Work Text:
He comes through the arrivals gate, and his beauty takes my breath away for a moment. So long it is since I saw him – and that thought is a stab in my heart – I had almost forgotten his grace. He sees me, and, as he walks towards me, I wonder what he thinks of this small, provincial airport, used as he is to London, where I suppose a train station is busier.
By the way his lip curls, he is not impressed.
As he has been unimpressed by us for so long. Unimpressed, and so uninterested.
But to my delight, he remembers my name as I bow my head in greeting, in reverence.
“It’s been a long time, hir-nin,” I say, as I carry his case out to the Land Rover. He strides beside me, and I think it has been too long.
He looks – tired.
Not healthy.
Whatever they say, whatever the new ways, it isn’t good for an elf to live in a city, away from trees, away from green growing things.
Was a time when he would come up every school holiday, for weeks. I remember my Ada teaching him to shoot.
I remember acting as bearer. Thinking even then how beautiful he was. Understanding, I thought, how elves feel about their Lord.
Learning as time went by that what I felt was more than that.
Never speaking of any of it to Ada, not having the words to ask, to seek his advice.
Not needing to ask for comfort, for reassurance that he would never call me failure.
Ada died on the Somme, following Lord Oropher.
Lord Oropher came home, for a while. Almost the only one of those who marched away who did.
Not that any of us begrudged it – he felt our grief, our pain, we all knew it. He had his own grief, his own pain, and we – we would have given anything to be able to help. He knew it, and he thanked us, in his own way. He was a good lord, and we loved him for it.
This one – he and his wife used to come up, occasionally, with the boys. But only for the shooting. He is our lord, but he doesn't feel it. Never did.
He wasn’t supposed to be. His brothers died – shot down that same first day. So many died. I remember the telegrams coming – watching as house after house turned dark and cold. Too many elves did not come back.
Our lord came back – to die – and his son – Thranduil – he never wanted anything to do with us.
He would come with the boys, with his wife, for holidays. Never to care for us, to interest himself in our lives. His life, his interest is down there, in the city, no place for Silvans. We hoped – hoped things would change as the boys grew – that one of them would care for us.
Thalion – I remember watching him learn to shoot, to stalk, to track. Beautiful he was, and never needed showing anything twice. His mother’s joy and delight.
His father’s pride.
Dead.
He and his mother.
The lord has been here even less since then.
I remember, when he got to the age of it, the little lad, Legolas, being sent up on his own.
Taught him to shoot, as my father his father, though I had no son to walk behind, watch and learn.
He’s a good shot, Legolas, a clever boy, does his best.
Always, his father would come for a day or two, take him out, see him, praise him. I don’t think the lad ever realised he would never match up. He doesn't come now. Another one who cares not for Silvans, for our need.
Anyway.
It is a long drive. There is no airport nearer, and although one who loved and cared for us, one who visited often, would have a chauffeur, a limousine, or some such, I do not know, ready to transport him in comfort – he did not order such things. And so, as "head of the estate management team", or whatever I am called now – there is not the word for it all in this tongue, not the word for what I am, tied to the land, loving the land, caring for it, living as part of it, one with it as elves are supposed to be – it is for me to be here, to drive him out of Inverness, and towards his own lands.
The route is clear, and I know it well enough. I should, by now – I watched them build this road, I have driven it ever since.
But not often enough have I driven hir-nin to his land.
I long to take the more beautiful, longer road, to bring him home the old way, the proper way, through the mists, the glens, that he might – just might – feel the land call to him – but it is not my place to decide, and I stay on the main A-road, past Loch Ness – and he sees it not. I remember Legolas peering out, trying to see the monster – and sighing at how well it hid.
“Not seen Legolas for a while, hir-nin,” I say, as the bleak scenery – they call it bleak, those who don’t know it, love it, like I do – passes by, “he’s keeping well? Any chance of a wedding – little ones?”
And I know I have said the wrong thing.
“No,” he says, staring out at the landscape, the hills, the moorland, “no. Well. Maybe a wedding. No children.”
I don’t understand Sindar city ways, and it isn’t my place to ask, so I make a non-committal noise, and concentrate on the road. It’s dusk, the time of day when suicidal rabbits throw themselves under wheels, and I would not kill even such daft creatures without need.
We are into his land now, so much he owns, so much I have range over, so much I walk and drive, and keep beloved that one day, one day he – or his son – or his son’s son – might see it, feel it, know it and love it.
Might come home, and care for his land and the elves of the land once more.
“Tell me about the land,” he says, but he does not even glance out of the window, and I wonder what he wants to know, why he pretends to care.
I send him reports – best I can – regular. I didn’t have much schooling – always knew where I belonged, what I’d be doing with my life, never questioned it, never saw the need for the writing and the figuring.
Picked it up as I went along, best I could.
Still.
I do my best, talk of it all – the trees, the deer, the heather, the grouse.
And then I realise what he wants to hear.
Unlikely though it seems.
“It misses you,” I say, “all of it. The land, the trees, the game. The elves. Hir-nin, we miss you.”
He nods, slowly.
“I should have come before,” he says, and I think, yes, you should. You are our lord, and we love you, need you.
“Legolas goes out to the islands,” I say, and I know I sound jealous, “he – what? Surfs, or some such? But he doesn't come here to shoot. The Hall is – empty – without either of you.”
He nods again, and sighs.
Then he looks at me,
“You, though,” he says, “Caradhil, you don’t change.”
“No, hir-nin,” I say, and then I look down at my hands on the steering wheel, and I – don’t let myself sigh.
Because that's changed.
Gold band on the fourth finger of my left hand.
Because I knew he’d never see me, never want my service, never want all I would offer, and – and the nights grow long, and cold.
Because Aglarcu – is sweet, and fond, and one of my own people.
Because I was alone, and desperate, for so long. Didn’t know there were others who felt – like this – in those days. At least, didn’t dream of ever finding one who would be content to live here, and I – I am tied to this land.
I wonder, sometimes, how different my life would be, if Ada had come back.
If the land, the love of it, the lore of it, hadn’t claimed me back then.
If I had gone – I don’t know – he spoke of sending me south, maybe even abroad – to learn a bit, see other places, before I came back to help him. Maybe the old Lord would have found me work somewhere else.
Maybe even – I used to imagine working for Lord Thranduil. He has land down south, down in England, as foreign to me as Africa really, but – I used to imagine working there. Tending his grounds. Seeing him.
I never spoke of it to Ada. I hoped to, one day, when I came old enough to think of such things.
Only by the time I did, Ada was gone.
If he had been here, or Naneth – but she turned her face to the wall when the telegram came – I don’t think I would have been so very lonely. Would I have spoken to them the words I could barely say in my own mind – I don’t know.
Probably.
And, in my imagination, they say it doesn't matter, I am still their son, they don’t mind that there will not be grandchildren.
But they died.
And I – I was alone, and cold, and hoped for – so very little.
Had so very little, for so long.
But I always had the land, my home. The elves I know, that I grew up with, their families. A faint, quiet hope at the back of my mind that one day, one day something might change, that Lord Thranduil would choose to live here, that I might be allowed to serve him.
The land above all. Home.
Then – so many things changed. Even up here, we heard about the changes after the last Great War, and then the Sixties, the Seventies came and so many things were different, and I – I wondered if I should leave, should go and – seek my fortune. See if there was someone out there, someone who I could love, who could love me, now it was no longer forbidden, now the desires I felt were – half-acknowledged. Seek out my prince. Or whoever.
Only – there was always work to do. No-one to leave in charge.
And this land is my home.
So I didn’t.
There was the tragedy, the loss of the Lady, and of Thalion – the one we all had hopes of coming back, caring for us – and it didn’t seem the time to leave the land, leave my home.
Always work to do.
The years passed, the winters so cold, the summers – not much warmer, not in my bed. Times changed elsewhere. Not many changes here, on this land.
And then – there was Aglarcu.
An elf I had seen grow up, known from an elfling, his parents my own age, and suddenly – he wanted to learn from me, learn the things I know, the land. I had no son, I will have no son, it seemed – a good idea.
I admit, I enjoyed having him follow me around. Helping, talking, singing, chattering. Listening to me. Looking up at me, as though my words mattered. As though the way the land had ever been, would ever be, meant as much to him, an elf born after the second Great War, as it did to me, an elf who would have been sent to the first, had it lasted another year.
Always he seemed to listen, to understand.
Always remembering what I told him.
Singing.
It was long since I had heard so much song, the song of another part of my daily life, not merely when I went seeking company with a bottle of whisky in hand.
Smiling.
Always he had a smile for me.
So fond, so pretty, so – attentive.
Better schooled than I – he could spell, figure out percentages, use the words that a businessman – for our new lord is a businessman before anything else – wanted to hear. Rephrase the things I knew, the way the land wanted to be managed, into the words that made “economic sense”. Type a formal – what is the word – proposal, a report, make it sound official, in a way I never could. Take out the emotion, the pleas to understand what the land wants, needs, and replace it with a solid argument. Speak of tax planning, of environmental impact, and now carbon offset. He was confident on the telephone, even these strange cordless ones, could use a fax machine, understand a computer.
Helpful.
And then – one night – he was cold, and wet, and – and I couldn’t turn him away from my door.
It was my fault. I had been unreasonably annoyed with him – because he looked up to me so, because he seemed to want something, and I didn’t know what – I sent him out, even though I could see the weather changing, told him not to come back without checking on the deer-herd.
He went, uncomplaining, and I – I felt guilty, I knew I should not have sent him.
He came back, cold, and wet, and still smiling at me, still only wanting me to praise him, to say he had done well, and I – I felt worse. I couldn’t send him home to his parents like that, chilled and wet, tired and hungry.
He sat by my fire, and – and I gave him whisky, because he was cold.
Soup, good proper lambs-broth, and barley-bread with butter, white-bread with honey after. First time I had cooked for anyone since Naneth died. First time I had eaten with someone at my own hearth since then.
He was so cold, so tired, so young, he ate so fast, and then – still shivering. It didn’t seem right – we are elves, Silvans, we don’t get so cold.
Only he was.
I didn’t understand.
Now, I think maybe it was – nerves, fear of disappointing me, fear of letting me down.
But I didn’t see that. I was worried – thought of his parents, what they would say to me if he became ill.
I gave him whisky.
He wasn’t drunk, I didn’t make him drunk.
Only – I shouldn’t have given him whisky. He was so young, and I knew it, but – he was cold. So cold.
He wouldn’t borrow clothes – insisted we put his to dry, that he sat there, wrapped in a blanket. I supposed he didn’t want to go home to his parents and have them angry, have them know how badly I had treated him – for I knew I had, and I knew they would have been within their rights to forbid him to come back.
But watching him strip – trying not to watch him strip – and then he sat there, blanket slipping off one shoulder, beautiful, and – and there, before my fire. Eaten my bread, shared my drink. There. With me.
And I – I was so lonely, so very lonely.
Had been so lonely for so long.
He – I remember, he leant against me in such a way I – I couldn’t help but put my arm round him.
Be honest, Caradhil.
I didn’t try very hard.
I – I’d been drinking before he arrived. I hadn’t told him to come and report that evening – I’m not sure now I even thought he really would go out, so late, in such weather, when he knew as well as I it wasn’t really urgent.
I knew – deep inside – I knew I had done wrong to shout, to tell him to go, to be so unreasonable. But – he was so – nice.
And I – I couldn’t bear him to be so sweet, so – so close, so – not the one I wanted, not the lover for whom I longed.
So I drank to forget, to dull the pain, to soothe the ache, and to warm away the coldness.
I didn’t know he would turn up, I was alone, and always alone, and tired, and – it doesn’t matter now.
There he was, in just a blanket, sleepy from the warmth and the alcohol, relaxed against me, and – and those big dark eyes looking up at me, blinking, and then he reached and touched my hair, touched my ears, and I – I didn’t think properly.
Just once, I told myself, just one kiss.
Not so very bad.
Not really.
He was young, but – he was no elfling, no. I wouldn’t have been tempted if he were. He must have been – near fifty, more perhaps.
One kiss, it didn’t seem – wrong.
If it had only been one kiss – it wouldn’t have been wrong, it wouldn’t have mattered, it would have been only a sweet memory, a little warmth.
It wouldn’t have changed the rest of my life – our lives.
Only – he wasn’t shy, he wasn’t unsure, he didn’t blush and pull away.
His arms round my neck, his mouth on mine, his body pressed close to me.
The blanket falling down, falling away, and – and suddenly I found I had a beautiful, naked, excited ellon in my arms.
And I – I didn’t stop.
I could have.
If he had wanted me to, I would have.
If he hadn’t been kissing, and kissing, and touching me, stroking me, whispering my name, over and over, his hands on my clothes, undoing me, saying he loved me, he’d loved me for so long, he wanted me, only me, and I – I not closing my eyes, no, that would have been to waste it, but closing my mind, not thinking, just – just the warmth, the need, the relief of it.
Touching him.
Feeling him rock against me, pushing, wanting; knowing I wanted – oh I wanted so much – to see him in pleasure, to hold him, to – to shut out the cold and the quiet, and the loneliness, to lose myself and all my ache and pain in his sweet body, his warmth, his delight.
Moving, he still in my arms, holding me, pulling me down with him before the fire, and still his kisses, his whispers; so – so good to be touched, and wanted. So good to forget the longing for one who never came – and would not see me if he did. So good, just this once, just for one short space of time to be held, to hold, to explore, to find out, to see, to give pleasure, to be – adored.
His legs opening, letting me, he wanting, saying yes, yes that, oh Caradhil please, more, another finger, yes, yes, more, yes, everything, oh Caradhil, Caradhil, and clutching at me, his neck thrown back, the way his throat moved as he swallowed, and wanted, and kissing him, feeling him gasp. Watching his body, pleasing him, seeing how he trusted me, how he wanted this, how he would let me go on, no, how he wanted me to go on, not stop, not stop, please Caradhil, please.
And then – oh I knew, somewhere, I knew I should stop, knew we should stop, knew it, but – so lonely, so very, very lonely, and he so – so beautiful, and wanting, and loving.
After.
Looking at him, as he lay there, smiling, and smiling, and his eyes, so full of stars, so happy.
“I love you,” he said, “I always have, Caradhil, I always will,” and he held onto me, and I – what could I do?
He nestled in against me, and I – I held him.
He hadn’t lied to me, hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Always,” I said, “I’ll always take care of you, I promise. Always.”
Because – that's what it means.
For elves.
To lie with another – it is a promise of always.
So I was taught. For Silvans, Silvans like us.
I know that now they say it isn’t, that elves can act as mortals, can take pleasure and smile and move on, but – that isn’t what I was taught.
And I knew it wasn’t what he had been brought up to believe.
What does it matter, that I was as innocent as he?
I suppose, if we were different, I could claim he seduced me.
Only – where would be the honour in that?
I could have said no.
I didn’t.
I didn’t say no that first time, nor all the times after.
How could I when I had been so alone, so cold, for so very long, and here he was, warm and lovely, and in my arms?
Two days, two days it took before we managed to leave the house.
Even then, only because I – I wanted rings. Needed rings. Thought we should tell his parents. Try to make things right, to make it the way it should be, to say the words, assure them I would take care of him. Needed to make it right, to make it public.
Needed to before I began to regret, to turn cold, to back away.
He held my hand, I remember, when we went to see them, when we went to the tree by the smithy, said the words, watched them melt down my parents’ rings, make them into rings for us.
He held my hand, and he smiled and smiled.
He held my hand as though he would never let me go.
And I knew he wouldn’t.
He makes me happy.
Mostly.
He tries.
I think I take care of him.
I try.
So, I look at my ring, as hir-nin says I do not change, and I know he does not see me at all, but I speak to him as I always have.
I park outside the Hall, the Big House, and I unload the suitcase, the bags, I carry them inside.
“You’ll be wanting to shoot tomorrow?” I ask, and when he nods, I say, “I’ll be round to collect you then, hir-nin. You’ll understand I need to see you use the shotgun before I can take you out on the hills – be sure?”
“Of course,” he says, and there is a laugh in his voice; he knows, and I know, he is a superb shot, but then, then he says, “you’ll stay and have a drink with me, Caradhil?”
And I look at him, in the lamplight, the fire lit behind him, the Hall so inviting. I look at him, the beauty of him, the perfection, the coldness.
I look at him, and I think of all the years when I longed for such an invitation, when I longed only to serve him, to be near him – and he did not come.
I shake my head,
“No, hir-nin,” I say, “my supper will be waiting.”
And I turn away.
I am shaking as I drive back to my parents’ croft, my croft – our croft.
Shaking that I have refused the invitation I have longed for my whole life. Shaking that a promise made without thought, without intent has held me bound.
Shaking as I park, as I walk towards the door, as I open it.
No keys needed, not here.
The house is only small, and so I can hear him singing, as he always sings. A plaintive ballad tonight, I notice, not one of his happy, careless nonsense songs. Beautiful to hear, even though the sorrow in the words of love lost, love denied, feels as though it could break my heart tonight, tonight of all nights.
But in here it is warm. I can smell something good cooking, rabbits he snared, deer I shot perhaps, vegetables we grew. I can see bread set to rise before the fire, ready to bake slow and eat in the morning. I can see my clothes for the next day’s shoot laid ready, airing. I know that late as I am, he will have fed the hens, milked the goat, shut them up for the night; distracted as I have been these last days, he will have kept the paperwork, the emails I struggle with, up to date. Had I not done so, he would even have cleaned the guns for tomorrow, and if I ask it of him, he will follow hir-nin and I, as bearer.
If I ask him, he will give.
And so, without ever meaning, he asks much of me in return.
I stand there by the door, and I sigh.
He comes out of the little lean-to kitchen, and he looks at me for a second, and then away.
“You’re early back,” he says, and leans to poke the fire, “I thought – thought you might be – longer. Talking – drinking – with our lord.”
“No,” I say, and I walk to him, “no,” I take his face in my hands, and I turn him to look at me, I see the worry, the fear in his eyes, and I kiss him. “No, Aglarcu,” I say again, “he offered me a drink, to stay and talk, but – I came home to you.”
He swallows, and blinks, and I – I find I need say more.
“I made a promise,” I say, “and I keep my word. I know, you know, how things began between us, but – you are good to me. You have been these long years. And I – I hope I have been to you?”
I wait, and he nods, biting his lip again, and I – I realise he thinks he is to blame, that I look only for an excuse to leave as he says,
“Yes, Caradhil. Too good. Always. I never – never expected so much.”
I run my hands through his hair, and he closes his eyes, lost in the sensation.
I look at him, and I shake my head softly as I smile.
“Beautiful,” I say, and he flinches again, so I smooth over his ear-tips, feel him shiver in my arms, “you are beautiful. I am a lucky elf.”
Now he opens his eyes, and I look into them,
“I am sorry,” I say, and go on before he can begin to panic, “sorry for every moment I haven’t said it. Yes, we didn’t start as we should have, yes, you saw me before I really saw you, but – I love you now. You make my home, my life, so much better. Without you – I would still be so very lonely.”
He smiles, and I kiss him again.
This time, he kisses me back.
For a moment, I think of hir-nin, sitting alone, in his big Hall. I think how I could have stayed, to sit with him, talk, listen; perhaps, if he is lonely enough, give him some kind of – comfort.
I think how once, that would have been enough.
More than enough.
All I wanted.
But, as my sweet, warm darling winds his arms round me, clings to me, whispers still the words I love to hear, the promises that warm my heart; as he kisses me, touches my ears, my hair, whimpers in need as I touch him also; as my Aglarcu welcomes me home with every fibre of his being – I am proud to say, not that I was adored once too, but that we – we have built something worth holding onto.
After, I look at him as he lies in my arms, the firelight on his skin and mine, our hair mingled; I look at him as he nestles close and trusting, his voice a tiny thread of delight, of happiness made real in song, and I know my words, which for so long bound me, are become my support and strength.
I made a promise, a vow, and I will keep it until the end of time.