Immigrants Chapter Eleven.
30 Jul 2012 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
curiouswombatImmigrants; chapter 11/12
Rated; 15
Word count for chapter; 3,100
Beta, as usual, SC
The sea was coming in, reducing the size of the ‘dance-floor’, but then this gave everyone the chance to spread further along the beach to quieter spots if such was their wont. The two elderly hobbits, accompanied by the wizard, had gone back to their homes.
Haldirin was unsure about what name to give the wizard. Adar, and most of the others, called him Mithrandir, but the hobbits, Gimli, and Naneth called him Gandalf. Haldirin had even heard him called Olórin, more than once tonight, and he seemed to answer readily enough to that too. Ithilienne had suggested that the two of them, and perhaps also Tharhîwon, should combine the two they heard most and call him Mithrandalf. The wizard had laughed loudly, when she suggested it, but he had not said no…
But, just at the minute, he was no longer around and so it was not an immediate concern. Still very much around, though, to Haldirin’s surprise, was Gimli.
The dwarf had retired to his bed by midnight on all the other occasions Haldirin remembered him attending solstice celebrations, in Eryn Ithil, but tonight he seemed in no hurry to leave. He had not been persuaded to take Lady Galadriel onto the ‘dance-floor’, although he had stood talking to her for some time. The Lady herself seemed to enjoy dancing – both Adar and Uncle Orophin had danced with her, as had others – although she did not seem to have collected any ribbons…
But Gimli – he had been asked to dance by almost all the Telerin ellyth who were here, and had actually done so with one or two. But then he had been approached by an elleth wearing midnight blue, her black hair twinkling with tiny gems scattered across it like carelessly flung stars, and Gimli had spent the last two hours or more in her company. Mainly sitting and talking, it must be said, but they were still talking and it was certainly well past midnight now!
As if he felt Haldirin’s eyes on him, which he quite possibly did, Gimli called him over.
“Haldirin, my old bones are beginning to feel just that; old,” he said. “The damp night air is making my joints creak and, despite the excellent company, I think I must find my bed.”
It was on the tip of Haldirin’s tongue to say that the missing bed would doubtless be in the bedroom of the hobbit-hole, but he had learnt that Gimli sometimes used words strangely (as did Naneth…) and so he did not mention it.
However,” Gimli continued, “I am sure you will be willing to take my dear friend here onto the sands to dance – and I think she might well be happy to accept a ribbon from you in due course.”
Haldirin looked at the elleth for confirmation – at least that she wanted to dance. She smiled at him and got to her feet.
“Than you for your time, Lord Gimli,” she said. “I look forward to more time in your company.”
Gimli kissed her hand and then waved the two elves in the direction of the musicians. They complied.
“I am sorry,” Haldirin said, “but although Gimli gave you my name, he did not introduce you to me…”
“Naltatamë,” she responded, “I am a smith in Lord Elrond’s household, and Lord Gimli and I seem likely to spend more time together.”
They began to dance, and had no more conversation as they got the measure of each other’s stride, and Haldirin ensured that his partner knew the steps to the dance. After a little, when it became clear that their bodies moved well together, they began to converse again. Naltatamë had never lived ‘over the sea’, as she put it. She had joined Lord Elrond’s household only a few years ago. Before that she had studied her smith-craft both in Tirion and at the forge of Lord Aulë himself. No wonder, thought Haldirin, that Gimli had been so impressed!
Haldirin wondered about asking her if she knew of the wagers, regarding Gimli, amongst the ellyth of King Olwë’s court but, before he did, she brought the subject up herself in her oddly accented Sindarin.
“Lord Gimli is fascinating to talk to… and I would not mind winning the wagers that have been made. I do not think there is any physical reason why one could not… perhaps I will try in a month or two!” She paused for an intricate part of the dance, “But I would not insult him if such is not his way?” There was a definite hint of question in her last words.
“Well it has not been his way until now…” Haldirin answered honestly.
Naltatamë shrugged, somehow managing to fit it into the music. “Ah. As we are to spend time together it may be best not to be too forward, then,” she said, and changed the subject.
At the end of the dance she acknowledged that she understood that should she allow, and appreciate, a kiss she should accept one of Haldirin’s ribbons, although there were none, yet, in her hair. The kiss turned out to be most satisfying – she twined her arms around Haldirin’s neck and opened her mouth to him, so that their tongues could perform their own dance, before accepting the ribbon with a smile.
Haldirin made as if to tie it into her hair, but she held out an arm and asked him, instead, to tie it around her wrist. She hoped, she told him, that there would be time to add more, but she had not thought about ribbons when she dressed her hair. And when Haldirin looked at her hair more closely than he had, even when dancing, he saw that the tiny jewels were all threaded onto a net so fine as to be almost invisible; a fascinating example of ‘smith-craft’ indeed.
…………….
As he danced, Legolas watched his friend make his way up from the beach towards his new abode with the hobbits. Gimli turned, and gave him a nod as a goodnight, before continuing up the path out of sight with a distinct spring in his step.
Had his friend been an elf, Legolas would have been sure that a certain black-haired elleth must surely be about to follow. But, as Gimli was a dwarf, this seemed unlikely and, sure enough, when Legolas looked about for her she was dancing with Haldirin. Even so, the length of time she had spent with Gimli was very interesting.
She looked vaguely familiar but Legolas could not place her. Her colouring implied that she was one of the Noldor, rather than Telerin. He could ask Haldirin, perhaps, but there was certainly time to dance with her to learn a little more, even if it did not end with him losing a ribbon to her. Especially as every time he looked for Ithilienne she was in the company of some ellon or another.
As he kissed the elleth he was with, Legolas noticed that ‘Gimli’s elleth’ was clearly participating in the ritual of ‘the hunt’ with Haldirin. ‘Even better,’ he thought. There was an art to having enough ribbons in your hair, at any such festival, to not run out too soon – whilst not having too many for the number of ellyth available – and Legolas was very good at the required calculations.
As Legolas expected, Haldirin happily introduced his partner and moved on.
“It is a pleasure to meet you properly, Prince Legolas,” Naltatamë said.
“That does sound as though we may have met improperly,” Legolas answered, “but I am sure I would remember such an encounter…”
“I have seen you in the distance,” she said, as they approached the dance-floor, “both at meals and around the grounds of Master Elrond’s home. But you are somewhat more noticeable than I am!”
Legolas looked at her questioningly. “I am sorry,” he said, taking her in his arms, “but I cannot place you.”
“My father was most anxious that I follow in his footsteps,” she replied, “and so my name does give away my place of work…”
“I fear I do not speak the language of the Noldor.” Legolas tried to make this simply a statement of fact, to sound neither proud of it (as his father always did), nor embarrassed.
“My apologies,” Naltatamë said, as Legolas spun her around, “Lord Gimli said Tindómë was your sister and her name made me assume…”
“The sister of my heart, rather than of the loins of my Lord Adar,” Legolas explained, glad of the opportunity to make this clear to as many as possible. “And her Quenyan name was given her by mortals in Ennor.”
“By mortals? I did not realise any of them knew our language!”
“It is a long story, involving Master Elrond’s family, and for another time. But now I crave your indulgence in explaining your own name…”
The elleth smiled. It lit up her face so that Legolas thought, if he was not drawn to Ithilienne like a pin to a magnet, he might be happy to be drawn to Naltatamë instead.
“Radiant smith,” she said. “Although whether this is because my father thought me a radiantly beautiful child, or whether he expected me to spend my life in the glow of the forge, I do not know. I have never dared to ask.”
Whilst mentally Legolas was thinking, ‘Aha! A smith! No wonder Gimli gets on well with her!’ he found himself saying, “It must be because of your smile.”
This earned him a slightly cool look and the response, “You, my lord Prince, are clearly an accomplished flirt!”
However it did not stop her responding with enthusiasm to his request for a kiss, at the end of the dance, and he added his ribbon to the one already around her wrist before he escorted her back to the food-laden tables. Afterwards he realised that he learnt no more of Naltatamë than he would have if he had asked Haldirin, but learning personally had been pleasurable.
Another hour passed; now there were only three beribboned braids left in his hair. Legolas had timed his approach to Ithilienne like the seasoned campaigner he was. There were only a few couples dancing now and the music had a slower, deeper cadence. Even those couples dancing at arms length managed to look, as Tindómë had once observed, as if they were engaged in foreplay.
Ithilienne was being escorted off the dance-floor by her most recent partner when Legolas intercepted them.
“Would you dance with me?” he asked.
She cocked her head slightly as if thinking about her decision. “I have danced a lot,” she said after a few moments, “and I had planned to rest a little.”
“We could have something to eat together, perhaps some wine,” Legolas suggested, “after we have danced.”
“M’kay. Why not? You would not mind, would you?” she enquired of her escort, who glanced towards Legolas before replying that, of course, he had no objections – he still had ribbons to lose…
It had taken no more than the merest lift of one of Legolas’ eyebrows to persuade the other ellon to defer.
Ithilienne placed her hand formally onto Legolas’ arm and he led her out to the centre of the flat sand area.
“I have not had the chance to speak to you all evening,” he began.
“I have been enjoying myself,” she answered, before he could say more.
“I rather hope you will continue to enjoy yourself whilst you are in my company,” he retorted.
Her expression became so like her mother’s that he wondered again, fleetingly, why he could be so physically drawn to one and not the other. “That really depends,” she told him, “on how hard you are going to work to persuade me to accept one of those last few ribbons!”
Legolas had a feeling that at least one part of his anatomy would be willing to get very hard, during the attempt, but he certainly was not going to let it work, or play, as part of the process. Not tonight, anyway.
They began to dance before he spoke again. “I hope you will not make me work too hard, my lady Ithilienne, but I hope that we can reach an enjoyable agreement…”
“Mmm. You might have to hold me a little closer, then,” was her riposte, and there was a definite glint in her eyes.
“It will be my pleasure,” he said; wondering, as his hands rested on that row of tiny pearl buttons in compliance with her instruction, how he was, somehow, not the person in charge of this situation.
He stopped thinking about it. He stopped thinking about the steps of the dance; they came naturally after so many years. He stopped thinking about anything at all and let his fëa drift.
There was something very right about the way his body and Ithilienne’s fitted together and moved in unison. Although he missed the constant deep hum of trees around him, the sense of moving through their song, now he was conscious of the song of sea and rocks as he had not been before. And there was a faint harmony at the edge of his reach that he had not experienced before, but he knew that he held the source of it in his arms.
He did not know how long they danced; sometimes close together, occasionally a little apart as the music dictated, but always in contact. He thought that, if it had felt right the last time they danced together like this, at mid-summer in Eryn Ithil, it felt even more right now.
Eventually there was a change in the music and it seemed as if both Legolas and Ithilienne shook themselves and took stock for a moment. Then, just as he dipped his head to claim his kiss, she reached up to him and pulled his head towards her so that their lips met by mutual agreement.
This was no gentle kiss for an elfling, no quick kiss to prevent desire showing, not even a sweet kiss of future promise such as they had shared at the summer solstice.
Oh yes, it was a kiss of future promise – but a promise of future desires fulfilled.
‘Where,’ he thought, ‘did she learn to kiss like this?’ Then he realised that it did not matter at all. Perhaps it was learnt from one, or many, or perhaps it simply came to her naturally… he did not care. It was sufficient that the kiss continued… and continued.
Eventually Legolas became aware of the music, of other elves around them, and drew the kiss to a close.
“About time!” said a laughter-filled voice and Legolas returned enough to the present to recognise Lithôniel and to know that she referred as much to the nature of the kiss as the ending of it.
Ithilienne looked slightly dazed, as if it had been more than she had expected, and Legolas thought he might look much the same.
“Ribbon…” a male voice prompted. “You are meant to give her a ribbon, my prince…” Galanthir.
“Unless you think he needs to do more before you accept it…” another male voice said, and Legolas realised that they stood surrounded by half a dozen others, maybe more.
He looked questioningly at Ithilienne. “May I present you with a ribbon?” he asked.
“Oh yes!” she answered.
As she took the ribbon from him the circle of elves clapped.
‘Were we that obvious?’ Legolas wondered.
They made their way towards the tables of food and drink. Legolas kept his hand on Ithilienne’s back and was conscious of all those tiny buttons, so close to each other that they almost touched, each one held in place with a loop of silk ribbon; he realised that he would fantasise about undoing them one by one for some time. The glance Ithilienne gave him, as fingers slid up and down over the buttons, made him wonder if, perhaps, that was exactly the response she had intended!
He filled a glass for her; she filled a plate with food. There were no chairs on the sands… he put his hand back where it had been (buttons – he might never think of buttons in the same way again) and asked if she would walk with him to the rocks nearby. She would.
He remembered that glimpse, scant nights ago, of her parents, aunt, and uncle together near the bonfire and moved in the other direction until they found a quiet spot. Soft sounds of others talking, or more, were around them here and there, the music still loud enough to hear but not loud enough to encroach, and the light of the bonfire enough to cast faint shadows that danced even as they themselves sat still.
Naltatamë had called him a flirt and it was certainly an art to which he was no newcomer. He had had no trouble inviting himself, so recently, into Tirineth’s bed. But right now he was not sure that flirting was quite the right path to take; he felt almost as disorientated and unsure as he had when they had landed on these shores.
He put an arm around Ithilienne’s shoulder. She nestled into him, just as she had as an elfling, yet not the same at all. They ate off the one plate and when their fingers touched they both let them linger.
Soon the plate was empty and they put it on the rock beside them. Legolas reached out a finger and tilted Ithilienne’s face towards him. They sat, simply looking at each other, before he kissed her again.
Parts of him, both hroar and fëa, wanted to do more – just as he could hear others doing round about them – but, for now, kissing was enough. Eventually Ithilienne pulled away and spoke.
“I want more… but not here, not right now… I know. And,” her fingers touched one of the two remaining ribbons in his hair, “it might be seen as a poor omen for this first Solstice if our Prince was not to lose all his ribbons before he leaps the fire!”
She was right. He felt himself grinning.
“Come on, then,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet. “But in a day or two will you come and walk along the shore with me under the stars?”
“Mmm… I guess so…” she answered, solemnly, but there was a glint in her eye that gave the impression she meant ‘Oh, yes, please!’ and her fingers remained entwined with his as they walked together back to the bonfire.
…………….
Disclaimer: The characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only, and all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkien.
Please point out any errors to me - and feedback is good, too!
Rated; 15
Word count for chapter; 3,100
Beta, as usual, SC
The sea was coming in, reducing the size of the ‘dance-floor’, but then this gave everyone the chance to spread further along the beach to quieter spots if such was their wont. The two elderly hobbits, accompanied by the wizard, had gone back to their homes.
Haldirin was unsure about what name to give the wizard. Adar, and most of the others, called him Mithrandir, but the hobbits, Gimli, and Naneth called him Gandalf. Haldirin had even heard him called Olórin, more than once tonight, and he seemed to answer readily enough to that too. Ithilienne had suggested that the two of them, and perhaps also Tharhîwon, should combine the two they heard most and call him Mithrandalf. The wizard had laughed loudly, when she suggested it, but he had not said no…
But, just at the minute, he was no longer around and so it was not an immediate concern. Still very much around, though, to Haldirin’s surprise, was Gimli.
The dwarf had retired to his bed by midnight on all the other occasions Haldirin remembered him attending solstice celebrations, in Eryn Ithil, but tonight he seemed in no hurry to leave. He had not been persuaded to take Lady Galadriel onto the ‘dance-floor’, although he had stood talking to her for some time. The Lady herself seemed to enjoy dancing – both Adar and Uncle Orophin had danced with her, as had others – although she did not seem to have collected any ribbons…
But Gimli – he had been asked to dance by almost all the Telerin ellyth who were here, and had actually done so with one or two. But then he had been approached by an elleth wearing midnight blue, her black hair twinkling with tiny gems scattered across it like carelessly flung stars, and Gimli had spent the last two hours or more in her company. Mainly sitting and talking, it must be said, but they were still talking and it was certainly well past midnight now!
As if he felt Haldirin’s eyes on him, which he quite possibly did, Gimli called him over.
“Haldirin, my old bones are beginning to feel just that; old,” he said. “The damp night air is making my joints creak and, despite the excellent company, I think I must find my bed.”
It was on the tip of Haldirin’s tongue to say that the missing bed would doubtless be in the bedroom of the hobbit-hole, but he had learnt that Gimli sometimes used words strangely (as did Naneth…) and so he did not mention it.
However,” Gimli continued, “I am sure you will be willing to take my dear friend here onto the sands to dance – and I think she might well be happy to accept a ribbon from you in due course.”
Haldirin looked at the elleth for confirmation – at least that she wanted to dance. She smiled at him and got to her feet.
“Than you for your time, Lord Gimli,” she said. “I look forward to more time in your company.”
Gimli kissed her hand and then waved the two elves in the direction of the musicians. They complied.
“I am sorry,” Haldirin said, “but although Gimli gave you my name, he did not introduce you to me…”
“Naltatamë,” she responded, “I am a smith in Lord Elrond’s household, and Lord Gimli and I seem likely to spend more time together.”
They began to dance, and had no more conversation as they got the measure of each other’s stride, and Haldirin ensured that his partner knew the steps to the dance. After a little, when it became clear that their bodies moved well together, they began to converse again. Naltatamë had never lived ‘over the sea’, as she put it. She had joined Lord Elrond’s household only a few years ago. Before that she had studied her smith-craft both in Tirion and at the forge of Lord Aulë himself. No wonder, thought Haldirin, that Gimli had been so impressed!
Haldirin wondered about asking her if she knew of the wagers, regarding Gimli, amongst the ellyth of King Olwë’s court but, before he did, she brought the subject up herself in her oddly accented Sindarin.
“Lord Gimli is fascinating to talk to… and I would not mind winning the wagers that have been made. I do not think there is any physical reason why one could not… perhaps I will try in a month or two!” She paused for an intricate part of the dance, “But I would not insult him if such is not his way?” There was a definite hint of question in her last words.
“Well it has not been his way until now…” Haldirin answered honestly.
Naltatamë shrugged, somehow managing to fit it into the music. “Ah. As we are to spend time together it may be best not to be too forward, then,” she said, and changed the subject.
At the end of the dance she acknowledged that she understood that should she allow, and appreciate, a kiss she should accept one of Haldirin’s ribbons, although there were none, yet, in her hair. The kiss turned out to be most satisfying – she twined her arms around Haldirin’s neck and opened her mouth to him, so that their tongues could perform their own dance, before accepting the ribbon with a smile.
Haldirin made as if to tie it into her hair, but she held out an arm and asked him, instead, to tie it around her wrist. She hoped, she told him, that there would be time to add more, but she had not thought about ribbons when she dressed her hair. And when Haldirin looked at her hair more closely than he had, even when dancing, he saw that the tiny jewels were all threaded onto a net so fine as to be almost invisible; a fascinating example of ‘smith-craft’ indeed.
…………….
As he danced, Legolas watched his friend make his way up from the beach towards his new abode with the hobbits. Gimli turned, and gave him a nod as a goodnight, before continuing up the path out of sight with a distinct spring in his step.
Had his friend been an elf, Legolas would have been sure that a certain black-haired elleth must surely be about to follow. But, as Gimli was a dwarf, this seemed unlikely and, sure enough, when Legolas looked about for her she was dancing with Haldirin. Even so, the length of time she had spent with Gimli was very interesting.
She looked vaguely familiar but Legolas could not place her. Her colouring implied that she was one of the Noldor, rather than Telerin. He could ask Haldirin, perhaps, but there was certainly time to dance with her to learn a little more, even if it did not end with him losing a ribbon to her. Especially as every time he looked for Ithilienne she was in the company of some ellon or another.
As he kissed the elleth he was with, Legolas noticed that ‘Gimli’s elleth’ was clearly participating in the ritual of ‘the hunt’ with Haldirin. ‘Even better,’ he thought. There was an art to having enough ribbons in your hair, at any such festival, to not run out too soon – whilst not having too many for the number of ellyth available – and Legolas was very good at the required calculations.
As Legolas expected, Haldirin happily introduced his partner and moved on.
“It is a pleasure to meet you properly, Prince Legolas,” Naltatamë said.
“That does sound as though we may have met improperly,” Legolas answered, “but I am sure I would remember such an encounter…”
“I have seen you in the distance,” she said, as they approached the dance-floor, “both at meals and around the grounds of Master Elrond’s home. But you are somewhat more noticeable than I am!”
Legolas looked at her questioningly. “I am sorry,” he said, taking her in his arms, “but I cannot place you.”
“My father was most anxious that I follow in his footsteps,” she replied, “and so my name does give away my place of work…”
“I fear I do not speak the language of the Noldor.” Legolas tried to make this simply a statement of fact, to sound neither proud of it (as his father always did), nor embarrassed.
“My apologies,” Naltatamë said, as Legolas spun her around, “Lord Gimli said Tindómë was your sister and her name made me assume…”
“The sister of my heart, rather than of the loins of my Lord Adar,” Legolas explained, glad of the opportunity to make this clear to as many as possible. “And her Quenyan name was given her by mortals in Ennor.”
“By mortals? I did not realise any of them knew our language!”
“It is a long story, involving Master Elrond’s family, and for another time. But now I crave your indulgence in explaining your own name…”
The elleth smiled. It lit up her face so that Legolas thought, if he was not drawn to Ithilienne like a pin to a magnet, he might be happy to be drawn to Naltatamë instead.
“Radiant smith,” she said. “Although whether this is because my father thought me a radiantly beautiful child, or whether he expected me to spend my life in the glow of the forge, I do not know. I have never dared to ask.”
Whilst mentally Legolas was thinking, ‘Aha! A smith! No wonder Gimli gets on well with her!’ he found himself saying, “It must be because of your smile.”
This earned him a slightly cool look and the response, “You, my lord Prince, are clearly an accomplished flirt!”
However it did not stop her responding with enthusiasm to his request for a kiss, at the end of the dance, and he added his ribbon to the one already around her wrist before he escorted her back to the food-laden tables. Afterwards he realised that he learnt no more of Naltatamë than he would have if he had asked Haldirin, but learning personally had been pleasurable.
Another hour passed; now there were only three beribboned braids left in his hair. Legolas had timed his approach to Ithilienne like the seasoned campaigner he was. There were only a few couples dancing now and the music had a slower, deeper cadence. Even those couples dancing at arms length managed to look, as Tindómë had once observed, as if they were engaged in foreplay.
Ithilienne was being escorted off the dance-floor by her most recent partner when Legolas intercepted them.
“Would you dance with me?” he asked.
She cocked her head slightly as if thinking about her decision. “I have danced a lot,” she said after a few moments, “and I had planned to rest a little.”
“We could have something to eat together, perhaps some wine,” Legolas suggested, “after we have danced.”
“M’kay. Why not? You would not mind, would you?” she enquired of her escort, who glanced towards Legolas before replying that, of course, he had no objections – he still had ribbons to lose…
It had taken no more than the merest lift of one of Legolas’ eyebrows to persuade the other ellon to defer.
Ithilienne placed her hand formally onto Legolas’ arm and he led her out to the centre of the flat sand area.
“I have not had the chance to speak to you all evening,” he began.
“I have been enjoying myself,” she answered, before he could say more.
“I rather hope you will continue to enjoy yourself whilst you are in my company,” he retorted.
Her expression became so like her mother’s that he wondered again, fleetingly, why he could be so physically drawn to one and not the other. “That really depends,” she told him, “on how hard you are going to work to persuade me to accept one of those last few ribbons!”
Legolas had a feeling that at least one part of his anatomy would be willing to get very hard, during the attempt, but he certainly was not going to let it work, or play, as part of the process. Not tonight, anyway.
They began to dance before he spoke again. “I hope you will not make me work too hard, my lady Ithilienne, but I hope that we can reach an enjoyable agreement…”
“Mmm. You might have to hold me a little closer, then,” was her riposte, and there was a definite glint in her eyes.
“It will be my pleasure,” he said; wondering, as his hands rested on that row of tiny pearl buttons in compliance with her instruction, how he was, somehow, not the person in charge of this situation.
He stopped thinking about it. He stopped thinking about the steps of the dance; they came naturally after so many years. He stopped thinking about anything at all and let his fëa drift.
There was something very right about the way his body and Ithilienne’s fitted together and moved in unison. Although he missed the constant deep hum of trees around him, the sense of moving through their song, now he was conscious of the song of sea and rocks as he had not been before. And there was a faint harmony at the edge of his reach that he had not experienced before, but he knew that he held the source of it in his arms.
He did not know how long they danced; sometimes close together, occasionally a little apart as the music dictated, but always in contact. He thought that, if it had felt right the last time they danced together like this, at mid-summer in Eryn Ithil, it felt even more right now.
Eventually there was a change in the music and it seemed as if both Legolas and Ithilienne shook themselves and took stock for a moment. Then, just as he dipped his head to claim his kiss, she reached up to him and pulled his head towards her so that their lips met by mutual agreement.
This was no gentle kiss for an elfling, no quick kiss to prevent desire showing, not even a sweet kiss of future promise such as they had shared at the summer solstice.
Oh yes, it was a kiss of future promise – but a promise of future desires fulfilled.
‘Where,’ he thought, ‘did she learn to kiss like this?’ Then he realised that it did not matter at all. Perhaps it was learnt from one, or many, or perhaps it simply came to her naturally… he did not care. It was sufficient that the kiss continued… and continued.
Eventually Legolas became aware of the music, of other elves around them, and drew the kiss to a close.
“About time!” said a laughter-filled voice and Legolas returned enough to the present to recognise Lithôniel and to know that she referred as much to the nature of the kiss as the ending of it.
Ithilienne looked slightly dazed, as if it had been more than she had expected, and Legolas thought he might look much the same.
“Ribbon…” a male voice prompted. “You are meant to give her a ribbon, my prince…” Galanthir.
“Unless you think he needs to do more before you accept it…” another male voice said, and Legolas realised that they stood surrounded by half a dozen others, maybe more.
He looked questioningly at Ithilienne. “May I present you with a ribbon?” he asked.
“Oh yes!” she answered.
As she took the ribbon from him the circle of elves clapped.
‘Were we that obvious?’ Legolas wondered.
They made their way towards the tables of food and drink. Legolas kept his hand on Ithilienne’s back and was conscious of all those tiny buttons, so close to each other that they almost touched, each one held in place with a loop of silk ribbon; he realised that he would fantasise about undoing them one by one for some time. The glance Ithilienne gave him, as fingers slid up and down over the buttons, made him wonder if, perhaps, that was exactly the response she had intended!
He filled a glass for her; she filled a plate with food. There were no chairs on the sands… he put his hand back where it had been (buttons – he might never think of buttons in the same way again) and asked if she would walk with him to the rocks nearby. She would.
He remembered that glimpse, scant nights ago, of her parents, aunt, and uncle together near the bonfire and moved in the other direction until they found a quiet spot. Soft sounds of others talking, or more, were around them here and there, the music still loud enough to hear but not loud enough to encroach, and the light of the bonfire enough to cast faint shadows that danced even as they themselves sat still.
Naltatamë had called him a flirt and it was certainly an art to which he was no newcomer. He had had no trouble inviting himself, so recently, into Tirineth’s bed. But right now he was not sure that flirting was quite the right path to take; he felt almost as disorientated and unsure as he had when they had landed on these shores.
He put an arm around Ithilienne’s shoulder. She nestled into him, just as she had as an elfling, yet not the same at all. They ate off the one plate and when their fingers touched they both let them linger.
Soon the plate was empty and they put it on the rock beside them. Legolas reached out a finger and tilted Ithilienne’s face towards him. They sat, simply looking at each other, before he kissed her again.
Parts of him, both hroar and fëa, wanted to do more – just as he could hear others doing round about them – but, for now, kissing was enough. Eventually Ithilienne pulled away and spoke.
“I want more… but not here, not right now… I know. And,” her fingers touched one of the two remaining ribbons in his hair, “it might be seen as a poor omen for this first Solstice if our Prince was not to lose all his ribbons before he leaps the fire!”
She was right. He felt himself grinning.
“Come on, then,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her to her feet. “But in a day or two will you come and walk along the shore with me under the stars?”
“Mmm… I guess so…” she answered, solemnly, but there was a glint in her eye that gave the impression she meant ‘Oh, yes, please!’ and her fingers remained entwined with his as they walked together back to the bonfire.
…………….
Disclaimer: The characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only, and all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkien.
Please point out any errors to me - and feedback is good, too!
