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Clear Water
A slight breeze just ruffled the water, but it was
still so clear that Sam could see the sandy surface below, each smoothly
rounded pebble glinting as the water above captured and held the light for
the barest of moments. He stood, the breeze delightfully sweet on his bare
sun-warmed body, knee-deep in the water, and looked down to see his toes
disappearing under the gold-flecked sand, and the tawny hair on his feet
lifted and set in motion by the water. It was only a small pool, to be sure,
almost abandoned by the stream as it flowed swiftly to the side, still
swollen with early summer's rain. There had been a time when he wouldn't
have ventured in even this deep, but many things had changed over the past
several years, and this was one of them. Frodo sat in the pool nearby,
chin-deep in the cool water, and watched.
Sam turned and gave Frodo a playful look. “Seen enough yet, me dear?” he
chuckled.
Frodo's sudden laugh rang out. “Never enough, Sam love, never think that.”
With a quick flick of his lithe body, he twisted and dove toward Sam, giving
Sam just a rapid glimpse of fair skin and darker flesh centered in black
curls before his legs were knocked out from under him and he fell back in
the water with a shriek of happiness.
Golden limbs and pale were twisted together, luminous under the water, and
the ripples spread out in circles from the two hobbits as they moved
together, both oblivious to anything but each other. The swan that had been
dozing in the pool not far away shook out its great white wings impatiently,
and glided off with a look filled with fastidious disdain, but he was not
noticed.
&&&&&
Sam eyed the small pool of water yearningly. The low waterfall, hardly more
than a rivulet, fed it, and it gathered in a shining circle before it became
a stream, to flow away under the tall trees of Lorien. The air was warm
here, as if it were somehow endless late summer, even if that was never the
right season at all, and he remembered times seemingly long past. He turned
to his quiet companion and asked, with more than a trace of unconscious
pleading in his voice, “Do you think anyone'd mind, me dear?”
Frodo, standing next to him, raised his head at the sound of Sam's voice,
and Sam felt a grateful piercing moment of hope as he saw the slight smile
appear on Frodo's face. “I don't think they would, Sam.”
Their clothing was quickly shed then, and Frodo slipped into the pool
quickly, sinking down into the water until only his head was above it. Sam
knew why he did so. Frodo hated the sight of the twisted scar that had
marked his shoulder, and tried to hide it whenever possible, even from
himself. So Sam said nothing, and slowly walked out into the pool.
The water was transparent, and lit with that certain golden radiance that
Sam had never seen anywhere else except, perhaps, Rivendell, but still there
something suddenly familiar to him about this scene, and he felt the longing
seize him to reassure Frodo somehow, to bring back memories of happier
times.
Frodo, ahead of Sam and with his back turned toward him, had drifted farther
out into the water, and now stood up again, the pond thigh-high. Sam quietly
waded up behind him and wrapped his arms around him, lightly resting his
chin on Frodo's right shoulder. “ 'Tis a long way from the Brandywine, ain't
it, me dear,” he murmured meditatively.
Frodo sighed, and leaned his head back turning it so that his curls brushed
Sam's cheek, and his own hands reached up, and covered Sam's brown ones.
“And so much longer yet to go,” he answered, with more than a trace of
sadness in his voice. “But here, at least, there is some peace before we
must continue on.”
“Ah, me dearie, there is that, and no mistake.” Sam's low soothing tones
were sweet in Frodo's ear, and his hands slowly slid down from Frodo's waist
to his hips, intimate in their knowledge of Frodo's body.
“Dearest Sam,” breathed Frodo, his eyes closing, and his hands covering
Sam's and urging them further. Sam needed no more invitation than that,
finding Frodo springing to fullness under his dexterous touch, and quickly
fell into the familiar pattern, the coaxing and urging, and then the
hesitancy, Frodo gasping and hovering tantalizingly on the brink, until at
last he pushed himself heedlessly into those hands with a broken cry,
arching backwards and covering Sam's grasp with his own, spilling into both
of their hands as they were clasped together. Sam gave a low hopeless moan,
and with only a few last hard pushes into that enticing backside that he had
been unconsciously grinding against, came as well.
They remained standing together in the pool of water, both breathing heavily
and reluctant to let go. It was Frodo who broke away first, turning around
and gazing back at Sam, the expression in his eyes strangely forlorn. “I
never say enough to you any more, Sam,” he murmured in a broken apology, for
what, he could not have said.
“No need, love, don't you worry yourself,” Sam gave his forehead a tender
kiss as Frodo bent his head down. “I've stored every pretty word of yours in
my heart, me dearie. 'Tain't a one I'll ever be forgettin'. 'Tis your touch
I need now, Frodo love, and the feel of your arms. There'll be time enough
for all the rest when we come back home again.”
Frodo's smile was hesitant, but his arms were strong and comforting as they
folded around Sam.
&&&&&
Sam glanced far below to the dark pool glistening at the foot of the
sparkling, glittering falls the tall man had named Henneth Annun. It was
clean water, all the more welcome after their journey through the Black
Lands, and it shimmered and shone in the setting sun like a great dark green
jewel, set among the glistening black rocks. But the opaque depths were
mysterious and hidden. He wondered, wearily, if he and Frodo would ever see
clear water again.
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