Beating Fate by Paul Williams  

The end of their days would soon be upon them. She knew it. Truth be told, she was looking forward to it. She always had been clear sighted. That was the gift, or one of them, from her mother, Melian.

“You will have a long an blessed life”. It had been promised. Like most things promised to her, it had not been true. She was not disappointed. It was what she expected. What she wanted.

There would be no grave. She knew that too. Their forms would just fade from the world. They were merely borrowed anyway.

She sat, waiting for Beren to return. He’d wanted to accompany Dior to the edge of their domain, to see him off, to draw out this last goodbye. She had made sure he’d taken the Silmaril with him. Good riddance. She had never wanted the thing in the first place. But then, life had taught her, “you don’t get what you want.”

Women rarely did.

She had not wanted to return. For what reason?

“Just let us go!” She had said to Mandos.

“But you can live a full life together, before you depart from the world forever.”

“Or, we could just slip away now. We are here. Why return? To what end?”

She knew to what end. She knew she was more important as a womb, as a bloodline, than as a woman. But that did not mean she needed to accept it, even if it was fate. And she was not going to just accept HIS plan for her.

“You have your choice Lúthien. You two can live a long and happy life together. No other being has ever ….”

“No Mandos. Don’t tell me I get to choose. There is no choice. There never was. I have known this is my fate since wandering in the wilds, since before Angband. I knew this was my path.” She looked at Death as he stood before her. “I prepared for it.”

Death stood impassively. Watching her.

“You can send us back, but I can simply lay down and die again. I am through with this world, Mandos. I do not need to live again. I have lived long enough. But Beren, I give you that. Huan too. They do not deserve to simply pass.” She looked towards the edge terrace they stood on. Towards the archway and the path out of the world. To what was to come. To futures even Mandos could not see.

Beren stood, waiting. Huan barring the path.

She sighed. “I will return, but only if they both can return.”

Mandos looked at her. He could see no harm. Huan had, after all fought alongside her. Always true, always loyal. Giving his life in the service of others. He nodded.

“Agreed. Return with them both Lúthien. Your lives are bound together now.”

She bowed her head. “Thank you Mandos.”

“I will see you one more time in this world.”

And then, they had awoken. In Doriath. The three of them.

She had wanted to spend this gifted life with her family. With her mother. With Melian. The woman she would never see again. They had never had the chance to heal the pain. Melian had never had the chance to grieve for the daughter she would lose.

But Beren wanted her. To possess her. He wanted his time with her. His peace with her. And so, with the blessing of her father, he had been gifted a domain, an island where they could live out their lives.

She was not surprised how her life had gone, that she and Beren had ended up here, alone. She looked to her side. Huan, the Great Wolfhound of Valinor slept beside her. Well, almost alone.

She knew the stories that were told of them. Not of her, of them. Always Beren and Lúthien. Beren took the Silmaril. Beren won her love. Beren took revenge for the death of Thingol.

She was always following, always an afterthought in her own story, or an expectation in someone else’s game.

Yet the stories she told all started the same way. With Beren. Often, with “Beren, please don’t …”

“Beren, please! Don’t hunt down the dwarves! What will vengeance bring?”

“Beren, please! Don’t bring the Silmaril back. It is cursed, it just brings misery.”

“Beren, please! Don’t retreat to an island with me. Let us live among my people.”

“Beren, please! Don’t treat me like an object to be locked away from the world.” Her father had done that too. Surely he could not have forgotten that? Maybe it wasn’t even something that occurred to him?

It wasn’t like this was just since their return. It had always been so. Even from the very beginning:

“Beren, please! Don’t pursue me! I am not what you think.”

“Beren, please! Listen to me when I tell you what love means to me!”

“Beren, please! Don’t let your pride eclipse your love for me. Don’t accept a stupid quest for a bride price I did not set, I do not want. I am just an object to be won.”

But he hadn’t listened. He never did.

She knew he loved her. And she knew, she loved him too.

In that, she had no choice. It was her fate.

Their story was wrapped into the Music of the Ainur. And elves, even half divine elves like her, could not escape the world. They were bound to it.

It had been the same on his quest, which really ended up as her quest. Even after freeing him from Sauron, even after he’d witnessed her destroy Sauron’s tower with the power of her voice.

“Beren, please! Don’t try for Angband on your own. We do this together.” Yet he’d tried to sneak away.

“Beren, please! Don’t let greed drive you! One Silmaril is enough! One is all you promised.” Yet he had wanted another. Greed over love. His desire to possess what he couldn’t, or shouldn’t. Wasn’t she enough?

And what had it cost him? His hand, his life, Huan’s life; and hers too.

Back there, in Doriath, with Carcharoth on the rampage, “Beren, please! Don’t do this without me! Let me face him with you! I am not a damsel in need of protection! You know this.”

Then, when the wolf had ravaged him, when he was dying, when she whispered to him … “Beren, please! Don’t leave the Halls of Mandos without me!”

She’d known, known it would not be enough. So she likewise had whispered in the ear of Huan, her voice chasing his spirit. “Stay, do this last thing for me. Block his way. Both of you, wait for me!”

Now once again, she sat. Waiting. Waiting for Beren. For him to sit with her and likewise wait. It would not be long. Before the end of the day. Their time would be at an end. Finally.

——

Lúthien looked again at the terrace. At the archway framing the path into the unknown, into the unknowable. Beren to her left, holding her hand. Huan to her right. Mandos stood a few paces ahead of her. As she turned to face him, taking a step towards him, she felt Beren let go of her hand. Huan went to move. Lúthien put her hand on his shoulder. He stopped. Stayed next to her.

Mandos took a similar step towards her. “Lúthien.” He said sadly. “This is the last time …”

“It is Mandos, yes. Sooner than you promised, longer than I would have liked. It seems a reasonable compromise.”

Mandos, looking over her shoulder seemed suddenly agitated, quite unlike himself. Lúthien turned. Beren was already at the arch. Touching it in wonder. He stepped through.

“He’s leaving!” He said.

“I know! I asked him not to.” She stood watching. Calmly.

Death turned to her. “Oh Lúthien, the fairest of all the Children of Illuvatar,” she turned to face Death. “You fought for this! For him! You defied me for him! For love! Aren't you going to follow him now?" Mandos was confused. No. Concerned.

Lúthien looked at Huan, the only being ever to truly see her. To respect her. To fight alongside her, not for her. The only one who waited for her.

“Perhaps.” She smiled enigmatically.

Then stroking Huan's shoulder softly they walked to the archway. There was the slightest pause. Huan looked her in the eye, then as he stepped, she stepped too.

And they were gone,

to a place beyond to the music, to find a fate that even Mandos could not see.

——

Her choice. Not Thingol’s. Not Beren’s. Not Illuvatar’s. Not Tolkien’s. Not mine. 

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For those who think she is turning her back on Beren here, she might be, she might not be. I do not know.

She might chose to follow him. But it will be on her terms. She owns her own choice.

The story, as written by Tolkien is pretty damning to the males in her life, except for Huan, who actually sees HER; and is pretty damning to her, and Melian, who seem to just accept their lot.

Tolkien said Beren & Lúthien was his most important work. We all know the parallels, which is why (for me) it is so flawed. He never published it because it was never finished. In each iteration Lúthien becomes more and more powerful, while Beren becomes less and less. Yet her power just highlights the ridiculous social constraints both she and Melian endure. Treated as an object when men are present, given agency when not, treated as an object, given agency, .. always a thing desired, seen through male eyes, through the male gaze, except by Huan.

For the longest time, circa 40 years, I have thought about rewriting the whole thing, just for me. It is possible. You can ‘fix’ Beren and in so doing, ‘fix’ Lúthien, while remaining true the story. I have the outline and it does not really break anything - save diminishing Huan slightly. But then what would I be doing? Just repeating the same mistake. Someone else ‘fixing’ her.

I realised that the only way to save her is for her to save herself. And the only way she can save herself is to step outside the music, outside fate.

Death is not (her following) to be with Beren (that is all she ever seems to do, follow. Pick up the pieces). Death is the only way to a freedom to forge her own fate. 

She might decide that Beren is all she ever wanted, that fate kept forcing him into a shape he didn’t want either. That underneath all that faux heroism, the greed, the pride, there is a man worth loving, who can be loved and can love back.

Only she knows. 

But for me,

why does Huan wait? Why is it that, in my telling, he's the one at the arch?

Not because he's a consolation prize. Not because Beren failed, and so she settles for the hound. But because Huan never wanted to own her.

He followed her to Sauron because she was going, and he would not let her go alone. Not to possess her. Not to protect her like property. Just to be there. To fight beside her. To die for her if it came to that—and it did.

And when it was over, when they woke in Doriath, he didn't ask for anything. Didn't demand her time, her attention, her gratitude. He just stayed. Slept beside her while Beren dragged her to his island.

He understood something Beren never could: that loving someone means letting them be free. Means being present without grasping. Means waiting without demanding. Means seeing them before you see yourself. Beren loved her without knowing her. That is not love, that is need.

So Huan waits at the arch. Has always been waiting. And when she finally steps through—outside the Music, outside fate, outside everything that ever caged her—he's there.

Not to claim her.

Just to walk beside her, wherever she goes next. Even if it is to Beren. And even if it is not. 

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