#also part 534498 of me relating to túrin too hard so i end up projecting most of my particular aspects of autism onto him

[milkywaystarboy]

for the prompts, if you are willing: Turin and Beleg and "the shadows grew long in the forest"

thank you for the prompt!!! i didn't expect to get one which is why this took me a while, but i hope it doesn't disappoint. (link to silmarillion prompts post)

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túrin stood just inside the treeline, where the slender birch trunks rose from the forest floor to reach towards the stars. he did not lean on one of them, as he might’ve when he was younger; instead his back was straight, gaze fixed westward. beleg wondered if he thought to pierce the girdle of melian with sight alone, to once again behold the home he’d left.

“the king truly does miss you,” the elf says softly, his steps soundless as he approaches his friend. “surely you miss him as well?” beleg had known túrin for most of the man’s life - how like a drop in a vast river that time feels to him, though no less precious for it - and knows his mind better than most. he watched him grow from recalcitrant child to restless teen to… well, there were too many words to describe his friend as an adult. bull-headed might be one of them. he had wondered how much of túrin’s refusal in the hidden halls of amon rûdh had been due to the fact of their audience, his gathered outlaws. so here, he hoped, the mask might fall.

the man didn��t respond, for so long that any other might think the question had gone unheard, but beleg knew better. and in his own time, túrin responded, “i did, once. when first i fled and still roamed the forest on my own, oft i would find my thoughts straying back to menegroth. i would wonder if there might be a chance to explain my actions, or if i would even be heard out. i remembered the warm meals around the table, when my belly would growl with hunger. and many times did i find myself recalling king thingol’s wisdom when talking with strangers, or your teachings as i hunted for my next meal.” he shook his head, finally turning to look at his friend. “but it faded, beleg. truth be told, i hadn’t thought of the king or menegroth for over a year when you arrived.”

his hand clenched, the only outward sign of túrin’s internal struggle. how could he forget? thingol, who had taken him in as a child and raised him as his own son. his heart ached to remember the peace he’d felt in his younger years, tinged with the grief of leaving his mother - but that too had faded, hadn’t it? was that all his life was? a series of connections, forgotten as soon as he was separated from them for long enough. even now, he wasn’t sure if he could pick his mother out of a crowd. and even beleg…

túrin looked up, and found the question he expected shining as a star in his friend’s eye. “yes, beleg,” he murmured, looking away in shame. “even you.” i forgot the shine of sunlight in your hair, he thought, daring not to betray his own heart even now. i forgot the way the muscles of your back shifted as you bent a bow; forgot the way your smile lifted my heart. 

beleg was also quiet, the sun starting to set and painting the trees and his hair with golden-red light. it stung to know he had been forgotten, in the time that túrin was gone, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected. he’d been the one to bear witness as a freshly fifteen-summers túrin tore himself apart for forgetting the paths he’d walked as a young child, the sound of his mother’s voice, his father’s presence. he’d wondered then if the tendency to forget after so short a period of time was simply a part of being adan; now he believed it simply to be some unique characteristic of túrin specifically.

“i understand,” he said at last, closing the distance between himself and his friend to place a hand upon his arm. “i did not come here to force you to return, for i know your mind rebels at demands. the king wished you to know that you are welcome home, and now you do.” túrin looked at him, brows raised slightly with surprise at being so understood; beleg placed a hand at the nape of túrin’s neck to bring their foreheads together. “be well, aa'menealle nauva calen ar' malta.”

túrin’s eyes closed at the farewell, and though he leaned forward to meet the pressing of skin to skin, he was still as beleg pulled away and began to make his way westward. the shadows grew long in the forest when he opened his eyes again, watching the wind blow through the trees and ruffle the elf’s cloak. “cormamin niuve tenna' ta elea lle au'.” túrin spoke the words quietly, and the leaves caught them to make them silent.