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The jab in her gut woke Arwen with a start.
Her eyes snapped open, consciousness rushing in all at once: the dark room, the dim light of moonbeams through the fine canopy of her bed, the heavy breathing of her husband beside her. It was all strange these days – as strange as waking and sleeping: her sight and hearing were still sharper than Aragorn’s, but they felt duller every day, as though some clarity were slipping away from her as quickly as the seconds spilling through her fingers. And the tiredness, the need for sleep every night, the shroud over her eyes that pulled her under –
The sudden emergence from it, nothing like the step between reverie and wakefulness.
It was not uncommon for her to wake in the middle of the night, disturbed by blurred dreams she could not remember, threads of deeply-buried memories stirred at last into wakefulness – or roused by an unfamiliar shiver of chill or wave of warmth. But this – this was different.
Another stab of pain assailed her, like a hot needle flashing its way through her abdomen like a piece of cloth, and she tensed against it, curling forwards around her belly and holding her breath to stifle a grunt of pain.
It was no use. Aragorn was the lightest mortal sleeper Arwen had ever known – lighter than even her, these days, as her body learned the ways of mortal sleep – and he stirred beside her, alert instantly. “Arwen?” he whispered. “Meleth?”
But that needle had returned, on its way back through the cloth of her stomach in a second, slightly less intense, flare of pain; she could not speak yet. She let out a tight hiss of breath, felt the chill of sweat break out over her brow. What was this unfamiliar agony? Was this another of those unexpected pangs of mortality – the way her head had ached as never before after those first two sleepless nights; the way her lips and fingers had stiffened after hours in the cold night without a cloak? And yet –
“Arwen,” said Aragorn, more urgently now. “What is wrong, my love? Tinúviel, can you sing?”
A strangled laugh escaped her at that, in the ebb of the spasm; she let out the rest of her held breath in a shaky exhale. “I can try,” she said, though she dared not relax from her tightly-clenched position. “I am – it is” – She hated confessing them, these strange mortal aches. It was such a change from the days he had returned to her, weary in body and soul, after long forays in the wilderness, the way he would rest his head in her lap as she combed her fingers through his hair and sang to him to ease his sorrows. Always she had been his comfort, and it rankled now, to know how often she must rely on him. And yet –
The pain swelled again, and this time she could not restrain a low moan.
Aragorn’s hands came to settle on her shoulders: long hands, deft-fingered in a way that had so surprised and delighted her on their wedding night and many nights after – but now she could feel them practically tingling with power, something left to him perhaps by her own father: that inexplicable comfort. “Are you in pain?” he asked – the voice of a healer, now, not a lover.
“Yes,” she managed to croak. “But it is – I do not understand. I have not wounded myself, and yet I ache as though someone has thrust a dagger through my belly.” Her cheeks warmed with the words, with the confession. “Is this some mortal ailment I have never known?”
“I wonder . . .” Aragorn’s hands rubbed at her shoulders: down, then back up, in gentle soothing motions. “In your belly, you say? I have never treated such a thing, but I have heard that some mortal women are affected thus on their monthly cycles. Perhaps this is new for you?”
“Monthly – oh.” Arwen’s hand did not fly to her mouth only because she could not release her clutch at her abdomen. She had heard of this before, yes, though she had never experienced it – mortal women could not choose their time of fertility as could elves, and so their bodies prepared anew every month, creating a lining that would be shed when it was no longer useful –
Arwen remembered the gift of herbs that an old healer-woman had given her some days ago with an exaggerated wink that she had not understood, and now she wondered –
The pain eased again, enough to draw in a breath, so she inhaled deeply through her nose. Her sense of smell was yet strong, and she ran the scents through her mind: the fresh linen of the sheets; the sweat-wood-herbs scent of Aragorn’s skin; the tinge of smoke from chimneys in the city – and a rusty, metallic tang.
Blood.
Oh.
Reluctantly, she loosened her grip on her own arms and hips – enough to free her right hand. That hand she slid slowly down her body: over her stomach, between her thighs, and then –
Her fingers came away sticky.
Oh.
Her heart sank to join the throbbing in her abdomen. Monthly cycle. But with all the strength of will she possessed, she made herself withdraw her hand, bring her fingers to her nose, just to ensure there could be no mistake.
There it was: sticky, dark against her skin. The color could not be made out in the darkness of the room, but the smell was unmistakable, this close.
“New indeed,” she managed to say past the sudden swelling in her throat. Her eyes stung, and she knew not whether it came from pain or dismay.
Monthly? Monthly? She knew what this cycle entailed – she knew it would last for days, that these pains might be present for any of that time. She knew that she would need to brew medicines to drink during this time. She knew that her fertility was no longer her own to choose.
She knew what this cycle entailed, but she had not thought –
Perhaps she had dared to hope that this one thing would not be taken from her when mortality swept down over her, stole her family and her future and the soundness of her body and the sacredness of her dreams. Perhaps she had dared to hope that this one thing might be something she could choose.
“Arwen,” Aragorn said behind her, and she realized she was weeping, tears streaming freely down her cheeks at last, her breath coming in tiny hitches of misery. She curled forward around her aching stomach and wondered if the dagger might not have been less painful.
“Arwen.” His arms were around her, his head nestled into the crook of her neck. She could feel the scratch of his stubble between her shoulder blades, the imprint of his nose against her shoulder, the flutter of his eyelashes as he blinked. “Arwen, my love. I am so sorry.”
Could he know what he apologized for? Was it sympathy for her pain, or did he understand the bitterness of this moment? Could he possibly understand how it felt to be – to be nothing but a mortal woman, reduced to their helplessness and their frailty, with nothing but her husband to cling to and a life she had given up for him? Or did he understand perfectly well, and he apologized for it?
“It was my choice,” she choked through tears, and she did not know whom she spoke to – him, in reassurance? Herself, as reminder? Or in defiance, somehow, to that power that refused to grant her joy without heartbreak? “It was my choice.”
“Yes,” said Aragorn gently, “but that does not mean you should have had to make it.”
The words were surprising enough that she turned, wriggled in his arms to face him. He loosened his hold, and when she had settled nose to nose with him, she saw that his eyes too were gleaming with tears.
“I would do it again,” she said thickly, but more tears spilled over her cheeks even as she said it.
“And I would wish the same again.” He kissed her damp cheek, the touch of his lips like a blessing. “And yet I could not wish that you would be anywhere other than in my arms.”
“Nor I you,” she choked, and buried her head in his shoulder.
He held her for long moments, both of them heedless of the prints her bloodstained fingers were leaving on the sheets, of the slow seep between her legs. Monthly cycle. It was not the pain – or, not only the pain; it was so much more, so much she could not put into words.
“We will go to the healers in the morning,” he said at last, when her tears had run dry, when the wracking sobs no longer shook her body. “Mortal women know of remedies for this; we will speak to them and find something that will bring you comfort – and bring both of us safety.”
Yes. Mortal women knew of remedies – that was true. Mortal women faced this every month, and they knew how to care for themselves and one another. Again Arwen remembered the look in the healer’s eyes – the spark of mischief. She knew. She would help.
“Yes,” she said softly into the damp patch she had left on his nightshirt. “Of course.”
Mortal women. She had never felt more mortal than she did in this moment – more vulnerable, more helpless. And yet, mortal women survived this. Mortal women lived no lesser lives than the one Arwen had always imagined she would lead. She had chosen Aragorn; she had chosen the life of a mortal woman – and what she had said was true; she would do it again.
But still, in this moment, the choice felt as bitter as the tang of her own blood on the air.