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"Descend to me, mild Evening-star
Thou canst glide on a beam,
Enter my dwelling and my mind
And over my life gleam."
Beren came from the mountains blue; he walked with aching feet, dragging his legs through the thickets, following the Elven river as it rolled forth in the landscape. He crossed the border into their forests and forced awareness to pierce his exhaustion; every rustling of the leaves could be an Elf, every snap of sound the recoil of a bow-string. He expected the quiet whistling of an arrow to puncture his chest at each turn.
Sleep tugged at his eyelids, the invitation of rest an attractive appeal. The Elven forests were dark and deep, they promised pillows of thick green moss and a cool-touch embrace, but Beren had promises to keep. His steps beat quicker as night fell, anticipation awakening some strength from somewhere within. The slim crescent moon peered over him, he could almost feel her gaze.
The lapping of waves filled his ears, their own little melody to which he listened intently, as though it was a language they were speaking. He sat in the moss by the water of the lake as it turned black with its surroundings, watching the night Elves drag their dark veils over the sky; first lilac, then blue, then a deep and bottomless shade of non-color. They must have known of his whereabouts, but perhaps such ancient creatures felt no offense at his presence -- the Elves which resided in the sky were immortal beings, rulers of light, the first harmonies of Ilúvatar's song. An arrow of theirs, made of sharpened light beams, would disintegrate a human's body within seconds, burn it so hotly not even smoke or dust remained. The Elves of night and day differed only in name, Beren thought, the light which they wielded originated in the same fire.
A hunter, his ears trained on the shuffling through trees, and the wide doe-eyes of deer greeted him. 'Fret not,' he said to them, their slender forms hesitating, 'those which would pursue you have come and they have gone. I await nothing but a Nightingale.'
And so he noticed, the stars began melting as sugar in a swift moment; a ray of moonlight reflected in the water of the lake. She traveled thus, through reflection, the night sky mirrored in the lakes of the Elven land. Lúthien Tinúviel rose then from the water; water droplets glimmered like pearls as they fell from her, the dark veils of her garments flowing with her steps over the water, spun with thread made of something entirely unknown to him. It seemed the reflection of the night sky had become fabric and stuck to her body. A humming song accompanied her; Elves gave off tones of music as necessarily as they breathed.
'Tinúviel!' Beren called, and she lifted her gaze toward him, her skin softly glowing in the dark. She moved with an inhuman fluidity, veils waving behind her as though floating through water.
He gathered her up in his arms, breathing deep, filling his lungs with that dizzying scent of hers; aromatic, like meadows, like a massive blossoming linden tree. Her body was soft, full, and yet fragile like one of springtime's branches and he felt the overpowering urge to keep that branch from snapping, to protect the flowers from wilting, although her years far outnumbered his.
'Beren,' she breathed, the syllables of his name softening in her voice. Tinúviel's cheeks were blushed with emotion, her eyes seeming like pools of water, deeply glistening. Her face was moon-light, skin nearly like the inside of a sea shell -- a barrier of mother-of-pearl. Admiration allowed him to forget the pain in his soles and the aching of exhaustion.
She gazed with the same enchantment; his skin was warm and smelled of earth and wood, pine needles to keep insects away. She marveled at the way his eyes seemed filled with sunlight -- warm and nearly golden, they could have been stolen from a fawn. At his jawline sprung a beard, like the sprouts of spring, and lush curls crowned his head in a nearly regal way; as foliage, like the thick leaves of an oak tree.
'Sweetness,' he said, 'it seems to me that days do not pass when we are apart.'
Tinúviel's brows knitted together with feigned dismay, 'You are foolish enough to describe me as such, still?' The corners of her mouth pinched upward, and Beren noted the eternal contour of her lips; they were red-stained, like dense bulbs of flowers days away from blooming. He gripped beneath the veil of her head, at the back of her neck, felt how her hair curled a little there. A carnal instinct to kiss her. She sighed into the kiss and he felt her chest press into his, placed a hand in the soft curve of her neck. His fingers burned hotly against her cool skin.
'You are such sweetness, though,' he grinned at her.
'That seems to me the only word you grasp,' she said, coyly meaning to tease him.
'All others fall away when I am beside you,' he responded, already accustomed to her clever retorts.
Tinúviel's starlight glow shined brighter, and Beren laughed, delighted to see this Evening-star burn more ardently by his word. She shyly laid her arms over his. He felt a tingle of pleasure at the softness of her skin against the roughness of his, her white underarm brushing over his upper. 'Oh, what are you?' Beren sighed.
'To define is to limit,' she said absent-minded, 'what is with this place? Dark and heavy clouds gather even over Elven lands, their rain filled with ghosts. In the summer haze, beyond lustrous larkspur are faint sheets of lightning.'
Beren's eyes shifted, something in his features darkening and then forcibly flattening, a mask of normalcy. 'Since the last turn of the moon it has been raining; in the language of your forests, this is considered happiness.'
Tinúviel tilted her head. 'You are correct in thinking I have not visited your lands and have not seen your misery. I do not pretend I understand how torment weighs your mind; we might not think the same, even as we gaze at the same thing, and yet, I will rise to your every shift, I wish to hold your darkness so it becomes distributed differently.'
Beren smiled bitterly. 'Do I taste of war? It seems my mind is always torn apart and rebuilt, a fragile bone after another. I might never be free of this battle.'
'If so your war ends tomorrow or lasts the entirety of existence, it is the same to me. I have fallen so far beyond I know not what to call it.'
'I want nothing other than to protect you. Although my existence is but a moment in comparison to yours...' Beren hesitated. 'It is truly a lonesome thought that you will grow to forget me.'
'It is more lonesome yet,' said Tinúviel, 'that I might live on, with only the memory of you; I become scared at the thought of existence without you. I wish to sink my legs into this rich earth and take root here, entangle myself in you.'
Beren's eyes widened. 'Doom shall fall upon you -- lest you continue such speech!'
'I would doom the world into eternal night and never return to the stars if it so meant a moment more at your side.'
Like flowers, death would come to blossom in Beren's arms as one of the stars became mortal, glistening in his embrace.
Beren grasped at his moonbeam then, in the silent, listening forest. The starlight of her eyes trembled. 'This is nothing, if it is not everything.' In the east, light of dawn began spilling over the blue mountains, marking the end of their night. Sunlight would push the velvety darkness backwards, and with it Tinúviel would be pulled back into the skies.
She inclined with her head. 'My darling, my entire being aches to speak these words: Although to this universe we have been alongside each other for only a moment, I know I love you most ardently, the pulse in my veins could as well be the beating of your own heart. When this world is undone and the dust of it settles, I will find you in the next. Should you put your ear to the sky, you would hear the hum of the heavens, and they would whisper how I love you.' The golden rays of sun began tugging at her, glowing white-hot. 'As stars glimmer, I see the same constellations in the freckles of your skin, your body is built from those exact stars. I envy so the years you have spent without me, the words you have given to anyone besides me. I wish to be allowed to care so softly and yet to forcefully that it returns in time, corrects whatever was knocked off course then...
I try, hard, to show you that love is more than seeing you, and yet I want nothing other than to spend every day by your side, build the walls of a life with you. I need that with no one else. I long for you alone. And when death marks the end of this existence, I want the same flowers to take root in our bones. I love you.'
And so before sunlight stained her, she fled on light feet, leaving him to wander lonely once more.