19. Palantír: Love

He was winning… he felt Sauron's presence retreat from the palantír, wavering. He used the moment, and encouraged, he remembered another memory, one of his most precious ones…

"I love you…" she whispered.

His heart jumped in joy at the tiding. But his face was sad.

"Oh Arwen, I am so sorry…"

"Shhh, my love. Don't be sorry for bringing light into my life again."

"Love to me will bring you only grief at the end, and grief to your father," Aragorn sighed.

Arwen sighed as well, and came closer to him. Her smell was the most beautiful scent he has ever known. She touched his cheek, and he closed his eyes with a soft moan.

"I am at peace with that fate," she said quietly. "And I don't want you to worry for it. I love you, Estel. I would rather live one life with you, than have immortality alone."

Aragorn looked at her like hit by thunder. "Your… immortality?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "As a daughter of Elrond, son of Eärendil, I have a choice. I am not afraid of it. What I am afraid of is the fate of Mithrellas."

"The wife of Imrazôr of Dol Amroth, through whom the elven blood entered his line?"

Arwen nodded. "To leave quietly into the night, so I don't have to watch my husband and children growing old. To take my love to the undying lands, a faded memory of a life I can never have anymore…" she shivered.

He took her hand into his, and kissed it gently. "You will not have to do that… What will we tell to your father, though?"

She sighed, and grief was in her face now. "The truth. But we will not remind him on it when he can see us. He loves us both as his children, and so will we be before him."

"At the end though, our love will bring only grief, whether to us, or to him…"

"Maybe," she said, "but it is worth it…" Then she whispered into his ear:

"Icicles melting:
My spring has come today,
The warm sun of love."

And under their feet, elanor flowered.

(A/N: There was a haiku prompt somewhere in this...)