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When first he came to the ford of the Bruinen and was met before the house, Aragorn felt no more than the usual weariness and anticipation of its relief. But soon he found reason to be nervous, for Elrohir was in Rivendell and had come out to meet him; and he told Aragorn, smiling, that Arwen was in residence.
“Oh,” said Aragorn, and knew to his shame that he blushed. For it seemed to him to be the case that to be loved by Arwen in Lothlórien, dressed in fine attire by her grandmother and walking beneath the crowns of golden leaves that adorned its trees, was one thing. To be met by her in her father’s house, riding in from the wilderness in stained clothing, weary from the road and none too pleasant in smell, was another. Too, Arwen might have thought better of choosing him, nearly fifty years of age and still by her counting and experience the barest youth...
“Fear not that Arwen is fickle!” said Elrohir. “She is accustomed enough to the road herself. But you have time for a bath first. I think she will not hunt you down for ambush.”
This did not help Aragorn’s blush, but nevertheless he thanked Elrohir, and again for taking charge of his horse, and went on inside.
There he found Elrohir had been half correct. For the baths of Rivendell were empty at this time of day, and Aragorn had a chance to wash the worst of the dirt from himself in privacy, at least. He was seated in the hot water, head rested back against the wall, and considering what to say when he went to Arwen, and perhaps worse, to Elrond, to whom he had not spoken since he and Arwen had pledged their love; when there came footsteps at the door.
It might have been any of the elves of the valley, or some guest, but it wasn’t. Arwen’s delighted laugh was familiar. “Estel!” she said, and put her head in, and rapidly Aragorn sat up in the water. “I heard you were back!”
She was so lovely. She took his breath away at the first glance, just as the first time, all those years ago. She was also dressed in a heavy gown and not for bathing, which was probably for the best, although Aragorn did not appreciate being the only one unclothed just now. At least he had the bathwater for concealment. “Undómiel,” he said, and disliked the uncertainty in his own voice. “I had meant to come to you shortly.”
“Elrohir told me you were weary of the road,” said Arwen, and the lightness in her voice suggested other things as well. “Very well – I won’t disturb you anymore, now! But come up to my rooms when you’ve finished, before the meal.”
Aragorn swallowed. As they had pledged themselves in Lothlórien, he had not seen Arwen’s private rooms in Rivendell before. In Lothlórien there had been no need for any question of real privacy, for sleeping was done together in the flets, and so none existed. “I will come soon,” he said, and closed his eyes on the sound of her footsteps out.
When he had finished in the bath, and dressed, he climbed the many steps up to the rooms in question, and trepidation built again with every step. He could hardly retreat. Arwen had asked for him, and anyway, the spiraling wooden stairs creaked, so she must know he was on his way. He rounded the final bend, and looked upon the carving of her doorframe a moment, nightingales and athelas and dog rose winding up the sides in dizzying spirals and framing the star centered in the top. Then, as he raised a hand to knock, Arwen called to him within to enter.
Aragorn pushed open the door and looked about. Arwen’s rooms were three, built atop the eastward extension of the house, and they had been often shut up in recent years – recent by elven standards, that was, which was to say longer than the years of his life by far. Now the windows were flung open so that summer air blew up, mixing the scents of the gardens below with the pine trees in the hills, and sunlight broken by the trees mixed likewise with the glow of elven lamps hung in the rafters, for brighter work-light. This front room was crowded with treadle loom and standing loom, needlework frames and work tables, themselves piled high.
Amidst it all sat Arwen on a cushioned bench against the wall, splicing a dark cord with loops at each end. “I’m nearly done!” she said. Her eyes were cast still down toward the work, so that of her face, Aragorn saw a slice of pale cheek against her long black lashes, and all else was veiled by her hair. He came carefully around the treadle loom toward her, just in time to see her take the now-completed cord from its pegs and begin to bundle it, and that two more of its like sat beside her.
“For you, Estel,” she said, in a strange and breathless tone before she passed all three to his hand. Looking closely now he saw that they were bowstrings, just as she said, “My hair.”
“Oh!” he said in sheer surprise, and quickly, “Then I must thank you for the favor, Undómiel.” Even as he stowed the bowstrings in his sash, he seated himself by her and kissed her hand.
Elf hair made for superior bowstrings, as well as a myriad of other uses. It was very strong, and durable over time, and he knew that Elladan and Elrohir used their own hair or each other’s to string their bows. But it was also an intimate gift, even more so than it might seem to Men, and generally one which had to be offered and not requested.
Aragorn knew, too, that elf lovers might gift each other their hair for such uses – or only to keep – but it was a fact he had learned of songs and stories of prior days, not witness. In his lifetime in Rivendell and Lothlórien, he had not had the chance to witness any courtship but theirs.
Arwen smiled at him as he dropped her hand. “I am glad to have someone to give such a favor that you might carry me with you, when you go again,” she said, and cupped his cheek to kiss his mouth.
Aragorn closed his eyes. He had tried, in the first of their affair in Lothlórien, to count her kisses, but found it swiftly impossible. That polite restraint of Arwen’s from the time of their first meeting had fallen away completely, and she had become disinclined now to waste any moment putting off what she wanted. “If we must wait to marry, there is plenty else to do in the meantime!” she had said. It seemed this had not changed, and with her work done for the moment, she pushed him down on his back on the bench.
“Undómiel,” he gasped against her some considerable time later. “Undómiel – there is still the evening meal, tonight—”
“Oh!” Arwen sighed against him. Then she sat up in a ruffle of quickly-righted skirts, and sighed again. “I suppose you are right.”
More slowly Aragorn followed. It was unfair how swiftly she regained control of her breath, and how she smiled at him with no trace of a blush. But he had some small satisfaction of having mussed her hair, and her gown. He reached forward, then, to right the fold of her collar.
Lightly she caught his fingers before he could, and kissed them. “But I had a request in return in mind, which I had quite forgotten—”
“Anything, Undómiel—”
“Careful when you say such things, Estel!” She was laughing again. She dropped his hand to turn to him her back. Sunlight through the window splashed over her face in the movement, and glinted in the embroidery that spanned the neck of her gown. “I have braided some of my hair for you. Now you must braid the rest for me, for I am in no state to go down to dinner! But first, my hair things are in the next room, if you will retrieve them?”
Aragorn swallowed. “Gladly, Undómiel,” he said, and rose.
He was glad for the brief respite to regain his composure, for this, too, was new to him. He had touched her loose hair, and taken out hastily inserted pins to unravel it. But she dressed according to her grandparents’ people in Lothlórien, and did not set it in elaborate braids there. Yet not too restful was his first glimpse of the chamber in which she must sleep, with the imaginings spurred by its wide couch. He turned his eyes to the wooden closet, and the shelf set in the wall where he found brush, comb, and a scattered tangle of pin, ribbon and ornament. These, Aragorn chose from, swallowing when his fingers brushed the loose strands of hair lost in the comb, much the lesser than touching her own hair.
When he returned and settled himself on the bench once more, he put the brush to Arwen’s hair, and felt the slight resistance drawing the bristles through. The scent of flowers rose up from each stroke, iris and something that might be violet, which was different again from Lórien. They must be the oils she used in it, or on her person, and the range of plants available here was not at all the same.
This was the first opportunity he had for close and careful study of her hair, without distraction or obstacle. He found it was not so obviously different from mortal hair, really. He had braided his mother’s hair as a youth, often enough, and that was also thick, long and dark. There was some strange quality to the texture, difficult to identify except that it was smoother than even very straight hair among the Dúnedain. The strands were very fine, and yet strong, without a sign of broken or split strands, and soft against his fingers.
She must have cut the hair for his bowstrings, which vision gave him pause. There was something very affecting about the idea of Arwen setting sheers to locks of hair for him. His mouth was dry. Swiftly he leaned forward and kissed the nape of her neck, and felt the softness of that loose hair against his brow and cheek – but then he straightened again to his work.
Aragorn’s fingers were rough and calloused from the tasks of road and battle, but nonetheless Arwen’s hair did not catch. That must be another difference from mortal hair. Swiftly, the strands ran smooth and untangled again. When he finished brushing it out, he gave into temptation and ran his fingers through the full length, from the crown of her head to the tips, the length of which required pulling it up with his other hand. Arwen sighed, and her shoulders dropped. He gave in further and tugged her hair gently, and watched her shiver. But then he let go.
“You are teasing me, Estel!” she said, and by her voice at least he was not the only one affected.
“We shall be very late for the meal,” said Aragorn, and started to part her hair with the comb. She had given no particular instructions, so he began at each temple and braided along the scalp, taking the excuse to brush her cheek and her ear on each side, and – teasing again – tap one earring to make it chime. He split the braids into more at the nape of her neck for the look of them, spilling over each other, and for the excuse of sitting behind her with his hands in her hair a little longer.
The motions were not very different from making cord, something he often did himself on the road. But Arwen’s hair was soft, dark and glossy where nettle or linen was not, and of more import it was attached to Arwen. So it was a long exercise in self-restraint, to braid to the tips of her hair in the sweet air from the summer garden, head full of Arwen’s hair and skin and the skirts of her gown settled against his legs on the bench, and not divert them from it again to other activities.
“Later!” she said at last – for he had not guarded his thoughts – and turned to kiss only his cheek at the end. When she rose, somewhat to his surprise, she gestured to take his arm. “We shall go down together,” she said, and twined her fingers with his. “I feel no shame over this, Estel! In any case, I must reward you as a superior braider of hair, so that you will continue whenever you return. My father has no time, in these unfortunate days, and my brothers have a tendency to pull it.”
Aragorn laughed, and he held onto her arm all the way to the evening meal despite the narrowness of the stairs down.