Aragorn drew in a deep breath of contentment and closed his eyes. He could not recall the last time he had felt so peaceful. Vague, annoying thoughts he had neglected since the beginning of the evening nibbled at the back of his mind, but he was all too content to ignore them for now.

Aragorn could not tell how much time had passed, and he began skirting close to sleep, his eyelids growing heavy as his body relaxed back into the cool ground.

He sensed movement next to him and opened his eyes. Tiredness suddenly forgotten, he watched raptly as Arwen gracefully shuffled next to where he and Legolas still lay, and extended a slender arm to brush away a strand of the other Elf�s golden hair that had clung to his cheek. She tucked the strand behind a pointed ear, slowly and languidly, then brought her fingers back to trace the sensitive tip.

A soft moan sounded and Aragorn pushed himself up on his elbows, watching with quiet fascination as Legolas�s body shuddered under Arwen�s touch. She had brought her other hand up, gently pulling back soft blond hair, lavishing the same attention to the other upswept ear.

Fatigued, but not unwilling to join in the renewed loveplay, Aragorn reached out with his free hand to touch his wife�s arm, but then Legolas caught his wrist and, with another soft kiss to his fingers that had made him burn earlier in the night, placed the hand back against the ground.

Confused, Aragorn nevertheless obeyed the silent command and pushed himself up into a sitting position, watching the two Elves. Legolas had turned away from him, facing Arwen, nimble fingers trailing against the back of her hand and slowly travelling up her arm, up her shoulder, sliding with practiced ease against the softness of her face until they too were tracing a graceful ear point.

Aragorn�s breath hitched at the sight before him; their hands never leaving the other�s skin, Arwen and Legolas embraced each other, delicate elven fingers skimming over bare skin, glistening and pearl-like from the mist.

Their bodies drew closer, ghosting touches creating an adagio of soft sighs. Their lips met, passionately but gently as only the Elves could accomplish, sparking what looked to Aragorn�s eyes as a being a trickle of light, bathing their faces for a moment.

Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, a thought reminded him that he should have felt a tinge of jealousy at the sight of his beloved in the arms of another. But somehow, he could not bring himself to feel anything but intense enthrallment at the sight.

Aragorn blinked slowly, unable to tear his eyes from the two Elves. They sat tortuously close to his body, so close he could feel the heat radiating from their fair skin and the soft, breathless sounds of their lips; desirous to touch them, but wary of breaking the spell, he kept his hands pressed to the ground.

The Elves� kiss deepened, and their arms had slid upward to embrace each other, their hands sensuously trailing and dancing over skin that seemed to be growing more luminous by the second. Aragorn caught his breath; he had never witnessed such a sight, two of the Firstborn locked in passion, tiny beads of light cavorting wherever their bodies touched. Arwen and Legolas�s skin had begun to glow, shimmering beyond that of a normal elven aura. It was as though the stars had traveled downward to caress their bodies, to share in their lovemaking.

Aragorn blinked again and tried to remember to breathe. The wind picked up again, lifting and mingling human and elven curls of hair. The air that touched Aragorn�s face held the scent of freshly picked leaves, blended with cool mountain stream. The Man close his eyes for a brief moment, reeling against the sudden onslaught of peculiar yet pleasant warmth spreading from his face to his chest to his limbs. When he opened his eyes again he could not resist parting his lips and gasping.

The elven duo, still embraced in an elegant tangle of limbs, nuzzled the soft skin of their cheeks, and their faces slowly slid past each other. Arwen�s supple lips opened and a whimper sounded from the raven Elf, as the sensitive elven flesh of their ears made contact with each other. Aragorn could not see Legolas�s face, but heard the Elf�s breathy gasp of pleasure as their heads moved in a slow, courting dance.

It was sheer torture to resist the pressing need to wrap his own arms around the two. Aragorn�s fingers pressed into the tensed muscles of his thighs, trembling with the effort to remain still when all his senses begged him to crush his body against the Elves�. They seemed intent on making no move to include him in their loveplay, and Aragorn could not help but wonder if this act of passion was intended for his eyes, not his body.

Arwen�s pale gleaming thighs slid over Legolas�s, her neck bending in a graceful arch, lips parted in a silent moan in turn voiced by the blond Elf as he entered her. They rocked against each other, slowly at first, then with increasing cadence.

The light bathing their bodies blossomed in intensity. Aragorn could not help but rock his body forward, echoing their moans. A warmth had begun pooling in the Man�s loins as he watched the pair, but it could not be described as lust. It was beyond lust, beyond desire, more akin to an amplified feeling of love he could not place into words.

A heat within his chest burgeoned and spread. With every beat of his heart, it surged through his veins, liquid heat pulsing and throbbing, a flame consuming him from within, forcing his body to match the gently rocking of the two Elves.

For a while it was all too much and Aragorn was forced to close his eyes against the sensation. His senses now focused on the rhythmic breaths of his two lovers, punctuated with soft moans and harmonious whimpers. The pounding of the waterfall increased threefold, matching the thrumming of his heart, and suddenly he felt every single cool droplet as it fell and pooled on his overheated skin.

He breathed deeply, tipping his head back and shivering as wet tendrils of hair dripped onto his back. The air was thick with leaves and streams, misty clouds, cool night air that drifted through leaves and plants, branches and bark, growing and surrounding the glade, circling the ethereal occurrence like polished stones surrounding a dancing fire.

Exhaling slowly, Aragorn opened his eyes. Above the treetops, the moon was glowing, brighter now that before. It too shone deeply with a silvern aura, shimmering vibrantly as a large, perfect jewel would against a velvet ebony cloth.

A soft groan brought the Man�s eyes back to the elven couple. Legolas�s hand came to rest on the small of Arwen�s back, holding her delicately as his hips moved, rocking their bodies to the simplest of ballets, orchestrated by an unheard music. Elvish sighs and murmurs filled the air, serving as a melody more beautiful than the most talented of composers could ever dream of.

Their bodies seemed sculpted of light, beautiful in their shapely nakedness. Mist-filled air sparkled around them, on them, creating the most unearthly and ethereal sight Aragorn had ever witnessed. Still his body moved, slowly, rocked by an unseen force he could begin to control or understand. Nor did he wish to.

He heard their moans and whispers, far from the animalistic grunts made by humans in the throes of passion. Every sigh was a melody, every gasp a harmonious note, until it grew into a song set into cadence by the beating of his heart.

Light danced before Aragorn�s eyes. He could see them, feel them, feel their song until he was completely enveloped by it. They had not laid a hand upon his and yet he could feel every touch and caress, every kiss, as they pulled him along their crescendo.

He was floating now, carried by a crest that seeped into his soul, consuming fear, doubt, pain, loneliness�. leaving only joy, only pleasure, only beauty.

And he understood now, their gift, a healing gift presented to him out of love, out of devotion, out of a friendship grown more intense than he could have imagined.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, a pure bright heat surged and spread within his body and his release came, waves of pleasure and relief washing over him. It was bliss beyond what his body had ever experienced, blossoming from the very center of his being until he was wholly consumed. His very soul seemed to be bursting like stars, shattering and then melting together again; darkness replaced by pure white light.

When his reeling senses returned and Aragorn opened his eyes, he became firstly aware of the coolness of the grass beneath his body, and the heat still radiating from a spot to his side. Turning his neck to the side, wondering at the strange heaviness and weariness permeating his body, he parted his lips in a sigh of pleasure as he watched Arwen, his beloved wife, and Legolas, his truly dearest of friends, holding on to the other�s body as they struggled for breath. A fine sheet of sweat glimmered on their still-glowing skin, alight with a deep flush.

Only after a small, final kiss did the two part their bodies, their movements slow and laced with fatigue. With seemingly much effort, the two Elves made their way to where Aragorn lay and, with no words but for the gentlest of touches to his still-thrumming skin, each snuggled against one of the Man�s shoulders.

The moon shone above, a silvern disc of light and beauty. Finally, cradling his arms around the two Elves flanking him, Aragorn�s heavy eyelids slipped shut and he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

***

Awakening slowly, Aragorn heard only the beat of his heart. Then, it expanded to encompass the pulsing roar of the waterfall. The two sounds swirled together in his sleep-addled mind and for a moment, he thought it was the force of his heartbeat that made the ground tremble. One by one, his senses returned. Soft moss pressed against his back, cool mist coated his skin, two silken heads of hair rested against his shoulders and joined hands lay on his stomach. Moving his fingers only slightly, the rough pads of his fingertips brushed against smooth skin.

At his movement, the warm bodies beside him stirred. Two exhalations of breath ghosted against his neck and it seemed the scent of crisp mountain wind and forest pine in the air intensified for an instant as they awoke from the dreamscape of their race. Aragorn did not know how long they had lain there, but the morning birds twittered lazily all around them and he thought he detected the faint red glow of the sun through his steadfastly closed lids.

He didn�t want to open his eyes for to open them would be to admit that the night had come to an end. One of the bodies in his arms was that of his friend and he knew there must be consequences for their actions, but if he just kept his eyes closed then they were still there, in that one extended moment when titles and mores had no power.

But he knew he must open them. Not even the Elves held dominion over the turning of time, so a mere King of Men had no hope of stilling the night � and day had already come. Pulling both elven forms closer, relieved when neither made an effort to move away, he slowly raised his lids.

The sky glowed a dim violet, the silver of night slowly relinquishing to the gold of morning. Already, the moon was nearly invisible as the white, ethereal form glided beyond the line of trees. On the other side, over the crags of the mountains, the sun rose up as if cautiously looking ahead before rising full into the sky. The rays shot out instantly, their flight as straight and fluid as an arrow�s. Quite suddenly, Aragorn understood.

He had seen enough dawns to know that such brilliant light should be blinding; he should already be a slave to instinct with his lids shut tight against it, but his eyes remained wide open. It was as if his eyes had reestablished what was truly bright, basing it all on the luminous vision he had witnessed the night before and he was able, for the first time, to watch the world dawning without looking away, without the brightness causing pain � without missing a moment.

The perpetual mist hung heavily on the trees and the rising sun pierced through the fading violet of night, finding a single droplet and illuminating it in sharp spikes of radiant orange. Through the forest canopy above he could see the sky painted in haphazard strokes of pink and red as sunlight caught the wisps of clouds and lit them with a blaze of color against a field of awakening blue. Aragorn felt overwhelmed as he tried to comprehend this loveliness, to realize that it happens every day and that only now did he have the ability to see it.

Aragorn breathed in the fresh clean air and in that moment, he realized the elf-minstrels had gotten it wrong: It hadn't been a silver archer and a golden maiden who had answered the goddess's call.

It had been a golden archer and a silver maiden.

�I have been thinking of the trees of Valinor,� he said softly, his breath still caught in his chest by the vision. He received no response, but keenly felt two pairs of gentle cobalt eyes upon him. �Once they were gone, they could never be reclaimed; such beauty could never exist again.�

�That is true,� a fluid male voice beside him replied sadly.

�The sun and the moon came from those Trees,� Aragorn continued, �they were salvaged from the ruins. They were � they are � skeletons, ghosts of the dead, and they can never rid themselves of the scars; they will always be second best to what existed before the darkening.� He paused, staring openly at the bright disk of the sun and the departing orb of the moon. �But they are still so beautiful.�

A surprised and sudden sob broke from Arwen�s throat. She lifted herself up to gaze down at him and her dark hair, still dotted with silver leaves, descended in a curtain around her face, accenting her pale skin and the bright, happy smile on her lips. Tears rimmed her blue eyes and she wanted to speak, that he could tell, but she couldn�t find the words.

�I fear we must be leaving soon,� he said, stroking her hair, smiling wistfully, �I have a kingdom to look after.�

Grinning even as the tears slid down her cheeks, she leaned in, pressing her lips smoothly against his, caressing his hair and face with aimless, loving touches. As she rested her forehead to his, Aragorn felt the second body beside him shift and turned to see Legolas regarding him with a soft smile on his face.

With his hair unbound and draping across his shoulder, his beauty had clearly not diminished with the dawn, but in the archer�s eyes, Aragorn saw a choice: Legolas would let him define this moment however he wanted.

Lifting his hand to weave through the smooth, blond locks, Aragorn pulled Legolas to him, meeting his mouth in a deep, slow kiss; he wanted to share this moment with his friend � and the night was not over until he could no longer see the moon.