Best Intentions (Tumblr Crosspost)

[endless_natterings]

Day 3 Prompt: Aegnor

Relationships: Aegnor/Andreth

Summary: In spite everything (and that everything is heavy) Aegnor does believe he's doing the right thing. Or at least he hopes he is.

AO3 Link

Author's Note: I adore these two so obviously I was going to write something for Aegnor. This is a sort of companion piece to Saudade (DW link) but they can be read independently.
 

The conversation had lulled to a stop, dinner had ran its course and the musicians were starting to sound tired in the hall. And Aegnor was keeping his eyes firmly fixed on his plate, he knew himself too well to not know they’d drift to where they shouldn’t. He’d glanced up earlier, and had nearly rushed to the other end of the table when he’d seen the hint of tears welling up in her eyes. She’d wiped them away nearly as fast as they came, but he’d seen them.

When his brother turned to him and asked if he was alright he lied.

On the whole, Aegnor did not make a habit of lying. And he’d never been good at it, not even by omission. He left that business to his cleverer siblings, and he preferred to focus on more tangible problems. Like grain stores, or irrigation.

In his defence it hadn’t been a lie when he’d bitten his tongue and said No when his Andreth had asked him if he’d ever imagined a future together. He had no need to imagine it, he had seen it after all. And he still wanted it, that future he’d dreamed of for years. Even as he broke her heart.

He’d even told someone. Centuries ago, before he really knew anything about the world.

He’d been spinning his new sister-in-law around in his father’s ballroom trying to make her laugh to shake off the nervousness of the day when she asked him when he himself was planning to get married. That in between Findaráto’s mysterious insistence on a seemingly perpetual courtship with Amairë, and Artanis’ refusal of every suitor, she was likely to be the only outsider to marry into his father’s house and that was a lot of pressure.

It was meant well, meant as a joke mostly, the sort of joke people made when they were a little too deep in their cups.

But he was also a little drunk, and the secret had been bursting at the seams of his mind for years, so he leaned closer and smiled.

“I’ll get married don’t you worry. It’s just she’s not here yet, but I’ve seen her, she has dark hair and clever eyes and I think I’m going to love her more than anything.”

Eldalotë had laughed and he’d spun her around in circles a few more times before handing her back to her new husband. His half-whispered secret half-forgotten already.

It was true though, what he’d told her. He might not have been the most skilled in his family in matters of visions and foresight, but he saw things nonetheless.

Sometimes there were fields full of crops he could not recognize, or a light shining down through trees that felt different than that of the trees. Or just a strange pain in his chest that

More often than now he saw the cottage in the woods. Hidden in a shaded grove, surrounded by trees on all sides, it was quiet and safe and most importantly theirs.

He had been visiting his grandfather in Tirion, the first time the visions came, when he’d first heard distant laughter ringing in his ears and felt the phantom of hair between his fingertips. He had spaced out for most of the dinner, entirely lost in the future. At first he thought it’d been a passing thing, his mind wandering like it often did when forced to sit politely at a table of people pretending to like each other.

But the visions came back again and again, like the tide playing ‘keep-away’ with the shore. They never stayed long enough for him to get a full picture, but in time he had puzzled out parts of his future.

And there were a few things he could be certain of.

First was that he would fall in love with someone wonderful, someone who was brilliant. He’d seen glimpses of their life together, how their house would be full of scrolls and books. He also knew they would be happy, had seen himself smile and laugh till his chest felt like it ought to burst. There had been children too in his vision. Three chaotic little ones that he’d known he would give his life for from the first time he’d been allowed a glimpse of them. It would be a good life.

But the nís’ eyes had not reflected the light of the Trees. He’d blamed it on the unreliable nature of visions at first, told himself they had but he had just been focused on other things.

Then when the Darkening and the Flight both came and uprooted the world as he had known it, he understood she had never been in Aman to begin with. He had made peace with having to wait, and could make peace with having to search.

Centuries later, standing by a pool of starlight, he looked at the woman across from him.

And he said, like a fool mind you, “There you are.” Then he was glad it was only the two of them in the clearing or else his siblings would have never let him live it down.

Then she had tilted her head and taken a deep breath before pursing her lips, clearly trying to keep herself from either laughing or asking if he was alright.

Andreth was as brilliant and lovely as his dreams had promised. She was also curious and stubborn, looking at the world like it was both a riddle to solve and a challenge. She was mortal yes, but in the moment the only thing that mattered was that she was there.

He wanted more than anything to take her hand and run somewhere far, to disappear from the war and all of the rest of their problems. He wanted the sun-dappled cottage lost in the woods, the children running around a field they wouldn’t have to be afraid in, and a home full of laughter and books.

He wanted it, more than anything, even if it were just a decade or a year, they would have been happy. And he would have robbed her of her life, of the opportunity to be with her own kin and watch them grow. To grow into herself and learn who she could become given the chance.

He told himself it was a kindness, that it was good and necessary. And then he downed his wine and pretended to not feel the knot in his chest tighten when she sat across from him and acted as though he were just the lord they had to report back to. He might have preferred it if she hated him, if she screamed.

It was unfair of him. He'd been the one to wipe their fates clean after all.

 

Foresight is a tricky thing to deal with! It gives you weird expectations, and timeline wise, Andreth and Aegnor happened before Luthien and Beren so they didn't even have a blueprint (and neither of them were half maia).