Starlight
by Twinkledru J.

The streams shimmer and sparkle in the starlight, as though there were hidden lights in their depths. They trick one, for they are mere streams, no deeper than one's ankles in most places. The moonlight makes them ithildin, and he would be hard-pressed to decide when they are most beautiful: in the stars, or in the sunlight, when they are honest and simple waters.

Water flows through the lands now, and there is plenty, and none are thirsty.

Aragorn is nearly always the last to fall asleep each night, and he loves the sight of the moonlight on his lovers. That is why he likes best to sleep on the end, the western end of the room (whether they are in the palace at Minas Tirith or his childhood home Imladris).

The light gleams on the Lady Arwen, on her dark rainfall of hair, and even on the moonless, cloudy nights, her pale skin seems to glow dimly.

Sometimes his Queen lies beside him, between her two Men, who were born mortal and made greater through her love. Sometimes it is Boromir who lies between his King and Queen.

Aragorn loves too the way that Boromir is still, in many ways, so very human, that his body is shadowed in the right places. Sometimes he loves it more than Arwen's almost-glow, just as sometimes he loves more that Boromir's skin does not glow, and that it is warmer.

For Arwen's skin is warm, but Aragorn thinks also that there is a coolness to it.

Perhaps, though, that is simply his imagination, half-panicked dreams fueled by the plain golden band that she wears on her finger, which never seems to be warm. The Ring shines in all light, and when there is no light for it to shine by, it makes its own.

Her hair is a stream, her body is a river, and Arwen's voice and hands are the sea, and she is dark and glitters in the starlight.

 

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