Scene I - Beleg

[During the late 1900’s in the English countryside, Beleg stands alone in the woods, watching the sun fading into evening. He is wearing the clothes of an English gentleman during that period, but wears no hat. Suddenly he looks up and seems to speak to someone who is not there:]

Beleg: [softly:] What? He’s here? I had no idea. He disappeared ages ago and I always wondered where he went. I thought about him a lot in the past years. What, me? Yes, I’ll go to him. I want to speak to him too. All right.

[He keeps walking through the trees, toward the west, until he enters an open glade. Looking over, he sees a person walking beneath the trees across the glade. He comes over to him. Beleg speaks to him in English, but the other answers him in the old Doriathrin tongue.]

Beleg: Hello, Daeron old chap! I have not seen you for, what, ages?

Daeron: It has indeed been ages, many ages of men that I have wandered the earth.

Beleg: How is it I never saw you? I’ve been here for over 400 years now.

Daeron: [looking wary:] I keep to myself. I do not prostrate myself before Mortal-kind.

Beleg: Neither do I anymore, though I used to when I was hunting, but the mud and dirt doesn’t agree with me so much any more. I’ve become the more ... learned type now, if you can believe it.

Daeron: [looks at him warily to see if he’s joking:] Actually, I can. I have learned to become more a woodsman than I was. But I was using a figure of speech.

Beleg: I know, old chap. You’re too serious, that’s all.

Daeron: Perhaps I have good reason to be serious.

Beleg: [not mockingly:] Don’t we all? Seriously.

[He chuckles to himself]

That wasn’t meant to be a joke. Truly, there is enough horror in the world, we all could be extremely serious all the time, but then life wouldn’t be any fun would it?

Daeron: [bitterly:] Fun!

[looking at Beleg:]

Why should there be any fun in the world? Such a frail thing, a mortal notion...

Beleg: What, no joviality, no joy in life? What’s the fun in that? It doesn’t seem like too much of a mortal concept to me. Although some mortals do have a great sense of humor.

Daeron: Do not speak to me of mortals. I try to think of them as little as possible.

Beleg: [becoming serious for the first time:] And why not? Have they such little worth in your eyes?

Daeron: [snorts:] Worth? The word does not apply to them in any way.

Beleg: [looks grave:] Be careful, or I’ll have to remind you of one whose deeds were sung over land and sea, and who the Eldar lamented at his death – who slew the dragon that most likely would have killed you in your self-pitying wanderings.

Daeron: [looks disgusted and weary:] Do not speak to me of Beren –

Beleg: I never even mentioned his name. He only recovered a Silmaril, instead of killing a dragon. I speak of another, for whom I gave my life – you never paid attention to events in Beleriand after your ‘tragedy’ I suppose.

Daeron: [stares at him, incredulous:] You gave your life for one of those mortals? And they call me foolish?

Beleg: If you had met him, you would not feel the same.

Daeron: I have met enough mortals in my life to be satisfied that I wish to meet no more –

Beleg: [snorts:] And how many is that? One?

[Daeron cringes. There is a pause.]

Daeron: [finally:] One was enough.

Beleg: [trying to be gentle, but getting rather angry:] Are you so shallow, that that is all you can see? Is your life so wound about in yourself that you cannot see it?

Daeron: [getting angry in his turn:] See what? The whole world is dark to me without her.

Beleg: [softly:] Not with the Music.

[pause]

Daeron: [completely misunderstanding him:] The music? Years ago I ceased to play. I play only on rare occasions now.

Beleg: Not your music. The Music. The Song. Don’t you see? There is so much more to the Music than your frail troubles –

[Daeron gives him a sharp glance]

-And I do say frail. As mine are frail. Do you think it was nothing for me to have been slain by my best friend? And then to have never seen him again? I probably will never see him again, for all of eternity. But I understand that the Music – the Song – was made before the World began. It was woven into the themes of the World thousands of yeni before I was even born. Lúthien – The Nightingale of the woods –

[Daeron flinches at the second name]

-Do you think it was not in her destiny for this to happen? For her to meet Beren in the forest?

Daeron: How can such a thing be destiny? He – he was nothing compared with her.

Beleg: Why do you say he’s nothing? That’s what I don’t understand.

Daeron: What you do not understand? You gave your life for a blasted mortal.

Beleg: [softly:] You never met him, so I can’t expect you to understand.

Daeron: [challenging:] You had never met Beren!

Beleg: Of course I did!

Daeron: You did?

Beleg: Yes. In Menegroth, remember? You were there, too. I saw you in there at the trial, and said hello to you as we came in.

Daeron: Oh ... yes.

Beleg: But perhaps you were too distracted to notice at the time.

[pause]

Daeron: But – how could you give your life for - that mortal.

Beleg: Túrin.

Daeron: Yes.

Beleg: [chuckling to himself:] Well, I didn’t really mean to, technically.

[seeing that Daeron is not getting the joke, he becomes more serious:]

But I would’ve in any case, if it came to it. You see, he was different from anyone else I’d ever met. He was like most mortals, in a way.  But he grew up in Doriath –

Daeron: [eyebrow raised:] When was this?

Beleg: Oh, after you were gone. He came to Doriath as just a little boy, seeking shelter. He was lost in the maze, and I found him and led him back to Menegroth. King Elu there took him as his own son –

Daeron: What? He took a mortal as his son?

Beleg: Yes, and it was one of the best things he ever did, in my opinion. You didn’t know about that?

Daeron: Well, I had heard rumors, of course, but I had no notion that – they were true.

Beleg [nods:] Yep. So, Túrin grew up in Menegroth and obviously learned a lot about our ways and customs. He wasn’t really like a mortal at all, in some ways. In other ways he was definitely Edain.

[pause]

Daeron: [muttering:] I can’t believe he took a mortal as his son!

Beleg: You’re still thinking about that?

Daeron: It is merely very difficult for me to believe – after – after Beren I thought he would never allow a mortal into his sight again. I would not have.

Beleg: I guess he learned better, eh?

Daeron: [doesn’t answer his question:] Continue.

Beleg: Oh, there’s not much more. Just that he was probably the best friend I ever had. Even more than Mablung, probably. Though old Mablung and I still have splendid times together – that is, when I was in Valinor, before I came back here.

Daeron: [thoughtful:] You – how long have you been back here?

Beleg: About four centuries.

Daeron: Why?

Beleg: [shrugs:] After knowing Túrin, and after his death, I felt, well, rather desolate without the Atani. It’s hard to explain, but ... staying in Valinor, after having known him, was almost impossible for me. I felt like – I was abandoning them –

Daeron: [short laugh] Abandoning – the Atani?

Beleg: [curious] Why should that be funny?

Daeron: It is not – I merely find it ... difficult to believe.

Beleg: Why is that?

Daeron: Because I’ve never found a mortal that is worth anything.

Beleg: Perhaps you have not looked. Perhaps, Daeron, you should have gotten to know Beren a little better before you passed him off. He was a splendid chap – and I only met him twice – the second time was on the hunting trip on which he died.

[Daeron does not answer.]

Beleg: Well, I had better go – I have an Italian lesson to do.

[Daeron doesn’t answer, but is just looking vaguely into the distance.]

Beleg: Good bye, old chap. Hope to see you soon.

Daeron: [realizing he’s being addressed; softly:] Farewell, Master Cúthalion. I shall see you again.