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she really said that
Melyanna of Lórien
“Melian was a Maia, of the race of the Valar. She dwelt in the gardens of Lórien, and among all his people there were none more beautiful than Melian, nor more wise, nor more skilled in songs of enchantment. It is told that the Valar would leave their works, and the birds of Valinor their mirth, that the bells of Valmar were silent and the fountains ceased to flow, when at the mingling of the lights Melian sang in Lórien. Nightingales went always with her, and she taught them their song; and she loved the deep shadows of the great trees.”
~The Sillmarillion
Melyanna: @menelya-ormenel
📸 @maellor
Valinor
This is the final chapter of this saga. Mairon and Lothien are reunited, and together, they are beginning a little family. A happy ending at last! Many thanks once again to @/carleywithasea for helping me bring this story to life.
TW: NSFW, childbirth, anxiety, mention of blood
My 🖌️ AO3 -> My Masterlist
NSFW below the cut, Minors DNI
He did not resist. He could not. He leaned into her touch, eyes closing briefly as if to hold onto the sensation before daring to open them again, afraid she might slip away. His breath trembled: “I thought I had lost you.”
Lothien shook her head and continued stroking him, caressing him, not wanting him to drift away from her. If this was merely a dream, Lothien would cling to it all the tighter. She licked her bottom lip as she drank him in, new, but wonderfully familiar. She was sure that he felt her heartbeat in her fingers, across her body, and heard it in the comforting silence between them.
“You could never lose me, my Mairon. I will always wait for you,” she whispered, the truth weighing the words heavily. “Death could only delay us.”
He shuddered and slid his hands over hers, turning his head to kiss her palms slowly. He was unreal in a way, beyond what Lothien expected she’d find based on the whispers she’d heard about him being broken and remade. How could he look so wonderful and whole before her now?
“You ..” His throat bobbed and a soft mist covered his eyes as he drank her in. He pulled her into his arms. His hand spread over the back of her head, weaving into her hair as if he could tangle them together permanently. His other arm wrapped around her waist, fingers stretching over her lower back. He panted in her ear. “My heart.”
“You belong right here,” she said, voice ragged and fragile at the same time after waiting so long for this moment. “Wrapped around me, holding me, with me pressed against your chest.”
“No,” he replied, tugging on her hair until she looked up at him, basking in the view of him here – really here – right in front of her. “I belong much closer. Sharing your breath, tasting your sweetness, savoring every detail of your existence and marveling in my luck at meeting you.”
Her eyes watered and she pushed herself up onto her toes, her body brushing against his with in a way that made her knees weak and heat bloom in her lower belly. Only her Mairon ever made her feel so much with an almost innocent brush of their bodies.
“So much time apart and your touch ... your words ... you ...” she found herself at a loss for words. The need to share her love, her devotion, everything was strangling her rather than allowing her tongue to give life to everything that had built in the years between them.
His hand shook in her hair, loosening so terribly that she nearly demanded that he strengthen his grip and never allow her to slip through his fingers again.
“Lothien, my love, my heart, if your memories have returned, if you have everything – every thought, every feeling, all of it back, then you must loathe me. You must tell me your true thoughts. I will shoulder it, I still have my strength.”
Her brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”
“I corrupted you. I twisted your lovely soul into something dark and terrible. I turned you against those you once held dear. I killed Celebrimbor, forced you to accept me in Eregion to bring downfall upon what you loved most there, I have forced you to endure my cunning and terrible plans with distractions and omissions. I ...” he looked at her as if she were something so fragile and pure that even touching her would break her. His hands started to slide away. “I corrupted you and enjoyed every moment of it naming it affection and-”
“Do not let me go,” she insisted.
He paused, his hands barely on her.
“If you let me go, you ignore every step I took in your direction of my own volition, Mairon. To come to me, to cross all of life and death to hold me, to hold me only to claim I never chose you, that it was never my will that added to what we shared, that would be a worse fate than any.” Her whole body trembled.
“Lothien, please, you must-”
“For once you must hear me first,” she decided. “To touch me is to make me yours. To kiss me is to claim me. To believe that you can do either of those things without my approval makes me half the woman I am. Am I so weak as to be twisted by the touch of a man? Am I so frail that sweet words make me forget all my reason? Am I not the same woman who approached you in the forge to demand answers, to free you from the jail and bring you into my home, to shave your throat and not cut it despite the rumors about your reputation and love of bloodshed?”
His eyes were panicked, overwhelmed. He was obviously bothered. She had seen so many sides to Mairon. She’d known him as Halbrand, she’d known him as Annatar, she’d seen him as Sauron, as little more than a collection of shadows, then a man perpetually dressed in armor, and she had loved him in every form.
“I became terrible myself,” she insisted. “I did not choose to live, no, but I stood by your side even when there were questions in my mind that I would not allow myself to linger on. While you were in my head and soul upon my resurrection, it was my decision to remain with you, to choose you.”
He shook his head and she gently pressed her fingertips to his lips. “And I did it happily. When grief and rage corrupted me it did much more than when you saved me with your very soul, my Mairon. After being parted from you for so long, witnessing your last thoughts and sights, others trying to claim my hand, the ring itself perhaps, I still craved you. Not your power. Not your terrible and fierce violence, but you. As I crave you now. As I craved Halbrand in my home and Annatar by my side.”
He shuddered and looked away. “I do not deserve such praise nor your ... your kindness.”
“Am I not your heart?” She asked knowingly, tilting her head to the side while tracing his bottom lip. “Am I not your love? Am I no longer the best of you, the softness and warmth where you take refuge?” “No one else could ever be what you are to me.”
“Then I am still the woman who is more than a wife. I am the same woman who will welcome you into bed, who will happily sing for you, plot with you, calm you, and get on my knees for you to do my hair,” she answers, stepping into him.
His hands tightened on her while he studied her face intently, obviously searching for any deceit and perhaps something else.
“We can talk forever, my dearest. We can explore every single question, relive our memories, but what matters is we are her and together,” she promised. “All that matters is I died seeing you ignoring a war for me, to reach for me, to soften the sharpness of the blade that pierced me. If you are still that man, any version of the man I have loved in so many ways ... then do not let me go.”
“There’s so much you don’t know. There are so many things I’ve done, before you and I, while we were together. The injury I faked, the wars I waged. I am the reason you died – both times, Lothien. How can you forgive ...” he shook his head and leaned towards her until their noses brushed. “How could you still be so sure that I am the man you crave.”
“Who else would I die for? Who else would I look to while dying both times? You have been monstrous, more monstrous than anyone before, yet more organized and sure, more cunning and sure. I too, was horrible, capable of terrible things and willing to commit to them fully.”
“Because I-”
“Because I believed you right and because I loved you then as I loved you before and as I love you now. In any image, in any emotional state, it is us. You would burn the world for me, die for me, kill for me and you cannot doubt that I am willing to do the same. I will never watch you slip away from me again,” she said, her voice steadier, but with an underlying fury. “You are meant to be with me. I am meant to be yours.”
“You cannot ignore-”
“Do not argue with me on this point, my Mairon, or I will believe that you wish to drive me away simply to further punish yourself and thus punish me. Is that what you desire?”
“No. Never. I would give up everything for you. I was willing ...” he trailed off and rested his forehead against hers. “I would live again for you alone.”
“Beautiful words,” she replied, closing her eyes. “My Mairon.”
“I am not the Sauron the world remembers or the man you once knew,” he warned.
“You are the same man I love, merely another shade, with more of you to explore. Will you deny me?”
Mairon looks at Lothien, as vibrant and beautiful as she’s ever been, if not more so. He gently touches the beauty mark on her face. In her he sees so many regrets, so many things he wishes he would have done better on her behalf, but feeling her soft, welcoming lips tease the corner of his mouth, sharing her breath, holding her in his arms is so primal and familiar he could not push her away if his existence were the price to pay.
Denying her – impossible. She never denied him, she worshiped him, believed in him, doted on him, cared for him, and he had felt so unable to return the softer side of their relationship. He had limited ways to display his true feelings for her.
No, he’d never deny her again, even if it meant learning new ways to demonstrate how truly honored he felt to be able to touch her again – an idea he had accepted was beyond his reach.
His lips molded to hers, slow and tender. The second she responded, he was lost. His hand returned to her hair and tightened as he kissed her with blatant hunger, relief, love, gratitude. He poured himself into the kiss in every way he could think of. His tongue curled with hers, he breathed her in, savored her feel, her taste, her smell, her touch, her responsiveness.
When she moaned into the kiss, he echoed the sound and tightened his arm around her back, needing to press their bodies together, needing more of her. If he could dissolve into her, he still would not be close enough to her. The need to possess her, to be with her in every way – mind, body, heart, and soul was so overwhelming, yet different. He could satisfy himself with kissing her, with pleasing her, with losing himself in her ... for a moment.
Kissing her lets every good feeling, positive memory her, and something so much more imperative inside him unfold, spreading through his body as he wraps himself around her. He was willing to give her up if it meant she’d have the best, but now that she’s here, clinging to him, not letting him walk away, he’s sure it’s not a test.
Seeing her on the cliff, watching her close the space between them, he was sure it was some final trial to see if he’d change, but with her in front of him, begging for his touch, standing up for herself, clinging to him, kissing him, he’d lose again and again. Having Lothien’s desire was the only win he needed. Having her love and knowing he could and would protect her, make her happy, and prioritize all things she wanted ... that was better than redemption.
She drew back and studied his face. “I have waited for you since the moment my eyes closed. Do not speak again about corrupting me into loving you, about twisting me around your finger and forcing my affection. I chose you, I let myself fall for you, and I would do it again in every life where we cross paths.”
“You deserve more than words,” he rasped against her lips. “You need a demonstration.”
“What could I possibly need demonstrated?”
“My devotion to you,” he growled, lifting her into his arms so she could only wrap her legs around him. “Regardless of who may see us.”
Lothien laughed and bathed him in kisses while instructing him where to go. A private space just for them, though he knew if he pleased her just so, her moans and whimpers would carry, as beautiful as her singing, and he reveled in the knowledge that others would hear her ecstasy.
Why should he need to possess it, to possess her when knowing she would come back to him, claim him, and choose him seemed so much better? She had allowed his possession and he had assumed it was his doing last time. Knowing, believing, not being able to dismiss her own part in their relationship somehow made it all more profound.
Setting Lothien on the ground, Mairon made short work of her dress. She covered her own nakedness and he kissed along the arm across her breasts. “Why hide from me, my heart? Why do you shield your body as if I have not charted my love across it in kisses and touches?”
“While wanderers are few, I am only yours to see,” she answered.
It tugged on that need to make her his. He licked just over her arm, teasing her breasts. “You are mine, in all ways that matter, more that don’t, and I welcome others to make an attempt to steal you – to watch you prove that it is your choice to remain within my grasp.”
Moaning, she dropped her hands to his shoulders and welcomed his mouth across her skin, teasing and worshipping her breasts. He traced each nipple with his tongue, his sighs pillowing against her skin as his fingertips and only his fingertips followed the silhouette of her body to her hips, then slowly around to cup her rear.
“A woman fit for legends, a woman beyond any song that would try to capture her worth and skill, more than a fine blade and fine wife, you are salvation,” he breathed against her belly, his tongue dipping into her navel as one hand gripped her rear and the other followed then line of her hip between her legs. “To taste you thoroughly, to please you – only that will convince me that my trials are over because none could be so merciful to give me such pleasure other than you.”
Lothien cupped his face between her hands as she stared down at him. In one move, she lifted her knee and placed it on his shoulder as he had done so many times. Her eyes sparkled. “Remind me of how well we are matched, my Mairon. Convince me that you are still the man who knows all my needs and can play my body as a skilled musician.”
That invitation was all he craved. He buried his face between her legs, guiding her across his tongue as his fingers pressed into her. Lothien moaned and rocked against his tongue and lips, welcoming his fingers deeper as she gripped his hair. Her sighs, her breathy moans, the way his name rolled off her tongue and over her body to his ears incinerated any lingering fear that this was some trial he had already failed.
If pleasure is what she craved, he would give it to her until it became a burden that would drop her into his lap. If she needed to hear him pour his heart into words, he’d learn a new language to do it properly. Yet that would have to wait. His mouth was meant for her body, to stroke and explore, to be the inspiration for every moan that would leave her chest.
Reaching up, he cupped her breast, palming and squeezing, moving closer and closer to her nipple while his eyes remained on her, desperate to feast in every way. He couldn’t look away from her rapture.
It’s because of me. I’m the man who gives her this, the only man she has welcomed in centuries, the man she does not settle for, but choses, he thought.
That idea encouraged him further. He had told himself he would be gentle. He’d sworn that he would give her time, draw out every moment, but he did not want their reunion to be less potent than any memory they’d had before. He devoured her, licked at her wetness until it was the only flavor he knew, chased her moans until they were as familiar as his own voice, was willing to get drunk on her alone.
When she came once, it hardly mattered, he was starving for her, unaware of how long it had been since he was full. He needed more.
“Yes, Mairon. Yes!” She sang, eyes opening to meet his. “So perfect.”
He groaned against her and pushed her over the edge twice more, not worried about others seeing, not worried about the slight ache in his jaw or the time that had passed. He would not ask her to settle for a man who could not please her. She would never settle again. He would give her the world – if not through enforcing obedience – then by bringing all of her hopes and dreams to life.
He would do it and ensure she never had to wonder how he felt. She would never need to stray, never need to want, because she had him. When Lothien started to lose her grip on him, he guided her to his lap and purred in her ear. “Are you satisfied with my tongue and fingers, my heart?” “More than satisfied,” she answered.
He chuckled at her weak smile and the fact she was still grinding on him. “Then I have no need to give you more?”
“You have more to give and you’d deny me?” she panted while reaching between them to undo his trousers. Once his length was free, she moaned as she stroked him. “To think it’s possible to have enough of you is wrong, my Mairon.”
He panted and kissed her slowly, matching her long, sure strokes until he couldn’t bear it any longer. Every long kiss proved how much she wanted him and to deny her was to deny them both. He lifted her and brought her down every inch of his length as she arched back, letting her needy whimpers and cries free.
His mouth moved to her throat, lavishing her with affection he hadn’t yet found the words to name. “Mine, Lothien. You are still mine.”
“Yes. Without question. I am yours,” she moaned. “Yours and only yours.”
“As you’re meant to be,” he panted, allowing her a slow pace. She leaned back, rolling her hips on him so he could watch the way her body moved.
She surrendered to her own pleasure again, allowing it to guide her, to rule her and he could hardly resist the same fate when she made it look so heavenly. He licked between her breasts, devoted himself to their shared ecstasy. He met every thrust, proved that they were best together, belonged wrapped around one another in some way, every way, constantly.
Time didn’t matter. Other’s didn’t matter. Nothing could possibly exist but Lothien in this moment and every other. He craved her, only her. Would devote himself to her and nothing more.
After what may have been hours or days, they laid together, spent, still desperate to touch and kiss even as she fought sleep and he fought the weight of his content. He cupped her face and lifted her mouth to his. “You are all I have ever needed. I was blind to that, believed I needed the world ...”
“My Mairon,” she sighed. “If you were not so ambitious, you would hardly be the man I love.”
“I can be ambitious with you. My love, my heart, my salvation,” he answered, kissing her again.
She moaned and kissed him slowly. “When you next ask me where to have you finish, you will not have to calm yourself in wait of an answer.”
He chuckled and kissed her slowly. “Anywhere I please as long as it is on or in you?”
She grinned, a sleepy, soft smile. “You have not forgotten a thing.”
“About you? Impossible,” he answered, kissing her slowly.
The weeks passed, rolling into months, yet Lothien could hardly find anything to complain about. She could hardly entertain herself alone for the need never arose. Mairon, in all his need to throw himself into projects and to have control, had chosen to make her his world and his devotion.
He had yet to find the words, as he often said, so chose action. He provided her with flowers and herbs and asked their properties. He never allowed her to walk halls alone. His one promise stayed true – she would never be alone again. She had not yet discovered whether it was out of fear of her death or perhaps a way for him to compensate for the time that had passed, eons which had shrunk down to something easier to swallow with his presence, where she had been alone.
When they had nothing to do, or when they did, it hardly kept his hands from staying. The need to possess her, to please her, to be wrapped around her in the most carnal of ways was ever-present. A too long gaze, let to lifted skirt and panting moans. A touch or bite of her lip brought his mouth to hers with hunger that she never failed to feel or sate with him.
Mairon, in all ways that mattered to her, was the same man. Another version of him for her to learn of, to explore and know, but still himself. He laughed more as well, despite the burden she saw weighing his shoulders. He told her of his memories, of the lives he’d lived. How he had laughed when Lúthien had brought down his great master with nothing more than a song and cloak, how he had truly appreciated his wolves. He shared so much, but would always pause with a near painful look in his eyes when she’d ask about his trials.
“Why do you hesitate?” She asked him while he cooked for them. He did it more to keep his hands busy than out of an actual need, but it reminded her of their time in Numenor so she felt no pressing need to remind him of that.
“When do I hesitate, my heart?” “Speaking of your trials. You’ve told me of some, and while I know that they are beyond me, have nothing to do with me, they-”
“They have everything to do with you, Lothien,” he whispered, no longer focused on the food, but seeing beyond.
“Truly?” “I would have challenged them if it were not for you. All that mattered was you being safe and happy. I would have undergone them again and again, no matter how it affected me if it ensured you were free, your soul intact, that you were well,” he answered.
Unlike their previous conversations, he did not come to her, to touch or distract her away from her thoughts.
“They were impossibly long, yet short. I was forced to confront such things ... terrible things .. things I had done of my own volition. Once I’d seen as victories, then forced to live from the other side. Questions demanded answers that I found myself lacking. I saw the souls of others, had to ... explain myself, had to surrender, had to ... sacrifice.”
She moved closer, hating his pain. “That is enough, my dearest Mairon. There is no need to relive such horrible-”
“Only that last was horrible. Not knowing if I had made the right choice, choosing for both of us without having your guidance or input,” he shuddered as if it was a new realization and turned to look down at her as she hugged his side. He lifted his arm to put it around her. “If I were to keep you, no matter how it hurt you, how it damned you, or to set you free with no memory of our love, to give you up or choke you with my ... my love.”
Her heart fractured for him. She kisses his neck. “I will not ask your answer and you have never to choose again. For I choose you always. Through the pain, the changes, the regrets, I would not have chosen a different path and many were laid out for me.”
“I chose to free you,” he answered, brow furrowing as he gave her his full attention. “How many times must I say that you are everything to me before you believe it? That I would do terrible things, I would do nothing, I would remove myself if it meant you could live again?”
“It would not be life,” she whispered. “And you have yet to keep a promise to me.”
He blinked at her, clearly trying to find the promise he’d failed to uphold.
“You promised me a child.” She put his hand on her belly. “The best of both of us, equal parts of us. Perhaps now you are in a position where you are able to share me and to understand my heart will only grow to fit another since right now I am so full of you.”
His eyes darkened. “You are not full of me yet, my heart. But that is quite easy to fix.” “You are making dinner.”
He moved the pot off the fire. “I will start again if it means I keep my promise and fill you properly. As only I can.”
“As only you ever will,” she agreed, playfully dragging her skirt up.
He groaned and swept her up and into his arms, bringing her to their bed. Lothien laughed, something she hadn’t done while touching him too many times. Not it was constant. He growled at her, threatened he wouldn’t stop until he was sure she was with child, that he’d finish within her until she was bursting with his seed, but she returned every threat and promise with a drawn out kiss to show him what it meant to her. When his kisses grew more intense, he filled her, drawing her legs around him.
“If you want to be filled with my child, you want to have more of me surrounding you and filling you, you will have it, Lothien,” he snarled as he thrusted deeper.
Her back arched. “My Mairon.”
“If all you wish to do is lay in bed while I manhandle you into positions and fill you first with my length, then my seed, you shall have it.”
“Yes!” She moaned, offering her breasts up for his attention as her head turned away on the pillow.
“And make no doubt, I will revel in every second that you welcome my touch, in the way your body sheathes mine, in every sound that leaves your beautiful lips,” he continued. “You are mine, you must be to possess me so thoroughly, to sway me so completely, to consume me with little more than a look.”
“Yes. Yes. I’m yours. You ... You belong here,” she answered.
“If this is the pale example I can set for how deeply..” he thrusted hard and fast, as if he could force himself impossibly deeper inside of her. “I care for you, for how deeply in love with you I am, for how deeply your voice, touch, existence reaches me, then I shall give it to you until it nearly amounts to how I feel daily.”
“Mairon!” She yelled, dragging her nails down his back.
“Mark me as yours. Leave no doubt to how you’ve etched yourself on my soul,” he commanded.
Even in his worship of her, he was rough and demanding. She savored it, welcomed it, and lost herself in it, welcoming his seed, welcoming his touch, welcoming him, this newer version that was soft in new ways and rough in others.
The dream she’d shared with him on the eve of their final battle weighed on her mind. He’d be good to her and good to their child. He was her destiny in more ways than he knew and if she needed to bring it to life now for him to see the dreams she still had, the visions that slipped along her mind only to drip away, taking all but the need and emotion with them, she would.
Without hesitation, without fear. Let the rest of the world fear the legacy of a man she’d never known. Let them reduce him to violence and evil intentions while she salvaged the real him, the one lost to time, but safe within her sights and arms.
Mairon paced. Lothien was doing ... something. She wouldn’t say what, yet he was nervous. They’d been working at their goal for months and while he thoroughly enjoyed bedding his wife multiple times a day – sometimes without a bed involved at all, he felt incompetent. She’d shown no signs of pregnancy as he knew them.
Perhaps he was the problem. He had given up his ability to create, did that extend to children as well? Had he hurt Lothien in his quickness to give up what was so important to him for a chance to be with her again? Had he still been selfish while trying to be selfless?
His remorse, his fear, his regret, and the longing to reclaim Lothien and the lives he’d once had rose up every night to torture him in silence after she had fallen asleep in his arms. Was he truly a changed man if such things haunted him so mercilessly? Was he truly tasting redemption when his past would not quiet and he could not replace what he had taken from so many?
Especially with the glimpses of a past he’d forgotten with Melkor had been resurfacing? A past he longed for, perhaps because he had been so unburdened and so free. To sing, to enjoy himself, to savor the simple act of living. Sure, his arrogance had known less bounds and he believed it had led his decisions, turning him into the dark without any input of corruption for another.
Perhaps it was a mercy he would not be a father. He could not return to such ways and impart them on a child who would know less reason to calm than Mairon himself did. If he hadn’t found Lothien would he have ever wanted redemption or would he have named it weakness and moved along with his life unbothered with the consequences he never would have truly seen?
Or worse – would he have named the suffering and subjugation of others a victory while their cities burned, their children wailed, the mothers grieved, and ghosts haunted all the survivors while leaving only the dead to peace?
As he turned to continue pacing the room, a door opened and shut, pausing his footfalls. He turned to look at Lothien. She wore her gown, looked composed, still wore the braid he’d put in her hair last night when they’d finished a rather rough session together. His own frustration had shown through along with his need to make her more than his wife, but the mother of his child, the one carrying his seed and letting it bloom within her. He needed to breed her and after emptying himself three times in her with hardly a break, he’d hoped the results would be clearer.
“Lothien?” He asked.
“You seem bothered, dearest,” she answered.
He walked to her and stroked her face gently. “You are rarely stoic, you are ... should we perhaps take a break?”
She bit her bottom lip and took his hand, putting it on her stomach. “Why would we do so when we’ve been so successful?”
He stared at his hand on her flat stomach and swallowed. “What?”
“I had a feeling considering how much more tender I’ve been and how food has been affecting me, along with this sense that I was pregnant. I needed to be sure before I told you,” she replied, her smile growing as she leaned into him. “I’m pregnant, my Mairon. Our baby is growing inside me.”
He shuddered and then realized he was on his knees, now at eye-level with her belly. He stroked her stomach, spread his hands over her thighs and looked up at her as she began undoing her dress.
“Perhaps you’d see it better if I were not wearing so much.”
“Lothien,” he growled.
“And if you stop touching me, end the fun we’ve become so used to, I will be furious with you,” she warns. “I never want to stop being with you, my dearest. Not in any way. Not at any time.”
He shuddered and helped her remove her dress, kissing across her belly, then standing and kissing her.
“You will not know a day without me,” he promises. “I will not leave your side.”
She smiles and pulls him up, kissing him hungrily as he backs her against a wall. She was pregnant, he’d kept his promise, but seeing her naked and bare before him, leaning into every kiss and smiling against his lips ... it was impossible for him to ignore that she was truly his.
“More than my wife. You are more to me than any language can encapsulate,” he said as he filled her again.
Her back arched and she panted against his lips as he chased her for the next kiss. “Don’t you dare pull away from me, even to savor your pleasure. You share it. We share everything.”
The first few months followed a routine. He’d cook for her, dote on her, fill her with food, his devotion, and his member every day. Even as she had to let her dresses out, even when her belly started to show the fruits of their labor, he could hardly contain himself.
Then blood dotted her dress and he attended to her in a panic. She’d smiled at him as he insisted they find a doctor, had soothed his worries, promising it was normal, that it was okay, that it was too little blood to be a problem. He’d brooded, allowed her to go back to sleep and glowered at her stomach.
He’d lost Lothien in some way or another Three times. One when the arrow ripped through her heart and brought her to the edge of death. Again when he poisoned her soul and had to spend days not knowing if she would harm herself or return to him. Finally, when blades ripped her to pieces, turning her to ash he couldn’t grasp and sending him into trials to reclaim even a hope of having her.
Mairon could love their child – he still remembered that vision of them as a family – but he would not tolerate losing Lothien again. They could have more children and try again, but the idea of one claiming her as it revealed itself ...
The thought alone made him murderous. Murderous against his own blood, against what most would call an ‘innocent soul.’
While she slept, he stroked her hair from her face. ‘I will always choose you, Lothien. We could have other children, more children, but there is only one you. And it is you I would sell my soul, give up my body and plans, would die for.”
“So dramatic,” she sighed as she opened her eyes. She put his hand on her belly, thick and round without leaving confusion as to what was within her. “You can have us both, my Mairon. And you shall. Only two more months and she will be here with us.”
Lothien had noticed the changes in her love since she’d become pregnant. She burned for him, ached for their time together, his touch constantly made reason flee her mind, yet ... yet he was different. He was far from the man the world remembered, yet the same in so many ways.
His devotion knew clearer motivations, he loved her deeply, in a way that he could no longer hide from prying eyes. His gaze found her in every room, his touch lingered even when it was unseemly for it to do so. He did not hide her away simply to claim her as his own, yet he never strayed far from her.
Since she had started to waddle rather than walk, he’d refused to let her leave his arms whenever she was going far, insisting again and again that nothing terrible would befall her, that she had already suffered enough at his hands and his negligence. And whenever she was sick, whenever a cramp or pain threatened her, she saw that blame flit to their unborn child, the one now moving within her, ready to join them.
One morning, when she’d gotten sicker than normal, he’d refused to touch her belly at all, as if he was pulling away, as if he was preparing himself to reject their child.
“A beast like I was previously, causing you such harm,” he snarled.
“No, my dear, no,” Lothien insisted. “Our baby is restless and my body is preparing to bring her into this world. This baby is no beast, she is impatient to feel your touch.”
He snorted.
“My dearest, what would you do for me?”
He listed terrible things, wonderful things, too many for her to count all while she took his hand and put it on her stomach. Their daughter kicked, impatient to join them and he looked down, stared at her stomach and spread his fingers.
“If you will do all that, then find it easy to forgive our little one for her impatience, will not accept that she is as willful and determined as both of us.”
He took a slow breath as their daughter kicked again and rolled within Lothien, as if craving Mairon’s touch as much as Lothien herself did. She panted at the discomfort. “She already adores you, perhaps as much as I do.”
“My heart will only grow larger,” he whispered, looking up from his hand to meet her eyes. “I’ll learn, but much better when she is not causing you pain,” he insisted.
The proof of their child’s impatience was revealed when she decided to ignore the last month she needed. She came early, throwing Lothien into tears and agony as she gave birth. She gripped Mairon’s hands. He sat behind her, unwilling to move, unwilling to dote on a child when Lothien was screaming and writhing.
“Be done with it!” He ordered the doctor. “Get it out of her now!”
“Easy,” Lothien panted.
He kissed her, tried to soothe her, held onto her while impatiently ordering to remove the baby.
“It is not normal for a man to stay with the mother when-” The physician tried while helping to guide their daughter out of Lothien.
“It would take a power beyond yours to remove me,” Mairon growled. “To try to force me from her side would be suicide.”
After more screaming, sobbing, and threats from Mairon aimed at everyone except Lothien, a soft wailing filled the air. Lothien slumped into Mairon’s arms, panting softly as their baby was revealed, so small, yet shockingly large at the same time. Wailing with raspy, desperate cries.
“Let me hold her,” Lothien whimpered.
“She must be cleaned.” the physician said.
Mairon stayed with her as she swam in and out of consciousness, sweaty, exhausted, sore in ways she’d never felt before. He brushed his fingers over her forehead, cupped her face, looked at her with so much pain and adoration that she couldn’t help but smile.
“Where is our baby?”
“Forget the baby for now. How are you? The bleeding it ..” he looked between her legs and swallowed. “If you pass, I will never forgive our child, even if she has your eyes, your hair, all of you within her. I will never forgive and I will not be able to forget.”
They had to change the bedding, forced Mairon off the bed to see to Lothien while he paced. Someone approached him and he tried to send them away but a soft sob caught his attention.
“She needs to be held to be healthy. Allow the physician to work on your wife, to ensure she is safe and save her yourself by holding your child,” the nurse insisted.
He hesitated. Lothien was only half aware, kept asking for her baby as if she was unaware of the problems. He could not stop the bleeding himself. He could not will her back into one piece, but he could calm her mind.
“I have her, my heart,” Mairon said while bundling the baby in his arms. “I have her. She’s small.”
“Is she right. I didn’t hurt her?” She asked, obvious fear in her voice.
Mairon walked closer to Lothien. Her wild, glassy eyes drank him in, holding their daughter bundled in a blanket against his chest. His shirt unbuttoned, his exhaustion clear, but he had their daughter, could feel her relentless heart fluttering against him, could fit her small head in one of his hands. She whimpered against him, but her eyes were closing.
“She is in perfect health, my Lothien. You’ve made her so beautifully. You must rest and build your strength to hold her, to nurse her as I cannot,” he whispered.
He bounced their child, followed the nurse’s instruction until their daughter fell asleep, then the physician stood. “She will be well, Mairon. Pregnancy is a woman’s war all I can do is provide her the tools necessary. She did well. She may need to stay laying down as much as possible the next days, to get plenty of food and rest. She must not be stressed.”
The physician looked at the infant, then at him with unhidden worry. “Which leaves you to take care of the child she was willing to go through agony to have.”
“It will be done,” he said evenly.
When they all left, he adjusted the small child in his arms to prepare water and food for Lothien. Then he sat beside her, laying back carefully. His daughter stirred and looked up at him with confused blue eyes. He stared back and something, some sharpness he didn’t remember being in his chest softened, melted away, and his ribs hurt as his heart beat.
“What are you little one?” He asked softly.
The baby hiccupped and whimpered.
He gently rubbed her back and held her closer. “We must not wake your mother. She’s worked too hard for you. Both of us must be patient. You came far too early, but you are still strong, aren’t you?”
As if she needed to prove it, the little one cried loudly, her whole body working to wail and yell. He tried to soothe her, sat up and bounced her lightly, talked to her, but nothing worked. He took a slow breath.
“One day I will teach you to use a sword. Your mother and I will show you the forests and allow you to pick wild flowers among the lessons we give you. There will be no burden on your shoulder, no name you must refuse. You will be strong, you will be loved, you will never be far from our arms should you wish it,” he crooned. “I will protect you with all I have and your mother will tend to every scrape and pain until I learn to do the same.”
“That’s a pretty song,” Lothien mumbled.
He looked over at her and pressed the baby to his chest to kiss her. He panted against her lips. “Never scare me in such a way again. If you would have been ripped from me again, I would have followed. I would have shredded myself to pieces to join you.”
She laughed weakly and moaned. “So dramatic, my Mairon.”
Again, their baby screamed.
“She’s hungry, dearest. Help me?”
He helped Lothien bring the baby to her breast to drink. The sudden silence unsettled him. “She needs a name.”
“Have you come up with one?” Lothien asked, gently petting his hair as he rested beside her.
He took her hand and kissed it softly. “Melyanna in honor of Melian. You spoke of that Maia regularly. It is only fitting that you share the story while pregnant and it trickles to her.”
Lothien gave him an exhausted smile. “Melyanna. It’s perfect, musical and strong all the same. With a wonderful legacy to uphold. Yet she is so small.” Lothien’s face contorted with worry before she looked at Mairon. “What if we’re not ready for this? It has been so long since I’ve taken care of an infant or child. What if I fail her, do something horrible, ruin her in some way that can’t be undone.”
Mairon lifted her chin, then took her face in both of his hands. He pressed his forehead to hers. “You stopped at nothing to bring her into this world. You have shouldered war, corruption, our shared cunning. You brought light into my life in a way never before done. How could you possibly fail her?”
Lothien trembled.
“We will both make mistakes, perhaps me more than you since I want to give her a dagger to protect herself with right now, but she will be the best of us. Already ... Already my affection for her is there.”
“Do you love her as you love me?” Lothien asked.
“Differently. You I would kill for, die for, could not be without,” he answered without hesitation, kissing her forehead. “I cannot change that.” his eyes flicked to their daughter, suckling greedily. “For her ... I would make the world anew, support her, teach her ... sing to her.”
Lothien sighed and pressed her face to his neck. “Sing to both of us, Mairon, please? I’m so tired.”
He adjusted Lothien to hold his wife and daughter and sang, softly, gently, in a tune none would have expected from a man who was capable of such horror. He would never let that part of himself affect his daughter. She would know only peace. She would know his strength in a way none but Lothien had until now.
He would learn patience for her. He would learn fatherhood for her. He would bring those lovely dreams Lothien had shared to life. A daughter who did not shun or fear her father, but ran to him for joy and affection. A daughter who was determined to wield a sword her own size to protect herself despite knowing both her parents would. She would be spoiled, yes, but would never want for anything.
“I see why my mother insisted I leave now,” Lothien murmured.
Mairon stopped singing and looked at Lothien with confusion. She smiled and gently rubbed Melyanna’s back. “She could not let me come to harm. She knew her body was not a large enough shield, and she would rather leave the world knowing I would survive in it than sentence me to an early death.”
“I will not hurt her,” he promised.
“No and we have no war to shield her from, not before she is capable of weaponizing herself. The best of both of us – of my parents, of all that have made us who we are,” Lothien sighed, her eyes drooping. “That is what our daughter is. Our love, our story, our success.”
Mairon’s eyes watered and he kissed both of their heads. This would be a new life, beyond anything he’d known, with challenges untold and unexpected, but how could he possibly deny that he craved it. He craved this daughter and perhaps he had since Lothien first teased him with her existence. He craved Lothien, her joy and happiness so knotted within his existence that being without him wasn’t a thought she’d ever have to consider.
This was their success, tangible evidence that he and Lothien were meant to be. He could never be here, never be a father, never be a husband without her. He only regretted that it had taken him so long to soften enough to let this in.
“I love you, Lothien,” he said gently, then louder when she stirred. She stared at him. “The words are hardly enough. I’m spell bound by you, entranced, constantly asking myself how I could deserve you, how it is possible you exist when you are so ... utterly wonderful. To forgive me, to welcome me, to be so cunning yet so gentle, to be the embodiment of compassion and understanding for all, to be so much of a person and a woman and to still want me ... love is not nearly a big enough word. It would take hours of songs, books of poetry for me to convey it properly.”
“Mairon,” she whispered, tears rolling over her eyes.
“You are every dawn I cling to, every sunset that reminds me that warmth lingers despite the winter,” he praised. “And our daughter is the wind and grass and forests that dress the world making it more beautiful and inviting. How can I not love either of you? How is it possible that I know I will love you both more tomorrow?”
Lothien gave up on not crying and kissed Mairon. “You are bound to my soul, Mairon, with knots we both made. Melyanna will know what a man in love is simply by your actions and she will be all the stronger because of it.”
“We will be happy,” he said, stressing the word so she could feel the weight of it. “That is all that matters now.”
She let out a soft cry and kissed Mairon again. As much as he burned to have her, to touch her, to fill her to show her again and again how he made her feel, his lesson in patience would start now. He would only hold her, support her, cater to her every desire and need – both her and Melyanna until he could expand his duties and satisfy his Lothien once more. A life in servitude had never suited him, but this kind of service – a chosen devotion ... he welcomed it.
Elu Thingol and Melian
Thingol: “No way on Eru’s green earth are you marrying a human! We’re Eldar, that’s a total downgrade!
Luthien: “Mom downgraded when she married you!”
Thingol: *Pikachu face*
@nolessjessisamess requested that I draw Galadriel and Melian so here they are, both absolute queens that I love
For my anon who asked about the chronology of, and interrelationships between, the children of Aragorn and Arwen / Faramir and Éowyn / Lothíriel and Éomer—
The chronology is here, but briefly, the next generation in order of age: Princess Melyanna -> Elboron of Ithilien and Elfwinë of Rohan -> maybe-Steorrahild of Rohan -> Prince Eldarion, Morwen of Ithilien, and Athelflaed (Aravain) of Rohan -> Princess Telperiën and Glóredhel of Ithilien -> Éadmund and Éadwyn of Rohan, and Cirion of Ithilien.
There are lots of interrelationships, especially between the royal children and Faramir and Éowyn’s children, but here are some of the first to come to mind:
- Glóredhel, as you noted, is bffs with Princess Telperiën, and while not particularly close to Eldarion during their childhoods, knows him and readily consents to marry him. They become friends during their betrothal and fall deeply in love over the first few years of their marriage. (You didn’t ask about intergenerational relationships iirc, but Glóredhel always got on particularly well with Aragorn—as a little girl, she took an immediate liking to him that he found touching, and he was very pleased by her marriage to Eldarion.)
- Morwen is reasonably close to her brother Elboron and sister Glóredhel, but somewhat less to her brother Cirion—less because of his character than because she’s very focused on the here and now and a much-younger brother falls somewhat under her radar. So does her own son, Barahir, after Morwen is devastated by the early death of her husband. Glóredhel and Eldarion take pity on their sister-son and offer to bring him into the royal household with their own children, which Morwen gratefully agrees to. Barahir takes well to it and from an early age, absorbs everything he can learn, especially from Arwen.
- Eldarion tends to be a little more comfortable around girls than boys, though he’s on good terms with friendly, serious-minded Elboron. But he’s closer to his sisters and probably to Morwen, and definitely closer to Aravain (née Athelflaed), the most overtly Dúnadan of Lothíriel and Éomer’s children—so much so that she was fostered in Ithilien, which is what brought them into proximity. She became an extraordinary warrior, a difficult path somewhat smoothed by her aunt Éowyn’s glory, and stayed at Eldarion’s right hand until her death. She was never in love with him, or anyone, but they were devoted friends.
- Melyanna is the eldest of the next-gen characters by several years and, while not exactly standoffish, the most solitary of them. She’s fond in her reserved (though slightly bossy) way of her siblings and (to a lesser extent) the Ithilien children.
- Prince Éadmund, the bookish younger son of Lothíriel and Éomer, rather looked up to his fierce sister Athelflaed until her departure. Afterwards, he became closer to his other siblings, especially his elder brother Elfwinë (a somewhat restrained but gracious, considerate personality), the only other boy, and his twin Éadwyn. He and Aravain maintained an affectionate correspondence, however, and he also corresponds regularly with his cousin Cirion.
- Steorrahild is very middle-child in some ways; she gets on well enough with her siblings and appreciates the concern of her far-flung relations for her welfare, but (even as a shieldmaiden) feels vaguely restless until she ends up in Arnor as the wife of a Dúnadan of the North. She likes being part of the rebuilding effort and, while she misses her family, isn’t particularly devastated by it.
- Éadwyn, also a shieldmaiden, is both more daring and more contented in her life as princess of Rohan. She loves horses and songs, and while not quite as skilled a warrior as Aravain or Elfwinë, is not someone to underestimate. Somewhat unexpectedly, she’s very close to her ultra-Númenórean mother, and eventually, to her scholarly twin Éadmund, though she identifies strongly with her father and Rohan.
Melian (Estë Aesthetic)
The Queen (Tóril)
Earlier names: Gwenniel, Gwenethlin, Gwendeling, Gwendelin
Melian, who served both Vána and Estë while in Valinor, was associated with songbirds (particularly nightingales) and forests and was said to be very similar to Yavanna. Her name is Sindarian and means Dear Gift or Gift of Love; her Quenya name is Melyanna. She tended the trees in the gardens of Lórien and when she sang during the mingling of lights of the Two Trees even the Valar themselves would stop to listen to her. Like Oromë, Yavanna, and Ulmo, Melian was unable to completely abandon the rest of Arda when the Valar first retweeted to Aman, and she came often to the forests of Middle-earth because she loved the shadows of the trees. When the elves first awoke in Cuiviénen she came to Middle-earth and filled its silence with her singing and that of her nightingales.
Estë the Gentle was the Vala associated with healing and rest and the wife of Irmo, also known as Lorien. While Melian's connections to nature and beauty are what readers often focus on, there are hints of Estë's influence in Melian's character as well. She used her powers to make her kingdom, Doriath, a place of safefty and peace from Morgoth. She taught her friend Galadriel how to make elven waybread (lembas), and later provided some to the man Beleg Cuthalion in his search for Turin. She also was able to lift the spell of Morgoth from Turin's father Hurin.
One of Melian's most important roles is as the ancestor of the royal House of Numenor, whose descendants included the Kings of Gondor. The royal line of the Kings of Gondor was known for their ability to heal, and Aragorn used this ability on multiple occasions during the Lord of the Rings. Also, through the Numenorean line, Melian is an ancestor of not only Aragorn, but also Arwen, Théoden, Éomer, Éowyn, Boromir, Faramir, and Éomer's wife Lothiriel. These individuals were key in the quest to destroy the One Ring and end Sauron's influence in Middle-earth. Thus, it could be argued that through her descendants, Melian helped heal the world from Sauron's evil.
