Chapter Text
The White Mountains
White light beat in Arwen's eyes. Blinking, she saw through tears a moving blur - ivory against ice - as Eowyn's horse descended the slope ahead.
Old fears always rode with her on these trails. Spots flung in her vision by the dazzling snow too easily became dark smears on it; but Eowyn turned her wind-burnt face encircled in white fur and smiled. Arwen could feel her warmth, that mortal fire she'd sensed first in Aragorn. It is no marvel she was drawn to him; in so many ways they are akin. In this too - I love them both.
[For Makamu, who wanted gen Arwen & Eowyn.]
Another Sea
The world was made of grass and sky, knit together by the wind that pulled Lothiriel's hair across her eyes. Yellow waves as high as her horse's belly rippled away to the horizon, where the mountains far to south and east were smudges less substantial than the thunderheads piled above them. A hawk sailed overhead, its shriek ringing against the vast cloud-streaked bowl of the sky, and the unending scour of the wind echoed the rush of surf on shore. It sounded like home.
"I never thought to find another ocean here," she whispered. Eomer took her hand, and smiled.
[One of Starlight's birthday requests was Eomer & Lothiriel.]
Southland
Child of the temperate north, Arwen has never known heat like this - it strikes to the core of her bones, burns her flesh wherever it is bared. At this searing hour of the day, the sun hangs unmoving and the city of the Haradrim dozes. Sitting under the shadow of the arcade she watches the empty streets, where only flies stir. In the courtyard a bird echoes the liquid note of the fountain.
Beside her Aragorn sleeps on a divan draped with gauze. He has taken to Haradric ways again, and they call him by the name he bore long ago in these lands: Ekiri, the tall one. Looking down at the hair tousled on his pillow, she sees threads of silver woven into the black like the banner of his house. Gently she strokes her fingers through, separating them, and wishes she could so easily untangle the years.
[A drabble and a half for Aeneid's birthday request of Haradrim and/or Fourth Age.]
A Pledge of Good Will
"It is finished," Gimli announced.
Legolas looked up as the dwarf held forth the crystal casket, jointed with gold and set with splendid topazes, that encased the lock of Galadriel's hair. It should have been too rich; yet it was delicate and airy, enhancing the living gold it cradled.
The light of the lust for beauty kindled in Legolas' face. "Now I can almost understand the love of gold."
"We shall make a dwarf of you yet, my friend," Gimli said.
"Nay, Master Gimli, I would say that you are becoming almost elvish. That is craftwork worthy of Celebrimbor himself."
[For Mar'isu, who wanted Gimli & Legolas as friends.]
Posterity
Arwen sits under the White Tree and breathes in its scent. This courtyard – once barren and cold, a reminder of Gondor's decline from past vitality – has become one of the places she most loves. The sapling planted here with hope has thriven. Grown taller than Man or Elf now, it blossoms with starry white flowers that drench the courtyard in heady scent.
The flicker of a smile touches her lips as she rests one hand below her waist. Her mortal choice is truly irrevocable now. Nothing has ever felt so vastly, terrifyingly inevitable.
Aragorn crosses the worn paving stones, nearly running to where she sits. By the look in his eyes she knows that he already guesses the tidings she had intended to tell him. He kisses her brow, her lips, and smiling, he plucks a cluster of flowers from the bough above them and sets it behind her ear. "My white tree. Now we are truly renewed."
[For Sphinx, who wanted "something with Aragorn and Arwen" for her birthday. It's a drabble and a half - I couldn't pare it down to exactly 100 words.]
The Stone City (too little here that grows and is glad)
The baby stops crying and stares at his father, brows crumpled.
"Unfair!" Arwen protests, laughing. "Where did you learn that? I never knew Rangers were nursemaids too."
Aragorn swings Eldarion through the air, trailing strings of chortles. "I saw Halbarad's children nearly as often as he did. And the young Beornings or wood elves were always underfoot."
"I wish Imladris had been so lively." Arwen takes the child back and balances him on her hip.
Aragorn tickles him with the feathery end of her braid. "I promise Eldarion will have more companions," he says mock-solemnly to make her laugh again.
[For Radbooks, who wanted Aragorn "in a fatherly role". The title refers to the way both Legolas and Pippin observe that Minas Tirith seems cold and underpopulated. The part in parentheses is a direct quotation from Legolas.]
Intimations of Mortality
Elves grow older, as by nature all living things must, but they do not age. Arwen's grandmother -- the most ancient elf she knew -- had seen the light of the Two Trees yet appeared little older than the maidens of her household.
Arwen sings to her sleeping daughter, examining the almond-shaped eyelids (so like Galadriel's) and the lashes fanned against her cheeks. Shorter-lived than a tree, still this child will remain in Arda long after her parents.
Now each year passes as a thief. Arwen wishes for the days when she had no need to count them.
*
It should have seemed strange to me that my parents did not age, but it never did -- for every child thinks her parents unique, and by the time I understood mine truly were, I was accustomed to their timelessness. Before my father died, little more than a scattering of grey hairs marked his years; strangers took Mother for my sister, until they met her eyes.
Now he lies on the dais, never to grow older. Mother's age shows in her slow movements though her face is as smooth as always. I fear the time left to her is short.
[A late pair for Dwimordene, who wanted drabbles on the theme of aging -- not just growing older, but aging.]