tidalhaired

[tidalhaired]

(Almost) Every Costume Per Episode + Anne Boleyn’s light blue cioppa with gold print in 1x02

[tidalhaired]

[tidalhaired]

Is anyone else also really bad at writing under time pressure? I have one hour to write now until my next appointment!...yeah I got nothing OTL

[tidalhaired]

Another day another what the fuck

[tidalhaired]

The last time Elrond had walked these streets, this place was still called Minas Anor, the Tower of the Sun. With an improved and restored citadel and tall, proud white towers stretching up into the blue sky, Minas Tirith had become the more fitting name. The city was a beauty, different from Númenor, yet no less glorious.

Alas, it was obvious that her inhabitants suffered from the oppressiveness that spread in all of Middle-earth. The shadow nested deep inside everyone's hearts, and their daily business was disturbed by the consequences of orcs becoming bolder by the day and more and more territories bowing to darker Masters.

They yearned for light like the towers yearned to touch the sun with their spires. Elrond may not be able to bring them this light, but his visit brought excitement and a sign that the tides were turning. He was relieved to see the fire of resistance still ablaze in their eyes.

He was welcomed most reverently, by the ruling Steward himself. Denethor was tall and noble, a striking man. Anyone falsely deeming him King would easily be forgiven.

Of course it was Faramir that drew Elrond's keen gaze. Elrond, seated on his white mare, singled him out in the curious crowd with ease, drawn to him like a moth to flame. When Elrond was given a moment of privacy to rest from the journey, he spent his time with Faramir instead.

Hidden from the world inside a lavish guest chamber, Elrond drew Faramir into an embrace and turned his head up to kiss his lips. "I have missed you." It was easy to admit, because it was obvious. It was a wonder nobody else had picked up on the fierce yearning in the Half-elf's silver eyes.

He looked over to the spacious tub, warmed with hot stones and filled with water. Then he gazed into Faramir's eyes with a smile, his palms on Faramir's chest. "Will you help me clean up?"

Later, for dinner, Elrond wore his silver circlet, and his dark curls were adorned with with gleaming little stars. His robes were white, a tribute to the majestic towers. He made sure to have Faramir seated next to him. He was given a position of honour, with Denethor seated at his other side. Sitting between father and son, Elrond had the lovely opportunity to have most interesting conversations with both.

The kitchen staff had clearly worked hard on the meals. It was obvious that this was a time of strife and not all foodstuffs were readily available. Elrond still found himself very impressed by the offerings and by the creative ways of how they found an alternative for missing dishes.

But he grew concerned when all the meat was very hearty and greasy. He loved it, enjoyed food rich in taste the most, but he knew that Faramir could not stomach it. Beneath the table, Elrond reached for Faramir's hand, while his other grasped Faramir's plate where the meat had remained untouched. He moved the meat over to his own plate.

"Elves require more nourishment, especially after such a long journey," Elrond explained Denethor, who accepted the reasoning readily. "They do not like greens that much," Elrond added, moving his sauteed vegetables onto Faramir's plate, so that hopefully his lover would not go hungry.

Faramir knew this was nonsense, as Elves required less nourishment and most of them loved greens. Elrond winked at him.

The feasting hall was arrayed in the sunset colours of harvest. Silks spread like blackberry jam across the stone tables, taper candles trembled in wrought-iron stands, weeping golden tears into silver saucers. A garland of rosemary and marigold hung above the high table, its scent faint and bittersweet. It clung to the senses, alongside the heat of mulled wine and the perfumed oils burning in braziers – an old Gondorian craft, seldom used in days of ration and ash. The citadel had spared no effort, though its bounty had grown thin. The strain was obvious to those who knew how to look.

Elrond was not merely a guest, he was an omen wearing the white of memory. White as seafoam upon faraway coasts, white as darling, dark-eyed doves.

At his side, Faramir. Copper hair had been combed, though it refused to fall neatly, and he wore his house’s dark finery, though it fit him like borrowed glory. At times he seemed but a shadow of his father’s myth, in him simmered quiet splendour. A soul with edges softened by grief and patience both.

Grey eyes flickered towards Elrond like dials on an instrument – testing wind, watching tide. Elrond looked to him too, a shared hunger curtained by the thin veil of courtesy, the veil which hung always between them in daylight.

The first course had been wood pigeon glazed with honey and black pepper, nestled among roots roasted until caramel-sweet. Faramir tasted little of it, though he praised it generously. More courses followed, more meat.

Elrond noticed how it went untouched. A simple thing but desire, when true, manifested in such small devotions. Beneath the table, unseen, the Elf-lord’s hand found Faramir’s. His gentle fingers were warm, loving, and seemed to say: I see you. I have not forgotten the limits of your body. I honour them, even here.

With the other hand, he executed the sleight. A daring performance.

Unhurriedly, he took Faramir’s plate and eased the pigeon onto his own, already populated with roast lamb and crisp-skinned duck. It was enough food to shame any one man, but Elrond bore it with serenity. Then, as if by some divine mischief, he delivered Faramir the bright, glistening heap of sautéed greens – jewelled cabbage with cloves, beets sliced paper-thin, winter chard dyed purple with wine.

“Elves require more nourishment,” Elrond said, with a note of moonlight in his voice. “Especially after such a long journey.”

Denethor did not suspect the lie. Perhaps he did not care to. He nodded, half-listening, fingers wrapped about the stem of his goblet like it was the hilt of some ceremonial blade, his gaze cast across the Hall where ministers talked of strategy, of winter, of war.

“They do not like greens that much,” he added, softer, flicking his glance toward Faramir’s plate as he passed the vegetables over.

It was, of course, untrue. Elrond had once sung the praises of alpine lettuces and the golden asparagus of the Anduin in a Rivendell orchard, naked down to the waist and bathed in dappled shade. Faramir remembered it. He remembered many such moments – fleeting, unrepeatable, precious beyond speech.

Now he looked at the greens. At Elrond’s plate, heavy with meat. At the way Elrond’s hand still rested lightly beneath the table, his thumb brushing over Faramir’s palm in rhythmic silence.

Faramir said nothing, but he caught the wink, and a small smile stole across his lips.

The feast went on, and Elrond conversed with counsellors and soldiers alike, answering in three tongues, nodding with elegance, while beneath the veil of it all – beneath the table, beneath the candlelight, beneath the weight of ages – a pulse beat steadily between them.

Faramir let his gaze wander, too often perhaps, to the man beside him. To the figure beneath the diadem. To the dark hair falling in careful curls, not wholly tamed by the weightless silver circlet that ringed his brow. Set into his tresses were stars – tiny faceted gems or perhaps true fragments of light, impossible to tell – which caught the flame of the candles and glimmered like frost upon night-blooming petals.

His profile, noble and grave, was limned with candle-glow. His lips moved with gentility, but beneath their careful speech lay other truths – tenderness, mischief, the fire of old longing unspent. Faramir, who had dwelled too long overlooked, at home in shadow, marvelled at this vision beside him. He loved him then not for his grandeur, but for the beauty he tried to make small. For the grace he dared to offer him, even now, in the presence of others.

Although the evening stretched on in splendour and song, there persisted a hunger no banquet could satiate.

[tidalhaired]

You are magical to me.

[tidalhaired]

Until the world is broken and remade by Jenny Dolfen

[tidalhaired]

"Vilya, was made of gold with a great blue sapphire. It was also called the Ring of Sapphire, the Ring of Air or the Blue Ring. Vilya was the most powerful of the three rings of the Elves. It's first keeper was High King Gil-Galad." S2.E2 ∙ Where the Stars are Strange

[tidalhaired]

I made this while I'm anxiously waiting for the official confirmation that the third season is coming 🙏

[tidalhaired]

[tidalhaired]

deathless ♚ sentence meme

You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.

You are going to break your promise. I understand.

You’re lonely too.

It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be.

I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable.

I am your servant.

I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased.

For you alone I will be weak.

I belong here, and you will not deny me.

I say these things, and the world listens.

I do not tolerate a world emptied of you. I have tried.

In the dark, I have pored over the loss of you like pale gold.

I will not let her speak because I love her, and when you love someone, you do not make them tell war stories.

I moved the earth and the water for you.

You will always run away with her.

You will always lose her.

You will always be a fool.

You will always be dead, in a city of ice, snow falling into your ear.

You have already done all of this and will do it again.

No one should be judged for loving more than they ought, only for loving not enough.

We look terrible to you, and severe, and you see our blood flying.

What we carry between us is hard-won, and we made it just as we wished it to be, just the color, just the shape.

There need never be any rules between us.

Let us be greedy together; let us hoard.

Do not leave me, swear that you will never leave me.

I am selfish. I am cruel. My mate cannot be less than I.

Sleep with fists closed and shoot straight.

I can’t abide a poor liar.

You look like a winter’s night. I could sleep inside the cold of you.

Oh, quit that. Blushing is for virgins and Christians.

Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.

Bad luck relies on absolutely perfect timing.

In his own country, Death can be kind.

What is the world but a boxing ring where fools and devils put up their fists?

Men die. It’s practically what they’re for.

I am no one; I am nothing.

Nothing in me was not made by you.

A revelation is always the end of something. It might even be cause for grief.

Just tell yourself a story that’ll satisfy you and pretend he told it.

Forever isn’t bright; it isn’t like that. Forever is cold and hard and final.

I savor bitterness - it is born of experience. It is the privilege of one who has truly lived.

If you want to kill yourself, do not use us as your knife.

What did I do wrong? Was I boring? Did I ignore you?

Don’t you dare speak to me like that.

I have worn nothing but blood and death for years.

I have fought all your battles for you, just as you asked me.

I have learned not to cry when I strangle a man.

I have learned to watch everything die.

I am not a little girl anymore, dazzled by your magic. It is my magic, now, too.

Are we not devils?

No one is now what they were before the war.

I have not seen you without your skin on.

Close up your head; your brain is getting loose.

We obsess. It’s in our nature.

I’ve a devil of a habit for being right.

In war you must always choose sides.

If you try to be a bridge laid down between them, they will tear you in half.

We are all dead. All equal. Broken and aimless and believing we are alive.

My old bones will follow yours soon enough.

It is better to be strong and cruel than to be fair.

I will see him with his skin off before I agree to fall in love.

After love, no one is what they were before.

I have survived, but I have not been spared.

In the space of one heartbeat to another I loved you and I was lost to you.

Frighten me, make me cry, only come back.

It’s not so bad, my darling. Being dead. It’s like being alive, only colder.

You’ll think it’s love, while he dines on your heart.

You will be so beautiful when you are old.

I cannot keep you and I cannot let you go.

You will live as you live in any world…with difficulty, and grief.

I look at you and it is like my throat being cut.

She said you’d come and I swore to eat your heart.

I still want to kiss you.

My heart is being cut in two. I cannot bear it.

What happens to anything beautiful?

I have to know, I have to or else you will just rule me until the end of everything because you know and I do not.

[tidalhaired]

Beleg's attempt to downplay his admission was appreciated, but Elrond gave a laugh and shook his head. "Oh no, my friend. I have had people do the hunting for me for too long now." He only joined hunts seldomly, either too occupied with all sorts of work to leave the valley, or finding it uncomfortable to shoot game when he knew others already provided plenty, making his own kill rather pointless. Any life taken without cause or in direct defence and outside of war was a smudge on his healer-conscience.

"My choice of weapon remains a sword, or a dagger. I have let my archery slide as a result and I wish to rectify that. Me being your first pupil in a long time would be an honour." Elrond could hardly imagine a better teacher than this fabled archer with a bow who was just as famous as its wielder.

The noises of the bustling hall then put an end to their talk for now, and later, after a merry feast and a few cups of tasty and sweet wine, when night had fallen, Elrond decided it was time to retire. He looked forward to laying on his bed and drifting asleep to the familiar hooting of the owls and the songs of the nightingales.

He leaned over to speak into Beleg's ear, a quiet talk to the backdrop of the merrymaking around them. "Are you free tomorrow? In the morning, perhaps? We could meet at the training grounds after breakfast." Technically, Elrond himself was never truly free, as there was always something that required his attention or needed doing, but he was going to take time for this.

It was true that he was well-liked in Imladris, though truthfully (and rather egotistically) he could not recall ever truly being widely disliked anywhere – unless one counted among servants of the enemy, which he did not. Beleg was sociable when it suited him to be and indulged many curious faces regularly.

But it would be nice to have the comparative peace of Elrond’s company.

“I would be happy to teach them what I can, though it has been quite some time since I have even any lessons.” He laughed softly, “And that goes for you as well, Lord Elrond. Though I am sure you are much better than you think.  You are too modest.”

The sounds of the hall grew louder before them.

“Perhaps I should give your lesson first, to warm myself up to teaching again.”

[tidalhaired]

[   HAND   ]     ,     sender  kisses  receiver's  hand.

When Frodo took Elrond's hand in his, the contrast in size was stark. The Elf-lord's hands were much larger, with long slender fingers and skin soft as lily petals. They did not betray the strength that resided in them. Though it had only become a pretty bauble now, Elrond had not parted from Vilya. It rested around his ring finger, the gold band cool to the touch and the blue stone still gleaming with many untold secrets. Elrond suspected they were lost now as nobody could hear them any longer. It was better this way; let all power fall away and dwindle if only it meant that Sauron was truly powerless too.

Just when he had been sure that Frodo's curiousity was sated and he was about to pull his hand away, the other surprised him by pressing a kiss to the back of his hand, as close to his knuckles as Vilya allowed it. Elrond's thin lips parted in surprise. The gesture was so affectionate, he had not been prepared for it.

"Frodo," he whispered, breathless from the sensation of those reverent rosy lips. He had neither deemed his hand worthy of such interest, nor himself deserving of such a display of trust and respect. A lord he may be, but that was of little importance here in the West. He paled in comparison to the actual Kings and Queens who reigned here, as glorious as they always were in Elrond's many tales.

[tidalhaired]

GALADRIEL & ELROND Still absolutely in love with this friendship.

Morfydd Clark (as Galadriel) Robert Aramayo (as Elrond) Lloyd Owen (as Elendil) Scenes from the series, “The Rings of Power” THE RINGS OF POWER (2022)

[+] MORFYDD [GIF Collection] 🌸 [+] ..more on Galadriel ✨ [+] ..more posts on “The Rings of Power” 🎬

[tidalhaired]

Greater Blue-eared Glossy-starling (Lamprotornis chalybaeus), family Sturnidae, Kruger National Park, South Africa

photograph by PanWoyteczek

[tidalhaired]

Part: 162/?

[tidalhaired]

Good morning <3 I hope you're all having a wonderful saturday