Chapter Text
Lúthien Tinúviel opened eyes that had closed in death and drew in a stuttering breath. All of her ached with a sorrow she could not name. To live so many years in the sweetness of Doriath, never understanding just what a wonder and joy it was, to then face terror and pain and ultimately Death itself...Lúthien turned her face away and had to breathe through all the regret that came bubbling up in her breast.
After a moment she got control of her breathing and opened her eyes once more. She was...she was in a room she barely remembered, the cool blues and grays half hidden by the shadow of night. She sat up in fits and starts, her mind remembering old age but the body she found herself in was still flush with an eternal youth.
Lúthien looked around at her childhood bedroom and felt a bolt of ice slide down her spine.
In the quiet she could hear the footsteps of the servants move down the halls outside the room. Menegroth was always cool, no matter the season, so a fire was banked in the hearth, the glowing coals peeking out of the gray ash. She rubbed a hand over her face, feeling some thick knot of emotion lodge in her throat. A part of her wanted to run from the room and fling herself into her mother's arms. A part of her wanted to crawl under the blankets and shake until this strange dream went away. But when she pinched her arm, feeling the pain and seeing the red welt rise up on her skin, she could not pretend that this was some vision or hallucination granted to her on the eve of her death. This was real.
Lúthien had come back. But how far back? That she did not know.
She slid out of bed, her feet silent on the ground. A thin shift was all she wore, embroidered by her mother's hands, and it ended at her knees. She wiggled her toes on the cold floorboards, still wondering at the fact that nothing hurt anymore. Growing old had been...strange to her. Beren had not paid much attention to it, but then most of his focus had been on their little kingdom and later on the Silmaril placed about her neck, shining as she danced and danced and danced for him in the green glades there.
Lúthien put a hand to her throat and swallowed. She had not wanted to dance in the end but she had. Beren would not stop asking for it, almost as if her dancing was the only thing he wanted from her. Beren had not even wanted Dior, not really, for when she was heavy with child she could not dance, and her swollen body had not been...pleasing to the eye, or so he'd said. Lúthien had wanted more children, to have a large family about her, but Beren had refused her more than one. If she was pregnant she could not dance, and if she could not dance...
Well. Lúthien had learned to put many thoughts aside during those long years in the Land of the Dead that Live. She had not wanted the Silmaril to be passed to their only child, knowing that the Oath that had driven the sons of Fëanor would come after him in the end. Beren would not hear that argument, wanting their only child to parade around with that trophy about his neck, Beren's pride and glory. Lúthien had disagreed, but like many things in that second life they led, her dream of what would happen in their happily-ever-after was far different than the reality.
Lúthien found a robe and belted it tight about her middle. She crept to the door and peeked out, seeing no one in the hall. On silent feet she ghosted through the royal wing of Menegroth until she came to her father's study and eased the door open and slipped inside. Here the fire was banked as well, but Thingol's desk was full of stacks of papers – a quirk of her father's that would drive her mother mad at times, Lúthien remembered – that held all manner of reports. It was in those reports that Lúthien managed to figure out just when she had returned to. There was nothing of the sun and moon, nothing of the Noldor coming from across the seas, nothing of Morgoth's return to Arda at all.
She was back before anything had happened yet. But what did that mean?
Lúthien pressed her fingers to the spot between her eyes and tried to think. One of the reports mentioned that the last of the dwarves of Belegost were finishing their work in the eastern halls, which would mean that...would mean that if she had her dates right then Fëanor had not even created the Silmarils in Valinor and all the insanity of the Oath and the Kinslayings had not happened yet.
But what did that mean? Why send her back here, to Arda, and not Valinor instead? Was she...was she to wait here on these far shores until the Noldor were poisoned by Morgoth and went mad? Was she supposed to sit idly by as their people were corrupted by the darkness of that evil Vala? Was she supposed to wait and watch yet again as the elves of Beleriand fell to the swords and arrows of the orcs and other foul creatures Morgoth twisted in his dungeons? Was she supposed to wait upon Beren once more and be forced to dance for that same evil creature in his throne room, exhausting herself almost to death, just so Beren could be overcome by greed and take more than was needed?
Was she to die in pain and sorrow yet again?
Lúthien drew in a sharp breath as she dropped her hand. She lifted her chin, gaze distant, as she thought it all through. No. No, she would not die in agony. Not again. She would not dance like a caged bird with a collar about her throat for a man who would deny her the family that she wanted, the children she wanted, a life with her father and mother she wanted. No. Not again. Never again.
This time...this time she would change things. This time she would make them all listen. This time...this time she needed a way to get ahead of all the horrible things that were to come and somehow stop them.
She just had to figure out how, first.
In the end Lúthien crept back to bed and stayed there, huddled under the blankets as night turned to day and the sound of life began to stir in their home once more. Then she forced herself to get up, to get dressed, shocking the maid that came in to help her get ready for the day. Lúthien had forgotten much of her life in Menegroth, the memories too painful to linger on and then later on she had little time to think on them as she danced and danced and...
Lúthien did not want to dance anymore. Not alone. This time...this time she would only dance with the one who would dance with her, who would take her hand and be with her and not just watch.
It was an oath she meant to keep.
Lúthien stayed out of her mother's sight for as long as she could, not sure how to put to words her sudden change in demeanor. For she had changed, there was no denying that, and from the looks of the people in the halls, almost everyone noticed it to some degree. Perhaps she did not smile like she had, once before. Perhaps her eyes were different, older, sadder, more weary. Perhaps...well. She did not know the answer but sooner or later her mother would find out and Lúthien had to have something planned to say.
But what?
In the end, though, there were no eloquent words planned, no glib excuse on the tip of her tongue when her mother came to her rooms as night fell and all of Menegroth settled in to sleep and rest. Lúthien waited for her mother in a chair by the fire, watching as the flames turned to hot coals nestled in the ashes. She waited as her mother, still so beautiful, so ethereal, so wise, settled in the chair next to her, her hands folded in her lap as she stared at Lúthien, waiting for her to speak.
Lúthien opened her mouth and the words that came from her welled up from someplace she could not name. “To Valinor I must go,” she said, never taking her gaze from those glowing coals. “A great darkness is set to wake there. Melkor is a liar, a betrayer of the foulest type. He will speak sweet words and turn the heads of the Valar, all the while planning for his triumph over the Firstborn and the Valar as well.”
“My dear...”
Lúthien turned to look at her mother then. Whatever Melian saw made her close her mouth. There was something...ancient in her mother's eyes that Lúthien could not name, had never even seen before. “The Trees will be destroyed,” she told her mother. “Blood will be spilled on Aman's far shores. The Firstborn will be driven mad and punished for it by Powers who do not understand the depravity of one of their own. The glory of Arda will never reach its peak, for when Melkor becomes Morgoth he will shatter the best of us into a thousand pieces and turn kin against kin and do his best to rip the whole world apart in his greed.”
“Lúthien,” her mother reached for her.
“I will die,” Lúthien saw her mother freeze, all expression lost from her face. “I will be taken, a little bird dancing in a cage I was too stupid to see. I will not have the family I want. I will not have the freedom I want. I will have nothing but the collar about my neck, the pride,” she spat the word, “of my mortal husband whose greed I did not see until I had pledged myself to him and the deed was done.”
“No,” the word sounded as though it was ripped from Melian's throat.
“Yes,” Lúthien held that blank gaze and did not look away, even as the hairs on the back of her neck and on her arms stood on end.
“No,” Melian's lips curled back. In her face Lúthien could see the Power her mother once was. “I will not let it happen.”
Lúthien let out a small breath. “I lived it once,” she said on a whisper. Her mother closed her eyes and turned her face away, hands curling into fists in her lap. “I do not want to live it again.”
Her mother's eyes opened and she turned back to her. “Then you will not,” Melian said. “We will make sure of it.”
“Yes,” Lúthien said.
“We can...we can keep you safe, away from this – this person who –”
“No,” Lúthien held up a hand when her mother's gaze locked onto her. “Another plan is what we need.”
“And what plan would that be?”
“I go to Aman,” Lúthien said. “And stop it all before it can begin.”
Melian opened her mouth. Shut it. Then she took in a slow breath and closed her eyes, her fists relaxing in her lap as she laid her palms on her knees. Lúthien watched as her mother communed with that soft song only she could hear, that same Song that Lúthien had caught echoes of in a lifetime before. It was the same Song she could hear now, clearer than anytime before.
After a long, long moment her mother finally sighed and bowed her head, her shoulders rounding as she sagged in her seat. “To Aman you must go,” her mother agreed.
Lúthien sat up.
“But not alone,” her mother looked up at that. Her dark eyes were lit by some Fire that Lúthien did not dare to name. “The one you will take with you will be met on the road. It is a long journey to the utmost West, my daughter. It is a quest that will challenge you in ways you may not understand even now. A Power is at work here that not even I can name,” Melian murmured into the silence of the room. “You must go soon and go as quick as you can. Only so far can your father's guards help you. By the Falls of Sirion you will be forced to part from them.”
“Will Lord Ulmo heed my call?” Lúthien dared to ask.
Her mother blinked at her, that Fire sparking embers in her eyes. “No,” she said. “That is not for you.”
“Then how –”
“My dearest daughter, do you think that you alone were the only child born of elf and spirit?”
Lúthien drew in a sharp breath. “Who...”
Melian blinked and the Fire in her eyes was gone. “I do not know,” her mother put a shaking hand to her head. “I have told you all that I can. The rest you must discover on your road to Valinor.”
“I...Mother...” Lúthien trembled in her seat, all the words she had once wanted to say to Melian trapped in her throat. Her mother caught her up in a tight embrace and Lúthien knew no words were needed, now.
“By the new moon,” Melian whispered into her hair. “We have until the new moon and then you must go. Be swift, my daughter. Be strong. Be brave. Be everything you were and are meant to be and more.”
Lúthien curled her arms around her mother and held on tight, trying to imprint this moment into her memory for all time. “I will,” she promised. “I will.”
They stayed there until the fire in the hearth had all but gone out. Neither of them saw the faint sparks that rose when Melian tucked Lúthien into bed and then slipped out of the room, pausing in the hall to press her hands over her face.
And, leagues and leagues away, at the base of a waterfall that roared with such vigor that it caused echoes to crash against the valley walls, one Erestor of Imladris awoke.