Title: Beauty


Author: Jinni (druscilla@cox.net)


Rated: PG13


Pairing: Fred/Haldir


Disclaimer: All things BtVS belong to Joss Whedon, et al. All things LotR


belong to JRR Tolkien, et al.


Distribution: The normal places.


Author’s Notes: Week 3 Poetry Quote Challenge response.


Summary: Fluff, fluff and nothing but the fluff. I needed some fluff tonight


so wrote it *grin* Hope you guys like.


~*~*~


“ SHE walks in beauty, like the night


Of cloudless climes and starry skies;


And all that’s best of dark and bright


Meet in her aspect and her eyes:


Thus mellow’d to that tender light


Which heaven to gaudy day denies.”


--- She walks in beauty, Byron


~*~*~


She’d had a piece of poetry going through her mind ever since she stepped


from the bower she now called home, down the winding stairs of the tree that


held it, and to the forest floor below.


“She walks in beauty, like the night,” Fred murmured to herself, a touch of


a smile on her pink lips. She wasn’t sure how the rest went, only that part


had stuck with her over the years. Undoubtedly it had been an assigned


reading in English class during high school, perhaps college.


Why she thought of that now, traipsing through this magical wonderland of


trees and moonlight, she didn’t know. It wasn’t like she felt beautiful. Or.


. .maybe it was just because she was here, walking amidst all this beauty.


The great, tall trees that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Even the forest


floor, laden with felled leaves, was beautiful in its own right.


Yes, that had to be it. She smiled to herself. It was this place.


It was a fluke that had sent her here. Nothing more, nothing less. She had


stumbled at just the wrong moment, and fallen into a portal that was only


just beginning to register on the dimension they were looking for.


The key part, she told herself, was ‘only just beginning’. It hadn’t gotten


a lock yet. The magics that they were using, with Wesley being the primary


spellcaster for the entire thing, had been cycling through dimensions trying


to pinpoint the one he was asking for.


And she’d fallen in, tripping over her own two feet. She was a bookworm, not


a beauty queen – grace wasn’t something she’d been blessed with. Falling


head over heels, she’d been spat out right in the middle of this forest.


Which was actually a city of sorts, she’d come to know quick enough. A city


of elves.


She’d been giddy, at first, to find out that there was a land filled with


these wondrous, magical creatures. It had been like going to Disneyland as a


child, for the very first time. She’d thrown herself into learning their


language, their customs. It had been. . . .wonderful.


Until, one month later, she realized that Angel and the others weren’t going


to be coming to take her home. Not this time. Rescuing her from Pylea had


been a fluke. They’d been there themselves, after all – it was a happy


coincidence. This time they didn’t know where she’d gone. There was no way


for them to track her through dimensions. No way that she knew of that


wouldn’t take a few centuries, that was.


And by then she’d be long dead.


It was at that point that the depression had set in.


Thankfully, there was someone in the tree city of Lorien that wasn’t about


to let her stew in her depression.


Haldir.


She smiled softly, knowing she must look like a woman in love; because that


was exactly what she was.


It had taken her by surprise, no more than six months after she fell into


their literal laps, to find that she was falling for one of the elves that


had put up such a fuss about her being in their city. She was an unknown,


and he didn’t like unknowns.


“Guess I grew on him,” she told herself with a little laugh.


It had been Haldir to first see that she was putting herself more and more


into seclusion, shutting herself off from the world as her depression grew


around her. It had been him that had pulled her out of it, insisting that


she take up a vocation of some sort if she was to remain within their city.


That had been their bonding moment, in her eyes. The time at which the


barriers went down and he began to accept her.


It was all downhill from there.


She rounded one of the larger trees, coming up short at the sight that


waited there. He wasn’t supposed to be back. . not yet.


But there he was, nevertheless; giving report to one of the other captains.


Patience was hard for her. It was a trait that she’d never quite mastered


since her return to Earth. She wanted to experience everything as if it were


the last time. But she’d fought hard to gain the skill since landing here


with the elves, and she took that moment to practice, just watching.


His hair was bound back with thin braids, falling like a golden waterfall


down his back to a little before midway. The clothes he wore were those of


field duty, and only a little grimier than they’d been when he left.


She smiled broadly as he turned from giving the report, noticing her


presence for the first time.


“You’ve learned to move quietly during these last weeks,” he murmured as she


approached.


“Or you weren’t paying attention.”


He snorted, rolling his eyes as if to say that would never happen.


“Miss me?” She prompted, casting her eyes to the ground. They played this


game each and every time that he left and returned. The leaving was always


hard. . .but the return was definitely harder.


In other ways.


She bit her lip to keep from giggling at her own private, raunchy joke.


“You know I did. The beauty of the forests pales in the warmth of your


smile,” he whispered, kissing her temple gently. “To be without you for a


single day is like losing the light of the sun.”


Fred giggled, burying her face in his chest. “You speak so pretty sometimes


that I forget you’re a warrior. Warriors in my world are all rough and


tough.”


“I assure you,” Haldir growled softly into her ear. “I can be both rough. .


.and tough. . .”


She blushed, squealing as he swept her into his arms, carrying her with firm


strides towards the same leafy rooms she had left only a short time before,


poetry in her mind.


Maybe it was the forest that was beautiful. Maybe, like Haldir said, it was


her.


But, just maybe, she pondered as she laughed in his arms, it was just the


love she’d found that made her think of that little snippet from home.


~*~The End~*~