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Aredhel could not take her eyes off her cousin as Artanis sat down on the beach, amidst all the pearls and gems the Teleri had strewn about the white sand. The light of Varda’s stars made Artanis’ skin and hair gleam as if pure light was shining from within her.
Artanis looked up at her with a grin and folded her long legs under her lap, tugging her loose light blue skirt into place. She was not wearing shoes, much like many of the other maidens in Alqualonde did, and her toes dug into the sand while she made herself comfortable.
“Are you going to stand there all day, cousin?” she asked, putting the little basket down in front of her.
With a grin of her own Aredhel shoved some of the jewels and pearls away with her foot until she could kneel down on nothing but soft, white sand. “I don’t understand how the Teleri can run around barefoot on all those spiky stones…” she said and took a hand full of sparkling gems before she let them run through her fingers, watching how the starlight sparkled on the falling jewels. Then she put her own little basket between the two of them, a smile tugging on her lips as she pulled the covering off and revealed the sweet green grapes and dark red berries she had brought from Tirion.
Artanis’ blue eyes sparkled when she saw the berries, and she immediately took one, holding it carefully between the tips of two long fingers. “Did you gather those yourself?” she asked, and Aredhel nodded.
“On my last ride before I came to visit you. I mean, I know that you get sick of all that Falmarin seafood after a while…”
Artanis grinned and brought the berry to her lips, slowly closing them around it (and around the tips of her fingers). She closed her eyes with a delighted sigh, and Aredhel watched her lips move, entranced by the shadows the pale starlight cast upon her skin.
When she opened her eyes, they were gleaming with mischief.
“It’s really difficult to get decent berries here, yes…” she said, then she shifted slightly, so that she could stretch her leg out next to the baskets, and just boldly slipped her foot under Aredhel’s skirt, rubbing over her knee with the back of her toes. “It’s also difficult to get some other things here…”
Aredhel sputtered at that, chuckling as she ran her hand over Artanis’ ankle. Her skirt was still tugged under her other leg, and thus her foot and calf were completely naked, soft white skin that rivaled the white sand in its fairness.
“You should show me what’s in your basket before you try to get under my skirts”, she replied with a grin, then slipped her fingers around Artanis’ foot and tickled the sole, earning a snort and a gentle kick against her knee.
“If I must…” Artanis replied with a stilted sigh and flourish of her hand, then she pulled the cover off her basket – a bigger one than Aredhel’s – and pulled out a heavy, silver bottle.
A laugh spilled over Aredhel's lips before she could hold it back.
"So there is something Falmarin at least that you have not gotten tired of yet?" She asked while Artanis put the bottle down and took two silver cups from the basket.
Artanis smiled and looked up at her from beneath silver-golden lashes, a perfect picture of maiden innocence under the starlit sky, were it not for the way her leg was stretching languidly to reach to her cousin's skin, and for the way her fingers wrapped around the neck of the wine bottle now.
"It's Vanyarin, actually." Artanis turned the bottle so that Aredhel could see the label, and then grinned again. "Sparkling, pale gold..."
The wine hissed when she pulled the cork out with no difficulty at all, and Aredhel silently admired the grip of her fingers, the sheer strength of her hands. It sparkled in the starlight when Artanis poured a cup for each of them.
The cup was cool in her hand, the wine sweet on her tongue, tickling her throat when she swallowed.
Artanis shifted slightly, so that she could brace herself with one hand behind her body while she held the cup in the other one. She was looking out to the sea, and for a few minutes they just listened, to the soft music of the sea and the fizzing of the wine and each other's breathing.
"It's strange..." Aredhel said after a while, and her hand ran over Artanis' ankle again, over the arch of her foot and to her toes, rubbing them gently.
"What is?" asked her cousin with a little purr to her voice as her toes curled into the touch.
Aredhel nodded behind them, to the city, and to the few streaks of silver light on the western sky, and then she looked out on the eastern sea again. "The darkness..."
Artanis looked up at the stars, bringing the cup to her lips and taking a small sip before she answered. "It's not darkness quite, though it might look like it to our eyes. The light of the Trees is bright, but so is the light of the stars, they're just... Far away." She smiled and put her cup down to shuffle closer to her cousin. She had put her own basket behind her, so that only the berries and grapes were between them now.
"Though I think we can make good use of the darkness, cousin of mine..."
She leaned over to her, and Aredhel grinned and bridged the distance between them, putting her forehead against her cousin's. "Is the wine getting to your head already?" she hummed, though there was no reprimand in her voice, but amusement and an edge of provocation, sweet as the grapes between them.
"Not the wine so much..." Artanis whispered back and kissed her lips, gently, hardly touching her at all, until Aredhel leaned into the kiss and pushed their lips together more, sighing lowly as her free hand caught a few strands of Artanis' hair and started to wind them around her fingers, pulling gently and making Artanis hum against her lips.
They pulled apart again, and Artanis took up her cup once more, sipping the sweet wine while her other hand dipped into Aredhel's basket. With a handful of berries she put the cup down again, taking one of the grapes between her fingertips and pushing it against Aredhel's lips, until she opened her mouth and let her push the grape in, together with the tips of her fingers. With a playful grin Aredhel nibbled on the soft digits for a second, before she let them slip from her lips and chewed the grape, her eyes never leaving the blue of Artanis'.
When she had swallowed, Aredhel took one of the dark red berries from Artanis' hand - brushing her fingertips over her palm - and put it between her own lips, holding it there and tilting her head with a little grin. Her cousin smiled as well as she leaned forward and kissed her lips, her tongue sweeping the berry from her mouth.
They kept feeding each other, suckling on fingers and exchanging berry-sweet kisses, only interrupted when one of them giggled against the other one's mouth or took another sip of wine, until Aredhel finally pulled back from Artanis lips with a little sigh after a particularly deep kiss, running her hand over Artanis' cheek and her neck, looking into the other maiden's eye with all the bliss of the world in her chest and the sweet mist of beginning inebriation in her head.
"I've missed you so much..." she whispered, the tip of her nose rubbing against Artanis' soft cheek. A warm hand stroked over her head, down over her back, making her shudder with the long-missed warmth of her touch. "Three months are just too long..."
She could feel Artanis' grin against her cheek as her cousin pulled her into an embrace, knocking the basket of berries over. "Well, you are here now... And it will only be two more months after this, then I'll be back in Tirion, and everything will be like it ever was. But now..." Again she grinned, and her hand snuck down farther, over her arm and her hips, hitching up her skirts, "Now we should make the most of the time that is given to us..."
Aredhel smiled when she felt that hand run over her thigh, though then she pulled back a little bit and looked around. They were below the city in the shadow of a high quay wall, a fair distance to the havens. "Are you sure that no one will find us here?"
Artanis looked at her with a smile. "There is a wharf right behind this wall that's not used at the moment, so no one will look down, and there is no way to get from the wall right down here. And if anybody comes from the havens, we'll hear them - and they won't see us right away, because of the darkness and those rocks." She nodded to a rock formation they had passed before.
Aredhel looked over her shoulder to the rocks, then she grinned as she turned around again and reached for the lacing on Artanis’ back. “Well then…” she whispered as she slowly undid the fine silken cords, letting her cousin’s dress fall over her shoulders, baring her small bosom and her soft, flat belly, soft teal fabric gathering around her hips. She put her arms around Artanis again, kissing her cheek and down over her jaw, her long, white neck, tracing her collarbones with her lips while Artanis’ hands found the buckle of the silver girdle that held Aredhel’s dress in the fashion of the Noldor. There were no lacings on Aredhel’s simple white gown, and so she had to sit back and carefully pull the dress over her head. She laid it down next to her in the sand, then wriggled out of her underskirts.
Utterly bared under the starlight, she went on her knees and kissed Artanis’ lips a last time, then she pushed her cousin down and pulled her dress over her legs, pushed them apart and knelt down between them.
Artanis’ hands found their way into her hair, undoing the few delicate braids while Aredhel’s lips ran over her shoulder, kissing down on the side of her chest until her lips rubbed over the soft mound of one of her breasts, licking a wet line from her ribs up to the soft pink nub of her nipple. She grinned as she closed her lips around the tip of her breast, suckling and licking until she could feel Artanis’ hands clutch her hair and her body shift and shudder on the jewel-covered sand.
One of Aredhel's hands ran over her belly, sighing in pleasure against the wet flesh on her lips when she felt how soft her cousin's skin was. Her other hand ran over her arm now, her thumb gently rubbing over the sensitive skin on the inside, eliciting a shuddering gasp from Artanis. She ran her tongue through the valley between her breasts and closed her lips around the tip of the other one, the hand on Artanis' hip gently stroking and scratching at that ever so soft skin, her thumb pressing gently into the dent of her hipbone and slowly stroking deeper. She scratched with her other hand now too, but gently, carefully, just slowly stroking her nails over the oh so receptive skin in the bend of her arm and on the inside of her underarm, until she reached her wrist and dragged her hand up to push it into the sand next to Artanis' shoulder, Aredhel's fingers folding with hers and then pulling apart again, running her nails over her cousin's sensitive palm and tormenting the rosy teat in her mouth with just the tiniest hint of her teeth until Artanis started to moan into the starlit darkness.
The noise was echoed by the soft murmur of the ocean, and when Aredhel let go of the wet breast and looked up to Artanis' face, she saw that she had laid her head down, her hair fanned out around her like a Valier's cloak. Swallowing a moan of her own, Aredhel delved down between her cousin's breasts again, licking over her breast bone and into the tilt of her belly. The body under her hands arched when her tongue dipped into her navel, and another moan vibrated through the soft white flesh when she bit her skin ever so slightly, before suckling the tender flesh, the hand on Artanis' hip now running deeper, to the junction between her hips and legs, where it slowly delved over her thigh until her fingertips just barely brushed the sweet skin between her legs.
Aredhel's tongue did not take long to follow those forward fingers, and she let Artanis' wrist go free as she pushed her thighs farther apart with both hands, her fingers brushing the soft, white outer lips of her sex and pulling them apart just as Aredhel's tongue dove into the sweet warmth between.
Artanis was dripping already when Aredhel took a first taste of her, and Aredhel's lips curled into a grin as she licked up her juices. It was incredible how far a little scratching and nibbling could get her cousin...
She growled playfully between her lower lips and ran her teeth over the hood covering her hidden pearl, then licked down again, painting wave-lines with her tongue and letting her teeth touch the quivering flesh once in a while. Artanis' thighs pressed down around her head now, and her hands grabbed the soft flesh harder, trying to keep them apart so that she could still move her head. Her cousin's hands ran over her hair, fingers tangling in loose strands every now and again, and shuddering gasps and moans ran through the body in front of her, noises that she drank up with nearly as much pleasure as she did with the salty liquid that ran over her tongue every time she swept it through the tender cleft, until she finally blocked their way by pushing the tip of her tongue into the small, slick entrance.
Artanis whimpered atop of her, and she felt her body bucking, pressing down more on her, and it made her smile again as she slowly pushed her tongue in and pulled out again then, just to do so once again, rolling her tongue to get farther in, curving the tip upward and running it over slick inner walls, tasting and smelling and feeling her with every fiber of her being, her fingers digging into soft thighs, bruising and scratching as Artanis' bucking got more frantic, as she pulled Aredhel's head even farther between her thighs, nearly suffocating her in sweet warmth and salty wetness. The lack of air was getting to Aredhel's head, though she couldn't help herself as she swirled her tongue inside of Artanis, suckling and pushing and licking until Artanis finally cried her lust into the ocean breeze, bucked her hips a last time, a heavy shudder rippling through her body and her thighs finally pressing down so hard that they trapped Aredhel between them.
Aredhel kept moving her tongue, though, only slowing down when Artanis’ legs pulled apart farther again and the gasps turned into low sighs; then she finally pulled her tongue out and kissed her cousin’s clit, swiping her tongue over her sweet folds a last time.
When she sat up, Artanis’ hands slowly slipped out of her hair, over her shoulders, and then vanished from her body. Her cousin was lying limp and beautiful before her, legs still spread; sex flushed pink and moist, hands next to her head now, a blissful smile on her lips and her chest still moving with heaving breaths.
Aredhel grinned, feeling her wetness all over her face when she leaned forward and kissed her cousin’s lips. Artanis wrinkled her nose, but then chuckled and licked her lips before kissing her back, glistening with her own juices when Aredhel pulled back again.
Artanis followed her mouth and sat up, rubbing her nose against Aredhel’s, sharing a bit more of the wetness on her face.
“Come here”, she whispered and grabbed hold of Aredhel’s legs, pulling them apart and forward over Artanis’ legs, folding them behind her back. They were sitting face to face now, Aredhel half atop of Artanis lap as her cousin put her left hand on the back of her head and pushed her forward, claiming her lips another time. The smell of Artanis’ sex was heavy between them, but Artanis didn’t seem to mind one bit as she started to kiss her cheeks, her ears, her neck…
Her right hand ran down over Aredhel’s hips, making her gasp slightly when it ran over her belly and then dipped between her legs. She could feel how wet she had become herself as two of Artanis’ long fingers ran through the folds of her sex, down to her entrance and up to her clit again, slowly, teasingly. She was kissing up her neck again, to her ear, nibbling her ear lobe and up to the tip and making Aredhel sigh lowly as she spread her legs farther and pushed herself up more on Artanis’ legs.
When Artanis pushed her fingers in, Aredhel moaned and dropped her head on Artanis’ shoulder, rubbing her nose against her collarbone. Artanis was a good part taller than her, so she could hold her in this position without changing the angle of her hand, which now slowly moved back and forth, pushing her fingers in and out, opening her up slowly. Aredhel twitched against her hand, trying to rub herself on her palm.
Artanis giggled, breathless still. “Impatient, are we?” she whispered into her ear as she pulled her fingers out and pushed them in again, this time pushing her thumb against her clit at the same time.
Aredhel groaned as her cousin began to rub her together with the spreading and stroking of her fingers, and she pushed closer to her, trying to get more. She could feel the now softer tips of her cousin’s breasts push against her chest, Artanis’ breath calm against her ear as another moan escaped Aredhel, rippling through her body and making her shudder against her fingers. Artanis sped the languid pace of her caresses up at that, thrusting in and out while pushing her thumb against her clit in the same rhythm.
“You’re so wet…” she whispered, and Aredhel could feel her breath and then her lips against the tip of her ear. “And hot like a forge… I wonder if my fingers will melt if I keep them inside of you for too long?” She could hear the grin in her voice, but she just groaned lowly and ground down harder on her hand.
Artanis ran her other hand through her hair again, making her shudder when her fingers dipped down between her shoulder blades and scratched down her spine gently. “Well, maybe I shouldn’t risk it, huh?” she whispered, and once again her hand sped up, thrusting and circling and stroking inside of Aredhel while her other hand left her back and went down between her legs, the thumb of her left replacing the thumb of her right hand so that she could rub her clit in circles without slowing the movement of her other hand.
Heat rushed through Aredhel’s body in waves, rendered it useless for anything but feeling, for anything but moans and gasps and desperate writhing. She mouthed at Artanis’ shoulder, kissing her collar bones and pushing her face against her neck while those nimble, long fingers thrust deeper, harder, making her shudder and whimper and sob. When she felt Artanis’ fingers curl up inside of her, her thumb pushing hard enough to make an edge of pain shoot through her body, she finally cried out, a muffled sound against the soft skin of her cousin’s neck, as the heat came to a boil and spilled over, searing her body and her mind for a delicious moment. Artanis did her the same favor as Aredhel before, thrusting into her throughout her peak, until her body stopped shaking and relaxed in her lap, slowly, her breath heavy, labored.
Artanis smelled incredible, she thought while she waited for the last of the aftershocks to turn into heavy, content warmth. Like wine and berries and sea breeze and sandalwood…
She kissed up the side of her neck again as Artanis finally pulled her fingers out of her. When she ran her wet hand over Aredhel’s hips, Aredhel had reached her ear, and with a sudden burst of mischievousness she bit her, not hard enough to really hurt, but Artanis still let out a little squeal, making Aredhel chuckle when her cousin pushed her back down on the jewel-strewn ground and stole another kiss from her lips.
“Daring beast you are, cousin…” Aredhel heard her whisper, and she could feel her grin against her lips just before Artanis stood up and held out one hand to help her get up. “Come on, let’s bathe before we go back.” She could see her grin in the starlight, bright and beautiful like the Two Trees. With a smile she reached out for her hand and let her pull her up, though she did reach down for her unfinished cup of wine again once she stood, rinsing her mouth. Her tongue hurt slightly, and there was something else, something that she just noticed when she had put her cup down again and was following Artanis down the beach already.
“Is something wrong?” Artanis asked as she turned around – Aredhel hadn’t even noticed that she had stopped to pick at her teeth with her tongue.
“Not really, no…” Aredhel replied, doing her best to keep herself from spitting onto the ground – that sort of thing might be acceptable in the depths of the woods of Valinor, but sure not on the jewels and pearls of the beach of Alqualonde. “There’s just some sand stuck between my teeth, I think…”
Artanis snorted at that, and then stepped back to her cousin to stroke off the sand that had stuck to the skin of her buttocks. “I think we should bring blankets next time…”
Aredhel lifted her eyebrows. “Next time?”
“Well…” The grin on Artanis’ lips was as mischievous as it was tempting. “You said you would stay for a week, didn’t you?”