Twilight was a golden haze among the canopy of mellyrn branches, the pale blue of the sky slowly deepening until it would give in to darkness. Erendil rose and twinkled between the flickering leaves, hidden and revealed in his eternal journeys by the vagaries of the sweet evening breeze dancing through the foliage.
It was a time for rest, a place for healing. Weariness and fatigue slid away like unneeded burdens under the pale sky, and the mind found repose in peaceful quiet, in the songs of long-lost love drifting to them from deep in the woods, where the first silver lamps of Caras Galadhon were being lit.
Aragorn's eyes followed the sailing of his forefather into the glowing sky. The light of the last Silmaril would endure for ever, the hard-won wergild for Luthien, a token of love that had been paid with life, eternity willingly exchanged for a mortal love.
Its light was beautiful, and it pierced the heart as it did the dark seas of the night.
He remembered plighting his troth to Arwen Undomiel nigh this very place: long years had passed, yet Cerin Amroth had not changed. It still was a place out of time, out of memories of Ages for ever lost in the West, where time had run differently, free of the tides of Moon and Sun.
His eyes, his fingers still recalled how perfect her beauty was; how that day, in the thin light of dawn, she had seemed to him as if not of this world, and how his heart had swelled whilst he looked upon her face. She had looked back with bright eyes, and forsook immortal destiny for his sake.
He wondered whether she was heading to the Havens even now, or whether she would wait for him, as she had said she would: it seemed impossible that she would not, and then hideous that she would, a choice for him between love and guilt. Both carried a burden that at times felt too heavy to bear.
He did not doubt her love, no more than he doubted his own for her, yet whatever her choice, she was no Luthien, and he, no Beren: they would have the years of his mortal life to spend together; and no more. Their spirits would be sundered in the end, hers to depart and not come back until the world was made anew, when she would be reborn unchanged but a little. And he... he would sleep alone; and, if that was to be, he would awake alone.
And in the world of Men, they would never meet again.
Loss was the gift of Ilvatar to mortal Men: loss, and change. It was the doom appointed to them, and more so, it appeared, to the children of restless Erendil, descendants of fair, brave Luthien, mortal and immortal alike. They would be parted; and he loved her all the more for their time was measured, finite.
"You are thoughtful," Boromir quietly said.
Stirred out of his thoughts, Aragorn bowed his head briefly in acknowledgment, and turned to look upon his companion. They were lying together on the gentle slope of Cerin Amroth, resting undisturbed on the soft moss covering the forest floor, among the deep green grass beneath the trees.
He lifted himself up on one braced elbow, looking down into Boromir's face; the Evenstar pendant swayed gently on his chest as he moved, gleaming softly in the fading light. Boromir was silent under his gaze: he looked as if clad in the shades and colours of the setting Sun, deep gold and blood-red and the pale green of the last light upon the highest leaves.
This Man... He was a mortal Man; he was what Aragorn was. It felt not wrong for them to be in Cerin Amroth together, to lie together thus, for under the eternal light of Erendil, in the unchanging, timeless beauty of the Golden Wood, where no shadows could dwell, Boromir burned as warm as a flame: he made living shadows out of that immortal light, giving the night its many different shapes. Boromir did not fear to tread upon unknown paths into the waiting darkness of life, for he was unencumbered by the weight of eternity.
Boromir's light defined what Aragorn had found in himself, and gave it completeness: with this man, Aragorn's mortal spirit was whole, and did not fear the journey ahead.
There was a chill in the cool evening air; the shadows lengthened. Aragorn banned every feeling of loss resolutely from his mind, for this was not the place to let despair win, nor the time.
"Forgive me," he murmured, leaning down a little. "I was thinking of stars, and songs." It was truthful enough.
Boromir smiled, brushing back one lock of hair from Aragorn's brow with the back of his fingers.
"Noble things," he said, and there was no hint of jest or mockery in his voice. Aragorn remembered the tales Boromir had gifted him with, tales of the beloved brother he had left in the White City, and had no need for wonder.
His eyes never leaving Boromir's, he shifted to capture Boromir's lingering hand in his own, and brought it down to his face, the sword-calloused palm rough and strong against his skin. Boromir's fingers curled around his cheek, a caress as tender as any Aragorn could have wished for.
"Will you sing, my lord?" Boromir asked, his eyes deep and bright, his voice quiet, filled with a warmth that they had never tried to name, or to speak aloud of. "Will you sing for me?"
A muted, far-away thunder, as the distant echo of falling waters, muted for a moment all of Aragorn's senses, drowning out the last golden light of the day in the greyness of winter skies, in the loud rushing of the river; the strong hand cradling Aragorn's neck, long fingers tangled gently in his hair, all of a sudden felt heavy, chillingly cold.
Night fell in Lothlorien, deep blue and silver under the magnificent boughs.
"Not today," Aragorn whispered, and taking Boromir's hand he pressed a kiss in the centre of its palm, feeling the warmth of life pulsing under his lips; then he tugged on Boromir's hand, rolling them over so that Boromir would lie half on top of him, amidst the elanor and niphredil blinking pale gold and white like unveiled stars in the grass, among the fallen leaves of past springs. Boromir willingly complied, his fair hair and shining green eyes hiding the darkening sky from Aragorn's sight.
Aragorn lifted his hands to tangle his fingers in the golden strands, using the grip to guide Boromir's mouth down on his own: it was not a hard grip, yet neither was it gentle. And Boromir's kiss responded to this unspoken urgency, for it soon turned dark and hungry, and it kindled in Aragorn's blood a fiery passion. He ran his hands all over the strong body covering him, kiss merging into kiss, into a building frenzy of lips and tongues and teeth, of tangling hands and legs and harsh breathing; and at last he freed one hand and brought it down where it most desired to go, to tug impatiently at the lacings of Boromir's breeches. He let his legs part then, let Boromir come to rest in the curve of his hips, hardness finding hardness. Boromir took his mouth away with a low growl, his hand joining Aragorn's to free them both of all constraints.
"As my King commands," Boromir breathed, in answer to the look in Aragorn's eyes, his voice rough and hot like burning smoke, drifting into Aragorn's soul, scalding, blinding him. Aragorn willed his eyes to stay open and looked into Boromir's face, lips reddened and glistening, eyes as dark as the night; and it seemed to him that it was right that he should lie thus, under this man, seeing him from below: for this way no cold shard of unknown fears would pierce his heart, and Boromir was warm, burning hot and blessedly alive in his arms, keeping him firmly down on the soft ground, in the heart of Elvendom in Middle-earth, where life and beauty would never fade, but pass on to more.
He fastened his mouth to Boromir's, willing them to share breath and life, clinging to him in the deepening dark, and when at last the pain came, sweet, anticipated pain, it was the fleeting discomfort of a moment, not the frightening grief of eternity, and he accepted it gladly, his breath catching in his throat with the beauty of it, the joy of it, for he guided and welcomed the strength of this noble, valiant, proud man--his Steward, his rightful Steward--in his own flesh and soul, and there he kept him safe, for this brief time.
As the King should.
They clung together in the swaying grass, rocking gently at first, and then it was as if desperation took them and Aragorn was pinned down and possessed, and Boromir's fast breathing came as muffled sobbing that the wind carried away.
Their cries echoed softly in the night, Aragorn cried out first and Boromir soon after, tumbling down from high into each other. Afterwards they lay there for a while still, unmoving, looking deep and wonderingly into one another's eyes, watching each other breathe and hide nothing, twin pledges passing unspoken between them, in the living quiet of the starlit wood that needed no words, nothing more than the lingering touch of hand to hand to reveal the truth of feelings.
On the verge of sleep and dream, with Boromir tucked safely into his arms, it seemed to Aragorn that the fearful sound of the great waterfall was back, and that he lay alone in the woods, his arms empty, his chest cold, his heart hurting with the fatal wound of absence; tears of mourning were in his eyes, and a song of passing still echoed in his ears, over the falling of the waters.
And then seagulls cried, and he remembered that Boromir's hair had smelled of the long-forgotten promise of the Sea; and wandering from dream into dream, he perceived a twilight of strange stars wheeling overhead, and opened his eyes onto a strange land.
He was lying in a golden meadow full of sunlight, tall white flowers dancing in a gentle wind. A faint knowledge was in him of having come to this place across many waters, of having passed over the Sea; and a man was looking down at him, his face new and his manner unfamiliar; yet Aragorn would have known those eyes though a thousand Ages of the world had come and gone.
He tried to blink awake and smile. "You are here," he murmured, hearing himself speak the soft words in an unknown speech, and even his own voice sounded strange to his ears. Yet he knew what he had said; and when the man answered, shaking his head with laughing eyes, he knew what was truly being said, beyond the idle meaning of the unknown words.
A sign like and yet unlike the White Tree was engraved onto the man's vambraces, and he reached out and tugged softly, with a startling intimacy, on Aragorn's hair, and spoke again, in the same strange language. Aragorn felt the familiarity of emotions and feelings swell in his soul, as he listened to the man's voice.
I missed you, he wanted to say: All this time. I missed you every instant before we met.
But the words stayed quiet inside his heart; and he felt that this sudden knowledge would soon fade, as though it were no more than the misty edge of a half-forgotten dream.
At last the man smiled and sat down beside him in the grass, as if prepared to keep watch while Aragorn rested. He did not touch him again, yet Aragorn did not mind. He was there: Aragorn watched him glow with warmth and life, a tender light dancing in the beloved green eyes. He would be there when Aragorn awoke.
"Viggo," the man said softly, a smile like a shy kiss in the word, marking it somehow as more important than all others; and Aragorn fell back to sleep, the word vague and faint as if heard across the sundering Sea, over silver trumpets singing high in the clear air of the morning, calling him back.
In the timeless magic of Cerin Amroth the dream faded away; the tides of time closed over it. Forgetfulness was already coming to Aragorn in his sleep, yet for one sharp moment of clarity death held no sway on him: the knowledge burned in his heart, stronger than hope, and his soul shone brighter for its flame. Asleep, he tightened his arms around Boromir, feeling their hearts beat together in a shared rhythm. Then he loosened their embrace again, releasing all fears.
Be at peace, his own voice from the dream said; and a restful quiet came into his heart. In this world or the next, over distant shores, they would meet again.
He did not fear the journey.
Summary: Aragorn wonders if he is destined to awake alone for ever.
Rated: R
Categories: LOTR FPS Pairing: Aragorn/Boromir
Warnings: NoneChallenges:
Series: NoneChapters: 1 Completed: Yes
Word count: 2190 Read: 1069
Published: 01 Aug 2009 Updated: 01 Aug 2009