Faikar - LotR

CHAPTER EIGHT

"Nárhína!" She had finished speaking with Arwen just moments ago, the sun now fully risen over the horizon and signaling she was almost late to meet the rest of the Fellowship to begin their trek. Yet at the urgency of the voice behind her, the woman stopped in the middle of the corridor, pack slung over one shoulder haphazardly as she turned.

"Glorfindel." The tall golden haired elf strode toward her, his long legs devouring the distance between them before she could fully catch her breath at the unexpected sight of him. It seemed a lifetime ago since they had spoken but the whispers reminded her that it was not so long, not even a day since he left her on the training field, internally agonizing over her own decisions. His dark cloak flared out behind him, revealing thicker and warmer clothing in browns and greens and she remembered with small surprise that he was also leaving with his own task.

"I assumed you would have rode with the dawn," she stated. A presumption that had caused doubt to linger in the darkened corners of her mind. She truly did not understand how to go from here, as if she were lost in fog, her senses dulled. They were both leaving, the threat of death loomed overhead, and communication would be extremely limited if possible at all. And there were secrets, so many secrets, that he did not know, that she did not say before binding them into this troubled dance of courtship.

Lines decorated his cheeks as he smiled and her heart suddenly quickened at the sight.

Traitorous body.

It was soft and gentle and his teeth stayed hidden behind pale pink. Breathing became tighter and shorter as she continued to watch the small transformation in front of her. There were no words, no apt description for the softening of his eyes and what they were doing. One moment he was merely looking at her and then... he was seeing her. She was at a loss by the sudden sharp pain in her chest and did not understand why her throat closed so quickly, choking words before she even thought to speak.

"We were, but I could not find you. Did you truly believe me to leave without seeing you once more?" Yes, that is exactly what she thought and it must have appeared on her face because his breath puffed against her nose in a chuckle. Distracted, she did not fully grasp that he was touching her until his hand had returned down to his side; the trail of fire that singed her cheek and the curl that was neatly tucked back behind her ear the only proof that such an interaction even happened.

He was close, as close as he was that night when she could identify the individual colors of his mostly blue eyes and mentally, Nárhína was panicking.

Pride was such a fickle thing, it tended to be one's downfall more often than it actually aided but when it came to her training, to her abilities – she was wholly confident to know that she was able to maintain control in any situation.

Except, it seemed, for this one.

Unversed did not even begin to describe her modicum of experience in this area. There was a time when she was younger – much, much, younger – when she thought she would need to be proficient in and eventually master the art of seduction and pleasing one's partner; but the contract in which it mattered was dissolved with the end of a war and she was only too happy to terminate any and all training in that particular capacity.

Now, standing in the middle of a deserted hallway with one of the most beautiful elves in existence, his attention and focus directed solely toward her, she desperately wished that she remembered even a few of the teachings or at the very least how to not behave as if she had the cranial capacity of a troll.

It was exceptionally unlike her to act this way. So lost in the mere presence of another that she could scarcely recall how to breathe properly as the world faded at its edges. It was discomfiting, unbecoming for one such as she. It was –