#tuor

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.”