One last little kiss, and - "Let's."

Then back home it is.

Elvŷr doesn't fully charm everyone, but she's able to keep Thingol from outright forbidding any association with his daughter. She keeps their relationship apparently platonic and appropriate when in full view of everyone else - but slips away with Luthien into the woods quite frequently, especially as her wife grows into her full height and body.

They have a wonderfully long time together in the woods of Beleriand. Elvŷr takes Luthien with her to meet with her lieutenants in short bursts, acquainting her with Sauron, setting the seeds for her followers to view Luthien as their Queen, any opposition of Luthien to them as part of some grand trick upon the Free Peoples.

(She, admittedly, mostly enjoys time to be Mygwainor, to act as Luthien's wife around others. Though seeing Maiar and orcs, trolls and young dragons and monsters galore, all prostrating themselves at Luthien's feet is... Certainly something.)

(She makes Luthien a dark and beautiful throne, for all that they almost never use it. It's not too much work, and seeing Luthien on it leaves her quite star-struck. Which, admittedly, makes holding court here awkward.)

Elvŷr is away more often once her simulacrum is released in Aman, leaving her elven body sleeping near Luthien while her consciousness jumps to her divine form whenever she needs to make friends or more cleverly manipulate something. She befriends Finrod again, of course, sometimes complaining about him to Luthien. (Unmentioned, but running like a current through it - she finds being in Aman without her wife, without the joy of their 'good timeline,' very, very stressful, and she takes to having the simulacrum do everything except talk to Finrod.)

But the time for Melkor's plots in Aman to be discovered - the time for the war in Beleriand to start - is approaching, now.

(If Luthien wants... She thinks she can steer the war to be less devastating to the people of Beleriand before Melian raises the Girdle, and before the Noldor arrive and begin their siege, without significant timeline stress - the exact casualties are mostly unimportant, as long as the war disrupts politics and trade which the Girdle will do regardless, and the timeline has a lot of room to correct any small bumps, here.)

That... would be good, she thinks.

Okay. (Gentle kiss.)

She can't minimize all the way - it's a war, and the Girdle won't form absent a threat, and the timeline does want an aura of fear... But she'll do her best. Stick to scare tactics as much as she can, and try to worsen the perceived impact of what things she does do. 

Luthien appreciates it. She does, after all, have to live here.

Fair.

If there's anywhere particular Luthien wants her to steer away from - especially that contains anyone particular - she can try for that, too.

(She has been training many of the elves who will eventually join Doriath's guard, so they might hold their own better - but it's a game to them, right now, and war is a chaotic, hungry beast.)

A few names, yeah.

She spends some time figuring out where they're likely to be, creating plans of battle that don't go near there... Distracts Sauron from deciding to do an actually efficient invasion...

And across the sea, her simulacrum plunges Aman into darkness, and the Years of the Trees begin tumbling to their violent end. 

It was always coming to this.

She's gotten a small reputation for competence in a fight. For a sense of what lurks in the shadow. 

She talks Melian into raising the Girdle a bit early, despite a lower death toll. She knows the right arguments, knows the right fears. 

(Melian looks a bit suspcious, but, well.)

Elvŷr won't be inside Doriath when the Girdle rises. She's going to help her people with this war, she claims. 

"Good fortune," she wishes her friend at their farewell.

'I'll miss you,' she tells her wife.

'I'll miss you too. It won't be long, though, before you see Beren.'

"Thanks," she says out loud. "And to you - stay safe."

"I will."

She takes Luthien's hands, squeezes them once -

And she leaves.

Ah... Back to her old life.

(The war rages. The Noldor come. Thingol bans Quenya. Finrod and Galadriel come to Doriath, and Finrod leaves, and the world spins on outside.)

And, exactly like the world is scripted...

Just about five hundred Years of the Sun later, Luthien is dancing in a glade, singing, and a sound on the edge, and a Second Born with a worn face and a stunned, yearning expression -

(The expression Beren wore, so many lifetimes ago, when Luthien first met her. More raw, more rough, more unsure than the glances and adoring stares her wife sends her.)

She swirls to a stop.

"Hello."

"Hello," she says, almost warily.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Luthien, called Tinuviel. What is yours?"

"You're really pretty."

Stop.

Blush.

"Uh, that's not my name, my name's Beren - "

Deeper blush.

She laughs.

"It's lovely to meet you, Beren."

She giggles. "It's lovely to meet you, too."

"Did you write that song? It's really - nice."

"I was extemporizing."

"Wow."

" - It's probably pretty dumb to ask if you live here..."