#he was barking and chasing the swallows for ages xD

[orangedogsquad]

Guess which one is the bird dog

[mythopoeticreality]

The Road Goes Ever On - Chapter 5

Okay, so this chapter took a bit, sorry about that! >.< That said, Curufin’s growing more and more frustrated and still no introductions have happened yet xD 

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22900423/chapters/56267356

Chapter 5

Golden daylight and the heady mead of wind-stirred grasses carried in from Yavanna’s pastures; the warm musk of his horse, and the low nicker she gave as Curufinwë approached her to begin tacking her for the day’s journey; the velvet softness of her fur as she nosed at him playfully in greeting, and the power he could feel held within her muscles even as she stood still -- he could see it, taste it, feel it still now all so clearly.

His brothers were not far off, preparing to set off, while Atar and Amil were cleaning up from the morning's meal.

“Atto! Atto, let me help!” Tyelpë’s high, piping voice. As he lay the saddle across the horse’s back, Curufinwë cast a glance back over his shoulder, to find his son running up to him, little legs making quick work of the leaf litter and scraggling undergrowth beneath them.

A raised brow and a faintly bemused quirk to his lips. Hadn’t Tyelco taken to watching the boy? His gaze flickered back to meet Finyanís’s, who’s eyes he could now feel resting on his back. His wife had paused in the midst of tacking her own horse and now, with her arms crossed over her chest, just stood there, head tilted back as she looked at him.

It was almost a relief as the rapid pad of the boy’s feet across the forest floor grew closer.

Spinning around, Curufinwë swept down, and scooped a laughing Tyelpë up into his arms.

“Now, where is your uncle?” He murmured.

Tyelpë just shrugged. “By the stream I think. He was showing me how it comes all full of fish this time of year, and I bet him he couldn't name them all, but he told me that he could, so he--”

“Yes, yes, I believe I get the idea…” Curufinwë rolled his eyes. Tyelcormo...

“He is your son…” Finyanís said, shaking her head as she approached. She held out her arms for Tyelpë, and Curufinwë passed him over to her, a smirk flickering across his features despite himself as he bent down to tighten the girth on his horse’s saddle.

“Hello Ammë!” Tyelpë was saying, “I’ve come to help Atto with his horse!”

“Oh, did you now?” Finyanís replied, “Well, I am sure there is nothing your father would like better! Isn’t that so, Curvo?”

Despite himself, Curufinwë could not help the smile tugging at his lips. His son was at that age wherein he wanted to be just like his father, and be involved in everything his father was. Twisting his gaze upward, Curufinwë gave a quick grunt and a nod. It was as he was stepping back and pulling himself to his full height that the peace of the moment was broken.

“There you are, you sneaking fox!” Tyelcormo’s voice cut suddenly through the air beneath the treeline they’d settled under the night before. As if to underline his words, Huan’s rumbling bark came like rolling thunder a moment later.

Curufinwë turned a slow glance backward, to find his brother absolutely sopping, front smeared, from his face downward with mud.

“Gone for a swim Tyelco?” One of the Ambarussa. Beside the one twin, the other snickered. Carnistir was smirking as well, even as he snapped at the two to get back to helping him pack up.

“Ilúvatar in Eä, did you push him in?” Curufinwë found himself murmuring , sliding his eyes back towards his son, now curling up and apparently trying to hide himself away against his mother’s chest. Meanwhile Finyanís seemed to be struggling to hide her own silent laughter.

“He fell.” Tyelpë said, poking his head up, “When he saw that I was going and tried to chase after. ” A pause, “I’m not in trouble am I?”

“Curufinwë!” Tyelcormo’s roar cut off whatever it was Curufinwë meant to say. He turned, canting his head just to the side as his brother approached.

“That son of yours…”

“Yes, what about him, Turko?”

It might have been comedic, the way his brother’s eyes widened as he stared back at Curufinwë. With a wide, exaggerated wave of his arm Tyelcormo put on display the full glory of the disarray he’d fallen into -- clearly enough to answer for all, without further comment.

“Hrmmm.” Curufinwë swept his eyes up and over his brother (and could not help but take note that Huan stood absolutely bone-dry beside him). “Yes. Well, I have told Tyelperinquar to watch his step near the water’s edge. If you cannot help but be a bad example to him…”

“A bad exam- A...are you serious? Can you not see that he-- He tricked--!”

“Turko,” Curufinwë drawled, by now turning from his brother and back to Tyelpë and Finyanís, arms held out for the boy again, “Do you really wish to go on crowing about how a child of less than a decade outsmarted you?” His eyes slid back over his shoulder, and just for a moment a teasing smirk touched at his lips. It was so easy to get a rise out of Turko at times, and perhaps it was rather childish, yet still he couldn’t help but take some amusement from it. It was only his right as younger brother, was it not?

With faint snort he turned his attention back on Finyanís and his son. “Come then,” Curufinwë said, as Tyelpë was handed back over to him and he set him upon his horse, “Today you ride with me, Tyelpë.”

The boy’s face lit up at this and as he glanced about from his perch, looking as though he were on top of the world, his eyes caught Tyelcormo’s expression. He giggled.

“One day…” The silver-haired elf was saying, stepping nearer and slapping an arm (and sodden through sleeve --mud and water were seeping through, clammy and clinging to Curufinwë ’s back ) around Curufinwë’s shoulder, “One day, Curvo, you are going to wake up and find that that boy has grown up to be just like you.”

Hearing those words, of course Tyelpë sat all the taller, his chest puffing out in pride. Curufinwë’s gaze slid up to meet Tyelcormo’s however, and the razor-edged grin there spoke all too well of how much Turko himself would enjoy that moment..

“Well, one can only hope.” was all Curufinwë replied, rolling his shoulders to push Tyelcormo back, before leaning forward and pressing a kiss upon Tyelpë’s brow. Swinging himself up onto the horse behind the boy, he glanced down at his brother.

“If I were you, I would start getting ready to go. Atar will want to be off soon, I feel.”

Tyelcormo rolled his eyes, waving off Curvo’s words, but even so, he turned, loping off towards his own end of camp.

That had been this morning.

They were silver-lined shadows, his father, his brother and himself, now standing reflected in the rippling trails traced by the stranger as he crouched over the lake shore. The air was chill, damp. It smelled of leaf-rot and loam, the waiting silence that hung over the clearing a world away from the birdsong and easy banter that morning had brought.

“What is he doing?” Curufinwë found himself hissing, leaning nearer to his brother, his eyes not once leaving the stranger. His eyes hadn’t left the stranger if he could help it since first landing on him. The night’s darkness seemed almost to swallow the man. The Treelight that burned like a reflected flame in elvish eyes and glowed softly like embers beneath elvish flesh? No, he possessed none of that, the night and it’s shadows almost seeming to swallow this creature. And it seemed to Curufinwë that he almost embraced that fact…

“Do you expect me to know?” Tyelcormo hissed back, “Certainly nothing I have seen before. Tracing some strange pattern over the water...I may look the part, but I am no Teler, brother!”

Curufinwë’s frown only deepened. Why had they come here? They were wasting time, standing over some empty lake shore, while meanwhile Eru knew where his son was! They should have been out there searching!

His eyes slid back towards his father. It was the only reassurance he had, even as the voice at the back of his mind kept hissing at him to return to camp, to grab his horse and go running through these woods to find Tyelpë himself, if he must. Only on Atar’s account did he stand here now. The stranger he may not have trusted as far as Tyelpë could have thrown him, but his father?

His father, he would have followed into Oblivion and back.

So he waited, and he watched, until suddenly, a light broke. Two glimmering lines, crossing one another as the man traced them out. The man made another gesture. And the lake burst from within with a silvery network of light, stretching over it’s dark surface. Like the veins of some living creature or like the spreading cracks over broken glass.

Despite himself Curufinwë’s breath caught and he found himself edging nearer. Atar too seemed unable to help himself, his eyes hungry as he watched on. Somewhere behind himself, Curufinwë was aware of Huan’s low growl and Tyelcormo’s own edginess, but…

As the man made another sign, the patterns of light changed, shifting, looking in one moment like the lines of a map, in another moment like constellations and stars he had never seen, and in the next…

“Writing…” Atar’s voice as he recognized it. No writing that either of them had ever seen or could be expected to know, but…

The Stranger meanwhile kept working, tapping at one of the quarters he’d drawn over the lake’s surface, only for the writing and lines to shift again into something else completely different. And then again, and then again, each moment the image over the lake’s surface appearing more and more a map. He didn’t look up from this once as he worked, only making an offhanded motion behind himself.

And that was when the earth moved. It was as if he had been a flea riding upon a giant’s back, and the giant were now rolling his shoulders. A wave went through the earth, the ground beneath his very feet giving a low groan and suddenly, caught in a wave of motion it was all Curufinwë and his father could do to stumble backwards and stay steady on their own two feet. Atar snapped at the stranger, who murmured something back, apparently unconcerned.

Atar only gritted his teeth, casting a bitter look at the man, but saying no more.

“What? What did he say?” Curufinwë pressed. That too only made him trust the man less, that he couldn’t understand him, and apparently was the only one who couldn’t understand the garble of bird-song and wind-whispers that was the man’s speech.

Atar said nothing, but Tyelcormo snorted, “He asked if Atar works any better himself, with someone breathing down his neck.”

Curufinwë shut his eyes, pressing out a long,low breath through his nose.

Meanwhile the network of constellations and lines grew all the denser, all the more twisting and complex. If Curufinwë did not know better, he might have said that the image were growing into some ghostly forest in itself, a tangle of trees and ivy, of ruins hiding in shadows and hill-sides, all just hovering over the lake like a mist. If he just stepped forward, it could all simply swallow him alive.

And far, far at the other side of the lake (map? forest?) a light glowed, brighter and sharper than all of the rest. Even now it was moving.

Curufinwë’s heart skipped a beat. What else could that light be but his son? It took every ounce of his self-control to stay where he stood as he saw it, to not grab the Stranger by the shoulders and shake him, demanding he tell him where it was that they were looking at.

The Stranger eyed the image before him for a moment. His shoulders tightened, just enough for Curufinwë to notice, before he pushed himself back to his feet again, made a motion with this hand, sweeping the image away, and turned back to meet both Curufinwë and Atar’s eyes.

The man was...slow in his speech, seeming to choose his words carefully. It set Curufinwë’s nerves on edge to hear that tone, to not know what was being said in that moment, but to see the way Atar’s knuckles stood out so tight against his skin.

Huan and Tyelcormo came up behind him, and it was Tyelcormo who took pity enough to translate what was said for him.

“He says that he knows where it is Tyelpë travels now, at the least. His destination however…”

“Tell me Tyelcormo, where is he?”

He could feel the Stranger’s gaze on him. Pittiless, appraising. The same sort of gaze that Curufinwë might have worn himself while choosing a gemstone for a new project. Curufinwë ignored him.

Seeing his brother's expression, Tyelcormo’s own gaze turned inwards, lips pressing into a thin line. It was Atar who spoke.

“We will need to discover the ones who took him to tell us that.”

As if this were some play put on in Tirion, as if this all were some tale Kano were telling around whilst the family were gathered about the Tonfui fire, The braying of a hunting horn broke suddenly over the trees. All three elves stood suddenly straightened, eyes spinning towards the sound.

The Stranger too glanced upward. He stepped forward. Looked almost as though he were waiting.

And that, as the thunder of horse’s hooves grew like the approach of an oncoming storm, Curufinwë liked the least.

[lanaberryrawr]

Hello dearest Lana! It is I, trans girl! Victor Anon!! (°💗``) (thanks for the compliment on the nickname, twilight anon💝) and I have another idea for a ficlet,if you'd like. Maybe an Anastasia au with Vitya as Anastasia? Like he's a lost Russian prince or something? Maybe even in a modern setting?? Who knows, it's up to you!(he's a prince anyway 💙)

Hello trans girl! Victor Anon! :3 I’m so sorry this took so long to get to. Life has been hectic XD Also I loved this prompt, but it was a hard one to do! I’ve not seen the film for such a long time that I’d forgotten most of it (I had to google the plot just to make this… XD). I tried a sort-of modern setting, but didn’t get a lot of chances to properly incorporate it… XD But I hope you like it anyway! And I agree, he is definitely a prince :3 I also didn’t expect it to end on such a weird note and uuuuh cliffhanger… woops???

Yuuri couldn’t believe his luck.

The man walking beside him was everything beyond his wildestfantasies. He didn’t just look like the lost Russian Prince, he could almost behim. The shining silver of his hair was almost the same shade as the youngPrince’s, though cut shorter now. He had it trimmed around the back and let intoa loose fringe from the front, covering his face until he gently slipped itbehind his ear. He had the same pale skin, same piercing blue, deep set eyes.

An exact copy of what the lost prince might have looked likeat this age. The police had used their technology to try and paint how he’dlook later in life but those sorts of things were never really exact. Therewere too many factors that were missing, too many things that could happen inthat time that could change how a person looked.

Things like that made it easy for Yuuri to do the job hedid.

Awaiting in Paris was Yakov, a close family friend of the previousRussian Royal Family. Chased out of his country after the royal massacre, hehadn’t given up on finding the lost prince, despite the wilting hope after yearsof nothing. He had reward money waiting for anyone who brought the lost princeback to him.

The sort of money that could completely change Yuuri’s lifearound. And beside him, Vitya walked, almost a copy of Viktor Nikiforov.

“Yuuri? What are you thinking about?” Vitya asked, balancingupon a low wall of bricks with his arms splayed out. Padding close to him washis companion, a large poodle Vitya had lovingly named Makkachin after findingher as a stray on the streets.

Yuuri snapped his attention to the other man, smiling reassuringlyup at him. “Nothing, nothing. Are you excited to go to Paris? Have you ever been?”

Vitya’s eyebrows knitted together as he thought. “I don’tthink so. I don’t know.”

“You’d remember Paris.”

“I don’t know if I would.”

Yuuri decided not to push. Vitya’s answers to his questionshad been vague since they met, always running around until Yuuri was left tointerpret the real meaning. All he knew was that Vitya had grown up in anorphanage and didn’t seem to know much about his life previously – or waskeeping it a secret. The issue brought some wild thoughts to Yuuri that perhapsVitya wasn’t just an uncanny look-alike after all. But then he remembered thatthis was reality, not some fairy tale in which things just fell into place.

“Well,” he said, drawing the conversation back to his point.“You’ll like it anyway. It’s really beautiful. The city of love and dreams.” Hefelt a tinge of red bloom on his cheeks as he glanced to the stunning man besidehim. Vitya might not have been royalty, but he was as gorgeous as one, more sothan some Yuuri had seen. Not only were his looks Yuuri’s taste, hispersonality was too – he could be reserved, but he strived hard for thehappiness of others. The way he smiled had Yuuri’s heart fluttering and hislaugh was like music to Yuuri’s ears.

“What about food?” Vitya asked. He jumped from the wall andlanded beside Yuuri, looping their arms together. “What sort of food do theyhave there?”

“Uh, I heard pretty good. Parisian chefs are meant to be someof the best in the world.”

Vitya’s eyes widened at that. “Really? Now, that I amlooking forward to.”

“And they have gorgeous architecture. Many old buildingsstill stand at its centre. A river runs through the city centre too, and the mayoreven placed sand at its banks so that Parisians can feel like they’re at thebeach in the summer when they can’t get out of the city. They even call it a beach.”Yuuri couldn’t stop a smile from rising on his lips when he realised he had allof Vitya’s attention. He weaved as he walked, directed completely by Yuuri’sdirection and allowing the younger man to move him around. Yuuri continued, “Theyhave stalls out on the streets of food you can eat, things like proper French friesand the best ice cream you’ll ever taste. The streets are lined with flowersand trees and the whole city looks like a garden in the summer.”

“Wow,” Vitya gasped. “You make it sound like an imaginaryplace.”

“Well, it’s quite real, I promise you that.”

“And we can really go?”

“Yes. We can really go.” Yuuri ignored his heart hammeringat the statement, the guilt as it began to weave its way into every thought.

“Did you hear that, Makka? We’re going to be walking into afairy tale,” Vitya crooned down at the dog. She barked excitedly back.

A fairy tale. Yuuri swallowed back his hesitation and hopedhe could keep his resolve up until they got to Paris. Vitya would be given ahome, Yakov would be given closure, and Yuuri would have the reward money. Itall ended happily. So why did he feel so guilty? Why did he already feel enrapturedby the beautiful man beside him?