Part Three: Night Song

Gandalf retreated to his room before the feast had completely ended. Notes of plaintive chanting drifted in among the leaves and doorways from the hall below. He took off his outer robe and was hanging it over a chair back when he heard her whisper his name. He turned and saw her, a glow like the moon come to rest in the corridor.

Elanna entered and came to relax against him. In a heavier gown, he would have heard the hush of her movements, but in the thin silvery shift she'd put on for bed, she moved silently. More than silent, as if she absorbed sound the way her skin absorbed the moonlight and now seemed to glow softly. He could feel that skin, silk beneath silk, milk beneath milk, and felt the desire to nestle into it, to forget the evil that grew each day and threatened to hold him to this land even as the elves were leaving it.

She picked up his hand and caressed his knuckles. Where her fingers passed, a red ring shimmered into sight, simple and dusky, and dissolved again into invisibility. "Narya grows heavier, my love. It feels the One Ring drawing near. But even Narya and Vilya together will not be enough to preserve Imladris from the shadow rising in Mordor. This time and place is at an end."

His chest tightened and he flexed his fingers, feeling the weight of the hidden ring he bore. "Yes." He kissed her forehead, as she leaned into him, resting her head on the coarse fabric of his tunic. A breath brought him the spice of autumn leaves: incense caught in her hair. The stillness of night carried the murmur of water where the great river tumbled into the valley, split a hundred times into streams and pools, and regrouped farther on to twist across the rolling plains to the sea. His lips traced the pointed top of her ear. "The shadow rises, but not tonight at least. And tomorrow…"

She stiffened. "Tomorrow the Council meets. You pull back the bow and point the arrow. But do not, in your love for Men, choose its flight too hastily. I would not have you ride East out of Imladris."

He gave a frustrated huff. "Elanna--"

She gripped his clothes in tight fists. "You have held the gate against evil for centuries. Our time here is over. There are others to stand in the gap. They must come forward now of their own accord or no power in Middle Earth can rescue them."

He scowled. "This is-"

"Come away with me now to Valinor." Her eyes pleaded with him too.

He silenced her protestation with a kiss, lips lingering on hers until he found words less sharp. "I have no desire to leave you, and no need to prove myself in battle. But I cannot avoid my fate by hiding. This is my purpose in Middle Earth, as you well know. We are bound to the fate of this world, your kind and mine; we have not the gift of Men to pass into another existence."

She shifted in his arms, reaching up to entwine his grizzled hair in her fingers. Their years had been spent more apart than together, his face turned away from Imladris more often than toward it. Whether in the long nights in watchfulness with Aragorn or curled alone in a too small bed in the Shire, she was the i home /i he thought of when his mind turned to such things, and still…

"After all this time, you will not promise me anything?" she asked wistfully.

"I cannot promise you. As you cannot promise me: you are not known to hide from danger in your path. Your hand knows a sword as well as a pen." His hip nudged her. "Come to bed and lay this care aside for awhile."

"My sword is too heavy in my hand," she said. "I am tired of fighting. I just want to go home, but I shall not go without you."

"Evil is at the door. We both feel it. We must make the most of the time that's given us."

Tears shimmering in her eyes, she raised her mouth to his. After they kissed, he drew her to the bed. She shoved him down to sit and knelt to remove his boots herself, though she did so without further words. He observed her bowed head, the slope of her shoulders: there was a sadness about her that was unfamiliar. Pushing his hands off, she pulled his loose elvish trousers down and stripped them off his legs, her manner more business-like than sensual. She snapped the trousers and folded them over the robe on his chair.

Gandalf pursed his lips, his beard bristling. "Have I offended somehow?"

She sighed and sat on the bed with one leg curled beneath her. "No, not you. I am offended by the men of all races who can't content themselves with battling against floods and famine and fires but must lay waste to the land themselves, and tear countless lives asunder in their quest for power."

He took both her hands in his much larger ones. Looking into the depth of her ancient eyes, he said, "I'm sorry, my dearest lady. Perhaps if they were born with your power they would not feel such hunger."

She shrugged. "My power? What power is it that cannot keep those I love safe? You have power, greater than you show, and yet you have chosen to turn your will to good. Why do they not make the same choice? Why would Saruman…?" Her voice trailed off and she leaned over to rest a kiss on his right eyelid before something that might have been a tear splashed his cheek. He had come to grips with the awful betrayal of the leader of his order during the long days he was kept imprisoned at the top of Orthanc, but she, he knew, was still bitter.

He held her back, to gaze at her though she tried to look away. More tears were on her cheeks. "What have you seen?" he asked, shrewdly.

"Much." Darkness fluttered across her expression and she laid a hand on his cheek, surveying his face as if to memorize it. "Mithrandir…you have ever been my love.…Beware the mines of Moria. There is an evil there and the stench of Morgoth is still upon it." She faltered and bit her lip. "I dare not say more."

He opened his mouth to question her further but thought better of it. Doubt was not something he needed more of. Instead, he took her by the shoulders and lowered her down beside him across the bed. His lips found her throat. He peeled the shift back from her shoulders, down off the soft mounds of her breasts. Her hands were under his tunic, searching over his back, brushing over scars old and new. This body he wore was old, and plagued by the frailties of its human form. He too would welcome the day when he was recalled to Valinor, though he would regret leaving Middle Earth. With a rumble in his throat, he shifted down to take one of her nipples into his mouth, stroking his tongue over the tip of it, flicking lightly again and again before sucking it all the way in. He did the same to the other as she arched back, fingers caught up in his hair.

"Ah, my dear," he whispered into her skin. "Let me make you sing."