#Fresh Starts

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

[i-did-not-mean-to]

YOTP - March

Ah! I might be crawling on my hands and knees, but I shall give you the monthly OTP nevertheless.

I love you all very much, and I hope you can forgive me for being so absent (and absent-minded) lately. Life is getting a bit much for me...

Either way, have two grumpy singers!

Pairing: Daeron x Maglor

Prompts: Fresh starts, Road Trip, Getting back together/mutual pining, "make me", acceptance, fairy tale AU (of sorts)

Words: 2515

Warnings: Sadness, unprocessed grief, a kiss, Modern AU

“Princess,” Daeron singsonged, irony dripping like acid from his melodious voice. “Your carriage awaits!”

“Fuck off,” Maglor replied in an uncharacteristically gruff hiss and swept past the unfairly tall, light-haired nuisance with what he envisioned as regal equanimity.

Glaring at the small, frantically blinking light at the far end of the luxurious caravan, he wedged himself behind the steering wheel and suppressed a shivering sigh.

After millennia of resentful solitude, his boredom had finally gotten the better of him, and—dusting off his long-forgotten impish streak—the last surviving son of Fëanor had ultimately given in to the temptation of singing again.

The world around him had, of course, changed drastically, and so he had found himself in an endless, milling queue for what was generally known as a “casting show”. Oh! The indignity!

With the rise and fall of one-hit-wonders and the increasing popularity of self-produced clips on various platforms, the format was ailing, and he had felt strangely touched by the faded glory of a dying genre—the dramatic flair of bittersweet nostalgia had always appealed to him, after all.

Never could he have predicted the shock and amazement that had washed through him upon discovering a familiar face amongst the sea of strangers, all of them impatiently waiting to get their fleeting moment in the sun.

Daeron of Doriath had grinned wistfully. “Alive, yeah?”

Even now, as his knuckles were white and tense around the cheap imitation of black leather, Maglor was overcome with helpless ire as he recalled that callous greeting.

His own heart had given a painful lurch, and his tongue had felt heavy and unwieldy in his dry mouth.

In truth, he resented Daeron for having had the readiness of mind to quip however feebly and half-heartedly when he had been struggling to even draw breath.

Evidently, Maglor had heard rumours about Daeron’s disappearance, and—while the world was in the throes of the Black Death—he had even attempted to do some discreet investigations, but he had never expected to behold that sharp-featured, unbearably impassive face in person again.

Once upon a time, they had shared a few torrid nights of illicit pleasure, and Maglor had always liked to think that they would have made for good long-term lovers, had things been different.

As history had played out, though, too many grievous deeds of treason and murder had ultimately fallen like unforgiving scythes between Daeron’s people and his own, and they had been torn apart before their fragile bond had ever truly knitted.

Many a time, Maglor—overcome with loneliness and longing—had assured himself that it had been for the best, despite the nagging sting of persistent doubt at the back of his mind.

“Do you ever think of the fairy tale ending we didn’t get?”

Maglor’s eyes widened as the sharp jerk of Daeron’s head made him realise that he had spoken these words aloud.

In his former life, he had been known to love causing a stir, but he now resented himself for having betrayed his own resolution not to give the vultures of the TV show any material they could cut and mangle into some melodramatic narrative of mutual pining and inevitable heartbreak.

As was to be expected of two musical heroes of another time, Daeron and he had passed the initial try-outs with flying colours, and the producer—who seemed more interested in a marketable storyline than in actual skill—had promptly decided that they were to share a camping car to a yet undisclosed location where the first “challenge” would be held.

Having performed in desolate war camps and in front of highly spoiled, complacent audiences alike, Maglor was fundamentally unafraid of the potential discontentment of a few blatantly unarmed mortals which, quite naturally, only contributed to his popularity with the viewers of the sensationalist show.

His frantically cheery demeanour, especially in juxtaposition with Daeron’s almost hostile aloofness, had thus immediately captured the hearts and minds of the faceless, nameless spectators behind innumerable screens all across the world.

Unfortunately, neither one of them, having always been reasonably popular, had had the good sense to refuse this arrangement, which meant that they were now perched together in a structurally unsound box of laughably thin metal that was hurtling down bumpy streets towards an undoubtedly underwhelming destination.

After a long moment of silently toying with the grotesque collection of porcelain dolls, plush toys, and ragdolls Maglor seemed to carry around like talismans or voodoo dolls, Daeron scoffed.

“Why, Káno, don’t write us off just yet. Returned from oblivion and obsolescence, here we are, competing once more,” he rasped. Maglor took his eyes off the road to witness the mocking twinkle in those enchantingly unfathomable eyes.

Oh, Daeron had always loved speaking in riddles, and nothing amused him more than to harp on the subtext of a situation until its thrumming strings screamed their protest.

Bowing his head in a poor imitation of gratitude, Maglor narrowed his eyes to flashing slivers of bared steel.

“Isn’t that how these tales go?” Daeron chortled. “The princess, singing mournful songs by the raging sea, and the lost knight finding her at the very last moment. I seem to remember a story of a daring prince who found his paramour—captured and detained by dragons and evil monsters—by singing to his lost love. Are you familiar with it?”

This time, Maglor gave an audible grunt. The naked pain vibrating in the sound made Daeron press his lips together as if he could recall the hasty, cruel words he had just unleashed.

“Forget I’ve said anything,” he hissed. “The years have not been kind to my mind.”

Again, Daeron tapped his fingertip against the pale cheek of an antique figurine of a flame-haired angel. “Nelyafinwë Maitimo,” he whispered as if to call one who could no longer hear neither curses nor praise.

With a choked sound of raw emotion, Maglor wrenched around the steering wheel dangerously. “I haven’t heard their names for so long, spoken by a voice that isn’t mine. Forgive me…”

“I have bought your paintings, by the way,*” Daeron confessed, drawn into the depthless pool of the other’s unexpected vulnerability as easily now as that first time they had met under a new moon. “It took me centuries to find them all, but they’re safe with me.”

“Sometimes,” he then disjointedly answered that involuntary question, hanging like a raincloud between them, in a sober, startlingly beautiful whisper. “At times, when the night is oppressive and starless, and the wind sings dirges of another era, yes, then I think of you and of all that might have been.”

Maglor had expected mockery and scalding disdain, but Daeron’s candid reply, drenched in blood and unshed tears, left him speechless as he stared sightlessly at the road unwinding like a drab, greyish ribbon before him.

For what felt like an eternity, they just sat in silence as the empty, barren landscape flew past them.

In their former life, there would have been loud, competitive singing, but they seemed to agree that whatever they shared was too fragile and precious to drag it out into the open under the dispassionate, greedy eye of a soulless camera.

“Maybe we should take a break,” Daeron said suddenly, almost making Maglor veer off the road again with shock as that old-familiar, powerful voice rattled him like a shockwave.

He nodded shakily—usually, he was better at observing and emulating the little weaknesses of the incarnates amongst which they were hiding, but his mind had been obsessively dissecting every minute detail of Daeron’s confession.

Indubitably, a mere human would need to stretch their legs and rest their eyes after hours of driving! Maglor resented himself for not having thought of it himself, and—never one to forego a challenge—he added cheerily that he could indeed do with a snack.

A tiny twitch passed over Daeron’s face—was it exasperated disbelief or earnest amusement?—but he, in turn, nodded as if he did not know that the blessed and cursed prince of the Ñoldor could have covered the distance their rickety caravan had just crossed without resting or eating. “Sure, we can go for a walk.”

They chuckled quietly in unison, remembering with heartbroken melancholy how mercilessly they had once been berated for their half-hearted dissembling and open petulance.

Again, they seemed to concur that they’d bear much worse than the tasteless, guileless prying of a ruthless producer if it meant that they could weather the devastatingly deserved displeasure of their lost loved ones once more.

Alas, they were alone in this world, and thus they could be as dishonest in their demeanour as they wanted.

The playful duplicity and leisurely prevarication that had once been a harmless affectation had seemingly turned into a dire necessity throughout the ages, though, and Daeron rubbed his thumb distractedly across the pendant—old, golden wood, engraved in a language few could read nowadays—as Maglor pulled into a near-empty parking lot.

They moved slowly and clumsily as they exited the parked trailer, masterfully emulating the signs of fatigue and stiffness they’d observed in friends and foes countless times.

“Do you really want to walk?” Maglor asked. Haven’t we walked enough? Even though that second, slightly bitter question never made it past his lips, Daeron could easily discern it between the lines.

“Yes—didn’t you say that you were hungry?” He looked famished, Daeron thought with a pang of agonising nostalgia and resentful pity.

He remembered the soft, full silhouette of Kanafinwë, blessed song of Fëanáro’s and Nerdanel’s love, and he shivered with dismay at the sight of the unbecomingly gaunt, hollow-cheeked creature stalking past him.

This fading shadow of a once glorious prince looked like something cut out of a cheap fashion magazine, paper-thin and oddly flat, which undoubtedly impressed foolish girls and shallow youngsters who, of course, had no way of knowing that Maglor had once possessed the kind of beauty neither song nor hefty tome might ever have captured or encompassed.

“Let me buy you a sandwich,” he said with a forced grin and elbowed Maglor in the ribs. “You look like you need it!”

“A soggy sandwich from a vending machine?” Maglor made a face. “I remember the amazing feasts you used to prepare for me. Do you?”

Clenching his teeth to keep the wailing dirge of lost love—bewept and interred so many ages ago—from bursting from his lips in a hailstorm of fire and blood, Daeron nodded tersely. “You called me ‘nightingale’ then, and you loved the bittersweet taste of the pale berries that only grew in our shadowy meadows,” he whispered. “I remember.”

A barking, unsteady laugh escaped Maglor. “They were like you—complex, acrid, and delicious. I—”

They had reached the edge of the bare, bleak cement desert and sat down under a gnarled, greyish tree that had lost all its colour and vitality in the constant haze of exhaust fumes and empty souls.

“Should I go check whether they have a fresh sandwich for you?” Daeron broke the silence that thrummed like a single chord vibrating endlessly between them. “You don’t look much like the lark I once loved anymore, but you still sound the same.”

Maglor’s head snapped up in a sharp jerk. He had not thought of that silly nickname in a literal eternity—at least as far as everyone around him was concerned��and hearing it spoken so tenderly pierced his heart.

“Lark,” he repeated slowly. “Because I was so loud and annoying.”

“Because you were the herald of dawn, of light, of hope!” Daeron contradicted gruffly.

“Who brought death and destruction, never you forget.” Averting his eyes from the shining hero of his unfinished fairy tale, Maglor felt a surge of that age-old despair and weariness crawling up his clogged throat.

“We did that quite well on our own.” Shrugging lopsidedly—a little too fast to fully hide the lingering echoes of unprocessed feelings of resentment and desire—Daeron gave a long-drawn, distinctly miserable sigh. “Either way, it’s done and over. Your kings and mine, the fair maidens we disappointed and deserted, the kin we betrayed…they’re all gone and won’t come back any time soon. Might as well eat that sandwich, what say you? I want you to eat something—I’ve always loved watching you eat!”

“Make me!” The right corner of Maglor’s mouth twitched, and just as Daeron decided that he’d accept this as consent and wanted to jog back to the small, rancid store they’d passed by on their way to the lonely tree, all the air was knocked out of his lungs.

“You said…you said I loved Doriath’s berries and…that you’d loved me,” Maglor whispered tremulously.

Maybe it was the rare quality of his voice or perhaps it was Daeron’s exceptional hearing, but these words seemed to swell into a deafening crescendo, underscored by the roaring of the blood in his temples and ears.

He had stupidly let this slip, hadn’t he?

“I admit that the past tense, no matter how deserved, wounds me,” the fallen prince admitted in a low, trembling voice.

“No—” Daeron took a deep, audible breath. “That was a long time ago, and many things have changed, haven’t they?”

Crestfallen, the other—still so beautiful underneath the tarnished patina of faded glory—nodded. “I guess all things must change. Nevertheless, your voice still makes my heart skip a beat, so I guess some precious fragments of our previous lives stay blessedly untouched by the ravages of war and the unrelenting destruction of time.”

Daeron could have said a million things—he wanted to object and argue—but, instead, he simply closed his cool palms around Maglor’s drawn face and pulled him in a soft, tender kiss.

As their eyes closed, lids fluttering wildly, they could almost feel the gentle, fragrant winds of a faraway verdant forest caress their clammy brow, and echoes of songs that had not been played in millennia filled the cool air.

That first kiss was as delicate as butterfly wings, but it shifted the world off its axis irrevocably, nevertheless.

“We’re no longer who we once were…and that might be for the better,” Daeron breathed against those sweet, poisonous lips. “But—as that greasy executive didn’t tire of pointing out—we each have a compellingly tragic backstory, fraught with mystery and misery, that only we know about. Let me recite the names of your brothers to you while we hold on to what is left of us.”

“Sandwiches and sad songs?” Maglor teased feebly. “How the mighty have fallen!”

“Whatever you want, princess. It’s just you and me, left stranded in this decrepit, dying world. At the edge of time, afloat in the everlasting darkness of self-imposed isolation, we remain.”

“Are you saying that it is time to go home? Together?” Reluctance and longing wrought a complex melody that echoed through their souls, reviving old grievances and immortal affection.

“Not yet, darling. Let’s give them a show…” Daeron whispered. “One last encore before the final curtain, what say you, my lark?”

* If you want the spin-off story of Daeron travelling around to find and purchase (steal, blackmail, and do crime in general) Maglor's paintings, let me know!

Thank you for bearing with me! Lots of love!

-> Masterlist

[driftward]

Title: Matched Set Characters: Zoissette Vauban, Y'shtola Rhul Rating: Teen Summary: Two women get dressed for work. Notes: Ignore the tags.

Y’shtola considered the earring on her vanity.

It was the last thing she put on every day, after she had seen to her morning hygiene routine and gotten dressed. It was the first thing off, as a necessity, as she did not wish it to be tangled up in clothes pulled over head or lost accidentally in the same.

She picked it up. Its kin was elsewhere, and she had been gratified to see her friend wore it diligently. It was meant to be a symbol, of their long friendship, of a connection she hoped would not be severed again.

Y’shtola held it gently with both hands, cradling the black carnations in her palm while her fingers gently rolled its pearls back and forth. She closed her eyes, thinking. The two carnations, a matching pair, the pearls likewise. A simple thing.

There was a point in time when she would have chided herself for being sentimental. And when she would have better kept her distance. She had her duty to the star, and her friend had duties of their own, and there was a time she would have placed such foremost upon a pedestal, concerns to be treated and kept above all others.

And she had. There was much and more to be done, and neither of them needed any distractions. There were, what she had thought, more important matters.

But she had learned much in her stint on the First, both of herself and of duty. There was always going to be much and more to be done. This star or any other would always ask more than she could possibly hope to provide.

She had learned that duty was not enough. Devotion to an ideal, insufficient. What truly mattered were the bonds she had formed throughout her life, the friends she had made, the connections that had been made strong. That when one faltered, another would always be there to pick them up, to encourage them, to drive them forward, to help them be a better person than they might be otherwise. That while duty could be its own purpose, what better drive than to remember why one did what they did.

And how much sweeter the journey for company. Someone who shared her thirst for truth, her zeal for plumbing the depths of mystery, her drive for knowledge. Someone to rely on and be relied upon. Someone who shared her ideals, knew her tragedies and triumphs, and had been alongside her so often. Someone who was patient enough for her and with her, who saw the best in everyone, someone who was kind.

Y’shtola reached up, and put the earring on, and smiled at herself in the mirror before heading out for the day.

-*-

Zoissette looked at herself in the mirror, and then looked down at the earring.

A gift from a dear friend. She cherished it so. More, perhaps, than she could give words to.

She hardly deserved it. She had not always been as good a friend as she might have been. But despite that, despite that, the earring had arrived as a gift. A reminder of a bond once shared, and the physical representation of a desire to maintain that bond forevermore.

She’d almost screwed it all up, just like she so often did. But despite her sharpness, despite how often she could cut to the quick, her friend had been forgiving. Gracious, even. Softer than she had remembered her being when they had first met.

And so she cherished the earring, now. It represented a bond that she now knew to be unbreakable, as it had survived so much. Even if the earring were to be lost or damaged, what it represented would stay with her forever more. She picked it up. Two black carnations, an obvious nod to her friend’s new manner of dress. The two tiny silver chains, she was certain represented the bonds, and the pearls, well.

She smiled at it.

Her friend had always had a way about her. Courage and strength unbounded. Enough to save an entire star, more than once, and had she not been there, every step of the way? Even separated by a world could not keep them both from doing the work that needed to be done.

And there was always more work to be done.

And it was better, knowing that she had a stalwart star to orient towards, an ally to carry forward with, a sharp mind and a warm heart. True, her friend was often sharp, but she was just as often soft and insightful, kind and caring. She felt like sometimes she was the only one who saw it, but see it she did.

She had stood by her during the end of days. She would stand by her forever more. A silent shadow, admiring from afar, just glad of the privilege to be in her presence. She could not ask for more. She would not ask for more. This would have to be enough, and by the Fury, it was enough, was it not?

Zoissette reached up, and put the earring in her ear, same as she had every day since she had received it. Same as she would every day until there reason she could not any longer. And then she headed out.

-*-

“Good morning, Zoissette.”

“Hello, Y’shtola.”

“It looks like another day for both of us deep in the stacks of Noumenon. I hope you do not mind.”

“Not at all. Lunch at the Last Stand, then?”

“Indeed. Are you ready, then?”

“By your lead.”

The two women smiled at each other, and headed out to begin the day anew.

[sociallyawkwardfoxwriter]

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M, Multi Fandom: Critical Role (Web Series) Relationships: Orym/Dorian Storm/Will | Orym's Spouse, Orym/Dorian Storm, Orym/Will | Orym's Spouse (Critical Role), Dorian Storm/Will | Orym's Spouse Characters: Dorian Storm, Orym (Critical Role), Will | Orym's Spouse (Critical Role) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Acceptance, Getting Back Together, Fresh Starts, Trapped, Forced apart, Love, Fairy Tale Curses, Winter, Freezing, Near Death Experiences, Freedom, Established Relationship, Falling In Love, Bad Parenting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending

Summary: Life and death are two parts of a whole. When death is ripped away from life, the world is plunged into eternal winter. That is the only world Dorian knows, until he finds a frozen halfling in woods. When Dorian learns his story, he promises to reunite life and death once more.

Fic Preview

“Orym! I, uh, accidentally made the flowers wilt again.” A much shorter man than the one gingerly holding a brightly colored vase of dead flowers stepped into the kitchen with a fond smile. 

“Hand them over.” The instant his fingers touched the vase the flowers brightened to vibrant green stems and white petals that glowed gold along the edges. “There we go. All better. I told you I can handle moving the vases.”

“I know. I just wanted to do something that wasn't watching you do all the work. I thought the gloves might help, but obviously I was wrong about that.”

“You help plenty. Let me handle the flowers. You always look like a sad puppy when you kill them.”

“I don't mean to! I've never gotten the hang of plants.”

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1 they had the money, 2 they needed much more space than a single apartment could offer, and 3 now she gets to create her own garten of venomous plants!

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