#promisesofstone

curvo’s opinions

He purses his lips. So many conflicting opinions he has about his fair cousin. Kind and gracious, yet utterly insufferable at the worst of times. Intelligent, no doubt, but a fool enough to let some Man write him into a story he had no right being a part of. A sharp mind that can’t seem to pick out, or perhaps is too naïve to see the cruelty of the world.

He is an enigma, Curufin thinks, knowing full well he has been standing in awkward silence. A paradox. An unsolvable equation.

“We are cousins,” he begins, and immediately realizes how stupid that is. Of course they’re cousins. Everyone knows they’re cousins. “He’s— well, he is Ingoldo, isn’t he? Like a garden weed he shows up again and again in my life. I don’t even know why he talks to me. What does he think he’ll gain? My friendship? What need does he have for that? He has enough friends.”

Bella sighed, glancing at the warden. "I don't understand anything about all this -- the elven gods and the Blight I mean. I wasn't really trained for this kind of thing, so it's good to have someone who does get it. Or at least better than I do."

She could imagine Lucanis was probably feeling the same way too. After all, the Crows were taught how to eliminate their targets without getting caught and it was almost as simple as breathing, but this...this wasn't simple. It was something else entirely. She really had stepped into new territory when all she wanted was to remain with in Antiva.

❛ no matter what happens, you'll always have me. ❜ Finrod for Beor -✧- @promisesofstone )

Bëor sighed quietly where he sat on the ground, looking down at the soft, green grass underneath him. He pulled mindlessly at some of the longer strands poking up near his feet. He had recently told the Elven king of some of the hardships of his and his people's travel West. Though they did not regret it, and liked Ossiriand thus far, it was a hard journey hither. Bëor had lost his wife on the way, and had now his two boys. He worried about them and their families to be, on whatever further journey they would have.

For years, she had known nothing but her son's name and the memory of his face, as well as the tormenting thought of what had become of him. Was he still alive, or had she lost him forever on her last day here in Middle-earth?

@promisesofstone / blood & darkness

It was in the small hours of night that the brothers found themselves beneath an open vault of stars – the same changeless witnesses that had burned above their father’s passing, and over every deed of their forefathers. The fire before them had long since collapsed into embers, breathing a slow, red light that licked their faces with warmth. Beyond its circle, the world seemed boundless. Mountains rose like sleeping kings, the air sharp with frost and pine and immeasurable distance.

Fíli sat with his hands clasped and head bowed, his golden hair falling loose about his temples. His gaze lingered upon the embers as though he could divine in their depths some omen of their fate. He felt Kíli’s restlessness like a pulse in the dark beside him, the tremor of a spirit made for movement, for horizons not yet touched by their kind.

Kíli was the one to break the silence at last, his voice low and rough with longing:

“This is the problem with making a thing forbidden. It does nothing but build an ache in the heart.”

Brief and perilous, the words fell like sparks between them. Fíli turned his gaze toward his brother then – his mirror in youth, his shadow in laughter. In him, he saw the yearning for the road, the hunger for danger, the wild joy of being alive.

He knew it to be true. What the world forbade only grew more radiant in the hidden chambers of the soul, gilded by secrecy and the slow burn of longing. To deny it was to feed it.

“Kíli,” he said quietly, lifting his eyes to him. “The world out there will wait for us. The mountain will not move, nor will the gold within vanish from its roots.”

Still, even as he clung to the fragments of his uncle’s stoic likeness, an ache rose within him.

“But this – ” he gestured faintly between them, to the circle of firelight, to the star-speckled present. “This will pass. We will only be this young once.”

The embers shifted, scattering sparks like defiant stars. Their light caught upon the brothers’ faces, twin reflections of the same fierce fire. Fíli thought of their mother’s gritted teeth, her quiet dread at the mention of Thorin’s company. He thought too of their uncle’s call, dark and alluring as prophecy. The world beyond their hearth was vast and cruel, yes, but also wondrous.

In that moment, beneath the endless, indifferent sky, Fíli felt that same forbidden ache. The yearning to see the mountain’s shadow for himself, to breathe the air that had carried their forefathers’ songs.

In the shape of a shadow he had sped to Gondolin with haste, on the orders of his master. No reason had been given to him - Gorthaur was still in trouble for prior failures, and not privy to all information in Angband. 

In the king’s chamber he had waited, until the ‘king’ was dressed, revealing himself only once they were perfectly alone.

“Why weep, little king?” he crooned, barely able to contain the delight in his voice at the state of Maeglin. “You ought to be delighted. By all standards, your city thrives, and so free of traitors!”