#maedhrond

“Of course I love you as my father too. We can fuck our way through Dagor-Dagorath and I probably still will. It’s in my nature, yours, ours. We construct elaborate philosophies to justify our continued proximity to what should repel us. Because with migratory trajectories like ours, Atto, we know that exile from the place that houses and curates your pain may well mean exile from the only place that understands it,” Elrond shrugs, topping up Maedhros’ glass for him. “What begins as temporary coexistence turns into structure, and structure eventually gets mistaken for inevitability. Love grew, we say, as little might be thought. It is much the same now. We tell ourselves we've transcended, that our presence here, now, together and redeemed, represents evolution rather than just a lack of alternatives. Aman offers me no exit from Middle-Earth, only a deeper room in the same house. With only squatter’s rights to boot.”

With his face drained except for two spots of color and his mouth a sneering, brutal curve, Elrond seems feral and hawk-eyed for a moment, poised for a perfect pounce. Under the bureaucratic civility he traded in to survive, he vibrates with suppressed violence, barely-contained disgust and unashamed lust. It unsettles and excites Maedhros at once.

There you are, he thinks. There you are, my son of slaughter.

Trying out yet another illustration style (Disney heroes vs my Disney villains?) and new set of character designs for my very weird 4th Age Elrond-in-Aman WIP, polished skulls round which the roses twine, in which Elrond tries to fuck his way out of immortality, a task Maedhros is all too happy to help out with. Speedpaint below the cut because this cartoony style has given me so much grief that I must share the pain. Happy holidays!

My shroud of white, stuck all with you by hautdesert

OR: the progressive collapse of the pseudo-family, as told via the liaison of Maedhros and Elrond Peredhel his unlawful ward.

25.1k | Rated E

He felt the spasm run through Maedhros’s body; the contortion of the hand repeated in every muscle, and rejoiced as the pilgrim to some surpassing natural beauty or marvel of construction glories in the sight, altogether distant, of the journey’s ending: the soul uncurling, springing forward, reaching out its shoots after long sleep. It was a sensation like pain, and like the relief from pain. Once, gently and barely perceptibly, Maedhros touched his hair—his nerves sang!—and then his hand was on Elrond’s shoulder and he was pushed inexorably away. “No,” said Maedhros. “No. Fool! Are you delirious? Have your senses winged away like so many birds? Go to bed.” He laid his hand briskly on Elrond’s forehead, touched his cheek. “You’re not fevered, at any rate, so I need have no qualms about sending you down alone. Off with you now. Go to bed and sleep away the trouble.” Unbalanced, Elrond had slouched half onto Maedhros’s lap; now he clung on to him like a burr, like wet paper. His arms were still around his neck. “Murderer,” he said breathlessly. “Kidnapper.” He laid his head against Maedhros’s chest, pushing against the force of his hand. “Who for you but me?”

Chapter 2 of polished skulls round which the roses twine