I heard soft crying amongst the trees. I left my post and silently stepped towards the sobbing, an arrow drawn tightly in my bow. I was within the protective Girdle of Melian, but evil could still filter through, and no doubt disguise itself. I sensed Mablung my comrade behind me, offering his coverage and support. Passing through the golden mist that floated in the air and reflected the sunlight, I caught sight of a boy, crumpled on the ground, face buried in his hands as his shoulders racked lightly from his sobs. He had become bewildered and lost upon entering the Girdle, as anyone without a guide would become. His hair was blacker than night, his fair hands pale and trembling.

I stepped up to the boy, and looked down upon him. I would not offer comfort yet, I would not give him solace; I had to be certain that he was truly a lost boy. He looked up to me, and I found myself lost within the silver depths of his eyes. He backed away slightly, never breaking his gaze; he only saw a fearful, otherworldly vision staring down at him as my appearance was altered by the Girdle.

I spoke in the commonplace tongue. “Do not fear me, child…for you have entered the Girdle unharmed. Do you not have companions?”

“They are lost, as am I,” he replied softly. “….and it is not so much that I fear this place that I have arrived to…as much as I fear where I have left.”

I tilted my head slightly. The child looked familiar, though I know never once did I confer with him before. I knew he was no Elf-child; I felt no presence around him, not the same strength as my people have. But he did indeed have a strength of his own.

I stooped down to his eye level. I felt Mablung draw closer, resting in a chosen tree. “What is your name?” I asked gently.

Only the echoing song of far flying nightengales answered me. He gazed at me, perhaps with defiance, and looked away. I settled back on my haunches and slowly dropped my outstretched hand. Turning, I spoke with Mablung in our native tongue, loudly enough that the boy could hear.

“Mablung, my comrade…does he not look just like the said Elf-Witch of Dor-Lomin? The Lady with blackest hair and bright shining eyes…those more intimate with her called her Morwen.”

His head lifted quickly upon the sound of that name, tears on his cheeks shining. “Does that sound familiar, child?” I asked him. He dropped his gaze again.

“That is my mother’s name.”

I released a sharp intake of breath. Indeed he was familiar: the son of Morwen and the son of Hurin – the sprightly, golden-haired warrior of Men, that insulted Morgoth to his dark face and defied his polluted heart. Every last one knew of Hurin’s brave deeds, of fighting alongside the princes of Elves – and every last one knew of his doom for battling Morgoth: to be chained to a chair at the highest mountaintop of Angband, rendered helpless and hapless as his family and loved ones were cursed until their deaths. The child that was before me was Hurin’s offspring – cursed, and doomed.

I knew that in my mind…yet my heart would not accept it. A simple child of Men – cursed at his birth? I felt grief begin to overtake me.

Yet we had news that the Lady Morwen was sending her eldest to the Girdle of Melian and to Menegroth, to be raised by Elves and protected from the rising turmoil that threatened his inheritance: the lands of Dor-Lomin. We did not know when he would be sent, and whom would come upon him; soon I realized that I was chosen to be the child’s escort into the court of Lord Thingol and Lady Melian. I did not understand…how a cursed one could be blessed in the hallowed halls of where I was chosen to be a marchwarden…but I knew that I could not just leave the child. In first looking into his silver gaze, into eyes innocent and unknowing of his destiny, I knew that I loved him. As a father, a brother, or simply a friend…my heart overtook my logic.

I replace the arrow into my quiver, and my bow dangled from my hand. I removed the hood of my cloak from my face, and reached out my other hand to him again, letting him see past the golden mist of the Girdle and see what I truly was: only a marchwarden of the forest, an immortal Elf, yes…but not perfect as Men thought us to be.

“I understand now, child,” I spoke gently, soothingly. “You were meant to come here. We know who you are, and we accept it. Will you not meet the Lady Melian? She waits to see you.”

I felt Mablung drop from the tree and step up behind me, hissing softly in our own tongue. “He is cursed, Strongbow. Dare you touch him?”

I sighed softly. “I have no choice, dear friend.”

The boy stood up on shaky legs, and shuffled towards me. The weathered clothes he wore were too large for him, and hung from his frail frame as if he hadn’t eaten for so long…he placed his small hand in my own, and I enclosed my fingers around it.

Only for a moment did I feel it; I was disoriented and I heard no sound, and closed my eyes. Mablung’s heavy hand rested on my shoulder, and I heard jarbled words in a worried tone. I felt the curse. My eyes opened, and I looked upon the child, smiling softly. “You are safe now…Turin son of Hurin.”

I stood and he craned his neck to continue watching me, for I was as tall as perhaps a firmly planted sapling. I smiled at him, and he smiled back. Mablung stepped out of the way as I led Turin through the Girdle, and I could feel him watching us with reprimanding eyes as I took the boy to the very court of the Lord and Lady of Menegroth.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At that very point he was accepted as a fosterson of the Lord Thingol, a child to soften the grief of losing the beloved daughter he lost so long ago – at least in the recorded years of Men. I knew that all of them felt the curse linger near as Turin stepped into the stone halls, yet I also knew that they used the same reasoning…and that they loved him anyway. I was sanctioned to tutor the child, to teach him the ways of the Elves, and also their skills and ways of defense. And as time passed, the more I loved him as a father would his newborn child; his laughter as he climbed a tree to keep away from his studies (although I could have access to the tree easier than he was able), his furrowed brow as he concentrated on swordplay, and his temper — as he threw down a bow upon missing the center mark upon a target. I picked up the bow and handed it to him to aim once more – for I would not have him be weak in archery. I was not called the Strongbow upon no reason.

The adolescent Turin glared at me, the silver in his gaze flashing. “I prefer hand to hand combat, Strongbow. I am a heavy Man and no light-footed Elf; a sword belongs in my grasp.”

“Yet try it again.” I challenged his piercing eyes with a calming look of entreatment. “For the sake of the Strongbow.”

He took the bow and squared his posture, squinting one eye as he pulled the bowstring back and pressed the hand holding the feathered end of the arrow against his cheek. He did not yet fire, for he had yet to aim. He remained still as I walked around him, examining his form. I lifted a hand to touch the one pressed against his cheek.

“Relax yourself. Do not grip the arrow so tightly, for your hand will tire and your aim weaken.”

“Tis already weak.” He released the arrow and landed it in nearly the same place, a mere space from the center mark. “See? I will not improve. Leave us to swordplay.”

“No. Think you that the Lord Thingol assigned me to let you swing around a heavy piece of metal all day? I think not.”

“Tis all that I am to you, isn’t it?” He said tauntingly. “An assignment ordered to you by the king. Naught but one of many that you have trained to be skilled warriors and forest wardens. How many have you seen in your long life that weren’t like me?”

I smiled at him gently. “None were ever like you, son of Hurin.”

Moonlight-colored eyes blinked at me as I pulled an arrow from my own quiver and placed it in his hand. “Yes, you are an assignment, one to be trained and to be taught. And yes, you are a burden, for never has the Lord Thingol ever had a another child of Men in his halls – save for the one that took his daughter away. You are a reminder of that one, yet you are also a reminder of her. Understand that you are the first child of the Secondborn that I have ever tutored.”

He had pulled back the arrow, his body as taut as the bowstring he used. I stepped in front of his aim, and in front of the arrow. His eyes did not leave the center mark of the target. “You have been chosen, Turin. To be a son of Men and accepted in the halls of a great Elven king is dare I say a blessing.”

“Then blessings mingle with curses.”

I paused, and realized that he was beginning to understand the Curse. No one ever spoke about it when he was present, but he knew in his heart. He had always known, yet not understood it fully; but as he grew older, his upbringing by the wisdom of Elves caused his percievement to thrive.

“I am the first of Men that you have instructed, is it, Strongbow? Perhaps the last as well – if I do not somehow rain doom upon you.” He released the arrow, and I felt a small sharp wind play through my hair. I turned quickly — and saw and arrow piercing the center mark of the target directly.

And for a moment, he was the small child that I had found years before. “…and I hope I do not.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was the child’s twentieth birthday, according to the recorded times of Men. There was a banquet for him, and everyone attended save the wardens who guarded the forests. So I did not attend, as much as I wished to, yet I did not need to – for Turin himself chose not to attend at all. He sat upon he ground underneath the tree that I rested in; it was a common practice among the marchwardens to rest in the branches of trees, to absorb their solace and find serenity and clarity from them. Turin only ridiculed such practice, yet he could be often seen staring up into the branches and leaves of trees, as if he was meditating on their true ability and worth. So he and I did not attend the ill-planned banquet, but spent the night looking up into the stars.

Yet not all was quiet and serene; in following me to the tree that I rested in, Turin had left the Girdle of Melian. We were in the outside part of Beleriand, in unfamiliar and unprotected territory. Were we not trained warriors, anything lurking in the night shadows could have taken us and easily made us prey. I knew Turin was relaxed and perhaps near sleep, but I could not rest as easy – for I sensed something in the air. Be it orcs, or something of darker purpose, I could not tell.

Suddenly I heard his voice. “What was she like, Strongbow?”

“Whom?”

“The lord’s daughter, you remember her. You were there, weren’t you? T’was only a few hundred years – a mere fraction of time for an Elf.”

“Ah yes…many a song has been written about her and her lover, the one that took her away from here.” I leaned my head against the tree’s trunk and looked back into the starlight. “She was the most beautiful creature in all of Arda – and I do not say that with bias, for everyone agreed. Tinuviel – “Nightengale” – he called her, because indeed her voice was as beautiful as a chorus of nightengales. She had the beauty and power of her mother Melian, and the strong attitude of the King. Perhaps that’s why her lover loved her so…for her strength. And perhaps that’s why she loved him – because he was weak, and not afraid to use her strength when she offered it to him. He may as well have been a mighty Elf Lord, for it made no difference concerning how she loved him.”

“Yet he was a Man,” Turin spoke aloud from his reverie. “One of my kind. And because of that, they were both doomed — weren’t they, Strongbow?” His question served more as a statement of the truth, one that I did not need to affirm. I only nodded, even though he did not see me. I left my perch in the branches to step to the ground and choose a seat next to him.

“Both doomed because of their own choices. For she was immortal yet he was not…” He lifted his head and looked at me; his eyes seemed to glow in the night’s darkness. “Yet she sacrificed her long-lasting life to stay with him, in but a short span, only to grow old and gray… only to taste Death’s bitterness. I do not see the beauty and love in such a sad tale, Teacher.”

“Because you see your ending destiny as the same as their’s perhaps?” I smiled slightly. “But of course, you are a Man; men will always live and die. See it as a gift: for you have been given an escape from the toils of this life. You have been given a fading memory to forget the hardship and grief of the past, and you have been given a decaying body that will soon cease to live. Then you can escape this world. Elves – the Firstborn – must stay here much, much longer. And we never forget our grievances.”

He shifted slightly to look straightway at me. “Yet I was cursed before I was born! But then you call be blessed to be here?”

“Blessed yes – to be alive and to experience and appreciate the world as Elves see it. Cursed yes — because you will die soon. Yet if you look closely, that curse is a blessing.”

“So you say to me that no matter what things I choose in my life… they matter not because I will die – one way or the other, at one time or some other.”

I gaze upon the child for a very long time, long enough that he asks if I had fallen into Elf-sleep, walking in my dreams with open eyes, as only Elves can do. I lift my hand and place it upon his shoulder firmly. “Yes, I say that. You will stop living once it is decided. But you have been given time upon this world, and for a reason. Now that I reason I know not — but you are here, and that is that. Enjoy what has been given to you. You are seen as a prince among Elves, you have been given privilege and position; you could have been born a crippled, filthy peasant, or even worse — an Orc.”

That made him smile slightly, and he placed a hand upon my own. “I’m glad you are here, Strongbow.” Then he asked without proper thought, “Do Elves have a doom as well?” Quickly he closed his eyes and looked away. “Forgive me, of course they don’t – you live forever.”

I only nodded and folded my hands in my lap. He fell silent, looking down upon the grasses swaying in the light breeze. Our mouths did not speak, but our minds spoke plentifully. We both knew of the curse of Hurin: how all of his children were cursed…and that those that his children loved were touched by the curse as well. I caught a moment of grief filling his eyes, and watched as he rubbed his sleeve against them. He turned back to me, and even I blessed with sharp elven hearing could barely discern his words of “Forgive me…for I am sorry…”

“To the ground,” I responded. Immediately and without question he pressed himself to the ground, and an Orc fell next to him, and arrow piercing through its heart.

I had already stood, my bow poised in my hand; the Orc did not realize he had even been shot before it died. I stood statuesque as Turin rolled to his feet, pulling out his heavy sword with a resounding metallic scraping. He stood against my back.

“How many?” he whispered.

“Enough,” I answered. “You shouldn’t have followed me out of the Girdle.”

I released another arrow upon a bold orc that dared to charge. It saw an arrow aiming towards its face before finding a mark between its eyes. I knew Turin could see nothing lurking in the darkness, but I spied enough. Hunched over shapes, some swaying, some waddling. All heavily armored and holding crudely made swords, already rusty and stained with blood from times before.

“Don’t tell the Lord of Lady of this, would you?” Turin spoke at a regular level.

“Of what? That you left your own birthday banquet to be mauled by Orcs?”

“I needn’t your eloquence at such a time, O great Strongbow.” He flipped his sword forward, and brought his shield close to him.

Without warning, the Orcs assailed. We both stepped forward, and I lost myself in battle, firing arrow upon arrow, as if they were fastened together with leather strips; it was an endless chain of weaponry. I gleaned arrows from Orc-corpses and quickly spun around to dispatch the next dark assailant; I lost sight of the child but I heard his fierce, intelligible warcries, and the sound of metal striking against metal.