Work Text:
When Mablung walks in, he's stringing the bow in his hands with all the care he can. He doesn't look up at Mablung's approach, doesn't look up as he peers over Beleg's shoulder at the wood.
Ash, for now. Because he's starting over. He's not Faenorian, but that rebirth holds some meaning for him too.
"Ready to go?" Mablung asks, quiet. Beleg dips his head, eyes closed, like a prayer. This close to the gods, it doesn't mean much.
"Yes," Beleg says.
"Here," Beleg whispers to him. This old song and dance. Túrin does not have the patience for bowmanship, but Beleg must teach him anyway.
There are many things he must teach him: Túrin, son of Húrin and Morwen. Son of a two great houses of men.
This is not easy for him, but it is easier than for most. Beleg hunted with Beren and fought with his fathers because no one else would. Beleg is the son of no one, or at least no one anybody remembers. And he is not a good storyteller. But they are all of them making exceptions for this child. There are terrible things to come for him, and they must ease the way for him the best they can.
Here now: "Steady," Beleg says, and lifts Túrin's working elbow a little bit higher. "Draw, and hold."
Túrin releases too early, and sighs impatient. Beleg smiles a little wanly. "It's okay. Again," he says, and turns Túrin's head, squares his shoulders.
Again.
This bow, it's not as strong as Belthronding. It's odd, but nothing here is hardy the same way it was back on Beleriand.
Nothing here is the same it was on Beleriand. Beleg is waiting, still, for the right wood. That's all.
He turns Dailir over and over in his hands, wondering. Daeron made this arrow for him, straight wood and hard stone and Song and Song and Song. It tugs at him, that bit of hope weaving and threading in deep.
Túrin has asked to join him on the marches, at the least. That creeping doom— it's the beginning of the end.
"He's just growing up," Mablung had murmured. "He's been a restless youth, these last years."
"It's too soon," Beleg had told him, unable to articulate that unease. Mablung had held his hand and not asked more from him.
That hope though. He keeps it near to his heart. Daeron is long gone, but Song never is.
Araw— Oromë's hunting lands on this side of the great sea are different. It's not that they're less than Beleriand, but even here deep in the wood it stifles.
Beleg is no huntsman, but Mablung? less than he even, by far. He's here alone for that reason, watching the animals slip though the trees around him. His heart beats quick but strong in his fingertips, the ones pressed to the wood of the arrow at his side.
No wood. Not yet. But the rest he can find.
"Give me that," Mablung says, fussing and pretending not to. Beleg loses himself in the rhythm of the play-tug for a moment before he hands over Belthronding, heartwood skin-warm. Mablung sets it over his knees, works the wax into the string with steady fingers.
"I don't see why you don't restring it entirely," Mablung finally says, disapproving. "Valar know how long you'll be gone."
"Only the Dark One," Beleg says, morbid and dry and not that funny. Mablung shakes his head. "This demands urgency, Mablung," he says, as earnest as he can. "And I don't think I will need it. Not for this."
Mablung has long caved already, but he makes a face anyway. It folds into uncertainty when Beleg holds his eye. "Take care," he says seriously. "Stay wary, Beleg."
"Yes," Beleg says, smiling so wide it's painful.
"Talk some sense into him," he orders, and stands to leave first.
He is, perhaps, a fool.
That sword is cursed, Melian tells him, flat out.
It calls to me, Beleg responds. And are we not all?
Maybe just him.
Andróg beats him when he goes after Túrin. It is, perhaps, that last part that stings more than any hurt inflicted. Or so he thinks, until Túrin refuses the king's pardon, and for— for what, to live like this, thieves and cruel men in the road.
"Beleg," Mablung says, watching him press palms to the tree.
"This one," he tells Mablung in lieu of an answer. Ash bow across his shoulders, yew against his palms.
Mîm curses Andróg to never hold a bow again, and it is cruel. Beleg is an archer. There is something to be said here about enemies, and friends, but Beleg's not sure Andróg nor Mîm are either.
But when he heals Andróg he knows he has picked a side. He does not regret it.
Guilt for his part in this bitterness of the petty-dwarves, though— that, he takes and takes and takes. They did not deserve it. His people are, in ways, very blind. He knows it well.
Beleg can make a bow in an hour and string a bow in minutes but this one he takes his time with.
He has time now. Mablung does not pull him away to rest, because this is bigger than that.
Túrin, he calls at Amon-Rûdh, and
Túrin, he calls at Bar-en-Danwedh, and
"Túrin," he says. The poor stupid boy doesn't wake, even as the rain beats down on them. Belthronding is heavy across his back. He still reaches for it. "Túrin," he says, Anglachel heavier in his hand, and—
Túrin kills him with that accursed sword, and Beleg dies laughing, blood bubbling between his lips. Of course it's a sword. Of course it's that sword.
Dailir snaps in the fall.
Beleg sits there and watches the fire burn bright. They said Doriath did too, at the end. But Beleg hadn't been there, and, well—
Ash to ash. The bow snaps and crackles in the heat and Beleg leans into Mablung's arm, the one he was named for. The other passes gentle over his brow, and he breathes.