Something More Than Flesh and Bone by Isilme_among_the_stars  

Something More Than Flesh and Bone

There is a hush that comes over the late afternoon. The sky, though bright still, loses its crisp morning hues to turn the world warm and golden, just as the first hint of cool creeps into the breeze like a mouthful of water from a mountain spring. Bees begin to fly home to their hives. Rock doves are yet to raise their voices in a cooing dusk chorus, and crickets will not begin to chirp for some hours. The air is quiet. Elves, too, become briefly idle; minds wander away from their occupations with a roll of tight shoulders and a stretch of weary limbs. It is as if Yavannah decreed a deep, steadying breath before the clamorous business of twilight should begin. Elwing adores this hour: the hour of slow, languid change. She will bathe in it like a cat does in the sun stretching out upon a bright sill. I, however, chafe at its stillness.

“You are thinking of sailing,” she says teasingly. Her hands disappear amid the clover as she leans back. Unbound hair falls loosely from her shoulders and sways: a dark spill against the bright, warm sky.

“Why would you say that?”

Her lips purse into a little smile. “You think I have not noticed how your fingers fret?”

“You’ve caught me,” I confess.

“Ah, have I?” Her smile widens.

Elwing does not begrudge the journeys I make on Vingilot into the unknown, nor is it as lonely for her here as many believe, ensconced amid the northern beaches of this coast. Looking down from the high hill upon which her tower sits, past the sloping green and the gentle gradient of turquoise shallows, a handful of homeward bound Telerin sloops cut the waves. She has had friends among the sea-elves since ever we set foot on these shores, and ties between them have only grown stronger over the years. When I leave, my wife will wander toward the beach to trade gossip with Telerin fishwives as they weave their nets. Elwing will bring them wax gleaned after pressing honey from the bees’ combs, and news that the gulls have chattered at the eaves of her tower. They will sup together on tea and laughter. I will come home to find the bones of gifted fish boiling into broth on the stove, and dishes for more than one piled in the sink. Elwing has no shortage of companions, but when my vessel bears me earthward, in the interludes between voyages, I am wholly hers and she is wholly mine.

“I am trapped in your net,” I tell her. “Inevitably. Inescapably.”

“You make me out as something predatory; something that wishes to devour you.”

“Don’t you?” I ask, thinking of the sweetness that comes of bodies and souls melding as I rake fingers through her satiny hair.

Elwing leans into my touch until the pad of my thumb is at her cheek, and I can feel it yield to her words. “No, though I would not baulk to be consumed.”

Later, I will do just that. Through the bustling, noisy evening our blood will run hot. Our bodies will sing more fervently than the crickets. When I draw the gauzy, lace curtains so that the light of stars shines silver upon the bed even as our nakedness is obscured, she will laugh and ask who could possibly catch sight of us apart from the birds; and I will remind her of how terribly they gossip. We will yield to one another in the soft embrace of worn linen sheets. Then I will perform such acts with my tongue between soft thighs that her back will arch and her toes curl; and the things she will do in return will set a fire in my flesh. But for now it is only each other’s mouths we claim, with kisses slow and sweet, and with conversation murmured between, as befits this languid hour.

“Our son is coming to see you off,” Elwing tells me.

“Oh?”

“Mm, that kestrel hovering over the cliffs this morn has sisters with southerly hunting grounds.”

“He will not arrive this day, I hope. I have other plans.”

“What kind?” she asks with a brightness in her eyes that suggests a ploy of her own, one in which our desires align.

“The kind foiled by the presence of our child, no matter how old they have grown to be.”

“Ah. Well, it is fortunate, then, that kestrels fly faster than elves ride.”

Elrond has asked me, in a candid moment, how lonely it is among the stars. “Only as lonely as Lordship,” I told him, “and far less oppressive.” He knows well of what I speak; both are solitary, in their own ways. Not much can survive in the dark oceans of sky beyond the doors of night, but neither is there shortage of thrill and wonder. Lordship seldom afforded such things. The truth is I far prefer keeping watch over the skies than having the rule of my people as I did in the havens. Elrond, who even with the glut of sovereigns reborn in this land cannot help but play shepherd to his people, clearly thinks differently on this than I.

“In Imladris there was always someone I could turn to when the weight became oppressive,” he argued. “On Vingilot, you have no one.”

“That is not strictly true,” I said. “Varda is ever near, Tilion crosses my path not infrequently, and it might surprise you how many other spirits are to be found in the firmament.”

My son gave me a look so very reminiscent of his mother, though I cannot say for sure he learned it from her: a clear-sighted thing, a knife to cut through pleasantry to cold truth. “Neither elves nor men. No one with a heart quite like yours, nor who understands it well. Ainur lack the kind of warmth and temper the children of Eru possess.”

“I have my fill of companionship.” This was honest, and I offered the truth quietly, with no ornament. “All that is given me and all I give in return, multiplied with every kindness, I store away, and its warmth sustains me. Should it ever run dry, I know that I am never so far from port as to be starved.” I know what awaits me when I return: Elwing, buoyed by Telerin hospitality, ready and generous in her welcome, with nourishment boiling away on the stove and love in her heart.

“Your thoughts steal you away,” Elwing accuses.

“I was thinking of Elrond,” I say.

Even her laughter is rich and unhurried. “He will be here tomorrow, likely. This afternoon—this evening—is ours.”

Her lips, which know my flesh better than her feet know these hills, brush lightly against mine. And these hands of mine that could map the constellations of her body more proficiently than any of the stars in the heavens rise again to embrace the curves of her cheeks. Every thought, every nerve thrilling with pleasure beneath skin made sensitive by her touch is captured by Elwing. There is more to the nature of elves than flesh and bone, something more, even, than soul. It cannot be grasped at. An intangible thing lives between us in the goosebumps we raise from each other’s flesh, and the centuries of understanding exchanged with a mere glance over the rims of tea mugs. With every easy understanding, every touch as familiar and comfortable as a well-worn armchair, it grows. This afternoon is replete, and I gather it gratefully.

This I will take with me when I go; and though I be the only mortal soul amongst the cold stars, I will not be alone.