“Ooo, yellow!”
Erestor could not help but laugh as his husband ran back to the flower cart set up next to one of the little shops. He patiently waited, leaning with his back against one of the light poles that kept the streets of Valimar illuminated in the evenings by candlelight. When Glorfindel returned, he had a bouquet of yellow carnations and cheerful daisies cradled in one arm.
As he slid his free hand around Erestor’s elbow, the dark ellon asked, “What is it about yellow?”
“Hmm? Mmm, smell these, they are delightful,” insisted Glorfindel.
Sniffing the flowers and nodding in agreement, Erestor pressed the question again. “You have a fascination with things that are yellow. Yellow, and pink. Now, I know the house is the Golden Flower, but that is the sun, and it is not gold you are drawn to, but pale, lemony yellow. Your favorite color is green,” he added, in case Glorfindel should try to go that route.
“When I was a little boy,” he began as he and Erestor started to walk down the street once more, “my mother would take me to the seamstress every three or four years to get a new travel cloak. One year, she asked what color I wanted, and after looking at the bolts of fabric, I showed her some yellow material. She was aghast and announced, ‘yellow is for little girls’. I told her, ‘I thought pink was, but if yellow is for girls, may I have pink instead?’”
At this, Erestor burst out laughing. “And I can just picture it in my mind, little you with your wide-eyed innocence asking for a pink travel cloak.”
Grinning, Glorfindel said, “Suffice to say, the cloak was, as always, blue. Always blue, ever blue. Blue, blue, blue. From then on, I wore blue, and white, and black, and dark brown and olive and anything else that was rugged and masculine,” he said, deepening his voice as he said this, making Erestor chuckle again. “So when I came to Gondolin, the first thing I did was buy a new travel cloak.”
“And it was yellow,” said Erestor.
“No, it was purple. Fairly ugly, too, as I recall,” Glorfindel reminisced. “However, it was not blue, and it was the closest thing to pink I could find. So I wore it everywhere, even on hot days.”
“Sweet Eru. I can see you doing that, too,” admitted Erestor. “What happened to it, for I cannot recall an ugly purple cloak when I met you in Gondolin.”
“Ecthelion happened to it,” laughed Glorfindel. “After a few years, he said it was ugliest most awful thing he had ever seen. He had a new one sewn specifically for me, and got rid of the purple one. I think he burned it.”
“And... the new one was...?” Erestor did not assume yellow, and left Glorfindel to fill in the rest.
With a smile, Glorfindel said, “The new one was gold- but, it was lined inside with yellow silk. In the privacy of my own chambers, I often turned it inside out and gleefully wore it when I was home alone.”
Pausing at a crosswalk where horsedrawn carts and carriages passed by, Erestor said, “You are wonderfully silly.”
“Thank you?” Glorfindel leaned against the taller elf and whispered, “I happen to think you delightfully odd yourself.”
Snorting at their strange compliments to one another, Erestor did not begin to walk across the street when Glorfindel did, so the blond had to step back. “Something wrong?”
Erestor bit his lip and loosened the hold the Glorfindel had on him. “Wait right here, darling,” he said, offering a quick kiss on the lips as consolation before disappearing into the crowded traffic, traveling back the way they had come.
Glorfindel attempted patience, but was soon on the tips of his toes, trying to see where his lover had gone to. It was only a short time before he saw Erestor moving back towards him, smiling a little bashfully with one hand hidden behind his back.
“What do you have there?” asked Glorfindel, trying to peer around Erestor’s back. The dark elf sidestepped him and shook his head.
“Kiss me first,” he insisted playfully, and Glorfindel readily did as asked. A moment later, he was presented with another bouquet, this one bursting with a variety of pink and rose colored blooms.
“Oooh, you bought me flowers. That is so sweet… I have to kiss you again,” declared Glorfindel, making good on this promise. “I love you.”
“Love you, too,” Erestor said quietly as Glorfindel inhaled the scent of his flowers. “We had better keep going or we shall be late,” he said, tucking Glorfindel’s arm into his before leading them back on their path, not wanting to attract any further attention because of their public displays of affection on the busiest street corner in all of Valinor.
“I have yellow and pink flowers,” Glorfindel whispered to Erestor as they walked toward Oropher’s Palace.
“Yes, I know,” whispered Erestor back.
Glorfindel took another sniff of their aroma. “You know, pink and yellow are girl colors.”
Leaning closer, Erestor said, “You know, I really do not care. You can have whatever color flowers and cloak and anything else you want, and I just dare anyone to try to stop you.”
“I think I have to kiss you yet again,” said Glorfindel after a few seconds.
Finding a little picket fence to lean back against, Erestor pulled Glorfindel closer, carefully minding the flowers so that they would not be crushed. “Oh, whatever shall I do?” he asked to the heavens, and then smiled at his sweetheart and collected many more kisses.
