Southern Ventures 3

Southern Ventures

Part 3 - A Hillside Sunset And A Walk In The Woods

Posted: August 1, 2008
Title: Southern Ventures
Series: Favourite Addition

*****

Erestor did not unbend with him after that and Glorfindel was sorry for it. He tried apologizing, and was graciously heard, gravely acknowledged, and it made no difference: Erestor remained remote. Glorfindel tried acting as if it had not happened and found him courteous, but no more than that. He tried leaving him alone for a few days, hoping he might come round, left on his own; Erestor serenely kept his own company, talked to others in passing, greeted Glorfindel when he saw him, and acted in general as if they were formal acquaintances.

When the latest attempt to draw him out failed, Glorfindel decided on a more direct approach, aware he was encroaching but concerned.

“Erestor, will you walk with me?”

Without fuss, Erestor obliged. With no destination in mind and in no hurry, Glorfindel led them around the skirts of that night’s camping ground. Once on the move, he launched into an effort to break down the barriers. “Are you still offended about the other day? You already know I am sorry about that.”

“I told you, there is no problem.” Erestor did not sound very interested.

“Yet I find you very distant. You were not this way before.”

“Set your mind at rest - don’t worry about it.”

Glorfindel stopped treading so delicately, unwilling to let the matter slide when they had so much to accomplish. “If it’s not that, then what else is wrong?”

“Wrong?” Erestor no longer looked remote, but impatient. “Glorfindel, we have a plan. We are well on the way to Lórien, and we are fully prepared for what we intend in Harad. There *is* nothing wrong.”

“Please, do not act as if you don’t know what I mean. Even if you do not want to talk about it.” Glorfindel’s dislike of prevarication showed in his grave tone.

Erestor stopped walking and faced him levelly. “Talk about what exactly?”

The sharper edge gave Glorfindel pause.

“I thought what I said was tactless because of Maglor. You minded. And you were upset with Merendil, for the same sort of reasons - or so I thought.”

Erestor considered him for an uncomfortable moment.

Glorfindel bestowed a smile on him. “Surely one ineptly worded answer can be forgiven? One moment we were talking about horses and strategies in Harad, and the next you started acting as if I am a threat. Which I am not. Surely you know that? Or you are angered and denying it.”

“I am not, no. I told you that. As to the other, I never said you were a threat.”

“Come, let’s walk a way further.” As they climbed, they could see the woods thereabouts stretching over rolling hillsides, where small streams cut V-shaped notches in the terrain and exposed gleaming bed-rock to view. Between the trees, the ground cover was thick with ferns and seedlings. Occasionally there were clearings where saplings had not yet filled the space made by a fallen giant, and in one of these Glorfindel drew them to a halt. From here, they could see the bottom of the valley, and they had a view of the horses and the camp-site along the grassy riverside.

“Here. We’ve time to sit awhile in the sun.”

Erestor rather reluctantly perched on a boulder and surveyed the admittedly relaxing view. The weather was fine – he liked these windy days when clouds sailed the sky majestically and Anor warmed his skin between their passing. Their unique shapes grew or shrank high above even as he watched.

“Tell me plainly, why this change in you? You say you are not angry – then what is it? Are you so worried about Harad? Is it that you don’t want me pestering you?”

The wind played across their hair and clothes, whipping tendrils loose and flapping fabric close about them. It whipped up the horses, too, into playing like fools across their pasture, and two streaks of gold tore across the river meadow, only to wheel and toss their heads and rear up in a turn that started a brief melee.

Erestor smiled absently at the sight, and spoke on a sigh that was lost in the breeze. “I’m not sure you should have come. It’s not going to be like Imladris. Or Gondolin. You know it in your mind but still you won’t be expecting what it is like. Men are nothing like us, and these men bear no resemblance at all to the Edain. It’s going to be a stark and brutal place; and one you will disdain. But we will have to deal with them. And I think you will not like what we have to do…”

“Reasoned words, but – you have not answered my question? And truly, I think you concern yourself overmuch. I have seen enough of what the world can be like.” And indeed, the sterner look to him as he said this would have convinced any listener, before his more usual cheer reappeared mixed with a little solemnity. “You know I would leave you in peace – if you only told me to. It’s not as though I spend my life chasing reluctant elves. I thought you liked me. I think you do like me. So. Why do you no longer entertain my friendship, and why so reticent about it?”

Persistent and more. Like a warrior after an orc, Glorfindel did not give up once on the hunt. That whimsical look on his face was deceptive. Erestor tried to imagine the rest of the journey. Lórien, and Galadriel’s questions. Harad. Tell him to leave him alone? Allow the friendship but avoid all other intimacies? There should be no problem with either of those choices. He watched a cloud evaporate into wispy feathers and melt into nothing. “You should forget your romantic ideas, you know.”

“Then tell me plainly, and I will. I hope we would still be friends, but most definitely I would do as you asked. But why would you, unless I’m wrong about how you feel? Am I wrong?”

“If you think I’m romantic, you could not be more mistaken.”

It was not an outright refusal. “But other feelings – those, you do have, I take it?” Irrepressibly, Glorfindel did not quite grin. Erestor had the impression that the Elda would be smiling broadly, if he were not trying to find his way carefully.

The clouds were building up in the west and the towering piles had begun to take on sunset’s gold beauty. Breathtaking. As was this dogged elf beside him. No, Glorfindel was not wrong. Not wrong at all.

Just how foolish were the two of them, to be having this conversation? For his part, he knew exactly how it would work out. And as for Glorfindel, the Elda knew his past, up to a point – enough to know better than to take up with a Fëanorian follower and rebel on his own account. He looked at the other elf. He betrayed no signs of doubt. In this pursuit, he never had. Confident? Or just innocently pure-hearted? Glorfindel’s faith in him had always surprised Erestor, and he knew of the two it was himself who had the right of it. No good would come of this.

It was exactly what he had been intent on avoiding. But here they were anyway, and Glorfindel was smiling quizzically at him. Willing to wait for his answers, but nothing would put him off, save the outright ‘no’ he said he would respect. That smile of his could charm the birds from the trees.

Erestor looked away, ambushed by sudden sadness, knowing Glorfindel imagined more than he was when he looked on him. Saw in him a potential that, if it ever existed, was early curtailed, suffocated and had long since died a death.

Almost harshly, he said, “Have you any idea how unwise the fulfilling of your hopes would be?” He continued more evenly, “I should tell you to stay away. I should tell you we have business on hand and cannot afford distractions. I should tell you that you would be far, far better off with someone – anyone – else. It would all be true…” The cadence of his speech faded and ceased.

Glorfindel wondered what was coming next. Nothing did. They sat in the clearing with the sun setting fire to the horizon: two arm-lengths apart and they might as well have been on opposite hill-sides. He broke the familiar silence at last, to say quietly and sincerely, “I hope you don’t, Erestor. Don’t tell me to stay away…”

Again, silence filled the space between them, until Erestor broke it. “Why so worried, my lord?” He looked thoughtfully at the Elda. “Was that one kiss not enough to tell you that any time you chose, you could have me? Did you think I would refuse you? With a word, you could command me.”

Glorfindel, taken aback – astounded – by this idea, was off-balance enough to say the first thing that came to mind. “Why would I command you?”

“Why not? If you want me so badly?” Dark, opaque eyes surveyed the sunlit elf leaning against a rock among the bracken. “But it would only be to your regret. Of that, I am sure. You want something I cannot give. You won’t believe me, and you would not believe Elrond, but it is true nonetheless.”

There was no heat to the words, and no taint of self-pity, only a pair of cool eyes inspecting him with dispassionate curiosity as if he was some unusual forest find. Glorfindel floundered for words. Here was all the detached interest of their encounter in the stable resurrected, and of the kiss they had shared, that strange, haunted moment that hung in the shadows of his mind, siren and warning both. He wanted – wanted badly – to repeat it, yet knew that unless he persuaded Erestor to go beyond that responsive, wary awareness he might just as well not be kissing him at all.

He felt his way cautiously, still honest. “You might lay with me, yes. Perhaps. If I asked, I have thought you might let me know your body. Though you have hardly sought me out or encouraged me in that desire. But you, Erestor? I thought you were not ready to give of yourself to me.” And then he added very quietly, “More especially if I were to command you… You know I would never think of such a thing.”

Erestor looked at the horizon across the valley. Wiser at least in this than the Elda, and for once open, he said, “I could hold out both my hands to you, offering all I had and you would find them empty.”

Glorfindel took a great breath at this, and then said huskily, “Then I will take you anyway, tonight, and every night after, and show you how *wrong* you are.”

Assuming decency enough to refuse for Glorfindel’s sake, as if practicalities were not sufficient reason, Erestor said simply, “No.”

“No? You said, any time. You said it, Erestor, not moments ago.”

Erestor answered him, with true generosity, if unpalatably. “You would destroy yourself, looking for what you could never find, thinking I denied you, thinking it was your fault. Angry with me, thinking less of yourself, and in the end, a bitter parting.”

“Never find? I cannot believe it. You are not so different than any other elf.”

Not so different… That he even said those words was damning. Erestor wanted to flee this useless exploration and was tempted to leave it and walk away. But they were overdue to have this out. He said flatly, “Glorfindel, I was thirty-eight when I sold myself. Do you understand that? Fifty when I kept my bargain. Not so long after that, Maglor chose not to refuse Caranthir’s blandishments, and with him Curufin.”

“You were young. You had your family to consider.”

“Yes, I was young! Young when I was educated by Maedhros, to become his aide only decades later, young when I trained with Maglor’s elite. And young when I carried a sword to Sirion, not a century old. What do you think I became in that place? What do you think I learned, at Maedhros’ side? Or in Maglor’s bed, and kneeling for Caranthir’s amusements? Taught the sword by the time I was sixty, wielding it soon after? I see what you want in your eyes, and I knew from the first you would never listen to me, nor to Elrond. Just why did you think I have avoided this? He sees, all too clearly, what you refuse to understand, and I am sure he warned you, but you would not listen, even to him, would you? Did you think it was just mistrust?” He surveyed Glorfindel’s stubborn face. “Oh, come. Would Elrond be entirely wrong, of all people?”

“I have the right to make up my own mind, Erestor! He made you angry enough at the time!”

“That he thought I had played you – yes! He’s not infallible, and he was wrong about that and certainly insulted me. But if you think I stayed away from you because of him, you could not be more mistaken!”

Steadily, Glorfindel answered from the heart. “I have the right to see in you what you imagine is not there because no-one told you or showed you. What you could learn of yourself, given a chance. What you would be happier knowing.”

Erestor stiffened in humiliation. His offering of bald – no, *naked* – truth, by which he had exposed himself, was brushed aside, discounted, and now to be patronised…

“Then good my lord, have me as I am, or not at all – you will wait a long time for me to turn to you to better myself in your arms.” Coldly spoken, from an elf suddenly drawn tall to his full height. He was smiling slightly, but not pleasantly. “What you seek is not there to find, for all your wishing. Sooner or later, you will discover it. And when that day comes, I pray you, do not blame me.”

The words came out short and definite and left no room for debate. Erestor had had enough of starry eyes. This bubble needed pricking for both their sakes.

More prosaically, he went on. “A word of advice – take it or leave it, it’s the best I can do for you. Have done with this endless hoping and looking for a fantasy, for I am tired of being its subject. Look at me. See me. Above all, do not insult me with ideas of redeeming me. If you want me, claim me, and have done. Forget the rest.”

Glorfindel put a hand out, trying to read him, trying to find something to say, to pull them back from the brink of this unexpected ultimatum.

But Erestor, oddly, was smiling now, in a way unprecedented in their dealings. Glorfindel eyed him, disconcerted, and was left trying to keep his balance in a conversation that was covering far more ground than he had anticipated and had just abruptly changed, yet again, under his feet. Finding his silent appeal ignored, he let his hand fall back to his side.

Erestor was in no mood to take back his words. Pride and humiliation had put him out of all countenance with sensible restraint. He knew his own bodily worth and thus was it measured, in smiles and silk wrappings. His eyes challenged even while inviting attention. He was tired of this stalking. Tired too of fending off his own desires in a balancing act between decency and expedience. Insult had made him angry. And anger – demanded a resolution, either way.

So. He would let Glorfindel decide. It did not matter to him. But he refused to pretend to sentiments he did not possess. If the Elda wanted sex, Erestor could give it. If he wanted friendship – that too, he was inclined to give. Either way, once in Harad, he would do as he needed. But this – this romance, that Glorfindel sought, this notion that there would be more to a bedding between them than two bodies entwined, however pleasurably… No. He smiled. And waited, all seducer. If Glorfindel would not learn wisdom or truth from words, they would find him out by other means – and what elf on Arda was spared that journey in life?

He knew himself for marred. Certainly one such as Glorfindel would never be content with his body alone. But love? Long since, he spent his remnant horde of that, wept to its rest on these very paths after years of hope suspended in uncertainty. Love was not in question. He really should not do this – but if the Elda would not let well alone, then on his own head be it. With his words, Glorfindel had ignited a small core of anger inside Erestor, brightly white, driving him on, burning away his little store of decency and exhausted patience.

Let Glorfindel be love’s fool, if he insisted. Let him risk cutting himself to shreds on Erestor’s splintered self. He was well-warned; Erestor had been refusing him for months. In the end, Elrond himself had doomed Glorfindel by including him in the party. Such as he was, he would let Glorfindel claim him. He liked him and he pitied him, but he was come to an end of protecting him.

‘Claim me, and have done…’ Glorfindel hesitated. The ultimatum was hardly what he had hoped for in Erestor’s consent after the drawn out pursuit. Gravely, he said, “You know it is what I hope for.” He raised one large hand to Erestor’s arm in an undemanding caress. “If you are willing, then I wish very much to take this step with you. If you prefer not, then I shall be glad to call you friend.” He cocked his head, wondering at Erestor’s manner, trying, failing, to read him.

“And if I say no, you will still be watching and hoping.” Derisive, mocking, Erestor threw down a challenge and repelled him with the same breath.

“I am not so immature as that, I hope. If you are not interested I would respect your wishes, and honour your choices. You are not the only fish in the sea, after all.” He could look elsewhere, it was true, if all he sought was the pleasure of the body, but none would be Erestor with his brilliant smile, glad of friendship, shadowed, quirky, silent, strong-willed. Until Erestor told him to stop, it would be Erestor he courted.

Erestor stared at him. Glorfindel really took caring too far. His sense of guilt at the prospect of giving in was a sharp pang, a physical thing. It would be short-lived, soon to fade. He even valued it. Rare and unlikely as it was for him to feel remorse, he accounted it a kind of homage to Glorfindel’s character as well as proving he could still feel for another. He sighed. “I will see you later. You should change your mind before then. I strongly advise you to have more sense.”

The blue eyes lightened. Glorfindel looked at his hand on Erestor’s arm and thought better of drawing him in for a kiss here in the bracken. He let go and forced himself to take his leave and find Anuial and more proper occupation than a hillside tumble. The ground under his feet was hard to find, and his grin had never appeared more boyish.

Erestor watched his ebullient departure before moving off on his own affairs. He went first to the wagon where he kept his personal effects. Glorfindel would not change his mind, of that he was certain as he was of nothing else. Glorfindel would not give up. He himself would no longer say no. Guilt and resistance died together between one heartbeat and the next. With one last inward shrug, he finally gave up all thought of avoiding the Elda’s attentions and found what he was looking for.

***

Night took a long time to come. When it did, Glorfindel forced himself to methodical patience, the only way to get through all the routine of setting up for the night. In the end, all was ready. Pickets set, animals fed, wagons safely parked ready for the morning, elves of the guard under Anuial sure of their turns on watch, the usual meeting with the wagon-master over and the drovers’ boundaries set and picketed. He barely bothered eating, but made a token effort to do justice to the meal. Erestor ate sparingly as usual, no different than any other evening. For himself, he hummed with anticipation that left room for little else, certainly not appetite or thought, sensible or otherwise.

Late in the evening Erestor walked with him around the camp, around the pickets and thence into a more private wooded pocket of ground inside the watchers’ circle but far enough removed from sentries and camp for comfort. Glorfindel could at long last hold Erestor’s shoulders and look into his eyes, content that he was here with him, wanting nothing more than to kiss him. “Any time, you can change your mind,” he said. “Any time,” and kissed him.

The dark eyes returning his gaze wavered and closed. Erestor was not rushing to kiss him back. Glorfindel felt him quiver in his hands. He leaned his forehead against Erestor’s and gave a great sigh. They stood there, the night singing around them, and the noise of elves in camp drifting on the cool air. Glorfindel pulled Erestor closer and kissed him again, suddenly overwhelmed with an urgent desire to find out if Erestor was changing his mind. If he was, he would accept it but he wanted to know, and now.

Glorfindel embraced Erestor with unmistakable intent, willing to be told no even while his lips copied his arms in hungry enquiry. He searched for targets all over Erestor’s face, ears and neck before settling firmly on his mouth once more. Erestor opened to him – responded, letting his tongue meet its mate, even though Glorfindel was pressing close with more than arms and lips. The Elda was on fire to feel his body against Erestor’s now that permission had been granted.

He was not importunate, not intruding unwelcome. Erestor had started the conversation. Erestor had told him point-blank to act on his desire or abandon the chase. There was no reason to hold back and he had waited too long to do other than lose himself in the gifts of heat and hardness freely granted. His hands, his tongue, his hips - they all expressed his desire and he let them.

And the elf he embraced so ardently was allowing every move Glorfindel made against him, every invasion and exploration of mouth on mouth, every handhold moving, clasping, pressing tightly – impossible to get close enough – with no protest uttered. Erestor was kissing him back, enough to know that he was not indifferent, though without the same fervour. More deliberate, less possessive, yet a definite invitation nonetheless, and one that Glorfindel seized upon.

It was a while before they fell to a quieter exchange. They settled, saying very little, made welcome by earth and litter, and Erestor set his hands to business they very well knew. Glorfindel made no more attempts to delay this choice. Nor did Erestor, and the silence between them intensified before at last it was broken by Glorfindel under Erestor’s administrations.

He felt himself on the brink when cool fingers stilled their touch on the hot flesh that was jerking in small spasms under the absorbing stimulation.

“I am quite ready for you, if you want me.”

Glorfindel’s eyes flew open, and he sat up, intent on what Erestor had said. He reached for him, and found the hold he sought on Erestor’s hips, drawing him up before him, petitioner on his knees, willing to receive Glorfindel’s attentions, whatever they proved to be. He ran a hand behind, and set his fingers to investigate, cupping his buttocks in his palms, pulling Erestor forwards so he was close next his own chest, the heat of their skin mingling in the narrow gap of air between. His fingers led onward over velvet skin – oiled skin, oiled, open, ready for him – he easily ran a forefinger into Erestor’s passage through muscles that Erestor must already have prepared. The thought of it was enough. Glorfindel ejaculated, hands rigid on and in Erestor.

Erestor ignored the pain of fingers tightening stiffly inside him and digging into the muscles of his arse. He supported Glorfindel’s shoulders and when he was ready, laid him down, still in the throes of pleasure, bonelessly collapsing in Erestor’s guiding arms.

Erestor, lying on one elbow, set a hand in the Elda’s hair, and the other on the top of his thigh, until Glorfindel subsided. He ran a finger across the silken, anointed skin of Glorfindel’s belly. Eventually, Glorfindel revived enough to open his eyes.

“Valar, Erestor…”

Erestor knew he had this power. He had known since the day Maglor first laid eyes on him, though it had taken time to fully understand the sucking currents that had run back and forth, the looks and touch that spoke of desire. He gave willingly to Glorfindel what he had once yielded in bewilderment, and in times since more knowingly, but still he felt detached.

He smiled down, playing that one finger up Glorfindel’s stomach and then his chest, trailing away around the hollow of his collar bone. He wiped it clean on his own stomach with the same elusive smile, then laid himself down in the crook of the sprawling elf’s arm. It was enough, as he lay in the loose embrace. He felt a kiss in his hair and closed his eyes, as the Elda bestirred himself to reach his lips. He let himself relax in the large warmth of the other’s body.

Glorfindel roused himself slowly out of his stupor to pay attention to more than the sublime departure from all awareness Erestor had evoked with such devastating simplicity. He found his guilty siren looking strangely otherworldly with his eyes closed and lips parted in quiet susurration. The body of his newfound lover reclined solid and real among the mossy grasses even while his appearance in the dusky light was all ethereal shadow.

He cupped Erestor about the shoulders more firmly with one arm, and with his other hand travelled everywhere he could reach, slowly, watching Erestor, feeling him tense a little, seeing him looking back at him through half-closed eyes, apparently willing to let Glorfindel discover his body in turn. Eventually, cautiously he took in hand his goal, leaning up over Erestor now, holding him close, kissing him and leading him down the path Glorfindel had trod already.

Erestor shivered, and Glorfindel thought his welcome to caress assured, absorbed in the vast pleasure of touch and sight, of hot, smooth skin within his palm, of Erestor’s prick alive to his hold, and Erestor allowing him this slow courting of ecstasy. He watched his own hand and Erestor’s profile, face now turned into Glorfindel’s shoulder, and felt him shudder.

Glorfindel felt the pressure of fingertips on his forearm. Encouraged, he drew Erestor closer with his other arm, sure of his choice of simple concentration rather than offering complex attentions for this first voyage together. He heard Erestor’s intake of breath, and smiled, pleased – only to think he must have misheard what came next.

“Let me go,” Erestor said in his ear. The fingers did not grow more insistent, merely rested in silent request on Glorfindel’s stilled wrist. Glorfindel let him up, thinking he would take a little water, or wanted only to move, or even to relieve himself, only to see Erestor hesitate and then lean down to kiss him on the mouth, pick up his leggings and get dressed, serenely, for all the world as if they were done.

Content though his body was, sated and thoroughly relaxed, alarm bells were ringing frantically. Just before Erestor would have walked away, Glorfindel took hold of him. “Erestor, wait!”

Erestor looked down at the hand’s grip preventing his departure, and said, “You make a habit of this, I think, my lord,” before looking straight into Glorfindel’s eyes.

Stung by look and tone, Glorfindel retorted, “Well, you can’t just walk off!” He eased off his grasp tentatively - Erestor was apparently not going to wrest himself loose to depart on the instant – but he kept a light hold. “Come, Erestor, at least explain?”

With his free hand Erestor prized his arm loose from Glorfindel’s now unresisting fingers. He studied the Elda’s face through the shadows of the brush around them, and sighed, finding a tree to lean against. “Some things are hard to put into words.”

“I understand that,” said Glorfindel, cautiously.

“And perhaps some things – I would rather not go into.”

Glorfindel felt that if he said, ‘But Erestor…’ he would sound like a child whining and moreover one who was none too intelligent at that. Instead he sat up on his heels and they looked at one another wordlessly until Erestor straightened with a slight inclination of his head, paying his usual courtesy to Glorfindel’s rank for all the world as if nothing odd had passed, before walking away.

Frustrated, even for a moment angry, Glorfindel could have taken hold of the nearest tree and loosed his uncertainty with his forehead against the beech’s solid girth. There was no comprehending what had been going on in that dark head, but to follow him would be futile, that much he knew. He groaned aloud, frustrated, and lay on his back staring at the stars. What had just happened? He had not the least idea. Erestor might deign to let him know in due course, but on the other hand he might never be willing to explain. Only time would tell. Glorfindel was a long time communing with a lot of stars before uneasy reverie finally overtook him.

*****

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