When All Other Lights Go Out by sallysavestheday

Radiance

Arwen walks the corridors of the palace with comfortable familiarity, rocking Eldarion’s daughter in her arms as the baby frets and yawns. It is an honorable task, this soothing of a frightened child, and she has learned well the craft of it, with all her own little ones so wary of the dark. And after all, it is from her blood that the terror comes – hers, and her father’s, his one great fear – so she might as well do the calming, if she can.

She laughs to herself, remembering Aragorn’s surprise at her reluctance to sleep with shutters drawn or curtains pulled. He had thought it shameless, until she admitted the creeping dread of dreaming where she could not see the stars.

There was a lamp, once, when she was young: an ancient thing that held a soft and stubborn light. Elrond would sometimes wake it for her with a song, when her mother’s absence overwhelmed her and the darkness curled too close to bear. She remembers the gentleness in his face, the regret that sometimes seemed to strike him, and the sweetness of the tune that called the light.

She mentions it to Aragorn as they pass their fussy grandchild back and forth, and he grins in recognition. It had soothed his dark nights, too: red and orange and yellow and blue, timeworn but unbreakable. Elrond would sing it into life for him with a tune in Quenya so old as to be almost unrecognizable, his long hands cupping the glass, his palms filling with color, pure and bright.

It should be no surprise when, the next time her brothers visit, Elladan pulls the lamp from his saddlebag, wrapped carefully in silks for padding against the journey. These moments of synchronicity grow more common as she ages, as the edges of her two lives grow thinner and overlap. She lives more and more in the borderlands, now. When she walks the halls with a grizzling baby her footsteps echo in this world and the next.

It is smaller than she remembers, this dream-chaser, this friend in the dark. The colored glass has lost none of its luster; it is unchipped, unscarred. The gem that sits within it is radiant, still. It fits her hand with absolute familiarity, humming.

Aragorn leans over her shoulder and touches it with a reverent finger.

“It sings of love,” he says, softly, “Can you hear it? Someone sang this into being with fullness of heart.”

It is one reason she adores him, Arwen thinks: this listening, this awareness of the feelings of others, this abundance of care. She turns to kiss his weathered cheek, strokes the soft steel of his hair away from his face. When did they both grow so grey? she wonders. Then Aragorn winks at her, with that crooked smile of his, and, as always, he is everything she needs.

He remembers the tune, mostly, and she, if she focuses, knows most of the words. Between them they manage it, with the baby propped wide-eyed across their laps.

The lamp winks awake.

The child reaches for the light, wondering.