By night, the clouds covering the sky had cleared, and the almost suffocatingly thick fog was replaced with cool, crisp air. The moon was thin, a tiny silver of a crescent against an impossibly deep sky. Thousands of tiny stars littered stories across the black canvas. Each image had a tale, each star representing a life lost millennia ago.

“It’s like a window to the past,” a soft elven voice murmured from below. “Thousands of stories, lives, lost to the passage of time yet immortalised in the sky.”

Aragorn lowered his gaze from the stars, turning to where the voice came from. Sure enough, his elven companion was laid out on his back in the long grass, looking utterly ethereal - and terrifyingly elven. Ageless and deathless. Like the stars.

Despite the lack of light he seemed to glow, as if he was his own star, and even his cerulean eyes seemed to reflect the celestial light. His golden hair fanned out, framing his face, long braids reassuringly neat and present as ever. His skyward gaze never faltered, his eyes seemingly unblinking, and the only hint he gave at still being alive was the gentle rise and fall of his chest. He even held the unnerving peacefulness of death, his lips slightly parted, skin pale and cool, face void of tension. And he looked like something out of a fucking painting.

Unspoken words passed between them, and he slowly lowered himself down, before resting in silence beside the elf. It had been a long time since he’d laid down on the grass and watched the sky, and the feeling of long strands tickling his neck made him feel eighteen all over again. It had been a long time since his years of carelessness.

In the grass, his hand found long fingers, less calloused than his own, but still an archer’s, without a doubt. Beside him, Legolas stirred, as though the physical contact could pull him from his reverie more effectively than words. After a second, the fingers closed around his own. Perhaps the buzz in the air as they did so was merely the hum from the crickets. Perhaps it was more.

“I wish this would last forever.”

Maybe it could. Maybe they could make it.

“Me too.”

But nothing, even immortality - especially immortality - lasts forever.

Note: the characters in here are Aragorn and Legolas, from the trilogy “Lord of the Rings”, which I would really recommend you read/ watch! The relationship I kinda hinted at isn’t technically canon, but whatever.