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In three short days my destiny is due,
And I'd rather drop dead than default from duty.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Simon Armitage.
The wedding talks were held in spring, after the crop-fields were harrowed, but before the seeds were sown. They progressed well until the very end, when all the terms had been agreed on and Balan’s family were making conversation with the elves.
"It is a shame," said one of the tall, alien creatures in his or her heavily broken Taliska, "that the human will have to die so soon after the wedding."
Its terribly beautiful face wore a look of heavy sorrow, echoed by the other elves around it.
"We wish this did not have to be," another added in a thick yet elegant accent. "But it is a gift."
Later, when the strangers were gone and Balan’s family were arrayed around the fire, the conversation quickly turned to what they could have meant.
"How could it be a gift?" Baranor asked, his young face stricken with fear. "How can death be the better option?"
"Better not to ask, lad," Balan said gravely. The news had been a huge blow to all the clan. There were not enough of them that they could easily afford to lose any one of their number, and every member was valuable. But their traditions were clear: if they wanted the alliance to succeed, then they had to seal it with a marriage. And they needed the alliance to survive any longer in a changing world.
"Do you think they will eat whoever it is?" Barielda asked nervously, who was young and unmarried and thus a likely candidate.
"Perhaps they mean it's inevitable from... coupling with one of them," Baran, Balan's oldest son, suggested darkly. “Perhaps it is a slow terrible death afterwards, and so the gift is a faster death, with less pain.”
"Enough," Balan said firmly. "There is no use speculating how. However it is, I am sure it will not be cruel: they are not that kind of people. And do not worry. I am the leader of this group and this alliance, and it is I who will sacrifice myself. No -" he shushed the inevitable cries of dismay - "I am old and may not live much longer anyway, and my sons are fine men, ready to lead. Nobody wants children from this wedding - what monsters might half-humans be?”
He reached out for Baran’s and Belen’s hands and kept speaking, making sure his voice stayed steady. “I would go gladly knowing that through my death I leave you with better circumstances. What better legacy than that? And to be honest -” a small smile spread across his face - “I always wanted to see their underground kingdom, and now I will. I'll go to join my wife, knowing that I've left you all strong and happy. Can you have a better death than that?”
Balan prevailed, as he always did. His family cried and held him tight that night, and in the morning, they told the elves of their decision.
In a way, it was a mercy knowing that death was coming and to look on it with a sound mind and strong spirit. Balan was able to distribute all his belongings to those who would appreciate them: his iron-tipped plough to his eldest son along with his sword, his wooden bed and his silver cups to his second son, and his wife's jewellery and clothes to his daughters-in-law. He kept one bracelet for himself. It had been her favourite, small and discreet, made of transparent purple stones. Balan had given it to her as a courting-gift as a young man, so many years ago. Perhaps it was selfish, but he wanted something to remind him of her now that he would soon be with her again, if the stories were true.
In the days before the wedding, Balan walked over the land he had known and loved, retreading worn paths for the final time. He released the key to the granaries to his eldest son. He played with his grandchildren in the woods that were starting to flower brightly once again. Patches of bluebells peeked through the earth; the traces of winter were disappearing swiftly.
And still he looked to visit this elf-kingdom, hidden underground, which he had heard rumours of since he was a small boy and had passed many dull hours in daydreams of stumbling upon it.
So by the day of the wedding, Balan thought himself ready, and his heart was as light as it could be. He fingered his wife's bracelet as he swore his vows and ensured the future of his people: the leader of the elves, Finrod, had been chosen as his match, perhaps in symmetry with his rank. Balan would not have objected to anyone, but he was glad of the choice. All the elves were beautiful in their strange way, but he liked this elf’s kind grey eyes and his curious manner and, if nothing else, his golden hair made him easy to distinguish from the rest.
After the ceremony, the elves celebrated. A whole group of them came, dressed in bright colours and impractical materials; their eyes shone brightly, as did the great excess of jewels they wore. They sang songs of unearthly beauty, although to Balan and his family's surprise more than anything they were silly: so silly, like children, they said to each other, and had to laugh at the elves’ antics despite the solemnity of the occasion.
The elves put flowers in each other's hair, and then in the humans’, too; they rolled in the grass drunk, dignity forgotten; they played little tricks which would have put children to shame and laughed uproariously as if nothing could be funnier. Throughout it all Finrod stayed by Balan’s side, quiet and still, though his glowing eyes glinted in amusement as he watched. Balan was glad of the silent company. He did not think he could have summoned gaiety tonight.
His own people mourned, and some took offence at the elves’ gaiety since for them it was a day of loss as much as celebration. Balan heard Baran take the complainants aside and tell them that it was a fact of life that peoples differed, and that it was no slight for the elves to celebrate their alliance. Balan smiled to hear it. Baran was already a good leader, and he was glad to leave his people in such hands.
Still, the sadness of his people grieved him, and even though Balan accepted the necessity of what he had to do, he was not yet ready for his life to be cut short. Everything in him called out for one more morning in the cold river, the rush and shock of it; one more night around the fire, the smoke stinging his eyes; one more cup of good red wine, rich and ripe on his tongue. Tomorrow they all would live, and he would be gone. He imagined his family making breakfast over the fires, perhaps talking of him, or perhaps laughing over Baran’s young son's first attempts to talk, or discussing the lambing this year. And all this time Balan would no longer exist: he would be gone, as if he had never been at all.
The thought came to his head that he could run. He imagined slipping away from them all and living alone in the woods. He could survive easily, start anew. He would be alone, but the joys of the world would still be his. 49 was not so old yet. He might live another 20 years.
But no. If he ran, then someone else would take his place.
A hand touched his gently and Balan realised with a start that it was Finrod's, long-nailed and smooth, with what looked like dozens of tiny pearls on the nails in ornate patterns. But when he looked up to his face, tears were dripping down his cheeks, mirroring those on Balan’s.
“You will miss them,” Finrod said slowly in Taliska, great sympathy in his voice. “I understand.” He reached out to wipe Balan’s tears away. “I wish I could take this grief from you.”
He looked so sincere in his strange golden beauty that Balan knew that it was the truth; that if Finrod could have changed things, he would have, and he was grieved that he could not, for all that human lives must be to him like a sparrow’s to Balan - fleeting and fragile, gone in an instant. But did not people grieve their pets sincerely, after all that?
Bold, Balan took his new husband's hand, and looked properly at him; yes, here was beauty unlooked for, the kind that could not be seen among his own people. It was more like a mountain than a person, for all Finrod's small-boned delicacy, unchanging and inhuman and deadly, but it took your breath away all the same.
Finrod's small smile when it came did not seem to fit. He looked like an inquisitive youth then, all wonder for the world and at the man in front of him. Balan laughed at him, as he would if a youth of his own people looked at him like that. Surprised, Finrod laughed too, although he must not have known the cause: apparently he laughed just for the joy of laughing with Balan.
Afterwards they sat in companionable silence and watched the revelries until Finrod stood. Their hands still clasped, he asked Balan, “Should we go, my husband, my vassal, my Beor?”
Balan had taken a new name during the ceremony to account for his new role. No longer was he a chieftain but only a vassal, of his own people and of Finrod's. His old self was gone, left behind on the plains with his people and his memory.
Balan looked around. His family were dancing and talking and drinking, burying their grief in wine and song, and none had eyes on him. He had said his goodbyes already: there was little point in more. He mounted the horse provided for him, and Finrod and a few others did the same. The others would continue to celebrate, while Finrod and Balan would consummate their marriage, and then… and then.
“Where are your things?” Finrod asked.
Balan just shook his head: he would have no need for anything but what he wore and his wife's bracelet tonight, and after… That would be the elves’ concern. He did not know their customs. It would not concern him.
Nargothrond did not look like much on the surface, only some wood and stone guardposts, manned by similar strange elves, dressed in light armour. Balan was starting to see the differences between them: his elf was smaller and slighter than most, and, Balan fancied, more beautiful. All wore their hair long, in different configurations of plaits and braids, but none of the others had his elf’s golden hair; the others were mostly dark, shades of black and brown with some silver heads scattered among them. Finrod wore more jewellery, too, perhaps because he was their king.
As they passed, the guards deferred to Finrod, bowing low as he went, though they peered curiously at Balan - no, here and now he was Beor.
They dismounted and entered one of the huts and there a wide passage down into the dark beckoned. For the first time, although Beor knew that it would not be the last, he was really afraid. That menacing dark chamber seemed to yaw as wide as a terrible huge mouth, and it seemed to call out to him that it was his tomb from which there would be no return. Here was the entrance to the underworld, the realm of the dead: soon he would be theirs, and he would have left behind the rich smell of the freshly furrowed earth, the slowly spreading fingers of cold dawn light, the bluebells newly sprouting.
Finrod urged Beor silently on, and so on he went silently into the darkness, standing firm against the regret that flooded him and the fear that wrenched his heart.
But Finrod made sure he was not alone as he stepped into the dark: he held Beor's hand, and pressed his warm slim body close as if he could shield him. He could not, of course, but still it was endearing. Out of the light of the sun he glowed slightly, as if lit from the inside, an eerie lord in the gloom of his unearthly city.
Sometimes the elves seemed wrong when Beor caught a glimpse of them from the corner of his eye: their glowing eyes unnerved him, and their elongated bodies seemed too far from human. Their skin had none of the texture or blemishes of nature, and instead had colours that could not be found within it. No gold as bright as the hair of Beor's new lord could be found on any bird or beast that Beor knew of.
For all Beor dreaded each heavy step into the shadows, the dark did not last. The passage opened out into a bustling underground city, surpassing any settlement Beor had seen before. It was full of lights and colours, enameled statues and heaving stalls, gardens of carved bushes and stone flowers, of bright young lovers courting by the river that bubbled through the squares and children screaming and what must be dour elders in sedate colours playing some elven form of backgammon.
The elves had made art out of the shadows they lived in, and even with the limestone the walls were hewn from. Beor watched as many-coloured lights flickered on the huge roof of the cavern, many times the size of any house or hall he had seen before: together they created some kind of ever-changing pattern. He even spotted that carved into the wall of a fountain bubbling merrily not far from them was the very picture of the man by his side, wearing a crown and painted in shades of gold which shone in the light.
Beor could not but stare at it all. Finrod allowed him to stop, and laughed merrily. “I thought you would like it,” he said, evidently pleased.
Beor could have looked for hours. The inhabitants seemed just as taken with him, and looked back with curiosity: already a group of small elves - who were clearly children, though he could not quite tell their ages - had gathered around him. Beor waved cautiously to them and they waved exuberantly back, their mouths open in the same way that Beor's must have been. He had to laugh: here was the truth in the saying that the old return to the state of the young.
Beor buried the useless hope which flared in his heart to get to know these people and this city, but it was impossible to quash, even when it only made the coming loss keener. He drank in all he could see with awe and the awareness that as he saw it, so it was already lost to him.
“Come,” Finrod commanded eventually, and took his arm.
Reluctantly Beor followed, trying to drink in every detail of Nargothrond with his eyes as he went. There were flower-gardens made of the same purple stone as his wife's bracelet; there were gleaming mosaics of warlike elves and elegant ships; there were intricately carved pillars with inlaid stones that refracted onto the walls around them. Beor could not have believed that an underground city could be so full of light and colour, so busy with the life-blood of its people. He had thought that it must be cold and dead, and was strangely heartened to find it otherwise.
Yes, he was glad to have seen it, Beor told himself, as Finrod guided him gently along rock-hewn passages and the thrum of the crowd receded. Even here Beor clung to every detail as if it would slow the passage of time: to the strange shining star-lamps that were dotted along the passages, to the floors that were made up of coloured stone in tiny elaborate patterns, to the rich fabrics and fine tapestries which decorated the walls.
Eventually they came to what must be Finrod's chambers. The guards outside wore full armour with spears and shields as Beor had seen nowhere else in Nargothrond: they bowed to Finrod as they entered and then they were alone.
Despite the magnificence of their vaulted dome ceilings and carved pillars, Finrod’s chambers were a mess. Clothes and jewels and books and papers and musical instruments lay on every surface, including piled on the floor, and Finrod blushed slightly as he watched Beor survey them.
“I apologise,” he said uncertainly, “but the planning for the festivities got out of hand and I had no time…”
Beor had to laugh, fonder then than he had been yet of this ridiculous creature. It gave him courage: he was not the only one who was nervous.
“What now, my lord?” Beor asked.
“Bath, or bed?” Finrod asked, flushing slightly again.
“Bath,” said Beor, because it would get him more time, and why not?
Finrod had his own private bath chamber, complete with vaulted ceiling and strange metal sculptures. He did not call for attendants as Beor expected, but pulled at a handle until water gushed in from the sides into a lowered pool with tiles of painted greens and blues. The floor of mosaic fish and dolphins slowly flooded as Beor watched.
What fantastic technology the elves had, Beor thought, and wished that he might have time to learn some of its secrets.
Finrod made a little questioning noise, and when Beor looked back at him he was taking off his elaborate wedding robes and placing them carefully by the side. Beor screwed up his courage and did the same. Neither looked at the other as they undressed, though Beor could see Finrod out of the corner of his eye: his willowy golden youth seemed all the more obvious without formal clothing, and Beor felt conscious of his bulk and aging flesh. As a young man he had been handsome; but now none would call him so.
Beor shook his head at himself then and squared his shoulders: he would not be ashamed of his body for all the elven-lords on earth. It had brought him through 49 years of hardship and war, as well as given him two fine sons and pleasure and company to his wife. If Finrod demurred at him, then he should have chosen some other elf for spouse.
By the time Beor finished undressing Finrod had already entered the bath and sat down beneath the water, which steamed: Beor had not even considered that the water might be hot. Were there hot springs beneath the earth for the water to heat so quickly? Beor followed his new lord and sank into the heat of the water, luxuriating in how it felt soaking into his sore muscles and his old war-wounds that never really stopped aching.
He heard himself make a noise of appreciation and Finrod looked towards him with the same proprietary pleasure as he had shown at Beor’s awe of his city. He too seemed softened in the heat of the water, almost shy. All Nargothrond’s elves were willowy, but Finrod looked like he might be broken in two with ease if Beor did the wrong thing.
“Have you done this before, my lord?” Beor asked boldly, though rightly it was his lord's place to speak first, not the vassal’s.
“Not with a man,” Finrod said, flushing again. It suited him: his face seemed more human with colour in it and so more lovely, at least to Beor. Had he meant a man, or a Man? Either way, this part of the wedding night at least was something Beor was not worried about. Before his wife and after, he had enough experience.
Beor reached out to touch Finrod, and realised as he did that the elf-lord was trembling despite the heat of the water. Beor's heart went out to him; he looked so fragile despite his strange mien, even though Beor knew he was perhaps thousands of years old. Beor imagined being in his position, and was briefly glad that he was in his, sparrow or not as he might be to the elves.
“If you don't want -” Beor said, although to be quite honest, he did not know what they could do if Finrod did not want.
“No,” Finrod interrupted firmly, and took Beor’s hand, so much bigger than his own. “I do. Only - I am afraid. That's all right, isn't it, to be afraid?”
All Beor could think of in response was to be honest. “I am afraid too,” he said, and his heart leapt when Finrod smiled at him.
“But you have - done this before?” Finrod waved a lithe long-fingered hand. His rings caught the light, dozens of stones glittering as though to emphasise his question.
Beor nodded, and Finrod smiled again. “I'm glad,” he said haltingly. “That makes me - less afraid. Perhaps you can - lead the way?”
Beor had thought his tasks over and done with the wedding ceremony: but now he thought that perhaps he had one more person to protect as much as he was able. He could hide his grief and his fear from his new husband, could lead him through this and perhaps give him pleasure as well, something that he would not look back on wholly with sadness for his dead sparrow, however slight the grief might be.
So he slid over beside Finrod so their sides were touching. In the water their bodies were distorted, and Beor’s thick dark hair was plastered to his limbs: Finrod was hairless, and covered with lean muscle. He had a nasty scar that cut across his stomach and side: it must have been deep once.
Beor reached out to trace it, suddenly daring, and Finrod inhaled sharply at the touch, his stomach heaving. A flash of gold winked in the light as he did, and Beor saw that Finrod's body was dotted with gems and gold: four diamonds flashed by his pale nipples and a gold chain ran between them hung with tiny studded stars. His ears were drenched in gold, and though he had taken off the bigger pieces of jewellery he had what looked like a plate of solid gold around his neck and a procession of diamonds studded into the flesh of his neck and chest. The one that Beor had seen first was a bar through his navel, and he wore little golden chains around his waist. Beor did not look further down.
Finrod flushed again. “My attendants insisted,” he said, his golden eyelashes fluttering as he looked down at Beor’s hand. It seemed huge against Finrod, almost spanning his stomach.
“You wear more wealth than my entire clan owns,” Beor said lightly. And then, his voice dropping in pitch, he said awkwardly, “but it looks well on you, my lord.”
“You like it?” Finrod brightened. “Here, try it.” His long fingers fumbled at the back of his neck and he drew off the golden plate, then deftly fastened it around Beor’s neck. It only just fit: his neck was much wider than Finrod's.
“Now I look like a king too,” Beor said, trying to look down at himself to see how it suited him.
“What else could you be, now you are married to one?” Finrod asked, pleased as punch again at Beor's admiration of the necklace. “Here - there is a mirror.”
He drew Beor by the arm, and together they climbed out of the bath and to a large mirror, steamed over. Finrod wiped it and they both stood in silence and looked at themselves as it slowly streamed up again. It did suit Beor: the colour complemented his skin and the width and size of it became Beor in a way that none of Finrod's other more delicate jewellery would have.
They made a strange pair, Finrod slim and golden, his skin a smooth expanse unnaturally unmarked but for the scar on his side and the jewellery he wore, whereas Beor was broad and muscular, with dark sprawling hair covering most of his body, and age giving his belly and thighs a softness that they had not had twenty years ago. Together they looked like they indeed came from two separate species, but Finrod seemed simply nervous about what was to come rather than repulsed by their differences.
“Keep the necklace, if you like,” Finrod said, impulsively. “I mean - not just for tonight. It's yours.”
His generosity floored Beor. That much solid gold was worth an entire herd of cows or oxen back home. “I can't - my lord -” he protested.
“Nonsense,” said Finrod, who never seemed quite so happy as when Beor was admiring something of his. “It's yours now. Forever.”
“Could you - tomorrow, could you send it to my family? If it is not too much to ask, my lord?” Beor could not face the thought of it buried underground with his body and wife's bracelet and his wedding clothes - it was a handsome present, as gravegoods went, but all the same, Beor would rather imagine it on his granddaughter at her wedding, or sold in a lean year so that his people could survive well.
“Oh - now you are crying again,” Finrod said, woebegotten. “Of course I will, my Beor, if that is what you want.” He reached to wipe Beor's tears - now that they were standing together, Beor noticed that even though Finrod was half his width, he was a little taller.
Finrod paused with his hand on Beor’s cheek, and stroked his beard with his thumb. Beor pushed away his thoughts and with them his reserve; he put his hand on the back of Finrod's neck, drew him towards himself and kissed him; then he pushed him up against the mirror, and kissed him again.
Finrod made a small sound of surprise, but he kissed back eagerly, and as they explored each other Beor could feel Finrod hardening against his thigh as well as his own body responding. He brought his hands down, careful not to jar the chains or the gems, and Finrod in turn caressed Beor’s chest hair, running his fingers through it. His long pointed ears were twitching forwards and back between eagerness and reserve, and when Beor reached out to gently touch one he moaned low and loud. When Beor licked it and then took it gently between his teeth, Finrod buckled against him, making soft little desperate sounds.
“Should we?” Beor asked, now Finrod was flushed and pink and kissed, and his own arousal was urgent.
Finrod simply took his hand and led him to the bedchamber. They were kissing again before they even got to the bed, which looked just as expensive and just as messy as the rest of Finrod's rooms: piles of furs were strewn everywhere, an inkpot lay on its side with a quill still in it dribbling ink over parchment, and a trail of gauzy silks abandoned on the floor led to what must be Finrod's wardrobe.
Finrod drew back, his glittering eyes dark and his lips swollen. He looked stunning like this, made flesh and blood and bone, and Beor’s body responded to the sight of this one more marvel he would be able to possess before the inevitable end.
“I have some clothes that my attendants bade me wear,” Finrod said breathlessly. “Do you want me to change?”
“No,” Beor said, and without saying anything else bore him down onto the bed, capturing both of Finrod's fine-boned wrists with one hand. Finrod went gladly, kissing back with passion.
He explored Finrod's body, kissing his collar-bones and resisting the urge to leave his marks on them. He pressed his thighs between Finrod's legs, forcing them to part for him, and licked his pink nipples, careful of the chains. Finrod responded beautifully, bucking up against him and making the prettiest of noises. As soon as Finrod's hands were free he seemed fascinated again with the hair on Beor's body, playing with his chest hair in particular though his beard and his armpit hair seemed to be nearly as intriguing. Though he seemed to be gaining in confidence, he always kept his hands well above Beor's waist.
Perhaps Beor should have taken every measure to make it last - but now he wanted Finrod urgently, and he was sick of the axe looming over him. Let it come, he thought defiantly. He would run no longer.
“Do you have oil?” he asked, breathlessly, and Finrod nodded at the table, where some had clearly been left for the purpose.
Beor considered how he wanted Finrod: it was a shame they could only do this once. He would have liked to take him in many different positions, and see how he reacted to them all. But if it was only once, then he wanted to see Finrod's face.
He pulled Finrod up the bed until he was propped up on feather pillows and bolsters, and then pressed another one underneath his hips. Finrod shifted obediently, though Beor noticed he was trembling again and looking at Beor's hard cock with trepidation. It was much girthier than Finrod's own, mirroring the pattern of their bodies. Beor resolved to be as careful as he could. It was Finrod who seemed more like the sparrow now, not he, and he would take as much care as he could.
“Don't be afraid,” Beor said, kissing his face softly as he knelt between Finrod's legs. “I have you.”
Finrod seemed in truth to take courage from his words, and relaxed and lay back, trusting Beor, though his breathing was still shallow and uneven. Beor coated his fingers in the oil and then brought them down between Finrod's legs.
Finrod did not tense, but it must have been an effort, and he reached out shyly to take Beor’s other hand, holding it tightly. Preparing Finrod was not easy one-handed; but Beor was glad for the comfort himself, though he refused to show it for Finrod's sake.
As Finrod watched wide-eyed, Beor massaged around Finrod's entrance and then pushed a finger in. Finrod hissed.
“Does it hurt, my lord?” Beor asked anxiously.
“No-oo…” Finrod said, doubtfully, and clung to Beor’s hand harder.
Beor tried to be slow and thorough, but he was aware both of his own demanding arousal and of the hourglass ticking away his final hours, and he added a second finger quickly, stretching Finrod to the best of his ability. Finrod looked like he did not know what to make of it, and stayed quiet and docile.
“Are you ready, my lord?” he whispered when he judged Finrod was stretched enough, as he took Finrod's hand and kissed it.
“Yes, my Beor,” Finrod said, though he was trembling again and breathing raggedly, his previous hardness lost. “Though I am - I am afraid,” he admitted as he had before, his lovely grey eyes wide with both apprehension and longing.
“As am I,” Beor said, as he had before, and as before, they smiled at each other, and admitting it made the weight of Beor’s fear recede a little: his fear of dying, his fear of death, his fear of pain and of the unknown. Finrod also looked comforted, and wrapped his arms around Beor’s neck when he positioned himself to enter him.
Finrod may have looked less than human but inside he was tight and wet and hot, truly a creature of flesh and blood. Beor could not stop himself from pushing all the way in at once, luxuriating in how Finrod felt inside, until he was entirely buried in the elf-lord who was now his husband.
Finrod watched him, his eyes wide and trusting, making little hitching noises.
“All right, my lord?” Beor asked between pants when he could speak. All he could think about was how he felt: it had been so long, and Finrod was so tight and good. Finrod nodded, seemingly unable to speak, and Beor started to move.
Finrod clung to him as he did, and Beor made a slow steady pace, not too hard or too deep, while Finrod got used to it. But it was not long before Finrod was making little ohs of surprise at every thrust, and then little gasps of pleasure, and then requests for more, my Beor, more, please, harder.
Beor smiled in triumph - this was his turn to show Finrod something new and worthy - and did as he was asked, angling himself to where Finrod seemed to like the most. Finrod began to gabble in his own tongue, becoming less and less coherent and only occasionally lapsing back into Taliska, and he was hard again.
Finrod's face was a joy to watch, screwed up in concentration and his eyes unfocused in pleasure. When Beor reached between them to fist his cock, his jaw dropped open in shock. Beor’s own pleasure was eclipsed only by his joy in his new lord's discomposure.
Within moments Finrod came loudly, convulsing around Beor and spotting his stomach with his seed. Then Beor knew he could not last long: he wanted to put the ending off, to keep this magical moment of warmth and heat and pressure, of Finrod's soft noises and trusting eyes, forever, and never face the future, the raised axe falling.
But inexorable pleasure crept up on him and he cried out as he too came, dizzy as his vision seemed to fail for a moment. Shocks trailed up his spine as he drove into Finrod again and again, who was gasping little punches of breath as he did, pressing back onto him to take him as deeply as possible: and then Beor felt suddenly drained entirely and collapsed onto the bed, utterly wrecked.
Finrod curled up against him and kissed Beor's face over and over again. “I liked that,” he said quietly, once Beor had recovered his breath. “Thank you.”
“So did I, my lord,” Beor said warmly, pleased that he had succeeded in this final task, and took Finrod's hand in his to wait for what was coming.
They both lay there in silence for a time. Beor was aware of every sensation in his body while he waited for something to change. Thinking of how it might feel to be with his wife again, Beor played with her bracelet. He could not quite believe that they would meet again without their bodies as some promised: but they would be together in nothingness.
Was that a comfort?
Eventually, Beor could not keep his silence.
“Will it be long, my lord?” he asked, and then, because he was not nearly as brave as he had been pretending, he blurted, “Will it hurt?”
Finrod frowned. “What are you talking about?” he asked, opening his big grey eyes. “We've already done it.”
Beor had to laugh. “I don't mean sex,” he said. “I mean - after. Will you leave, or will you stay with me while -?”
Finrod frowned again, and ran his hand down Beor's side, returning to his chest hair yet again. “What do you mean, my Beor?”
Was it possible that Finrod did not know? With a sinking heart, Beor suspected that was the truth. He was already fond of this strange bright creature, little though he knew him, and he did not want to grieve him.
“When we - discussed the marriage,” Beor said haltingly, “we were told that whoever married one of your people would not - could not expect to survive it. That it would mean our death: we would not live to see the morning.”
Finrod sat up in shock so abruptly that he knocked his pillows off the bed. His face was white. He really had not known, then, Beor saw with sorrow.
“No,” Finrod breathed. “This is the first I've heard of it. Surely someone would have told me. No.”
Entirely naked except for his gold and jewels he ran for the guards at his door. Beor heard some urgent conversation in a language he did not understand but was starting to recognise.
Finrod was back in the bed within minutes. “The healer is coming,” he said, obviously distraught. “Perhaps she can stop whatever it is. Do you know what exactly will happen? The more information, the better.”
Finrod's frantic worry warmed Beor's heart, even though it was pointless. “I do not know,” he said. “I was afraid to ask.”
Finrod took him into his arms and kissed his face again. “I, too, am afraid. But do not be,” he said firmly, as if he was trying to convince himself as much as Beor. “We have good healers here. There is so much I want to show you - things that you will love - and I have so many questions! I want to know all about your people and yourself. And we have to do that again, my Beor, so don't die, please.”
Beor choked with laughter and held Finrod tight. “I will not, if I can help it,” he said.
Finrod looked utterly appalled. “Is this why you brought no bags? And why you wept earlier? I thought - I thought you would miss your family!”
“I will miss them,” Beor said with sorrow.
“But you will see them again!” Finrod said desperately. “Whenever you like, we will visit them. I promise.”
Beor squeezed his hand, warmed by his concern, though he had not much hope. An elf burst through the doors and strode over to them, taking no notice of their nakedness: the healer, Beor presumed.
She was like no human healer Beor had met: without addressing either of them she sang to herself and moved her hand over his body in a warm golden glow, before speaking briefly.
“She says she is no expert on mortals, but you seem adequate to her,” Finrod translated. The healer spoke again.
“Could it be a tradition of your people?” Finrod translated again. “A - superstition? We have heard stories about how your people think that we might eat them.”
Beor certainly did not mention that, until that moment, he had considered it a real possibility.
“What a ridiculous idea,” he said faintly.
Another guard strode into the room and spoke rapidly. Nobody seemed to blink at Finrod's nakedness, though a few looked twice at Beor.
“My lords who negotiated the marriage have also never heard of this. Perhaps - we have heard of the Enemy taking the form of others in order to manipulate their people. Perhaps he tried to sow the seeds of dissent.”
Beor’s head was whirling, though he could not quite believe in his last minute reprieve. But - that would make sense.
“Perhaps,” he allowed.
“He would not want any cooperation between Men and Elves. I have heard of it before: my cousin's Man was replaced in council by his own double, who spoke fell words and fey. Now he fights the enemy under my cousin and by all accounts is a great warrior.”
“Perhaps he thought that we would turn from you, if death was the price,” Beor said doubtfully.
“But you are too brave for him, my Beor,” Finrod said with fond pleasure. “Death would not stop you. You are a fine husband for me.”
He kissed Beor deeply and pressed against him with unmistakable desire, but Beor was too aware of the guards and the healer still standing around the bed.
“Perhaps we could be alone then, my lord?” Beor asked. He remained unconvinced: but if he would die, he would die, and it seemed unlikely that Finrod's people could stop it.
“I'd rather have them stay, just in case, if it's all the same to you, my Beor,” Finrod said. “Just in case something does happen. But don't pay any attention to them: look at me instead.”
He straddled Beor as he lay on his back and kissed him thoroughly, half-hard already and grinding on Beor as he did. Beor pushed aside his fears, tried to pretend they were alone, and reached for Finrod's hips.
They passed their time in passion. Beor found Finrod's attentions captivating enough that he mostly forgot the guards standing around them, their eyes politely averted, and the healer waiting patiently just in case. As the night went on Beor marked the passing of the hours less and less, and his fear of death receded further every hour that passed.
In time morning came and still Beor lived. The change in the light was reflected in the tiny lamps studded in Finrod's walls and ceilings. The effect was like a sunrise, the colours gradually changing and brightening: wrapped up with Finrod, both tired and satiated, Beor watched it in awed silence, and Finrod watched him instead, looking rather smug.
The intimacy or the exhaustion or both seemed to spur him to share confidences.
“I have had a vision of how I will die, and it strikes me it is similar to yours,” Finrod said quietly, not looking at him. “Alone, in the dark, far from my family and friends. Some monster of the dark will come and -”
He stopped, swallowed, and then spoke again. “Far in the future: but the similarities to what was foretold for you strike me. I hope I can face it with your courage, though let it be no more true.”
Beor laughed. “That was not courage,” he said, worn out now but with an exhausted lightness in his heart. “It was necessity. What else could be done?”
“Perhaps I might run at the dark entrance to the underworld,” Finrod said thoughtfully. “Perhaps I might beg for mercy, perhaps I might try to bargain. I fear I am attached to my life.”
“So am I,” Beor said, “but I value my people's more. I speak as if I was resigned to death - and I tried to be - but I was not! Every moment I was between fear and pointless hope that perhaps there would be some last minute reprieve. I hope there will be for you, too, my lord.”
*
A hundred years pass, first in happiness and then in grief, and meanwhile the strength of Angband grows. The plains flood with fire, and Finrod's brothers burn: Finrod himself is saved, and in thanks swears his ill-fated oath. Dark days approach.
When it is Finrod's turn, it is Balan he thinks of at every turn, his Beor, who he came so quickly to love, even though it was to Barahir he swore and Barahir’s son who brought him to his end. He had agreed to the marriage with reluctance, reassured that a mortal lifespan would be over swiftly: but what was once comfort became grief that lasted for longer than he had ever known Beor in life.
It is Beor’s courage that Finrod thinks of when he breathes deeply before his descent into the dark, when his last glimpse of the daylight disappears. It is Beor he thinks of when he measures up his life against others’, and his own, however desperately treasured, comes up wanting; it is Beor he pictures when he waits in the dark for to be eaten by the monsters waiting there while his men lie dead on meat-hooks.
Like Beor, Finrod tries to be brave, but he is only a frightened child pretending in the dark. He hopes against hope that there will be some mistake, some mercy unlooked-for, and that he will hear the dawn chorus once more.