#the art is an eye-candy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heilith · 1 year

Text

Bottled Up

A/n: Aaand it’s here! :DDD I couldn’t be happier.

The absolutely stunning art was brought to life by @mysandwichranaway Applause, guys, please - I will never forget how he saved the day and stepped up to collaborate with me, when I was absolutely discouraged. Thank you, my friend, you’re gorgeous!

Long story short, here’s our piece for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Collaboration 2022 project, that united so many talented, kind and creative people. @fellowshipofthefics, you, guys, rock.

Our prompt was “Musical Bards and Their Heroic Muses”.

@i-did-not-mean-to You know, the night before I wrote it I dreamed I was writing it with you for 3-4 hours straight. So you can totally consider yourself a co-author and an inspiration

Also tagging as requested - @mismaeve (a new Lindir, my love!!!), @glassgulls @oenothera5 @noldorinpainter @otakumultimuse-hiddlewhore @eunoiaastralwings @a-contemplation-upon-flowers (may be, you will enjoy it)

Forgive me, if I forgot anyone. Ok, I shut up.

Bottled Up

“Spin that baby, laddie!” Bofur cheered happily.

“I don’t want to kiss you,” Kili growled, pushing the bottle with one finger only, “Any of you, on that matter.”

“Why are you playing this, then?”

“There’s a lady among us,” reminded Kili with a wink.

You laughed, just happy to relax and leave the troubles you all had to live through in the back of your mind, if only for a while.

Of course, the refined abode of the Elves was no place to play such childish games, but the cheer of the Company was contagious, and you let yourself get unleashed for once. Spin the bottle seemed just the right thing to teach them. You had to admit it was hilarious, the whole thing in general and the way each of them demonstrated the involvement in the process so peculiarly.

Dwalin kissed his loyal kin and fellows with the face he must have been saving up for the fiercest of battles, the ever-enthusiastic Fili was as enthusiastic as ever and Ori just a bit less bewildered than you had predicted.

The ones that had the luck to kiss you were rewarded with handclaps and sighs of envy.

The attendant Elves were judging you hard, which only added zest to the already spicy pastime.

The day was obviously a success.

Once again congratulating yourself on a lucky idea, you stretched your neck and took at the waist of the bottle resolutely.

“Let it be me,” prayed Fili, whose luck with you had been failing him this afternoon.

It wasn’t. Neither was it anyone else. The bottle made two lazy spins and stopped, pointing between Ori and Dori…Right at the Elf who had been the first to greet you in Rivendell and was stepping on the Company’s heels ever since. He’d been watching the game, too, a sour expression not leaving his face for a moment.

“Go kiss him,” Kili suggested, before you could replay your go.

The Dwarves perked up, anticipating a good laugh.

“Kiss the boy!”

“Go for it, buttercup!”

“Kiss him, kiss him, kiss him,” they chanted as one. You were looking around desperately in search of at least one disapproving grimace – but no. It was impossible to thrust in a word, let alone make them change their minds.

Caught up in your own game, you stood up to approach the one called Lindir in uncertain steps.

The closer you were getting, the less life and blood were remaining in his face. You had no idea why he didn’t move back – the alley behind him was clear, yet he opted out of escaping for a reason inconceivable to you.

Instead, he simply froze still, looking at you in what seemed to be rather close to panic.

You stood on your tiptoes and shut your eyes not to see what a fool you were about to present of yourself.

“Kiss him!”

You didn’t know why you failed to make it a peck on the cheek or forehead. May be, it was the heady Elvish wine you’d tried for the first time this evening, or the overly heated encouragement of the Company, but, instead of taking it easy, you went for the honest to Eru mouth-to-mouth.

The Elf’s lips were surprisingly smooth and coolish, the banal word “silky” describing them best of all. He gave a start, but didn’t pull away as you cupped his face with the last surge of boldness and kissed him deeper and more softly.

It felt good, almost like the real thing, despite the lack of response on his part.

At an instant you had an almost-but-not a sensation that some reluctant sort of a reaction was still there, but you couldn’t truly tell. And surely, it would be strange to expect him just stand there like one of those prim statues, which surrounded you at each step in here.

Having counted to ten, you called it a kiss and stopped to retreat to the safety of the Company’s circle.

There was a very pronounced response to your ministrations, after all.

Your victim’s face was flaming, and so were his eyes. He reeled, then stammered something you didn’t understand. The Dwarves were laughing without mercy, and some of the Elves followed the example, but you were probably the only one who paid attention to it. Lindir didn’t look like he cared. As shocked, he turned on his heels and almost fled the scene, leaving you and his duties behind.

“There goes the courage of the Elves,” Bofur concluded out loud and reached for the bottle for the hundredth time since morning.

“Spin that baby!”

All it took was one single mental image of your dragging the thing on your back all the way to the Lonely Mountain, with no to little chance to ever put it in good use.

Alas, a tin ear was the rudest of understatements in your case.

You snorted without any backthought and was ashamed of the sound immediately, as your eyes met his.

“Am I being a figure of fun?”

“Not you,” you tried to sound placating. It wasn’t each day you experienced a cultural revelation in such a brutal way, “And still, I’m sorry, I can’t take it.”

He had found you lazying around in the gardens, your head more than a little heavy with the consequences of yesterday’s overindulgence in cheer and drinking. In the good news, your usual case of a nosebleed had happened minutes before that. You’d just barely managed to wash the last spots off your face and shirt in the nearest fancy fountain, when the one still called Lindir stumbled upon you, a lute in his hand.

Had he’d found you a moment earlier, it would have definitely added only more awkwardness to what was enfolding before your eyes now.

“I can’t let you not,” stated he very slowly, as though his opinion of your comprehension skills was less than poor.

You couldn’t say you blamed him for that.

“Let me have this straight,” your temples were splintering with ache, “I have to take this with me, because I happened to be your first kiss?”

The thing he did with his shoulders reminded you of an agonal twitch. His lips stretched into a lopsided line for a moment, and you concluded he was enjoying this one-on-one as little as you were. And that was really not a lot.

“By the ways of my people, yes.”

“And this … instrument is your most precious possession, that is now mine? Because I happened to be your first kiss?”

“What do you do, when your first kiss comes?”

Just as always, you spoke quicker than you thought.

“Pop a foot.”

Lindir’s brows went up, but, as your luck had it, he obviously interpreted your answer as another manifestation of how small a brain you had.

“Am I being a figure of fun?” repeated he patiently.

“No, I’m sorry.”

Without further words, he held the lute out for you yet again. And yet again you couldn’t imagine yourself taking it.

The pause was a lengthy one, so dragged-out you had to wonder whether his arm was getting tired of holding the weight of this “precious gift” you had earned through such a little effort.

“I can’t,” you shook your head again.

“Please,” a note of desperation slipped into his voice.

He was travelling from anger to misunderstanding and spiraling farther into unhappiness, that you couldn’t fully comprehend, in a matter of seconds.

“Are you a minstrel?” you asked him at last.

The lute came down.

“Isn’t it obvious?” reciprocated he with a merriless smile.

“Write me a ballad.”

You didn’t doubt you would feel bad about this new brainchild of yours, too. But you had to save yourself out of the honour and him – out of the misery.

“I beg your pardon?”

“When this journey ends, I want to look back and know I did well,” the inflow of inspiration made you unusually eloquent, “That I was a hero. I don’t need a lute, what good can I get out of it? I want something I can remember, not break one day and never regret it. You wouldn’t wish I did that, would you?”

The deep dark eyes were never off you. This Lindir guy wasn’t the one to hand out his approvals easily, you thought, when another handful of minutes had passed without a word from him.

“I wouldn’t,” agreed he finally.

“Then write me something about how brave I can be. What deeds I can do, if there’s a chance. What hardships I can deal with. And I’ll say you paid for that ki-.”

“What do you know of pigeon mail?” he interrupted you suddenly, in the most business-like kind of voice.

“But how-“

The Elf allowed himself a smile, showing only too clear that your standing somewhere between a mindless rubble and a bit more mindful slug wasn’t changing for the better with him.

“How do I sing something I have no knowledge of?”

And just may be, he wasn’t that wrong on your part.

“A deal, then?” you put out your hand for him to seal the agreement. Much to your surprise, he didn’t hesitate to accept it, wrapping his long fingers around yours politely, if a bit stiffly.

And that’s when the awkwardness returned.

You were quite ready to have your limb to yourself again, yet he had decided otherwise.

“Noble Y/N?”

Your fingers were feeling the pressure that his ones were giving them quite acutely.

“Yes, my Minstrel?” you decided not to dwell on it, in hopes that the light tone will repair this change to his manner.

“Did you…” he stumbled through the question, which you somehow realized was not a common occurrence with him, “Did you do it on purpose?”

“Did what?”

You hoped you sounded surprised enough. Just like you didn’t guess the answer on your own and didn’t wish he had never asked that.

“Spun that bottle…that way.”

It was safer to keep on playing dumb. He was surely able to forget that kiss. Would he forget other advances you had no intention to offer him was quite another question.

“Why would I?”

His hand went loose around yours.

“True,” uttered he with a nod, “I thank you then. For the kiss. And your generosity. And I promise to honour our deal.”

“I have no doubts you will.”

You were becoming a smooth liar.

My dear Minstrel,

I fear I thought too much of …I wish I hadn’t been that presumptuous… I can’t recount the events of this day in…I saw them, Lindir. The stone giants. They were murdering each other right before our eyes. It was a life-altering…an experience, that I…

Scared, my dear Minstrel,

But I’m still here.

Yours,

Y/N

My dear Muse,

Do not test your skill and my patience with…

Do you not think me able to read a simple…

I’ll pray to the Valar to keep you safe. Or what my ballad will be worth of otherwise?

Your faithful Minstrel.

My dear Minstrel,

I have one word for you. Goblins. I’d love to say my heart was not in my feet, but it was.

You could describe it better, if you were me, Lindir.

But I wish you’ll never have to be in my place.

Yours,

My Muse,

I wish you were not yourself, either. I wish you were not there where you are.

No song is worth it.

Lindir.

My Minstrel,

The castle is under siege. I don’t know how it ends. I just know that it will.

Do I need to say that word? Scared?

I don’t. I am not scared.

I didn’t mean to kiss you. But it was not bad.

Your-

A heavy drop of blood rolled down your lips and splashed against the scrap of paper. Your last one. As the things were rushing now, you couldn’t even ask Ori for a replacement.

Who even cared?

You tied the string around the pigeon’s neck carefully. Something told you it was the last time you did that.

“Go.”

You wanted to cower under his stare. He was not like you remembered at all. The eyes narrowed in anger, the jawline sharper and outlined more cruelly.

“So…You’re an Elf-Friend now?”

It wasn’t in the least the happy reunion you’d imagined to yourself.

“Your friend, too, then, my Minstrel,” you tried to mellow his temper with a smile, but it didn’t work. It couldn’t have worked with the way he kept scorching you alive with this disdain.

“You’re not,” he spat out, flinching back at your attempt to approach him.

Very well. You had your pride, too. It’s not like you had ever needed the friendship with a handful of faceless letters on a torn piece of parchment.

“If you wish.”

The next thing you knew were his hands, digging into your shoulders so hard that bruises were just a matter of minutes for you. He shook your whole body twice, with a furious murmur in some distorted kind of Elvish, and let go, as though touching you was the last thing he had expected himself to do.

“I thought that you…” he drew in a heavy breath and went on, with about as much success, “I thought…”

“I didn’t, Lindir.”

You felt it happening too late. The world filled with the steely smell of blood. You choked on it, just as usually, and coughed, lowering your head to let it flow freely. You were not fond of what swallowing it brought on.

The red blots painted the floor with a pattern that was always new and curious.

A sigh of exasperation reached your ears.

“Oh, please,” Lindir exhaled tiredly.

He had nice handkerchiefs. At least the one he had run against your mouth and chin. And his hands could be tender.

And he had gone a long way in kissing. That was the last thing you could think of clearly, when his lips brushed against yours and he returned the favour you’d done for him that sunny Rivendell afternoon a long time ago.

“Now,” being so close to him was still a novelty, but the one you couldn’t but welcome, “Where’s my ballad?”

Lindir chuckled, tightening his arms around you not to let you slip off his lap.

The golden fountains were singing their soft, honeyed songs…

And you wanted one, too.

“Forgive me, my dear Muse, but your writing abilities are not to be boasted of. What was I to do with your missives?”

“So that’s how you’re honouring our deal?”

“I’m agonizing in shame,” drawled he with no shame written on his face whatsoever.

You furrowed your brow and drew yourself up, straddling him more securely.

“You’re forcing me to take drastic measures,” you said, a threat in your voice.

“Do,” invited he through a smile.

Unhurriedly, taking your precious time, you wrapped your fingers around the brooch at his collar and unclasped it in a soft motion.

The sound he swallowed was sharp, as you skimmed your lips against his neck and had the kiss linger to make your point clearer.

“It’s either a ballad or else,” you purred into his ear, “Don’t you hate being in so much debt, my dear Minstrel?”

“Or else, my Muse,” he whispered back as carelessly, “I find I’m less complaisant that I had thought.”

#lindir x reader #lindir #fotfics #the hobbit: an unexpected collaboration #thauc22 #ok #that was horrible #except for the art #the art is an eye-candy #thank you!

139 notes · View notes