They were the second such group to take their leave in as many days.
The Lord could place no blame upon them. He knew that those leaving, did so out of a deep sense of betrayal. Imladris had always been a haven. A place where evil dared not encroach, where darkness could be kept at bay. A place that seemed unmarred by the stain of corruption. So to find evidence of what many considered to be an offense second only to that of kingslaying, to learn that it was the sons of their Lord who had been the ones engaged in such an abomination to the tenets of their race, had shaken some elves so badly that the only salve for their troubled fear now lay in setting sail for the Undying Lands. Nay, Elrond could not blame them for their desertion.
For they did not understand...
And how could they? when he, himself, did not. Not truly. Elrond turned away from the balcony, his gaze now sweeping over his opulent study. This had always been not only the place from whence all the dictates concerning the affairs of his realm began, but also a place of genteel refuge, his own private sanctuary at the end of the day's work. Yet of late, it seemed to have become naught but a place of upheavals and sorrows.
Elrond made his way to the plush chair behind his desk, sinking into it with a sigh. He thought of his sons and of the choice given to the Peredhil by the Valar. A choice that had proven to be an accursed one for his line. It was then, that a snippet from a long-ago conversation came, unbidden, to his mind. It was from the last time he and his own twin, Elros, has spoken while both were still counted among the firstborn.
// " Tis my decision to make, Elrond." //
// " But why!?. Why would you do this?. Why would you make such a choice?. Why would you leave me!?." //
Elros, eyes blazing with anguish, had grabbed hold of Elrond's upper arms, squeezing them painfully.
// " I make this choice because I have to!. Don't you understand, Elrond?... I have to!." //
Then Elros had let his twin see the truth behind those pain-filled eyes, the truth that he had kept hidden all their lives.
And Elrond had finally understood...
The Lord of Imladris leaned his head back, his brow furrowing from the stab of pain that memory had brought. Elros had made his choice and their paths had sundered, irrevocably. Yet Elrond had not faded, even though at the begining of it, he had often wished for that final release.
No. They had both gone on to become leaders and legends. But now only Elrond remained. For Elros' bones had long ago turned to dust, the price paid for choosing the doom of man.
Another memory surfaced, unwelcomed. This one of the very last time Elrond had spoken with his estranged twin, as the other lay dying in his arms, his face and body ravaged by the passing of time and the weight of the first crown of Numenor.
// " Grieve not for me, Elrond. I have fathered children and founded a line that will carry on through the ages. Thus is the race of man also given immortality." //
At the end of those words, Elros had suddently been seized by a fit of coughing and when it was over, Elrond had gently wiped the blood-stained phlegm from his brother's chin, trying all the while to hide the rage and sorrow that were ripping his own heart apart. He had then placed a cup of clear, cool water up to those cracked lips and had found that the eyes that met his over the rim, though yellowed and glazed with pain, were also filled with acceptance and...relief. Elros had smiled at him, gently.
// " I am at peace. I feel I have atoned enough that, mayhaps, Eru will grant me forgiveness." //
A second round of coughing overtook the frail form and this time, Elrond heard in it the sound of impending death. Yet somehow, Elros managed to continue, his voice but a rasp of a whisper.
// " No matter... Never...dishonored you... Never... Amin mella...lle...gwenneth..." //
And with those last words Elros, first King of Numenor and lost kindred to the eldar, passed from Arda and into the mystery of Eru's embrace...
Though the bitter grief had nearly driven him mad, Elrond once again lived on. He fought in battles, he founded the realm of Imladris, he fell in love, he fathered children of his own. He did not fade, the great Lord thought as he stared up at the ceiling of his study, because he and Elros, although born twins, were two separate fear. And that, in the end, had been the reason his brother had chosen the doom of mortality. For the love he had borne for Elrond had truly been an abomination.
Not so with these twins.
That much the Lord did now fully understand. But would the council?. Would they see that for Elladan and Elrohir there was no other way?. Would elven law forgive that which could not be altered?. What would become of his sons?...
The sadness he felt over seeing his people departing from Imladris, the fear of what Celebrian would hear once those elves reached the Undying lands, the renewed grief over the memories of his long-lost twin and his constant gnawing worry over his children's fate, all began to pound mercilessly inside his head until at last, Elrond could take no more.
With an inarticulate cry, he rushed out of his study. He had to... He had to...
He had to find Lindir.
Lindir had just finished struming the very last note of his newest composition, when the door to the music room crashed open. For a moment, all sea-green eyes could do, was to widen as they stared at the half-crazed face of his Lord and lover. Then Elrond slammed the door shut again, before coming to the center of the room where he stood, shaking.
" Lindir... Lindir, I..."
The minstrel laid his instrument aside and went to stand before the distraught Lord. He looked deeply into those grey eyes and in them, read what Elrond could not bring himself to articulate. Then he grabbed a fistful of sable hair and crushed the peredhel's lips under a brutal kiss. Elrond moaned into it.
{ Yesss... }
Long, elegant fingers all but tore at the Lord's stately robes, until he was left in naked and vulnerable contrast to the fully-clothed Lindir, who then scattered all the parchments off the nearby table with one sweep of his arm, before forcefully bending the taller elf over it's wooden surface. After ordering his lover to stay in that position, the white-haired elf walked away to retrieve a jar of hand-balm from the shelf at the far end of the room. The humilliation of being left thus, started an uncharacteristic, yet welcomed heat deep within Elrond's stomach. A heat that began to smoulder when Lindir returned and brusquely stuck his foot between the peredhel's legs, widening their stance. as the normally gentle elf began to open the top of the jar, he addressed the Lord in a voice utterly unlike his usual dulcet one.
" Spread yourself and show me your core. Now."
Elrond shuddered as he obeyed the command. He was grateful that his lover understood the need that had driven him to the music room, for he was not sure he would have been able to actually explain.
He needed...pain.
Pain inside his body, to displace the pain inside his heart.
Elrond had never been breached. His relantionship with the minstrel marked the only time he had ever been with another male and in their joinings, it was he who did the entering. But he knew from that limited experience that no matter how careful he was, his initial penetration always brought some level of discomfort to Lindir. It was that discomfort that he now craved. Nay, more than discomfort. He wanted nothing less than to be able to forget who he was, to become naught but a body laid in utter submission.
Lindir looked at his Lord's exposed entrance and he could not deny the feeling of raw desire that caused his shaft to stand rock-hard. To be sheathed in such tightness, to take what no other had ever taken before... It was intoxicating. But he did not want to hurt his lover, no matter what the other seemed to be desperately seeking. Yet in knowing Elrond's need, the minstrel resolved to find a way to assuage that craving, without causing undue harm. It was with that in mind, that he let his words become the tools of his dominance.
" You are mine, to do with what I will. You have no choice in this. You are no one. You have no name. You are only here for my pleasure."
As he growled those words, Lindir liberally coated his fingers with the hand balm and then brought one of them to rest against the pink and puckered entrance. Elrond's gasp turned into a ragged moan and the minstrel felt an unacustomed wave of raw power surge through him, as he drank in the sight his Lord presented. Elrond was bent over the table, his arms stretched backwards enticingly as his hands continued to hold his taut globes apart, in a gesture of complete vulnerability. His head lay to the side, one cheek pressed against the wooden surface and his hair was strewn wildly about, with one thick strand covering his eyes like a sable blindfold. It was enough to bring Lindir perilously close to coming completely undone, and his next words came out with guttural need.
" I am going to claim your tight hole."
With that heated promise, he slid the oiled finger inside and Elrond bit his lip, as he tried to still the mounting tremors rocking his body. It was a battle destined to be lost. With yet another moan, the Lord let go of his spread backside, his arms coming up by his head, his hands clutching at the table's edge as he tried to impale himself further onto the invading digit. At that, Lindir began to move it in and out of the little hole, repeatedly. Then he added a second, then a third and then, he crooked them all inside to rub on the little nub he found there.
Elrond almost howled as a bolt of white-hot pleasure mixed in with the pain of being stretched for the first time. As a healer, he had known of the existence of this small gland within the male body. a gland present in both elves and humans. But to actually experience it...
Well, he now understood why Lindir accepted him so readily. The intrinsic part of him that was the healer, filed away this information. While the rest of him was reduced to babbling incoherently.
" Saes...I...good...more...more...Saes!."
Lindir complied. He removed his fingers from the stretched opening, smiling at his Lord's dissapointed groan, then generously coated his aching cock with the hand-balm before poising it at the entrance.
Then, he plunged in.
" Aaaaahhh... Yes!... Valar, yes!..." Elrond cried.
The peredhel threw his head back, arching in ecstatic submission. To be impaled thus, his nerves jolting from the sudden pain and pleasure of it... It was exactly what he needed. Behind him, Lindir threw his own head back, his eyes closing as he was overwhelmed by the incredible sensation that gripped his shaft with undreamed-of tightness. It was by a supreme effort that he managed to still himself and give his lover's untried channel the time needed to adjust to his girth. But Elrond wanted more of that sublime pain and he began to push back against the other's body, insistently.
It was too much for the minstrel. With a ragged groan, he dug his fingers into Elrond's hips and began to take him, hard and fast. Once again, pain and pleasure exploded behind Elrond's eyes and his guttural cries joined with Lindir's, as they both lost themselves to their heated joining. But still, some subconscious part within the gentle-natured, white-haired elf restrained his abandon just enough to prevent him from tearing the delicate tissue inside his lover's passage. It was of no matter to Elrond, even if he had been cognizant enough to be grateful, for he was not aware of anything, other than the mounting pressure that was taking over his senses with the promise of purging release.
And then, suddently, he was. Aware. Of everything. The feel of the polished floor beneath his bare feet, the texture of the table's edge under his grasp, the smell of the hand-balm that intermingled with their own scent, the points of pressure from where Lindir's fingers were digging into the flesh of his hips, the way the minstrel's tight sack slapped against his backside with every furious thrust, the way his cock... His cock was...
{ Aaaahh.... Aaaahh, Elbereth!... }
" Aaaahh.... Aaaahh, Elebereth!..."
The molten wave churning inside him erupted with staggering force. Elrond's shaft swelled up and, without any aid from his hand, began to shoot ribbons of pearly essense to land against the table legs and onto the floor. Lindir felt the tightness around his own member constricting in a series of spasms and the incredible pleasure of it, brought him tumbling over the same precipice his lover had just fallen from.
Down they plunged and yet they soared, their paradox of ecstasy seeming to go on forever...
Then, they were back in the music room. Two elves, bathed in the pale light of an autumn afternoon that shined upon them from the high window. One, naked, with tangled sable hair drapped over his arms as he wept upon the table he was bent over. The other, leaning over the shuddering back, with undone robes that covered them both like a blanket.
And as Lindir whispered soothing words into the skin of Elrond's shoulder, he knew that the time had come, at last, for his own decision...
TBC...