Droplets by Dawn Felagund

Chapter 9

IX.
In Valinor, it did not often rain, and when it did, it was expected and so people left the fields and the streets and sought shelter in the comfort of their homes. Even the birds fell silent, as though they were unsure what to do in the “grief of the skies,” as Elrond had once heard a child call it in Tirion.

But he went outside, leaving Celebrian asleep in a tangle of sheets, wrapping an afghan around himself and closing the door softly. The rain was intimately warm and made the trees as bright as emeralds, displayed upon the smoky velvet sky.

Elrond stood in the garden and let the rain wash him. If he closed his eyes against the perfect beauty of Valinor, he might be back in the lands of his birth. Perhaps I am the only fool in this land who thinks it most beautiful when it rains. That beauty is all the more poignant against the imperfect, gray sky.

Then she caught him from behind, having approached silently but laughing now, pressing her face between his shoulder blades. Letting the afghan slip away, he turned to her, to see her displayed against the grieving sky.