a place where both our hearts may rest by ohboromir

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Cuiviénen

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As sheltered as the Greenwood was, time still marched on within it, and Beleg grew restless. It was almost as if it was too much like Menegroth – he had grown restless and unnerved when he was there too, longing for the wilds and the freedom to range as he willed. He was not made for this kind of life; when the novelty of being still had worn off, he longed for the road again.

But he did not want to disturb Mablung’s peace. He loved to watch him; how he complained less and less of his old pains, how his smiles came more frequently, he had even taken up music again. Beleg had not heard him play since Lúthien was a child. He wanted to move on. But how could he ask Mablung to give up this comforting life? Or worse, leave him here while he went off alone? He had sworn not to leave his side again - and the world was less beautiful without him, greyer and duller.

But fortunately - and as Beleg should have known, truthfully - Mablung knew him too well to miss the signs. One spring morning, almost a century to the day after they had come to the Greenwood, he walked into their bedroom to find his husband organising his pack.

“What are you doing?”

“Packing. We’ll leave once the next storm passes.” Mablung did not look up from where he was examining a sock that needed darning.

“Leave?”

“Do you think I have not noticed? You have longing in your eyes.”

“I always have longing in my eyes when I look at you, dearest.”

“Insatiable fiend.” Mablung rolled his eyes, but his smile still brimmed with affection. “That is not what I mean. You want to go wandering again. So, we will go.”

“I don’t want to take you away from our life here.”

“We crossed the Mountains to see the world. We cannot stay here forever – perhaps we will come back around, once we have seen enough.” Mablung assured him, and Beleg’s anxiety was soothed. He was right. This was not taking away from Mablung – it was something he wanted, too, it was for them.

Just as Mablung had said, they left the Greenwood after the next spring storm, having said their farewells and gathered fresh supplies. It was with a light heart and eager feet that they wandered south, through the blooming forests until they reached the forest road, and from there they followed the Celduin river.

The road was peaceful, for the most part. There were few things out there that they feared, and no word of dangers in the wider world had reached them. After several weeks on the road, the sea of Rhûn flowed out before them.

Beleg’s heart trembled. Cuiviénen, dearest long-lost Cuiviénen, the great lake that had greeted him when he had taken his first steps in the world. This was not that lake, but it stirred the memory of it all the same, and his eyes pricked with tears.

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?”

The water was blue as sapphires, rippling softly in the breeze. The earth was warm and dark, emerald grass grazed by the proud kine, who paid elves little attention. Beleg did not answer Mablung, but made his way to the lakeshore, removing his boots to sink his feet into the sun warmed water. Mablung joined him a moment later, sitting on a boulder.

“Do you remember when we came here on the March?”

“When Olwë made rafts? Oh – we should make ourselves a little boat!”

The idea made Beleg’s eyes light up, and he waded hurriedly out the water, only to come shuffling back a few moments later.

“There’s a current. A little raft will do.”

Mablung carried, habitually, a hand-axe on his belt, and he set about felling logs while Beleg carried them to the shore, lining them up. It was hot and tiring work, and both elves soon grew irritable. As it turned out, ship-building was not as easy as either of them had remembered.

“You’re not tying the knot properly.” Mablung batted Beleg’s hands away from the piece of twine he was fighting with. Beleg batted his way back.

“I know how to tie a knot, Mablung. I’m not a child.”

“You could have fooled me.” Mablung rolled his eyes, and stepped back. When Beleg had finished securing the twine, they crouched to lift the raft, but the knot came undone in a moment, and all the logs tumbled back to the ground.

“Don’t say –”

“I told you so.” Mablung snatched the twine from Beleg, who snatched it back. Mablung scowled. “Some woodsman you are.”

Beleg rolled his eyes. “I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas.”

“If you would just let me do it –”

“You can’t do everything for me all the time, Mablung.” Beleg, hot, tired and frustrated, snapped. “You always do this! You always think you can fix everything for me – can’t you let me do something on my own for once?!”

“Last time I did that, you disappeared for fifteen years.” Mablung threw up his hands. “Varda forbid I try to help you! Eru made you as stubborn as he did foolish.” he turned on his heel and stalked back up to their camp, kicking an empty flask over.

“Now who is being childish?” Beleg would not stand here and argue; he hated to argue with Mablung, feeling always that he was not quite well spoken enough to argue his point well, while Mablung seemed to dance verbal circles around him. He stormed off in the opposite direction, muttering under his breath about stubborn husbands who thought they knew better.

When he was sure he was out of earshot of the camp, he sat himself down in the grass, and picked at it, grumbling, until his anger abated. He was not angry at Mablung, really - he was tired, he was hungry, the memory of Cuiviénen was almost overwhelming, and he just wanted to do something nice: to float lazily on the water in their raft.

And Mablung had only been trying to help - Beleg had snapped first. Nothing Mablung had said was strictly untrue: Beleg would be the first to admit that he was stubborn, that he was impulsive and reckless and unwise, that he had abandoned Doriath all those years ago. It did not hurt to hear - it hurt to know his ways frustrated Mablung, when he could no more change himself as he could undo the past.

Something would have to be done about it.

He knew what he would do. Go back to Mablung, apologise, kiss and make up. Let him fix the raft; tease him about naming it after him. Ask him to sing - Mablung loved to sing, but he was so bashful about it. Asking to hear it would cheer him up. They could still have their peaceful evening.

His foul moods had always passed quickly: he was as changeable as a breeze, but given to joy by nature, and by the time the sky had darkened, Beleg was feeling light hearted again.

It was just a silly little fight – some food and water would cheer them up again, he thought, as he wandered back towards the camp. It was not as though they had not argued before – in Doriath they had disagreed often, though shouting matches were somewhat rarer. By morning, this would be forgotten.

“Mablung?”

The campsite was empty, Mablung’s spear in the dirt. Fear sparked in Beleg’s heart. Where would Mablung have gone without his spear, unarmed? Maybe he had just stepped away for a walk but – no, something was definitely wrong. His heart was entwined with Mablung’s, it had been since their marriage under the stars centuries ago.

Mablung never went into the wild without his spear.

In the still air, Beleg closed his eyes and listened. His ears twitched; he took in the sound of birds, the water, the call of nature. Nothing stood out at first. He focused harder, listening for any sign of Mablung’s footsteps or voice. No hunter in the world had hearing as keen as his.

Then, faintly on the breeze: his name. Beleg. Help me.

That was all he needed to be sure that his husband was in danger. He clutched Belthronding and fled on light feet towards the sound with single minded focus, his hair streaming behind him. Over green grass and stony shoreline, over boulder and earth and the low growing shrubs. As he passed over a large rock, he saw Mablung.

Mablung, surrounded by wolves, unarmed. He had one in a headlock, wrestling the beast in the dust. Beleg wasted not another moment – his arrows flew, one after another, each into the skull of a wolf through the eye, even the one that twisted on the ground with Mablung. Beleg’s hand did not waver and he did not miss.

As the last beast died, Beleg flew to Mablung’s side and pulled him into his arms, shaking with tears. Alive, Mablung was alive, breathing hard as he embraced him in return. Safe, safe, they were safe and together.

 

“I knew.” He murmured after a moment, “I knew, it wasn’t right, you didn’t take the spear, we argued, I feared… I wouldn’t want that to be the last thing I said to you, I had a whole plan, I didn’t think you would be in dan-”

“Oh, Beleg…”” Mablung held his face, cutting him off; Beleg could see his eyes were watery, though he had not yet cried. “Oh, my sweet fool. I love you.”

Mablung held their foreheads together. He said nothing else. The two of them remained in the dirt, just savouring each other’s presence. Silence passed. One minute, five, ten, twenty – and then, softly, Mablung chuckled. Beleg frowned at him.

“I think I know how to fix the boat.”

It was, in the end, a simple fix: a different knot, a new angle, and their boat - a raft, really, with a little set of paddles and nothing more - bobbed safely in the water. They kept their gear hidden and dry on the shore, prepared their meal for the night, and paddled it out into the middle of the lake.

That evening, as their little raft floated in circles out on the water under the stars, they found peace.

*

Their time in Rhûn was short; it stirred too many long, sad memories in both of them, despite the beauty and peacefulness of the land. Their path continued, though they had left the road behind. Over the wild and free lands to the south of the Greenwood they roamed, speaking with joy and warmth to everyone they met.

After some weeks of wandering another forest sprung up before him, the trees young and spry, growing older and taller as they ventured in, spring bluebells and little white blooms carpeting the earth - Lúthien’s Niphredil, here, of all places!

Beleg knelt and picked one of the niphredil blooms, cradling it in his hands for a moment before he reached to tuck it into Mablung’s braid.

“A piece of …” Home, he wanted to say, but the forests of Doriath did not feel like home anymore. These lands were home now, familiar and yet new and beautiful. Beleg couldn’t say when the change had happened: only that now, Eriador’s wilds were his home. “A piece of the past, for your hair.”

Mablung’s smile was bittersweet, and he did not answer, but he picked a matching flower for Beleg’s hair.

Over the sound of a bubbling stream, they heard a high clear voice. Beleg turned, and his eyes caught a flicker of movement in the trees.

Oh!

There were elves in these woods – was this what remained of Lenwë’s people, kin of the Green-Elves they had sheltered in Doriath?

He wanted to find them. Beleg did not spare Mablung a second glance before he sprinted off through the flowers, as swift as Nessa’s dance. In the trees, above and around him, he heard elvish voices laughing. Yet still they eluded him; where Beleg was fast the wood-elves were faster, where he was subtle, they were more so, where he was sharp-eyed, they were more well-hidden.

Onward he ran, and behind him he heard Mablung following. The laughter and singing drew him deeper and deeper into the woods, and the trees grew thicker, wider, older. Suddenly, Beleg realised he was lost – where was the path? The flowers had faded into thick undergrowth. The singing had ceased. He slowed to a halt and turned around.

“Mablung?”

“I am here.” Mablung came to his side.

“Do you see the path?”

Mablung sighed. “No – you are really too old to be darting off, Beleg. We are lost.”

“I am as youthful as a spring day, thank you very much.”

“A spring day before the rising of the Sun, perhaps.” Mablung snorted, to which Beleg had no retort. “Come. We might as well keep walking.”

There was little choice; going back seemed pointless. This forest would be as good for exploring as the sweet flower-glades they had left behind, despite being much darker.

There was no path to follow, but Beleg had a strong instinct for direction, and he led the way. At first, they walked in silence, quiet contemplation of the beauty of their surroundings. But beauty spurred elves to music, and softly, a song began between them.

They sang of autumn’s golden boughs, waving the breeze, branches laden with the last of the year’s fruit, ripe and sweet. The song turned to winter, to bright holly-berries in the dark nests of ever-green leaves, to creeping ivy and mistletoe, and the fragrant clematis and hellebore which had witnessed them bind themselves to each other, so many years ago.

Louder their voices rose, as the song turned to spring.

Spring’s song was of pink blossoms and hopeful shrubs, the shoots of green leaves; yellow daffodil and the dearest niphredil. And then answering came a booming voice, rich as the oak: once-more elf song had brought life to the forest.

Before them a great and mighty tree stirred, and moved, and blinked, and the booming voice sang with them of summer – golden fields ready for harvest, the meadows in fullest bloom, all the colours and the joys of warm days and nights; the days of summer were days for feasting and for singing.

“Elves in Fangorn’s old forest!” The voice said, as the song was picked up by more and more trees, carried over the forest. “And these are voices Fangorn knows, and remembers, for these are the voices that sang to him in his youth; Beleg and Mablung walk again under these fair branches!”

“Fangorn!” Beleg laughed and both elves bowed deeply. “Indeed, we do; but I had not thought we might stray into your lands. Forgive your trespass as old friends – I am sure you have much to tell us, and we you!”

“That is so.” Fangorn answered, “For if the memory of elves is long, that of the Ents is longer. Come, and meet more of my folk – here we have beeches and ashes and oaks, hawthorns and redwoods. Come, and introduce yourselves to those who have heard much of you.”

By the time the sun had set that evening, they had only just finished saying hello.

Fangorn was greatly pleased to have them in his forests, and both of them made fast friends among the younger trees. It was a pleasant time, full of reminiscing, of singing and delight. They drank the sweet ent-draught and hunted under the twilight branches. Mablung composed poetry and taught the Entings to recite it. Beleg tended the trees as carefully as an Ent, and sang flowers and fruits into season.

So long they dwelt under the fair branches of Fangorn, that stories of them passed from memory into legend; two wanderers of old who had gone into the wilds and never returned, who had become part of the forests themselves. Great deeds were far behind them now, but history remembered their valour, their loyalty, their pride. Was it a surprise, then, that people told tales of them still? They had defied death and war and doom - they had found their own peace in the deep woods of the world. Few lived now who remembered them, this side of the Sea. To the elflings of the world, they were a fairytale.

But it could not last.

Beleg climbed each morning to the top of the tallest tree, and gazed out over the horizon.

“There is smoke to the North.”

Mablung shrugged. “Eregion’s forges.”

“It is a great deal more than that; if that is Ost-in-Edhil, the entire city is on fire.”

A shadow passed over the forest.

“We should go and help them.”

Beleg scrambled his way down, and set to gathering his things.

“We have never seen Ost-in-Edhil; do you think we might meet this Lord Celebrimbor, after we help him save his city?”

Mablung laughed. “Perhaps. Though I think he will be a little too busy to sit down to dinner with us, if that is what you are hoping.”

“You know me too well.” A snort of laughter. “We’ll see.”