#Lonesome Valley

[rastronomicals]

12:30 PM EDT September 19, 2024:

The Fairfield Four - "Lonesome Valley" From the Soundtrack album   O Brother, Where Art Thou? (December 5, 2000)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

[culturevulturette]

Nobody else can walk it for you You gotta walk, walk it by yourself.

[pcttrailsidereader]

Photo taken at mile 468.2 just off the trail on the Leona Divide Fire Road (Lonesome Valley is the valley below)

I got to know Brad Marston a number of years ago when we worked together on a Bigfoot trail crew in California's Yolla Bolly Mountains. We have since worked regularly on more trail crews and Brad and his daughter, Anna, contributed a story to Crossing Paths on the subject of climate change.

Brad was to join the Trail Gorillas for a 4-day trail work trip but plans were derailed by weather and the trail work was cancelled. Brad managed to get at least one very nice day in Section E (north of Tehachapi) before the predicted storm rolled in. This is a section that gets less attention than many others so it is nice to be able to post some photos.

[tiny-cup]

Video games played in 2022 Part 2

[hest1as-hearth]

✨ hoping to post two new chapters today ✨

[heavencasteel420]

I just really like mix-and-matching Jonathan, Nancy, Chrissy, and Jason in fic. Here’s what I have so far:

Jancy: my main thing, obviously. If you’re following me I probably don’t have to explain.

Jason/Chrissy: I do like a doomed high school relationship, and theirs just seems incredibly lonely on both sides. Chrissy’s isolation is obvious, but deep down I think Jason probably feels like something is missing—his Morning in America mindset just won’t allow him to go near the problem.

Jason/Nancy: I am haunted yet amused by the idea that, in many ways, Nancy was and kind of still is his type. The combination of prim good- girl persona and strong leadership skills probably did something for him before she developed a reputation and stopped playing nice! I don’t think she would have been interested in him for long—even when dating Steve, she seems primarily attracted to his sense of humor and non-rigid attitude towards sex, qualities that Jason does not possess—but the Tom Cruise resemblance might’ve reeled her in if he’d noticed her before Steve did.

Jason/Jonathan: I have a one-shot planned where Jason helps patch up the Byers house post-S1 because he’s a Good Christian. They become friends against all odds and Jason almost rethinks his rigid beliefs, but a disastrous almost-hookup drives him way in the opposite direction. (Meanwhile, Jonathan is like “I have never ‘unpacked’ anything in my life and I’m not about to start now.”) Oddly enough this is my most canon-compatible fic idea.

Jonathan/Chrissy: mostly I want them to hook up or generally interact because they are the two older teen characters whose problems are the most viscerally upsetting to me personally. I think they could do something really weird about it! I have a story planned where the background is that he got taken to the UD instead of Will. He and Nancy and Steve all became friends after he got out (she still got involved because of Barb and Steve kind of stumbled in after her), but Jonathan didn’t bond with her like in canon and she didn’t enlist his help against the lab because he was too busy being possessed. There’s less strain on her and Steve’s relationship because he isn’t jealous of Jonathan (their mutual friend) and never had to ditch his friends/walk back any public libel, but they still disagree about the lab. So she has no one to help her with the lab and finally decides that she has to move on, which means breaking up with Steve and applying to a fancy prep school back east. (This is kind of a bummer situation for Nancy, but I think it’s valuable to acknowledge that her worth as a person isn’t dependent on Justice for Barb, and sometimes a person just has to move on.) He and Steve remain friends; Steve’s other friends find this weird/annoying but accept it as a holdover from his relationship with goody-goody Nancy. Then Steve goes to college and nobody’s shocked when angelic Chrissy takes over as “popular person who’s nice to Wan Mysterious True Crime Victim Jonathan.” Jason’s like “I don’t know, babe” and Chrissy quotes Job at him (“Those at ease feel contempt for misfortune!”) and Jason’s like “oh my bad.” But really Chrissy is not in a good place herself and she’s gonna do something weird about it.

Nancy/Chrissy: I would set this during S2. All of S1 happened, but Joyce was like “fuck this shit I’m out” thanks to the UD stuff and the town’s shitty reaction, so she and the kids and Bob moved to Maine. They’re all fine eventually because the MF has geographical limits and Bob is genuinely a good dude. Nancy and Jonathan write to each other but she decides she has to move on romantically. But she is still not happy with her popular boyfriend or his crowd…and neither is Chrissy! I don’t know what else happens yet.

[stiwfssr]

That Lonesome Valley by Robert Yang

[joanofarc]

you’re talking crazy talk, bunnygrunt (2004).

so, what happened in the dream that i was watching the kids and the old man in the park said our fate’s with the moon if we finish what we started too soon?

[rastronomicals]

7:43 AM EDT April 15, 2023:

John Fahey - "Lonesome Valley" From the album The Voice Of The Turtle (1968)

Last song scrobbled from iTunes at Last.fm

Being a Musical Hodograph & Chronologue of the Music of John Fahey, including his most recent composition, "The Story of Dorothy Gooch."

[thspod]

More marriage candidate talk!

[svalleynow]

FAITH: It’s Good To Have Quiet Time

FAITH: It's Good To Have Quiet Time

Article contributed by the family of the late Rev. Bill H. Lassiter (pictured) I don’t know why, but kids love to visit noisy places. Loud music, lots of games, and lots of other kids. Some of us adults frequent these places, too. For some reason a lot of birthday parties are held in such places. It is usually highly efficient, good food, but mass confusion if you’re trying to carry on normal…

[scoonsalicious]

Unstoppable

Pairing: Bucky x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: You and Bucky have bee having a LOT of sex. It's annoyed some people.

Warnings: Language, adult themes, mentions of sex.

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: Just a stupid cute little drabble I came up with. Enjoy!

A cool vibranium fingertip traced the outline of your lips, along the meridian of your chin and neck, between the valley of your breasts, down to your navel and back again, leaving a trail of tingles along your skin. 

“Never gonna get tired of this view,” Bucky hummed. He was propped up on his flesh elbow, looking down on you with warm, sultry eyes.

He had just finished fucking you so well and so thoroughly on the living room rug that all you could do was sigh contentedly and smile up at him. Using what little strength you had left in you, you reached up to cup his stubbled jaw. Bucky leaned into your touch, pressing his lips to the pad of your thumb as you ran it over his plush lips.

His hair was a mess, locks going in every direction from where you had fisted your hands in it, pulling it as he had thrusted you into oblivion. In your eyes, he could never look better than he did right after he had cum inside of you.

And lately, that had been pretty much constantly. After China, he made good on his request to Tony for some time off, and the two of you had been doing your absolute damnedest to make up for all your lost time.

“You’re so pretty after you fuck,” you told him, your mouth letting out words long before your brain could determine if it was a good idea to say them. 

Bucky dropped his chin to his chest and let out a low laugh. “Thanks, sweets,” he said, leaning down to kiss you softly. “So are you. Always thought you were the prettiest thing I’d ever seen, from the moment I first saw you.”

“The very first moment you saw me?” you asked him with a smile. “Cause I’m pretty sure I had a gun pointed at you the very first time.”

Bucky chuckled as he lowered himself down to lay next to you, his forehead pressed against your temple. “Honestly, I wondered if you even remembered that. We never talked about it.”

“Well, if it helps, had I known you gave such good dick, I never would have pulled the trigger.” 

Bucky laughed and wrapped his forearm across your breasts, pulling you closer to him. “You should have seen yourself, doll. Up on the ramp of that jet, standing up to two super soldiers all by your lonesome? You were a vision; it was hot as fuck.”

You rolled your eyes and swatted at his arm. “Sure it was, Buck.”

He squeezed you lightly. “I’m serious, Pocket. You were out-muscled and out-numbered, but you held your ground, and you were sassy as fuck to Steve in the process.”

“Yeah, and got rendered unconscious for my efforts,” you said with a sad smile, remembering how Steve had knocked you out so he and Bucky could steal the Quinjet. “It all worked out, though, in the end,” you added as you snuggled up against him. “It brought us to right now, so I’m thankful for it.”

You felt the firm press of Bucky’s lips to your temple. “So thankful,” he agreed. “Though, if I could go back and change things…”

“I wouldn’t,” you interjected. You turned onto your side to look him in the eye. “If there was even the slightest chance that we wouldn’t end up here, right now, just like this, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

He smiled a lopsided, boyish grin at you that managed to light a fire in your core, and you reflexively rolled your hips against him. “Again, doll?” he asked with a laugh. “We’ve already been going at it for hours, but if you insist. We’ve got time before we have to go to dinner.”

“Shit!” You bolted upright and checked the time. You were scheduled to have dinner with Tony and Pepper in a little over an hour; there was no time to get caught up in another round of ‘What the ‘F’ Was It?’ with Bucky. “We need showers,” you told him as you rose to stand. Turning, you reached down a hand to help him up. “We probably stink of sex.” 

“I love it when we stink of sex,” Bucky said with a laugh as he followed you up the stairs to your master bedroom. “I like to think of it as a souvenir of time well spent.”

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, Buck,” you said with a playful roll of your eyes, “other people don’t want to smell it on us.” You moved to your closet and began pulling out clothes to wear to dinner.

Bucky came up behind you, wrapping his hands around your waist. “We could shower together, you know,” he said, kissing your shoulder. “Save time and water. Very economical of us.”

Ugh, the man was a menace! “You know very well,” you began as you slid out of his grasp and put some safe distance between the two of you, “that if we do that, we are just going to fuck in there, and we’ll be late for dinner.” It wasn’t a theoretical concern of yours; you’d learned the hard way long ago, and after getting reamed out by Tony and Steve Rogers in front of the entire team for missing an important mission briefing, the rule ‘no shared showers if we have somewhere to be' had to be established.

You went first, seeing as it would take you longer to get ready than it would Bucky, but you were in and out in almost no time, putting on your silk robe as Bucky moved to get in. 

“Last chance to join me,” he said with a teasing wink. 

“Go clean yourself off, you filthy beast,” you laughed, playfully shoving him into the bathroom. 

He’d just started the water when you heard the unfamiliar sound of your doorbell ringing.

You padded down the steps, curiosity getting the better of you. Most of the people who visited you had the code for the private elevator and would bypass the door all together. Standing on your toes, you looked through the peephole. On the other side, rocking back and forth on the heels of their feet, stood an attractive, but anxious looking, young woman with thick, light brown hair. You’d probably put her at a handful of years younger than you, if you had to guess. 

She didn’t look like a potential threat, but you could never be too careful. “Who is it?” you called through the door.

“Um…” the woman said uncertainly, “my name’s Caity Wallace? I live in the apartment below you?”

Like a puzzle piece slotting into place, you were hit with a jolt of recognition; you’d briefly met her in the lobby around the time you’d first moved in. Opening the door, you smiled warmly. “Caity, hi. What can I do for you?”

She eyed your robe and quirked an eyebrow. “Listen,” she said anxiously, “I really didn’t want to do this, but I kinda feel like you’re not leaving me a choice anymore.”

You stared back at her, puzzlement written all over your face. “A choice in what?” you asked hesitantly.

“Could you… fuck, this is so embarrassing, but could you, I dunno, maybe… not have such… loud… sex… so often?” At the astonished look on your face, she hurried to add, “I mean, I think it’s great that you’re so… liberated, with all your guys, I’m definitely not trying to slut shame you or anything, it’s just… well, I can hear the furniture banging across the floor, and you scream a lot, and–”

“Wait,” you said, caught by something she’d said. “What do you mean ‘all my guys’? There’s just one it guy.”

Caity’s eyes got comically wide. “WHA–I mean… how?! I mean, no offense, but you’re always going at it. There’s no way one guy’s got that much stamina. To be honest, at first I thought you were filming porn up here or something.”

You ducked your head to hide your laugh. “It’s just the two of us,” you assured her. “My boyfriend and I were apart for a long time, so I guess we’re kind of in a honeymoon phase?”

Caity nodded, her eyes wide.

A floorboard squeaked somewhere behind you, and you turned to see Bucky, making his way across the living room, fresh from his shower, in only a towel. “Forgot my phone, sweets,” he said with that gorgeous lopsided grin. He noticed Caity in the doorway and froze like a deer caught in headlights.

“Oh, shit!’ he muttered, ducking himself behind a pillar and out of Caity’s line of sight. He popped his head out from around the corner. “Everything alright?”

It was cute how modest he became in the presence of another person. “Yeah, baby,” you told him. “Just a visit from our downstairs neighbor, Caity. You wanna come say hello?” You smirked as he shifted uncomfortably and scowled at you.

“Maybe another time,” he said, giving you a glare at your mischievousness and an apologetic wave to Caity. “When I’m actually wearing pants. You gonna be long?”

You smiled at him. “Nah, baby. I’ll be up in a minute.” He nodded and winked at you before turning away.

Turning back to Caity, you were amused to see her eyes following Bucky as he retreated back up the stairs, her mouth slightly agape.

“I’ll make sure we tone it down from now on,” you assured her. Caity shook her head, as if you’d just snapped her out of a trance. ��What?” she said, her attention now back to you. “Oh my god, girl, no. I’ll invest in some noise cancelling headphones. Get it. Get it as much as you want. As much as you can. That man’s a fucking god.”

[2-dsimp]

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Yandere monster gang

Introducing the poltergeist

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(Fem! Reader)

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Cw: 🔞MDNI🔞 Slight smonophillia, slight degradation, slight rough play, facials, non-con, humiliation, titfuck, M! Oral receive

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Yandere poltergeist who loves to watch you at every second of the day, In his lonesome plane of existence since you were the only source of happiness he could get due to his unfortunate circumstances. Which made you feel chills and goosebumps prickle on your skin whenever you could feel a presence. It didn’t matter if you were eating, sleeping, changing, or even taking a shower you’ve always felt as if you weren’t alone.

Yandere poltergeist who’s not shy to say hello with a lecherous grin on his face as his materialized hand gave the fat of your ass a smack while you passed him walking down the hallway to your room. Making you squeak, startled from the invisible force that assaulted your butt. But to no avail you kept on moving with the motive of brushing it off as a weird occurrence trying not to dwell on it too much.

Yandere poltergeist who is an attention whore that finds it amusing to watch you shrivel up in fear and scramble to find logical explanations for the little pranks he’s done in mansion. By leaving harsh markings in the form of bites or scratches that form scraggly initials on your skin, jerking off traces of his essence into the foods that you cook, and messily smearing mysterious goop on your panties, bras, and sheets on your bed so that it stains. He just loved the adorable expression of confusion and conflict making your face scrunch up in a cute frown.

Yandere poltergeist who was slowly starting to get irritated from the lack of reactions he’s been getting from you as you became more accustomed to the strange instances of random noises, missing items, knocked over books, and featherlight caresses of your body. The last straw was when you invited someone over without his permission his vision turning red as he saw them putting their hands over what’s his.

Yandere poltergeist that decides to take it into his own hands to punish his darling…

Yandere poltergeist who hovers above your defenseless body sprawled out in the bed. While he began to start using up the energy he’s saved up in return for halting his daily routine of actively haunting his darling. Taking advantage of the fact that you’re a heavy sleeper he put the ropes he found in the basement to use and tied your wrists and ankles down to the bed post. He planned to teach his darling some manners and make it so you respected his house rules.

Yandere poltergeist who greedily caresses every curve and crease of your skin while practically tearing off the thin layers of your sleeping pajamas. Exposing your breast and delectable pussy to his viewing pleasure before he uses his cold materialized hands to roughly grope and tweak at your hardened nipples which jolted you awake from your restful slumber as he’s leaving little love bites along the expanse of your neck.

Yandere poltergeist who smiles endearingly at your struggles and attempts at screaming for help at the sight of a faint mirage of a scruffy young lean man wearing glasses straddling you. while he continues to defile your body with his throbbing cold length that rubbed against your belly button getting coated in his slimy pre. As he makes his way up towards your breasts dragging the fat leaking tip between the valley of your generous mounds.

Yandere poltergeist that sandwiched his pulsating cock in between your tits using his hands to take your soft flesh and languid thrusts up against your pursed lips in rapid succession. Enjoying the way your boobs bounced and jiggled with every jab of his translucent dick that kept on prodding at your full lips.

Yandere poltergeist that whispered words of flith into your ears

”I love it when you struggle sweetheart it turns me on so much that I wanna ruin you”

“Now Why don’t you open that sweet mouth of yours and suck my cock like a good little slut”

Yandere poltergeist who takes his hand and forcefully squish your cheeks so your lips open into an o shape perfect for him to fully rock himself inside the moist cavern of your mouth hissing at the blissful feel of you having no choice but to suck on his twitching dick violating your throat.

Yandere poltergeist who doesn’t last long due to having no prolonged physical contact in years and plants his hips against your face driving his the tip of his balls deep down your throat expelling all the pent up cum he had stored in his transparent balls with a relaxed moan.

Yandere poltergeist Having some semblance to realize that you were choking on his dick and begrudgingly pulled out from your mouth with a small pop and continued to spurt lines of his semen all over your face, neck, and tits. His eyes filled with desire and satisfaction at your lewd state enjoying the embarrassment and defeat washed on your face. Oh he was going to have so much fun with all the plans he’s got stored for his dearest houseguest.

Yandere poltergeist who will haunt you forevermore and keep his pretty houseguest as his sole form of entertainment

[planchettewrites]

See You in September

Prince Malleus Draconia (Twisted Wonderland)/GN!Reader

DESCRIPTION: Prince Malleus Draconia thinks of only one person during his lonesome summer vacation: the Housewarden of Ramshackle.

CONTENT: Slight possessive behavior (very little), pining, slight reader description (very general desc.)

A/N: Oh, how I love 50's love songs! This song was inspired by "See You in September" by The Tempos. My last TWST fic was a hit, so I figured I'd write another. I hope you enjoy it; I had plenty of fun writing this.

1.1k words | Safe!

Prince Malleus Draconia looked outside his window in the Briar Valley Royal Palace. As his grandmother ruled the nation, his mind was clouded with thoughts of only one person: the Housewarden of Ramshackle. 

He wondered what you were up to, who you were with. Were you staying at the College with that dire beast, or maybe with one of your friends at their home? The Prince wishes he knew. He thought of your hair, how it frames your face and your effervescent smile. He considered how your kindness has shaped the school into a better and safer environment. He thought of your gentle humanness. He almost had no way to put it—being human was different from being fae. Yet, your humanness made you shine. It’s like how Silver’s humanity made him who he was, but for you, you were a different kind of human. You weren’t from Twisted Wonderland. Your humanness didn’t make you inherently magical in the sense that you could use magic, but it made you magical in the sense that your presence was magnetic.

Something about you stirred something in him. You made his heart beat faster and his breath hitch. You made his cheeks flush and made his mind race. At first, Malleus thought that you had cast a spell on him, but after talking with Lilia, the type of spell you cast was purely chemical. It was something that transcended all known logic. He was infatuated with you. Dare he say he was in love with you? 

He wondered if you thought of him the way he thought of you. He had given you a letter encouraging you to write to him, and if he was honest with himself, he was really, really hoping you’d write him back. He wanted to hear all about your summer. He wanted to know how you were spending your days and who you were spending them with. As much as he wished you were kept company, he also hoped it wasn’t just the ghosts and the meddlesome direbeast. If he indeed had its way, you would spend your summer here in Briar Valley, where it was relatively temperate. He knew Ramshackle’s air was something to be desired, so he had hoped you weren’t in discomfort with the weather. 

But what if you were with someone? What would you be doing with them? Malleus did not know what most “average” teenagers did. Most of the students of Diasomnia were far from average. Most were fae who lived in Briar Valley, and a good came from the nobility or were the children of members of parliament. He had heard some students in other dorms talk about their summer plans as he prepared to transport back to Briar Valley, and those plans involved places like beaches and vacations to lands they’d never been to. Is that what average teenagers do? To his knowledge, average teenagers did not sit in their castles and ponder what their object of affection was doing. 

He still remembers seeing you moments before the mirror and how rushed you seemed to see him. 

“Malleus!” you called, rushing over to the Mirror Room. 

“Yes, Child of Man?” he responded, a smile growing. Malleus had to admit he was excited to see you. He would have to go three whole months without seeing you—and although that was the blink of an eye for fae, it suddenly felt like a relatively long period of time. 

It was then a loud voice came from behind him. “Lord Malleus! You shan’t let his human address you without your royal title!” Sebek Zigvolt boomed. 

“Nonsense,” Malleus chided. “They are a friend, Sebek; they can address me however they see fit.”

Sebek huffed, gathering the rest of the luggage, and wandered off to find Silver and Lilia Vanrouge. Meanwhile, you skittered up to Malleus. 

“Oh, Child of Man, I have something for you.” Malleus dug into his breast pocket and found what he was looking for: a brilliant ivory letter. He handed it to you with a smile. “Read this when you have the time.”

You returned his smile. “Thank you so much, Malleus.”

“Now, what did you rush over here to tell me? What matter of tale will you weave for me today?” The Prince asked, his curiosity now piqued. 

“I wanted to wish you a good summer vacation, and I can’t wait to see you soon.” you got on your tippy-toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll see you soon, Malleus!” Within seconds, you scurried away back to Ramshackle. 

For the first time in his life, the Prince was stunned into silence. However, it was a good kind of stunned. The type of stunned someone is when they receive a surprise present or when an old friend comes over without an invitation. Your ability to stupefy the Prince was astounding. 

Malleus touched his cheek, recounting the memory with a smile. It was like he could almost feel the kiss you placed. The more he thought about it, he loathed his royal duties. Must he be kept cooped up in a castle with nothing to do? It wasn’t often he was invited to the senate, nor was he invited to the gatherings the townsfolk held, so there he sat. Alone. 

His mind wandered back to something Lilia had said right after he had witnessed the small act of affection. Lilia said, “It seems the human returns your feeling, Lord Malleus.” Hopefully, you did. If you returned his affections, he would court you immediately. There was no purpose in not. He would make you his own for the rest of your life. The adjustment would be hard, but you had adjusted to Twisted Wonderland with relative ease, and he hoped that the same attitude you held adjusting to your school life would be the same as how you’d adjust to your life as a royal. 

How Malleus started counting the minutes and hours until he could see you again. Would he see you when school came back in session? His worst fear would be realized if Headmage Crowley had found a way to send you home. No, he wouldn’t allow you to go home to your world. He would do the entirely un-princely behavior of groveling on his knees and beg you to stay in this world. Malleus could already see poor Sebek attempting to pull Malleus to his feet, but when it came to his love, any groveling was a plausible behavior. 

Or worse, could he lose you to a summer love? There is danger in the summer moon above, and Malleus couldn’t stand to lose you to someone else. Who could it possibly be that he could lose you to? Would it be one of your underclassmen or maybe one of his fellow upperclassmen? Or what if it was a random civilian? Malleus wasn’t sure he could live with either option. He was barely half alive in his struggle to survive without you around him. 

For now, there was nothing he could do. He could only pray to the Great Seven that he would see you in September. 

[searchingforserendipity25]

Fearing Not A Shadow Nor A Chill

Day 5 of @elrondweek. Elrond/Celebrían & Children. Here or on AO3.

-

"I used to long very much," Celebrían had told him once. "For a playmate as near in age as Elros was to you."

Elrond had not answered. He walked beside her, by shores of the Aduin's first strong fountain-streams, and very carefully did not look too plainly upon Lady Celebrían's curved mouth, the yarrow leaf she turned and turned between her fingers.

He needed not to speak. Lady Celebrían, he had learned very quickly, was not one to wait very long to complete her ideas, none of which, she plainly felt, required much counsel or permission at all.

"Amroth was so much the elder, and so much a stranger even to my parents, who loved him as a cousin and as a son. I was lonesome and without companions, and though the joys and secrets of Lórien need not be shared to be true, still I have found them to be the greater when seen by two, and not one alone."

"So it is, in most places I have journeyed to, and not Lórien alone," said Elrond, carefully. It was the early days of their friendship, and already he had learned to be cautious with his mind and words and heart near Lady Galadriel's daughter, grey-eyed Celebrían whose conversations was like the waters of her own lands, leaping, quick and meandering and full of hidden roots to trip upon.

"I suppose, then, you would wish for children, and not one alone. That is good." Celebrían said, as if it were a natural thing to speak of, on the eve of battle, to the king's own herald.

Her eyes shone, too, with a brightness of sun on water, a glimmering laughing attention. Elrond's heart tripped in his chest, slipped from him again and again.

"I said to Elros I would not marry, if I could not present my children to their uncle."

"He must have teased you very badly," Celebrían guessed, looking at him through her lashes rather shamelessly. "I am sorry I shall not meet him; but then he has so very many descendants, some evil and some not, which on the whole may be better. He may not have wished you to know them, but not much can be done on that account; and at least any children of yours shall not lack for kin. How many would you prefer?"

Elrond, more ancient than some of the rivers and mountains of Imladris, wise in languages and laws and magics, stared.

Smiled, too, a little helplessly. He could not ever quite stop turning towards her when she looked at him with all that bare attention, and he never would; and knowing he never would did not much help in delaying love from taking root.

"A maiden," he said. A woman-child, with Elwing's quick hands at the loom, and Celebrian's way of worrying at the corner of her mouth with her thinking - he saw it, that sure alighting of love.

Celebrían nodded. As if it were that simple - as if it were an agreement, a handfasting, a promise.

"It will be good for the boys to have a sister," Celebrían said. "I used to long very much for a playmate near my age, and another a little my elder, to hide mischief from our parents better."

Elrond, old enough to remember when islands rose at the will of the gods, and all the sea-loving birds flew Westwards in a rush, smiled at her, helplessly enchanted.

-

The days of their early friendship: war ravaged the lands beyond Elrond's hidden valley fortress still. He had not known how to love her. His heart sang, assured from the first, a winged thing certain of its perfect flight - but he had not known her, truly.

He had not meant to be more than a host, her mother's friend - for whatever little that meant. Celebrían was not one to care very much for other people's good intent, when hers was so often an improvement.

For many years they were half-stranger and half-lovers, looking at each other with clear eyes. Over riverbanks and running fountains, desks and dances and the narrow, narrow curving staircases of Imladris, where the brush of a sleeve against a curling palm could be hidden, almost an accident, almost nothing.

To be wed was a thing the Noldor choose only in times of peace, though the the Sindar delayed seldom. Elrond's parents had not waited, and not their parents either; but he did. He was only himself, and too himself to dare otherwise.

Celebrían, he knew, would not have been against a bold flight of passion, not least eloping while her father tarried - would serve him well, she thought.

For Elrond only she delayed. Went patient with her words, and deeds, and the turnings of her mind, as she never had before, or would again.

He thought of it, afterwards, when her ship went where the gulls loved to go, to the place where Elwing's tower rose high, and beyond. All that times spent, that half-time.

There had been a sweetness, too, in the stretching of anticipation, but he could not be certain, afterwards. How they had tasted in his mouth, those kisses ungiven; if his hand had stung to brush her silks, if it had hurt half as much as remembering it would for many centuries.

-

Twins, they had, on purpose. Celebrían was determined, and determined to wait until Elrond was certain he could stand to want it - two little souls, as near in age as Elros had been to him.

Two were enough, they both agreed. Two sons, alike to each other to the tilt of their noses and the curl of their braids. Celebrían's children, restless and in love with the world.

Elrond's children, too, though it felt marvelous and absurd and terrible, many times, to claim such joy as his own. His children, who held his hands as they crossed the many bridges of Imladris, and brought him small treasures, and shared the same closeness he had once known with his own Elros.

Elrohir liked to run, to sing, to make mischief and pull laughter out of Imladris's people like a spark out of a flint - a brusque little surprise, flaring and vulnerable.

He had Celeborn's mouth, and Celeborn's way with beasts and rooted things, and rarely was he ever alone, pockets full of little lizards and shoulders covered with dark eyed minks, ancient serpents twining around his small, very breakable wrists.

He made friends wherever he went, respectful and cheerful and terribly silly; Glorfindel, once of Gondolin by way of friendship with Turgon and Finrod before him, spoke at times with Celebrían of her uncle.

He never made a comparison, never said the words; but it was perhaps a good thing Elrohir had been born of a people and a time with no need for the raising up of new kingdoms. It was perhaps a sorrow, too, but Elrohir never seemed to feel the lack of greatness very sharply, nor the pulling tides of the past either.

Elladan was not so.

Elladan spent half his childhood trying to escape the valley, and the other half hiding wherever he could, in a dozen secret little places that became veiled even to Elrond's senses far too quickly.

He felt sadness very keenly, his mind open like Elrond's to the many voices of the wind and the water and the earth, yet more like his mother's kin, in how the shadows on the hearts of those near and far struck fear and unease and anger in him.

He wept very often, and afterwards laid on their chests, all exhausted weight and heavy eyelashes. Elrond held him the tightest; Elrond was very determined to do so always.

For comfort, Elladan liked to play with the rings in his father's hands, to follow the trail of Iathrim inkings and hunting scars beneath Celebrían's skin. And then of course his brother came to find him, whenever he was distressed, as Elros had found Elrond in Amon Ereb and Sirion and Mithlond, wherever in dying Beleriand that long terrible war brought them.

"This is very good," Celebrían conceded, pressing her nose against their sons's sweet curls, one after the other.

Celebrían pressed her palm to his, her long marked fingers against his rings, Vylia flaring cold and alive wherever at her touch. Her attention set upon him was no less heady. His breast sang towards it only the most surely, whenever his wife's sly joy pressed against his mind; and for an instant the shadow of what might be was easy on it, nearly easy.

She had always seen him very easily, Celebrían Galadriel's daughter. Braver than he, and less patient, was the Lady of Imladris.

"Very good, and no one left lonesome; but I do recall there is a thing not yet done, that I would like to accomplish, and Elros Peredhel would be sure to tease us both very badly, if we both put it aside, on his account."

She came last, the maiden-child with a worried mouth. Tall and fair and not quick to laughter, eager to learn, his stubborn-minded cupbearer and apprentice and scribe.

Then Elrond was happier still, for many years; he had half-forgotten the old images of foresight. It was a long time before his daughter Arwen took to the loom, sitting intent and silent by her mother's bedside, weaving love into a cloak fashioned for warmth; a traveling garment, spelled against the sting of salt.