I watch him as he lays beside me, his flaxen hair spilling out over the pillow, his eyes open still, his even breathing the only sign of his restive state. I smile, barely able to fight the urge to run my fingers through that hair once again, to lean over, take him into my arms and kiss him once again. To hold him close to me as I did last night, but no...for now I will let him rest. We have the space of a lifetime after all. Mine...

My lifetime... I pause again to consider this, and wonder at what the passing years will bring. At twenty eight, I have many years still, to spend with him, yet I know that the passage of time for human, and for elf are two different things. One hundred years...would seem as nothing to him. One hundred years...in which I will be gone...and he will linger. In perhaps even fifty years, or depending on whatever comes to face my people as we rebuild our land, and given my nature, I could perhaps be gone even sooner.

My own death...something I have never felt comfortable facing. For I have seen death, of those I cared for. I have somehow forced myself to carry on, when it was the last thing I wanted. As a soldier I have dealt with it...because I had to. It is not something I would willingly inflict on anyone...Why then have I allowed myself to do this to him? To expect him to go through this...for only me.

Because I love him...Yes of course I do. Only a fool could not. And seeing what I see in his eyes, when he looks at me, spending moments like now gazing on him, knowing that he is mine, and I am his, I think, Nay I know, that I couldn't live without it...without him.

My love...I would not hurt him for anything, and yet I know, that someday I will. I would deny this if possible, do anything to avoid the inevitable, and yet, I cannot. I know well that the choice of Luthien, and of the Evenstar are not his to make, that in the end there is no way around the fact that someday, I will do to him what I promised I never would... The only way...is one that I know even now I will never take. If I but had the strength to do it, and spare him the pain that I will cause him later...I would do it. If I could bring myself to hurt him temporarily...to walk away from he who is all that I hold dearest in my world...I would...

But No, I have not such strength, and so we must resign ourselves to our separate fates. Mine, in the halls of my fathers, and his...still on this Middle Earth...and then across the Sea. Will he still think of me? I wonder, At least...without regrets? Once again, I wonder why I do this to him, and the question haunts me, if I truly love him, should I not be able to let him go?

Or...would he even allow that? Such as we are to each other, I imagine he would scoff at the very idea. Or kill me himself for mentioning it. But...it bothers me to say the least. That he would put himself through such a life...and all for me? It all still seems so unbelievable...

Who am I to have this? To have him and his love? In all honesty, no one special. No matter what may be said of me later, in the histories of Arda or the songs and poems of my people, I am still just a man, not a hero or a legend, nor do I desire to be. Still, I would know of the reasons he loves me, of what he sees when he looks upon me, knowing that as the years pass I will grow old...and die, that he must watch me do this.

Why then, I wonder, does he stay, when in the end, we both know that we are damned? A love such as ours, is not fated to be. It can only exist in legend...among heroes of our day, and I am no Beren or Elessar...But I am here...and I do love him now.

Legends....yes. Dreams and Legends that can never come true, for a man and an elf. But then again, is he not something of a legend himself? Sprung to life out of the very grass, or so it seemed, And with his help, did I not regain my hope, and that of my country? Perhaps some dreams really do come true...

"What are you staring at?" A voice breaks into my thoughts and I notice that he has awoken.

"You..." I manage with a smile as I'm pulled into his embrace, and kiss him softly, and then once again I know...

Just being here, holding him now, in a moment that we wish could last forever...Yes...this is our reason...Beren and Luthien never had it so good.