#lithwaloth

---

Word came that a body had been found, and Lithwaloth knew.

He didn't question how he knew, and he tucked the knowledge away as he was led by the least-populated route to the long hallway that led to the store rooms, abandoned now for Hollin and her gem smiths had outgrown them in favor of newer, better-lit shelving.

"We apologize for the inconvenience," the City Captain said, though she didn't look at that sorry. "but he was last seen in your company."

Lithwaloth could have read something there but he didn't. Instead he moved past the younger guards who had been keeping out foot traffic, what little could be found.

The body was slumped by a wall, half-curled. One hand was out, palm flat and fingers clawed against the stone floor. The other was clenched in a fist over a red bloom that had wept into the grout.

Lithwaloth did not need to kneel and interrupt the investigators, but he did. He did not need to turn the body with a hand carefully covered by a piece of cloth, but he did.

He did not need to look into the lifeless maroon eyes of his cousin Sila, but he did.

Lithwaloth sat on his heels and listened to the world slow down. He observed in a distant way that the blood on the floor was looped strangely, that Sila was holding his hand strangely.

Lithwaloth opened his hand and took what he held; none stopped him.

Sila was still smiling- that wry, half-mad grin.

"Lord Healer," asked a warden, hesitant and afraid, "You knew him?"

"I did." Lithwaloth said, and stood back up.

---

"I am truly sorry for your loss." Celebrimbor said and Lithwaloth almost believed him. He gave the Lord of Hollin a long, cool look and said, "This investigation is mine now."

No one argued. Lithwaloth had known they would not. One less tatyar in the world- even now- was nothing to cry over.

---

Lithwaloth visited the dusty corridor many times in the next month as he waited for the north wind to bring him Duol. With his underlings, with escorts, alone, he went until the blood had been washed away.

He thought of it- of Sila alone against some unknown assailant.

He'd probably deserved it- finally cheated someone who wasn't going to let go, who wasn't fooled by the witchery of his Voice. There were many good elves, men and dwarves dead beneath the sea and land who had crossed Sila, or hadn't amused him, or had tried to get the justice he owed them.

Sila never paid what was owed, not when he could take. This was a long time coming.

Still.

Still, he had been.

Family.

And he had lived so long, despite the danger he created and courted. Lithwaloth had thought that after Beleriand went to sleep beneath the waves- yet Sila had survived even that, riding a stolen horse with a maelstrom gleaming in his teeth.

---

A diamond.

that had been what Sila died holding- a pure and perfect diamond, unspeakably radiant in its cut and shine. perhaps he had been smuggling them. Perhaps a gem smith had taken offense to their stores lightening.

There had been a fight. Nafaer confirmed that, their gaze hooded and grim. Nafaer the wulfenite knew battle like cats knew coming rain. Sila had defensive wounds, had drawn in close in the end- to cut the throat, as was his habit, with the little snub bladed dagger he'd always claimed to have won off a dwarf king?

Fat lot of good it had done him.

Lithwaloth danced through the motions. Sila was no whelp, no stranger to fights. Had his opponent been bigger, stronger? Had he been too fast?

There was an answer but Lithwaloth couldn't see it. Gray fog had clouded his head and his mind. He found himself sitting before the fire, drinking tea, and remembering the sound of a lyre.

Sila had played with all the beauty of the outside world, never once showing that ugly soul.

---

Sila had known he would lose.

This Lithwaloth concluded as word came that a rider on a pale horse wearing a blue shawl was approaching. The north wind blew, and Duol stalked past noble and hostler alike, and his eyes were not dry.

Duol had more mercy in him than Lithwaloth ever had. He had loved Sila, in spite of…

everything.

"I can't find him." He said to Lithwaloth that evening over sketches of the scene, staring into his cup. "He can't have gone far, but Litsewe- I can't find him."

This was worrisome, indeed; for the dead could not hide from Duol Lowion.

"He knew his opponent was going to win," Lithwaloth said. "He drew them in on purpose."

"Sila was not suicidal." Duol said.

Lithwlaoth shook his head. "He was outmatched. He made a choice."

"A choice for what?" Duol cried and Lithwaloth could feel his frustration, tangible as a thick treacle. On the Shadowed Paths, there were many forks; if Duol could not find Sila soon..

A choice for what.

For what?

---

"It doesn't look like a random spatter." Duol said to Lithwaloth, tracing the drawing of the blood that streaked the floor. "Look. Do you see them?"

Lithwaloth squinted.

Not serati, no. Not cirth, either. Something even earlier, a child's game designed by a beloved cousin on the lakeshore. Make sounds into pictures. Do my name next, Rog!

Lithwaloth traced his dead cousin's blood.

"Snake." He murmured. "Grass."

---

Sila had hated his mother name. It was truthful and ugly and blunt, everything Sila was not or did not want to be. He had fought to leave it behind and for good or ill many had let him.

Lithwaloth never had, and Sila had never forgiven him for it.

"What is the point?" Lithwaloth asked his dead cousin's corpse, wrapped and prepared. They would be the only family at the pyre; Sila had not spoken to his siblings or their families in centuries, and his father was not well enough to make the journey.

Lithwaloth held the diamond in his pocket and watched Duol wrap Sila's beautiful, crooked face.

---

Snake.

Grass.

Why?

That was the question that burrowed like a boring insect in the wood of Lithwaloth's exhausted mind. Why? Why would Sila- who had hated his mothername so much- leave it as his final words? Why would he write it not in sindarin or cirth but in the picture letters Rog had created so long ago? For someone as bombastic as Sila had been, someone as prideful and vain and demanding, it was hardly a fitting epitaph.

Why had Thurlhug written his name?

Duol slept fitfully, tossing and turning. Lithwaloth watched him. Duol had eaten Sila's ashes. He hadn't asked Lithwaloth to, but he hadn't turned his back either.

It was Duol's small revenge, perhaps. Maybe Lithwaloth deserved it. After all, he had cared for Duol through all of his fits and starts, had worked long and hard to understand.

He…could admit a certain lapse in such study and compassion, where Sila had been concerned.

"He left that message for you," Duol had said, and Lithwaloth was forced to admit that his cousin was probably right. That didn't answer the question. If it was a message, why?

Lithwaloth opened a book and found the words swimming on the page. This happened more now that he was older. Words and days sometimes got away from him.

Words.

Snake.

Grass.

Sitting in the dark Lithwaloth who once was Litsewe mouthed the words over and over until they ceased to be a name and became a description, a statement, a truth.

Snake in the grass.

The diamond in Sila's clawed hand had been of unusual clarity and brilliance. It had been perfect. A radient, perfect...

gift.

---

There was no bringing Sila's murderer to justice and Lithwaloth made peace with this.

One couldn't go accusing the beloved pet maiar of the Lord of Hollin of being a-

Well.

Still Lithwaloth watched and he watched and as he watched a conversation returned to him, a warning his cousin had given regarding a recruit before departing at the tip of a warden's sword.

"Watch that little one with the braids."

"Why?"

Sila had smiled.

"You can't con a con man, Litsewe."

He had died with that same smile on his beautiful crooked face.

Lithwaloth made preparations to leave Hollin. Sila could have cared less about the pretty gem smiths, the great city of Khazad Dum, the wealth of mithril. His message had been for one elf alone, and he had died to give it.

---

On the Shadowed Paths, where night and day bore children with teeth, Duol Lowion embraced his dead cousin and whispered, "I thought I'd lost you."

"You could never lose me, Duol." Sila said. "Is he leaving?"

Duol nodded. "Soon."

"Good. Too much to hope he'll avenge me. Would be stupid."

"Stupid as confronting a corrupted Maiar?"

"Just about that stupid." Sila grinned. "Won't think I'm worth avenging, anyway."

Duol sighed. "Maybe."

"Ever the peacekeeper, you are." Sila said. "I think I'm sorry about that."

"It doesn't matter if you are. Let me guide you, Sila. It's a long journey."

"I know, Duol. And I'm fine."

"Sila, it's dangerous here."

"That's half the fun."

"Sila-"

"Go on, Cousin." Sila said, "it must be cold here."

Duol bit his lip, wrapped his shawl a little tighter. He looked around and said, "If you follow the far fork, you'll reach the mansion of an old friend. He might help you, if you ask nicely."

"When have I ever asked nicely?"

"You know how. Sila?"

"Yes?"

"I'm going to miss you."

"You know it's funny, Duol. I think I'm going to miss you, too."

---

Lithwaloth Mornion, called Litsewe, sat at the head of a train of wains and opened a small muslin bag.

He tipped its contents- gray and dusty- into his palm.

The horses pulled forward. His healers rode from Hollin.

Ok, So first it needs to be established that Lithwaloth is homosexual. There have been the odd flutters towards women, so perhaps he is actually bi with a really strong preference for men since there are exactly two women he has ever been interested in his several ages long existence.

Lithwaloth LOVES giving head, he really, really loves giving head. He has a bent for submission and has taught himself thanks to various indulgent lovers how to suppress his gag reflex. When in the right mood his month can be made if his lover consents to fuck his throat. 

He also loves switching, abruptly turning the tables once in a while and controlling his lover. 

The silence of the northern lakes could kill you.

Pain became an imprecise thing, inexplicable and you became tongue tied and infantile in your frustrations as you tried to express, or seek the source of your suffering whilst the fog slowly sucked away the life inside you until you wandered in unhappiest of solitudes, physical form degenerating and breaking away from you until you were just another sad, strange shape in the mists.

This Lithwaloth thought, peering out the crack of the tent partitions out upon the large and lonely lake this foreign camp now clung to the edges of possessively. And likewise possessive the hands that caught his hips and gripped. He gasped and worried at his lower lip, trying not to allow any sound of pain escape him. It was hard though, the angle was wrong and the thrusts too precise and uniform for any chance of meek pleasure to unburden him of the dreadful weight settling into his limbs as his Fae strained at the fleshy prison his body had become.

He must have failed. Some noise of pain must have escaped him.

He was held and turned, the body above his withdrawing to his unending relief.

He barely moved as Fëanáro settled against his again, pressing snug and possessively to him, thigh to hip to chest with a face tucking against his neck like a frightened child’s.

At last Lithwaloth raised a hand, buried it in the thick mane of black hair above him and stroked, in long soothing patterns he remembered his brothers being the most amenable to.

He dared to move his legs, the crackling of the paper he had been writing on too loud within the suddenly silent tent. He spent his days writing the songs he remembered of his youth, the Eldarin coming swifter and swifter the longer he wrote and recorded the stories that had fascinated his brothers and his peers. Sometimes his captor did nothing but watch him, sometimes his captor watched over his shoulder, apparently fascinated as Lithwaloth wrote firstly in the halting, imprecise squiggles that sweet faced Rúmil had created but never refined when Lithwaloth knew him, then wrestled with the tengwar that Fëanáro had taught him.

Sometimes Fëanáro left him for the night when he was done writing and could not hold up his head anymore. Sometimes Fëanáro touched him, stroked his hair, mapped his face with his fingers as Lithwaloth succumbed to exhaustion.

Sometimes this happened and Lithwaloth was not sure how many times he could wrestle his Fae back into his body. Surely there was a limit to how much longer he could keep the parts of him meshed, for the longer this went on the more his Rhaw was a repellent and filthy thing his Fae could not stand to inhabit.

Fëanáro… meant no harm.

Lithwaloth tilted his head tiredly, and sought a smooth forehead to lay soft kisses against until with a sigh the tension in the strong, golden limbs caging him dissipated.

Fëanáro meant no harm.

Lithwaloth knew insanity when he saw it.

But what sort of insanity is this? A mocking voice rumbled, laughing in caustic derision as Fëanáro’s hips began to roll, thrusting against Lithwaloth’s limp member in careful, calculated circles.

Lithwaloth closed his eyes, licked his lips, and then opened his eyes again, the tips of his fingers prickling in response to the hot sour ache that fluttered inside his stomach in response to the hotter, pleasing ache that began to trickle into his loins.

“I am sorry,” he sought Fëanáro’s face at the words, gasping as the hands on his arms suddenly tightened enough to press the bone.

“I am sorry,” he repeated, trying to lock eyes, fighting to keep his gaze on the brilliant white-blue above him which tried to avoid his own look but were drawn back, unable to deny Lithwaloth.

“I am sorry Fëanáro I am sorry,” the language felt familiar like a robe that had been modified into a coat, some things the same but the seams all wrong and the fastenings different.

“I am sorry, I am sorry, I will not leave you, I did not leave you,” it was not unusual for those hands to find their way to his neck. They slid there now, squeezed gently, moved up to cup his jaw and trace the shape of his face again, repeated, desperate strokes of fingertips across his cheeks and nose trembling with grief and fury that was not directed at Lithwaloth.

Lithwaloth’s hips were rocking unbidden, drawing out more hot pleasing friction to try and smother the continual ache his body was burdened with.

As a child and then a young man,still called Litsewë as Fëanáro’s tongue would render it, Lithwaloth’s resemblance to his brothers had amused him, bemused him, and occasionally annoyed him, but in the end had been something of indescribable value to him because it marked them as brothers, as the Mornion; Morwë, Litsewë, Finwë, Urwë, Tarwë. Identical in face and form though their colouration varied thanks to the rainbow of persons who were their parents and grandparents.

Now it wounded him.

He wanted to remind Fëanáro he was not Finwë. But he had done that before and Fëanáro had nodded, scowling, angry, and accused Lithwaloth of considering him stupid beyond worlds to think that. So why now this? Why did the stranger with Míriel’s face and her strong, precise hands use him as a proxy to a father long slaughtered, and longer lost of honour thanks to the tales that Fëanáro had brought from across the ocean (murder was a crime that would see Finwë’s name banned from ever being spoken again amongst the Tatyar. Murder would drive a rift between Tatië and Iminyë that would leave them tender footed and weeping around one another for centuries. Would leave his parents hollow eyed and unsmiling for longer. Murder would nearly cause a civil war between clans as Míriel’s kin reacted in disgust to what Finwë had done. Murder done in another land, far away, where they had been reassured no such thing could happen. Murder they would insist, murder, and cast Finwë Wife-Murderer and Indis Friend-betrayer from their minds and erase them from their stories, and leave Lithwaloth with an ache in his body and a mouth full of questions he would never see answered; never even discuss or seek healing for because the shame would grow each passing year of who had hurt him; ultimately not Finwë’s son (though he never absolved Fëanáro of guilt) but Finwë himself through the medium of Fëanáro’s agonising grief and fury.)

His orgasm came, unexpected and deeply satisfying for it had been a while since he had found such a sincere form of release.

Fëanáro was still rocking, almost as an afterthought, his cock still hard and hot against Lithwaloth’s stomach, his fingers focused on their continued mapping, lighter then the touch of a butterfly’s feet.

“This isn’t about sex is it?” Lithwaloth asked his unknown nephew but received nothing more then an irritated flick of white-fire hued eyes in his direction, and the fingers pressing against his face a little harder.

No it wasn’t then.

1. Lithwaloth! Older brother of Finwe, Lord Healer of Menegroth, 110% done with “the song” and about ready to move to Aman if it gives him the chance to punch Manwe in the face repeatedly. Does not give a shit about the Laws and Customs. He predates laws and customs. If he wants to be friends with benefits with Beleg, he will be friends with benefits with Beleg (who in their right mind passes up an arse like that?)

2. Baradui. Arse kicking, undead surviving, plus size elf of my heart. Having none of your bullshit about elves being skinny trees, you try and fat shame her and she will shame you about having a nose…via breaking it. She will have her cake, eat it too, save a bunch of people from themselves, set bones, sew wounds, rub your back as you puke your guts out, then go home, sleep six hours, and do it all again. 

3: Erevir. Baby ridiculous living Silmaril who just wants to find Feanor and is confused about this thing called gender. Also shoes. And clothing. 

But especially gender. Apparently you aren’t suppose to be whatever gender you feel at that moment in time. (Shapeshifting illusion using bbbaaabbyyyy.)

4. D’rak’tari: pagan avari werewolf goddess of my heart. Accidentally ate the discarded raiment of a maiar (she may have been compelled into doing it by said maiar) and paid the consequences. She is a goddess of survival, that last bit of food you eek out by cutting what you eat every day during the harsh winters, and the child who remains quiet as the enemy passes by. She is the wolf pack you hear outside the walls and feel grateful that you have walls, and she is the shadow against the wall that alerts you to a stranger in your home before they know you have arrived. One of the guardians of the way East. It is said that if you are a rape victim and pray to her, regardless of if you are her follower or not/ elf or not, she will enact protection over you and bring reprisal against your attacker.

5. Nirthon: poisonous noble of my heart. Sleek, smooth, graceful, deadly, beautiful healer-prince who survives the destruction of his house and is so strong and brave as the regent of Doriath, praying every day that Dior will answer the message he has sent positively (they just don’t know, what with his mortal blood) and release him of this burden. Murderer of Caranthir and murdered by the same.

Special mention to:

Mornhigil and Fainhigil: deadly beautiful princes of the same calibre as Nirthon (Nirthon is Mornhigil’s son) whose descendants define a new nation (Oropher is Fainhigil’s grandson.)

Maltheneth: Fainhigil’s wife and basically the reason Doriath didn't fall to civil war several times

Laureyave and Lavarrise: the only two Lady Lords of Valinor (other noldor female Lords came later but only because of the death of family members. These two were the founders of their own houses and respectively followed Feanor and Celegorm.)

Unglawen: Wife of Elmo, mother of Eol, holds her head high no matter what they say. Niece of Finwe, utterly unimpressed by Galadriel and never warms up to her.

Annestel: Oropher’s lover and eventual consort, Thranduil’s other father. Legolas takes after him quite a bit (it’s a long story. And no, it does not involve mpreg. Just the use of questionably dark magic and a orc-elf willing to negotiate the use of such for elf-organs.)

Elwende/Elrian: twin sister of Elu. You wanna know why Elu is such a hardarse. A great deal of it arises out of Elrian’s death and the circumstances surrounding it and what happened afterwards. Was a rather vital part of Olwe’s childhood given their mother was often busy helping Enelye. Had a great love of the stars and also of the water, and wanted to see what lay beyond the great lake.

---

“Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.”  ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

---

Lithwaloth Mornwe, Master Healer of Menegroth in the realm of Doriath under His Majesty Elu Thingol, looked over the corpse that had been the reason for his skipping of breakfast. 

Once it had been an Iron Master named Tomor- a pinch-faced Sinda, minor son in a major family, who had a habit of wearing red leather boots and saying crude things loudly to elves deemed too young to hear them. 

His head was twisted to the right, hanging in a grotesque fashion. His thin lips were open in an 'o' of surprise, pale blue eyes wide and not yet cloudy. They had been his only attractive feature. 

There was a knife in his heart, on the desk. Not in his chest, where it by all rights belonged; that was a dark red cavity.  

The knife was a gut hook, broad-bladed with a plain horn handle. One of exactly thirty that had gone missing from an Iron Guild warehouse six weeks ago, around the same time the Wardens of Doriath began mounting a case against Tomor's questionable accounting and practice habits.  

Tomor's heart was nothing more than a lump of fleshy mush. The knife had been thrust into the organ, twisted with great force to speed its destruction, and then pulled out with brute strength to be dropped to the oak desktop on top of the falsified shipping reports. 

The younger Wardens working the case had stepped out to take a breather. Lithwaloth couldn't blame them. Beside him Beleg the Strongbow's mouth was a single grim line. 

"Evidence?" Lithwaloth asked. 

"None." Beleg said. "Not a damn thing. Not even post-mortem bruises."

"Perhaps he hit his head." Lithwaloth said neutrally. 

"Maybe." Beleg said. "Maybe." 

Neither mentioned that they were sharing the same memory; a broad grin showing sharp eyeteeth, a large hand patting the bartop. 

"Have the other knives been found?" Lithwaloth asked.

"Wouldn't you know it, someone reported them to Gathlamor this morning." Beleg said. "Fresh as could be. Shipping mixup."

Lithwaloth couldn't help the wry smile. "His family?"

"His sister has been informed. We told her she could come in for final identification once he'd been moved." Beleg sighed. "Which I suppose we should get to."

"Indeed." Lithwaloth said. "Strange is the work of Eru."

Beleg snorted. "This wasn't the work of Eru." He went quiet for a moment.

"Lithwaloth?" Beleg said.

"Yes?" The Master Healer asked as he prepared to bring in the moriticians.

"I've never been so glad to be an elf's friend." Beleg paused. "or to just not be his enemy." 

Looking into Tomor's slack face, Lithwaloth Mornwe quietly agreed.  

---

"If I wanted someone dead, I'd have the common decency to do it myself."