In Memoriam

Written for Linda Hoyland and the prompt: what if Lúthien and Arwen could meet?

*

Starlit eyes stared back at her, mirrorlike –

(“What was she like?” she had asked once, curled up in a nest of nightingale cushions. “Was she very beautiful?”)

– rose-crowned, her hair like twilight’s shadow –

(“Do I really look like her?”)

– the curve of her smile, ageless, a shade distant –

(“Why do you always forget my name and remember hers?”)

– gowned in blue silk, brilliant with jewels.

It was late afternoon and the air was golden. The new tapestry glowed on the loom. Arwen tilted her head thoughtfully, contemplating her great-great-grandmother. “She looks like my father,” she decided at last. “Do I?”