They continued poking around until they found a tome bound in leather so dark it looked black, and pages of paper as thin as hair, yet extremely durable. They had never seen anything resembling those materials.

“What kind of paper is this?” Elladan asked almost reflexively, feeling its peculiar roughness under his fingers. It had a strange smell, woody but with a hint of acidity. “It almost feels like horsetail, but it isn't.”

“And it's written in Cirth, not Tengwar…” added Elrohir, who in the meantime had begun to flip through it delicately, trying not to damage it. “Sennight... Behoof... Betwixt... Hoar... Cottier... who uses these terms? How old is this book?”

“Look at the strange drawings!” his brother noticed instead. “Why are the faces and legs in profile but not the torso? And why are the eyes so large?”

“Maybe they didn't know how to draw realistically yet?” Elrohir suggested. “Or rather, look: they all have rims around their eyes, so maybe they all wore makeup? And the men are all bare-chested…”

“So the Moriquendi were indeed effeminate and half-naked.”

“Elladan! You know Grandpa doesn't want those terms used!”

“Well, that's true. Look at the wide hips they all have. Do they look masculine to you?”

“Hmph.” Elrohir reluctantly conceded. “Look, they're all wearing trousers and are barefoot, but some of the soldiers have sashes across their chests. Maybe they're women? So women fought too?”

This surprised them because their grandmother often spoke of how hard she'd struggled as a young girl to be admitted to the Noldor martial arts competitions in Valinor ("of which she was champion!" she proudly emphasized), and how she'd had to beg her brothers to let her fight in the First Age like the men did. But then Elrohir remembered hearing that in Greenwood, where King Oropher was a Sindar traditionalist, women were part of the army and other less-than-feminine activities.

Elladan leafed through the pages delicately, curious. Despite the dismissive tone, something in those images fascinated him. A sixth sense, a calling. Something was different from all the other history books they'd seen.

“Do you see that all the elves in these drawings are Teleri?”

“Grandpa says they're called Lindar. But it's true. This book is very old, so perhaps it's from before the Noldor returned from Valinor? That might explain why everyone looks like…”

Elrohir seemed to be having trouble finding the right word, so Elladan did it for him. “Primitive savages?”

“Elladan! ”

“Okay okay, sorry, come on, now read aloud.”

“Me? Why me?” Elrohir protested, for now he was annoyed with his brother. “You do it!”

“I can't read Cirth!”

“You'd know if you'd listened to Daeron's lessons!”

Although, to be fair, Daeron wasn't exactly an easy teacher to follow. Not because his lessons were difficult or because he didn't pay attention to the children's needs, but because he seemed to harbor a visceral hatred for curriculum design, maintaining that learning was a spontaneous process. He held his classes outdoors, on the edge of the woods, and, despite having invented a script, he actually wrote surprisingly little. He didn't use a blackboard, but drew runes on the ground, and refused to use paper or a textbook, though he reluctantly allowed Elrohir to take notes in a notebook.

When asked why, Daeron explained that the Cirth had been created out of a need for Doriath, now bursting with population, to begin keeping track of supply quantities in the warehouses, the collection and management of taxes, and trade movements. It was therefore not a medium connected to the heart, to the soul, which was where the art of speech was supposed to come from.

(But apparently, it was fine for the Chronicles and Annals, because "History has been fixed in the threads of the Great Weaver, who seals the flows of time in the silk of the past, indelible, unchangeable, the firmest structure of Eä." Just the usual strange, meaningless mysticism from elder elves.)

(They hadn't told him this, though; they didn't want him to be upset.)

It was a miracle that in fifty years they had learned anything beyond the basics of grammar. Rather, Daeron became kind of thir teacher of philosophy and, of course, music.

Now, the boys were already familiar with music: when they were children, their mother would sing to them every night before bed, and even now, as adults, they often find themselves humming those melodies to relax.

But they were also experts in technique. Lindir, their housekeeper and one of the palace minstrels, had already taught them to read sheet music at the age of twenty, because it was said that music was preparatory to mathematics and was therefore essential to the mental and spiritual development of young elves.

Every morning for as long as they could remember, Lindir directed the attendants and waited until the pages had finished preparing them, then led them to the gardens. There, the servants brought breakfast of gingerbread, pear tarts, and almond and blueberry jam in the summer months, almonds and carrots in the colder months, and their parents joined them whenever they could, when they weren't busy with politics and business travel.

Lindir had explained one day that almonds were native to Aman and did not exist in Old Beleriand, when fruit did not yet grow and the Moriquendi foraged for whatever berries they could find in the thick forest. They had been imported to Middle-earth after the end of the War of Wrath and were therefore both a sign of peace and better times to come, traditionally eaten during feasts, and a reminder of home for the Exiles who still wandered these lands (that's why Grandma loved them so much!).

After eating, Lindir would take up his harp and begin to tell of the great deeds of the Noldor, and the children listened raptly. Sometimes it was hard to believe that all those legendary heroes were their relatives. Elladan particularly admired Fingon the Valiant, who had risked everything to save someone dear to him, while Elrohir felt closer to his grandmother's brothers, crying every time he heard of the tragedy of Andreth and Aegnor.

But they found themselves thinking the stories were very incomplete: none of the Chronicles of Gondolin mentioned that Glorfindel loved apple tarts! And the twins saw him take them from their table every morning (despite Lindir's "you could at least deign to take a napkin!" protests). How could Pengolodh not seen him do so once in centuries at the court of the hidden city?

How could they feel close to their relatives if all they had were names on a page?

When they reached school age, Lindir had also taken on the role of tutor, chosen personally by Elrond, and their lessons had been supplemented by grammar, arithmetic, geometry, gymnastics and drawing. At one hundred they had begun working on rhetoric, and at one hundred and fifty on ethics, dialectics, and oratory.

Daeron, however, had never come to collect them. Instead, he waited for them, perched on the branch of the oak tree overlooking the circle of stones within which they would be teaching. He was also habitually barefoot, with his hair loose and disheveled, and his clothes wet with dew. Indeed, there were several rumors that he lived and slept in the woods, and the twins were quite willing to believe them. But there were also opposing rumors that he *didn't sleep at all*, and instead spent his nights wandering the gardens and corridors like a ghost, chanting dirges, his eyes glowing blue like will-o'-the-wisps to lure travelers astray and make them disappear forever without a trace. They were much more skeptical of the latter, however, because they were… well, utterly insane. And because these rumors were primarily human, and humans were known to accidentally distort things over time, adding and twisting details by word of mouth until the tale was unrecognizable from the original facts. It was far more likely that Daeron was simply a night owl, like Grandpa, and took walks to clear his mind of melancholy and dark thoughts.

But he did have something in common with Lindir. Sometimes, after lessons, he would sit in the center of the circle and begin to delicately pluck the strings of his lyre (or more rarely, the cithara or psaltery) and chant the ancient deeds of heroes from the darkest ages. And then the twins understood where Daeron drew his fame, for at his voice, time seemed to slow and the trees themselves strained to listen, and the birds and the moss and the blades of grass, and a longing arose in all who listened. Daeron sang of King Thingol and King Elmo, of tribes whose names were buried in the night, of warriors and hunts, of battles fought in the grip of winter and of beasts fierce and mighty, gigantic mountain lions with teeth like sabers and enormous birds with red plumage, of glowing mushrooms and immense trees taller than towers, of rivers that ran through entire kingdoms and of the stars that would always lead you home.

It was from Daeron that they learned a little more of Galadhon Wolfheart and all those other names their grandfather could only whisper, like Galathil Kindheart and Nimloth Pearlheart and Brethil Doubleblade.

The bard had never even eaten with them, or rather, the twins never took anything from him again after they saw him catch and swallow a live lizard, around their third lesson. They didn't want to risk accidentally eating squirrel skewers, sparrow stew, or any other poor little creature that had the misfortune to become Daeron's lunch.

He also taught them a verbal battle technique common in Beleriand, called the Strife. Two or more parties, composed of a group or rarely a single individual, would face each other, exchanging insults and taunts in the form of verse, with the aim of outdoing their opponent with wit and verbal mastery. There were different styles, but they all featured a syncopated rhythm and rapid, rhyming speech, usually accompanied by dancing and acrobatic dancing. For example, the challenged group chose the style, and if one of the two groups was significantly outnumbered, they were offered the option of asking the other side to choose only some of their members for the competition. Since it was a peaceful solution, weapons could not be used throughout the Strife, and the losing group was allowed to leave safely. Despite the technique's almost sacred status, it was rarely used, because the opportunities for its application were rare: a Strife could be launched only if one tribe accidentally crossed the border into another's territory, as could sometimes happen during a hunt, and only if an agreement could not be reached and the resulting division of prey and/or valuables could not be reached. If, however, the border cross was intentional, armed and hostile, then it was resolved like any war: with blood on the blades.

It was said that it was in Doriath that Finrod Felagund learned this technique, and that it was from the Strife that he drew inspiration for his heroic defiance of Sauron. (Daeron hadn't exactly called it "heroic," but the twins couldn't repeat such terms without getting grounded. Let's pretend he said "unlucky.")

Lindir nearly had a heart attack when he heard them insulting each other in rhyme, because "such foul language is unbecoming, especially of young princes!" But when they said Daeron had taught them, he paled and said nothing more.

Lindir was terrified of the bard, but the twins didn't understand why: Daeron was thin even by Teleri standards, and he'd never handled a blade in his life (except carving tools and kitchen knives, but those didn't count because they weren't weapons. The older Noldor had looked strange when they'd told them, but hadn't said anything).

Although, more accurately, Lindir was afraid of Teleri in general, for some reason. Even of Mom. Mom, Celebrían of the sweet voice! Let alone if we were talking about Grandpa.

However, precisely because these arts were so closely tied to technique, his assessments were even more severe than any Noldo teacher they had ever had, so much so that Elrohir had often found himself frantically leafing through his notes, dreading an oral test the next day.

The cause of this peculiar teaching situation could be traced to the fact that Daeron was actually more of an artist than a pedagogue, and when he had to teach, it was to adults and his interests included music, singing, and drama. If he had agreed to teach literature to a couple of disrespectful and half-atemptive children it was only because Elrond had essentially begged him on his knees. Although it's very likely that Grandpa himself had convinced him, because Daeron obeyed no one but Celeborn.

They knew they were long-time friends, and very close ones at that: Daeron was extremely loyal to Celeborn, and would follow him wherever he went on his travels. Both disliked sunlight, and were often seen snuggling together in the afternoons or walking together along the riverbank or along the paths (if you could call these barely-trodden dirt "paths") of the woods. The twins had often seen the bard combing and playing with their grandfather's hair, something they knew was reserved for relatives and lovers among elves of all Kindreds. But they were not blood-related (though it was said that Daeron, orphaned at a young age, had been adopted by Thingol), and their grandfather was married, and, well, they were both men. How strange are the Sindar!

“It's not that!” Elladan protested. “It's just that when I read, the letters all get mixed up weirdly! You do it!"

“All right, all right, let's take a random page…”

Elrohir began to flip through the pages quickly, until Elladan stopped him. “This!”

“Winter 12,417 since the Awakening of the Elves. Huh? Who records time like that?”

"Awakening of the Elves"...? Perhaps they mean the Years of the Stars? That's roughly the same period, isn't it?”

“I'd say it's likely, but the count is too high... Shouldn't they already be in the Years of the Trees?”

“Well, the Trees were in Aman, weren't they? Perhaps their light didn't reach Beleriand. So it doesn't make sense for those Elves to count the Years of the Trees.”

“You're right!” Elrohir almost bolted up in academic excitement. “Wait, that means that in Beleriand they went directly from the Years of the Stars to the First Age. That must have been quite traumatic for the environment. Do you think-

“Boring, boring, boring! I don't care. Just read it!”

Elrohir rolled his eyes, but resumed reading in a slow, measured voice. “...I was saying, Winter 12,417 since the Awakening of the Elves. Rain on snow. Animals have not taken their usual migration routes. Great shortage of meat, famine throughout Beleriand. One of the Southern Orc Clans has attacked the northern borders of Doriath... blah blah useless data, lots of place names and people I've never heard of before… invasion of the borders… King Elu Thingol… Prince Celeborn Galadhonion-"

“Hey, he's talking about Grandpa!” It was Elladan's turn to interrupt excitedly. “It's true that he was born in the Years of the Stars! It talks about when he was young? What does it say?”

In fact, the twins knew very little about their grandfather's past. Every time he tried, Grandma Galadriel would get angry, and in the end, nothing was said. They knew they'd argued about it, because one day they'd hidden outside the thick mahogany door of their bedroom. Their words were indistinguishable, but they could hear Grandma raising her voice more and more, something that never happened, because she always insisted that if you raised your voice you were already in the wrong. Grandpa hadn't said anything, but the twins had heard some sounds that sounded like growls, so deep they vibrated in their bones. Then the sound of a glass vase crashing against a wall, and several minutes of tense silence. It seemed the whole house was holding its breath. Then Grandma said something in a low cold voice, Grandpa didn't respond, and the twins fled before they could open the door and punish them for eavesdropping. Grandma said it was wrong and shouldn't be done, and Grandpa said that who did not want to be punished would not have been cought.

No one ever spoke about it again, and the twins never asked.

“ If you don't interrupt me, maybe we'll find out! I was saying, Prince Celeborn Galadhonion, of 470 winters, surrounded by 9 orcs, ripp- huh? I think... I think there's a translation error.”

“Translation from what? It's in Sindarin, just a bit archaic. You're just a little sensitive, like always when blood is involved.”

Elrohir didn't protest as he usually would. Instead, he stared at the pages, his face pale.

“...Elrohir?”

“Sorry, sorry, I was saying..." Elrohir took a breath and then read it all in one go, as if trying to get it finished as quickly as possible. “-ripped out the heart of one of his opponents with his bare hands and used it as a hand flail, striking two other orcs hard enough to crack their skulls, single-handedly slaughtered the other five, and, his war axe breaking on their armor, felled the last one with his fangs. It's also said he then cursed their spirits, transforming them into crows and keeping them as his familiars for several centuries."

There was a silence that could have lasted for an hour or a minute, as the boys tried to process what they had just read.

“...Do you think it's true?” Elladan finally asked, hesitantly.

“I don't know. The document is authentic, but it's Grandpa. He couldn't... He couldn't, could he?”

“Hey, maybe-”

But whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the sound of the library door opening and the approaching footsteps. Celeborn appeared from behind the shelves, looking worried. Then he finally saw them, and immediately relaxed. “Ah, there you are. I've been looking everywhere for you! How many times have I told you to go away without saying anything? Come on, there's hibiscus tea and almond biscuits, the orange ones you like so much.”

Seeing his grandchildren unusually quiet, Celeborn became worried. “Boys...?”

Elladan gathered the courage to ask. “...Is that true? Did you really do it, Grandpa?”

“No! It's not true! Legends are always exaggerated, so it didn't happen that way! I'm right, right, Grandpa?” Elrohir protested, his eyes imploring his grandfather to reassure him.

Celeborn frowned, as if searching through a mental archive. “...You should be a little more specific than that, little squirrels.”

“You really ripped out a heart with your bare hands and used it to kill your enemies?” Elladan urged.

“...Oooh, that.” Celeborn visibly relaxed, looking almost amused, as if he couldn't believe his grandchildren could fall victim to such a rooky mistake. “Of course it's exaggerated: organs aren't blunt weapons, they can't be used to kill. I used the staff part to crack skulls. The tied heart was just for effect.”

There was another moment of silence for the twins to process. Then Elladan asked, "And then what did you do with it, Grandpa?"

"With the flail or with the enemies?"

"Both."

"Well, first I ate the heart-"

Elladan couldn't stop a hysterical laugh. "You're kidding, right?"

"No." was the only flat response he got.

His ears lowered. "Ah. So... ummm... And then?"

"Then," his grandfather looked at him sternly, a silent scold for interrupting him, "we sent a falcon to Menegroth to say we had temporarily stopped the raids in that March, and other falcons to the small villages near the Girdle to ask them to lend us wagons in exchange for some of the bodies. Then we cast a spell on the bodies to make the flesh last longer. When the wagons arrived, we filled them with a layer of snow at the base, then loaded them with the bodies, and then again layered the snow on top and between the bodies to preserve the meat. Then, back in Menegroth, I placed the staff in the firewood, burned along with the heads. That small victory was a great grace, and the gods deserved great thanks." His ears flopped slightly and his eyes glazed over for a moment, lost in distant, painful memories. "That was a very harsh winter, among the worst I can remember, and the famine was no less. Devastating, so much so that it was remembered as the Third Great Famine. So many died." Then he blinked, shaking his head as if to chase away the sadness. "It was also the battle that gave me my Warname."

"Really?" Elrohir asked, his voice shaking slightly. "And what was it?"

"Heart-Devourer. The Diarchs chose it together." He said, puffing his chest, his ears raising and his eyes beaming with ancient pride.

"Ah." Whatever strength remained in Elrohir's voice had faded to a faint sob. "Appropriate.”

"You seem particularly troubled. It's because you young people these days are too soft. I often tell your grandmother this, but she tells me you're too young. Too young! Bah, humbug talk! At your age, I had already concluded the Passage conquering even more bands than was required, and I was following the older Warriors of Doriath on my first hunts outside the Girdle, and I grew up perfectly fine!"

"It's just that the Noldor don't eat people, Grandpa."

Thus it was that Tuor, against everyone's better judgment including his own, found himself facing the locked door of the Prince's Chambers.

Perhaps he was staring too intently at the mahogany, but the complete silence of the tower unnerved him, and he needed to focus on something other than the tingling of unease he felt down his spine. However, standing still for long enough to memorize the carvings, he decided he was being ridiculous and steeled himself.

He knocked a couple of times, waited a minute, and, receiving no response, knocked again.

When that wasn't answered either, he cleared his throat and tried calling. "Prince Lómion?"

Receiving nothing but silence again, he tried again, raising his voice. "Prince Lómion?"

Nothing.

He was probably either asleep or purposely ignoring him.

Normally, Tuor would have let it go, but he really couldn't help but worry. Lómion hadn't come out in days, no one deigned to give him more information than "just leave it and wait." The reassuring half-smiles only worried him more, and frankly he was starting to feel nauseated at the way everyone pretended nothing was happening.

"Prince Lómion, I know you don't like me, and the other noble Lords have told me not to worry, but you haven't left your chambers for three days, and I know it's none of my business what you do with your time, but you haven't come to the table in all that time, and so I wanted to know if you were feeling w-"

He was promptly interrupted by a too-violent creak of three double-padlock bolts, and luckily his reflexes were quick enough to leap down a couple of steps before the force of the door hitting his face could send him flying to the bottom of the stairs.

He was immediately hit by a waft of what could only be described as a nauseating mix of the sweet fragrance of a thriving array of houseplants, dampness, a faint trace of incense and candle smoke, a strong and pungent bitter odor he didn't recognize, and the unmistakable metallic tang of fresh blood and raw meat that Tuor had come to recognize from his days in the woods. To make it worse, the air was filled with a strange salty chestnut-blossom odor that reminded him of semen, but with a much more pronounced musk and a hint of putridity, along with another distinct unfamiliar odor that reminded of fermented yogurt and that same kind of putridity of the other, but slightly sweeter.

It was so intense and unpleasant that Tuor had to swallow the vomit that had risen in his throat.

Only then did he dare look up. The Prince was filling the door with his body, his arms raised and resting on the jambs, blocking his view of anything inside except for a few insignificant glimpses.

His long hair was loose and disheveled, greasy with sebum, the silver strands slightly shinier than the raven ones. His usually pale face was of a deep wine red, his eyes glassy with the pupils fully dilated, his chest heaving frantically. Despite this, he wasn't sweating, because Lómion didn't sweat, his gray skin smooth and without any kind of hair, but it was still shiny and damp from the humidity it retained from the air.

He was wearing nothing but a light tunic of a dull and cheap shade of blue and a couple of sizes too big for him, wrinkled and just hastily put on. It slided down his shoulders, revealing a constellation of huge ovoid purple bruises that started at his neck, just below his gills, and ran down his sternum, forming a trail that disappeared beneath the fabric but, following it with his gaze, clearly led to his turgid nipples. Despite its size, it was evidently a short tunic, barely reaching mid-thigh, and the right one, which Tuor was seeing uncovered for the first (and hopefully last, though with embarrassment burning on his face), had a sprinkling of small lighter gray spots that ran down to his calf, perhaps the equivalent of freckles. On both inner thighs he could also glimpse more of those purple bruises that were clearly not bruises, as well as some recently healed scratches that resembled those a cat might have left, but were too long and wide to actually belong to a small feline.

Tuor's mind only then remembered that Itarillë had once mentioned in passing that her cousin had bewitched his own Chambers so that sounds could get in but no sound (or smell, evidently) could escape out.

Suddenly he had the strong feeling that he had interrupted something.

Still, he flashed what he hoped was his most conciliatory smile and tried again to ask "Are you feeling we-"

Again, he was abruptly interrupted by a growl, the deep vibration echoing further in the empty space of the silent staircase. A reasonable answer, actually; Tuor could grant that his was a rather stupid question.

Generously, the Prince gifted him an answer anyway. "I was much better before thee camest here."

The statement as a whole had several quibbles with which Tuor agreed, as well as points with which he strongly disagreed and could have challenged, but he chose, as had become his habit lately, to accommodate his particular interlocutor. He felt he was beginning to better understand the ways of Gondolin.

"I do not deny it."

"Then why the fuck art thou here?"

Lómion's pragmatically economus and efficient style of communication always had to be appreciated. "You haven't left even for food or drink in days, nor have you sent word, and I learned just now that most of your servants have left the Tower as well. Surely you understand why we are concerned. I just wanted-"

He was interrupted again. Tuor had a feeling it would happen often in this conversation. “Liar. They don't care. They never have, because nothing matters to them except what affects them personally, whether for harm or gain. They're on edge because they're scared. I asked my uncle for his permission to leave for the mountains and this year I wasn't allowed to because we had to take care of the bloody political mess thou made, and now they're paying the consequences. So rather than face them, they calculated to sacrifice thee like the cowards they are. Well, thou hast done thine duty, now fuck off.”

There were so many implications to unpack and examine, but the Man decided to focus on the most immediate. “I can't speak for those who aren't here, but I can assure you that I've been very worried. And no one sent me, I came personally to see if-”

Lómion's expression went from anger to pure fury. “Oh, now thou art showing up, thou cowardly deluding charlatan?”

Why, should I have come earlier??? The implication struck him from the blue, coming from someone who for the last few minutes seemed to be making it clear they wanted nothing to do with him. He'd clearly misinterpreted the situation, but he couldn't figure out how.

But before he could open his mouth, Lómion added bitterly, "Dost thou not have another Mate to go to?”

"Huh?"

“Maeglin?” a female voice called from within urgent and worried, hoarse and weakened by use, filled with a series of implied questions Tuor could not have known.

“Is he a problem? Dost thou need a hand?” A second voice added, a male one, raspy and deep for a very specific cause.

They were both speaking an heavily accented Sindarin, or rather, a dialect of Sindarin with an accent different from the Mithrim one that Tuor had grown up with. Falathrim, probably, since almost all the Sindar in Gondolin were of that origin, and with the strong specific cadence of those who had never learned to modulate it for Quenya.

The Prince lowered his ears slightly, tilting his head towards the voices. But he said nothing, presumably answering them with ósanwë.

Finished that, he closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face, taking a deep sigh. Then he stared at Tuor as if he was talking to a complete idiot or a particularly dense brick wall. Or both.

“Dost thou know what month it is?”

“Uh, Gwirith?” Tuor replied, switching to Sindar. He'd spent enough time speaking only Quenya at court that he hadn't even noticed it was the language he was using, and he thought it best if those inside could follow the conversation as well. After all, even Tuor would have been unnerved if a stranger started speaking an unfamiliar language to someone dear to him while they were in a fragile altered state. Moreover, the human was glad to be able to use his native tongue after so long.

“And what part of the year is Gwirith?” Lómion asked, switching to Sindar just as seamlessly, without even realizing it.

“...Echuir?”

“Exactly. And dost thou know why thou shouldest not bother me during Echuir?”

Tuor was starting to get an idea, but it sounded weird even in his own head. “...no?”

Lómion stared down at him in silence. If looks could kill Tuor would be already twenty feet down.

“Listen to me,” Tuor said, deciding to throw the honorific formalities out the window. Lómion himself didn't seem too interested in them at the moment, and would probably have preferred something more spare and direct. “I know I'm not exactly the person thee wantest to see right now. But thou seemest to be in deep physical distress, and I cannot in good conscience leave thee like this. Please, let me help thee. I could-”

Lómion's eyes flashed with anger, and his lips curled completely, revealing all his fangs. “Dost thou dare suggest I can't take care of myself, human?”. His voice sounded slightly odd without the enclosed space normally provided by his cheeks.

“No, no, of course not. Thou art surely capable of it on your own. I would never doubt that,” Tuor said sincerely. “Indeed, thou art far more knowledgeable about these matters than I could ever be. So thou could give me precise instructions on what to do to help thee. Thou art always so good at giving instructions, Lómion. Would thou like to?”

The Prince seemed to take him into consideration, cocking his head to the side. Tuor then decided to try pushing his luck and approach him. But as soon as he tried to lift a foot to climb, Lómion growled again, and the human froze instantly.

“Comest any closer and I'll gouge thee eyes out,” the elf threatened.

Tuor then slowly descended a couple of steps and raised his hands until the Prince closed his lips, but he didn't leave. "Thou seemest fine with the food, but how about I bring thee some water? It must be hard having to manage to carry enough buckets for a tub up so many stairs."

He cast a not-so-subtle glance at Lómion's greasy hair, hoping he'd catch the hint. Given the almost religious care elves took in their hair, the fact that he wasn't present enough to properly care for it was frankly alarming. Moreover, he didn't need to get close to the elf to know he stank: the stench of the room was strong enough that Lómion himself, regardless of whether he'd cleaned himself or not, was inevitably soaked in the odor of sex and various bodily fluids including semen, tears, and, judging by the scratches, blood.

He found himself worrying about the Prince's hygiene: if the secretion of various glands increased, then so did the rate at which his body soiled itself, and consequently the frequency of personal hygiene would have to increase as well, but Lómion didn't seem to be keeping up with that rhythm. And while elves couldn't contract lethal diseases like plague, leprosy, smallpox, typhus, cholera, measles, and the like, they were still capable of catching a fever or cold, a cough, gastrointestinal problems, or even an infection in the most serious cases.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, because Tuor cared a lot about not having his face bitten off), Lómion didn't seem to get the hint that he needed a bath, focusing instead on the offering itself.

"I already have water for the tub, I don't need your help. Dost thou think I'm so stupid that I have to carry buckets on foot all the way here? There's a pulley above my window, and we'll manage with that. I don't need t-"

Lómion abruptly interrupted himself with a hiss. He lifted his lips slightly and rubbed his thighs together, looking uncomfortable. The movement caused the fat to jiggle, underlining their impressive thickness, and rippled the hem of his tunic, not enough to reveal Lómion's intimacy, but enough for Tuor to glimpse a drop of a watery cream-white liquid trickling from the back of the pelvic floor along the urogenital triangle, running down to the knee and then down the leg.

Oh. It was all he could think before his mind went completely blank for about three long seconds, only to be followed by a series of intrusive thoughts like so he does enjoy it and does he feel as soft and warm as he looks and an even more indecent I wonder if it tastes the same as human’s, to which Tuor nearly slapped himself. He didn't, however, because a sudden and violent movement like that would have unnerved Lómion even more.

“Uuuuh-” was the sound that escaped his mouth exactly at the same time he realized he felt warm and slightly bloated against the fabric of his trousers, his body having misinterpreted its own signals into something extremely inappropriate. He tried to reassure himself by thinking that at least it wasn’t tense enough yet to make it obvious, but that hope quickly died when the Prince raised his head slightly and furrowed his brows, sniffing the air, and then his face relaxed into something that could only be described as a satisfied and smug triumph, looking deeply pleased with himself.

Tuor felt his face burn with shame. “I… I don’t… It’s not what it seems, I swear…” he stammered.

The elf ignored his rambling excuses, regarding him with an intensity that made his hair stand on end (and, to his chagrin, made him even more hard). “Healthy... Strong... Fertile... Genetically exceptional for the species...” Lómion muttered absentmindedly as if thinking aloud. Then, running the tip of his younger over his upper lip, he added, “As massive as a female deer.”

“What?” he asked, a cold feeling in his stomach.

Lómion shook his head, as if clearing his thoughts. “If thou dost not leave now, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.” He replied cuttingly, clearly running out of patience.

“I-”

But whatever he could have said got swallowed by a rapid sequence of loud mew-like vocalizations from the inside, a strange high pitch frequency given by a quick vibration of the vocal folds but with the deep resonance of a sound passing through the open throat of something very large-sized.

Though he had never heard this one in particular, Tuor had spent enough time in the wilderness to recognize a call of a female animal in heat when he heard one.

"Maeglin," the male voice urged.

The Prince dug his claws into the door’s wood, every muscle tensed as if he were using every ounce of his self-control not to fling himself into the room at that exact moment.

He glared at Tuor with murderous intensity, as if this situation were his fault. Well, the last few minutes probably were, but the Man was right to consider himself innocent for the month as a whole.

"Thou either gettest the fuck out of here right now, or there are two possible outcomes: I'll bite thine throat out, or I'll throw thee on the table and fuck thee until tomorrow. Gottest it?"

All that Tuor's dry throat could produce was a feeble “Yes.”

"Excellent. Seest thou in twelve days.”

Varda is the goddess of the Stars and the Night Sky, and her eyes are like a open window to her Domain. They are almond-shaped but tilted upward 45° compared to a human's. They have no sclera, irises or pupils and they are black like Eä outside the borders of Arda is. If you look in them from close enough you can see the stars moving. Technically she don't even have eyelids too, but the long silver lashes that grow from her eyes' edges give the impression that she does. She is also a goddess of War, even though her battles are more a thing of the Primordial Past, when she (along with Tulkas) was the main protector of the Timeless Halls against the void-spawn monsters of Eä's first millennia. Her colors are black or purple.

Manwë is the god of the Day Sky, Air, Winds, Lightning and Rain, as well as the Lord of the Birds. His eyes are those of an eagle, but with sky-blue irises and sclerae and white pupils, senile arches and eyelashes. It is said that he can see the world through the eyes of all living (incarnate) creatures that soar in the sky, and that if you look deep into the eyes of an Eagle (his sacred animal), you can see what he sees across the physical dimension of Arda. His colors are azule and white.

Melkor is the god of Entropy, Shadows, Winter (Cold, Ice, Snow) and Destruction, as well as the Lord of Reptiles. As such his eyes are like those of a reptile (unfortunately I can't remember WHICH reptile I used as a reference; I know their eyes can be quite different sorry), but with black sclerae and ice-blue irises, with black slitted pupils that absorb the surrounding light. Also the "skin" around his eyes its covered in black scales and his eyelashes are encrusted with snow. His colors are black, ice-blue, dark blue and some specific shades of green and purple.

Ulmo is the god of Water and of the Ocean. His eyes are shaped like a fish's (again, I've forgotten which fish I specifically referenced, sorry), round and large. He has no eyelids, and his pupils have a glassy, liquid-like effect. The irises are fixed in size, almost as large as the eye itself, and their colour shifts between aquamarine and the various shades of blue found in the sea's different depths, with the visual effect typical of light refracting on the surface of the sea. His colour is blue.

Aulë is the god of Earth, Fire, Stone, Gems and Minerals and of the Arts of Craft. His Domain also includes volcanoes and earthquakes. His eyes have a geometric shape with very sharp angles, which often change due to the movement of the magma that flows inside his fana along with ichor. The edges have a thick, dark line of solidified lava. They have no irises, but a sclera of living flame, and the lines are straight and serpentine, though they can narrow or widen during strong emotions. His colors are red and orange.

Yavanna is the goddess of Plants and Agriculture. Her eyes are shaped like ovoid leaves of a bright green colour, and that widen toward the nose. They have no irises or pupils, but they are crisscrossed by yellowish leaf-like veins. Her colours are any shade of green but especially the dark ones.

Oromë is the god of Hunt, Archery, Predatory Animals and Wilderness. His eyes are like a wolf's in color and shape, but they glow from inside. It is said that a mortal's heart stops beating if they looks directly into his eyes. His colors are any shade of brown and occasionally blood red.

Nessa is the goddess of Herbivorous Animals and of the Arts of Dance, Gymnastics and Acting. Her eyes look like a the ones of a deer, her sacred animal. Her color is pink.

Nienna is the goddess of Mourning, Suffering, Crying, Hope, Compassion and Consolation (and in a broader sense of Emotions and Interiority in general). Her eyes are slightly downward-slanted (I took inspiration from SU's Blue Diamond for this), with cool gray sclerae, warm gray irises, and silver pupils and lashes. Given her divine role, it's common to see her cry light-glistening tears. Her colour is grey.

Irmo is the deity of Dreams, Nightmares, Sleep, Psyche, Unconsciuos, Imagination, Madness and Ecstasy. As such, they're a Spirit whose gender is ever-changing, eluding all definition. Their eyes are human-like in shape but not in appearance, giving so a sense of disorientation. Their eyes are pink and have neither iris nor pupil, but hypnotic circles that eternally expand from the center to the edge of the eye, where they are "eaten" by the eyelids. Their eyelashes are violet. It is said that if a mortal look them in the eye while they're awake they'll descend into madness. Their colors are lilac and impossible/imaginary colors such as olo.

Namo is the deity of Death, Souls, Fate and Prophecies. As an unembodied Spirit they were completely genderless, although once they took the fana they were not averse to being addressed as either male or female. They don't speak much but when they do they use a very deep, booming and reverbering voice, and for this reason in many cultures (especially human ones) they are interpreted as male and therefore depicted with male attributes/characteristics. In reality, even after the awakening of the Children of Illuvatar, their fana remains completely hidden by black robes, and when their hands appear from beneath the cloth they appear bony, as if completely devoid of muscle, and with a wrinkled skin of the paled color of a dead body's. Namo's face cannot be seen from beneath their hood, but if one could, one would see that they have no eyes. Instead there are two hollow cavities like those of a skull from whose centers blazes a purplish light. Their colour is dark purple.

Vairë is the Deity of Time, History, Writing (Alphabet) and of the Arts of Weaving, Tapestry and Drawing. They are also the deity associated to insects and spiders. They're a genderless Spirit like their spouse, but like them they don't mind being addressed as male or female. Their fana is also completely covered by robes (although of lighter colors than their spouse), but unlike Namo's, Vairë's hands and face are left uncovered. Their eyes are large and vaguely insect-like, a grayish color without irises or pupils that reveals nothing. They too aren't particularly talkative, and when they speak their tone is said to be airy yet little expressive. Many peoples interpret and depict them as having feminine attributes and/or characteristics, including elves. Their colours are violet and occasionally ash gray.

Vana is the goddess of Youth, Childbirth and Parenthood, as well of one of the deities of Life. Her eyes have an iris like the stamens of a daisy, the central one the same pale green as the sclera and acting as the iris. Her eyelashes are petals of various colors, starting greenish at the part touching the eye and becoming increasingly brighter towards the edges. Her color is light green.

Tulkas is the god of Strenght, Fight, Violence and (even if not all peoples recognize and/or worship these parts of him) Bloodshed and War. His eyes have pink sclerae with yellow irises and orange pupils and limbal rings. His eyelashes are yellow too and longer and thicker than a human's, to match his lion mane-like hair, mustache and beard. His color is yellow.