Special thanks to @medusas-hairband for the reading and the support ❤️ This would not be out there, for better or for worse, without your love.
Here goes my big leap; this is a love letter to the authors having seen my name pop up in their notifs in the last few weeks, a love letter to their imagination and to the beauty of their words.
It's also a humble offering to the people who have been kind and gentle to me in the SWG and the TRSB server. Thank you for your patience and for building a poor wretch like me up...
Words: 2 230
Warnings: It's a slightly incestuous pairing! There will be innuendo (and not just a little) but no explicit stuff...It's also a wild blend of tropes and HCs I've fallen in love with as a reader
Pairing: Maedhros/Fingon, Maglor/Finrod (?) (all of them? Read it as you want)
Summary: A dance in full sight of the assembled high society of Tirion and a lot of unanswered questions
“I need you! Now!”
Maitimo tried to shake off his brother’s insistent hand – long fingers closing like vices around his shoulder – as he gave his uncle an apologetic shrug.
“I mean it, come on!”
“Good evening to you too Kanafinwë,” Ñolofinwë greeted, eyebrow cocked in indulgent interrogation, “whatever is so urgent? Is one of my nephews on fire?”
“Not this time!” His half-brother’s son smirked mischievously before brandishing a harp as if it was a sword, and suddenly, he understood what ailed the young artist so.
With a mellow wave of his elegant hand, he dismissed Fëanáro’s eldest son and – as soon as they had left – a much put-upon Maitimo being all but dragged across the room by his insistent younger brother, his own slid up next to him.
“Dear Fëanáro has overindulged those boys,” Arafinwë whispered, but his voice was gentle and devoid of the acid that – at times – simmered in his mouth like poison.
“Do you truly believe ours to be exempt? If Maitimo has been abducted, I will bet my best robe on Findekáno already having stormed out to pre-empt them.” Ñolofinwë chuckled under his breath at the thought; their progeny was hardy and brave, but discretion was yet amongst the skills they would had to hone, in long hours, at court meetings.
“I cannot see my son,” Arafinwë grunted after a second of intent scanning the room and its occupants, “and that is a bad sign when Kanafinwë is in one of his moods.”
“Did I hear my son’s name?” Fëanáro popped out of nowhere like the snake in the grass he was, “What has he done now?”
“He’s abducted everyone,” Arafinwë replied, clenching his jaw when he heard how pathetic that sounded, an impression only reinforced by the sidelong glance his brothers shot at him.
“Ah!” Fëanáro looked startled and that – in and of itself – was a pleasant surprise, and lightly unamused, which, on the contrary, was nothing new.
“Well,” Ñolofinwë sighed, “then the good people of Tirion will have to content themselves with Finwë’s own scandalous sons, robbed of their first-borns by whatever fancy has taken them tonight. Cheer up, brother, and give them one of those smiles they once have all been so enamoured with.”
“That was a long time ago,” the other replied glumly, “and we’ve long been overshadowed by the shockingly disloyal rogues we’ve sired.”
“Brother mine, this better be good,” Maitimo hissed as he threw himself against Makalaurë at the last moment to avoid the swinging doors, leading out onto a secluded terrace, that would otherwise have hit him in the head rather forcefully.
“Dance for me, oh well-shaped one,” Makalaurë grinned provocatively, “I have a new composition and I need to see someone move to it to feel it.”
“And you could not have found a better dancer?”
“No, it had to be you.” The grin softened into something deep and seductive; since their earliest childhood, he had practised and perfected the expression of pleading innocence that now washed over his handsome face like a patina of pure light, putting even the trees’ glory to shame.
“That’s what he told me,” Findekáno laughed good-humouredly as he stepped out from behind a column, throwing a pensive glance at the huge windows that separated them from the rest of the party.
He was not entirely sure that it was appropriate to have their own private gathering – out of earshot but well within view of their parents and relatives – when they were expected to make the rounds and dole out pleasantries and sweet smiles.
“Oh, I am to make a fool of myself with my cousin to amuse the gallery? Are you so eager to usurp my place?” Maitimo stared down his insolent sibling and the wicked gleam in those storm-coloured eyes told him that something devious was afoot indeed.
“I am not going to indulge you if your goal is to embarrass or humiliate him,” their cousin agreed, his voice ringing like a bell of righteous indignation; he was loyal to a fault and fearless in his determination to stand up for what he believed to be right. Would that unselfish bravery make him dance?
Shaking his head, Makalaurë pretended to be mortally wounded by their lack of faith in him, effectively getting them to move closer to one another in devoted resignation.
Those two, he knew, he could always count upon to rise to the occasion, and he was almost sorry that – at least tonight – his plan was not to make them monkey around.
“Take Finno’s hand and get ready,” he instructed his brother – tall and straight as the trees Yavanna had coaxed from seed to blossom – and bit down on his smile as he saw the deepening of colour on his cousin’s cheeks and the dusting of pink creep up Maitimo’s throat.
They were so predictable; they were so precious.
“Good evening, cousin Findekáno,” Maitimo whispered, struggling not to inadvertently crush the other’s hand in his eagerness to feel that warm, smooth palm melt into his own.
“Good evening to you too, most adored of kinsmen!” The reply was barely above a breath infused with meaning, but it fell like hail – battering and bruising – onto their skin and sunk into their veins to whip their blood into a frenzy.
If they had expected a jig or even a bawdy, lewd tavern song, they were sorely disappointed though for the melody conjured up by Makalaurë’s incomparable skill and borne into the still night sky on the wings of his enchanting voice was slow and sweet at first.
Maitimo’s head jerked around, his pupils blown wide with shock and longing.
This was a love song, twisting and wringing the torturous yearning of forbidden affection into something hard and enduring enough to build a ladder from it.
Every note was a rung, every word a step.
Sensual and writhing now, it wound invisible bonds around their limbs to pull them ever closer into an embrace that would have been shocking even without them being in full view of the high and mighty elite of the city.
Suddenly, Maitimo realised how foolish they must have looked, standing there – chest to chest, hand in hand – completely motionless while the heart-breaking melody was drowned out by the raucous brouhaha of the festivities for whoever might happen to look out from inside the ballroom.
“I was promised this dance,” Findekáno reminded him in that melting, warm voice that drove shivers down Maitimo’s spine every time he used it.
Despite their better knowledge and painful awareness of the potential consequences, they started moving, rotating slowly – much too slowly – in the silver light turning them into a painting too full of unspoken emotion to be static.
Makalaurë smiled to himself, his words dripping with honey and venom now, as he watched them forget about the world.
His brother’s hand had dropped indecently low on his cousin’s back and was still slipping until it rested – up to the middle finger – on the curve of Findekáno’s ass and it seemed that the space between them grew ever smaller, but he could not say if it was their whole bodies or only parts of them that strained to espouse the other.
Time stood still and accelerated simultaneously, contracting and expanding with every shivering breath shared between those two he loved so deeply that it tore at his skin from the inside.
From where he sat, he could appreciate the shadows chasing their own tails over Maitimo’s noble face as he inclined his head just a fraction while his half-cousin’s hand disappeared under his flaming hair, no doubt caressing the soft skin nobody ever got to see let alone touch; he seemed frozen mid-movement, a single breath away from pressing that stern, often forbidding mouth to the silken skin – perfumed by the ghost of the flowers Findekáno had been standing under – just outside of his reach.
They had always been like this, too close for comfort or decency, yet eternally a hand apart, and – in the name of familial affection and morbid curiosity – Makalaurë had decided to make them breach that seal of well-meant restraint to drink deep from the well of fulfilment.
If his mouth had not been as dry as the sun-warmed cliffs, Findaráto might have produced a flute or joined his cousin in song, but, as it was, he stayed where he was.
Pressed against the corner of the wall, he watched that siren sing about illicit longing and a yearning so violent it tossed a soul around like a vessel lost at sea; he understood every word, not only because the thick panes muffled the insufferable noise droning from inside the stifling banquet, but also because he had felt like that before. If he had been forced to be honest – and nights like this one were made for the truth – he would have confessed that the exact sensations wrapped in such delicate beauty were sinking their voracious fangs into his tender flesh in this very moment as he gazed upon the powerful, enchantingly beautiful throat of his cousin as it stretched appealingly to give birth to spells unparalleled.
Kanafinwë – loved by his parents and spoiled by Maitimo – was a creature so dangerously deceiving in the charm he put into his every word and action; when it came down to it, his wrath was no less dangerous than any of his brothers’ and he’d stab you while granting you the most gracious and enthralling of smiles.
Findaráto had witnessed many a time how he could command an assembly by the pristine perfection of his voice, and he didn’t doubt the inherent, destructive power, whistling like an arrow in flight, of this musical talent for a single second.
This was different though, he concluded as the expected effect – soothing or adrenalizing – failed to hit his blood; instead of uttering pretty, flawless notes effortlessly, Makalaurë whipped his blood into a frothing tempest now with the breathy, slightly scratchy, and definitely throaty quality of his singing.
Neither a calming lullaby nor an invigorating battle-cry, this new opus of his seemed to be made up of sighs and moans that conjured up images of his delightfully skilled mouth agape in inarticulate extasy.
Disgusted by his own weakness, Findaráto averted his gaze to the dancers to regain some measure of composed self-control while his fingers trembled, thrumming too high on his own thighs against his quivering flesh to even pretend that he was unaffected by the wings this situation had given to his overzealous imagination.
This new focus did nothing to ease his suffering though for there was of course Maitimo himself, who surpassed everyone in beauty, strength, and discipline; he was as hard on the surface as cousin Finno was seemingly soft, but – spying on them now – it was impossible for the wretchedly miserable cousin of theirs to ignore the fire of bravery and love they shared.
He himself was easy, easy to approach, easy to befriend, and easy to leave behind.
Where the others had been given hypnotising intensity, faith-inducing honesty, or captivating charm, he had been granted a pleasant smile and a truly frightening capacity for love.
He admired them so, he had never been given a choice; Maitimo intimidated people into joining him by his calm and convincing confidence, Findekáno’s warm but cutting smile let you know that it was as safe to be on his side as it was lethal not to be, and Makalaurë had yet to meet a person inured to the overwhelming intensity of his charm. Each one of them had been granted gifts that cut through someone like him as a hot blade slid through butter, and he had stopped struggling against his need to belong – to them or anyone else – many a cycle of the trees ago.
The music broke off suddenly and then someone spoke his name.
“Join us, Ingo,” Makalaurë called, laughter weaving golden threads into his tone like the ones adorning righteous, valiant Findekáno’s hair.
“The night is young yet,” he went on when Findaráto balked, cursing his hair for giving him away in the ambient gloom, “and our fathers look distraught; we may have to take this elsewhere.”
“Go and interrupt our sons,” Ñolofinwë griped, “this is indecent.”
He had been watching his oldest child cling to the broad shoulder and shapely hand of his half-brother’s son for what felt like ages, and he was both embarrassed and intrigued by the intensity shimmering so shamelessly in his upturned face.
“You go,” Fëanáro retorted; he had refused to spare the undignified scene so much as a single glance. As they could not hear the music – and knowing that this was Kanafinwë’s doing, there was no doubt about there being a secret melody – they could but look on helplessly as the two potential crown-princes swayed gently, holding each other’s gaze in what looked more like passion than challenge.
“I won’t go either,” Arafinwë interjected, “I don’t care for finding my own son crumpled up around whatever secrets he hides behind a smile.”
Huffing as they realised that they had manoeuvred themselves – once more – into one of the inevitable stalemates of stubborn intransigeance that had made their youth a living hell, the three fathers glared at each other, praying that their sons would realise soon how inappropriate their behaviour really was.
None of them were holding their breath though.
I am - humbly - begging you not to be cruel to me!
It was a try, it was born out of love and good intentions; I did not seek to offend or hurt anyone!
Lots of love from me...
@eunoiaastralwings you're the only person other than Shalini and Medusas-hairband I can think of who'd read this...maybe...🙈
Ah, @mismaeve maybe?
Song that inspired this ludicrous piece of writing:
