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Author: AC

Series: Folly of Starlight; picks up several hours after "But Few Hearts Keep."

Synopsis: Legolas proves that strength comes in many forms.

Pairing(s): Elrond/Legolas

Rating: NC 17

Not mine, no harm intended, the sheep are lying through their teeth! Thanks to Emma for the beta job.

Comments are always cherished.

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"I would be the one to hold you down,
Kiss you so hard I'll take your breath away.
And after I wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes dear."

-- Sarah McLachlan, "Possession"
 
 

Part 1:

The serene silence of the predawn hours cloaked the stone-carved halls of Imladris, the ever-present gentle murmur of the Bruinen beyond the only audible intrusion. Elrond slowly wandered the well-worn walkways of his valley home, searching for answers he knew well even Manwe would find elusive.  His heart sank further toward the depths of Arda as he walked and wondered, wondered at the seeming boundlessness of his own stupidity. Why had he hesitated in rebuking Legolas' presumptive announcement of future self-sacrifice? The other's words burned in his mind more keenly and vividly than his father's Silmaril-brightened star. <<"Upon your hervenn's return, I will step aside, and rejoice in the knowledge that he shall love you as well as I. I will be content to cherish what time was ours.">> Elrond exhaled loudly, his spirit and his heart feeling as if they had abandoned his body along with his breath. <<How could he think I give my love without meaning it to be without limitations, either of depth or time?>> He glanced upward toward the Lady's domain and found the dancing, gossamer glow of hours past had finally faded from view. It befitted his ever-darkening mood, the dimming of the heavens mirroring the fading of faith and hope in his heart. Ancient angers revisited his heart without conscious thought as he strolled onward, fiery flames of ire directed against himself, fate, and perhaps the Valar themselves.

His irrational thoughts quickly quelled their own reckless rebellion, knowing that whatever the mandate of Manwe and even Mandos, the Lady of the Heavens would never wish him anything but happiness. She had proven that beyond suspicion when she returned Legolas to life and to his arms. By some trick of memory his feet led him unbidden to the doorway of his private chambers where he halted in the jarring cognizance of his unintended location. What certainly lay in wait beyond was the taunting, haunting punishment of his strangely empty bed. He had just become used to the glorious gift of having the golden prince by his side and now.... Now he had ripped open the onerous wounds of the past, wounds deeper and more grievous than those which had barely healed in his lover's flesh. He feared he had replaced them with emotional wounds which even his most masterfully mixed healing herbs could not even begin to touch. With a steeled, held breath he brushed aside the richly embroidered velvet curtain and forced himself to step beyond, into the certain blackness of his soul and sight which awaited.

To his surprise he was met by the inviting, flickering glow of candlelight, and the warmer-still smile on his lover's face. Shocked, Elrond sucked in a stunned breath and realized the ethereal light was cast by those precious, especially fragrant candles made in Lorien from Niphredil flowers which Arwen had gifted upon Legolas, and which the prince sparingly used.

"You are late," Legolas teased mischievously, swiftly rising from his seat upon the edge of the bed. His voice mirrored Elrond's palpable unease despite both elves' brave attempt at confident, controlled cool.

Elrond smiled hopefully, his lips twitching several times as he dared several steps farther into his bedchamber. "If I had known what awaited me, I would have rushed here with the swiftness of eagles." Halting just shy of the other's grasp, the great lord of the valley became somber, his brow knitted in disconcerted confusion and dread. "What does await me, Malthenel-nin?" he hesitantly asked with uncharacteristic insecurity.

With a pure, love-lit smile gracing his ever-lovely countenance, Mirkwood's most fair leaf closed the distance, tentatively collecting one of the other's hands and raising it to his lips for a consecrating kiss. Lingering in the simplistic intimacy of the contact, he smiled more broadly still, then raised the battle-tested hand to cup his cheek. "What shall ever await you, each night I am blessed with the honor of sharing your bed," he lyrically purred.

A tremulous shudder of hope-filled surprise shimmied through the elder elf's flesh. Utterly amazed with the ease, the normalcy, with which his lover greeted him, Elrond pulled back his hand, still clasping the other's within his grasp and raised their conjoined fingers to his lips for a blessing of his own. With a relieved exhalation he gently lowered their fingers to his chest and tightly clutched his beloved's hand to his heart, raising his other hand to complete the circle. "'Tis my honor, and a blessing beyond measure. With the Lady's aid, may we continue to rejoice in each other for...." He found his well-meaning words stilled with the purposeful pressing of the other's free fingers against his lips.

"For as long as we are allowed, no matter how long or short the age," Legolas firmly interjected. "Each moment is a priceless gift, and I swear I will savor each and hoard them in the treasury of my mind, for the time when none more may be collected." Only a stone could not sense the great sadness which instantly welled up in Elrond's heart and expression once more. "This is no time for sorrow, Ithilas," Legolas tenderly urged. He carefully caressed the other's brow with feathery fingertip strokes, cognizant of the centuries, nay, the long ages of sorrows and troubles and responsibilities which the other had borne without complaint and far too often without true companionship. "You have always been strong; the very might of Imladris flows from your veins. But even the rock of the valley walls cannot bear the stress of the ages without cracking." The prince insistently collected his beloved into his arms and welcomed the sorrowed lord with the entirety of his embrace and his heart. "Allow me to share in your burdens, meleth nin. Nay, let me bear their weight for you entirely, if only for the rest of this night."

"I would wish that burden upon none, least of all you, my fair prince," Elrond answered with an increasingly tremulous voice.

Legolas swept away any lingering doubts with the intimately ticklish hint of a kiss against his lover's delicately shaped ear. "Have I not proven that I choose my own burdens and the manner with which I bear them?" Lowering his voice both in tone and intensity, Legolas whispered more huskily still, "Allow me to be your rock."
 
 

Part 2:
 

A hint of a single tear welled up in the corner of Elrond's eye, the so-oft stoic lord of the valley feeling the hardened armor of the ages mercifully stripped away from his heart by the earnest simplicity of the golden prince's love.

Legolas brushed away the liquid pain with the tip of one finger, replacing it with the tenderest of kisses. A brief flash of a smile, then he turned his attention to the other eye, gracing it as well with the blessing of his lips. The ancient lord's forehead next received his complete attention, the characteristic furrows smoothed with the most gentle of butterfly kisses. Lightly the prince's lips danced over one arched cheek, then the other, playfully punctuated the nose, and then finally found the welcoming home of the elder elf's lips. A few more gentle, consecrating kisses were brushed across Elrond's mouth, fleeting as a summer breeze yet somehow persistently lingering like the spring dew. Restraint's limits met, Legolas suddenly captured the other's mouth with undeniable resolve and unmistakable possession, his arms likewise laying encircling claim to the other's main form.

For his part, Elrond succumbed willingly, eagerly, allowing Legolas the upper hand without hesitation. With agile steps Legolas danced them the diminutive distance back to the bed and stopped just short, releasing his beloved as he swiftly sank to his knees. Glancing upward for the passing of sufficient moments to catch a fleeting glimpse of the heavy-lidded, passion-flushed expression which tilted downward to meet him, the prince turned his intense attention to making good on his beseeched offer. With the eagerness of a young child unwrapping the most precious and desired of gifts, first he unfastened the other's gold-embroidered belt and allowed it to slip to the floor, then removed each of Elrond's soft leather shoes, tenderly kissing the tops of each foot before allowing it to contact the floor once more.

Rising gracefully to his feet, Legolas silently slid his fingers underneath the lapels of a light summer robe, the hue of the sea, shimmering in the candlelight like the diaphanous wings of a butterfly. Delighting in the reward of a delicate shudder trembling against his fingertips, he slid the robe from Elrond's body allowing it to float to the floor, kissing each solid shoulder in turn. With his lover now adorned in only his long silver tunic, the mahogany-hued hair flowing freely as the wind, as it had all this day and night, Legolas found his breath stolen from his breast at the majesty which was his to own this night. With a self-assurance he did not always seem to possess, he took a half-step backward to admire the totality of this most magnificent of masculine forms, his heart nearly bursting from the joy which enraptured and filled him to the brim. With a sly, knowing smile on his face, he removed the simple sea-green robe from his own form, leisurely, intently, enjoying the obvious interest in his lover's eyes, their storm-hue-ringed pupils expanding with increasing desire.

Legolas stood before his lover, naked and exposed yet unabashed, his own desire, undeniable and alluring beyond description or restraint, obviously matched in the massive tenting of his lover's tunic. "All that I am is yours, meleth-nin," he whispered with the soft song of the breeze, lyrical and lovely, husky and honest and pregnant with need.

"'Tis a gift so beauteous I could weep," Elrond sighed in return, his fingers lightly brushing across the flat plain of the other's stomach.

"No tears, save those of joy, would I suffer from your eyes, this night and all others." Legolas resumed his purposeful undressing of his beloved, unbuttoning the silvery tunic and sliding it downward until gravity's pull welcomed it in its grasp and rushed it to meet the cool stone floor. As the material flowed downward, the prince graced each new morsel of exposed skin with the heat of his lips, lowering his ministrations down along the other's torso to chase the fleeing fabric. Before long he found himself on his knees, the discarded garment puddled in a waved pile at Elrond's feet along with his own robe, then slowly he kissed his way back up the taut and toned body, his fingers slowly snaking upward as a herald before the arrival of his lingering lips, preparing the way with delicate pinpricks of ticklish goosebumps.

Lips claimed their own, tongues doing the very same, tasting and tormenting and saying in their silence more than mere words could ever hope to do. With some manner of conscious thought, Legolas leisurely maneuvered their intertwined forms onto the bed, the elves sinking down into the familiar sea of fluffed comfort with the eagerness of unrelenting ardor. From his superior position, the golden prince began his sensual assault in earnest, suckling the other's lips with bruising force. Slowly he took his fill of their familiar, sweet taste, tortuously so, then gliding his lips down across the pleasure-pricked skin of the other's neck, chest, and finally stomach. Faced with the magnificence of the elder's undeniable arousal, Legolas then turned his talented tongue in its direction, paying oral homage to his lover's needful steel without uttering a word.

Moments passed accompanied by a moaned chorus, until Elrond ceased the mind numbing ecstasy with insistent fingers desperately intertwined through the other's Anor-hued mane.  "Ai! Ai! Daro!" he pleaded in a dry-throated croak of a whisper. Licking his parched lips, he greeted the passion-blurred cerulean gaze which instantly met his heavily-lidded eyes. He pulled his lover to his lips with those silken blond reins, savoring the hint of his own essence mixed with the maddeningly tempting taste of his favorite mouth. "You would be my rock, my foundation, my strength, malthenel-nin?" he whispered between twirled tongue explorations.

"Tinnu-sen or pan," Legolas huskily affirmed, lacing his own fingers through the other's darker mane, his weight balanced on his elbows hovering over the other's form.

Elrond smiled slightly, then sighed, deeply, earnestly, completely releasing his burdens and his pain and opening himself up in that most intimate of ways only the truly in love can ever know or understand. "Aniro-le nedh-nin," he pleaded in a trembled whisper.

A deep, breath-defying kiss was shared, then the younger elf deftly extended his reach over to the bedside table and scooped several fingersful of the flower-scented oil he had earlier set aside for just such a purpose.

The act of admittance was as intimate and sensuous as it had been the very first time Legolas had taken his lover in this way, and both elves found themselves breathless in the closeness of the contact. Their rhythm was natural, instinctive, rising in both tempo and momentum until their bodies galloped away with the abandon of the wildest of steeds. With a momentary hesitation at the edge of the pleasurable precipice, Legolas' flesh tumbled over the eagerly-anticipated edge in sharp cries of delirious delight. Before he could think to wrap his fingers around the other's turgidity, he felt the tell-tale stiffness in the body beneath him, then heard his name sung out in a delectable symphony of staccato cries and guttural moans.

Together they lay in comfortable silence of their breaths and the flickering, fragrant candlelight, and for the most fleeting of moments, all truly seemed perfect and possible. It was with the greatest reluctance that Elrond profaned the flawlessness of the fantasy and broached the all-too realistic subject which had troubled him since earlier in the eve.

"How can you believe I would wish you to leave my life for any reason?"

Legolas sighed weightily, pressing a kiss into the sweat-sheened chest resting beneath his cheek. "I would not leave your life, not for any reason under sky or over sea, save death, but your bed I would presume beyond my rightful grasp if the High King were to return."

Cupping one of the angular cheeks with a hand, Elrond raised the other's face toward his for careful inspection, memorizing the texture, the every minute curve and plane and nearly unperceivable imperfection in the fair prince's face. "That would be more tortuous still -- to see you and not be able to touch you, taste you, feel you as I have this night."

The prince thought for a moment to argue but then felt the better of it. <<Let him deny such a possibility will come, if it be too painful to bear. Ai, 'tis too painful for us both, yet I must be strong, for both our sakes.>>  "Then let us hope such choices will never arrive," he agreed in a mutual moment of fancy. As his beloved sighed contentedly and allowed him to return to his protectively snuggled sentinel post upon his lover's chest, Legolas found himself face to face with the bitter taste of truth. <<Yet I would be the one to make such choices as you cannot, should not have to, meleth-nin. I would save you that pain if it be within my power to do so. Still I would love you, even as I would step aside for he who owns you in the eyes of Eru. For just as surely as he owns your fea, you have captured mine, 'til the end of the world, Ithilas. Le gweston meleth-nin. Si a an-uir.>>
 
 

Notes:

Le gweston meleth-nin. Si a an-uir: "To thee I pledge my heart. Now and for eternity." (this appears as part of the wedding vows in "We Are Finding Who We Are" [http://www.ithilas.com/fos/wafwwa.html]

"Daro!" = "stop!"

"Tinnu-sen or pan" = "this night above all"

"Aniro-le nedh-nin" = "I desire you inside me."
 
 

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