Written for Imhiriel, Jay of Lasgalen, and Aruthir for their birthdays--a bit late, I recognize!
She’d seen many a beautiful sight in her life—snow on the peaks of the mountains beyond Edoras, colts running alongside their dams across the fields of Rohan in the late spring, the greening of trees at the foot of the mountains in the distance. But now she was seeing new beauties as she looked across the River at the distant blue-green blur of Ithilien, lying as it did before the darkness of the Mountains of Shadow.
And then he was there beside her, smiling deeply at her with his calm, clear grey eyes. “Captain Elfhelm tells me it is your birthday, beloved,” he murmurs into her ear. “I can give you nothing better than my vow of love for you always. And if you will have me, I tell you this—if my Lord King gives us leave, I shall build a home for us there, in what was known of old as the Garden of Gondor. Certainly with you beside me it shall become that again, now that the Shadow is departed away forever!”
So saying, he draws the blue mantle more closely about her, and she feels as if the stars with which it is embroidered are singing within her heart!