#luthien

Lúthien introduces Beren to the Court of Doriath

Or: A Masterclass in Facial Expressions

That could mean only one thing:

It's painful and humiliating enough to be rejected, but doubly so when the person rejecting you is someone you consider "lesser" than yourself, and when they choose someone who is even LOWER in the hierarchy you've built your entire worldview around!

And Luthien also helped Beren steal a Silmaril, which is like an extra layer of salt in the wound.

Did they ever imagine that it could have been THEM instead of Beren who managed to win back at least one of their father's creations? And that it would have been theirs alone, without having to share it even with the rest of their brothers?

(Not that I can imagine them actually going to Angband with Luthien and trying it themselves, but the realization that it was a REAL POSSIBILITY would probably still haunt them after learning that such a mission had actually succeeded.)

"Farewell," cried Celegorm the fair. "Far get you gone! And better were to die forhungered in the waste than wrath of Fëanor's sons to taste, that yet may reach o'er dale and hill. No gem, nor maid, nor Silmaril shall ever long in thy grasp lie! We curse thee under cloud and sky, we curse thee from rising unto sleep! Farewell!"

I can’t not imagine Kate Bush in her music video for “Wuthering Heights” as Luthien lol

“How do we go on?” The way Thingol asks it makes him sound foreign, a lilt on his tongue similar to that of the Noldor. Melian had thought it an accent, but now she sees it is simply the play of grief that molds the mouth to its language.

There is no good answer. How do you go on? Her daughter will be an old woman next she sees her. And she will still be beautiful; but she will be an old woman and next to her will not seem her daughter. It is a strange thing, for a Maia, to know the aging of a body. Melian has been in this one nigh 700 years, and it is still painful to feel the ground underfoot. How do the Men go on? she thinks.

Melian sets her heavy hand on Thingol’s shoulders. The muscles move in both, gentle nerves that quicken and melt under flesh. She does much thinking on the body in the moments that pass. Before she speaks she feels her mouth, the teeth within it, the bounce of her heel and the ball-like movement in her knees. If her lungs knew they would one day pause, would they go on? If the feet that carry her knew one day they would cease to walk, would they go on?

Finally, when she speaks, Melian sees the Noldor have taken shape in her mouth, all moving with that sprouting taste of sorrow. “We go on patiently, with the hope that we will see her again.”

Thingol lets out a shuttering breath; Melian imagines the journey it has taken from lung to mouth. “Will we see her again?”

She can tell that he will listen when she says her prophecies this time, though he fears them often and flees from their coming. And if he will listen…

“Yes,” she lies. “We will see her always. In everything.” And that is truth enough.