Better Things to Do - by Viv
Damp, naked, and sated, they lay in the greensward and awaited dawn twilight. Unspeaking, he watched a rivulet of sweat merge with a fresh dew drop on her belly and runnel into the dip of her navel.
“I believe it has been all of half a day since I told you how beautiful you are,” he observed, brushing a breath over her sharp-angled hip and watching the goose pimples rise beneath the warmth.
“Don’t,” she murmured.
“Don’t what?” he asked. “Don’t ... this?” He flicked a calloused finger along the line of moisture. Her perfect stillness suffered somewhat for the touch.
“You know what I’m talking about,” she said enigmatically. “And don’t get any of them to do it, either.”
“Them?” But the laughter in his voice gave him away. When a squirrel approached, bounding ahead of the last lingering shadow, he sent it away again with a regretful chitter and a handful of unopened buds. No more birds or beasts bothered their solitude, though he could hear them rustle in the tree line beyond the glade. He knew they encircled this haven, likely at her command.
“So much of our lives will be the stuff of songs,” she went on, laying her voice over the forest like a patina on sculpture, giving it depth. “Let this one night be blessed silence, just the two of us far out of lore and doom. Here. Kiss me instead.”
“As you wish,” he replied and leaned over her, kissing away each dew drop, following their trail upward along the warm topography of her body. By the time he reached her mouth at last, morning shone full through the trees, and he saw her clearly. Though peace as ever painted her brow, she did not smile, and he suspected the cause: this sorceress wielded a touch of her mother’s foresight, and always it haunted her, gave her dance a sadness that he could not fathom, gave her song a darkness that cloyed. Though he loved her beyond all thought or reason, and though he feared nothing in the winning of her, still she frightened him with her otherness.
“Bored with kisses already? But it is early yet, nightingale,” he said, rubbing a rough thumb between her eyebrows. He knew that the texture of his skin and hair and voice all fascinated her, and he was used to pressing that advantage when she grew pensive. “Are you certain you’ll have no songs?”
“Plgeh,” was her response, even ruder for it being so near his face. “Of course I am certain. I much prefer kisses. Besides...” She rolled to her side and propped the heel of her hand beneath one ear. Now on equal level, she looked at him with impish eyes. “... in those tales they will write for us in the ages to come, the ones I’ve told you about, most folks will just skip the songs anyway. It’s action they’ll be seeking.”
She threaded long fingers into his beard and brought his face to hers. Beren felt a swell of love so strong it caught his heart and squeezed. Her kisses effectively silenced him, and he didn’t mind. Action, he thought: well, he could do that.