Seven Drops
A glass, a delicate crystal glass with equally delicate silver filigree cradling it, making it into a goblet, stood on the small table beside the bed. Some wine yet remained in this glass, Arwen noticed, as she lay on her side and contemplated the way the moon shone through the deep red drink.
Idly, she picked up the glass with her left hand and dipped the first two fingers of her right inside for a moment. Upon pulling them out, she let a drop fall -- *splish* -- onto Aragorn's bare back.
The drop spattered, but did not run. His eyelids fluttered, but did not stir.
Arwen let a second drop fall -- *splish* -- and a third -- *splish* -- and she noticed that the tiny spatters looked like stars on Aragorn's spine, and that none of the drops had yet rolled off. She watched for a few moments, and then saw a hand, a fingertip hovering just above Aragorn's backbone. She looked over at the third in the bed, and saw that Boromir's eyes were barely open, and that he, like she, was fully focused on the Man who slept between them.
"How long have you been awake?" Boromir asked, his lovely voice soft, scarcely above a heavy breath.
"I have not slept," Arwen said. "But, then, I do not need to, and anyway," she added with a smile, "I would not waste this sight on sleep. And you? How long have you been awake, Man of Gondor? I do not think it was my stirring that woke you."
Boromir smiled. "Not at all, Lady. I slept briefly -- very briefly, I would guess, for," he grimaced, "the linens are still quite wet."
Arwen could not help but laugh at this, though she managed to keep her laughter quiet so as not to wake Aragorn. Boromir gave her a pained look, and though she stopped laughing, still a wide smile remained on her face. She noticed then that Boromir was studying her intently.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
"Indeed no," Boromir answered. "Rather... I think I begin to understand you better, Lady, in the light of the moon and the stars, than I did in that of the sun."
"That is fitting," said Arwen, "for I am sure you know that my people hold the stars as sacred; in fact the starlight is to the Elves paralleled in holiness only by the sound of water."
"But -- if you will forgive me for this -- you do not seem sacred in this light. Indeed, you seem far less intriguing or ethereal, and far more natural. But no less beautiful, of course."
This brought a wider smile to Arwen's lips, one which Boromir returned this time. Arwen dipped her fingers in the glass again, and let another few drops fall -- *splish splish splish* -- onto Aragorn's back. Again, the dark-haired man's eyelashes fluttered, but again, he did not wake. Again, the droplets spattered, but again, they did not run down his back and onto the sheets.
Idly, Arwen offered the glass to Boromir. He did not drink, but dipped one of his own fingers in, and let one drop fall onto Aragorn's back himself -- *splish*.
"I had a notion that they looked like stars," Arwen said softly, though she was not sure why this should be said.
Boromir studied the red drops (merely a pale pink now that each was alone, rather than mingled with the claret whole) that lay in an arc along Aragorn's back. "There are seven of them," the Man answered, equally softly.
Elvish eyes met human over the smooth expanse of skin, and, in almost perfect unison, an elvish head and a human one dipped to kiss that very skin.