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swanhild · 7 days

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On the Complicated Nature of Making Peredhil

[For @silmkinkmeme. Smut under the cut]

There was, Tuor mused over dinner, such a thing as being too close to the king.

“How are things going?” Turgon asked, leaning across the table to look at his daughter with the kind of eager expression apparently all parents of any race wore when hoping to hear they would soon be grandparents.

Idril took her husband’s hand. “We’re still trying,” she said fervently, squeezing Tuor's hand as though he was the one who needed reassurance. “We’ll figure it out. We really want a baby.”

Tuor fought a losing battle against a blush. Really, did they have to talk about this right now? Of course, he wanted a child just as much as Idril did, but there was no telling if a Man and Elf could have one, and the passing months since their wedding were not heartening. Beyond that, he wasn’t keen on discussing his love life with his father-in-law of all people! He would have a grandchild from them or he would not, and more memories of conversations like this one wouldn’t make the desired outcome any easier.

Turgon sighed and sat back in his seat. “Do tell me if there is anything you need. Anything at all.”

No, no, he might actually shrivel up into a dry husk if he had to ask the king for assistance with this.

“If only there was,” Idril lamented.

Tuor wasn’t sure he could make it through the rest of the meal. This was too much, far too much. He was only a Man: he had limits.

Luckily he was spared from an indecent exit when Maeglin, Idril’s dark cousin, slammed his soup spoon onto the table and stood. “Excuse me,” he said between gritted teeth and stormed from the family dining room, brown robe swirling in his wake.

Turgon sighed and shook his head. Idril rolled her eyes. The conversation moved to safer topics. Tuor made a mental note to say something nice to Maeglin and do him a favor if the Elf wasn’t too snappish the next time they crossed paths.

As soon as dinner finished, Idril whisked him away to their private rooms.

After some delightful foreplay in the dim lantern light (Idril herself never seemed bothered by the dinner conversations, but Tuor found he needed at least half an hour to unwind), they got about the business of trying to make a baby.

The trying part of making a baby, it turned out, was very enjoyable. He’d known it would be thanks to several indiscrete stories and several discrete evenings with only himself for company, but knowing and experiencing were two very different things. Idril would adoringly tell him that it was just as good for her when they lay sweaty and breathless in each other’s arms afterward. He desperately hoped she’d still want to partake in the act after they had children (always ‘after’ never ‘if’), but he wasn’t sure it worked that way for elves and was still too shy about the whole thing to ask—but it didn’t look like he was short on time, after all.

They were on the bed when he finally pushed into her.

A satisfied moan slipped past his lips. His fingers caressed her hips and the soft swell of her legs as he held her up against him. She sighed, head falling back against the pillow, beautiful golden hair spilling out around her like the rays of the sun. She reached the long fingers of a hand up to pet between her legs, and her fingertips brushed against him, grazing lightly with the nails as he moved inside her.

Making love to Idril was divine, the closest he’d ever get to bliss.

But if their shared passion and love weren’t enough to inspire a baby into being, then Tuor really wasn’t sure what would.

“Let me try something,” Idril breathed after a minute when he bent forward to kiss her.

“What?” He asked with a grunt. He wasn’t very good at carrying on a conversation while they were doing this.

“I think–” she paused to roll against him, tilting her hips for a better angle that he was very happy to assist her with. “You do not know how to Will our child into being. It is–” she moaned– “different for Men.”

“Yes.” He gasped. She should be pregnant many times over by the way of Men.

She wrapped her legs around him to pull him closer. “If you might let me into your mind, maybe I can find that Will for you.”

She probably could have asked anything of him just then and he would have done it, even walking into Angband like a fool to challenge the Dark Lord. He had to stop moving to find the wherewithal to pull down the defenses the Elves taught him to build around his mind. She whined pitifully at the loss. He kissed her ear.

“I’m ready,” he said.

“Please,” she said, breathless and flushed, “continue. If you do it the Mannish way and I the Elvish, perhaps we will find what was missing.”

With a groan as she squeezed him, Tuor rocked his hips against her, looking for the rhythm from earlier. He knew he found it by the way Idril’s pleased sounds grew sharp and the quickened rise and fall of her bosom. He had no idea what she was planning to do in his mind, but if she wanted to do it while they were doing things the Mannish way, she’d need to hurry up.

Something slipped inside of him. Not inside his body, of course, he knew what that felt like—getting wounded in battle wasn’t a sensation he’d ever forget. This still felt a bit odd, even though he knew the strange not-pressure in his head was Idril and that he’d invited her inside. Not bad, but certainly very foreign. He flagged a little, fighting to keep going while she did whatever it was she was doing.

He tried to carry on. It wasn’t easy.

Oh, he still ached for her. Every fiber of his being yearned for her as her body writhed against his and her mind swelled against his. He thought, surely, he would melt from much more of this, of being so connected, of being both within and surrounded by her. Yet, the more he pressed forward and the more he tried, the further away his release slipped.

As the pressure grew behind his head, he was suddenly very sure that this was not something any mortal man was meant to experience.

“Idril!” He cried out, sudden and sharp.

Fear flickered through him like a blue flame. She was doing something inside of him and he didn’t know what—didn’t understand what it was or what would happen to him when she succeeded.

She pulled back from him, body and mind.

The pressure vanished from his head. He sagged forward, barely getting his hands out in time to catch his weight on the mattress instead of collapsing fully onto Idril. He gasped for breath, drenched in sweat that was quickly becoming cold.

She watched him with concerned eyes. “Tuor?” His name fell slowly and cautiously from her lips as she reached a hand up to brush his chest.

He thought he would flinch away from her but he didn’t. The fright that overcame him moments ago was quickly fading. He felt almost hollow in its wake.

“Idril,” he repeated, weak and wet this time as he collapsed onto his side next to her. “Idril.”

Her hands were on his face now, thumbs wiping away his tears. Oh, he realized belatedly, he was crying. He hadn’t meant to cry. Little tears continued to trail down his face.

“Tuor, my love,” she whispered. “What is wrong? Are you hurt? Did I—Did I hurt you?”

He shook his head.

“No.” The word came out raspy and ragged like he’d spent the last half-hour yelling but his throat felt fine. He took two calming breaths, chest rising and falling, stilling the tears, and tried again. “No, I’m alright.”

She was limp with relief. “You don’t look it.”

“I think I will be, shortly?” He tried, though it came out more as a question than reassurance.

“What was it?”

“I—you—” he struggled.

She didn’t rush him.

He swallowed a mouthful of saliva. “There was too much. Too much of you in me. I couldn’t—I couldn’t.” He clasped her hands fervently. “Perhaps we could try again? I just need to get used to it.”

“Oh.” She pulled her hands out of his but only so she could wrap her arms around his shoulders. “I’m not sure I could take feeling you panic like that again.” She rested her forehead against his. “Touching minds shouldn’t be like that. I—” and now she was the one hesitating. “I shouldn’t have suggested it like this. You are a Man and Men do not touch minds as Elves do, but I thought—I thought since Ulmo… Oh, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“Sweetest,” he said when tears ran from her face to his. His arms joined the embrace, wrapping around her back. “I ache for you. I ache to have children with you, to raise them with you, to hear the soft sound of their little feet in the halls. I would endure so much to give that vision to you. Let me try again. Let me endure this for you, for us.”

She cried all the harder for his words. It was some minutes before she could respond. “Tuor,” she whispered, “Tuor, my loyal, brave, true husband. I don’t doubt your will, but I cannot do that to you again. Love, every part of me rebels against knowingly hurting you.”

They clung to each other for some time more, quiet in their separate thoughts.

At length, Tuor spoke again. “Perhaps,” he said, slow but sure, “we should learn to walk before we run.”

Tears dried, she leaned back so she could look at him better. “How so?”

“Well,” he said with a smile. “I have not seen many Elf babies in my life, but I imagine they cannot grow too differently from the children of Men. A babe will never run a mile if you set him on his feet straight from the womb.”

Idril snorted. “That’s not where my confusion sprung from. How would you propose learning to ‘walk’ before we ‘run’?”

“We overstretched our skill tonight, trying to run with everything at once. So it’s no surprise we fell short and scraped our knees along the way. Tomorrow, I propose we try again, but–” he raised a finger to stall her quick objection– “only to touch minds and only to learn the feel of each other.”

“Just to feel?” She repeated, considering.

“Nothing more: not to search for anything in me, just to know each other more.”

“That,” she decided, “is a wise plan. Though now you make me look a fool for rushing into this.”

“Never,” he promised. “I would never have thought of it without you.”

She leaned in and kissed his cheek and then his mouth, chaste and adoring. “My father should be proud to have such a wise son.”

Valar, Tuor thought to himself, could her father please stay out of this?

#🥺💗#tuor #idril #idril/tuor #silm fic #q

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swanhild · 8 days

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Please reblog this if fanfiction has been beneficial to your mental health.

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swanhild · 8 days

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So I think one thing that really drives Feanor is his grief– he looses Miriel, and he very clearly never recovers from that. There's the pain of loosing a parent and the added layer of Miriel's death being, on some level, a choice to leave Feanor. You can't tell me he didn't internalize the idea that he wasn't good enough for his mother to stay ay least a little. And I can't help but imagine that most of Valinor really wasn't helpful. There was probably a lot of vague sympathy with no real understanding of the situation, people who in theory thought Feanor had the right to grieve but reacted pretty badly to any actual displays of grief, and some people who insisted that Miriel chose to stay dead, Finwe and Indis were happily married, and therefore, Feanor shouldn't feel sad about it anymore. Even for those with more understanding of grief, it's still a really complicated situation. But you know who would understand Feanor?

Elrond. And the reason is Elros and Arwen– Elrond knows what it's like when someone you love dearly chooses to leave you, essentially forever, not because they don't care about you or because you weren't good enough, but because they have to make the best choice for themselves. And how you can respect that choice, and be glad that they did what they needed to, but still grieve them and the relationship you had with them. He understands those complicated feelings and how to process them in a healthy and non-destructive way.

And I'm losing my mind over this because Feanor is the one who starts the kinslayings and the cycle of violence between elves, and Elrond is the end result of all that violence; born to two refugees and raised largely by Feanor's sons. But despite all that, he's good and kind and able to focus on healing instead of pain. He ends the violence and makes a sanctuary where everyone is welcome. And he's able to do what Feanor never could, and not be consumed by his pain. And that means so much.

#screaming 😭#but this is one of the reasons why I love feanor and elrond to meeting and interacting (even bonding) with each other #feanor #elrond #miriel #silm meta #q

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swanhild · 8 days

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Day 6: Númenor

S.A. 3262

By decree of the King, the tongue of Elves is banned from speaking and writing under penalty of public whipping.

By decree of the King, the worship of the false gods is punished with death by immolation on the altar of Our Lord Melkor.

Transcription from Tengwar: alcar i Ataren ar i Yondon ar i Airefean tambe engë i et...

These are the first two lines of the Catholic prayer Gloria Patri as translated in Quenya by Tolkien.

#numenor #q

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swanhild · 8 days

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Maeglin Lómion Lord of the House of the Mole

#love the black and purple #silm edits #maeglin #q

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swanhild · 8 days

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Irisse Ar-Feiniel the White Lady of the Noldor

#lovely #aredhel #silm edits #q

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swanhild · 8 days

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Random Headcanons for Mahtan and his Grandsons

It seems like not many people talk about Mahtan, let alone his relationships with his grandsons, so I just felt like jotting down a handful of thoughts about them.

- Maedhros and the twins are his absolute pride and joy. He adores them. He calls all three of them “Russa” and always ruffles their hair when he sees them. To the casual observer, it would seem like they are the obvious Favorites. They are the ones he asks about first. His workshop is plastered with drawings of them made by their mother, and he loves showing off his favorites. He is super proud of every tiny thing they do, and even when they misbehave, he can’t stay mad at them for long. He brags about them to everyone he talks to. He dotes on them almost to the point of spoiling them. He loves to make them things, always out of copper: jewelry, circlets, play weapons and armor, anything they want. Maedhros in particular is his Little Prince, and the twins his Little Treasures.

- The one he’s most likely to get choked up over, though, is Maglor. He’s the one most similar to his mother, and even if he doesn’t have the red hair, every time Mahtan looks at his secondborn grandson, he sees his precious baby girl. He sees her in Maglor’s smile, in his mannerisms, those little gestures, a thousand subtle ways. Maglor isn’t a smith, but Mahtan sees the same joy in him when he’s writing and performing his songs as he did in Nerdanel when she was learning her art. He is there for every concert, every recital. He can listen to Maglor talk and sing for hours on end and never get tired or lose interest in what he’s saying. They may not have much overlap in hobbies, but they have the best conversations.

- Celegorm is his Little Buddy. He learned early on not to let Tyelko into his workshop, but he loves to play with him. He would give him piggyback rides all the time when he was little, and tickle fights, arm wrestling and other rough-house horseplay were common. They’d go on nature walks together and Celegorm’s constant chatter and excitement makes him laugh. Even if he’s otherwise busy, he always takes time to have fun with Celegorm.

- His relationship with Caranthir is a bit more mysterious. He teaches Caranthir how to channel his temper productively. He has a ready ear if he ever wants to talk, and Caranthir knows he can tell his grandpa anything and doesn’t have to worry about his reactions. Sometimes, they can just work beside each other on separate projects, never saying a word, but communicating in small ways. A hug from Grandpa Mahtan can always make Caranthir feel better if he’s unhappy about something.

- Curufin is his Little Helper. Whatever Mahtan is working on, Curufin wants to help. He brings Grandpa tools and equipment or helps clear away things no longer needed. He absorbs EVERYTHING Grandpa has to teach him and he’s eager to show off his ideas and projects. Curufin is the one full of questions and wanting to know how things work, and he is rapt with attention when Mahtan explains and demonstrates. He’s one of the people Curufin looks up to most, aside from his father.

#cute!#mahtan #silm headcanons #sons of feanor #q

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