Unmarred by polutropos  

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Unmarred

"You like the emissary of Doriath," says Maedhros.

The lamp Maglor attempts to light spits hot oil on his hand. He hisses, flicks his wrist, then strikes the flint again.

The flame leaps awake and washes the room in saffron light. Maglor sets his sights on his brother. Maedhros drapes his heavy robe over the back of a chair.

Over the course of a day of councils and speeches and feasts and, at the last, dancing, strands of Maedhros' hair have come loose from his braid, and they curl, soft orange tendrils, about the edges of his profile. Drawing near, Maglor takes one and twists it around his finger; he arranges it over the jut of Maedhros' collarbone and drags the heel of his palm down his chest.

Maedhros seizes his hand before it can travel lower. "Answer my question."

"I did not think it was a question," says Maglor. He smiles coyly, then nips at Maedhros' knuckles. "But, well. If you say so." Twisting his free hand through Maedhros' sash, he tugs him closer. "Though I know not which emissary you mean."

Maedhros pulls a sharp breath as Maglor attempts to knee him towards the cot at their tent's further wall. But Maedhros is immovable. In answer, he thrusts the blunt end of his wrist between Maglor's thighs. Maglor moans, bucks involuntarily.

"Mm, as I thought. How long have you been thus? Since the morning's council, when you could not let a single remark from Elwë's minstrel go by without inserting some pithy witticism of your own? Or was it during the evening's entertainment, when you could not keep from scraping your teeth across your lips, watching his fingers fly over his pipes?"

"Nelyo..." Maglor whimpers into the curve of Maedhros' shoulder, weak now from the firm pressure of Maedhros' forearm rubbing him full. "I want... you... please..."

At last Maedhros lets go of the hand clutched between their bodies and tips Maglor's face up by the chin. "Do you?" He kisses him, and Maglor's eyes pinch closed with pleasure, but upon the backs of his lids is Daeron -- dark, deft, enchanting Daeron, quirking a smile, inviting, even as Maglor disentangles himself from the swirl of dancing bodies to follow his lord-brother to bed.

Maglor pushes hard against such thoughts. "Do you think me so wayward?" he teases, as he loops his arms around Maedhros' waist to work free the ties of his sash.

On a sudden, Maedhros pushes him off. "Go to him," he says.

"What?" Maglor staggers.

"Go to Daeron. I am certain he will not deny you."

There is no bitterness or deception in Maedhros' manner, and at that Maglor wonders. There has been no other between them since their exile; it was, until mere hours ago, unthinkable to Maglor that he could ever again desire another.

"But..." Maglor says. "You would sleep alone?"

Maedhros hates to sleep alone; does not sleep at all, Maglor knows, on the many nights they must spend apart, now they are lords of their own lands. Surely, Maedhros has not brought him so far merely to talk of defenses and alliances and send him to bed with Doriath's messenger. With Doriath's messenger, of all people! At that, Maglor almost laughs, for this present instruction is altogether contrary to habit, crude compared to the intricate steps Maedhros dances around those with power.

"I am content," he assures Maglor, and catches up to Maglor’s next thought, too, saying, "and I trust you not to dash all hope of alliance in a single night. Do prove my trust well-placed, won't you?"

Maglor nods, and Maedhros kisses the crown of his head. As Maglor makes to leave, Maedhros takes him by the hand. "One thing." Maglor turns. "Tomorrow, you are mine."

Daeron stirs awake, eyes closed but ears open — he has made a habit these past few days, upon first waking, to take note of the eccentricities of the birdsong here at the font of the Narog. Or perhaps, he muses, it is Melian’s birds, trilling harmoniously and swooping between the trees like shuttles across a loom, who are the outliers.

He inhales: a pleasing, warming scent enfolds him, like mulled berries and fennel. It seeps to where he is already heavy with the morning’s familiar swell; his prick twitches against his naked thigh, grazing the sheet draped over him. Daeron sighs — then his memories of the previous evening’s pleasures roll over him.

He is, at once, very much awake.

Yet he resists the impulse of his hand to reach below and relieve the ache between his thighs. Why, when there is someone so conveniently sprawled on the bedroll beside him who might assist?

He rolls to one side, facing Maglor, and exhales happily; strands of coal-dark hair flutter over Maglor’s neck.

“Good morning,” says Daeron. Maglor smiles with eyes still closed.

“Is it morning already?” Maglor says, and Daeron wants to drink the rich murmur of his voice. As he starts to lift himself from the bed to do so, he pauses a moment, sensing for any lessening of the intimacy they shared in the night. But no – he will not have his present delight tarnished by the changefulness of past lovers. Maglor is here, as enthrallingly beautiful as any Daeron has loved before (yes, even she), and he is his.

Daeron climbs atop him, deliberately sliding and pressing his hardness to Maglor’s taut thigh, and savours his lips. He feels drunk yet, though what little liquor he had the night before cannot possibly still linger in his blood; he is addicted to the softness of Maglor’s lips, the way they shift and seek in answer to his own – they kiss and kiss, and Daeron thinks he will have to learn to breathe through his skin, for it seems impossible that he will ever be able to cease kissing Maglor. Time dissolves around them, until it is nothing but lips and tongues, muscle and skin, hands, arms, legs, and the throb of blood and the rush of seed and oh how easily, how naturally they come together.

Afterwards, Maglor pushes thick, deft fingers through his hair to cup his skull. He is searching for something in Daeron’s eyes and Daeron longs to be able to show it to him, whatever it is.

But Maglor chuckles and says, “Are you like this with all your lovers?”

“What?” Daeron asks, startled to find Maglor’s mind in so different a place from his own.

“You are a true poet, Daeron, are you not? You make love as though the world is ending.”

Daeron’s heart dips, only a little, but he feels it all the same. Outwardly, he shows no sign of it: “And is it not? Is the world not in a continual state of moving towards its end?”

At that Maglor laughs fully, bright and sincere, and it dispels the brief chill in Daeron’s breast. “I do not know whether such a philosophy should make me sing in joy or weep in sorrow.”

“Why, sing in joy, always!” Daeron answers, and laughs to hear himself say it. Oft has he been accused of excessive melancholy, in his thoughts and music, since the War – what would his accusers think to see him now, limbs knotted in bright white linens with a Golodh prince, blissful as a fawn taking its first leaps upon a bed of niphredil?

They are kissing again, and Maglor’s fingers run over the planes and divots of Daeron’s body, and Daeron thinks he might just begin to sing, if only out of impatience with the limits of his corporeal body, that will not rise in answer to the desire of his heart.

When words do tumble from his mouth, they are not music but a mad, unconsidered request: “Leave with me.”

“Leave? Why?” Maglor asks, charmingly perplexed. “I have no desire whatsoever to leave this bed.”

“No, no,” says Daeron. “Come away with me. We will go… to the south, the woods– or the sea! Have you seen Beleriand’s shores? Oh, it is too long since I gazed upon the glistening Bay of Balar, heard the roll of Belegaer crashing upon the Cape!”

The corners of Maglor’s lips twitch into a fleeting frown. He tries to hide it, but the sadness does not leave his eyes.

“I cannot,” Maglor says, and shuffles out from under him.

“Well,” says Daeron, “perhaps it need not be something so grand. Of course, I cannot, in truth, run away as such, either – I would have long ago, if I could,” he says, half to himself, “but no matter. Let us take a little journey, a fortnight, when these festivities are ended?”

“Daeron,” Maglor says, exasperated but evidently making an effort to be gentle. “Please, say no more of this. I cannot. Let us be content with this, hm? Let us not ponder the future. As though the world were ending, yes? We make no plans, then. Come, kiss me again.”

Daeron does, and as tender and intoxicating as the morning’s second union is, the sensation of rapture, of limitless wonder, is lost.

The last golden light of the sun winks between the branches of Eithel Ivrin’s tall pines when Maglor finally makes his way to the tent he shares with his brother. He does not know if he is more afraid of finding Maedhros waiting for him with hurting, reproachful eyes, or of finding him gone, brooding somewhere as the forest darkens around him.

He is almost chagrined to find neither. What he finds is Maedhros seated quite happily in his chair, the ankle of one leg resting upon the knee of the other. His limbs form a table for a large sketchbook over which he is intently bent, a nub of charcoal scratching at the paper.

“You are back,” says Maedhros, factually. “I have been taken by a bout of inspiration.” His fingers swoop, left wrist smudging the charcoal as he drags it across the page. He dabs an emphatic dot before looking up at Maglor. His hair is askew, his shoulders bent, his expression blithe in a way that is altogether incongruous with the scarred, severe anatomy of his face.

“Oh?” says Maglor. It ought to please him, to see Maedhros’ mood so lifted, to see him creatively engaged, but it does not. It makes his skin prickle with concern. “What has inspired you?”

He huffs, smirks at Maglor, and Maglor knows he has seen through him. “If you are displeased because I did not spend my day pining after you, little brother, rest assured that I have been aching for you since you left.”

Maglor’s own ache reawakens at the confession, as it ever does at the slightest suggestion of his brother’s desire for him. His breath hitches imagining a prominent bulge hidden beneath the book across Maedhros’ thighs.

“What is it you are drawing?” Maglor asks, taking a few steps forward.

“Nothing.” Maedhros slams the book shut and tosses it on the ground. “Come here.” He spreads his legs and extends his hand in invitation. The shadows cast by flickering candlelight are more than enough to reveal that he is, indeed, aroused beneath his tights. The mystery of his brother’s artistic inspiration still plucks at Maglor’s mind (there is so little they hide from one another), but he cannot stop the urgings of his body at so tempting a picture. Maedhros knows it.

Maglor strides across the floor, straddles Maedhros’ splayed legs, and indulgently strokes him, feeling the shape of him through the thin fabric as he lowers himself into his lap. He hums, breathing heavily against Maedhros’ lips but not surrendering to his offered kisses. The cleft of his ass rocks over Maedhros’ shaft, and it does not take long for Maedhros to groan impatiently and seize him, left hand groping his hip and right arm hooked behind his back.

Once he has Maglor going at a pace that pleases him, Maedhros fumbles to free himself first, then Maglor. The angle is awkward, too tight, where he grips both their cocks in his hand. Maglor closes the circle with his own hand, fingers slotting together, and they pump and grind each other to an urgent climax that coats their hands and makes a mess of their garments.

Maedhros seizes Maglor by the jaw, smearing his neck with the sticky release between his fingers. His kiss is covetous, full of need, as Maedhros has ever been with him since their coming-together at Mithrim – but something has changed in Maglor. The aftermath of his pleasure is blunted, stretched as an old string: pluck it and it will sound, but its fibres hold no music.

Maglor pulls at his brother’s arm, trying to draw his hand away from his throat, but Maedhros only sucks harder at his lips, tongue plumbing his mouth, and Maglor submits to his rough handling until his brother is fully sated.

It is only right. Maedhros has been generous with him.

“I must go.” Maglor barely gasps the words before his lips are at Daeron’s mouth again.

“Then go,” Daeron challenges him, dipping his hips back against the moss-clad stone. Heat swirls in the pocket of space he has opened between them. Maglor thrusts forward to close it, whimpering as he grinds his erection against Daeron’s.

“Ai, Stars! You will make me come like this.”

“I am doing nothing,” Daeron says – but he is, nipping at Maglor’s ear and with his fingers drawing a slow circle on the soft patch of flesh above his buttock, where he has rucked up his shirt to feel bare skin.

Maglor spills with an unceremonious grunt that is, in that moment, the most erotic thing Daeron has ever heard and it carries him to a climax he had not even felt approaching, so occupied had he been with Maglor’s pleasure.

They sink to the ground in a tangle of limbs, chuckling and panting. Only now do they take the time to loosen each other’s clothing, appreciatively tracing the lines of their satisfied bodies.

“What have you done to me?” Maglor asks.

Daeron gathers his hands in his own, kisses the knuckles. “I might ask you the same, if I cared. But what does it matter? Does this not please you?”

It was not a real question, the answer being so plain to see, but Maglor sighs profoundly. The knot of their limbs loosens; Daeron’s throat closes. “What?” he asks, with a vulnerable tremor in his voice that is hateful to him.

“It does please me. It pleases me more than anything.” At this, Maglor squints as if it hurts him to admit it. “But Daeron: I am unfaithful. I have a lover.”

“Oh?” Daeron tries to sound surprised, though he has known from the first time he set eyes on him. How could a prince and minstrel so full of beauty and grace not have lovers aplenty?

“A lover, or a spouse?” Daeron has seen how these Golodhrim cling to a severed marriage. They might learn much from the Forsaken on how to carry on after separation without hope of reunion.

Maglor takes a pause before answering. Both, then. “A lover,” he answers. The spouse is not the one he fears to betray. “And you?”

“I have lovers.” Daeron shrugs. “But none who would begrudge me your pleasant company.” He will not deny there are benefits to Lúthien’s stubborn postponement of a marriage bond. It is practically a rule of the royal minstrel’s position to take lovers, even the king’s own daughter, should she desire him; but doubtless Thingol would take less kindly to a wayward law-son.

“That is well,” says Maglor. “I suppose the trouble is that my lover is… here, actually.”

“Oh,” Daeron says again, and this time he is taken unawares. Little that passes between others escapes his notice, a skill on which he prides himself, and he has not observed Maglor interacting with anyone in the way of a lover, even a secret one. Indeed, he can think of no one at this gathering not enmeshed in the same great net of blood relations all these Golodhrim seem to belong to.

“I came to you at his urging,” Maglor explains.

Well, thinks Daeron, only one ear trained on Maglor’s speech, if that is really so, then perhaps there is little choice among them but to take a lover from among one’s own kin.

“He knows,” Maglor continues. “Or, he knew at first, when I came to you.”

That memory of their first union flits pleasantly across Daeron’s thoughts and he smiles; brief, for he hastens back to the puzzle at hand. Who, then?

“I cannot keep myself from you, but I cannot continue to keep you from him.”

Daeron is not sure he wants to know.

“I want him to see us. Together.”

“Hm?” Daeron says, reeled back to attention like a fish who has not yet understood that the morsel in its mouth is a hook. “What?”

“I know he wishes to.” Maglor pulls a folded sheet of paper from beneath his half-unbuttoned surcoat. “At least, that is what I make of this.” He flattens the page, displaying it for Daeron. It is a sketch of two elves, naked and wound together in passion. One, face to the viewer and contracted in bliss, is certainly Maglor, and done by a hand that knows every line of his body precisely; a hand that loves him, flattering with every stroke. Daeron takes a closer look at the other elf. He is not so short as that, surely, but he recognises in the straight lines and glint, brought to life by a white smudge of chalk, his own hair.

Daeron has never seen erotic art of himself before. It awakens the same sort of excitement he gets from being on a stage. “Your lover drew us?”

“Yes. Though he did not show me this. I think he does not wish for me to know. Which is strange, for we keep nothing from each other.” Maglor says all this in a rush, then exhales a great gust of air, folding the picture back up and carefully tucking it into his shirt. “You are not angry,” he says, and the look on his face is one of such boyish innocence and relief that Daeron almost announces he loves him.

Instead, he laughs. “No, I am not angry.” He traces the line of Maglor’s jaw and kisses him. “I would not expect to have one so lovely all to myself.”

“But what you said before. About running away?”

“Oh, that.” Daeron smiles at hearing his fancies repeated back to him. “Who does not dream of running away? Ah, look not so.” He tweaks the corner of Maglor’s frown. “One day, perhaps, when there is nothing left to lose, I’ll run away with you.”

“I would like that,” Maglor says, but looks as though tears might spring to his eyes at any moment.

“Well.” Daeron scoots closer and wraps his arms around Maglor’s waist. “Not now. Now I must share you, it seems. I suppose, if you really wish to have him join us…”

“No, no, not that!” Maglor protests, and Daeron is relieved. “Ai, I am greedy, am I not? I do not think I could bear to let him touch you.”

“Yes, you are greedy. But, though I accept his existence, I do not think I could bear to see him touch you.”

Maglor climbs into his lap, wrapping his thighs around Daeron’s hips. They kiss. Daeron sets his hand over Maglor’s heart, feeling his pulse turn from anxious to passionate. Neither of them pushes the moment to any greater urgency. They savour each other.

Once settled into an embrace, Maglor says, with his chin hooked over Daeron’s shoulder, “Perhaps you need not see him at all.”

“Ah.” Daeron stiffens. Then stiffens again, elsewhere, as he considers the proposition. What would it be like to pleasure Maglor for an unseen audience? An artist, attentive eyes drinking in their beauty and later, maybe, preserving it forever on a great canvas? He clears his throat. “I am not sure.” But Maglor’s hand wends between their bodies and cups his swelling cock.

“No? You seem quite warm to the idea to me.” He pulls back, looks into Daeron’s eyes. “Please?”

Daeron has begged and pleaded, often. It seems to be a role he naturally slides into in matters of the heart. No lover has ever begged him for anything.

“Mmm,” Daeron hums. “If allowing your lover to watch us grants me access to more of you, I can endure it.”

He can more than endure it, he realises, allowing Maglor to dip him down onto the ground and already imagining a spectator hidden between the trees as he arches up to meet him.

“I am glad that you are drawing again,” Maglor says.

The spoon pauses halfway to Maedhros’ mouth. He tries to disguise his huff of surprise as a cooling breath of air on the soup. It is the first moment they have had alone in days — well, they might have had others, if Maglor had not, like a bee scenting nectar, flitted into Daeron’s embrace in every spare moment he had. And Daeron was always there, seeking him.

“You looked at my book.” Maedhros slips the spoon between his lips, swallows, then taps it against his bowl. “You might have asked.”

Bitterness tickles the tip of Maglor’s tongue and he bites it back. You might have told me, he would say, and let Maedhros see how it hurts him. Then: he too is keeping secrets. All is not right between them. But Maglor can make it so.

“I am sorry, Nelyo,” he says sweetly. “I was only curious, and there was a sheet slipping out of the book. It was a very beautiful drawing.”

Despite the grim set of his jaw, two rosy patches have blossomed on Maedhros’ cheekbones and Maglor’s apprehension thaws as his affection grows. How he loves to see the flush of emotion on his brother’s cheeks.

“A stimulating drawing,” Maglor continues. “Perhaps you would like to do another? From life?”

“What!” Maedhros shouts. Heat courses down Maglor’s spine and spikes at the base.

“Well, it’s just a thought I had,” Maglor says, massaging his brother towards acceptance even as he knows full well that he already has him, “that if you like the thought of us together — I mean, that is my assumption, I suppose, since you urged me to lay with him, and then you drew us, thus…” Maglor waves his hand before him. “If you wanted, I could invite him here, and say you are away.”

Maedhros eats in silence. To any other, it would appear that he has not heard Maglor at all; Maglor knows he has. He waits. Maedhros drinks down the last of the soup and folds his arms on the table.

“And he would not know I am here?”

“No,” Maglor says. No, he will not know it is you. It is not a lie. Maglor does not lie to Maedhros.

In truth, Maedhros wanted to follow Maglor to Daeron’s tent that very night he sent him away. He styled it, even to himself, as an act of generosity — but Maedhros is not generous, not with Maglor. He is jealous; he needs to be jealous.

So he has been a poor lover to Maglor these past years, who had at first, in the aftermath of his torment, burned with unslakable thirst to possess his brother entirely. Possessing him, he is not satisfied. Thus: Go to him, Maedhros urged. Maglor did, and Maedhros’ desire was roused to a conflagration that will not be sated.

This is how it comes to pass that he is concealed behind a silk bedsheet Maglor has hung between tent poles. He assures Maedhros that Daeron will not know him through the sheer fabric. For Maedhros’ convenience, Maglor has cut a hole at the level of his eyes.

There are whispers outside the tent, Sindarin spoken swift and low, for the most part indiscernible: already Maglor has learned the particularities of Iathrin speech. Maedhros does not expect Daeron’s teasing Quenya spoken in answer. Daeron hesitates, and Maedhros too wonders if he has erred in accepting this arrangement.

At last they enter. They begin to undress each other as soon as the tent flap shuts behind them. Maedhros seldom troubles with undressing more of himself than he must, and pays little mind to Maglor’s clothes, whether he keeps them on or not; it is by watching him bathe, or sleeping nude when the hearth burns hot, that Maedhros has learned Maglor’s body so well. It has not occurred to him to undress his brother as Daeron does now: tenderly, eyes and hands exploring each new part of him as it is revealed. As if seeing it for the first time; but it is not the first time, far from it, Maedhros realises. It is not that night and day alone that Maglor has spent with Daeron. Their touches are too intimate, patient in a way that can only come from familiarity.

Daeron pulls Maglor’s underclothes to his feet and his cock springs free, erect and seeking. Maedhros palms himself. He is swollen, and it takes little to coax himself full. He tents the loose attire he’s worn for the occasion; he pushes it down and pulls himself free.

Daeron is bare now, also, and they have arranged themselves upon the cot. Maglor takes Daeron’s cock in his mouth; one hand disappears between his thighs, but by the flex and pull of Maglor’s forearm, Maedhros knows where it has gone. There is no hurry in the way Maglor prepares him, sucking, licking at the head of Daeron’s cock as if savouring a sweet. It is elegant, erotic, and Maedhros eagerly pumps his shaft.

Daeron moans and threads long pale fingers through Maglor’s hair, guiding him up to his mouth. Their lips linger, and Maedhros hears the heavy breaths that mingle between them. Their mouths are locked when Maglor enters Daeron, a glide of his hips without effort or strain. He does not thrust but rolls against him like a wave. The sounds of Daeron’s pleasure are a tuneful slide, and the deep notes of Maglor’s ecstasy join with his.

Maedhros’ hand barely moves along his shaft, his task forgotten as he listens to the song of their coupling. Desire wilts without and within. Cooling sadness washes over him; were he prone to weeping, he would weep now. Instead, he sinks into the emptiness. Is carried away on its current.

It is a marred world that shaped Maglor’s desire for Maedhros; he has known this from the first time they came together, and he accepted it as an inevitable consequence of their blasphemy. But, even in forsaken Beleriand, the seeds of a greater theme may take root and break through the soil. The evidence is here, in the twined bodies of his brother and the minstrel of Doriath.

They are far too rapt in one another to notice Maedhros exit the tent and hurry into the welcoming dark.

Chapter End Notes

Golodh, Golodhrim are Sindarin for Noldo, Noldor, with a derogatory flavour.

They might learn much from the Forsaken on how to carry on after separation without hope of reunion. The Forsaken (Eglath) is what the Sindar called themselves.

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