Fight to the End by just_jenni

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Chapter 1-Fight to the End

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The two elves burst into Celegorm’s quarters, their cloaks flapping behind them in the breeze they created, making them appear birdlike.  They flew through the doors with the same intensity as two ravens attacking their dinner.

 

Ripping his cloak from his shoulders before tearing off his gauntlets, Celegorm tossed the clothing to the floor, not caring where it landed.

 

Curufin, possessing his father’s fiery and ruthless spirit yet not the quickness to anger that was his brother’s temperament, bent to pick up the carelessly discarded clothes before placing them on top of a dresser that stood against one wall, where the servants assigned to them by King Thingol might find them and put them away.

 

“I vow we shall have our revenge.”  Celegorm’s white teeth flashed in the dim evening candlelight, his mouth forming a grimace.

 

“Against whom?”  Curufin spoke quietly, his tone soft from the fatigue that had overcome him after the brothers’ recent and latest defeat.

 

“Whom would you think except Thingol?”  Celegorm shot back the question, his voice sharp with anger.

 

Curufin, having doffed his outer clothing, piling it neatly beside his brother’s on the dresser, crossed the room and taking Celegorm by the elbow, led him to the bed and sat him down.

 

“My dearest brother,” he yawned, rubbing Celegorm’s back between the shoulders in an attempt to relax the furious elf, “do you not think it wiser for the time being to give up our attempts to win Father’s jewel and move away from here so that we might plan to secure the Silmaril in a better conceived way?”

 

Celegorm turned to stare at his brother.  "It is beyond my understanding that you would say this," he seethed, his blue eyes flashing, teeth clenched in anger.  "Of all the betrayals--"

 

Curufin stopped massaging his brother’s shoulders and sat with elbow on knee, stroking his chin with a forefinger.  “Think upon it,” he began explaining.  “Our current methods of direct attack have clearly and most certainly failed.  I fear the more we continue to try to convince Thingol to give up the jewel in the way we have been doing will only succeed in turning him and all of his people against us.  He will drive us out of his kingdom as he has recently so threatened.”

 

A gleam appeared in Celegorm's azure eyes.  Curufin drew back, not liking the new expression on his brother's face.

 

“I believe the way to weaken Thingol’s resolve is through his daughter and that odious man with which she likes to keep company.”

 

The gleam in Celegorm’s eyes appeared wickedly brighter.  “You know how much I covet the Lady Luthien and I mean to have her.”

 

Curufin shook his head.  “That is impossible.  She does not want you.  She has openly declared her devotion to Beren and means to marry him.  She plans to visit Mandos and gain his permission.  You know this, so why would you pursue—“

 

Celegorm grabbed Curufin by the arm to stop him from speaking.  In the flickering candlelight his hair framed his face like a lion’s mane.  Never had he looked as feral as in this moment, his startled brother thought, his mouth opening in surprise at Celegorm’s ferocity.

 

“What I propose is to disappear,” he said.  “No, hear me out.”  He put a finger to Curufin’s lips to close them.

 

“Not to leave Doriath,” he explained, but not to allow ourselves to be seen wandering about the realm.  No longer shall we act as overtly as we have in the past.  My plan is to lie low for a while, then return in secret to squire away Luthien from her father. The man Beren we shall be forced take also.  Once we have her we shall kill the man and fly far away from here forever.”

 

“That is a terrible plan,” Curufin remarked after some thought.  “They do not like us now.  If we kidnap Luthien they will surely come to hate us even more and we shall never be able to retrieve the Silmaril.”

 

“You were not listening,” Celegorm said, shaking his brother’s arm.  “Exhaustion has taken hold of you.  After I finish explaining my plans in their entirety you will go to sleep.  I mean to carry this out in such a way that we will not be seen by anyone.  No one will know it was us who took Beren and Luthien.  Thingol and the rest will never know it was you and I that did this deed.  And when they leave Doriath to search for his precious daughter and her idiot lover we shall return to seize the jewel.”

 

 

On the borders of the forests of Doriath Celegorm had found an underground cave.  It was far from the grandeur of Thingol’s majestic caverns but he thought it would serve its purpose.  Well-hidden and alone among the trees on the forest’s edge, Celegorm had made this dark dwelling as comfortable as possible without arousing suspicion from any of the soldiers who patrolled Doriath’s outer forest.

 

He and Curufin wound their way through the thick trees and the stones that marked a pathway to this cave, hidden from sight by a cover of branches and foliage that Celegorm had carefully placed over its mouth.  Carrying torches, they rode on horseback and each horse carried upon its back a bundle.  These bundles were none other than Beren and Luthien, wrapped in black cloaks and trussed from head to toe with strong ropes, rendering them both unable to move.  Celegorm dismounted first and after removing the cover of leaves and tying back the branches that hung in front, he and Curufin led the horses carrying Beren and Luthien inside the dark interior, the torches lighting their way.

 

Once the hapless couple were untied and free to face their captors, the frightened Luthien looked upon Celegorm with anger darkening her normally pale and peaceful-looking face.

 

“Why have you done this to us?” she cried.

 

Celegorm took her hands in his and held them so that she might not try to strike him.  “From the first moment I saw you I fell in love with you,” he said softly.  “My wish is for you to come with me, far away from here, and become my bride.”

 

Hearing these words, Beren leapt forward to confront the elf who was his greatest enemy, but was held back by the much stronger Curufin, who pinned the man’s arms behind his back and quickly bound him by the wrists.

 

Celegorm turned to Beren.  “You!” He spat the words with great venom.  “You should not be the one who would win the Lady Luthien.  You are as inferior to her as a mouse is to a tiger.”

 

“You say this,” Beren shot back, “but Luthien is my wife to be.  It is me she loves, not you.  You cannot just come and take her like this.  In doing this act you make her hate you more than she already does.  I vow I will do everything in my power to save her from you and take her home.”

 

“Power?  You?  Take him away,” Celegorm bade Curufin, gesturing toward the dark entrance to a tunnel leading deep inside the cavern.  “Take him out of my sight and kill him.”

 

Though he was reluctant to do so, Curufin led Beren by the bound wrists through the cave until they were far away from Celegorm and Luthien and could no longer hear them, no matter how loud Luthien cried.  When he reached a small room furnished with a couple of pallets he bade Beren sit down on one of them and after placing his torch in a holder on the wall he let himself sink down on the other.

 

When Beren looked at Curufin he noticed the elf’s aura of deep sadness.  The corners of his mouth were turned downwards, his broad shoulders stooped and he stroked his chin with his forefinger in a gesture of thoughtfulness.

 

“I did not wish for things to come to this,” he murmured sadly.

 

“I do not believe you,” Beren retorted.  “I believe you want to kill me.  Your brother certainly will take my beloved Luthien once I am dead.  What is he doing to her right now?”  Desperate, the man twisted and turned his arms, struggling to break free from his bonds but could not.  Soon he gave up and lay still, regarding Curufin with his face a twisted mask of frustration.  His dark hair had fallen free of its bonds and fell tangled over his eyes.  His struggling movements and the dank, warm interior of the cave had made perspiration break out over his entire body, matting hair to forehead and clothes to form.

 

Curufin regarded him keenly, forefinger still stroking chin.

 

"All I want is the Silmaril that belongs to my family.  If it were freely given to us we would readily leave this place and never come back.  This gesture would remove my brother’s lust for Luthien and you and she would be left in peace to marry.”

 

His words were spoken calmly and simply, his voice low and soft.  His tone was one of clarity and reason.  Beren stopped struggling and stared back at the elf.

 

“I do not believe that your brother wants only the jewel.”

 

“Then you do not understand its power,” Curufin spoke in serious tones.  His eyes narrowed.  “I do not want to kill you.  I have thought of another way to secure our wishes.”

 

Curufin sighed, stood up and moved over to the man’s pallet, sitting down beside him with the lithe grace of a panther.  He brushed the man’s unruly hair out of his eyes and stared into them with an intensity that caused Beren to blink and shrink back in surprise.

 

“I must ensure that you will do as I have asked and obey me forever after,” he whispered.

 

Curufin possessed his father Feanor’s eyes.  They were beautiful, dark and deep.  They were eyes that gazed so deeply into that of another that they seemed to bore into one’s deepest soul.  In so doing to Beren  Curufin gave the impression that he was able to understand everything there was to know about the man, with sympathy and the aura of love.  And this made him impossible to resist.

 

Beren, a mere man, could not withstand the intensity of Curufin’s attention, though he was strong and true of heart.  Thus he succumbed to Curufin’s will without much of a struggle.

 

It was Curufin's desire that first the man disrobe.  It was partly because he wished to control and overpower him, but also because of his curiosity about what it would feel like to take him physically.  He was curious about the differences between elf and man.  He bade Beren undress slowly, untying his wrists that he might do so easily, and examining him while doing this.

 

Beren, transfixed by this dark, intensely glorious being, did as he was bid without further words and soon was naked, lying vulnerable upon the pallet.  He was dirty, sweaty and smelly but Curufin breathed him in with a voracious look upon his handsome face, nostrils flaring, lips opening to show a row of perfect white teeth.

 

Fully clothed himself, Curufin began to touch Beren, at first careful not to frighten him, slowly moving his hands over the man’s chest, belly and thighs, caressing various places on his body until Beren, still as a statue until now, threw back his head and moaned.  Not until Beren was writhing under the elf’s touch and fully aroused did Curufin stop and begin to undress himself.

 

As the clothing fell away from his beautiful, luminous, tightly muscled body and his sleek long hair had fallen unbound over his chest, Curufin looked down at Beren and saw the man staring back at him, his face an expression of wonder mixed with lust, his eyes and mouth open, showing his awe at the splendid elf before him, naked and wondrously erect.

 

With a smile transforming his glorious face into an expression of gentle caring, Curufin sank down to take Beren’s face between his hands, before taking his body, binding them into one.

 

 

Luthien drew away from Celegorm until her back was pressed to the wall.  Elf and woman had been arguing for some time, back and forth again and again over the same subject.

 

“I don’t want you,” she reiterated, trying to keep calm, fingers clawing at the stones in the wall of dirt behind her.

 

Celegorm, in whispered tones, kept insisting that he loved her.

 

“I don’t care,” she cried, “though some would call you beautiful and fall in love with you readily, I find you frightening.  To me you are someone to fear.  Your actions and intent are not true of one who loves another.  I cannot believe that you do love me.  How could you when we do not know each other?  We have met only a few times in passing.  I wish I had never met you at all.”

 

When she began sobbing helplessly Celegorm’s demeanour changed.  His face softened, the crease in his brow smoothed and his shoulders stooped.  The anger had gone out of him like the air from a bellows.  He stood still, at a loss.

 

‘What am I to do now?’ He turned away from her.  ‘She has resisted everything I have tried.  I cannot bind this elf-maiden to me without her consent.  She clearly does not love me and will never agree to be my bride.’

 

While he stood sad and confused, reflecting upon his thwarted plans and Luthien continued sobbing, her face held in both hands, Curufin reappeared with Beren in tow.

 

“How do things fare between you?” Curufin asked his brother.

 

“My plan has failed,” Celegorm replied, his defeated demeanour clearly shown in his dark, gloomy expression.  “I fear we must let them go now that I see the man still lives.”

 

Beren stood behind Curufin, his head bowed, his face red despite the dirt that would hide his shame.  Curufin took the man by the hand. 

 

“Beren will do anything I ask of him,” he said simply.

 

Luthien dropped her hands from her face and looked at them sharply.  “What has happened?”

 

“A change in plans,” Curufin explained.  “You are free to go on one condition – that you will steal the Silmaril from your father and bring it to us.  But you must say nothing to anyone about what has happened here.”

 

“But how—“Celegorm started to ask before Curufin put a hand over his mouth.  “Do not worry about that now.  Later I will explain.”

 

The two brothers escorted Beren and Luthien partway back to her home, laying out the new plan for stealing and returning the jewel to them.  At this point Celegorm summoned Huan, who upon taking a great liking for Luthien, was glad to lead them the rest of the way at his master’s command.  But from that moment on the hound was hers, though Celegorm did not know this.

 

 

Beren and Luthien sat together under a tree, Luthien twirling a white flower between her fingers.  They had arrived safely home in Doriath to the welcoming arms of her family.  Neither told of what had happened that day between Celegorm and Curufin and themselves.  They told Melian and Thingol that they had been hunting for mushrooms in the forest and had become lost.  Melian looked skeptical at this, knowing her daughter’s familiarity with the wooded areas of Doriath, but because the forest was very large and Luthien had always been honest, in the end she believed her.  There was also the presence of the dog Huan, which helped to convince Melian.

 

“I know he belongs to the Noldo Celegorm,” Luthien said with a shudder.  “But he came to our rescue when we were lost and led us home to safety.  He seems to like me better than his master and will now not leave my side.”

 

From that day Beren was never the same.  He still loved Luthien but no longer in the way he had.  He could not tell her what had happened between him and Curufin, and tried to keep up the pretence that he continued to want their marriage, knowing that soon even this lie would have to end.  He did not want Luthien to go to Mandos with the question of becoming Beren’s wife when it would mean her mortality and giving up of elvish ways.

 

“To hell with Mandos,” Curufin had said before taking Beren, when the man asked if permission was not needed before such an act of binding.  “This is not love, this is fucking.  This is not so much the binding of two fea as simply the power of one over another.  You will be bound to me, yes, and remain bound for the rest of your days.  But I will not be bound to you and will remain free to fuck every man in the realm if I so desire.  I care not for the customs and regulations of the Valar but will always remain true to my father’s wishes and the ways of the Feanoreans.”

 

After such dismissive words, Beren’s spirit was broken.  He took to going on as many dangerous missions as he could with the hunters and marchwardens of Doriath, always in his mind the unbreakable promise he had made to Curufin, the elf who had seduced him so cruelly yet so unforgettably.  To the end of his days he pursued the Silmaril to keep his promise to his elven lover.