defies_gravity (defies_gravity) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-10-13 23:00:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, elphaba thropp, luthien tinuviel |
Who: Lúthien and Elphaba
When: After their reconciliation
Where: Their home
What: Dinner, powers and revelations
Rating/Warning: G
Status: Complete
Elphaba was taking her turn to make dinner. However, because her brain had been all over the place lately she had forgotten to get the fish out to defrost before she went to work. So right now, she was trying to jimmy apart two slices of salmon with a knife, holding the fish in her left hand and the knife in her right. She slowly worked the knife between the two slices, thinking she was making good progress when the knife suddenly slipped, split the salmon and sank into the fleshy part of her palm of her left hand beneath her thumb. She cried out, dropping the knife and salmon on the counter and pressed her right hand to the wound which had started bleeding immediately. She moved to the sink and turned the tap on, holding her hand underneath the stream of water while she called for Lúthien.
Luthien came on, pulling some earbuds out of her ear. She smiled at Elphaba before realizing she was hurt. She came over. “Are you all right? What happened? Let me see.” She wasn’t sure if Elphie would trust her enough, but she wanted to see how bad it was. She was worried it could have cut a tendon.
Elphaba hissed at the pain in her hand as she jerked out out Lúthien’s touch without thought. “Sorry, sorry,” Elphaba apologised, still wincing, but holding her hand out for Lúthien to look at. “It just…really hurts,” she told her by way of explanation.
“Oh, this is pretty bad.” Luthien held Elphie’s hand gently. She remembered in her dreams, tending some of Beren’s wounds. This was no different, and a large sight better than a hand severed with poisoned teeth.
“You might feel a little bit of a tingling,” she murmured, humming to herself. The blood flow stopped.
“Wha...?” Elphaba asked, but didn’t have time to say anything else before Lúthien was humming and the blood flow was stopping. Elphaba stared in amazement, between her hand and her fianceé. “How did you do that?” she asked quietly.
“There’s power in words and song, Elphaba. There’s magic in my world, though it’s more subtle than yours. I’ve healed terrible wounds, and siphoned poisons.” She smiled happily as the wound closed, leaving behind a red mark. She thought it would fade, and she didn’t feel confident enough to push further.
“Heh,” Elphaba gave a little chuckle. “Yeah, mine’s a little more...obvious,” she quirked a smile at Lúthien, carefully avoiding looking at the tree in the hallway. “Thank you,” she said, gently rubbing the thumb of her right hand over the now healed mark.
“You’re welcome. I’m glad it wasn’t more serious, I’d rather not test the limit of my healing ability.” She kissed the healing cut and then stroked Elphie’s fingers. It still felt like she was on eggshells around her.
“How did you learn you could do that?” Elphaba asked quietly, shivering as Lúthien’s lips touched the skin of her hand and her fingers stroked over hers.
“It’s something inherent in me. A gift passed down from my mother, I think, though my father’s people weren’t without their own magic. She was a demi-goddess, after all.” She winked.
Elphaba smiled at her, eyes running over her face. “Tell me about her,” she said quietly.
“She’s wise, kind and gentle, but there’s a steel running down her spine that can make her a little frightening if you get on her bad side,” Luthien said. She trailed off a little, and lowered her head. “When I...chose mortality, she wouldn’t look me in the eye. It was the hardest thing for me.”
“I’m sorry,” Elphaba told her sadly. “And your father? Did he...support your choice?” she asked. It had occurred to Elphaba recently that they didn’t really know all that much about each other’s pasts, families or anything and it seemed like a natural place to start healing the rift between them.
"I think he took it worse. I can't be mad at them. By making the choice I did, I'd be forever separated from them." She shook her head. "Or at least until after the Dagor Dagorath."
“Dagor…?” Elphaba tried to repeat it. “What’s that?” she asked, turning the tap off and reaching for a towel to dry her hand. “Come and sit with me, talk to me,” she encouraged gently, pulling on her hand slightly as she moved in the direction of the couch.
She sat down, still holding Elphie’s hand. “The final battle at the end of the world, when Morgoth is unchained. And after the battle the world will be rebuilt anew, with all the races. I believe that even humans will return from the embrace of God. The world I dream of goes through Ages. Each Age is a time of great events, even the shaping of continents. We may very well be in a later Age.”
“I take it...Morgoth...bad,” Elphaba smiled, running her thumb back and forth over the back of Lúthien’s hand.
“Morgoth is a bit like Satan. One of the beings who helped sing the world into being, but he introduced discord and chaos, because he was jealous,” Luthien explained. “Eru Iluvatar’s song was to birth two races. Man and Elf. The Valar and the Maia came to the Earth to sculpt the land and make the wild-life. My mother was a Maia. The elves woke first, beneath the endless night sky - the sun and moon would come later.”
Elphaba laid her head against the back of the couch and watched Lúthien’s face as she listened to her talk. It had been a long time since they had just sat and...talked. And Lúthien’s voice was so beautiful to listen to. “They sang the world into existence?” she asked quietly, encouraging her to keep speaking.
“Yes. Eru - God, had the valar sing the world into being, but Elf and Man, those races he sang himself. And there are others, though I know not how they came to be. There are legends about the dwarves, that one of the valar made them and Eru gave them the breath of life on the condition his people woke first.”
“Dwarves are real too? Are they like Snow White’s dwarves or different?” Elphaba asked. She enjoyed hearing about different myths and legends and it was refreshing to hear one so completely different.
“Well they do a lot of crafting. They make fantastic weapons and jewellry and all sorts of things like that.” She stroked Elphie’s knee, happy to just talk. “And they’re great warriors.”
“Are there any other races? You’ve mentioned men, Dwarves, Elves obviously,” she smiled and gestured to Lúthien. “What about...witches?” she asked quietly, casting her eyes down to the fingers stroking her leg, curious as to whether the dreams she had been having could have any relation to hers.
“Magic isn’t the same, there. There are Wizards, but that’s more like an order. They’re Maia like my mother. Demi-gods. Our magic is more..nature oriented. Shielding, hiding...I was able to make an enchanted cloak to disguise me, and take the shape of others. My mother had a shield around our land to keep evil people out.”
“That all sounds kind of...epic,” Elphaba quirked a smile at her.
“I suppose it was. I was with this hound. Big dog, the size of a pony really. And we were going to rescue Beren. We even disguised ourselves as other things, and fought against a great many wolves. The sort of wolves nightmares are made of.”
“What happened? Did you find him?” Elphaba asked
“Yes. I found him.” She smiled, the expression radiant.
The expression on Lúthien’s face made her pause for a moment. She’d never looked like that before: radiantly happy. She wondered whether Lúthien had ever looked like that when talking about her.
“It was a lot of adventure. I danced for the devil, we stole back the Silmaril’s… Beren lost his hand. I couldn’t give him his hand back, but I could heal it.”
A grin slowly crept over Elphaba’s face. “I bet you danced beautifully for the devil,” she told her, still grinning. “And you stole something? Silm...silmaril’s?” she tried to wrap the word around her lips and tongue.
“It’s a gem, forged by one of the greatest masters of my kind. Before the sun and the moon, light came from two trees. They were destroyed, but he had made these three gems with their light, and they were all that was left of their beauty. Save some seeds, I think.”
“What did you do with them when you got them back?” Elphaba asked.
“We only got one back. The dwarves fashioned the gem into a necklace. After I begged the gods to make me mortal and we lived our mortal lives, it passed down to my son. After that I don’t know what happened.” Something terrible, she thought, of Feanor’s sons ever found out about it.
“You had a son?” Elphaba’s eyebrows shot up at that and she lifted her up off the back of the couch. “You never mentioned that before…” she trailed off quietly.
“I….” Luthien looked down at her hands. “I never knew how to bring it up.”
“I...I don’t know what to say,” Elphaba sat up, shocked. “We’ve never talked about children before...I…do you want kids? Do you want...your son? If Beren comes...here, I mean,” she rambled, because, let’s face it, if it was likely to happen anywhere, it was here.
“Dior, he’s..ah…” Confession time. She looked up at Elphaba. “I never told you the full reason my father chased away Beren. In this world.”
“Why?” Elphaba asked simply, a sinking feeling manifesting in the pit of her stomach.
Luthien lifted her head, knowing she had to meet Elphie’s eyes. “Because I was pregnant.”
“You were…” Elphaba trailed off as she stared at Lúthien. She shook her head and stood up on suddenly shaky legs, moving over to stand on the other side of the coffee table. “So...you...have a child with him?” she asked slowly, putting her hands to her temples as she tried to process everything Lúthien was revealing to her. “Here? In this world?”
“Yes.” Luthien started to reach for Elphaba, then her hands dropped back into her lap. She was wrestling with her own emotions about this, as well as the fact that she’d inadvertantly brought it up. “He’s living with my parents right now. It wasn’t entirely my choice to leave, though I chose where to come.”
“Oh my god…” Elphaba turned away from her to lean on the mantle of the fireplace as her mind started to race. Her fianceé had a child, a secret child that she’d only just told her about, who was living with her parents - oh god, her parents! She hadn’t even met them and she was engaged to their daughter! Did they even know about her?
"Elphaba..I was going to tell you. When I was ready." Luthien knew she should have told her a long time ago, but that was neither here, nor there. She'd waited this long, and now it seemed like that had been too long. "I just did not know..... how do you even bring that up?"
“I have no idea,” Elphaba shook her head as she replied softly. “But it’s certainly something you tell your fianceé before she becomes your fianceé!” she berated her.
“Yes, I know.” She sounded properly abashed, and her accent had thickened in her distress. “I kept pushing it off, and pushing it off. I didn’t want to … frighten you off.”
“Lúthien, it was hard enough to get over the fact that your one true love from the dreams could potentially come back into your life,” Elphaba turned slowly and pushed the hair back from her face to reveal the tears in her eyes. “I love you and I could get over that because I thought you loved me too, but now...you have a child with him!” she paused and shook her head sadly, a few tears spilling down her cheeks. “How can I ever compete with that? I mean, god! I’ve not even met your parents! But you have history with this guy that is just...huge!” She wiped her cheeks. “I could have handled this before…” she gestured to the tree, a remnant of a dark time for them. “I don’t think the idea would have affected me quite so much, but after what happened...Lúthien, what else haven’t you told me?” she stared down at Lúthien sadly, tears spilling down her cheeks.
Luthien’s heart fell, and started to break. She couldn’t bear to see Elpha in tears like this. She couldn’t bear the thought of not being with her. “That’s it, I swear. I’ve only ever had two lovers, and you’re one of them. I don’t even know where Beren is. My mother knows about you. My father does not. And it is probably better to keep it that way for now...”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Elphaba demanded, verging on the irrational. “Are you ashamed of me or something?”
“Of course not!” Luthien got to her feet, risking coming closer to her angry fiance. “But my father is not the most accepting sort. My mother is easing him into it.”
Elphaba closed her eyes and wiped her cheeks again as she took a deep breath. “So why do they have custody of your child?” she asked, trying to calm down and find her rational mind again.
“I…” Luthien hung her head. “It was my father’s idea. After he made Beren leave, he said she’d look after Dior, and that I should spend time somewhere else until I could learn to gain ‘control’ of myself. I didn’t argue the point at the time, though I regret it now.”
“And let me guess, you planning to marry a woman doesn’t count as ‘gaining control’ of yourself,” Elphaba replied. “How old is he?”
“Two,” Luthien replied. She rubbed her hand up and down her arm, until she rested it on her shoulder. “He’s two. He has these beautiful grey eyes.”
“So why haven’t you gone back for him?” Elphaba asked. “It sounds like you want to…”
“I’m afraid my father won’t let me come back. He’s rather big on family.” She shook her head. “I should just get my son and leave.”
“Yes, you should,” Elphaba told her unequivocally. “If he’s ‘big on family’ then he should understand that a child should be with it’s mother. That you’re in a stable situation, with a stable partner,” she sniffed and wiped her cheeks one last time, standing up straight and meeting Lúthien’s eyes confidently.
Luthien felt her breath catch in her throat, and she met Elphaba’s eyes. “You’re not… you do not wish to flee at the thought of me bringing him back?”
“Lúthien, he’s a part of you,” Elphaba smiled gently at her. “I wish you’d told me about him earlier, but if we’re going to be married then we should be a family,” she took hold of Lúthien’s hands. “All of us.”
“You are an amazing woman.” She brought Elphie’s hands to her lips and kissed them. “I scarcely deserve you, especially after my behaviour of late.”
“Yeah, well…” Elphaba shrugged a little. “Just...don’t do anything like this again. If you have any other...skeleton’s in your closet, just tell me, ok?”
“This was the big one. If I have any other, they’ve slipped my mind.” Luthien felt a keen relief. She wouldn’t have been able to handle it if this had been the end of them.
“Promise me,” Elphaba squeezed her hands. “Promise me that if there’s anything else you will tell me. Straight away,” she looked her dead in the eyes. “Or else I will leave. I can’t take anymore heartbreak,” she told her.
“I promise.” She didn’t look away. Luthien was stubborn and she had a will of iron. She only wanted to make sure that Elphaba was happy, and safe. “There’s nothing from this life, at least. And if something comes from my dreams I will tell you.”
“Ok,” Elphaba smiled at her and nodded before sniffing again. “Ok, so now we get your son back,” she told her with a smile.