Beleg is a Sindar elf from Doriath whose story is told in the Silmarillion. He was friends with Turin, a Man, who eventually killed him accidentally. Turin then went on to marry his own sister . . . Accidentally. He was not the luckiest of guys
Laerion
Unlike my brother I do not have any particular affinity for the sea. I often wonder if Legolas' keenness for it is actually a part of him or just a legacy of the sea-longing he carried for so long.
Still even though I do not much like it I find myself spending inordinate amounts of time there. Because of Elladan, of course.
Today, as I wander across the sands, I wish he was here with me . . . And yet at the same time I am relieved he is not.
Elladan confuses me.
When we are apart he winds his way into my every thought. Every quiet moment I have Elladan is there. His eyes, his hair, his beauty, his calm, his wit—all of it crowds out any sensible thought I might attempt.
I miss him. I yearn for a glimpse and imagine our reunion.
But when he is here with me my stomach twists with nerves and anxiety. Guilt smothers me. Every glowing, contented smile he bestows on me stabs like a knife. It is a struggle to ensure he does not notice.
When we first discovered each other in Valinor, when I casually threw caution to the wind because I was lonely, because he fascinated me, because I was entranced, this moment seemed so far away. When I said let us explore this, who knows what lies around the corner? truth be told I never thought we would end up here.
I am faced with a reality I truly believed would never exist.
Who knew we would end up in an Arda made anew? Who knew within that new land those long ago dead, who had chosen the land, may be reborn right along with it?
I was honest with Elladan back then. I told him of Iruion. I told him what he meant to me. I told him there may come a time I would have to choose.
Neither of us believed it would ever happen.
And now I walk into it like a brick wall and it slaps me in the face.
Finrod has been right all this time. We stand back in Arda and it is glorious. But for me it is also terrifying.
I will travel to the Greenwood. I cannot avoid going there though I have thought of that as a way to ignore all this. The Greenwood, my home, calls to me like a beacon. I can feel it's existence within this land and it draws me in. It will not allow me to ignore it.
But what will I find there, or who?
And if I find him, what will I do?
I am haunted by dreams . . . Memories of Iruion. Far more now than even immediately after his death. I see him around every corner. Things I do, things I say, drag him back into focus—so many memories. Even Elladan, at times, will remind me of him.
Iruion and I in the wood, our alone times, happy times, watching him stride around with my small brother upon his shoulders making Legolas laugh, bringing happiness to that small boy of light—all those things are in my mind all the time.
It was crushing, rebirth without him. I remember the feeling of anticipation, excitement as I strolled out of the gardens of Lorien and back into the world, knowing I would see him.
And only my mother was there.
That was confusing in itself. What was she doing in Valinor? Silvan through and through she should never have been there. Surely some tragedy must have befallen my father to drag her there.
But no, she came of her own accord, leaving my Father behind. It was shocking. Any explanation she came up with made no sense to me, or I think, to her. She yearned for her home with every beat of her heart. When she confessed to having left while my brother was in the south, facing the dark, I was furious. What it would have been like for him to come home to that. She had no idea, my mother, what the dark was like.
We did not speak for several weeks after she told me of that—that betrayal of Legolas.
It took Beleg to push me back to her.
He arrived out of the blue, unannounced, leaving me speechless for he was a legend I had only studied and read about. My Grandfather had known him and told stories of him but I never imagined I would meet him.
"So obviously an Orophorion." He said as I opened the door.
"What?"
I had seen pictures of him and they were good enough for me to be astounded he might actually be there. My grandfather spent much time drawing the people he had lost from Doriath as he sat and patiently told me their stories when I was young.
"You look like Oropher." Beleg said. "There is no mistaking your heritage."
"I look like Thranduil," I replied struggling to string two words together. "It is my brother who resembles Grandfather."
"Well I hope I will one day meet this brother of yours, then. For now you are as Orophorion as I can hope to see here on the other side of the sea."
I invited him in for how could I not, and he settled himself at my table as if having a hero from a bygone age drop in was a completely normal occurrence.
"So," he said, as if I knew exactly why he was there and had had a part in his invitation, "you look Orophorion but do not behave in a manner becoming of one."
That upset me.
"What do you mean? How do you know anything of my behaviour?"
"Because the Silvans are my responsibility. That smattering of scattered wild people who have accidentally or mistakenly found themselves stranded in this sterile place. Someone has to watch over them and in the absence of Oropher I am their best option . . . Until someone better fitted to the job appears."
He taps a finger disapprovingly on the table.
"I have come from your mother. Your mother who abandoned the land that sustained her and nurtured her to snatch at a chance to see you. Your mother who says you have turned your back on her. She is understandably upset."
"So she sent you here to plead her case?" I was angry with her. How dare she?
"No she did not. I came of my own accord."
"You know nothing of my mother. Did she tell you what she did? Did she tell you how she left my brother while he fought in the dark, without so much as a goodbye? Because she was not brave enough to face him."
"She told me," he says firmly, "how she regretted her choices the moment she set foot in this shore, but it was too late, she could not go back. She told me the only thing she had left was the promise of you. Now you withhold that from her."
"You have no idea what you speak of" I said angrily, "as my mother has no idea of the dark. Always she turned her eyes from it and from us going there."
And his fist thudded into the table with a crack that made me jump.
"Do you seriously suggest I, Beleg, know nothing of the dark?"
He makes me gasp,
"No!"
Expect I had and that was foolish.
"Your mother has been damaged by your death." he continued. "You do not understand that. How could you?"
"Do not lay this at my door! It is not my fault! I did not ask to die, I did not wish it. Her choices are her own."
"Of course you did not ask to die. I did not either. But like it or not our deaths hurt those we left behind more than they did ourselves. You have had the benefit of the healing of the Halls of Mandos. Your mother has not. She has to find her own way through this."
I did not like to think of the hurt done to those who lost me when I fell. I still do not.
"I do not see what you wish me to do about that." I told him resentfully in the end.
"I expect you to go to her as your father would wish you to. To help her heal so she in turn can help your brother heal from the hurt she has done him when he gets here."
"My brother will not come here. He is one with the land. It is his soul."
"Oh he will come here." He said firmly. "You are here."
And so I did what he said. I returned to my mother, I forgave her, and I watched her heal into a different person. Someone I barely recognised as the mother I left in the Greenwood. And together we waited. Her for my father and Legolas, and I for Iruion.
Except Iruion never came.
Why?
As I walk alone down the beach my spirits sink when I see the King of Men sprawled out on the sand. Legolas told me he was here and I have promised him I will at least greet him, for Elladan's sake. Because Elladan cares for him and I owe it to him to at least try, much as I do not wish to. None of Finrod's lecturing or Legolas' pleading has changed my mind on liking him.
He lies so still as I approach him it begins to make me nervous.
I am not well versed in the ways of Men. I used to travel to Laketown for my father and negotiate trade, but in truth I am not in my brothers league when it comes to understanding mortals. They are strange creatures.
What is he doing? Surely he is not ill, or injured in some way. Legolas was only just with him and said nothing.
I hover when I reach him and he still does not move. He is alive at least. His chest rises up and down, I can see that. His arms behind his head make it look as if he is simply sleeping. But it is mid morning. Who sleeps then?
I think about simply strolling off. Then I will not have to interact with him. But what if he truly is ill. What then? What about Legolas and Elladan who care for him? They are not very robust these mortals I have heard.
Gently I poke him.
Instantly he leaps feet into the air. It is quite dramatic.
"What are you doing?" he cries, glaring at me as he comes down to earth and sits up. "Are you mad?"
"Checking you were well, and beginning to wish I had not bothered."
"Of course I am well," he grumbles and he fixes me with a look that tells me he thinks me very odd indeed. Well the feeling is mutual. "Why would I not be?"
"You were not moving."
"I was sleeping!"
"It is the middle of the day. Why sleep then?"
"Because," he sighs, "the sand is warm, the breeze is sweet and the waves sing me lullabies. Why not sleep?"
Beleg is fresh in my mind and I wonder as I look upon this King, what would he think of him? Beleg who is now more friend than unnerving stranger, what would he tell me to do with him? It is a foolish question. Beleg is as enamoured with mortals as my brother.
"You are staring," he says. "Does something offend you? I mean besides me generally."
"I was wondering what Beleg would make of you."
"Beleg?" His reaction is rather stronger than I expected. "Not you as well. I am done with Beleg."
What could he possibly have against him?
"You have never met him. That is harsh."
"And you have."
"Well yes," I tell him, "of course I have. I was reborn, remember, as was he."
Suddenly I realise I am somehow in the middle of a conversation with him. This was not I wanted.
"I have far too often heard Legolas and I compared to Beleg and Turin," he sighs. "Legolas might like it but I do not."
I had not even thought of that but he is right. There are similarities.
"I see that!" I tell him. "I had not before but I see it now. You are alike."
"We are not." He rubs his forehand with the palm of his hand as if it pains him. "And I would thank you not to mention it."
But I can think of nothing else now and I wonder why I did not notice this before.
"Why even down to the sister!" I cry.
"That is enough." He is truly angry with me now. "Arwen is not my sister!"
"But you call her brothers your brothers."
"Because I grew up with them. I did not know her. She was grown and a stranger when I fell in love with her—"
He cuts himself off as he realises he has just quoted Turin's story to me.
"No!" He says holding his hands out in front of him. "No."
I cannot help but laugh. I never thought I would be laughing with him.
"Yes! It is amusing, you must admit it."
"I admit nothing," he says.
"Hmm . . ." I think I will file away this conversation to revisit later. Surprisingly I am enjoying it.
"I will leave you to your sleeping then," I say. "Strange as it may be." But he only grunts.
"Laerion," he calls out to me as I turn and walk away from the sea, towards the forest and Elladan. "Have you really met Beleg?"
"Yes."
"Where is he now?"
"Out there," I sweep my hand to indicate the world beyond this cove we loiter in. "Searching for his mortal, as my brother did . . . Not that there are any similarities of course."
"Of course. You would do well to remember that."
But when I look back he is smiling.