"for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come ?" by hennethgalad

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

"for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come ?"

 

 

 

 

    Dior awoke with a shout, the sheet tangled around his knees, his body damp with sweat, and glowing still from the embers of the vividly sensual dream. The door opened and his father, sprung fully-awake from sleep, looked at him anxiously.

 "What is it ? What ails you, boy ?"

But Dior, looking down at his own treacherous body, could not speak. His father smiled, and screwed up his eyes and nose for a moment, as one who sees an infant strike at an honoured guest. Dior felt indignation mingle with his embarrassment, and straightened his shoulders with gritted teeth. He had turned fourteen, he was no child...

 Beren drew a chair forwards and sat by the hearth, poking the crumbling logs absent-mindedly. When the fire was burning clear he sighed and turned to face his son.

 

  "You have dreamed, I think; a disturbing dream, but not a frightening dream ?"

 Dior nodded, his cheeks burning with shame, as though his father could read the substance of his dream in his eyes. He swallowed and cleared his throat, and replied with a hoarse stammer "I... yes, I had a... it was..."

 Beren nodded and looked back at the fire, his own cheeks burning, remembering his own first such dream, out on patrol with his father, and the laughter of the troops, and his father, torn between pride and mortification... He sighed and turned back to the large, anxious eyes of his son. The child had grown more than he had noticed. He was taller than Elves of his age, but not excessively so, and this, it seemed, was the first sign that his blood was indeed partly Mortal. 

 Beren put a hand to his forehead, as though to stifle his frown, recalling long anxious conversations in Doriath; with the coldly furious Thingol, with the eerie, smiling Melian, with the Wise among the Sindar, and with his own beloved wife... Her son, his son, their darling boy... What would he become ? Would he perish, tainted by Mortal blood ? Beren looked down at the glove covering the carefully-graven hand of wood they had made him, finding the mere sight of his stump disturbing, and for him most of all. 

 He could not endure to bring imperfection before Lúthien, his Mortal weakness in the face of her beauty, her radiance which surpassed the Elven... And he was not even whole... The flames absorbed him, he drifted into memories, then became aware of his son, watching with a new detachment in his eyes. 

 "This is how Mortals grow ?"

 

 Beren twitched, and turned to his son.

 "Yes. I was a little younger than you. My father had warned me, and was proud and embarrassed when I... when it... . But you, I did not know... You are still small; if you grow as a Mortal, well, much will change, there will be many things to consider... But the Eldar have a very long childhood, and your mother is tall, and your grandfather, so I thought... I am sorry if I have failed to prepare you for the time of change. It is my duty as your father, and I have failed you."

 Dior sat up and leaned forwards, his arms clasped round his knees. 

"Shall I become hairy like you father ?" he asked eagerly.

Beren laughed softly and stroked his close-trimmed beard. It had fascinated Lúthien, and still did. He blushed, wondering if his strange son could read his thoughts...

 "Oh Dior, I do not know ! Alas ! You are the first of your kind. You are the only one of your kind. There is only one Melian, there is only one Lúthien, and there is only one Dior. We do not know, we cannot know until you are full grown... This may take five years, or thirty five years, or something inbetween. But the time of... the time of change has begun. Your Mortal blood shows through, like the buds on the winter tree." 

 

Dior sat very still, his face grew pale, his lips set firm but his eyes, round and frightened, looked at his father in horror.

 "I shall perish then ? In a few score years ? Like an insect ?" he stopped, shocked at his forgetfulness, for here was his father, for whom death was a certainty, more than that, for whom death had already been tasted... His father, who would drag Lúthien down into the darkness with him... His fists clenched, sometimes he hated the mere thought of his father, so crude, coarse, weak, clumsy, Mortal. It disgusted him, at times, to see that hand touch his beloved mother. The thought that he himself could be tainted by that blood, that the indignities and weaknesses of Mortal flesh would claim him after all, that he was so inferior to everyone he knew... Angry tears burst from him, he thrust his fists into the sockets of his eyes and pressed them there until the lights of Varda appeared and comforted him. He shuddered and drew breath, and looked up at the tired, sad face of the Mortal, his father, and was stabbed with a new kind of pain; an unbearable pity for the frailty of the Mortal, all Mortals.

 

 "I am sorry, father, I did not intend to insult you. But I had hoped, you know, to be Elven. I hoped that the blood" he paused, thinking of his strange, beautiful grandmother, as ageless as the sea, and as mysterious. Did she even have blood ? "I had hoped that the blood of Melian would... would be strong..." his voice faltered, he looked down. 

 But Beren was at his side, a hand on his arm, looking at him with eager eyes 

 "Such were my hopes also, my son, you must believe me. I think all of us thought... You are so very Elven, and not merely for having been raised among them. Your senses are Elven-sharp, you have the grace and poise of the Eldar, and already a little of their wisdom..."

 " 'their' " said Dior. Beren nodded.

 "I apologize. All your life I have fought to preserve the memory of my kind in you; for my family, my tribe, my people, are slain or scattered to hide in the caves, perished like the grass, and unmourned as we watch the forest burn." He gritted his teeth and looked away, as the ghosts of Dorthonion haunted his waking eyes. But now the hand of his son was on his arm, and for the first time he knew that here was a son, a son of his, who understood him, and who would stand at his side in battle, and tend his declining years. His throat closed with pride, love and a sinew-loosening relief, easing a pain he had not known he bore. The line of Barahir, the House of Bëor, would endure, he felt the knowledge rise within him like the Sun, and wondered if this was what the Elves called foresight. Not seen, but known.

 

 But Dior moved, and spoke with words of heartfelt encouragement.

 "Father, please have no fear for me. I do not mind how long my life will be; the world is full of danger, the Enemy strikes at all, caring naught for Eldar, Edain or anything in between. So many have perished, so many died on your quest, or in Dorthonion, or..." he paused. People still did not speak of the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. What could be said ? But his father knew...   "Truly, I am not afraid. But I will regret the time I might have had to see a little more of Arda. Or even Beleriand."

 

Beren felt more guilt. It was too much, but what choice did he have ? They, more than any others, were hunted by the Enemy with the full weight of his wrath. They had taken back one of the Silmarils. From his own crown. He would pursue them until the world ended. And so they had taken refuge here, on the green isle; the haven and sanctuary of the Elves, as guarded as Doriath, though without the power of Melian to confound the senses of the Enemy. They had kept their son close, as guarded as a Silmaril, and more precious by far, to them. He could not be permitted to roam the wild with the Lindar, singing among the trees; even were he fully Elven, he must be guarded... Beren sighed.

 "I must apologize once more, it seems, but I do not regret keeping you close. Were you fully Elven, you would have to face many more years of close supervision. But if your flesh is Mortal, as it seems, then you will seek to leave here as soon as you are able, in order to realize your dream. Or a dream..." 

 They both blushed, Dior picked at a thread in the fabric of his sheet and Beren returned to the fire, poking it as though angry, but Dior knew that it was not rage which moved the strong arms of his father so vigorously.

 

 A new thought was dawning within him. Mortal flesh, a Mortal childhood, he would grow swiftly, leaving his classmates far behind, he would be ready for battle in less than five years. The future shifted around him, he was almost dizzied. He blinked, then smiled at the hunched shoulders of his father. In a voice thrilling with the promise of the vast, unknowable future, he said 

 "Oh father ! I am proud to be your son, and I would be proud were my mother the meekest of Mortals. You do not know how they speak of you here, but I do. I listen when they do not see me, and they grudge the fact that you are Mortal, they wish an Elf had done what you have accomplished. They are so very proud of you. I am so very proud of you ! What do I care for scenery ? A willow in Tol Galen is much the same as a willow in Arvernien, I do not regret that we have not travelled, nor that I may never see Nargothrond, or hidden Gondolin. Please do not be angry with yourself !" he paused and smiled at Beren, who sat, and looked at his son with wistful hope. "Truly, father, if I am Mortal, I shall be the finest Mortal that ever lived, and they will sing my name alongside yours when the time comes to tell the tales of our days !" 

 Beren grinned, the boy was almost bouncing with excitement. The dream had been an awakening, in a strange way, and the boy had realised that if he were Mortal, his life would be his own in a very short time, and that his dream could perhaps be made, as it were, flesh...

 

 There was a stirring in the doorway. Lúthien was there, in a flowing robe the colour of autumn leaves. They looked at each other in alarm, and turned guilty eyes upon her.

 "Whatever are you two doing ? I could hear your voices from across the hall, is all well with you, my dear ?" She looked anxiously at Dior, who smiled, with something strange in his eyes, something she had never seen before, and she put out a hand, blindly, to Beren, who moved to her side. 

 "He is growing up, my love. The time of change is upon him." 

 Her pale skin went almost white, the dark of her eyes narrowed to pinpricks and she put her hand up to her face, but paused with it held, trembling slightly, before her long white throat. Dior thought of Morgoth, seeing his mother just so, pale, frightened but determined, and lovelier than words could tell. His pride of her was different to his pride of his father, which burned in him like a flame. His mother was like the sea, or the sky, all-encompassing, not separate from his being, but the substance through which he moved. 

 "Oh no ! " exclaimed Lúthien "So soon ?" she looked at Beren pleadingly, he put an arm around her shoulder and held her to him silently. "I am sorry. No mother wants to lose her child to the world, please forgive me. But Dior, are you, are you in pain ?" 

 

 Dior and Beren exchanged a look of complicity, Dior turned back to his mother, and saw understanding in her eyes. He rembered then that she was the daughter of Melian, from whom nature held no secrets. He blushed, and lowered his eyes in the face of her remote Elven scrutiny. But she melted away from the side of Beren and sat by her son, stroking the still-damp hair back from his beautiful face.

 "I chose a Mortal life, my son. I chose it. Not only for the sake of your father, but also out of... out of curiosity. For none have even hinted at the fate of Mortals after death. I have searched the eyes of Mandos and he himself knows nothing. It may be that we go to oblivion, it may be that we shall join Eru and with our little, piping voices form a part of choirs vast beyond comprehension. We do not know. But I would walk this path, I will represent the Elves, in whatever fate awaits us, for I have been given a little of the grace of my dear mother, and it may be that I can bring light and song even into oblivion. I cannot say.

  But consider this, my dear son: if my choice has made you as Mortal as your father, but you wish to remain among the Eldar, then I ask your forgiveness. But if you can face death, and the brief, intense life of the Mortal, then it may be that you shall join us in whatever fate awaits us hereafter."

 Dior looked wonderingly at his mother, then turned to his father. Beren, listening to the wisdom of his wife, cursed his own simplicity, short-sightedness and ignorance. It was an unenviable fate. His son might live until the world ended, but still be parted from them forever. Or their choice might have condemned their son to an early death, and only the hope or dream of some kind of unknown continuation beyond the flesh. He bowed his head and moved a foot against the bright rug on the floor, doubt filling his heart. He had never believed any of their stories; it seemed absurd to him that anything could remain when the body had perished, but he had never dared speak his mind to Lúthien on this matter. There was no need, the Eldar discussed such things among themselves with far more eloquence than he could manage. But when he looked up, the eyes of his wife and child were upon him, looking to him for strength, if nothing more.

 He breathed carefully, then smiled reassuringly at his son, remembering that after all, here was a child, seeking reassurance from his mother and father.

  "Come, my dear, let us all return to sleep. Dior has had a dream, nothing more. We watch like birds on a nest of hatching eggs, but here is our son, strong and hale, growing apace, and whatever he becomes, we are here for him, and will love him as much were he Eldar, Edain or Ent !"

 Lúthien smiled, and turned to Dior. "You father is right darling, you must sleep now, most particularly if you are growing like a Mortal. For how they sleep ! " She kissed his brow, stroked the hair back again from his now-smiling face, and stood "Sleep well, dear son, and may Irmo watch over you as you dream."