Stories of Arda Home Page
About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search
swiss replica watches replica watches uk Replica Rolex DateJust Watches

Fiondil's Tapestry  by Fiondil

GOLD AND MITHRIL: Cloths of Heaven

SUMMARY: Celeborn draws out his wife’s thoughts on the Herald’s message as only a husband can. A companion piece to GOBLINS: The Herald’s Summons.

WARNING: Rated PG for implied sex between a married couple.

****

Celeborn reached down and pulled Galadriel into the tree, drawing her deeper until they were hidden from all sight. Except perhaps the Maiar, he thought grimly to himself. Galadriel nestled into his arms as he made himself comfortable on the branch, his back to the trunk of the oak. Leaves rustled gently in the night, and Ithil rode high above them, casting an eerie chalk-white glow all around. The sounds of a war camp settling for the night surrounded them: sentries calling out to one another with the changing of the watch, smiths hammering away, repairing swords and shields, voices raised in song accompanied by lute and harp. The prince of Doriath wrapped his arms around his beloved spouse and drank in the smell of her, gently kissing her right ear.

"Tell me how you feel, melethril nîn," he whispered.

For a long moment Galadriel did not answer and then she sighed. "I don’t know how I feel, about any of this."

"The Maia’s announcement surprised you," Celeborn ventured.

"Which announcement?" Galadriel asked, sounding a bit acerbic. "The one about the Valar having forgiven everyone but me, or the one about my dear cousins being allowed to return to Aman, but I will not?"

"Do you want forgiveness, Artanis?" Celeborn asked brutally, using her ataressë deliberately.

She sucked in her breath, readying a retort that never came. Instead she let her breath out slowly. "I... I haven’t decided yet," she said, sounding almost meek.

Celeborn drew her closer to him, his left hand idly rubbing her stomach. "An honest enough answer, I suppose."

Galadriel turned her head to look into her husband’s eyes, keen as lances in the canopied starlight. "Do you want them to forgive me?"

"I would have them forgive you for your sake, not mine," he answered. "I would not lose you so soon."

"You could not lose me, melethron nîn, even if I were offered forgiveness," Galadriel responded with a sigh, "for I weary not of these lands and would like to...."

"Would like to what?" Celeborn’s hand left her stomach and moved up towards her breasts, questing with more purpose.

Instead of answering immediately, she reached around with her right hand to hold his head while offering her lips to him and for a time they did nothing more than taste one another, reveling in the bond that grew deeper between them with every passing year. When she finally released him from her demands, she smiled.

"I would like to explore the lands east of the Ered Luin," she told him, her blue eyes, a deeper blue than her brother Finrod’s, reflecting Ithil’s light, yet shining also with another, older light. It was that light that had first drawn the Sindarin prince to this proud Noldo with her golden locks. She had quite captured his imagination and he was more than willing to admit to himself that he had become rather besotted with her. Thingol had teased him about it and Lúthien had looked at him with disbelief but Melian had merely smiled that mysterious, wondrous smile of hers, kissed him on the forehead and whispered, "Be kind to one another, child."

"I find Beleriand too... constricting," Galadriel continued speaking, "and would see the wide world."

Celeborn gave her a sardonic smile. "First Aman and now Beleriand. Will you eventually find even Arda itself too confining for your ambitions?"

She glared at him but finally the truth of his question impacted her and she had to look away. "I don’t know," she said with a sigh.

"An honest enough answer," he said softly, "though I would not let you get away with it for too long."

"What do you mean?" she demanded, pushing his still questing hand away from her breasts.

The prince sighed and leaned back against the tree, looking up through the canopy of leaves to the stars above. "Ereinion will need us for a time," he said. "He will need our guidance as he reorders whatever survives this war."

"You think he will not take up the Valar’s offer?"

"He is too responsible for that," he said. "He is the High King, the only king of Beleriand left. He is also very young. I do not think he is yet wearied of Ennorath. No, if he survives, he will take up the mantle of rule for those who will not wish to leave."

"And you would have us serve him." It was not a question, though he treated it as one.

"For a time," he answered.

"You could also rule," she ventured somewhat hesitantly. "You are all that is left of Thingol’s family. You could...."

"Nay, light of my heart," he said with a light laugh, placing his hand back on her breasts and gently caressing them. "I am a prince without a princedom. Doriath has fallen and Gil-galad is our king now."

She sighed, allowing him to bring her to arousal, the flame of her desire growing hot. "We lost so much," she said softly, regretfully. "We lost everything."

"Not everything, my love," he whispered in her ear, running his tongue along its tip, eliciting a soft moan of delight from her, "I have neither gold nor mithril, but I am rich beyond measure, for I have you." Then he began singing, the words new-minted for her alone:

          "Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

          Enwrought with golden and mithril light,

          I would spread the cloths under your feet:

          But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

          Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

She sighed. "Let us both tread softly then." The daughter of Arafinwë and Eärwen turned to look into her husband’s eyes. "Do you know what Melian said to me when I told her about us?"

Celeborn smiled. "‘Be kind to one another, child’," he quoted. Galadriel giggled, her eyes glowing with mischief.

"Why don’t we see how kind we can both be to one another," she suggested with a purr.

Celeborn’s smile deepened as he deftly turned his beloved to face him fully. "Yes," he whispered hungrily and then he claimed her lips with his own.

****

Eönwë and Fionwë looked up at the scream that rent the midnight air. It was not a scream of war, but of love. The two Maiar grinned at one another for a moment before returning to the map and their strategies for the morrow’s battles.

****

Melethril nîn: (Sindarin) My (female) lover.

Melethron nîn: (Sindarin) My (male) lover.

Ataressë: (Quenya) Father-name.

Ereinion: Gil-galad’s Quenya name.

Ennorath: (Sindarin) Middle-earth.

Note on Celeborn’s song: The words, with one slight modification, are taken from W. B. Yeats, ‘Aedh Wishes for the Clothes of Heaven’. The full text is as follows:

          Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,

          Enwrought with golden and silver light,

          The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

          Of night and light and the half-light,

          I would spread the cloths under your feet:

          But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

          I have spread my dreams under your feet;

          Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.





<< Back

Next >>

Leave Review
Home     Search     Chapter List