#'you ought to thank me kinslayer'

[ascalonsmercy]

euphie: hal, may i borrow your pillow?

hal: ? yes but. why

euphie: to take with me to dravania

hal: (i'm never seeing this pillow again)

[fuckingfinwions]

AU: In Noldorin culture, starting at his majority at age 50, an elf sexually serves his father. After all, so much was putting into raising the child, it’s only fair that he gets to see what came of it. It would be abhorrent for a father to physically force or to sexually torment his son, but the son is expected to come to his father’s bed whenever requested, until the son reaches his second majority (age 100), or marries and starts a family of his own.

This fulfills the “leather/rubber” square of my season of kink card.

Gil-Galad and Maedhros sat across from each other. They had met at an abandoned village halfway between the two camps so that Elrond and Elros could go to the large, safer force. The main negotiations had been completed by letter, but now the two commanders were finally seeing each other face to face. Both had left their swords outside to demonstrate truce, though there were guards close enough to make betrayal costly.

Gil-Galad said, “Thank you for releasing the boys. What did you want to speak with me about?”

“That’s all the warmth you have to welcome your father?” Maedhros replied.

“As you are a murderer who hasn’t spoken to me since I was twelve, yes.”

“I sent you away for your safety after the war seemed hopeless. Do you really wish you had fought alongside me these past fifty years?”

“No!”

“Anyway, that touches on what I wanted to speak with you about. I have missed you, though even without me you have grown into a strong king.”

“Thank you for the compliment.”

“I have also missed the chance to see how you’ve grown as a man, as the reflection of my lover and myself. I would have that tonight.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Why not? You are my son, and I have the right to you. I’m not even considering repayment for the decades you stayed away from me.”

“It is a perverted tradition, and you are worthy of nothing.”

“This has nothing to do with your opinions of my actions. It is a part of Noldorin tradition as much as the crown; you can’t claim one without the other.”

“What would my other father say of this if he were here? Would Fingon be as willing to bend me over the nearest scrap of furniture?”

“You’ve truly been among Sindar too long! The homage of a son to his father is perfectly reasonable and honorable, not merely the refuge of immoral creatures such as you consider me. Fingon and I discussed that we would raise you to understand Noldorin customs and responsibility, and he would be grieved that you turn your back on them.”

“If being among Sindar allowed me to see clearly what is unnatural and marred about having sex with someone you raised from a child, I am glad of it.”

“Unnatural! What could be more natural than to wish how to see the person you find most beautiful in the world combines with yourself? And if you object to sex with someone who raised you, that should make me more appealing rather than less.”

A terrible thought occurred to GIl-Galad. “If you think this way, I assume your brother does as well, and he raised Elwing’s sons. Were they forced to pay for their care the same way?”

“You are phrasing it in the worst possible way, but no. Though the twins call Maglor 'father’, he does not claim any rights over them. And besides, as Peredhel it is hard to know when they are of age.”

Gil-Galad let out a sigh of relief.

“You, though, are my son, and I am growing frustrated that you will acknowledge that but not your duties.”

“Why should I? What benefit will I get out of pretending you deserve anything from me?!”

“Benefit! Fine, then, if you want to cheapen yourself by bartering your body I can hardly stop you. First off, I won’t have my men shoot you tomorrow as you ride away, even though it would help me a lot for the Beleriand Noldor to have no king. Second, I will not tell your followers who curse my name whose son you are, nor will I tell Arafinwe either that you’re mine or that you have less respect for tradition and law than Feanor himself, even though it’s true.”

“So you put me in your bed through threats and blackmail.”

“It could have been out of your own desire and respect, but you decided that was not enough. I you need to be bribed with a treat though, I will tell you in the morning all the tactics that Morgoth has employed in the past five hundred years, so you can better defend against them.”

“You paying only after me? Hardly fair.”

“I am already paying for what is mine by right. I think you have heard quite well what happens to those who try to extort me.”

“Fine. For tonight, I will obey you, Father.”

“Good. Start by taking off your armor, I can hardly see the shape of you.”

Gil-Galad did so, setting each piece off to the side and wondering if this was all an attempt to get him vulnerable enough for an assassination. He struggled with the buckles on the back of his thighs, usually having a squire to help with them.

Maedhros approached, and Gil-Galad tensed. Maedhros undid the buckles that Gil-Galad had been having trouble with, then moved upwards. Maedhros kissed the back of Gil-Galad’s neck as he undid the buckles on his shoulders.

When Gil-Galad was down to his tunic and hose, Maedhros said “very good. Help me with mine now; as I’m not wearing full plate it should be faster.”

Gil-Galad pulled the mail tunic over Maedhros’s head, and wondered aloud, “Even with each other’s help, are we going to be able to put all this back on?”

Maedhros gave an uncaring shrug once he was down to his leather riding pants and jerkin. “Probably not.”

“But people will know!”

“Maglor will guess, but no one else knows you’re my son. You can say that we were working late into the night and sleeping in armor is uncomfortable. Or you can say that the vile kinslayer threatened you into sex, I don’t particularly care. Just know that if anyone tries to avenge your honor their death will be on your conscience.”

“Are you-” Gil-Galad bit off the comment he was going to make. “Don’t joke about that tonight; not if you want me to stay polite.”

“If you inherited the family temper, you ought to practice controlling it more, especially as a king,” Maedhros chided. “But very well.”

Maedhros stepped back and looked at  Gil-Galad; he made a pretty picture. His clothes had been disheveled by the armor’s removal and Gil-Galad had not bothered to put them back in place.

“You look pretty, but I’m sure I’ll enjoy what’s under the clothes even more. Undress for me, slowly.”

Gil-Galad began to unlace his shirt. He looked Maedhros in the eye for a moment, then hastily glanced away. Once the shirt was unlaced at the neck he lifted it a few inches, paused to glance at Maedhros without making eye contact, lifted it an inch more and paused again. Maedhros was about to yell in frustration when Gil-Galad yanked the shirt up until was all bunched between his nipples and chin and wiggled his shoulders, perhaps to show of their breadth.

Gil-Galad was so obviously nervous that he nearly got his arms stuck in the shirt, but Maedhros was far too distracted to help. Maedhros had been right about how much he would enjoy seeing his son’s body. The breadth in the shoulders was all Fingon, but light skin dotted with freckles was barely a shade darker than Maedhros’s own. Gil-Galad’s height came from him as well, and that lovely chest several inches closer to Maedhros’s gaze than when he was with Fingon.

Their similar heights also made Gil-Galad’s lack of eye contact extremely obvious. He wasn’t looking up from his lashes and playing the ingenue, but rather staring at a fixed point a few inches past Maedhros’s left ear. It couldn’t be the ear itself, as that had been gone for centuries, and most people didn’t find it’s lack interesting after a moment or two of shock.

“There’s no need to be nervous. Even if I’m not your first choice of lover, I assure you that I will not cause you pain and have every intention of bringing you pleasure alongside my own.”

Gil-Galad blushed and mumbled for a moment.

“What was that?”

“Not my first choice, but my first all the same.”

“Really? You’re a virgin?”

“Yes. It hasn’t seemed worth the headache pursuing anyone.”

“Are there none who pursue you?” Maedhros asked as he walked closer.

Gil-Galad shook his head.

“You mean that a beautiful, brave, noble young man such as yourself has not yet been recognized as the treasure you are?” Maedhros was now standing with his clothed chest less than an inch from Gil-Galad’s bare one, still refraining from touching. He leaned close and whispered in his son’s ear, “That is a travesty I will thoroughly make up for tonight.”

Gil-Galad shivered and turned his head to look Maedhros in the eye. Maedhros held his gaze for only a moment before leaning in still further, capturing his lips and pressing against his front.

Gil-Galad had remained soft until now, but the leather laces rubbing against his chest began to stir him. He reached for them to try and get the two of them back on equal footing, but Maedhros caught his hand.

“Lately, I am more beautiful while clothed. You are magnificent though, and I expect I’ll like what’s under your trousers even more. Take them of; I want to see all of you,” Maedhros said, backing up a few inches so Gil-Galad could have room.

Gil-Galad did. The tent was chilly, and he leaned back towards Maedhros as soon as possible. His cock brushed against Maedhros’s thigh, the leather sticking and releasing.

“You certainly get the length from me, but that curve is all Fingon. I wonder if liking your balls played with is a family trait as well.” Maedhros reached down with his right arm, the left being occupied tracing patterns on Gil-Galad’s back. Maedhros wore an odd sort of glove on the handless wrist, but he had a lot of practice and was very skillful with it. He caressed Gil-Galad’s sack, letting the leather glove drag along the sensitive skin while never pressing too hard.

Gil-Galad moaned.

“It seems so,” Maedhros said, drifting his fingers lower as his right arm maintained its place.

Gil-Galad started forward when his father’s fingers found their goal. Even one finger was more than he had ever had inside him, and he was scared of how large a cock would feel.

Maedhros said, “Deep breaths, relax and just focus on what you’re feeling right now.”

Gil-Galad let his head rest on Maedhros’s shoulder and did so, inhaling the musky scent of the leather overlaid with the oil worked in to keep it clean. It was heady.

Maedhros was starting to sweat, but he had no intention of undressing beyond what was necessary, and not until the time it was necessary. He let the sweat run down his face and into his collar as he trailed kisses across his son’s face.

Gil-Galad was practically overwhelmed with sensation. The finger inside him had found a spot that made him see stars. Every time he tried to move away his cock rubbed against the firm leather of Maedhros’s pants, or against the sleeve where Maedhro’s arm was still toying with his balls. The kisses were a light contrast, until Maedhros began kissing his lips as well.

Gil-Glad came the moment is father’s tongue parted his lips. He threw back his head and moaned. Maedhros looked sweaty but still fully dressed as if he had come in from the training yard - with the exception of a very obvious white stain on one thigh and halfway up his belly. Gil-Galad thought he could have come again from the sight alone.

“I’d say this night is off to a very good start,” Maedhros remarked, making no move to wipe away the mess.

[thebluelemontree]

SanSan time! So in ASOIAF we get the Hand’s Tourney scene with Sansa & Sandor, and the whole “he was no true knight” moment. It seems like Sandor is still thinking she’s just a “little bird” here - but later, her father as Hand attaints Gregor, stripping him of his titles for his violent crimes. How do you think this makes Sandor feel about Sansa & his perceived seriousness of her moral ideals, considering his trauma re: Gregor being anointed and his other crimes covered up by everyone but Ned?

I don’t think Sandor was ready at the time to draw any positive conclusions between Sansa and her father, because his cynicism always gets in the way of that.  While her compassion made him take notice, he doesn’t regard her beliefs as a good thing.  To him, they are still woefully naive and a weakness that will only lead to being victimized by the strong and cruel.  If Sansa is so ill-prepared for the brutality and bleakness of reality, well, he would point a very judgemental finger at her parents for that.  This is not to say Sandor wasn’t quietly making observations about Ned, because I do think a few books in we see subtle indications that Ned’s character and decision to bring Gregor to justice perhaps did make an impression after all.  And I think it’s his experience with Sansa that causes him to have a more charitable conception of Ned in hindsight rather than Ned influencing his view of Sansa.         

It’s just that Sandor requires a lot of evidence over time before he will consider altering his opinions.  He sees exactly what he expects to see, so his point of view is always validated.  It takes more than just Sansa saying “he was no true knight,” as groundbreaking as that moment was.  It’s precisely that fact that makes him want to work harder at trying to find the cracks in Sansa’s idealism to prove that it can’t be real.  It’s only until the conclusion of the Blackwater scene that Sandor can finally accept that she is sincere in her beliefs by treating him with compassion when he least deserved it.  To him, Sansa is such an anomaly that the idea of anyone else being that authentic and principled is an even bigger stretch of the imagination than she is.   

And what experience does Sandor have with fathers doing right by their children?  None.  His own father covered up Gregor’s vicious attack and made him uphold the lie.  Then he’s a witness to Tywin and Robert Baratheon’s parenting.  Sandor always initially gives his life experiences more weight than any counterevidence he saw from Ned or Sansa.        

We are given a glimpse of Sandor’s reaction upon hearing the news that Beric Dondarrion was sent by Ned to put down Gregor Clegane through Littlefinger:  

Robert was in a fury [over the loss of the white hart], until he heard talk of some monstrous boar deeper in the forest. Then nothing would do but he must have it. Prince Joffrey returned this morning, with the Royces, Ser Balon Swann, and some twenty others of the party. The rest are still with the king.“

“The Hound?” Ned asked, frowning. Of all the Lannister party, Sandor Clegane was the one who concerned him the most, now that Ser Jaime had fled the city to join his father.

“Oh, returned with Joffrey, and went straight to the queen.” Littlefinger smiled. “I would have given a hundred silver stags to have been a roach in the rushes when he learned that Lord Beric was off to behead his brother.”

“Even a blind man could see the Hound loathed his brother.”

“Ah, but Gregor was his to loathe, not yours to kill. Once Dondarrion lops the summit off our Mountain, the Clegane lands and incomes will pass to Sandor, but I wouldn’t hold my water waiting for his thanks, not that one… “  – Eddard XII AGOT

Granted Littlefinger is framing this information in a certain light to pique Ned’s paranoia as he’s been doing throughout their interactions.  Ned just tipped his hand as to who he’s worried about and Littlefinger ran with it, making it seem like Ned just crossed Sandor personally.  Early on, Sandor is still invested in the idea that killing his brother is the only way to end the pain of his trauma.  Not that I think that he genuinely wants to be a kinslayer, but keeping the revenge fantasy alive is a coping mechanism that Sandor doesn’t want to be taken from him.  I have no doubt that Sandor did go to Cersei immediately to discuss the situation, but there’s a lot more going on here.  This is going to be a long recap and a good deal of rambling.  You have been forewarned. 

At the inn at the crossroads, Catelyn arrests Tyrion as a person of interest in the assassination attempt on Bran based on Littlefinger’s claim of who won the Valyrian steel dagger.  She takes Tyrion to Lysa in the Eyrie, holding him prisoner.  Word of Tyrion’s arrest reaches King’s Landing via Yoren.  In retaliation, Jaime Lannister and his men attack Ned Stark in the streets, leaving Ned with a badly broken leg.  Ned is unconscious with a fever for “six days and seven nights.”  When he awakens, he tries to speak to Robert about the conflict with the Lannisters, but Robert will not hear of it.  The situation is escalating with both Riverrun and Casterly Rock calling their banners in anticipation for war.  Robert decides he’d rather go hunting than deal with this mess, tells Ned they should just simply stop fighting and leaves the next day.  Thanks, Robert.  

Ned is back to holding court as Hand and dealing with official business.  Marq Piper and Karyl Vance, Hoster Tully’s bannermen, show up to accuse the Lannisters of sending Gregor Clegane to attack villages in the Riverlands under the guise of common brigands.  They brought with them the few remaining survivors of the attacks to testify that despite the lack of sigils or banners, these brigands were definitely outfitted like proper knights.  They had war horses, good weapons and armor, and their inhumanly large leader couldn’t be anyone else other than the Mountain.  Ned believes them and suspects what Tywin may be trying to accomplish:  “should Riverrun strike back [openly attacking Tywin’s soldiers or bannermen], Cersei and her father would insist that it had been the Tullys who broke the king’s peace, not the Lannisters. The gods only knew what Robert would believe.”  The ruse gives Tywin plausible deniability of being responsible, but it is flimsy enough so the Riverlanders to take the bait.  There’s no guarantee that Robert, the weak king that he is, wouldn’t cave under pressure to side with his in-laws.  We also learn later that Tywin was counting on Ned leading his forces personally to come to the aid of his wife’s family.  Away from King’s Landing, Ned could be killed, captured, or traded for Tyrion.  Either way, the Starks would be removed from power; however, Ned’s leg was broken during the street fight with Jaime, who knew nothing of his father’s plan.  

So Ned sends Beric Dondarrion to bring down Ser Gregor for his crimes against the villagers in the name of the king’s justice, thwarting Tywin’s provocation of Riverrun to retaliate.  By putting Robert’s stamp of approval on Gregor’s death sentence, he’s also gambling that this will position the king to side against his in-laws later.  You know, when he finally gets Robert to have that big talk about his wife and kids.  Sigh. 

“Lord Tywin is greatly wroth about the men you sent after Ser Gregor Clegane,” the maester confided. “I feared he would be. You will recall, I said as much in council.”

“Let him be wroth,” Ned said. Every time his leg throbbed, he remembered Jaime Lannister’s smile, and Jory dead in his arms. “Let him write all the letters to the queen he likes. Lord Beric rides beneath the king’s own banner. If Lord Tywin attempts to interfere with the king’s justice, he will have Robert to answer to. The only thing His Grace enjoys more than hunting is making war on lords who defy him.” – Eddard XII, AGOT.

Ned sends Ser Robar Royce to Robert’s hunting party to inform the king (and Yohn Royce) of Dondarrion’s posse and Gregor’s attainment/death sentence.  Fast forward to Robert on his deathbed, where he voices his displeasure with Ned putting him in a difficult spot with his wife’s family.  

“Ah, fuck you, Ned,” the king said hoarsely. “I killed the [boar], didn’t I?” A lock of matted black hair fell across his eyes as he glared up at Ned. “Ought to do the same for you. Can’t leave a man to hunt in peace. Ser Robar found me. Gregor’s head. Ugly thought. Never told the Hound. Let Cersei surprise him.” His laugh turned into a grunt as a spasm of pain hit him. – Eddard XIII, AGOT.

Robert admits to Ned that he never told Sandor himself.  Surprise, Robert dodged an uncomfortable conversation and intended on leaving that task to Cersei so he could get back to having a good time.  Because Sandor returned with Joffrey and the Royces, he most definitely heard the news through them.  Why does this detail matter?  Well, if you were Sandor, wouldn’t you be irked that the king didn’t have the basic courtesy (or balls) to tell you himself?  The natural progression of that conversation would be discussing what that means for Sandor’s future, the inheritance of Clegane lands, and his standing with the Lannisters during this conflict.  But Robert doesn’t want to touch that topic with a ten-foot pole.  What I’m saying is, at that moment, he’s probably more pissed at Robert than anyone else.  Following that would be Ned’s decision interfering with one of his primary coping mechanisms.  So Sandor marches off straight to Cersei where he was probably told of Gregor’s purpose in the Riverlands and assured that Ned’s order would come to nothing.  Indeed, Gregor was ready for Donddarion, ambushing his party from all sides at Mummer’s Ford, soundly defeating them.  Meanwhile, Cersei was already making moves to remove both Ned and Robert.  But how did Sandor feel about all this? 

The grey light of dawn was streaming through his window when the thunder of hoofbeats awoke Eddard Stark from his brief, exhausted sleep. He lifted his head from the table to look down into the yard. Below, men in mail and leather and crimson cloaks were making the morning ring to the sound of swords, and riding down mock warriors stuffed with straw. Ned watched Sandor Clegane gallop across the hard-packed ground to drive an iron-tipped lance through a dummy’s head. Canvas ripped and straw exploded as Lannister guardsmen joked and cursed.

Is this brave show for my benefit, he wondered. If so, Cersei was a greater fool than he’d imagined. Damn her, he thought, why is the woman not fled? I have given her chance after chance … – Eddard XIV AGOT

He’s right there under Ned’s window, mocking and intimidating him.  If there was any tiny glimmer in Sandor that maybe Gregor would be finally held accountable for any of his crimes, it was almost immediately overshadowed by his cynicism and confirmation bias.  Knowing that Ned’s goose is cooked, Sandor would think Ned a great, naive fool for not understanding how the world really works and how outmatched he is.  His worldview is validated yet again by the cunning of his masters.  The only thing he can do is attempt to cure Sansa of the same infirmity before its too late for her. 

Just before the Blackwater battle, Sandor brings up her father and tries to put some dents in his image to argue his points.  For a little context, Sandor was alone on the roof of the Red Keep until Sansa showed up.  We can infer with his anxieties about the wildfire that Sandor was up there contemplating his own mortality, which is why he goes so particularly hard in needling Sansa.  It seems as if Sandor must have been in the middle of some pretty intense brooding.  If he dies in the battle by fire no less, it is in the thankless service of awful people, and Gregor still goes on living and unpunished.  If this is how it all ends, well, it’s pretty depressing and of course, as he should have always expected.  And here Sansa is still insisting on her idealistic worldview. He goes for a low blow.  In that process, he reveals his anger and trust issues with fathers.   

She hated the way he talked, always so harsh and angry. “Does it give you joy to scare people?”

“No, it gives me joy to kill people.” His mouth twitched. “Wrinkle up your face all you like, but spare me this false piety. You were a high lord’s get. Don’t tell me Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell never killed a man.”

“That was his duty. He never liked it.”

“Is that what he told you?” Clegane laughed again. “Your father lied. Killing is the sweetest thing there is.” He drew his longsword. “Here’s your truth. Your precious father found that out on Baelor’s steps. Lord of Winterfell, Hand of the King, Warden of the North, the mighty Eddard Stark, of a line eight thousand years old … but Ilyn Payne’s blade went through his neck all the same, didn’t it? Do you remember the dance he did when his head came off his shoulders?” – Sansa IV, ACOK.

Of course, Ned must be a liar because his father was.  He’s got to be no different than Tywin, the high lord he knows best.  All fathers and killers are the same.  This is the truth as he sees it:  those on top, who hold near-godlike power of life and death over their subjects, secretly enjoy exercising that power behind a virtuous countenance.  Does Sandor honestly believe this about Ned, or is he trying really hard to convince himself of that?  Because for a flickering moment there, it almost sounds like a part of Sandor thinks of Ned in a grand, larger-than-life image before he pauses in thought…  

And since he’s the one who brought up Ned and his execution, he also can’t deny that he witnessed a man condemning himself as a traitor in exchange for the safety of the daughter the Lannisters held hostage.  He did the very thing his own father would not do:  endure the public shame and stigma for love of his child.  That is proof that Ned’s honor wasn’t just about his public image, which surely didn’t go unnoticed by someone sensitive to such things, whether he was ready to accept that or not.  That Ned wasn’t just merely outmatched by more cunning players, he was the victim of treachery and deceit, failed by a negligent king uninterested in dealing with corruption.  While he still does think Ned a fool, there’s a sense that Sandor has adjusted to thinking of him as a decent, honorable, and tragic sort of fool, much like his daughter.  What good did that integrity do him?  None.  The monsters won.  Illyn Payne still took his head off while he and his daughter watched.  Did you catch how the detail of Ned’s twitching limbs was burned into Sandor’s memory, the same one that plagued Sansa’s nightmares?  Yeah, it affected him too.  So I do think Sandor is trying to convince himself that Ned was actually a phony and a shitty person because Sandor doesn’t want to empathize with anyone and yet finds himself doing so anyway.  Like with Sansa, caring* means having confused and conflicted feelings that force him to re-examine his own life.  Add to the fact that Sandor is also the child of a murdered father.  I could see a young Sandor having very complicated feelings about mourning his own massive disappointment of a father if he allowed himself to mourn him at all.  I don’t see how those memories could not be dredged up.       

* I’m still debating whether or not “caring” is too strong a word in regards to Ned.  Let’s just say that upon later reflection, I think certain things about Ned’s life and death resonated with Sandor.    

It’s a very small, but not unremarkable shift considering how much of a jaded idealist cynic Sandor is.  Death probably also has a way of memorializing Ned in a similar way to how separation causes Sandor to reframe Sansa’s courteousness as something he highly esteems; however, Sandor just can’t say that he was wrong these things openly, so you have to read between the lines.  Later while telling Arya of his intention to return her to Catelyn and Robb, Sandor says he’s willing to wager that Robb won’t kill him:

If he doesn’t take me, he’d be wise to kill me, but he won’t. Too much his father’s son, from what I hear. – Arya IX, ASOS.

What Sandor is hoping for first and foremost is for Robb to take him into his service, right after stating that he’s done with loathsome and unappreciative masters.  In an indirect way, it is an admission that Ned, Sansa, and the other Starks are not just different, but better.  Still foolish because it would be “wiser” to kill someone like him, but definitely better.  Sandor assumes Robb will be pointing his army toward King’s Landing to free Sansa, so he believes his Lannister intel will make him a valuable asset.  “Maybe I’ll even kill Gregor for him, he’d like that.“  What’s also interesting is that he fantasizes about changing Robb’s negative opinion and winning his favor by taking down Gregor for him (in the name of the king’s justice), essentially fulfilling the duty Ned charged Dondarrion with.  While he may think he’s got one over on Robb and his long-awaited revenge will be the cherry on top, his wording points to a subconscious desire to please and serve Ned through his stand-in eldest son.  That he wants a chance to earn positive recognition from a worthy king, someone who Sansa also loves and admires.  The thought eases the pain of his failures and screw-ups regarding her during the Blackwater.  Except this goes up in smoke with the Red Wedding.  

I don’t know if in the future Sandor will ever have any lines where he openly and positively speaks of Ned, but that would be something I would love to see.  Since I am sure he and Sansa are bound to reunite, it would probably come up then.  Or Ned’s presence could be quietly felt in the continuation of Sandor’s arc through his choices and actions.  Or it could be both.  We just have to wait until Winds to find out.                                                  

[sweetteaanddragons]

10. Being the Designated Sane One 38. Elrond and Gil-Galad 60. Surprise Me!

In which Gil-Galad and Elrond take turns being the sane one. Elrond is better at it.

Everyone else had left the command tent to pursue either sleep or other duties. Only Gil-Galad and Elrond remained. Gil-Galad because he couldn’t quite tear himself away from glaring at the map quite yet, Elrond . . . Come to think of it, Elrond was probably there to pointedly remind Gil-Galad that he was still glaring at the map. Elrond had taken to doing things like that more and more lately, and Gil-Galad had yet to find a polite way of telling him he got enough worried frowns from Círdan without Elrond joining in.

Possibly it was proving so difficult because Elrond was just so helpful and efficient about it that it was hard for Gil-Galad to entirely convince himself that he actually wanted him to stop, no matter how snappish it still made him. It helped, too, that Elrond was younger than him; he didn’t feel as if he was trying to be made a child again, only a gentle, persistent concern.

A cup of water was placed at his right hand without Elrond giving him a chance to refuse it. He drank it without thinking and only then turned his glare on Elrond. “I’m fine.”

“Hmm?” Elrond looked up innocently from the papers he was pretending to examine. “Of course you are. Who’s said otherwise?”

Gil-Galad snorted and turned back to the map before silently admitting to himself that he was being unfair. He couldn’t keep snapping at Elrond for the crime of being helpful. It was just . . .

He traced a line on the map, darting it between the little markers representing armies. It was deceptively easy.

“Sometimes I just want to ride out and end this,” he muttered. “No more petty fighting for every inch of ground. Just one simple charge, like Fingolfin and Finrod.”

When he looked up, Elrond had gone very, very still. “That didn’t work out so well when they tried it,” he said carefully.

“No,” Gil-Galad conceded with a sigh, locking painful childhood memories away. “But it’s tempting, nonetheless.”

“More tempting than actually living to see the Long Defeat at last defeated in turn? More tempting than learning what it is to live in peace? More tempting than staying with what remains of your family? That’s not you talking, Gil-Galad, it’s - “ Elrond suddenly checked his passion and returned to himself. “It’s the Enemy,” he said quietly. “It’s always the Enemy. There’s a better way, my king. You know that.”

“I think it is just my own impatience, actually,” he admitted with a rueful smile. “Though perhaps there is a hint of his despair in it too. I will guard against it better, I promise you.”

Elrond seemed much relieved, even as he flinched a little at the last words.

Gil-Galad couldn’t help but wonder if the Enemy was what Elrond had at first intended to say.

“No,” Gil-Galad said immediately upon walking into his infirmary to see what had so occupied his herald’s time of late. “Absolutely not.”

The feverish mutterings from the kinslayer on the bed continued uninterrupted. The healer beside him, however, looks up with wide, pleading eyes. “Gil-Galad - “

“No. He’s not some beaten dog trained to fight that you can coax into recovery and better behavior, Elrond! He’s one of the most dangerous elves yet living, and Valar know he’s shown little inclination to restrain himself!”

Elrond looked down at the fevered figure on the bed, currently calling out for his parents in frightened Quenya.

Gil-Galad stubbornly did not do likewise. “Even if he’s not dangerous at the moment,” he conceded through gritted teeth, “the whole point of this exercise you’ve undertaken is to make him better as I understand it, at which point he will be dangerous again. Unless this is actually some slow poisoning campaign I’m unaware of?” He wasn’t sure how he’d feel about it if it was. On the one hand, Elrond was certainly entitled to justice.

On the other hand, Elrond was also often responsible for Gil-Galad’s own healing, and no matter how much he trusted his cousin, knowing him to have an inclination to poison would make that a rather more awkward experience.

But of course not. Elrond’s eyes were flashing with outraged feeling, and Gil-Galad bit back a sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “You have to see my concern.”

“I have the matter well in hand,” Elrond said coldly. “And why should he prove a danger here? They only ever fought their kin in pursuit of one goal, and sacking Lindon will not help him with it.”

“Hurting you might.”

“How? Who would carry the message to my father? How would my father pay the ransom without breaking the Valar’s ban?”

“Just because you’ve convinced yourself of that - “

“He’s convinced himself of that,” Elrond said in a rare interruption. “And as long as he sees a way around the Oath, he will not act on it, even if he were in any condition to do so.”

He wanted to shake his cousin. “Surely you can see how unhealthy this is.”

“His wounds? Of course.”

“Your attachment. You know what he did.”

“Better than you do.”

Gil-Galad struggled to find the words to express what was boiling up within him, but rage would not serve him now. Reason might. “When you first came back to us,” he began slowly, “you know what I feared you might have endured. Deprivation. Cruel hurt. And I was relieved to find that you had not, or at least none deliberate and none that the rest of us had not in those last terrible days.”

Elrond nodded stiffly.

“But it became increasingly clear that you still bore things that you ought not to have been asked to bear. When you came to us, you were intimately familiar with how to share burdens and ease hurt. How to soothe pain of every description and ward off ensnarements of the mind. You helped them stay sane.”

Elrond didn’t deny it.

“You were a child,” Gil-Galad reminded him. “That should never have been your job.”

“There are a lot of things that should never have been,” Elrond said with sudden weariness. “What of it? They did not thrust us into the role if that is what you think. We wanted to help, and none of us would have been served by them falling further. No, it was not right. Leaving us alone in a burning city would not have been right. Not attacking the city would have been right, but with their Oath so strong upon them, I do not know how much longer that would have even been possible. There is much in this Marred world that is not right. Forgiveness is not part of that Marring; nor is loving kinsmen, no matter how distant or how formerly estranged. Nor is healing those in need.”

“Without the Marring, would we need forgiveness?” It was an academic question, a concession, and he knew it.

“Perhaps not,” Elrond conceded in turn. “But it is a beautiful thing, is it not? Like the snow, the ice, and the rain, born into being by themes Morgoth thought were his own.”

Gil-Galad gave in at last. “He leaves when he’s better,” he ordered. “Keep his presence quiet until then.”

“Of course,” Elrond said, now with a pleased smile. “Thank you. Truly.”

Gil-Galad just shook his head.

[iwriterpstarters]

100 sentence starters

part 3

“You are the queen. He ought to be begging leave of you.”

“Does the prospect of marriage amuse you?”

“His Grace the royal pustule has made her life a misery since the day her father died, and now that she is finally rid of him you propose to marry her to me.”

“That seems singularly cruel. Even for you, father.”

“Why, do you plan to mistreat her?”

“The girl’s happiness is not my purpose, nor should it be yours.”

“Our alliances in the south may be solid, but there remains the north to win, and the key to the north is ___.”

“The girl is young, nubile, tractable, of the highest birth, and still a maid.”

“She is not uncomely. Why would you hesitate?”

“A quirk of mine. Strange to say, I would prefer a wife who wants me in her bed.”

“Yes, we all know how important my pleasure is to you, Father. But there’s more to this.”

“A sweet child, but many a poison was sweet as well.”

“I thought ___ had better sense.”

“The greatest fools are ofttimes more clever than the men who laugh at them.”

“I might have wept, but there were no tears left in me.”

“Your sons died honorably on a battlefield, with swords in their hands.”

“How then can you call this vengeance? This was folly, and bloody murder.”

“They died.”

“Only blood can pay for blood.”

“It was no murder, ser.”

“Any man who steps between a father and his vengeance asks for death.”

“His words were harsh and cruel.”

“These two boys died so my daughters might live.”

“It required eight of you to kill two unarmed squires.”

“The north is hard and cold, and has no mercy.”

“As if treason could somehow be passed by a touch, a glance, a cough.”

“The captors and the captives look much alike.”

“Were they good dreams, brother? Do you dream of sunlight and laughter and a maiden’s kisses?”

“I pray you do. My own dreams are dark and laced with terrors.”

“Will they lay ___ down naked beneath the Iron Throne after they have killed her?”  

“Will her skin seem as white, her blood as red?”

“She did throw me in a cell and put me on trial for my life.”

“Perhaps you’d best leave the fighting to fighters.”

“We know your worth, my lord, no need to tempt fate.”

“Bedding is not wedding.”

“Once I am her consort, I shall deliver you the Vale without a drop of blood being spilled.”

“Autumn is upon us, and all men of good heart are weary of war.”

“In war you kill your enemies. Didn’t your father teach you that, boy?”

“Yes, leave me to the king. He means to give me a scolding before he forgives me.”

“Let me spit him, sire. Let me open his belly so we can see the color of his guts.”

“This one was only the watcher. Hang him last, so he may watch the others die.”

“Did you see the knives drawn? Did you hear the shouts, the screams, the cries for mercy?”

“Keep Lord ___ here till I return, and hang the other seven.”

“Is this the sound of a kingdom falling?”

“They’ve scattered, hunting.”

“Would you make me a liar as well as a murderer?”

“Until we can bring the murdered dead back to life?”

“The truth escaped with them. It is too late for such games.”

“I owe their fathers truth. And justice.”

“A king had best know the names of his enemies, don’t you think?”

“You know that for a certainty? That this will make young ___ your enemy?”

“What else would he be?”

“I am about to kill his father, he’s not like to thank me.”

“There are sons who hate their fathers, and in a stroke you will make him Lord of his House.”

“The birds have reached her. Though she may tell you they did not, if it ever comes to that.”

“It is no different now.”

“She ran from King’s Landing for fear, to the safest place she knows.”

“She sits on her mountain hoping everyone will forget her.”

“Gods be good, why would any man ever want to be king?”

“I told myself... swore to myself... that I would be a good king, as honorable as Father, strong, just, loyal to my friends and brave when I faced my enemies”

“Now I can’t even tell friend from foe.”

“I know what I said, Uncle. It does not change what I must do.”

“In battle I might have slain too, but this was no battle.”

“They were asleep in their beds, naked and unarmed, in a cell where I put them.”

“He killed more than enemy hostages. He killed my honor.”

“He dies at my word. He must die by my hand.”

“For that much, I thank you. But for naught else.”

“This kinship did not stop you from betraying me. And it will not save you now.”

“Old gods or new, it makes no matter, no man is so accursed as the kinslayer.”

“Kneel, traitor. Or must I have them force your head onto the block?”

“My lord husband taught his sons that killing should never be easy.”

“Sometimes, the best thing you can do is nothing.”

“Part of his soul was in that tree, I knew. A part I would never share.”

“Yet without that part, I soon realized, he would not have been ___.”

“Be patient. Be understanding.”

“He loves you and he needs you, and he will come back to you soon enough.”

“This very night, perhaps.”

“Be there when he does come.”

“That is all I can tell you.”  

“It’s not like to win back my lost honor, but the notion of keeping faith when they all expect betrayal amuses more than I can say.”

“What would you have of me, ser?”

“And mind your tongue, or I’ll chastise you again.”

“You’d be wise not to resist. If you fight them, you’ll lose more than a few teeth.”

“Is that what you would do, if you were a woman?”

“If I were a woman, I’d make them kill me. But I’m not.”

“How proud my dear wife would be to hear it. If only I hadn’t killed her.”

“A man who hates music can’t be trusted, I always say.”

“Was it you who made a song of it, or some other bloody arse in love with his own voice?”

“I’m not a famous knight, and kings are supposed to put the realm before their siblings.”

“And my lady mother. Would she still want me back, after all the things I’ve done?”

“Any act can be a prayer, if done as well as we are able.”

“You want to fight, fight with me! She’s a girl, and half your age! You keep your hands off o’ her, you hear me?”

“Only lies offend me, never honest counsel.”

“I have a dragon’s temper, that’s all. You must not let it frighten you.”

“A man who kills for coin has no honor, but at least they are no slaves.”

“Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do.”

“My brother sold me to ___ for the promise of a golden crown.”  

“Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?”

“I’m sorry he hurt you. Dragons are not meant to be locked up in a small ship’s cabin.”

“The blood of my enemies I will shed gladly. The blood of innocents is another matter.”

[jane-ways]

Miracles Great and Small

Spending the holidays with your family is always difficult. Especially if you've disowned them. Or, Celebrimbor discovers you can choose your own family (sometimes, it's even the people you're related to).

Read it on AO3 & SWG!

Many thanks to @celebrimbooooor and @independence1776 for the inspiration, and to @feanorphobic for beta reading.

Happy Hanukkah everyone!!!!

Celebrimbor hesitated, then cracked open the seal with some trepidation. Letters from the High King always had that effect on him. They shouldn’t, as he so often reminded himself—it was just that he was an independent sort, uninterested in the constant drama of politics, and, if he was being honest, uninterested in being supervised.

Celebrimbor may have disavowed his father, but some traits were inherited, it seemed.

He knew he ought to give Gil-galad more credit. Celebrimbor had been given a remarkable amount of autonomy, really, and Gil-galad wasn’t the interfering sort. But still—the rich grain of the linen paper, imprinted with the watermark of Gil-galad’s house; the deep blue of the wax seal—it was an unpleasant reminder of his being (however little Gil-galad did to make him or anyone feel) subordinate.

He took a sip of coffee to fortify himself, and unfolded the page.

My dear Celebrimbor—

‘Alright, informal, that’s a good sign,’ he thought, his tension easing slightly.

—You are cordially invited to join—

‘Oh, no.’

—myself and my household for a celebration of the winter festival of lights. It is my great hope that you will attend, as we have sadly missed your presence at court—

‘Ohhhh, no.’

—and your family (and of course, Erestor) so dearly wish to see you.

‘Nooo—’

*

Eight days, Celebrimbor kept reminding himself. It was only eight days. Eight days in the lifespan of an Elda was woefully insignificant, so infinitesimal a percentage that it was impossible to calculate. ‘Then why does it feel so long?’ he thought. He had only just arrived—“Barely on time!” Erestor had scolded, in that particular way of his—but already he felt a headache coming on, his thoughts thick in his head as tree resin. The thought of the fried food to come made his stomach clench. And the socializing—somehow, that seemed even less appetizing than the grease.

“At least we get gifts afterwards,” Elrond murmured in his ear, apparently sensing his discomfort. They stood next to each other on the raised altar, behind Gil-galad among the other members of his household. Celebrimbor was the only guest. He did not know Elrond well, but he did not judge him as one who enjoyed crowds—or at least, being in front of them—any more than himself.

And what a crowd it was. It seemed to Celebrimbor that thousands of Lindon’s residents had amassed in the chapel and the connected palace pavilions to hear their High King speak. His back was silhouetted against the light of the setting sun streaming through the western windows, the quicksilver of his hair and the gold threads of his robes refracting every beam onto the gold and white surface of the chapel’s interior. He was resplendent, and he spoke with grace of miracles, of hope, of family. Celebrimbor could feel his headache worsening.

As the last rays of sunlight faded, Gil-galad concluded to deafening applause. As the hall fell into darkness, a hush swept over the crowd, and then, from the silent gloaming, the spark of steel on flint. A single flame illuminated the High King’s face as he lit the lights marking the first day of the festival. A shower of sparks and flames erupted as attendants lit their own lights: one candle to light the others, and one to signify the first night. Tiny flames like pinpricks of starlight shimmered across the palace grounds and out into the city as revelers, many-pronged candelabras in hand, made the journey home.

Descending the steps to the courtyard below, Gil-galad whispered in Elrond’s ear, loud enough for Celebrimbor to overhear, “That part with all the fire does always make me a bit nervous.” Celebrimbor did not turn to look, but from the corner of his eye, the High King seemed to glitter a little less blindingly.

*

After the first night, families celebrated together or in small groups until the festival’s grand conclusion, and so it was that Celebrimbor found himself in a small, cozy, candlelit room with The High King of the Noldor and defacto leader of all elvendom in Middle Earth, a librarian, a young herald who insisted on referring to him as a “cousin,” and—most disconcertingly of the whole group—Maglor. Kinslayer, thrice accursed and disposed, last of a ragged house long bereft of any nobility. Or, as Elrond kept calling him, “Ada.”

How, exactly, Maglor had come to reside in Lindon was something of a mystery to Celebrimbor, but it at least seemed that he was considered less of a threat by the general Eldarin populace if they had him close at hand, where they could keep an eye on him. And apparently, Erestor had informed Celebrimbor, his impromptu street recitals had become quite the hit. Maglor now sat perched on the arm of an overstuffed chair in the corner, vielle tucked under his chin. Celebrimbor eyed him warily from his own corner across the room. Maglor either did not notice, or, more likely, did not deign to acknowledge the staring because he did not care. He was a prince, a famous bard, a notorious scoundrel—he was used to staring.

No one else was staring. Gil-galad seemed utterly unperturbed to have one of the most hated elves of the First Age in his personal chambers, fiddling away without a care in the world. (Something in the weeping of the strings caught the edge of Celebrimbor’s memory—Maglor used to play that song every year when the family gathered together for the festival of lights, Celebrimbor remembered dimly. He pushed the thought away.) He felt far away; a witness to this scene, but not a part of it: uninterrupted, it played out before him, the room bathed in quiet candlelight, a vignette of perfect domesticity.

The only thing that seemed amiss was him.

*

On the third night, he was asked to light the candles and say the blessings. Heat rose to his face as he stumbled over the prayer, the words of his own language foreign in his mouth, the tune long-forgotten. Maglor began to hum the melody, and soon all of them were singing, his own unsteady waver swept up in the small chorus of voices.

Later that evening, the five of them exchanged that night’s gifts—small things, trinkets, really—and Celebrimbor felt a flash of shame that he once more had nothing for his uncle.

*

On the fourth night, Maglor made dinner. (Erestor, remembering his many attempts at the culinary arts throughout their youths, had supervised.) The traditional foods of this season were fried—fried shredded potatoes topped with a sauce of the last of fall’s apples, an Avari specialty that had been adopted early on by the Noldorin newcomers, and fried balls of dough filled with jelly and topped with sugar, a Sindarin tradition. “Plenty of fat to get us through our winter hibernation!” Gil-galad laughed, patting his stomach as he forked another helping into his mouth.

They were fatty, far more so than Celebrimbor remembered of his youth, in the dark of Beleriand before the rising of the sun. Food had been scarcer then, and wealth less readily spent, and supplies more thinly stretched. While his father had been busy devising new and clever devices to keep their homes well-lit and their encampment well-protected, Maglor had found time to come to him and tell him stories of the Great March, and the sacrifices of their people, and he had made stretching a night’s worth of oil into a week’s seem like a game. Absently, Celebrimbor wondered what stories Maglor had told Elrond and Elros, and as he chewed, he considered for the first time the love between his uncle and his cousin.

*

On the fifth night, as Elrond lit the candles, quietly singing the prayer, Celebrimbor closed his eyes and mouthed the words. Elrond could not have been mistaken for Maglor—no one could—but even so, Celebrimbor could hear his uncle in the song: the timbre of a note here, the lilt of a vowel there. ‘He must have picked it up as a child,’ Celebrimbor realized. He wondered, distantly, if Elrond would have children one day, and if Maglor would teach them to sing their prayers, too.

*

On the sixth night, Celebrimbor joined Gil-galad, Elrond, and Erestor for a game of spinning tops after dinner. They played for coins and candy, like Celebrimbor had with his uncles and their households as a youth. “Do you remember that particular winter in Himring,” Erestor asked him, “when it was so cold we could not stand to remove our gloves, and not one of us could get the proper grip for rotation?”

Reflexively, Celebrimbor exclaimed, “Yes! No one could get the damn things to spin, and they just flopped over, every time.”

“At least you had an idea what they would land on,” Gil sighed. Of the three rounds they had played, he had lost every single one.

“Yes, and that’s how we could tell my Uncle Tyelko was cheating—it landed on the winning side every time!” Celebrimbor joked, laughing at the memory as he twisted his top. Watching it spin, it occurred to him that he had not spoken the name “Tyelkormo” in half a millennium.

*

On the seventh night, Celebrimbor had a gift for his uncle. Maglor betrayed nothing with his perfunctory but gentle, “That is very kind of you, nephew,” but next to him, Elrond’s eyes shone. Gil-galad had requested oil lamps, as was custom among the sea-elves who raised him, and although the air was thick with smoke and the food was heavy with grease, Celebrimbor felt lighter than he had in years.

*

On the eighth night, the final night, the people of Lindon once more crowded into the chapel and the connected pavilions. They stood, silent, as the sun dipped below the horizon. Once more, Gil-galad took a flint in hand and struck a spark, and the people followed his lead, the gold of the chapel and the cream-colored limestone of the palace set afire by the light of thousands of flames. His voice rose in song, and the people sang with him, their prayers echoing out over the courtyard and across the city.

They sang long into the night, prayers and histories and songs of the Great March. They sang until their candles burned to nothing, flickering out in wisps of smoke. And they kept singing as, one by one, they turned from the face of their king and started for home.

*

The winter winds whipped across the plains of Eregion, and in his rooms in Ost-in-Edhil, Celebrimbor shivered. Sitting at his desk, his ever-present mug of coffee steaming, he tapped his quill impatiently on the edge of his inkwell, as though the right words might be driven forth and laid to parchment by his insistence. He was not a politician, and he was not a warrior. The boldness of his innovations was of a different sort than was required here.

Courage, Celebrimbor remembered his uncle once saying, is the ability to make a decision and commit to it. He had laughed bitterly then, the edges of the sound sharp and jagged, and Celebrimbor had in his innocence wondered what it meant. Then he didn’t have to wonder anymore.

He had been courageous, once, a long time ago.

Drawing a deep breath, he picked up his pen, and began to write.

Dear Uncle Maglor,

I wished to express my gratitude for the thoughtful gifts—