Do Not Go Gentle by StarSpray

Chapter 1

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As the light left Beren’s eyes, silence fell over the wood. She could feel them watching her, no doubt expecting her to wail and weep and clutch Beren’s lifeless body to her self—and perhaps a part of her wanted to do all of that. And before, she might have—but she had already been through the deepest pits of darkness, had already faced both Sauron and Morgoth, and she had won.

Lúthien did not weep, and she did not wail. Beneath the leafy boughs of Hírilorn among the pale niphredil, she lay herself down, closed her eyes, and died.

.

She opened her eyes (if spirits could be said to have eyes) in a hall lined with tapestries, filled with the clustered and wandering spirits of the dead, of Men and Elves. Lúthien paid them no heed, and sped her way instead to the seat of Námo Mandos himself. He was stern and as unyielding as stone, but in his eyes was a glimmer as of distant starlight. She bowed before him, and sang, and wept tears unnumbered, until at last he yielded, and summoned Beren, unto her was given a choice.

She closed her eyes, and chose to die.

.

She opened her eyes to sunlight on the grass, and Beren’s hand warm in hers.

They did not stay in Doriath, but wandered instead south, to dwell upon an island surrounded by the music of the river. Lúthien sang by sunlight and by starlight, and Beren carried Dior laughing on his shoulders. The sorrows of the wide world passed them by, until Dwarves brought it, bloodstained, from Menegroth.

Lúthien took the Nauglamír, but soon lay it aside, for its fate was separate from her own.

Beneath the bright stars of Ossiriand, they laid themselves down, closed their eyes, and died.