wood, your brother will sleep in peace.

Time must have warped, stretched, twisted, for in the next moment, she was standing before Elladan although he had not perceived her leaving the rock, and he felt a touch as warm and soft as silk against his cheek. Her fingers trailed there, leaving a memory of warmth, the way that merely thinking of the spring can make the coldest of winters less harsh, and he breathed her scent of honeysuckle.

Elladan, you have been hurt.

At this, his brow furrowed, puzzled, for he had not been wounded in many weeks now and, indeed, had enjoyed a recent, rare spate of wellness. Sporadic bruises marred his skin beneath his clothes, but she had no way of knowing this, and Elladan had long ago reached the point where such injuries ceased hurting. There were worse things-and each bruise, each innocuous flowering of blood beneath the skin, meant that he still lived, his heart still pumped the blood to the surface, to protest the abuse that Elladan and his brother suffered in the name of-

He would not think of that. Reflexively, his fingers curled to press into his palms, and the woman heightened her touch and pressed her palm to his cheek. He forced his eyes closed against her and felt something warm brush his lips. But it could not be-

The pain of which I speak cannot be seen or felt by anyone but you…but I know of it. You were not born a vengeful person, Elladan; you were not born to spurn the affection and touches of those closest to you. Yet you seek blood and hide from love. But that is not the way to honor her memory.

Elladan shook his head so fiercely that his braids swatted the sides of his face. Her hand caught his cheek, and he opened his eyes in time to realize that the warm pressure on his lips was, in fact, a kiss.

His hand rose to her face, and he deepened the kiss. Her lips parted; their tongues found each other and sent electric desire coursing through him. A hand that seemed to act of its own volition rose and a finger hooked into the silken drape that barely wrapped her body. He tugged it and it fell away as though it had never been at all, baring her alabaster body to his desiring eyes.

At that moment, he became aware of the extent of his actions, and his face burned with shameful heat that traveled down his neck and body, settling in his groin where-he realized suddenly-he was uncomfortably hard. But time had contorted again, and there was a soft breeze on his skin, and he realized that his tunic was gone as though dissolved, and she was pressing her lips to the frantic pulsebeat at his throat and moving over his chest and torso, finding each tiny cut and bruise and administering a kiss-and each disappeared as though it had never been, with nary an ache to remind him of its existence, but the skin feeling warm and resilient and somehow reborn.

She reached his navel and teased it with her tongue, then trailed tiny kisses down the line of dark hairs leading to his manhood, and even as her fingers reached to undo the laces on his breeches, he realized what she was going to do and the thought alone made him throb with pleasure and nearly succumb to release. He plunged his hands into her hair and felt it spill over his fingers like rivulets of warm water. Her hands caressed his buttocks and pushed his breeches down at the same time, leaving his erection to spring forth-he knew he should feel shame, but suddenly, he could not; it was as though he’d forgotten the emotion-and he moaned at she placed her lips at its tip in a kiss. “Why are you doing this?”

Because I love you….

But you do not know me! he wanted to cry, but that seemed foolish somehow, for he realized-even as he tried to wrap the notion in sense and logic-that knowing, for a creature ethereal as she was, transcended the random trivia that signified familiarity in Elladan’s world: my name, my father’s name, my age, the place of my birth, the colors and foods that I prefer and abhor…deep within him, there was a place that burned with something greater than all of those things, that needed no name, no identification, that had been the gift of Eru that had sparked his life. The rest, then, had followed. But that spark that some called spirit and some called fëa was what she knew.

The rest, then, had followed.

I knew you before your father had a name, before your deepest ancestors were but a glimmer of thought, when you were but a single note in the music of Eru, and you harmonized with mine, and I was sent, then to protect you.

She moved her lips over his erection, sending jolts of pleasure coursing from the origin of her kisses and awakening places in his body that he hadn’t known existed; his heart pounded faster, and his breath came in frantic gasps. He fell to the ground and pulled her down beside him, where they lay stop the warm silk wrap that she’d discarded, and she rose to kiss his lips and nibble the tips of his ears, while he caressed the full roundness of her breasts, and she murmured her pleasure into his ear.

“You mean to…wed me?” he asked, and in that moment, he would have done her bidding; he would have left Elrohir in the safety of his slumber and gone where she led, to live until the ending of time as her husband; he would have welcomed their children and accepted the fate of the Elves, to be bound to the earth and bound to her for as long as both existed. But she smiled against his neck and kissed the hollow of his throat. I am not for you to wed. I am to show you love. You will call on the memory of this night in dark times, and it will save you, and you will one day discover a love greater than any I can give you with someone else. But first, you must stop being afraid.

Her hands slipped down his chest, brushing erect nipples oversensitive to her touch, pressing his firm, flat belly as she took him in hand and lifted herself over him. The waterfall rang in a melody of laughter; the nightingale trilled, and their hearts beat in unison, and Elladan-who would have shrunk in the corner at the thought of taking the hand of a maiden and asking her to dance-looked into the silvery eyes of the woman and raised his hips to her eagerly, feeling something inside of him swell free of its bounds, begging her to take him, no longer afraid.

~oOo~

He awakened by the fire, curled inside of his bedroll with no memory of having gone there, but Elrohir was sitting at the edge of the clearing, staring dully into the forest, watching over him.

A nightingale sang-and fell silent as the sky blushed with the first light of morning.

Elladan reached beneath the blanket and touched his body, somewhat confused, expecting to find himself naked. But he was fully clothed down to his boots, his tunic and breeches neatly and primly laced, as they’d been at nightfall, when he’d lost to Elrohir for the first watch.

He waited for a sense of loss to come. He knew loss; he felt loss keenly whenever he thought of his mother and pondered the dark leagues of ocean that separated them; when he thought of his friends among Men who had been lost while his life stretched ever onward, unceasing. But there was no loss; there was a feeling of contented fullness, and there was room for loss no longer.

Suddenly, he remembered, though, the kisses she made upon his body, erasing the marks he’d received during his and Elrohir’s endless battles for revenge. He tugged up his tunic, baring his chest, seeking the feeble stains of bruises that-just hours ago-had been clear on his pale chest, but there was nothing now. He had been healed.

Still, thought Elladan, there must be an explanation. He rolled onto his side, to press his face into the rolled cloak that he used as a pillow, to let the darkness let logic do its bidding with his dreams, but something soft brushed his cheek, something scented with honeysuckle, and his trembling, unbelieving hands drew the silk, violet scarf from around his neck.

~oOo~

Elrond had been tired for weeks now, wearied by the constant worry, but just this morning, Lord Glorfindel had burst into his study with a smile upon his face. “They are returned, my lord!” he’d cried. “Your sons!”

Elrohir had greeted him right away, in the hallway, smelling still of wild winds and distant lands. Elladan, he’d said, had already gone for his bath, and they’d both smiled. How typical of Elladan.

Elrond went to his eldest son’s bedroom and waited for him, wishing to push open that partially closed door and take his son into his arms-for what kept him awake at night more than pondering the fate of the world was the fear that he might never again hold his sons-but he knew that Elladan abhorred even his father’s eyes on his flesh and tensed if touched too suddenly, as though such affection hurt him, and so Elrond paced impatiently and waited.

Elladan’s pack was unrolled and opened atop his bed, his tunics and cloaks that smelled of the river water in which they been washed tumbling onto the floor. Elrond, knowing that he would endure Elrohir’s teasing and Elladan’s disapproving amusement if his sons were to catch him in such an act, went and gathered the clothes to fold them neatly until they could be taken to the laundry. No matter what may happen in the world, first, I am a father, he thought, laughing at himself, for the world was wrong in so many ways and he wasted him time folding his son’s clothes.

But lifting Elladan’s heavy cloak, he stopped.

For something strange had tumbled from it and onto the floor.

He bent and lifted the violet-colored silk scarf from the floor, expecting the cloth to be cold in his hands and finding it to be inexplicably warm.

Like the water of a hot spring.

His brow furrowed and his mind delved for a logical explanation that did not exist. Unbidden, a memory came upon him, of making love to his wife beside a spring in the forest and waking the next morning to wash his face in the warm water, glancing up to see a woman kneeling beside his wife, pressing her pale hands to his wife’s belly.

She’d been wrapped in a material like this-and when Elrond blinked, she was gone.

Elrond lifted the cloth to his face. Honeysuckle.

He’d never had the chance to ask his wife about it, for later that morning, she told him that she’d conceived their first child the night before.

Elladan.

His eldest son, who now bounded, laughing, into the surprised arms of his father, wrapped in a towel and still damp, while Elrond released the cloth to hold his son close once more, for fate had not yet robbed him of this joy, and it floated to the floor and under the bed, forgotten, as though it had never been.