Chapter Text
Upon the third month after The Theatrical Chaos—which was known amongst the House of the Mole as The Incident That Shall Not Be Remembered, and conversely among the House of the Golden Flower as The Triumph of the Heart’s Petal—there came at last a summons from the Tower of the King.
Elemmakil, Captain of the Gate, walking with the precise tread of one who had personally stepped over three dramatic courtiers quarrel and two arguments about curtain dye on his way up the stairs.
He bore no scroll from House of the King, nor even a politely folded note. Only this did he say, in a tone solemn as a sarcastic raven:
“The King bids you come.”
It was, as far as royal commands went, devastatingly understated. And yet none who heard it dared to resist.
Thus did the summons go forth to two souls whose hearts beat not in unison, but rather like duelling harps played in different rooms by insulted composers.
Glorfindel of the House of the Golden Flower came first. He arrived with the subtlety of dawn breaking through a stained-glass window. His robes were modest—which is to say, only one layer of golden embroidery and a single sapphire brooch shaped like a phoenix mid-wink.
Following him, as the moon follows the sun in dramatic protest, came Maeglin, son of Eöl and Aredhel, Prince of the House of the Mole, Duke of Glowering Contempt, and Unofficial Patron Saint of Deep, Heavy Cloaks. He wore black—nay, the blackest black—so dark it might have absorbed the very memory of colour from the air.
And thus did they ascend to the High Chamber of the King.
There, beneath the vast dome of pale stone streaked with veins of sky-blue quartz, stood Turgon, King of Gondolin, who was both mighty and tired—though no elf dared say so to his face. He stood at the great balustrade, robed in white and blue threaded with mithril, like a storm-cloud that had read a book on etiquette.
He did not turn. He did not greet.
Instead, he gave a single command, in a tone so imperious that even the walls seemed to stand straighter:
“Close the doors.”
And so the doors were closed—quietly, ominously, and perhaps a tad overdramatically.
Then the King spoke again, still not facing them, for kings do love to begin with architectural gravitas.
“This summons,” said Turgon, “is in response to events that have transpired in recent days.”
A pause. A silence. The kind of silence that usually precedes divine smiting or, in Gondolin, extremely polite disappointment.
“Events which, though allegedly rooted in affection,” the King continued
He turned, at last, and his gaze swept over them like an audit. “Behold now the ruin you have wrought,” said Turgon, spreading his arms toward a scroll that had, of its own tragic volition, unrolled itself across the table like a dead swan. The parchment was inked in what could only be described as furious Tengwar, underlined twice and punctuated with sighs.
“To date,” he intoned, “I have received thirty-seven formal protests—hand-delivered, some in rhyme. Two duels have been fought in the Third Circle.”
Turgon raised a hand before either could speak.
“Moreover,” Turgon said, with the weary dignity of a ruler whose city had been emotionally hijacked by two beautiful disasters in contrasting robes, “I myself was ambushed this morning by a choir of children singing a love-ballad addressed to both of you.”
Glorfindel beamed. “You must admit,” he said, with the kind of gallantry only possessed by Elves who had never once been told ‘no’ with enough force to make it stick, “Mole of Might works surprisingly well in old Quenya verse.”
A shudder passed through the High Chamber like a chill wind off the Encircling Mountains.
“Do not recite it,” said Turgon, in the voice of one who had heard it. Many times.
“I regret nothing,” said Glorfindel with blithe sincerity, pressing a hand to the golden ruins of his heart as though he were a martyr of song.
“You will regret everything,” muttered Maeglin, arms folded so tightly. He stood beside Glorfindel but at such an angle—shoulders turned, one foot rotated ninety degrees—that the only way to be farther apart would be to fall out a window.
The King turned his back to them again, as if hoping perhaps they might vanish when not perceived.
“Glorfindel,,” the King intoned, “Your courtship has triggered what can only be described as… an unwanted affectionate invasion.”
Glorfindel blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Turgon turned to face them with the expression of one who has personally stepped on too many flower wreaths.
“Your House,” he said with slow, judicial doom, “has begun a campaign—a campaign of what I can only call weaponized diplomacy. Candlelit serenades in the Minesmith Quarter. Flower wreaths—forcibly attached—to a catapult and flung into one of Mole’s window. And this morning I am informed that one of your lieutenants was discovered whispering Quenya poetry to a Mole-bannerman.”
“The bannerman,” Turgon added grimly, “was not amused.”
Glorfindel tilted his head. “The Mole-people has never had a sense of humor.”
"Why am I here?” snapped Maeglin, whose entire posture now radiated legal objection. “I did not encourage this debacle. All of this glitter-strewn horror is because of his delusions. Whatever golden hallucination this… elf has decided to embrace.”
“This is part of your doing, nephew. You accepted the box,” said Turgon, and his voice rang like a bell tolling doom. “Before the assembled court. Before the choir. Before the citizens.”
“I was cornered!” Maeglin snarled, his voice sharp enough to skin a balrog. “Do you not understand? I stood there—surrounded by choirs, harps, and enchanted civilians. I had two choices: accept the box, or begin slaying Gondolindrim in front of your very eyes!”
Glorfindel sighed, softly, as if remembering a particularly good dream. “You accepted it, darkling. And there was a light in your eyes—”
“That was rage,” Maeglin growled.
“A warm, trembling, exquisitely confused rage,” Glorfindel murmured solemnly, eyes half-closed.
Maeglin turned to the King. “Permission to throw him off the tower, your Majesty.”
“Denied,” said Turgon, though not with particular force, He closed his own eyes. Briefly, he entertained the idea of laying face-down on the floor and simply remaining there for a hundred years.
“The point is this,” the King thundered. “The House of the Mole is now under siege. Enthusiastic suitors descend bearing cupcakes and bad poetry. Your vassals, Maeglin, are writing complaints to me in charcoal, blood, and—disturbing death threats to Golden Flowers.”
He turned slowly, as though performing an ancient rite, and fixed them both with a stare that could silence thunder.
“…And so, I must ask. To end this madness, do you wish to officially merge your House with the Golden Flower?”
A pause. A shift. The room seemed to draw breath.
“Which brings the next question,” said the King, voice descending like a glacier. “Am I to expect a wedding before the autumn rains?”
Silence fell.
It was not the peace of understanding, nor the hush of awe.
It was the silence of two people attempting to process what exactly had just been said, and whether divine intervention could still get them out of it.
Glorfindel, full of rapture, leaned forward as though peering into a beatific vision.
Maeglin looked as if he had just been struck by lightning. Emotionally. And perhaps also physically.
At last, Glorfindel spoke, his voice a soft caress on the fabric of inevitability.
“Such a notion is… premature. But not unwelcome. And certainly flattering.”
He tilted his golden head toward Maeglin, eyes sparkling.
“Would you prefer a more restrained wedding? Something quieter, perhaps? No choirs. No stagecraft. Only a discreet declaration beneath the stars—”
“I would prefer that you vanish into the sea,” Maeglin said, with all the warmth of Morgoth’s left boot, “and be mistaken for a golden seal by some wandering sailor and kept as a pet.”
Turgon inhaled deeply. Rubbed his temples. Considered becoming a tree.
“Nephew. Did the acceptance of the box truly mean nothing?”
"I already regret it." Maeglin’s jaw clenched. “It meant less than you imagine.”
“Less,” said Turgon, gently now, “but not nothing.”
He stepped forward. “Among the Noldor, to accept such a gift before the city is a sign. Not a contract, no—but a gesture. A promise.”
Maeglin flushed. Was it fury? Shame? A desire to explode? “I am not familiar with that strange Noldor culture,” he muttered.
Glorfindel’s grin bloomed like spring. “Still, when you took my gift,” he sighed, “it felt as though my heart took flight.”
“Good,” Maeglin snarled. “Follow it. Off a cliff.”
Turgon sighed, long and grave, and returned to his stone seat.
“Very well,” he said, like one pronouncing judgment upon a particularly unruly goose. “Since a wedding seems neither imminent nor impossible, I shall restore order… with law.”
Turgon inhaled. Deeply. The silence quivered.
“By the authority of the Crown of Gondolin,” he said at last, voice clipped and stately, “I issue the following decrees—primarily so I may sleep undisturbed, and so our culture may survive both love and sanity intact.”
He turned his eyes on Glorfindel, who tried to look penitent, but the sheer golden aura of him rendered the attempt nearly blasphemous.
“First,” said Turgon, “the House of the Golden Flower shall desist from unsolicited serenades, floral bombardments, interpretive dances, and the smuggling of live songbirds—alive or taxidermied—into the quarters of the House of the Mole.”
Glorfindel gave a very small, very foolish nod.
“Second,” the King continued, his gaze swiveling like a sword drawn slow, “the House of the Mole shall cease retaliatory defensive shoving, the concealment of sharp objects in gift-boxes, veiled threats written in calligraphy, and the catapulting of fruit—especially hard fruit—at emissaries of the Golden Flower.”
Maeglin’s lips pressed into a line. He did not nod. He blinked, slowly. Which, for him, counted as vehement objection.
There was a beat of silence.
Then, in a tone of exhausted doom, the King added:
“And finally… until a formal wedding is announced—if ever such madness is made official—if anything like this happens again, I shall place both Houses under royal probation, revoke your seasonal performance privileges, and your presence from council.”
Glorfindel opened his mouth, possibly to ask what “royal probation” entailed, then thought better of it.
Turgon stepped closer now, and though his voice dropped to something softer, it rang like a gavel.
“And you, Glorfindel, have proposed Maeglin publicly. in escalating and humiliating spectacles witnessed by half the city. And you, Maeglin—though I understand your upbringing has not prepared you for this absurdity—by accepting the gifts, you have, in the eyes of our people, promised marriage.”
Maeglin made a soft, strangled noise.
Turgon raised a hand.
“I say this not as punishment, but as protection. Our customs must be respected. They are the structure of our pride. Thus, I command: the both of you shall henceforth conduct yourselves openly. Let the city see what has been declared. Let none say the Noldor mock their own laws.”
He exhaled, as if letting go of the last shred of hope for a quiet reign.
There was a silence.
Maeglin looked at him.
Then looked at Glorfindel.
Then looked at the nearest window.
It was, regrettably, unopenable.
The trumpets of Gondolin, bright as morning stars, rang forth in the valley below Amon Gwareth, calling the people to the Tournament of the Eleven Houses.
It was said the festival had been Turgon's idea—a day of joy and friendly competition to forge unity. But none were fooled. This was not unity. This was war, War dressed in sapphire sleeves and mailed in ornamental bronze, with banners taller than any sense of moderation and helmets so heavy they required an attending page to assist with blinking. Unity, indeed—if unity meant giving everyone exactly one chance a year to commit elaborate, sparkling violence in the name of honor, minor insults, and long-standing architectural disputes.
The amphitheatre, carved with suspicious convenience into the slope beneath the city, glittered now with sun and silk. Pennants cracked in the wind like the laughter of fate. The stands, arranged in great half-moons, had been carefully divided by House—and not so carefully guarded by House, for claiming a section of stone bleachers in Gondolin was less about arrival time and more about hostile occupation.
And none had arrived more hostilely than the House of the Mole
The House of the Mole, cloaked in shadowy silvers and deep iron greys, had slunk in first—silent, sinister, and already glaring at everyone. Their banners hung limp as if in mourning, their supporters cloaked and hooded like a convention of depressed bats. They moved in eerie synchrony.
To the audible groan of every Mole present, the House of the Golden Flower arrived next. “Of course,” muttered a Mole noble, “they’ve choreographed their entrance. Again.”
Like a sunrise falling down a flight of stairs.
They came in singing—singing!—a chorus of glittering warriors and minstrels decked in blazing golds and saffron cloaks, all bearing fresh flowers tucked behind their ears and optimism too powerful for polite society. They paraded in like conquering heroes to music no one had asked for, throwing petals over themselves as if divine favour could be bribed with horticulture.
And in a stroke of logistical evil—surely devised by some malevolent scribe with ink-stained hands and a secret funeral wish—the Houses of the Mole and the Golden Flower were made to share adjoining seating.
Silence fell like a guillotine.
Eyelids twitched. Nostrils flared. Across the bench-line of fate, generations of mutual disdain ignited without a single word spoken. Daggers were not drawn—no, that would have been too merciful. They were imagined, summoned in the minds of a hundred nobles with such vivid clarity the air itself grew sharp.
The line of demarcation was immediate and absolute.
On one side, the House of the Golden Flower erupted in a gaudy riot of silken cushions, perfumed garlands, and fresh fruit displayed like tribute before a minor deity. They shrieked and fluttered like exotic birds escaping a cage, each attempting to outshine the next in volume, sparkle, and scandalous embroidery.
On the other, the House of the Mole responded with the grim finality of stone. They refused comfort. They refused color. They refused to sit upon anything softer than divine judgment. Some glared so hard, a nearby fig withered.
And seated at the molten heart of this gathering storm—arms crossed, jaw carved in marble, eyes darker than buried obsidian—was Maeglin.
He was glaring at the central dividing bench, where the shadows of the Mole and the sunlight of the Flower were never meant to meet—stood a grand, gilded chair. Not two. One. A shared chair. A thronelet, embroidered with both sigils: the Golden Flower blazing above a glinting iron mole, stitched together with the horrifying ease of a matrimonial optimism.
Upon this shared seat, like a trap sprung from some fevered romantic imagination, sat Glorfindel.
Glorfindel of the golden braids and painfully symmetrical face. Glorfindel of the blinding grin and armour polished to a mirror’s mockery. Glorfindel, Captain of the House of the Golden Flower—and, to Maeglin’s undying horror, the orchestrator of this entire farce.
And Glorfindel looked pleased.
“Oh good!” he cried merrily as Maeglin stalked down the aisle like a herald of doom. “They followed the seating chart! I was afraid someone might switch the placards.”
“You areanged the seating chart,” Maeglin said in a voice that could shatter bone.
“Well—yes,” said Glorfindel brightly, patting the shared cushion. “But only after long consultation with the High Chamberlain and the Stablemaster and—well, the point is, we’re right beside each other, aren’t we? Think how King Turgon will appreciate!”
Glorfindel said with unwarranted optimism. “I wanted him to see how well we’ve begun integrating—your House and mine, together. As one. Stronger. Harmonious. Close.”
Maeglin gave him a look that suggested “close” was a concept best reserved for plague-bearing vermin.
“Don’t you see?” Glorfindel said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It’s a gesture of obedience. Turgon’s order to foster unity between the Houses—this is it! Public, radiant unity! Through me. And you. Mostly me.”
Maeglin’s jaw moved slightly, as though chewing the inside of his own mouth in an effort to prevent homicide.
“Besides,” Glorfindel added, “you’ll find the cushion quite supportive for your back.”
And then—because the Valar had a sense of humour that often involved public humiliation—Turgon himself appeared at the highest balcony, flanked by heralds and clad in robes that had more jewels than fabric. He looked down at the field, at the chaos below, at the curious sight of Glorfindel beaming and Maeglin with a vein visibly twitching in his temple, both seated side by side in a single chair too narrow for comfort or survival.
Turgon’s brows rose, just slightly. His mouth... twitched.
Glorfindel glowed like the dawn. Maeglin imagined exile.
“See?” Glorfindel murmured through his grin. “He noticed us. That’s the look of approval. We saved our Houses from future probation.”
Beside him, Maeglin slowly turned his face toward the field. His eyes, pitch-dark and full of ancestral fury, stared ahead without blinking.
The Tournament Begins
The horns sounded.
Not one, but seven—because the herald from the House of the Swallow had bribed the musicians into giving the opening blast a “bit more flair.”
What followed was not an announcement so much as a sonic siege upon the ears of Gondolin. The House of the Harp covered theirs in horror. The Hammer of Wrath bared their teeth like wolves before battle. The Golden Flower supporters screamed in delight.
In the center of the arena, the field was revealed.
It was a tapestry of sunlit grass and perilously loose flagstones, encircled by marble towers and decorated in fluttering house colors. Judges from the House of the Fountain lounged beneath enchanted canopies. Galdor's representatives scurried about with wet cloths and lemon water, clearly regretting every second of their well-intentioned existence.
The first match was announced: a contest of archery.
The House of the Swallow—who had nominated themselves before anyone else had a chance—descended with flurries of feathers and entirely too much eyeliner. Their champion arrived with four different bows strapped across his back, all custom-carved and unnecessarily named.
The Fountain archer released his arrow without ceremony.
It struck dead center and shattered the target post.
The crowd gasped. Mole nobles hummed in grim appreciation. Golden Flower supporters shrieked like a chorus of delighted sirens. One enthusiastic Golden Flower elf threw a handful of petals into the air, which immediately lodged itself in the open mouth of a Pillar noble trying to maintain neutrality.
And beside all this, seated as if thrones had sprouted from stone itself, were Glorfindel and Maeglin—watching, judging, enduring.
Glorfindel, who had not stopped smiling since breakfast, leaned back against the bench like a contender surveying his conquest.
“Beautiful form,” he said, voice light. “Clean execution. Art in motion.”
Maeglin said nothing.
His jaw was set. His gaze fixed. He looked like a blade halfway through being forged and deeply resentful of the process.
“Still pretending not to enjoy this?” Glorfindel whispered. “You stared at that arrow like it owed you money.”
“I was assessing the angle,” Maeglin said coolly.
Glorfindel murmured, tilting his head. “That Fountain fellow might actually kill someone.”
“One can only hope,” Maeglin muttered darkly.
“Oh, don’t be like that. You’re mad because your House was forced to partake in these revels."
Maeglin’s gaze, black as volcanic glass, narrowed. “This event is frivolous and rigged.”
Glorfindel widened his eyes in mock innocence. “Rigged? Dearest shadow, surely not.”
“I saw the judges,” Maeglin snapped. “Three shared a bottle of elderflower wine with your uncle last night—and the fourth kissed your captain.”
“That,” Glorfindel said serenely, “is called influence. You might one day acquire it—should you ever learn to stop glowering like a mythic curse.”
“A pity,” sighed Glorfindel, tucking a golden curl behind his ear with practiced grace. “You might rule the city, if ever you ceased brooding long enough to say ‘hello’ to someone without setting them on fire.”
The turn of Maeglin’s head was slow, deliberate, and full of unsaid elven curses. If looks could kill, Glorfindel would have been a smoking crater halfway to the Deep.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s make it interesting.”
“No.”
“Come now—”
“No.”
“Maeglin, darling—Hear me out!” Glorfindel leaned close, golden hair brushing Maeglin’s shoulder like a sunbeam trying to seduce a thundercloud. “My House will win more events than others today. If I’m right, you grant me one request.”
Maeglin narrowed his eyes. “And if you lose?”
Glorfindel’s grin turned dangerous. “Then you may request anything of me.”
Silence stretched.
It was not a light wager. In Gondolin, requests were not idle whims. Among the highborn, a spoken promise could be binding as steel and just as sharp.
“Anything?” Maeglin asked, low and lethal.
Glorfindel leaned in until their noses almost brushed. “Anything.”
There was a gleam now in the prince’s obsidian eyes—a flash of old cunning beneath centuries of disdain.
“Very well,” he said.
“Bet accepted?” Glorfindel asked brightly, already imagining victory songs, dandelion garlands, and kisses beneath heraldic banners.
Maeglin stared at him like a tower that had just realized someone was chiseling at its base.
“…Accepted,” he said darkly, as if the word were a curse he had spat into the dust.
Glorfindel practically skipped away, humming a tune that should have had more warning bells attached. Maeglin, meanwhile, sat very still—calculating seventeen potential ways to make him regret this.
And so began the next contest: Mounted Duels.
A noble test of agility, honor, equestrian skill, and unspoken house vendettas older than some mountain ranges.
From the East Gate emerged the champion of the House of the Golden Flower in the way that stars arrive in the night sky—radiant, arrogant, late, and so utterly unnecessary it became sublime. He rode a huge white horse tall as a siege tower his armor shimmered like freshly poured mead. He waved to the crowd as though he were blessing the masses for their spiritual poverty in not being him.
Above, from the Golden Flower balconies, flower-petal confetti burst into the sky like pollen-fed fireworks. It smelled of lavender, sugar, and poor impulse control.
“Ah, my dear captain,” Glorfindel said, lounging over the balcony rail with a sigh that should’ve been illegal. “There he is. Like a sunbeam sent to commit violence.”
Beside him, Maeglin said nothing. His eyes had narrowed. His fingers drummed the armrest like someone counting daggers.
Glorfindel turned, lazy and dangerous. “Remind you of anyone, darling?”
Still no answer.
“Oh come now,” he cooed, “don’t sulk. You’re the only rider I’d ever care to challenge to a duel.” He paused, and his voice dropped like a cloak on polished stone. “Preferably shirtless. Preferably indoors. Preferably... intense.”
Maeglin’s jaw clenched with tectonic restraint.
Then the West Gate opened.
And out came the Mole champion—like doom emerging from a crypt. He was mounted on a black horse so silent it might have been forged from silence itself. No fanfare. No color. No joy. Only motion. The Mole rider wore matte-black armor and a helm that offered no gleam, no hint of a face—only the suggestion of suppressed homicide.
A child in the stands began to cry.
Maeglin sat straighter, his eyes gleaming now like the last star before storm.
Glorfindel tossed a roasted almond into his mouth and chewed as if contemplating poetry. “Mmm. Your captain looks cross. And I mean that in every possible sense.”
Still no reply.
“I do hope he wins,” Glorfindel whispered. “Because if he doesn’t, I shall be forced to comfort you. Thoroughly. Repeatedly. At great personal expense.” He leaned closer until his voice was little more than warmth on Maeglin’s ear. “If your champion triumphs, I’ll fling myself off this balcony in tragic despair. If he fails…” His lips almost grazed Maeglin’s cheek.
Maeglin turned slightly. The look he gave could have withered mountains.
Glorfindel just winked.
The horns sounded again—this time properly—and the duel began.
The white horse launched into motion with heroic absurdity, hooves pounding like thunder wrapped in sunlight. The Golden Flower knight spun his lance in one hand, blew a kiss to someone’s grandmother, and then charged forward with such dazzling choreography that several audience members burst into spontaneous applause.
He leapt a haystack. He twirled mid-strike. At one point, he saluted the king while landing a hit.
The Mole champion moved like a blade unsheathed in silence. No fanfare. No flourishes. Just deadly, mathematical precision. His lance struck hard and fast; one Swallow rider simply fainted before engagement. A rider from the House of the Pillar raised his hand in surrender and said, “No thanks,” before even mounting.
“Three points apiece!” the judges declared, too nervous to side against either.
In the stands, chaos bloomed like a field of rabid tulips. Mole supporters hissed like tea kettles. Golden Flowers threw petals with opera-soprano war cries. Someone from the House of the Harp began a dirge so overwrought that two spectators wept for reasons they couldn’t explain.
Glorfindel, meanwhile, reclined like an elf at leisure in Elysium. “Maeglin,” he purred, “you are quite literally vibrating.”
Maeglin’s teeth were clenched. “This isn’t over.”
“Oh, I know,” Glorfindel sighed dreamily. “The day is young. And so are we. You’re divine when furious.”
Then came the final pass.
The Mole champion gave no warning. He simply spurred forward like justice on a bad day. The black horse streaked across the field. His lance lowered. The white horse met the charge head-on—but the Golden Flower rider twisted, sidestepped, pivoted like a dancer with a vengeance.
Then, in one shimmering, impossible movement—he struck.
The Mole champion was flung from his saddle with such theatrical velocity that one might have mistaken it for divine intervention. He crashed to the earth in a perfect spiral, landing with both dignity and vertebrae somewhat compromised.
The field fell deathly silent.
Then came the cheer.
Golden Flower balconies erupted. Confetti rained again and Trumpets blared. The white horse struck a pose.
The black horse of the Mole stood alone, unmoving, its eyes blinking with the expression of a creature that had seen things and would now require oats and therapy.
Glorfindel tilted his head and murmured, “Well. That’s unfortunate.”
Maeglin’s grip on the railing turned white.
“You’ve lost,” Glorfindel said sweetly, voice all honey and knives.
“I am aware,” Maeglin growled.
“Don’t glower,” Glorfindel murmured, brushing invisible dust from Maeglin’s shoulder with a maddeningly tender motion. “You’re far too exquisite when enraged. Although…” His hand lingered. “If you truly wish to reclaim honor, we can arrange a rematch. Just you, me, and perhaps a private wrestling pit. I’m very flexible. In all ways.”
Maeglin sat unmoving.
He was still as obsidian, the kind that hides fire beneath its surface. His jaw was set in marble. His knuckles white where they gripped the carved armrest. He had not spoken in several minutes.
Glorfindel, luminous in golden laurels, leaned back with lazy delight, as if all the tournament existed solely for his entertainment. He stretched one arm across the back of Maeglin’s seat and leaned in, voice low, warm, and far too pleased. “You know what my reward is.”
Maeglin moved as if to rise—cold, graceful, remote. “Name it, and be gone.”
But Glorfindel’s arm did not fall away. It curved instead, casual and inevitable, over Maeglin’s shoulder like a sunlit snare.
“‘Be gone’?” he repeated, faux-wounded. “Such a cruel word for your future husband.”
Maeglin hissed through his teeth. “You are not—”
“Hush now,” Glorfindel whispered tenderly,. “You agreed. A bet sealed before witnesses. I could have asked for a dozen things but no. I am a generous man. So i will just ask one thing.”
Maeglin turned to glare at him, fury simmering just beneath the ice of his expression. “Get on with it.”
Glorfindel’s smile sharpened.
Maeglin walked alone beneath the colonnades of white marble, where ivy crept in secret and the light from the lanterns pooled like spilled gold. His cloak trailed shadows behind him, long as regret. Though the summer evening was warm, a chill clung about his shoulders—the kind that comes not from wind, but from foreboding. His brows were drawn, not in defeat, but in calculation. Somewhere between the tournament grounds and this cursed garden, he had misstepped.
And now, like a lord who had meant to bait a falcon but found himself wearing the jesses, he approached the victor.
The western garden sprawled before him, overgrown and scented with clematis and trumpet vines. The path had vanished beneath moss. Moonlight pooled on the stones like milk in silver bowls. And there—of course, there—stood Glorfindel.
He looked as though the sun had refused to leave him.
Gone was his armor, yet he shone brighter without it. A cream tunic hung with reckless elegance from broad shoulders; a belt of tooled leather slung low on his hips like a troubadour preparing for scandal. Laurel still clung to his hair, which caught the last gold of the day like flame made tender. At his feet, a basket. At his side, a sword. Naturally.
He turned the instant Maeglin stepped into the clearing.
"So," Glorfindel purred, with a smile as bright and dangerous as lightning on a dry plain. "The House of the Golden Flower claims victory.”
“I expected you to demand my sword,” Maeglin growled. “Or perhaps my seat at council.”
Glorfindel took a slow, deliberate step forward. The air shimmered with the scent of wine and citrus and something terribly, stupidly appealing. “What need have I for steel or politics,” he said, voice low, “when the treasure I seek is already here?”
Maeglin’s heart did something unsanctioned. He took a step back, just one, and the vines whispered against the marble.
Glorfindel held up two items: a sword in one hand, and a woven basket in the other. “Choose,” he said. “A duel, or dinner.”
Maeglin narrowed his eyes. “Do I stab you or drown you in that fountain?”
“I would prefer neither,” said Glorfindel brightly. “But if it helps you to relax, I am open to mild stabbing just to feel your legs straddling me.”
He gestured to a stone bench half-buried in honeysuckle. “I’ve stolen a garden for you. It has wine of questionable legality. Bread that is definitely not royal rations. And—best of all—not a single witness. Come, torment of my days, shadow of my sunlit folly. This is my prize. A sunset. A picnic. A chance to watch you scowl at me across cheese.”
Maeglin regarded him as one might a suspicious serpent offering compliments.
Then, with all the solemn dignity of a condemned monarch, he sat.
Glorfindel, in a rare and suspicious act of restraint, did not fill the air with endless chatter. Instead, he let the quiet breathe between them, as if knowing Maeglin’s thoughts were already noisy enough to drown any song.
At some point, Maeglin stopped watching the trees.
And began watching him.
There was something unnerving in how bare Glorfindel looked without his armor. His light should have been diminished, but he wasn’t. Stripped of heroics, there remained only him. Beautiful, ridiculous, and maddeningly persistent. The kind of creature who could smile through battle and seduce his enemies into truce.
Sunlight, somehow made flesh.
And worse—he knew it.
"Would you like a grape?” Glorfindel asked, plucking one from the little wooden bowl nestled like a treasure in the center of the woven picnic basket.
They sat upon a silken blanket of deep indigo, unfurled over a quiet slope beneath the night sky of Gondolin—a hill hidden from the city’s eyes, where the hush of wind in the tall grasses hummed like a lullaby to secrets unspoken. The moon was veiled behind a gauze of thin clouds, and stars blinked shyly from their high thrones, bearing witness.
Maeglin said nothing at first.
He sat straight-backed and silent as a blade on the forge. His dark hair spilled like ink over one shoulder, and his eyes, coal-rich and sharp, cut toward Glorfindel with suspicion. “I can feed myself.”
“Yes,” Glorfindel said, drawing out the word with lazy indulgence. “But can you let someone else do it?”
He waggled the grape in front of Maeglin like an offering to a discontented cat—playful, maddening, deliberate. “A wager’s a wager.”
“I agreed only to eat,” Maeglin said, eyes narrowing. “I never agreed to be hand-fed like a pampered dove.”
“To being adored?” Glorfindel’s voice dipped lower, silkier. He leaned in, his gold hair falling like a net of firelight over his shoulder. “To being gently, sinfully doted upon under stars no one else may witness? Alas. Fine print. I suppose I’ll have to coax you.”
The grape hovered.
Neither of them moved for a moment. A pause carved in glass.
And then, slowly, slowly, Glorfindel brought the fruit to Maeglin’s lips.
For a heartbeat Maeglin did not respond. He didn’t even blink. His arms were folded over his chest, the sleeves of his black tunic catching the faint starlight like the sheen of raven wings. He regarded the grape, and the golden warrior holding it, with all the wariness of a fox confronted by a trap baited with caviar.
Glorfindel smiled.
That maddening, star-bright, soul-scuffing smile.
And something in Maeglin cracked—not shattered, no. He was too careful for that. But something shifted, just enough for movement.
With a glare that could have melted mithril, Maeglin parted his lips and accepted the grape. He did not bite it, not at once. He let it rest there for a moment, heavy and full of meaning, before he closed his mouth over Glorfindel’s fingers—barely brushing skin—and pulled the fruit in with all the reluctant sensuality of a condemned prince swallowing pride instead of wine.
Glorfindel’s breath caught.
“See?” he said softly, leaning back with a smile that threatened to turn into a smirk. “Not so terrible.”
Maeglin chewed with mechanical precision.
Swallowed.
Then said, with deadly calm, “I hate you.”
“You say that,” Glorfindel murmured, plucking another grape from the bowl with exaggerated elegance, “but you’re blushing.”
A pause.
The breeze stirred Maeglin’s hair like a sigh. He turned his face half away, toward the tree line—but his eyes did not drift far from the golden lord beside him. The air between them shimmered with something half-spoken, like heat above stone.
“You’re looking at me again,” Glorfindel whispered, voice like honey poured over coals.
“You’re not entirely revolting.”
Glorfindel smiled widely and full of wonder, “That’s the most romantic verse i’ve ever heard in all my life.”
From the basket, he produced a small, elegant flask. The silver gleamed faintly in the starlight as he poured the rich red liquid into a goblet, the scent of it sweet and heavy. Without a word, he handed it to Maeglin, who took it as though handling something venomous. But he drank.
And Glorfindel, who had charmed nobles and warlords and princes of a dozen courts, watched as Maeglin’s throat worked with the swallow. Every movement he made—tense, reluctant, defensive—only deepened the spell. The harder he resisted, the more golden laughter pooled in Glorfindel’s chest like summer wine.
Maeglin handed the goblet back with unceremonious disdain, but his fingers brushed Glorfindel’s—and lingered a half second too long.
Glorfindel noticed. Of course he noticed.
He said nothing. He only smiled and picked another grape. “This one,” he said, “is sweeter. I can tell.”
“Wonderful,” Maeglin deadpanned.
“Open your mouth.”
“No.”
“Open your mouth, my gloomy lord of subterranean aesthetics.”
“I knew agreeing to that wager was a mistake.”
“Ah, but you did agree. You lost the bet fair and square.”
“Because you cheated.”
“My house merely performed better. And the people agreed.”
He lifted the grape. Maeglin glared at it.
“I could shove it up your nose.”
“I would let you,” Glorfindel replied, with great solemnity, “if it meant your hand would finally touch me.”
Maeglin closed his eyes, visibly drawing on the last threads of his patience.
Then—finally—he opened his mouth again.
Glorfindel placed the grape against his lips like a lover laying down a kiss. Maeglin bit into it. Juice glistened at the corner of his mouth.
And without thinking, Glorfindel reached forward—so gently, as though brushing away stardust—and wiped it with the pad of his thumb and lick it, eyes fixed intently at Maeglin.
The touch silenced the world.
For a breathless instant, Maeglin stared at him—not with hatred, not even with disdain. But with something far more dangerous. Unspoken.
Glorfindel whispered, “There’s my prince.”
Maeglin looked away.
But he did not pull back.
He sat there, burning beneath the stars, and said, “I could ruin you.”
“Perhaps I want you to ruin me,” he said. “Because I would let you. You already ruin me for i can not see my future without you beside me..”
For once, Maeglin had no answer.
He could only breathe. And feel. And hate how much he felt.
Another grape passed between them, wordless and slow.
Then another.
And another.
Until the bowl was empty, and the wine nearly gone, and the sky had turned deeper and darker and hung with a thousand silver eyes.
Maeglin did not speak again.
Now, Gondolin, jewel of the Hidden Realm, where marble towers rose like pale lilies and laughter curled like music through high windows, did not usually contain wild boars. Such beasts—mud-crusted, bristle-backed, red-eyed with rage—belonged to tales told by hunters of the North, not among the jeweled lanterns of a city where even the cats were elegant.
And yet—
On the eve of the Harvest Feast, as the golden banners of the House of the Golden Flower were being hoisted over the southern courtyards and the streets filled with the scent of honeyed apples and late summer wine, word reached the King that a village beyond the woods—one of Gondolin’s outer farming settlements—had been struck by such a creature.
A boar. Not a mere pig, nor a wandering forest beast, but a massive, tusked terror, said to have torn through fencing and root-cellar doors with the frenzy of a storm. Crops were ruined. A stable-hand had been thrown over a fence. A milkmaid had climbed a tree and refused to descend for three hours. It was all quite dreadful.
Glorfindel, Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, Patron Saint of Heroism and Questionable Decisions, took it upon himself to intervene. He had vowed before all his household that he would furnish the boar for the midsummer feast with his own hand: dead, fresh, and, as he phrased it with a grin like sunlight breaking through storm, “majestic—worthy of verse and seasoning both.”
“No,” said Echtelion flatly, who had been playing chess nearby and already knew how this would end. “Sit back down. The King had dispatched scouts, experts in woodland tracking and traps.”
“Then I shall help them. Come my bright warriors, to the glory!”
And so, before the morning sun had fully kissed the tower tops, Glorfindel departed the city with a small party—bright eyes warriors and one unfortunate stablehand tasked with “the boar cart”. They passed beyond the gates of the city with a small company, his optimism echoing faintly even as the shadows of the Encircling Mountains swallowed him from sight.
What he sought was glory, a tale to bring back in laughter, and a beast fit to roast upon the fire beneath the open stars. What he found instead was a creature born of wrath and thicket—huge and bristled, its tusks like carved ivory soaked in earth and blood, its temper sharpened by many winters of freedom. This boar, old as legend and twice as swift, would not be serenaded, nor chased into any tale that ended in seasoning and song.
There was shouting, and there were cries. Elven voices rose in alarm, calling one to another through the trees. And then, clear above them all, there came a sound like a trumpet of war–a wild cry as Glorfindel, son of the House of the Golden Flower, cast his spear and sprang forward.
So it was told thereafter, and many times with wine and embellishment: how Glorfindel leapt down from a rocky ledge, his golden hair streaming behind him like a banner, and brought the beast low with one blow. Yet in that same moment, the beast turned upon him, and with a roar like thunder, drove its tusk into his side and flung him down a ravine as one might hurl a sack of linen from a window.
He was found, bloodied and dazed, wrapped in his own cloak like a fallen sun.
Swift were the feet of his companions in bearing him back, and swifter still the whispers that flew ahead of them. Even as the banners of the festival were raised upon the towers, and the light of many lanterns sprang to life like stars upon the earth, word reached the high places where the Prince of the House of the Mole stood alone.
Maeglin, son of Aredhel and of Eöl, whose gaze was like shadowed steel and whose steps fell silent upon marble, had been walking the high terraces. The lamps were kindled in the courts below, and children laughed among the garlands of midsummer. Somewhere, beyond sight, a harp was playing a slow and silver song. He had not expected the voice that broke the stillness behind him—low, panting, urgent:
“My lord Maeglin—he is hurt. Glorfindel.”
For a breath, the world stopped. The air itself shifted, as if something vast and unseen had stirred in its sleep.
Maeglin spoke no word. But the way he turned—cloak flaring like a storm-cloud edged in starlight—was answer enough. The messenger fell silent, stepping aside without thought. There was something in the Prince’s bearing now that brooked no delay, no distraction. All Gondolin, had it seen him in that moment, would have marvelled. For Maeglin, who moved always with quiet poise and cold deliberation, now descended the city’s paths like a thunderbolt.
He did not take the broad avenues nor the ceremonial stairs. He chose instead the winding ways and lesser-kept paths, the shadowed steps known only to those who had walked them alone. His feet fell swift and sure upon the stone, and his eyes—those eyes that so rarely betrayed aught but distant calculation—burned now with something older and more perilous
The Hall of Healing was bright and quiet, too clean, too warm. The healers turned as one when the door burst open without ceremony. He did not knock and just entered.
The heavy oaken doors of the House of Healing groaned under Maeglin’s hand, and for a moment even the air seemed to retreat. The scent of crushed athelas, burnt sage, and too many worried Elves clung to the walls. The hall was hushed, save for the wind rattling an open windowpane and the subtle, rhythmic rattle of someone breathing through pain.
Glorfindel.
Laid low like a fallen star.
Wrapped in linen, glistening with fever-sweat, the proud golden menace of Gondolin lay still upon the high bed, hair unbound and fanned around him like a pyre waiting for flame. His skin was too pale; the rise and fall of his chest too fragile. A healer hovered nearby with a basin of steaming herbs and that particular expression of long-suffering patience that only Glorfindel’s antics could birth.
“He will live,” the healer said at once, startled by the thundercloud that had entered. “He needs rest. The wound was deep. Very nearly punctured the lung but not fatal.”
Maeglin said nothing.
His eyes swept from the healer to the patient. His jaw was set like a drawbridge risen in war. Slowly, like a knife slid into velvet, he moved to the side of the bed. There was a chair. He sat upon it.
The healer, made profoundly uncomfortable by the sheer intensity of his silence, murmured an excuse and all but fled.
Maeglin did not follow. He did not move.
He sat.
Staring.
Murderous.
In fact, so intimidating was his stillness that one passing apprentice briefly mistook him for a haunting spirit and performed an impromptu purification rite before vanishing again behind a tapestry.
It was nearly an hour before Glorfindel stirred.
And he did so like a leaf caught in wind—slowly, listlessly, but with a faint flutter of spirit. His lashes fluttered open, and for a moment the stormlight of his gaze was dimmed by pain and an excess of laudanum. But then—
“I dreamt of you again,” he slurred, voice thick with sleep. “You were scolding me. Even in dreams, I am oppressed.”
Maeglin did not answer.
Glorfindel blinked once. Twice.
“Wait… am I dreaming now?” he asked, furrowing his brows. “If you’re here willingly, I must be dead.”
“Yes” Maeglin replied at last, voice low and as dry as old bone. “You’re in the Halls of Mandos.”
“Oh,” Glorfindel said with alarming cheer. “So I was right.”
He grinned. Winced. Grinned again, which was rather worse. “You came,” he said dreamily. “Did you weep?”
“No.”
“Did you throw yourself on my lifeless body, crying, ‘Oh no, my heart, my doom, my very soul’?”
“Cease speaking”
“A pity,” Glorfindel whispered with absurd fondness.“I was trying to impress you, you know.”
Maeglin blinked. “With a boar?”
Glorfindel shifted, wincing. “Poetic symbolism. True love. Sacrifice. Heroism. The beast represented my heart. Unruly, proud, and dangerous—and I meant to conquer it for you.”
Maeglin stared at him.
“I nearly disemboweled myself,” Glorfindel added cheerfully. “For the safety of people, but mainly because of you. I don't want any boars attacked you while you're on your yearly cave exploration.”
Maeglin rising to his feet.
But as he turned, Glorfindel moved—just barely. A hand, warm despite the fever, grasped him.
“I’m glad you came,” Glorfindel said softly, almost to himself. “Even if it was just to scold me until I heal out of spite.”
Maeglin glanced down at the hand. He considered swatting it away. He considered leaving the room entirely.
Instead, after a long pause, he sank back into the chair and pulled a leather-bound book from the table.
He opened it slowly.
Glorfindel squinted at him. “Staying?”
“To make sure you don’t try something worse while concussed.”
“Is this how the House of the Mole expresses care? Surveillance?”
Maeglin leaned forward, slow and dangerous. He snarled, “Do not think this means anything.”
“Oh, it means everything,” Glorfindel breathed. “You sat. You stayed. You opened a book in my presence. You only read when you’re trying to avoid looking at something.”
“I will leave this instant.”
“No, you won’t,” Glorfindel said, and suddenly—blessedly—his voice was gentle, vulnerable. “You’ve come for me.”
Maeglin stared at him, eyes storm-dark, a dozen retorts dying in his throat.
He opened the book again. Very slowly. As though its pages could shield him from what was left unsaid.
Morning came and Glorfindel was not dead.
He was, however, dramatic about it.
Maeglin, sitting in a straight-backed chair by the bedside, was trying very hard not to throw something.
He had not slept.
He sat in the same chair, arms crossed, one boot tapping the floor in a rhythm forged of nerves and bitterness. He had intended only to stay a few minutes. He told himself he was there to make sure Glorfindel didn’t get himself further maimed by rolling off the bed in pursuit of something poetic.
But the minutes became hours. He read nothing. He moved little. His arms ached from tension. And Glorfindel, even in his sleep, somehow smiled.
It was offensive.
By mid-morning, one of the healers entered the chamber, bearing a bowl of broth and a hopeful face to feed the handsome golden lord herself. She paused upon seeing Maeglin and immediately winced internally.
"Good morning, prince Maeglin. I come with breakfast to Lord Glorfindel. Shall I wake him?" she whispered, as if speaking too loudly might invoke an ancient curse.
Maeglin rose in a smooth, ominous motion, plucked the bowl from her hands, and said, "No."
The healer blinked. "My lord, I only meant—"
"I will do it."
And then, for a brief moment, something unthinkable happened in the ancient city of Gondolin:
Maeglin son of Eöl, prince of shadows, heir of silent forges and brooding frowns, stood by Glorfindel’s bedside holding soup.
He glared at it.
It glared back, thin and steaming and vaguely vegetable.
“Wake up,” Maeglin muttered.
Glorfindel stirred. “Maeglin... my love... you still here...”
“Do not start with that.”
“Are you feeding me?”
“No.”
“You’re holding a bowl.”
Maeglin considered spilling the soup directly into the bed just to make a point. Instead, he sighed, sat again, and shoved a spoonful toward Glorfindel’s mouth.
The result was catastrophic.
Glorfindel, ever helpful, opened his mouth too wide, managed to inhale at the wrong time, and promptly choked on the very soup he had demanded. He coughed, tried to laugh, choked harder, and then grinned with broth dripping down his chin like a misbehaving child.
Maeglin stared at the mess with an expression known only to those who have watched a priceless tapestry be used to dry a dog.
“You’re hopeless,” he said, grabbing the corner of the blanket to wipe the spill.
“I prefer ‘endearing,’” Glorfindel said, attempting to bat his eyelashes, though one eye was swollen and he looked vaguely concussed.
Maeglin exhaled through his nose like a forge vent. But he spooned another helping anyway, more careful this time, as if trying to find some way to interact with this impossible creature that did not end in personal collapse.
Glorfindel, recovering slightly, took the next few spoonfuls with exaggerated seriousness, as if each was a sacrament.
Between bites, he spoke. “You didn’t have to come, you know.”
“I know.”
“But you did.”
Maeglin did not respond.
“I thought maybe I was just... amusing to you. Like a song you tolerate but never play twice.”
Maeglin narrowed his eyes. “You never amusing. Annoying suits you better.”
“That’s fair,” Glorfindel conceded. “What matter most is you came.”
The bowl of soup in Maeglin’s hands trembled, though whether from the trembling of his grip or the sheer indignity of the moment, none could say. The steam curled upward like a wraith of domesticity, mocking the dark prince who held it.
And still he sat.
Hand by reluctant hand, he lifted the spoon.
Grudgingly. Loathingly.
Each motion was infused with the wounded dignity of a nobleman forced to muck a stable. He delivered the spoonfuls as if they were war reparations, exacted by some cruel treaty signed beneath the eyes of mocking stars.
And Glorfindel—bruised, bandaged, beautiful Glorfindel—received them as if he were dining at the table of the Valar themselves.
The golden-haired captain, half-reclined on white pillows and draped in bandages finer than silk, grinned up at him like a man who had dreamt of this very moment. His face, though marred by injury, still shone with that maddening inner light that had earned him the name Laurefindel, the Golden Haired, the Sun-Kissed. Even now—especially now—he looked absurdly pleased with himself.
“Thank you,” Glorfindel said softly, in that too-warm voice of his, like wine in the throat after frost. “My heart sings to be fed by your hand, dark and lovely jailer.”
Maeglin’s eye twitched. He considered stabbing him with the spoon, just a little.
“Choke on it,” he said with the calm finality of a glacier cracking. He shoved the spoon little harder.
“You have soup on your chin,” Maeglin said at last, voice flat as a winter plain.
“It would be more romantic if you wipe it off,” said Glorfindel instantly.
The silence that followed might have frozen rivers. Somewhere, even the birds outside ceased their foolish songs. One could almost hear the pause in the heartbeat of Arda.
Maeglin did not move.
He set the spoon down slowly. Too slowly. As though it were a blade he was placing on the floor out of mercy. His fingers lingered a moment longer on the handle, white-knuckled, as though considering whether to hurl it through the nearest window or use it to conduct an impromptu lobotomy.
“I am going to walk out that door,” he said. The words were carved in stone. “find a less irritating elf—possibly mute—and adopt him as my new project. You are now someone else’s burden.”
Glorfindel pushed himself up, wincing, but his eyes gleamed with mischief born of the battlefield and the ballroom. “Take the soup with you,” he called after him. “It’s our love child!”
Maeglin stood there for a moment too long.
The silence hummed with unspoken words—sharp, tangled, perilous.
And then he was gone.
The door slammed loudly.
Inside the chamber, a single daisy from a ceremonial bouquet fluttered to the floor like a defeated soul.
Glorfindel lay propped against a fortress of pillows, bandaged in elegant geometry from waist to collarbone, his golden hair perfectly tousled like some sanctified war memorial. His eyes were half-lidded, lips parted in a smile that could only be described as emotionally unhinged.
Ecthelion barged in a heartbeat later, trailing a tray of fruit and his last remaining strand of sanity.
“What was that?” he snapped, eyes darting to the door as if the dark prince would appear again.
Glorfindel didn’t answer immediately. He looked toward the ceiling like he was conversing with Eru Ilúvatar directly. He lay back, breathless not from pain but from triumph. His chest rose and fell beneath the blanket embroidered with lilies, each bloom stitched with reverence, now crushed slightly under his weight.
He smiled and closed his eyes.
“He likes me.”