Work Text:
Melian was weaving, her eyes half-closed, thinking of all the places she had known as home. She heard the footsteps on the stair, but did not hearken to them. Only when the door to her bedchamber (their bedchamber) was opened with a wrench, did she say, quite calmly,
“Thingol.”
He shut the door quietly.
“Feanor does not rest easily in his grave,” he said, the anger waiting in his voice like an ember waits to flare. “Not while his brother and sons hold Mithrim, with their petty wars. Not while Haleth aids them.”
Melian knew he wanted her shock, so she said nothing.
“She has been lying to me!” he thundered, striking his fist against one of the bedposts so that all four rattled. “She was delayed, this winter, because she was tending Fingolfin and his family like a nursemaid! Fingolfin, brother to Feanor, and come to take his place!”
“That does not sound like Haleth,” said Melian.
“She—she broke her journey at Mithrim. She left one of her—one of her Haladin there. And she stormed in this evening, to interrupt my supper, and—”
“Thingol,” said Melian again.
He subsided, but only for a moment. “Bauglir is enough trouble,” he said. Without looking at him, Melian knew he was shaking a long finger at the specters whom he sought to challenge. “Lurking in the mountains, the sneaking stoat. I do not need Haleth betraying me. I shall—Melian, are you even listening to me?”
“I cannot look away from my threads,” she replied, serenely. But from the corner of her eye she watched as he tore at his coat and vest, flinging them across the bed. With his shirttail coming untucked, he looked surprisingly boyish, to her fond-remembering eye.
No one but she would ever think Thingol boyish. Not anymore.
“I should have razed Mithrim to the ground when Feanor took the damned stone with him.”
Melian said, more firmly, “That is not your way.”
Silence.
She set aside her shuttle—she still threw by hand, since no mechanized wonder of the new world could match her—and went to him. She put her arms around him from behind and pressed her cheek against the middle of his spine, under his stiff shoulder-blades.
“You should have heard her,” said Thingol, patting her hands with one of his. “Haleth. She knew I planned to ferret the truth out of those two niños, and she stumped in with her big boots and said, they are Haladin. Haladin! As if she is in the business of rounding up lost youths and claiming them for her elite band of cattle-catchers.”
Melian drew her arms a little tighter. He laughed, and freed himself from her, only so that he could turn and embrace her himself.
Some time later, he helped himself to a little of the tea that she kept always brewing over a small brazier, and went to say goodnight to Luthien. He was whistling, but as he strode down the hall, the tune broke just once, as he muttered, “Haladin!” again, in disbelief.
Melian smiled to herself. She hunted for one of her fur-trimmed robes (the night was cold) and returned to her loom.
All was quiet in Doriath.