Making Preparations by StarSpray

The forges were quiet when Mablung entered. He had half expected to find a dwarf or two, or perhaps one of the king’s craftsfolk, but it seemed everyone had stepped away for the moment.

That was all right. For this he preferred to do his own work.

By the time the queen arrived, Mablung had made himself three spearheads and half a dozen arrowheads. “You are still determined to go?” she asked, picking up one of the spearheads. It was barely cool, but she did not flinch away from it; nor did her fingers blister.

“Yes, my lady.” Mablung plunged the last arrowhead into the water, and looked up at her as the steam curled into the air between them. “They are at last doing something. If the king—”

“You know his reasons. And there is the Doom that lies upon the Noldor, and thwarts all that they would do.”

“If Bauglir must win out in the end,” Mablung said, setting his jaw, “I would rather meet my end in action, instead of sitting in hiding, doing nothing.”

Melian sighed, and set the spearhead down. “I do not think he will—not in the very end. But the time has not yet come.” She smiled, quick and fleeting as a shooting star. “Yet you do no wrong in following your own heart, Mablung. May your hand fall heavily upon your enemies, and may you and Beleg both return to us whole—and perhaps even in victory. The days to come are shrouded in darkness and I cannot see through it. Maybe the son of Fingolfin will come even as his father did to the very gates of Angband, and succeed where he failed. Who can say?"

“If he does, I shall be just behind him.”

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