In The Dying Light Of Day
Boromir sighs tightly, unhappily, and his downy feathers tremble as he leans on the balcony and gazes out at Imladris. The muscles in his shoulders are tense, but his back is hidden by his wings, and Arwen cannot see much of his body. His feet are bare, his head is bowed, and she wonders if she ought to go to him.
The inside of the room is cool, and dark, and a study of soft greens and blues and purples, but sunlight and the sad, sorrowful song of autumn cling to Imladris without, and the men -- even the most gauzy down and strands of hair -- are sharp against her eyes.
He and Aragorn converse softly. Aragorn is seated on the delicate wooden rail, and has hooked one of his own bare feet around Boromir's leg. His head rests on Boromir's left shoulder, and his own left wing is outstretched, catching the evening light and soaking up the dying sun as though he shall never feel such sun again.
Arwen feigns sleep for several moments, watching the warm sight from her cool room, and then a breeze blows through and she shivers, rises, goes to them.
"Are you afraid?" Aragorn is asking softly as she brushes aside Boromir's hair and kisses the back of his neck. The man is startled; his wings flutter and she darts out of their span as they expand quickly, defensively. She laughs gently then and kisses him again, and both her men join her in her laughter.
"I am," Arwen says softly, though unbidden. The jewel she gave to Aragorn glitters red in the dying light of day, while a deep blue shroud is spreading from the east and orange is clinging, sad, noble and lonely, in the west. "I am afraid," she says.
"You?" Boromir asks, surprised, putting his arms around her. His skin is dry from the air, but still warm, and she kisses one of the ridges of his collarbone. "What have you to fear, my lady?"
"You have never told me of your fears, Arwen," Aragorn says, stroking her smooth back with his human hand. There is a placid, most vague sense of distress to his voice, and he stretches out both his wings now -- a defensive motion more than one to catch the light, she knows, a defensive one and protective.
Boromir's arms tighten about her, as though he means to lift her up, to help her sit next to Aragorn on the rail, but she stiffens in his arms. She thinks, too, that she may have whispered "No", for though his arms stay tight about her, he does not lift her.
"I have much to fear," she says quietly, wondering if this is what it is to be graceless. "I have the future, I have my fate -- I fear that those who love me will cease to do so for the choices I have made and the paths that I have taken."
Arwen trembles then, and not for the cold. She does not realize that she is clutching at Boromir's wings until her fingers tighten and she feels feathers beneath her hands.
One of Boromir's hands slides slowly along her back as she closes her eyes, and it stops, suddenly, between her shoulder blades. Arwen breathes in more sharply then, for his fingers have found a tender spot on her skin, and at his touch, the spot feels all the more sensitive.
"Why would you fear that?" Aragorn's question hangs, bright and clear and burning, in the air.
Arwen does not answer that, and Boromir does not speak on the spots on her back. She turns her head, still leaning against Boromir so that she can hear his heartbeat beneath his skin, and looks at Aragorn sadly. His gaze follows Boromir's hands and lingers there for a few brief moments, and then he steps lightly off of the rail and turns away from his lovers.
"We are all afraid," Boromir says softly, hopelessly.
She closes her eyes, and kisses Boromir in hopes that it might help help to ease the fierce burning in the back of her throat. His hands move downwards, and she half-notices how his hand covers one of the bones of her hips that juts out below her waist almost perfectly as his other hand continues down, flat over the small of her back and the cleft of her ass.
And then there is a warmth behind her, and Aragorn is wrapping them both in his embrace, enfolding them with his wings, the last warmth in the cool twilight. "I love you both," he whispers fiercely, "never doubt that, whatever else your fears may be."
The last rays of sun are caught, dance one last battle for the day, blood-red and sparkling, in the pendant.