faderift | (no subject)

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(no subject)

WHO: Thranduil + closed prompts for Galadriel, Atticus, Ellana, Gwenaëlle, Myrobalan, + open!
WHAT: Thranduil's phase one afflictions are noticed by several and enable the behavior of others.
WHEN: Mid-Firstfall
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Hit me up for a starter on Plurk (

pr0ph3t) or make your own!

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"I am sorry. I will stop." He tucks his face into her hand, as sweet and guileless as a fawn in the gesture. He seeks her touch like a flower seeks the sun, and if he is not getting the attention he wants, he will take what he can get.

Between an exhale, hardly minding the touch on his ear, and a shake of his head, careful not to dislodge her, he replies. “No,” he says.

“That is impossible. The Firstborn do not catch mortal illnesses. Why would you think that?” His eyes find hers, and he relaxes back onto the pillows, trapping her hand between the linens and his head.

“You don't sleep, you don't stop, you're much, much warmer than you ought to be,” she protests, following him by necessity when he lies down, her hand beneath his hair. She leans over him, her own hair tumbled over bare shoulders, her drawn expression settling firm at his own objections and how swiftly he brushes aside even the possibility.

He is, she thinks, of no mind to listen to her. There's a Tranquil man in his office who might be more reasonable; more likely to see what she might miss during the day, and if she were to prompt him to report anything he noticed as necessary...

Her mind turns and turns and turns. She sighs, leaning down to press a kiss to his mouth— “I'm worried about you. Give me another explanation.”

Edited 2018-01-21 05:45 (UTC)

He cups the back of her head, keeps her close. His fingers slide into her hair. A few minutes more, only. Then he will let her go, and they will go about their separate lives, in separate paths, only meeting at night. “I stop,” he protests. “I stopped working for you.”

Abandoned his papers to slink after her and sweep her, unsuspecting, into his embrace.

“After we wed,” he offers, “there is usually a period of seclusion. To allow for the husband and wife to—acclimate. Physical desire is new to us, remember, and learning to control the urges takes time. So—a quiet bower, food and drink deposited unseen nearby, and a month or so to shape yourself around your love, and to remember how to behave.”

He smiles, all teeth. “Perhaps I was slow to warm up, and it is only now that the feelings are rising.”

It's a persuasive argument, but she isn't convinced; she's grown used to his ways, the warmth and solidity of his steady presence at her back. He sleeps like the dead most nights, unmoved til morning, and it isn't just him behaving oddly, lately. It's hard not to look at him with lingering worry, though at this nearness she doesn't look at him at all, lashes lowered, a sigh breathed out against his mouth.

“Normally,” she says, ruefully arch, “I'd be flattered that your excuse is just my obvious irresistibility.”

And it isn't as if she isn't, now, or as if she hasn't enjoyed the attention—isn't enjoying it right now, common sense warring with the temptation to just give in and worry later—but one of them has to be clear-headed.

It's just that it's usually him. She's not got quite so much practise as he does.

“You are irresistible,” he counters, the hand moving to the back of her neck. “Has no one told you so?”

He is warm. He changed into his sleeping clothes and has managed to keep them mostly on, and then refastened after, during all afters, but she is right in thinking him warmer than before. Or perhaps the fire is just built better, or the frost receding. A portion of one, a dash of another, she is still overreacting.

“Gwenaëlle,” he says. “We will just lay in bed, if you are worried. For the rest of the time we have. No lovemaking. You will lay here with me, and sleep more if you like it, and you will stop worrying.”

The tranquil, she decides. Lyov, isn't it? She'll speak with him, later; it will ease her mind, and she can relent now. If she's wrong, she's wrong, and if she isn't—which she's sure she isn't—someone will do something about it. Hopefully. With any luck. He is so bloody large, though, what are they going to do if he decides to be as uncooperative with healers as with wife?

“I wish you'd sleep, too,” she says, finally, her thumb against his cheekbone for a moment before she sinks down against him, into his arms. Her own nightgown is...somewhere...discarded earlier in the night, no subsequent barriers to his hands later—their sweat mingled on her skin, tacky. She'll have to sleep, else she's going to doze off when she bathes later and drown.

“Please. Try.”

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