b2mem | She Walks In Beauty by amyfortuna (Reply)

B2MeM Prompt and Path: Red Path, "She walks in beauty like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies..."
Format: Ficlet
Genre: Angst, Femslash
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Characters: Aerin, Húrin, Morwen
Pairings: Aerin/Morwen, Húrin/Morwen
Creator Notes: Canon is not clear on their relative ages, but I speculate that in this fic Aerin is about fifteen, Morwen about twenty-one, and Húrin twenty-five.
Summary: Teenage Aerin pines hopelessly over Morwen.

Morwen's hair, so black, shone in the sun like coal, glittering deep blues like the eternal heavens. She was like the Star-Queen in all her wonder, fairer than all the Elves I had ever seen.

Very well, I have only seen a few Elves, but still, she is fairer.

My cousin did not know I stared at her when she passed by. He was too busy staring himself, all wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

"You'll catch flies," I told him, laughing, one day when I turned from my own longing look to see him involved in the selfsame ritual.

"She walks in such beauty," he sighed then, passing a hand through his hair, smoothing it back and standing to go after her. "Elbereth in all her glory could not be more fair."

I was jealous, not because he stole my metaphor, but because he could say things like that to her face, if he wished, and not be thought mad. "Oh, you lovesick fool," I sighed, and though the words were for him, the thought was for myself.

He and Morwen were closer in age, too, whereas I was younger than him by ten years, and her by six. Too, the match was a natural one, and they even seemed to suit each other! I bit my lip, trying to force myself to become resigned to it. Húrin and Morwen would fall in love, and they would marry, and have babies, and it would all be sickeningly wonderful, and why could I not just be happy for them?

Surely a love that was a true one would give up that love so that her beloved could find a better love? For my part, I knew myself well enough to know that no man's eye would ever catch mine. When I was not looking at Morwen, from time to time other women caught my eyes -- the curves of their hips, their rounded breasts, the wonder of their hair, the sweetness of their lips. Morwen was simply the sum of all beauty, the glorious culmination of human splendour, the radiant sun itself in my sky. (Now that is a metaphor Húrin cannot have!)

I could never look at a man with anything other than indifference or disgust. It was not that I did not like them, as people; I just did not want them, as lovers.

Morwen walked in beauty, and she caught my eyes, my heart, my life. I will never love another in quite the same way, and though Húrin will have her for his wife (once he gets his tongue back in his mouth and his brains back in his head where they belong), some small part of her will always be mine, my only love.

This I swear: I will do what I can for her, always. She may be Húrin's to love, but she is mine to protect, mine to befriend, mine to weep over in all the anguished nights to come, when love seems very far away, and hope is distant and dim.