Chapter Text
For all that he may seem to be mostly healed, Beren is showing his wear and tear by the time they reach a decent place to ford the Mindeb. Pîngil dozes on his shoulders, his little hands fisted in Luthien’s lover’s thick brown hair.
Were Beren himself not stumbling every few steps, Luthien would smile to see him with the child. He’ll make a good father for their own, when that time comes. As it is she tucks herself under his arm, just tall enough to act as his crutch.
The river is fairly wide in most places, but the depth varies up and down the edge of the forest. Luthien passed this way in her flight to Tol-in-Gaurhoth, and is familiar with the territory.
She leads him out of the thicket to the bank where she’d crossed previously, guided herself by the trees who remember better than she does. It must have rained in the meantime—recently, even—for the river is nearly swollen with a fast-flowing current even at the shallowest and thinnest spot, but in Angband and on the burnt plains they saw it not.
“What ho?” calls a voice across the river as Luthien contemplates how exactly to manage this. “Do my eyes find that beauty who I know has gone from my woods?”
Luthien smiles. “They do! Ai, Belegmain! It is good to lay my own upon thee, for I have been too long from our home under the great green boughs.”
The marchwarden stands on the other side of the water and sets down his pack to open it and unearth a rope within. The water is strong but he’s stronger, making his way fleetly across the hidden rocky bottom.
“Dearest Princess,” he says, and she embraces him as he climbs up the muddy bank and out of the water. His bright red suede boots are soaked up to his thighs, but he doesn’t seem to mind, shaking off the water with a jingling of the bells sewn up the sides of his vest. “We were bitterly aggrieved by thy going, but the parting makes thy safe return the sweeter.”
“Safe indeed!” she says gladly. “And I have brought my Beren, my father’s quest through and done, though I find myself afeared of the consequences to come.”
Beleg nods solemnly, taking up his position on Beren’s other side after dropping a light kiss on the mortal’s forehead and blinking curiously at Pîngil. The rope he’d tied to a thick trunk on the other side of the river and then drawn across it. He hands her the end of it, thin but sturdily woven.
“Here,” the marchwarden says. “Luthien, if thou wouldst take the child…”
“Pîngil,” she supplies.
“Pîngil,” he agrees with a nod. “Take him and walk the rope—tie it to that tree there, yes—and I shall help Beren across beside it that we may mark a steady course.”
“Aye, Belegmain,” Luthien says, doing as instructed. Her purview is courtly behavior and dancing; she loves her mother’s forest, but she’ll bow to the marchwarden’s superior expertise in woodcraft. She lifts Pîngil lightly enough from Beren’s shoulders that he hardly rouses as she does so and cradles him against her chest.
“Belegmain?” Beren asks as Luthien climbs up onto the rope, gratefully leaning on the archer’s shoulder. “I had thought thou wert called Beleg, or else Cúthalion. When didst thou become my beloved’s?”
Luthien laughs softly so as not to disturb Pîngil and explains, “For as long as I have been alive, my love, and longer. Beleg is—well. The father of many, enough that it begs too much time and effort to address him as exactly whose specific ancestor.”
Beleg laughs like chittering tree rodents, scratchy but with no less true humor. Beren, in his kind way, barely gives the marchwarden a second glance for the sound. “Thou canst refer to me as I am, dancing bird! I get around, lovely Beren. Thy beloved’s father is my—oh, hum, three? Four?—four times great grandson, I think.”
Beren’s eyes go wide. Luthien grins at him, stepping lightly across the taught rope as her lover and grandfather slog through the water beside her.
“Thou didst not truly imagine him the eldest of elves!” she says.
Beren keeps up a brave face despite his sheepish smile. “He carries himself with a certain regality,” he hedges.
Beleg bursts into shattering laughter, then cuts himself off abruptly at a small sound from Pîngil. “Elu is a child,” he says cheerfully, though more quietly. “Or, perhaps, not truly ancient. Aye, he was born at Cuiviénen, but of a long line before him.” He sighs. “Most of them gone or much retreated now, despite my best efforts.”
Beren, who is more than familiar with that form of loss, nods consolingly. “I had not known,” he says quietly, his motions becoming slowly more labored as they cross the ford.
Luthien feels his pain deep in her chest as well, but is unwilling to release Pîngil to soothe him. “Well,” she says to break the tired, heart-weary silence. “We who descend from him call him our Beleg rather than wasting time on preciseness.”
Beren blinks, jerked out of his melancholy. “Thou’rt to be my kin!” he says, delighted in a muted kind of way.
Beleg winks. “Aye,” he says with a flashing grin, his too-sharp teeth catching the sunlight, a sign of his undiluted blood from waking at the lake. “Indeed I am.”
Luthien laughs again softly. “Pray, less encouragement, my love. He’s a terror enough as it is.”
Beleg smirks, but says nothing as Beren gives him a dubious look.
They make good time to the opposite bank and Beleg helps Beren up. The mortal sits on the bank, cradling his handless wrist to his chest and breathing heavily. Luthien kneels beside him with Pîngil on her hip, concerned.
“Is it the pain,” she inquires, “or exhaustion?”
Beren sighs and tips his head to rest against hers when she brings it close. “Can it not be both?”
The attempt at humor fizzles and dies as Luthien takes note of his carefully measured breathing.
Beleg kneels beside the mortal and lifts his injured arm, examining the wound carefully. “We need only make it to the tree line where the Queen’s power is strongest and I can call for a group to bear thee further,” he offers. “Thought they now gather in Menegroth to keep safe from the wolf who comes hence.”
Luthien frowns. What truly unfortunate news, though she did indeed see the great beast go.
Beren, Luthien knows, would much prefer to walk on his own two feet. She personally would like him to receive medical attention as swiftly as possible.
“Go fetch them now,” she tells the marchwarden. “I shall get my beloved up.”
Beleg nods and hurries away from the bank to where the trees are fuller and the forest of Doriath truly begins.
“Hold on now,” Luthien says to her lover, kissing his forehead sweetly. Pîngil, much to her delight, mimics her with a small giggle, wide awake and peering about from her arms. Beren laughs weakly too and reaches for her hand. She takes his with true and vibrant hope in her heart.
:::
“Huan?” says Maglor, confused. “For what purpose art thou now in this place? I had thought thee in Nargothrond with Celegorm!”
The dog, predictably, doesn’t answer him, instead nosing at the figure leaning heavily on him who had not halted on Maglor’s previous order, instead stumbling on with Huan limping beside him.
Maglor examines the exhausted elf, who upon looking closer bears to striking resemblance to a great many people. The Arafinweans, for certain; Artanis, Finrod, and also Daeron? Or perhaps Luthien, though Maglor has not met the famed princess to say so. But that can’t be! He doesn’t waste time dissecting it, instead hauling the bloodied and battered boy over the back of his own horse behind him.
His second, Eswë, does the same with the torn-up young elleth lying unconscious on Huan’s back, and the dog whines as he noses at Maglor’s knee urgently, encouraging him onward.
“Stay with Huan,” Maglor says to those of his escort not now carrying extra people. “Ensure that he makes it to the keep.”
Then he wheels and with Eswë in tow, directs his faithful steed back towards hill Himring.
:::
Glorfindel is here. Glorfindel is here!
And Glorfindel, of course, doesn’t know Elladan—or Gil-henë, as he introduced himself. Elladan half wants to cry about it, and is half busy marveling over the gorgeous, pristine city of his ancestors.
Well. It’s actually a bit too shiny for his taste; he might prefer something more like Minas Tirith in its heyday to this blatant attempt to collect and refract the sunlight a thousand times brighter. And despite the walls it’s not quite as defensible as he’d like, but still the place is full of architectural wonders and a bustling community.
He can see nearly the entire city from his vantage point—Gondolin has no dungeons, only a limited gaol for the occasional too-rowdy merry-makers or petty crimes, so they’ve stuck him instead in a tower, supposing that if they guard the stairs well enough, he can’t get down. Elladan hasn’t the heart to tell them that he could make it down the outside of the tower itself more quickly than Legolas could scale a decently sized tree—and the tree would help the wood elf do it, too!
He hasn’t been much constrained otherwise, apart from a thin silver chain threaded through manacle cuffs on his ankles. It’s only a little longer than his own forearm, so he has to shuffle a bit but he can still make it around the room. the chain is deceptively thin and light, only about the width of his two fingers together, though he’d wager a guess at it being much stronger than it looks. He doesn’t test it.
Ecthelion of the Fountain—or so Elladan put together from Glorfindel’s meager attempts as secrecy, had apologized as he put clasped the manacles on after the healers looked the Elrondion over. The king wishes it so, he’d said.
The king who Elladan has yet to see, despite being assured of Turgon’s interest.
He wonders what’s keeping his several-greats grandfather as he sits in the window seat. The room, at least, is appointed well enough—it looks to be a guest quarters, or something of the sort, though Elladan doesn’t know who exactly the king is expecting to have over.
The healers had worked quickly enough, wrapping up his hand and ribs, prescribing a salve for his bruises, and then passing him off to the guards again. It’s only been a few hours, but everything Elladan has heard about Gondolin always suggested a slightly more stringent guest policy.
Elladan closes his eyes against the slowly fading day out side, evening made blinding by the white white white everything of the city. As he has once or twice every few minutes since being locked in the tower room, he reaches for his twin.
Elrohir doesn’t answer him, but Elladan can’t tell if it’s distance keeping them apart, or something wrong with his other half. Nothing feels wrong at least, but he’s only getting flashes of emotion rather than words, which tells him his twin is focused on something far away from him. Elladan pulls back to let him do that.
He leans against the cushioned wall and peers down at the city again. The deep, wide, valley around it, crowding with shadows as night approaches, is like a dark velvet carpet to the stunning gold-lit backdrop of the mountains. Those, at least, remind him of home.
Elladan sighs, not for the first time. He’ll not rattle his chain and make a menace of himself, but he’s trapped in a small room with nothing but a mixture of boredom and worry to keep him company, and he’s going to go crazy sooner or later.
At last, there’s a faint stirring outside the room. Elladan fairly leaps to his feet, excited to finally be engaged with anything other than waiting.
The door opens and a number of guards file in, followed by Ecthelion and Glorfindel.
“His Majesty, King Turgon of Gondolin,” Glorfindel announces with a broad, embellishing sweep of his arm.
Through the doorway steps an absurdly tall elf in deep blue robes covered with complicated silver embroidery. Turgon Fingolfinion looks—well, a bit like Elladan’s family, which makes sense. His hair is dark as pitch, though in the lantern light and what seeps in from the window streaks of teak gleam through it. His skin is darker than Elladan’s, rich like coffee the way Erestor likes it; the barest hint of milk, no sugar. The Elrondion spots his own pointedly straight nose and flat brows as well as he stands to attention.
A twining silver and gold circlet rests on Turgon’s brow, and his eyes glow with deep light as his gaze sweeps over Elladan. The twin feels a bit like he’s failed some test he wasn’t aware he was being put to, and tries not to shrink under it.
A flush of embarrassment creeps up as he remembers proper etiquette, though it’s been a long time since he’s had to seriously greet any kings.
As Elladan bows, he hopes belatedly that the fact that his least-rusty courtly manners are derived from the Sindarin-Silvan mix Thranduil hosts in the Greenwood instead of anything Noldorin won’t be a problem here. He brings two fingers up to tap his forehead, then his lips, then his heart just for good measure before drawing them away, because this is his great-something grandfather.
“Rise,” says Turgon magnanimously. Elladan does so. “And you are…?”
Elladan almost says his true name for a moment, before remembering the very important con that time travel has made imperative. “Gil-henë,” he says, “Lilthanion. Your Majesty.”
“Please, have a seat, Gil-henë” Turgon gestures to the room’s small table, moving towards it himself. His guards spread out around the room (Elladan doesn’t see what he needs so many for, but has little time to ponder it).
Elladan sits. Glorfindel takes up a position at Turgon’s shoulder, while the Lord of the Fountain plants himself behind Elladan.
“You must first understand that the secrecy of my city is paramount,” Turgon begins. “And must not be compromised under any circ*mstances. In that vein, I have for you a few questions regarding your presence here, and then we must situate you here, depending on your responses.”
“Erm,” says Elladan, “yes.” The king nods at that and steeples his fingers together on the table in front of his chest.
“What manner of business led you to be carried by the great eagle?” Turgon wants to know first.
Elladan debates briefly over how truthful he can be here, and then says plainly. “I was held in Angband until the coming of Beren and Luthien who wrested me from bondage there, and as well three silmarils from the great foe’s crown.”
Glorfindel, who was shifting his stance, freezes. Elladan hears Ecthelion’s breathing stutter, and Turgon himself goes uncannily still.
Clearing his throat awkwardly when no one speaks, he continues. “That—Thorondor offered his back to bear us from the gates back to the Girdle, but there was not room enough for we three to be carried. Nor had he the strength, as he was forced to, er, lighten his load by dropping me in your fountain. Truly it was not my intent to remain here, or indeed find myself here at all!”
Turgon is silent for a long moment, then he speaks slowly. “This is truly momentous news. This is Luthien the daughter of Thingol?”
Elladan nods. “My kinswoman,” he adds, “through my father.”
Turgon’s eyes narrow as he contemplates that. “I was not aware that Thingol had many more relatives.”
Elladan shrugs a bit helplessly. “We are not closely tied,” he offers. Without his brother by his side, he can’t reach as far and find their father to clarify.
Turgon nods thoughtfully. “You told my lords here that the great eagle ‘stole your brother,’ is that correct?”
“Ah,” Elladan says, frowning. “Yes. My youngest brother, Pîngil, was with me upon capture, and so too we escaped with him in my arms. I had given him to Luthien as to keep him from danger, but it troubles me to know not of him now. He’s not yet four—I worry for him.”
Every elf within earshot hisses violently at that, including a particularly loud display from an elleth by the door. Elladan starts, wary.
“No child ought to be in that place,” Ecthelion bites out in explanation.
Ah. Yes. Elladan bares his own teeth in mute agreement. He and Elrohir had filed their canines to long, vicious points when they found themselves using their teeth in their hunts, and he can tell from Glorfindel’s slight flinch that the expression has its intended effect, on both elves and orcs.
Somewhat bitter, he says, “Well, he is gone from it now, but I’ll not celebrate to find him also separated from me again—and my sister and brother who could have likewise protected him.”
Not that he doesn’t trust Luthien to do an admirable job, but Estel is his father’s ward and thus his own responsibility as well, and being far from him with potential danger abounding leaves a sour taste in Elladan’s mouth.
“Should he not be safe then, behind the Girdle?” Turgon asks. Elladan suspects it’s as much a prod for information about the outside world as a weak attempt at comfort.
He lets his teeth flash. “Most likely, aye. But it remains my responsibility as the eldest to ensure it is so, and I am… disquieted by being so unable.”
Turgon’s regal face falters for just long enough that Elladan thinks perhaps he imagined it.
“I understand,” the king says eventually. “He shall have our prayers, then.”
Elladan blinks, but nods nonetheless to avoid being rude. In his time, the Valar and even Eru were typically more separated from more earthly matters, but he supposes he can hardly turn down any extra assistance.
“In the meantime,” Turgon continues, “you are now here, and we cannot, unfortunately, allow you to leave.”
Elladan knew that, in theory. It doesn’t make it easier to swallow. He hopes Elrohir can talk soon.
Turgon sits back in his chair, apparently more comfortable giving out instructions. “Because you’ve just come from Angband and I’m afraid trust is rather in short supply on that front, my daughter the Lady Idril, will evaluate you to ensure you are not a danger to our citizens. Then, we can see about having you integrated in the city.”
Elladan takes that in, and then nods slowly. “Aye, your majesty,” he says, and hopes Idril is not quite as powerful in osanwë as the few Gondolindrim histories they have paint her to be.
:::
Beren accepts a stretcher only after much protestation and a stern talking to from Beleg, who had to pull out all his years of experience herding his young and impetuous family members in order to convince him. The marchwarden then promptly stole Pîngil right out of Luthien’s arms and swung the giggling boy up onto his own shoulders, showing no signs of willingness to return him.
Luthien smirks at her beloved’s pinched face as the healer Melian sent from the nearest scouting group along with the carriers checks over his arm any the many other lesser injuries Gorthaur’s hospitality had left him with.
Beren grumbles wordlessly but lets the elf poke and prod him. The scouting group was carrying food, which is excellent because Luthien hasn’t eaten much at all in the last few weeks, and Beren has been barely subsisting on the last of the lembas left in the pack their grandson had given them.
“I shall not be carried into thy father’s court,” is his last defense as he’s shooed onto the stretcher and lifted so they can start moving. “I am missing a hand, Tinúviel, not both my legs!”
“Very well,” she acquiesces, “but thou shalt rest until that time is come! I worry for thee, dearheart.”
His irritated expression softens under her concern. “I know, my love. But I shall be well soon enough. I suppose I should not protest so this manner or delivery when already we have been aided and carried quite enough.”
Luthien leans over to kiss him gently, then takes his remaining hand as they march on.
“Princess,” says Beleg as they approach the entrance to the caves ensconcing Doriath’s capital, dropping down from the trees with Pîngil still sat on his shoulders, clinging to his head. “I assume thou hast a plan for thy entrance?”
Luthien hums. “I was rather imagining we might make quite the show of my beloved’s injuries—” her lips tighten, for she does love her father but no less it was him who led Beren into danger in the first place “—before presenting the silmaril which we retrieved.”
Beleg nods thoughtfully. “I’ll admit I’ve been away much of late, minding the borders and helping evacuate the sections of our beautiful realm which the wolf threatens—so I cannot tell thee what sort of mood the king is in. I know he has been—temperamental, recently.”
Luthien huffs. “I am sure thou meanst to say that my father is being most unreasonable about my romance, yes?”
Beleg hums, the tall heels of his boots crunching fallen leaves next to the flowers sprouting where Luthien steps. “A bit of an ass, aye.”
Luthien laughs and Beren, who has been silently listening as he’s carried beside her, chuckles painfully as well.
“Well,” the archer continues. “I know not exactly where thou hast achieved this one—” he reaches up to pat Pîngil on the head and the boy ducks to admit it “—but as a small, adorable child he might be utilized, I think, to quell thy sire’s ire should it rear its ugly head.”
“That’s the king you’re speaking of,” one of Beren’s carriers says mildly.
Beleg snorts. “I’ll speak of my own descendant however I should like. If he insists on acting the fool, I shall treat him as such. Though aye, ‘tis his temper that is loathesome, not his face.”
Luthien giggles a bit herself at the suddenly flouncing way her many-times great grandfather walks, as if to say, no one of my blood could ever be anything less than fabulous.
“A wise plan,” she agrees. Her father, like all elves, has something of a weakness for children. “As for his origins… well, that is a complicated tale in itself, but all shall come to light eventually, dear Belegmain, just wait and see.”
Luthien does, actually, have a plan for that. Though it’ll require a fair bit of maneuvering on several people’s part, and most of them don’t know it yet.
Beleg ruffles her hair with a shrieking snicker. “Thee and thy secrets, Princess. I shall wait in tense anticipation then, young one.”
Tense anticipation indeed is what awaits them in the throne room when they arrive.
True to his word, Beren demanded to be offloaded from the stretcher onto his own two feet as they entered the palace, for Luthien and Beleg would not let him up sooner. He still sways a bit with every step as though his body means to give up and tip right over, so Luthien tucks herself up under his arm and he leans gratefully on the support.
Her most dearly beloved gives her a small appreciative smile, then focuses on making his way into the great hall of Menegroth.
Luthien has been feeling her mother’s power keenly since returning to Doriath, but here in the throne room it’s more of a miasma than anything. Luthien suppresses a wince as she feels the thread of her brother as well—she must have truly, deeply worried them.
Luthien had given Beren the silmaril before entering the room: though it would’ve been morbidly entertaining to have him pull it from down the front of her dress before her father, Luthien is not that cruel. He’d put it in a pocket of the cloak Beleg had thrown over his shoulders on the healers’ orders and doesn’t remove it as they approach.
Beleg slips around them with Pîngil in his arms and blends into the crowd as neatly as he always does.
“Hail, king.” Beren doesn’t bother projecting his voice as he greets Thingol. That’s alright by her, though. It was a harrowing quest, and the fault rests solely on her father’s shoulders. He deserves to know it.
“Mortal,” the king returns coolly. “Daughter.”
Luthien draws herself up and summons a blinding smile. “Father!” she cries joyously, feeling little of it. Her brother the bard is not the only one in Menegroth who can put on an act. Aye, she loves the king dearly, but that does not preclude her anger. “We return successful, and indeed with a silmaril in hand.”
Beren reaches into the pocket and withdraws said rock, and the murmuring court falls utterly silent. Then someone gasps, and there follows a chorus of awe.
Luthien tries not to sneer, for she is a gentle and loving princess, who knows no ugliness. Someday, she’ll throw off that mantle, but not while it still has use.
“I bring it before you,” Beren says, holding up the brightly glowing gem, “in my hand as I have said. Your price is paid, woodland king.”
Thingol is silent for a long moment, then he stands abruptly. “I shall speak to my daughter and… Beren alone,” he intones, and sweeps away towards a side door.
Luthien sighs through her teeth, clinging onto her smile as best she can. She tugs on Beren’s arm to implore that he follow her after her father. The Queen makes her own stately way out as well, and the room erupts in chatter as they leave.
“Come now, beloved,” Luthien says, letting Beren lean on her again. Her father will have retreated to an adjoining set of receiving rooms, so she leads her lover there.
Indeed, Thingol sits haughtily in a throne-like chair, draped in gems and velvet, tapping his fingers against the arms of it. Beren marches right up with Luthien and throws the silmaril down at the king’s feet.
Luthien helps her dearest one to a seat without asking for permission, but remains standing herself.
She can only be perfect for so long—nay, not even perfect. Compliant. Perhaps she has been dancing without a care for too long or, no. She doesn’t regret that. Luthien can recognize at least that she only really started caring when it was her own flesh and blood—loved ones or loved ones to-be—out beyond her reach. But now they are there, and her father still wishes to live in his cave, cut off from the rest of Beleriand.
Her father, who has leaned down to reach for the silmaril. He seems almost hesitant. Good, Luthien thinks, perhaps a bit more viciously than is her norm.
Luthien feels the room flood with power as her mother enters quietly and shuts the tall doors behind her, but makes no move to greet her.
Thingol stares at the gem in his hand, coming upright again. Luthien looks to Beren, who nods.
“It is indeed beautiful,” her lover says quietly. “But not, I think, as lovely as Tinúviel.”
Luthien’s father opens his mouth and she cuts him off sharply, biting out, “Aye, this Noldorin gem shines brighter yet than anything you have seen. You will yet worship this foreign treasure, but will not let me hold and love my own?”
Thingol pauses, gaping a bit like a fish. In any other circ*mstances, Luthien might find that amusing. She has had a thought, though, and while she really shouldn’t—
“I hold him dearly indeed, father,” she continues. “More precious to me than that stone you hold is to the kinslaying Noldor. And yet you would hold him from me as the Moringotto held the gems from them.”
Her father chokes on whatever he was about to say, his hand spasming around the silmaril. His eyes are wide and horrified, but it can’t be the first time he’s noticed the parallel.
“Thou shalt not compare me and him,” he thunders and moment later, the rock nearly forgotten as he stands up himself to tower over her.
There is a time and place to be his sweet, adoring daughter. It is not now. Luthien doesn’t back down.
“I shall cease when thou dost!” she cries. “If he was not wicked, they would not name him so. If thou had not been cruel to me, I would not have fled.”
Thingol goes pale and quiet. “I have no choice here, do I?” he asks eventually.
“No,” says Luthien. “It is good of thee to recognize it as such. Thou didst give thy order, and it was done. I have wish to be married, and naught more shall stay us.”
“I am not well pleased,” he tells her plainly, though she can tell, knowing him, that the slope of his shoulders reads defeat.
“Well neither was I when thou made to have my beloved killed,” she says plainly.
“I did not,” Thingol starts, but no one is fooled by that, including himself.
“What did we think would occur, my love?” The air trembles as Melian speaks at last. Luthien looks over to find her mother sitting beside Beren, with one hand on his shoulder, glowing, and the other holding his stump. “That the sons of Fëanor would simply allow it all? That our daughter would see the return of her heart? No.”
“He is mortal,” says the king, as if Beren is not there.
“Well I would have what years he can give me!” Luthien argues.
“I would give thee all,” Beren adds from his seat. His voice is less strained with pain after the Queen’s touch and Luthien rejoices to hear it.
“Not less only through the kindness of—” she catches herself just in time, “—strangers.”
Thingol’s eyes narrow. “Aye,” he says, “tell me of thy journey. Ye have brought not only thyselves here, but danger to our woods as well.”
Luthien frowns. Beleg had mentioned the wolf, but the fact that they were in Angband at all still reflects her father’s choices more than those of herself and Beren.
“First,” she says, “I would have thy blessing. Thou saidst thou would give it, given the silmaril thyself.”
Thingol glares, but eventually, as if with great struggle, he turns to Beren and says shortly, “My daughter is free to accept thy hand.”
There comes a sharp, crackling laugh and Luthien looks up. She hadn’t realized Beleg had slipped in behind her father, but smiles at the sight of him.
Beleg isn’t smiling though, and the image of her normally cheerful great-grandfather holding a faintly grinning babe without even the faintest hint of happiness on his face is just enough to give Luthien pause.
“Free to accept it,” he says bitingly as he steps forward. He has a way of moving with silence and grace that seems more of a glide than anything. Even when wearing the tall, heavy, branching antlers he’s carved with years of familial memory and hung with dozens of golden bells bound up in his hair, Luthien has not seen him once carrying himself with anything other than perfect smooth control. A testament to the power of the first generation, she supposes.
“Belegmain,” Thingol sighs, and he sounds for the first time very tired.
Beleg is rarely anything other than subservient to the king, at least in his presence. He swore to bow to his great-grandson many, many years before Luthien was born, but he’s never been afraid of disagreeing either. Sometimes that makes life difficult for her father, but Beleg is always worth listening too at least.
“Thy daughter was always free to take her Beren’s hand, just as she was free to give her own, Elu,” Beleg says. “Think not that it was any less than absolute love for thee that made her allow the quest thou gave him. Thou art lucky that she chose to stay, rather than untying herself entirely from our lands.”
Thingol looks back at Luthien, who nods, eyes hard. He looks stricken then.
“Thou would not…” he says, but he can see it on her face.
“I love him,” Luthien says, aware that she has to be gentle. “I have since I met him. I love you too, Ada, more than almost anything. I would not have liked to chose, but…”
The glowing silmaril hits the floor with a thunk and her father sits back in his seat heavily. He knows, she sees, that he could have lost everything. She doesn’t have to mention that she’d warned him.
Lips pressed together thinly, she sits on Beren’s other side and lays her own hand over her mother’s on his arm. Beleg bounces Pîngil in his arms and the child giggles. The archer then moves behind the sofa they sit on to meander back and forth there, booted feet making no sound on the carpet.
“Oh, powers,” says her father softly. He drops his face into his hands and tips it towards the floor, his leafy silver crown held in place only with his braids.
They sit in that silence for some time, then Luthien turns to kiss her lover on the forehead. “We shall stay, Ada,” she announces. “We shall marry come the full summer, and then stay.”
Thingol looks up. “Will you hunt the wolf, o mortal who holds my daughter’s heart?”
Beren tips his head. “Only because she gave it to me, your majesty. Yes, no, perhaps. I gave you the silmaril, so my own hunt is done. But if I am to marry Tinúviel, then Doriath will be my home and my people too. And it is them that Carcharoth now menaces.” He looks to Luthien. “I shall join this next quest if my love would bid me so.”
Thingol accepts that surprisingly quickly. He nods and turns to Luthien.
She wants to laugh and tell him that she is not her beloved’s keeper, as brightly as she might have not even a year past. But she cannot.
“Thou’rt healing, my love,” she says. “And t’was the wolf who injured thee so. I would have thee rest and regain thy strength, but neither shall I cut thee from a chance at revenge, should thou wish it.” Her lips twist as she says it, but she already knows what his answer will be, and indeed smiles as Beren gives her exactly what she’s expecting.
“Revenge lost any appeal when I regained something to live for,” her beloved tells her with a smile.
Luthien returns it and doesn’t kiss him solely for her father’s sake, though the king has done nothing particularly to deserve it. Something in her still wants to be kind, and she can’t quite regret that either.
She nods. “Do not chase the wolf then.”
Beren hums. “I shall not.”
Thingol sits up straight again, this time with more purpose. Luthien is somewhat gratified to see that he doesn’t reach for the silmaril right away either, bright and tempting as it is.
“A hunt must be put together in any case,” he says, “as the beast cannot be allowed to terrorize Doriath unimpeded.”
“I shall assist thee,” Beleg puts in and Thingol appears to notice him again, and his cargo.
The king’s silver brows furrow. “Where didst thou acquire a mortal child, Belegmain? Bring it here.”
Beleg comes forward with Pîngil willingly enough, well aware that the king would never injure one so small and defenseless—and indeed likely plotting to distract him entirely.
“The boy is called Pîngil,” Beren provides, “we stumbled upon him on our journey and could not rightly leave him behind.”
Pîngil is curious and cautious, but smiling in Thingol’s arms soon enough, and as predicted the king’s entire form relaxes to hold the child, smiling softly.
“What a lovely little one,” he murmurs, rocking the boy gently. Pîngil seems entertained enough, but Luthien suspects he’ll be hungry and tried sooner rather than later. That’s alright, though. If her father can handle anything, it’s cranky children.
Sure enough, by the time Melian releases Beren—far nearer to fully healed than Luthien herself or her grandson had been able to manage—Thingol seems quite enamored of the child, and Pîngil of him. The princess would be impressed if she didn’t know her father.
He waves the pair of them off without further commentary, and Beleg steps out the door with them as Melian closes in on her husband and the babe.
“He’ll get over himself sooner or later,” Beleg says with a surety that comes from raising more than a handful of his own offspring. “Ye twain ought to get some rest in the meantime. Perhaps thou shalt not participate, Beren, but we would not turn down thy expertise in planning, my dear scourge of Dorthonion.”
Luthien suspects Beleg has hunted and outrun things bigger and scarier than the many orcs Beren has killed, but it’s kind of him to make the invitation in any case.
“I shall certainly make myself available,” Beren says with a smile, probably catching exactly what Luthien did.
Beleg leaves them at the door to Luthien’s rooms with a wink and a smile. He very pointedly does not make several comments that he could have, but Luthien hears them anyway.
She throws the sturdy, deceptively slim and delicate-looking deadbolt the moment the door closes, and spins around to grin at her lover. Beren grins back, and then begins to laugh. Luthien joins him before she even thinks about it and soon they’re both on the floor, giggling uncontrollably.
Beren rolls onto his side on the rug and laughs and laughs. Luthien crawls over a moment later and kisses him hard on his grinning mouth. He sinks his remaining hand into her hair and pulls her closer, and Luthien goes gladly.
“Welcome home, beloved,” she murmurs against his lips.
They lie wrapped in each other’s arms for a while, their mirth faded but the air of comfort remaining. Warmth blooms from every point of contact.
“As long as thou art here with me, it shall be a good one,” he says quietly.
Luthien tucks her head against his chest with a soft, sweet smile. “All of thy days thou shalt have me with thee.”
