and I will love with urgency, but not with haste by Arveldis

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and I will love with urgency, but not with haste

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Summer, FA 386

Andreth knelt down and inspected the small cluster of mushrooms, mentally running through the list of features her mother had long ago taught her and Beril to look for. It was edible, she decided, and she cut several mushrooms from the ground and added them to her basket laden with the roots she had dug up earlier. She straightened and shielded her eyes against the glare of the sun that slanted across the hills.

The highland slopes were awash with purple ripples of blooming heather, and bees and butterflies darted among the blooms. Here and there across the shoulders and knees of the hills, thickets of mountain roses tangled among the heather. Summer had come to Dorthonion at last. The rivers that burbled down the slopes were still cold with the snowmelt of a winter that had not easily conceded to the short spring, but cattails grew thick around the riverbanks and bobbed their tufted heads in the light breeze. And in the shade of the copses and forests of pine, spruce, and larch, huckleberries and wild raspberries began to swell and brighten.

It was her favorite time of year, brief though it was in these lands caught in the shadow of Thangorodrim. But she loved the season all the more for its transience.

As she turned to begin her walk home to the halls of her father, a glimmer of gold caught her eye, and as she turned to look, Aegnor, holding the reins of his horse, stepped out from beneath the shadows of a nearby stand of pines. With a cry, Andreth hitched her basket on her arm and clutched her skirts in her other hand, flying to him across the heather.

Laughing, he swept her into his arms and pressed his lips against her neck, murmuring a greeting that was lost to her as she buried her face into his shoulder and breathed in the scent of him. Two months had passed since she had last seen him, yet she had not thought to see him again so soon.

“You sent no word!” she exclaimed, releasing him at last. “I did not know you were coming.”

 “Angrod has matters of trade to discuss with your father and the head craftsmen—”

“And you do not?” she cut in, her tone teasing.

He smiled at her fondly and touched her cheek. “Nothing that could not wait. I thought to surprise you.”

“So you did. How did you know to find me here?” she asked.

“I saw you from the road”—which was merely a speck in the distance to Andreth’s eyes—“as Angrod and I climbed the path to the settlement. He has gone ahead, bringing word that I will follow. If any ask, my horse was in need of a short rest and watering.”

Andreth fell silent then. None except Angrod and Beril yet knew of their relationship. They had done so by choice, for it was still strange to both their kin to witness deep friendship between the Eldar and Edain, much less love. And there were yet those in Dorthonion—not many, but enough—who did not love the partnership of Edain and Eldar, and who resented living under the lordship of the Eldar, sworn to fight in wars outside their ken. Still others did not trust the goodwill or protection that the sons of Finarfin offered, suspicious of a people so unlike their own. How much less, then, would they dislike love held between one of the Edain and one of the Eldar?

And yet Andreth resented that it must be so.

For so long, her relationship with Aegnor had been a quiet, hidden thing, made known only to the wooded slopes of Dorthonion and the silent shores of the Aeluin, and she longed to escape the shadows they were trapped in, to be free to share their love in the light. Her father and brother would know eventually—they must, for she loved them too deeply to keep it from them. But she feared what might come of others learning of their relationship.

“I confess, though, that I thought to find you in your father’s halls. But I prefer this.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her face and trailed his thumb over the curve of her cheek.

“Beril is assisting with a lying-in today, so I have taken on her regular duties. And I am glad I have.” She caught the front of his tunic in her hands and rubbed her thumbs over the scrolling embroidery that decorated the neckline, tilting her head back to look up at him.

“As am I. I do not now have to devise a method of sending a message to you that escapes notice—”

“A message?” Andreth arched a brow.

“A request, in truth. There is a glade near the southern shores of the Aeluin, lit by the summer stars. I would take you there tonight, if you will allow it. And we need not concern ourselves with what any may think of us, save the stars overhead and the swift-footed deer in the woods. What say you, Andreth? Will you go?”

Andreth looked over his shoulder, thinking. Finches chirped in the silence. “There is to be a celebration this evening of Bregor’s troth-plighting. It will likely go well into the night, but I can slip out once the ale is flowing freely. Beril will be wanting to retire early as it is; she has been up since before dawn. We can leave the celebration together, and we will not be questioned. I shall meet you at the edge of the forest. What say you to that?”

“I deem it a fair plan. I will be waiting for you there.”

“Although—” Andreth paused and worried her lip. “Father will be certain to invite you and Angrod to the feast as honored guests; he would be an ungracious host not to do so. It may be difficult for you to leave early.”

“He would also be an ungracious host to request overlong the presence of guests who have travelled many miles. Worry not, Andreth.” He tipped her chin up with his forefinger and kissed her, whispering in her ear, “I will see you tonight. Let us pray the hours until then fly swiftly.”

He turned and leapt lightly into his saddle, raising his hand in farewell, before he was gone, a gleam of gold quickly swallowed by the shadows of the pines.

Andreth smiled to herself as she watched where he had disappeared and then turned and collected her forgotten basket.

 

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The stars were high overhead by the time Andreth slipped from her and her sister’s quarters, where Beril had happily retired early after several badly hidden yawns at the feast. Aegnor and Angrod, Andreth had noted, had, by some miracle, left earlier in the evening, though she suspected the copious quantities of ale flowing among the men had aided their escape.

The moon was a sliver tonight, and Andreth had only the light of the stars to guide her. She darted across the grounds of her father’s halls and into the stands of pines that bordered the settlement, eager to be on her way. The night air was filled with the light trills of the pygmy owls native to these woods, echoed periodically by the soft flutter of wings. In the stillness of the night, she could hear badgers snuffling through the undergrowth and the pattering of foxes hunting their quarry.

She stole through the stands of pine trees until they began to crowd together, and spruces and larches began to grow among the pines. She turned onto a small footpath, one that she, Bregor, and Beril had found when they were young and had kept well-trod through their youth spent scampering about the hills of Dorthonion. The path led to the edge of the forest, cutting straight across ground that other paths meandered through, and opened into the wide glades that surrounded the southern point of Tarn Aeluin.

She caught sight of him through the thinning trees; he shimmered against the dark spread of the night, a flame bright against the deep shadows. He was already turned in her direction, and she ran the rest of the distance to meet him.

He caught her hand in his, lacing his long fingers through hers. “Come. It is but a short distance.”

The stars glittered brightly overhead, and away to their right, the waters of Tarn Aeluin were spangled with starlight, as if the sky had been etched into its surface. All around them was the scent of green and growing things, richer and stronger in the muted sensations of the night. And Andreth thought that maybe she did not mind the shadows she and Aegnor kept to, if the shadows were to be garbed so resplendently.

“We are here,” Aegnor whispered, and she immediately understood the quiet reverence his voice now held, though they had no need to speak in hushed tones, out here in the open wilderness. He led her between the mighty trunks of two pines, and before them opened a stately woodland hall, cushioned underfoot by springy moss and swaths of heather, girded by the proud boles of pines, and laid bare to the star-flung sky, bordered by the crowns of the great trees. Ferns curled about the roots of the trees, graceful and elegant.

Andreth slipped free of Aegnor’s grasp and turned in wonder. She had thought Tarn Aeluin the jewel of Dorthonion, but this was a close rival. “It is beautiful,” she said, soft and awed, turning back to Aegnor. “I almost feel that I should not be here, that it should remain pure and untouched.”

His answering smile was gentle. “Nothing you could do would mar this place, Andreth.” He drew her down with him to the mossy carpet. “But I am heartened that you like it.”

“It is a wonder beyond what I expected,” she answered truthfully. “I had thought it impossible to find a remote corner of this land that we had not yet stolen away to before, and yet this place is such.”

Aegnor turned to her, his bright eyes troubled. “Do you tire of meeting thus?”

She curled her fingers over his. “No, only of meeting forever in secret, as if our love were something to be ashamed of, something to be hidden from those who would will it not to be.” She turned to him. “Do you not wish that we did not have to hide? Do you not tire of it?”

He brushed a knuckle down her cheek, his expression fond. “Aye, I wish that. But the Eldar do not tire of repetition; each moment is new and unspoiled, though we might have lived it a thousand times. That which is fair will never dim in the eyes of the Eldar, no matter how often it is seen and felt.”

“And you deem this fair?” she asked, her voice scarcely above a whisper.

He leaned closer, his hand laid along her jaw. “Thou I deem fair, and every moment spent with thee.” He kissed the corner of her mouth, his breath warm against her cheek. “Fairer than the fairest sights I have beheld.” He kissed the other corner of her mouth. “Fairer than the gardens and terraces of the cities of Aman, and the light that spilled upon them.” His lips brushed against hers, and his hand crept into her hair, drawing her closer as his tongue slid into her mouth, gentle and soft.

It was not the first time he had kissed her, and yet Andreth felt as though she were falling, firmly seated though she was. He kissed the corner of her mouth again, and then his lips were tracing a path along her jaw, kiss by kiss, until his lips fell upon her neck, kissing and teasing her skin with the brush of his teeth. She gripped the front of his tunic, needing an anchor, needing him closer, needing—

The tumble of his hair fell over her neck and shoulders, stoking her skin to further awareness, tickling the sides of her neck. His lips had almost reached her collarbone, and there he paused, tugging the neckline of her dress aside with his thumb. She felt his teeth trace her bared skin, and then he nibbled and sucked. Gasping, she curled her fingers into the soft fabric of his tunic, until she felt her nails digging into her palms through the fabric.

He pulled back, a smile tugging at his mouth, and Andreth drew a ragged breath.

“Do you tire of this?” Amusement danced like flames in his bright eyes.

“Never.” She pulled him to her then by the collar of his tunic, unwilling to lose a moment’s time.

“That is well,” he breathed against her ear, his breath fanning hot over her skin, “for I do not either.”

Aegnor’s lips covered hers again, firmer, more insistent this time, and his tongue swept over her lower lip. She opened her mouth in response and deepened the kiss, sliding her hands up the heat of his neck to twist among the tumult of his hair. Leaning back, she drew him down with her to the carpet of moss.

She could never tire of this.

She raked her teeth along his lower lip and nipped at it, drawing a groan from him as his hands clenched about her waist. A coil of heat curled in her stomach. She pushed him back so that she was half over him, her unbound hair falling about his face and neck. In the darkness, his eyes shone with an unearthly brightness, pupils blown wide. She kissed him again, palms splayed against his chest, his heart beating beneath them as feverishly as hers did, and pushed him down.

Minutes or hours might have passed; Andreth could not discern. The heat of his skin, the flame of his spirit burned against her as his hands ran along her body, as she pressed herself against him. She would let the flame of him consume her, if she could, would gladly give herself to the fire again and again.

But ever there was a divide between them.

“We should not continue thus,” Aegnor whispered, but she could hear the ache, the hunger in his voice, scratching at his words like a wild, untamed thing begging to be released even as he spoke. She felt it in the shaking of her fingertips as she withdrew, and in the heat that still flickered in her stomach.

When he reached out to touch her now, his fingers were gentle, and they did not burn like tongues of fire against her skin. His gaze had softened, and his eyes no longer shone with fevered brightness. “Melda heri,” his lips traced against her skin as he kissed the pad of her thumb, the crook of her elbow, the curve of her shoulder. “Tenn’ oio cendelelya alasse ná,” he whispered as he pressed his lips to the lobe of her ear, her temple, her cheekbone.

Words hovered on the tip of her tongue, words she did not want to utter as he pressed words of love against her skin, but she did. “Why must we always be separated by barriers we cannot see?” she whispered. “Must there always be a divide between thou and I?”

The glade was heavy with silence, and his thumb paused in stroking the column of her neck. “I would honor the customs of thy people, Andreth, and marry thee in the manner of thy people,” he said at last.

“And if I did not want to?” she asked, so soft she barely heard her own voice. “If I wished to marry thee in the manner of thy people?” Her voice trembled, but she held his gaze.

Aegnor drew in an uneven breath, swift and sharp. His gaze roved her face, tracing her features. When he spoke, his voice was rough but tender. “I would take thee away, to the south or east, and marry thee under the light of the stars. And there none would speak against our union. And I would be thine and thou would be mine in every way that there is.” His fingers trailed down her neck, over the sensitive skin he had kissed and sucked to tenderness, to the dip in the neckline of her dress, where beneath lay the scrolled pendant he had given to her early in their courting, hung on a leather thong between her breasts, and there his fingers lingered. She shivered under his touch.

When he spoke again, his expression was sorrowful. “But it is my duty to protect these lands, and to stand against the Enemy for as long as the siege will hold. And it is thy duty to counsel thy people and remember that which has been forgotten to time.”

“But why must it be so?” She twisted her fingers in his, beseeching him. “Why must we bind ourselves ever to duty, and never to love? Are our desires so shameful, so impossible? Wouldst thou have us be sundered until my time is spent, and there is no hope of a future between thou and I?”

He touched her cheek, and she could see tenderness pool in his eyes. “No,” he said fervently and drew her to him, pulling her flush against him, so that she felt his voice rumble in his chest as he said in softer voice, “No, I would not. I would share with thee the time that we have been granted.”

He pressed a kiss to her temple and held her against him, and she leaned her head against his chest and listened to the steady rhythm of his heart, counting out the moments with each beat. How many would they share? How many did they have until her time was spent, until she would leave him and face the darkness of death alone?

There was no painless road for them, no escape from the doom of their kinds. But they had the moments that had been allotted to them, however few or many those were.

And tonight she was young, and the stars danced overhead, and the woods and hills were flushed with the bloom of summer. Dorthonion thrilled with life, and so did she.

Andreth pressed closer and trailed her fingers down his neck, soft as the wings of the moths that flitted through the night air. “Then let us do so,” she whispered against the tip of his ear.

His fingers traced the side of her face in response, and he pressed a kiss to her brow. And they lay there in the silence of the glade, hidden in their wooded hall, and passed the night in whispers and touches.

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Chapter End Notes

Translations (courtesy of Real Elvish.net):

Melda heri — “beloved lady”

Tenn’ oio cendelelya alasse ná — “for eternity is your face a joy”

My choices for the flora and fauna of Dorthonion come from outofangband’s excellent analysis of the flora and fauna of Dorthonion.

I realize that it’s Finrod who first tells Andreth that if Aegnor’s heart ruled, he would take her away and marry her, but I’m taking creative license here and letting Aegnor tell her that first, simply because I prefer her hearing it from him, rather than secondhand from Finrod years later.