Lindir's Adventurers 33a
“Lindir?”
The singer was picking his strings vigorously, face lifted to the sky, voice issuing from mouth open wide on a lament ululating up and up before dropping to a register lower than any Gildor had heard him use before. This all took place in minor keys and sometimes clashing chords.
He winced.
“Lindir!” He shook the youngster’s shoulder.
“Gildor!” Lindir’s doleful face brightened momentarily. “I haven’t seen you for days! How goes it?”
Gildor studied the shadowed face. It was as Gerrin and Fellerien had told him. Lindir enjoyed less than sunny spirits despite Lórien’s fair shelter and (mostly) good company.
“What’s amiss?”
Lindir looked at him doubtfully.
“No, wait, not here. Make your bow - you’ve got quite an audience.”
Lindir noticed the elves dotted about in clumps and clusters for the first time, and ducked his head in reflex. They bent their heads over clasped hands in the customary Lórien salute for a performance well-received, despite a few faces not quite hiding relief.
From above, Gildor could have sworn he heard an emphatic “At last! Well done that chappie!”
“There we go, how about we find somewhere a bit less public...” Gildor steered his find to a cozier stand of the forest where younger trees, mellyrn mixed with beech and curly hazel formed an enclosed coppice.
“Now then. Lindir?” Gildor prompted.
“I was looking for one of you. Tallath says - ” He broke off, clearly unsure how to proceed.
“Tallath is it, hm? That was quite some drama you composed - a bit of a departure from your usual repertoire?”
Lindir fingered his harp.
“Lindir, it’s alright, whatever it is, even if we can’t sort it out, you might feel better for talking. Or do you want me to go and find Erestor?” asked Gildor, kindly. “Would that be better?”
Lindir shook his head: if he had been only twenty years younger Gildor thought he would have scuffed his toe in the beech-litter.
“Someone else?” Another head-shake. “Well, then. You’d better tell me. I don’t mind if you don’t mind the beech trees hearing, hey?”
With the smallest of smiles Lindir looked into Gildor’s face as if looking for something.
Gildor waited for a while longer before adding quietly, “If you do want to tell me what Tallath says, you can, you know. That’s what friends are for...”
At the word ‘friend’ Lindir’s pent-up energy burst forth, carrying away constraint. “Tallath says I don’t have friends, you are all humouring me, and he says you are all lewd or loose or lackadaisical. He doesn’t want me going back to Imladris - he’s trying to make me stay here. And he’s found some really boring elf who fancies me to pair me up with, Erestor said I should look elsewhere, no-one wants me except this Arnedir and I think I have presumed too much on Lord Elrond’s generosity!”
He plucked at the good cloth of his tunic. “Tallath says, musicians don’t get paid this much and I have been spoilt. And I am of age but Erestor said I should wait until Lórien and now Tallath won’t let me out to get to know anyone and Erestor said we had better not - you know - . Reasons he says. He did explain but still he doesn’t want me and no-one wanted me in Imladris either, Lord Gildor! It must be me! There must be something wrong with me but I did so want…”
The lord needed all his life’s experience of wit and discipline not to laugh at this tragi-comic tirade: what was comedy to him was genuine, if minor, tragedy writ large to this naturally exuberant, yearning youth.
Oh, what it was to be young. Lindir was taking things so much to heart and getting into such a muddle of misunderstanding. He had no idea!
He would be so eagerly sought, were it not for his age coupled with his circumstances. By all tradition, the young were given space to make their choice and approach others. Elrond’s glowering protection had doubtless not helped one whit, putting off hints of interest from others. Gildor could just imagine it. Erestor had intimated as much on the journey and Gildor could guess why…
Long had he known the Peredhel and longer still Gil-galad whose court at Lindon he frequented intermittently. He knew the tale of Elrond’s first experience of love; it had not had a happy outcome. What others dismissed as calf-love had almost broken Elrond’s heart. The scars remained tender indeed if this innocent’s first fancy touched on them so painfully.
Elrond’s lover, older than he, had been everyone’s darling but it was Elrond whom he approached for a pleasant liaison. Parentless Elrond, carried off by strangers to raise him, riven from his twin while they were yet young as maturity went, had not imagined that his devout passion was not returned. That his heart was so thoroughly engaged unbeknownst to his partner was not wholly the other’s fault; Elrond had never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve.
Was it Erestor he had taken for his model early on, to hide so well where his deep affections lay?
Theirs had been a very public relationship. With his heart already lost, Elrond had chosen to salvage his dignity by a retreat too private to admit of the hurt. His feelings ran too deep to get over it wholly on his own yet he would not - could not? - open up to accept help and healing. Hurt too young and too much in love, he avoided trusting closeness again.
Before any of them had noticed he was eating his heart out, Elrond was entrenched in reticence. He kept his dignity, but while time thawed his heart to embrace friendship, even lovers, he had yet to offer it again as once he had - joyously, unreservedly in love.
Thus Gildor’s opinion that in Lindir’s case, Elrond was letting his own hurts mar his judgement. Surely this youth was not in love, only naturally and healthily desirous and impatient to claim the adult heritage. Impatience too was natural, biology being a wonderful thing at times. It should be a happy thing. Perhaps Lindir was a little anxious but only in the way of youth’s inevitable uncertainties.
Gildor agreed with Lindir. Erestor would have been an excellent choice. Elrond and Erestor believed differently and they were both wrong. He was sure Lindir was not in love with Erestor - had it been otherwise, with Erestor’s heart already given, it would have been disaster. But if Gildor did not miss his mark such was far from the case.
He quietly cursed the Peredhel for protecting Lindir instead of launching him confidently on this first and glorious adult adventure. As for this brother of his, to hinder and hamper him with ridiculous suitors of his own devising, shame on him. Such things should be simply done, gently, easily, when the moment was right.
“Lindir? You are very lovely. And yet you are young. Once you are seen to be touchable, believe me, many will come to you, should you wish it.”
***
Lindir did not want many. He thought just one would be enough and even that seemed beyond his reach. He just wanted… actually, his body knew things about what he wanted that he could hardly understand.
He was looking at Gildor now, that last speech had firmly hooked his attention with its bait of hope. Gildor’s rather rusty voice was unusual for elves. His red-gold hair was unique, too.
He stared some more in the quiet between them, while Gildor let him without offence. His mouth was curling at one corner and he hitched one hip to wait out the scrutiny, head cocked to one side in enquiry as he so often did in lieu of speech.
Lanky, lean, far-traveller, wise in the ways of elves, and knowing eyes flecked with green, old eyes looking out of a face determined, with strong cheekbones rising over hollow cheeks, eyebrows tailing a little more straight than was usual, giving him a wicked cast, compounded by lips ready to talk, to laugh, to tease.
Right now, he wanted Gildor’s interesting eyes to continue to roam his body. Wanted that tongue to show its tip between lips that spoke of comfort and promise. Wanted to close the distance between that body and this, just - so, and to stand close, sharing warmth, tunics rustling, belts catching. He was not as tall, and so looked up, reached a hand. Expecting rejection.
***
Gildor wondered if he should.
He bent his head to reach the hopeful mouth. And kissed. Lindir sighed, and his whole body just relaxed, as if all would now be well. And perhaps, thought Gildor, it would be. Perhaps this was all the minstrel needed and wanted, and the difference in their ages would not matter. He touched his hands to Lindir’s back, and kissed him again, testing. A small kiss, like the first. Lindir betrayed not the least anxiety. Nor hesitation, only surety and desire.
Should Gildor appoint himself to be the one? He remembered the boy tipped over Gerrin’s thighs, large hands working skin and muscle. Remembered his dignity, on rising to face strangers. Saw the look of utter serenity on Lindir’s face now, and remembered his anxious eyes of moments before.
Could this be wrong?
Gildor thought not. Gildor, who had seen other elves through their earliest experiments, each special and each treasured, failed to find a single reason to deny the trustfully waiting elf his hands supported next to his chest.
Lindir opened his eyes and smiled into his own. Gildor smiled back, and Lindir reached up a hand to touch his lips.
“My lord?”
Hesitantly Lindir touched Gildor’s arm - gesture of Erestor’s, running it down Gildor’s arm to trail away into air.
“My lord, are you - willing?” It was a humble question, quietly asked and with dignity, encompassing all the hope that a young elf was capable of, that he would not meet rejection a second time and find himself humiliated after his risky admission of need and want.
They stood in each other’s orbit, gravity and gravitas both playing their part.
“If you are sure, Lindir…” The wicked eyes twinkled as he broke the mood confidingly in his low, rough voice, “I think we could both have a very good time.”
Lindir half-laughed and half-groaned at the words’ enticement. “Are you sure? Not - sorry for me?”
“Well, I do pity one who has not enjoyed these pleasures before, that is true,” voice as much as hand running along the nerves of Lindir’s body. “But that - is soon - remedied.” He breathed the last in Lindir’s ear, and from that moment Lindir was putty in his hands.
The singer was picking his strings vigorously, face lifted to the sky, voice issuing from mouth open wide on a lament ululating up and up before dropping to a register lower than any Gildor had heard him use before. This all took place in minor keys and sometimes clashing chords.
He winced.
“Lindir!” He shook the youngster’s shoulder.
“Gildor!” Lindir’s doleful face brightened momentarily. “I haven’t seen you for days! How goes it?”
Gildor studied the shadowed face. It was as Gerrin and Fellerien had told him. Lindir enjoyed less than sunny spirits despite Lórien’s fair shelter and (mostly) good company.
“What’s amiss?”
Lindir looked at him doubtfully.
“No, wait, not here. Make your bow - you’ve got quite an audience.”
Lindir noticed the elves dotted about in clumps and clusters for the first time, and ducked his head in reflex. They bent their heads over clasped hands in the customary Lórien salute for a performance well-received, despite a few faces not quite hiding relief.
From above, Gildor could have sworn he heard an emphatic “At last! Well done that chappie!”
“There we go, how about we find somewhere a bit less public...” Gildor steered his find to a cozier stand of the forest where younger trees, mellyrn mixed with beech and curly hazel formed an enclosed coppice.
“Now then. Lindir?” Gildor prompted.
“I was looking for one of you. Tallath says - ” He broke off, clearly unsure how to proceed.
“Tallath is it, hm? That was quite some drama you composed - a bit of a departure from your usual repertoire?”
Lindir fingered his harp.
“Lindir, it’s alright, whatever it is, even if we can’t sort it out, you might feel better for talking. Or do you want me to go and find Erestor?” asked Gildor, kindly. “Would that be better?”
Lindir shook his head: if he had been only twenty years younger Gildor thought he would have scuffed his toe in the beech-litter.
“Someone else?” Another head-shake. “Well, then. You’d better tell me. I don’t mind if you don’t mind the beech trees hearing, hey?”
With the smallest of smiles Lindir looked into Gildor’s face as if looking for something.
Gildor waited for a while longer before adding quietly, “If you do want to tell me what Tallath says, you can, you know. That’s what friends are for...”
At the word ‘friend’ Lindir’s pent-up energy burst forth, carrying away constraint. “Tallath says I don’t have friends, you are all humouring me, and he says you are all lewd or loose or lackadaisical. He doesn’t want me going back to Imladris - he’s trying to make me stay here. And he’s found some really boring elf who fancies me to pair me up with, Erestor said I should look elsewhere, no-one wants me except this Arnedir and I think I have presumed too much on Lord Elrond’s generosity!”
He plucked at the good cloth of his tunic. “Tallath says, musicians don’t get paid this much and I have been spoilt. And I am of age but Erestor said I should wait until Lórien and now Tallath won’t let me out to get to know anyone and Erestor said we had better not - you know - . Reasons he says. He did explain but still he doesn’t want me and no-one wanted me in Imladris either, Lord Gildor! It must be me! There must be something wrong with me but I did so want…”
The lord needed all his life’s experience of wit and discipline not to laugh at this tragi-comic tirade: what was comedy to him was genuine, if minor, tragedy writ large to this naturally exuberant, yearning youth.
Oh, what it was to be young. Lindir was taking things so much to heart and getting into such a muddle of misunderstanding. He had no idea!
He would be so eagerly sought, were it not for his age coupled with his circumstances. By all tradition, the young were given space to make their choice and approach others. Elrond’s glowering protection had doubtless not helped one whit, putting off hints of interest from others. Gildor could just imagine it. Erestor had intimated as much on the journey and Gildor could guess why…
Long had he known the Peredhel and longer still Gil-galad whose court at Lindon he frequented intermittently. He knew the tale of Elrond’s first experience of love; it had not had a happy outcome. What others dismissed as calf-love had almost broken Elrond’s heart. The scars remained tender indeed if this innocent’s first fancy touched on them so painfully.
Elrond’s lover, older than he, had been everyone’s darling but it was Elrond whom he approached for a pleasant liaison. Parentless Elrond, carried off by strangers to raise him, riven from his twin while they were yet young as maturity went, had not imagined that his devout passion was not returned. That his heart was so thoroughly engaged unbeknownst to his partner was not wholly the other’s fault; Elrond had never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve.
Was it Erestor he had taken for his model early on, to hide so well where his deep affections lay?
Theirs had been a very public relationship. With his heart already lost, Elrond had chosen to salvage his dignity by a retreat too private to admit of the hurt. His feelings ran too deep to get over it wholly on his own yet he would not - could not? - open up to accept help and healing. Hurt too young and too much in love, he avoided trusting closeness again.
Before any of them had noticed he was eating his heart out, Elrond was entrenched in reticence. He kept his dignity, but while time thawed his heart to embrace friendship, even lovers, he had yet to offer it again as once he had - joyously, unreservedly in love.
Thus Gildor’s opinion that in Lindir’s case, Elrond was letting his own hurts mar his judgement. Surely this youth was not in love, only naturally and healthily desirous and impatient to claim the adult heritage. Impatience too was natural, biology being a wonderful thing at times. It should be a happy thing. Perhaps Lindir was a little anxious but only in the way of youth’s inevitable uncertainties.
Gildor agreed with Lindir. Erestor would have been an excellent choice. Elrond and Erestor believed differently and they were both wrong. He was sure Lindir was not in love with Erestor - had it been otherwise, with Erestor’s heart already given, it would have been disaster. But if Gildor did not miss his mark such was far from the case.
He quietly cursed the Peredhel for protecting Lindir instead of launching him confidently on this first and glorious adult adventure. As for this brother of his, to hinder and hamper him with ridiculous suitors of his own devising, shame on him. Such things should be simply done, gently, easily, when the moment was right.
“Lindir? You are very lovely. And yet you are young. Once you are seen to be touchable, believe me, many will come to you, should you wish it.”
***
Lindir did not want many. He thought just one would be enough and even that seemed beyond his reach. He just wanted… actually, his body knew things about what he wanted that he could hardly understand.
He was looking at Gildor now, that last speech had firmly hooked his attention with its bait of hope. Gildor’s rather rusty voice was unusual for elves. His red-gold hair was unique, too.
He stared some more in the quiet between them, while Gildor let him without offence. His mouth was curling at one corner and he hitched one hip to wait out the scrutiny, head cocked to one side in enquiry as he so often did in lieu of speech.
Lanky, lean, far-traveller, wise in the ways of elves, and knowing eyes flecked with green, old eyes looking out of a face determined, with strong cheekbones rising over hollow cheeks, eyebrows tailing a little more straight than was usual, giving him a wicked cast, compounded by lips ready to talk, to laugh, to tease.
Right now, he wanted Gildor’s interesting eyes to continue to roam his body. Wanted that tongue to show its tip between lips that spoke of comfort and promise. Wanted to close the distance between that body and this, just - so, and to stand close, sharing warmth, tunics rustling, belts catching. He was not as tall, and so looked up, reached a hand. Expecting rejection.
***
Gildor wondered if he should.
He bent his head to reach the hopeful mouth. And kissed. Lindir sighed, and his whole body just relaxed, as if all would now be well. And perhaps, thought Gildor, it would be. Perhaps this was all the minstrel needed and wanted, and the difference in their ages would not matter. He touched his hands to Lindir’s back, and kissed him again, testing. A small kiss, like the first. Lindir betrayed not the least anxiety. Nor hesitation, only surety and desire.
Should Gildor appoint himself to be the one? He remembered the boy tipped over Gerrin’s thighs, large hands working skin and muscle. Remembered his dignity, on rising to face strangers. Saw the look of utter serenity on Lindir’s face now, and remembered his anxious eyes of moments before.
Could this be wrong?
Gildor thought not. Gildor, who had seen other elves through their earliest experiments, each special and each treasured, failed to find a single reason to deny the trustfully waiting elf his hands supported next to his chest.
Lindir opened his eyes and smiled into his own. Gildor smiled back, and Lindir reached up a hand to touch his lips.
“My lord?”
Hesitantly Lindir touched Gildor’s arm - gesture of Erestor’s, running it down Gildor’s arm to trail away into air.
“My lord, are you - willing?” It was a humble question, quietly asked and with dignity, encompassing all the hope that a young elf was capable of, that he would not meet rejection a second time and find himself humiliated after his risky admission of need and want.
They stood in each other’s orbit, gravity and gravitas both playing their part.
“If you are sure, Lindir…” The wicked eyes twinkled as he broke the mood confidingly in his low, rough voice, “I think we could both have a very good time.”
Lindir half-laughed and half-groaned at the words’ enticement. “Are you sure? Not - sorry for me?”
“Well, I do pity one who has not enjoyed these pleasures before, that is true,” voice as much as hand running along the nerves of Lindir’s body. “But that - is soon - remedied.” He breathed the last in Lindir’s ear, and from that moment Lindir was putty in his hands.