Log; Ongoing

[somanytitles.livejournal.com]

When; Tuesday, July 29th; Evening
Rating; PG
Characters; Aragorn (somanytitles  ) and Arwen (consecrat  )
Summary; After wandering the forest for much of the morning and afternoon, Aragorn meets up with Arwen.
Log;

Thanks to several kind strangers, or rather their voices, Aragorn now had something of an idea to the situation that he found himself. The voices spoke of a city, or the City rather, but the Ranger had more pressing matters to look after before he looked into this City.

He had set out from Rivendell as a member of a Fellowship. A group of nine companions bound heart, body, and mind in a single purpose; to see the destruction of the One Ring. Whatever force had pulled him here it at best had no care for his mission and at worst actively sought to keep him from completing it.

It was entirely possible that the others had been pulled away as well and were wandering this forest, much as he was. He had been searching for signs of them for some time and in that time he had learned that the woods were inhabited by a variety of creatures, some as harmless as a hare and others were monsters unlike any he had seen before. It was no difficulty though for him to avoid such creatures and continue on his way searching for his lost companions. It was unlikely that he would see any sign of Legolas, should the elf be wandering the forest too, so Aragorn decided he could best alert his friend to his presence with a song.

Shouting the elf's name would only draw the monsters to him but a simple song in the Elven tongue would calm any beast within range to hear it and let Legolas, or any other allies nearby, know that he was about. The song itself need not be important, merely the tongue that it was sung in. And so his mind, as it always did when given a moment to pursue its own course, went to Arwen. Aragorn recalled the day he had first seen her, he had been singing then, thinking that his words had summoned Luthien to him. The Tale of Beren and Luthien seemed even more appropriate to the situation he and Arwen now shared, but it was not something he would regret. Never would he regret a situation where he and Arwen were betrothed.

Smiling to himself Aragorn began to sing softly, the words rolling easily off his tongue despite the Elven nature.

The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tinúviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.

There Beren came from mountains cold,
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled
He walked alone and sorrowing.
He peered between the hemlock-leaves
And saw in wonder flowers of gold
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,
And her hair like shadow following.

Enchantment healed his weary feet
That over hills were doomed to roam;
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.
Through woven woods in Elvenhome
She lightly fled on dancing feet,
And left him lonely still to roam
In the silent forest listening.

He heard there oft the flying sound
Of feet as light as linden-leaves,
Or music welling underground,
In hidden hollows quavering.
Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,
And one by one with sighing sound
Whispering fell the beachen leaves
In the wintry woodland wavering.

He sought her ever, wandering far
Where leaves of years were thickly strewn,
By light of moon and ray of star
In frosty heavens shivering.
Her mantle glinted in the moon,
As on a hill-top high and far
She danced, and at her feet was strewn
A mist of silver quivering.

When winter passed, she came again,
And her song released the sudden spring,
Like rising lark, and falling rain,
And melting water bubbling.
He saw the elven-flowers spring
About her feet, and healed again
He longed by her to dance and sing
Upon the grass untroubling.

Again she fled, but swift he came.
Tinúviel! Tinúviel!
He called her by her elvish name;
And there she halted listening.
One moment stood she, and a spell
His voice laid on her: Beren came,
And doom fell on Tinúviel
That in his arms lay glistening.

As Beren looked into her eyes
Within the shadows of her hair,
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored shimmering.
Tinúviel the elven-fair,
Immortal maiden elven-wise,
About him cast her shadowy hair
And arms like silver glimmering.

Long was the way that fate them bore,
O'er stony mountains cold and grey,
Through halls of ireon and darkling door,
And woods of nightshade morrowless.
The Sundering Seas between them lay,
And yet at last they met once more,
And long ago they passed away
In the forest singing sorrowless.

[ooc: Italics = Quenya.]

Comments

[consecrat.livejournal.com]

The clearing in the forest where now stood the foundation of a cottage was her refuge on nights like these, when the chill of the night pressed too harshly against her skin. She begrudged even the short hours of sleep each night, for their time was short and lesser still it became. Only the stars brought comfort to her, though they were strange to her memory.

She lay on her back, her face to the jewels in the sky. She must seem so small to them, a bright figure upon a blanket of dark hair like shadow. A tiny light among the darkness of the forest. Will her people remember her when they passed away to the West? Will the children of Men remember her when Elves no longer walk the lands? How small she must seem to this world.

A shiver ran through her as a breeze passed by the clearing. It scattered her thoughts.

There is a new wind in the trees.

There was a voice carried by the breeze, but it did not signal danger. Hope was growing in her heart though she tried to ignore it still. Swiftly she was on her feet, running through the thickets without a sound. It was also summer when she first beheld him crowned by the sun, with a light in his eyes that no stars could ever match. But could it be? Could it be?

Though this be a dream, it was be a pleasant one nonetheless.

When the voice was clear enough that she could hear each word, hope shone out of her like a light sudden unveiled. She knew and loved that voice wherever she might hear it. In the distance he was a dark figure against the soft glow of the evening, but she knew and loved that figure.

Gingerly, afraid the dream might escape her, she stepped out of her hiding place behind the trees and into his path. Her feet was bare, her grey dress reaching only to her knees and she had no adornment beside, but there was love in her eyes and she knew she was ever more beautiful to him than if she had a queen's crown on her head.

"Edhelharn."

[somanytitles.livejournal.com]

As it happened years ago, Aragorn wondered if what he saw before him was merely something created in his own mind's eye. Back then he thought that nothing could be as fair as the vision standing before him. Even amongst the Elves such beauty was unheard of.

Now, he wondered if this meant that he truly was dreaming. A part of him yearned for it to be her standing there but still part of him wondered if this was not some trick to make him forsake his duty to the Fellowship.

No, this was Arwen before him. Beauty like hers could not be faked, nor the way she made him feel. And more than that, Aragorn sensed that it was her, his heart and his spirit told him that this was Arwen, this was his betrothed.

"Lady," he whispered, feet bringing him almost unconsciously to her. "Tell me that my heart does not deceive me and that it is truly you standing before me?"

[consecrat.livejournal.com]

She answered his question not, for she too had no answer save that she would give the world for this to be true. On light feet, she crossed the distance between them. With her eyes she searched him, and her conviction grew at every step she took. She halted before her last step, for it seemed there was a glass between them that she could not yet pass. It might shatter if she touched it, or it might prove to be false and prove her hopes true.

She opened her mouth as if to speak, but halted, before steeling herself against her anxieties. "They say a meeting is more difficult than a parting." The words fell to the ground as they left her lips; dead. She did not mean them. A parting is ever more difficult than a meeting.

Yet she looked up at his face, for all her height he was still the taller. And for all her doubting, what was true was true. She pressed her hand through the illusion of a glass and placed it over his heart. The warmth of it could sear her hands if she let it, and it beat strongly under her palm, like her own.

[somanytitles.livejournal.com]

"There are no partings between us, lady," he said, taking his own rough, calloused hand and placing it over her smooth skin. Her hand over his heart was merely a symbolic gesture, because it was already hers.

Perhaps that is why he had no fear of the One Ring's power, that it might overtake him. It had nothing to do with the blood of Númenor that flowed in his veins and everything to do with this woman. The Ring corrupted and twisted you heart and soul, but his heart and soul did not belong to him but to Arwen.

"Merely times when the part of you I carry in my heart is separated from the rest of you."

[consecrat.livejournal.com]

He is a fool who thinks he can handle truth like it was a toy!

She knew now that the truth of his hand over hers had overcome her, the comfort of its weight echoed everywhere around her. Truth is this moment, truth is this. Arwen closed the gap between them with one step. Questions there were in the back of her mind, but they were no longer important.

Closing her eyes, for there was no longer any need to be alert of any dangers of perturbations, she breathed in his very scent. How it still brought warmth to her face and tingling in her chest.

"Never have I been separated from you, Dúnadan, for ever you are with me."

There were words left unsaid, for they have been proclaimed too loudly to be uttered again by any mere voice. She meant, and I am with you always. For in her heart is him and in his heart is her. She meant, all is made the better now that you are here. She meant, how the sight of your face is more beautiful than any dawn!

She meant, I love you.

But they need not be said.

[somanytitles.livejournal.com]

"I still know not what this place is but if it has brought us together it cannot be all that bad," he told her, knowing full well what was unspoken between them and agreeing that it did not need to be said. It was something felt.

"Is it true what they say of this place?" Aragorn asked, reaching out to brush his fingertips along her cheek, tucking a lock of hair behind a delicate ear.

"That it is a nexus of worlds and that we are brought here at random, stranded until it decides to send us home?"

[consecrat.livejournal.com]

Arwen smiled at his touch, leaning the side of her face against him. This was for which she had given away her immortality, and if there were more still she had to give then surely she would. If this second was all she had then her life had been worth living.

"I no longer wish now to go home."

She spoke carefully, for words may be sharper than knives, "Though I know that you must." She bit back her next words, weighing them against the ones she has uttered. "And I must learn to be unselfish."

[somanytitles.livejournal.com]

"It is only for a time," he assured her. And it was, Aragorn had faith in the Fellowship, in his companions, that they would do what they set out to accomplish. Then he would return to Arwen. There were other matters that needed to be taken care of, of course. But next to the task of the Fellowship and in the face of who Arwen was, they seemed insignificant.

"And while we are here we can make the most of that time was well," Aragorn promised. "My duty drives me to find an escape from this place for both of us, but that does no necessitate that I look past the gift I have been given."

[consecrat.livejournal.com]

This she has never said: that she felt herself dying the moment she pledged herself to him. She could hear an hourglass suddenly tilted, the sand whistling through as it escaped her. Since then she has measured her time greedily, a minute for a bar of gold, and she despised times wasted on frivolities. It made her the wiser yet the more miserable. But it would be a waste of time itself if these moments too she priced, for surely even ten thousand bars of gold are still inadequate for each of these seconds.

So she closed her eyes, focusing her senses only to his heartbeat. There was nothing to fear nor anything to cause her anxiety now that he was here. All was well.

"None could love me as you do, and so none shall love you as I do," she promised in return. "Whatever you choose, I have chosen."

[somanytitles.livejournal.com]

"And I promise to every day strive to be worthy of that love," Aragorn replied. The heir of Isildur meant it. While others might marvel at her beauty or wisdom Aragorn knew he saw and understood her as no one else did.

And who else could say that she had been willing to give up an eternity of that beauty and wisdom for a short span of human years? Aragorn could never have asked such a thing from her but she had been willing to freely give it. The only thing that saddened him is that he had nothing of equal value to give in return.

"And I have chosen you. All the duty and honor in the world cannot keep us apart for long, my lady. We were meant to be."

[consecrat.livejournal.com]

She smiled inwardly, for if she smiled every smile he gave her then her lips should be fixed ever in an upturned curve. Yet that was not a dire fate by any sense. So Arwen took a step back and smiled up to him. If she could only show him how happy he has made her, she would, for this he has done for her.

Gently, she traced the side of his face, noting all the raw wounds and fading scars, as if she could heal them if she put them into her memory. They were so many. She was wise enough to know that not all wounds heal, but she loved him enough to wish they never happened.

Softly and gently, she cupped his face in her hands, bowing his head and planting a kiss on his brow. She was no Lúthien to charm him into darkness so as to keep him safe, nor was she Idril to fight with him with drawn sword. She was merely Arwen, but she hoped her blessing was enough to keep him safe, and her love enough to keep him strong.

[somanytitles.livejournal.com]

Aragorn inclined his head slightly, the rough planes and angles of his face nuzzling the soft skin of Arwen's hand. Her touch was one that could send his heart racing and calm his mind all with one simple gesture. Never had he known a woman so complex and so wonderful. She was truly unique amongst all of Eru's creations. And surely the fairest.

He raised his own hands to hers as they cupped his cheeks. The kiss on his forehead felt warm long after her lips no longer pressed against his skin and the Ranger wished that the feeling would never fade. He would carry every touch she ever gave him if he could.

"I think it is not coincidence that brought us both to this strange place."