An Elf at the North Pole by elennalore  

Northwards! Northwards! That was the only thought in Celebrimbor’s mind. He could not live in Aman anymore. Not after everything that had happened in Middle-earth, in his previous life. He was re-embodied now, his body whole once again, except perhaps his mind. Maladjusted, he had heard others whisper when they thought he couldn’t hear them. Traumatised. Poor Celebrimbor.

He could not live in Aman, but there was no way out. Except one. The way most of the Noldor exiles had taken during the great darkness. The North way: Helcaraxe. He had never walked that way himself, but it felt only right that he would finally take the treacherous ice path to Middle-earth. He missed Eregion, he missed everything that had once been possible there.

It wouldn’t be the same, he knew, but then, he also wanted to see the mountains.

He set out well prepared, wearing leather and fur clothes, a pair of red leather boots and a woolly cap. He carried a spear with him, and lots of food – he knew he wasn’t a very good hunter. He started the journey one morning, without telling anyone. They might not have let him go. It took him many months to reach the place where the great ice began. He had learned to hunt already, and he didn’t think of turning back.

At some point he understood that there was something seriously wrong with the road. The world was changed, and the roads that had led to Middle-earth led to other places now. His compass told him that he was always going north. Northwards! But that was not where Middle-earth was. He had lost the road back home.

This time, he didn’t have to walk along Helcaraxë in darkness. It was good that he had thought to take his self-made sunglasses with him. It was summer, and the Sun never set. The icy world was almost too bright to his eyes, but he had faced radiant beings before, and Arien could not frighten him even though she watered his eyes and burned his skin. Celebrimbor slept little, and his dreams became uncomfortable. Still, he went on. He wanted to see what was at the end of the road.

When his compass started malfunctioning, he knew he had to be near his destination. And soon, Celebrimbor saw a great house on an icy cliff, a house with many towers, and he was curious to study it further. There was a pole, too, a tall icicle that felt suddenly ominous, like one of Annatar’s knives. He turned away from it before he remembered more. But there was nothing ominous about the house, and that way he went.

After a while he found a circling path that led up the icy hill. It was well hidden, as if the occupants were afraid of an attack, or otherwise didn’t like guests. Well, he thought, I’ve arrived in any case, and it would be a shame to not to meet whoever is living here before I go. He knocked on the heavy wooden door.

“Who’s there?” someone called inside.

“It’s me, Celebrimbor,” he answered. Then, after a short pause he added: “An Elf.” It was better to mention that he was not an Orc at least.

“An Elf? Red one or green one?”

What kind of question was that? Celebrimbor’s eyes wandered towards his red boots, but that was the only red thing he was wearing. “Neither. I’m a Noldo,” he said at last, rather proudly.

“A gnome?”

Celebrimbor had thought that they were speaking Quenya, but some of these words were so strange that he wasn’t sure about it anymore.

“A Noldo,” he repeated more slowly. “A maker-Elf. Crafter of fine items.” And some bad items, too, he thought, but it was best left unsaid for now. “Please, can I just come in? I’m quite tired, and hungry as well. I have been travelling.”

“Alright, alright! You don’t sound like a goblin to me. I will open the door at once!” The strange voice had come nearer. It was a male voice, but very soft and deep, as if the speaker was wearing a muzzle.

The door was opened, and Celebrimbor saw the person who had been talking to him, and he was a great polar bear. He took off his sunglasses, fearing that he had begun hallucinating, but the bear stayed, and looked very real. Before Celebrimbor managed to think of something suitable to say, he found himself being scrutinised by that enormous being. Somehow, it felt best to stay silent.

“I knew it,” the polar bear said triumphantly. “A red elf, although somewhat bigger than the rest. There’s never enough of you here. Come in, come in! Nice to meet you, Celebrimbor! My name is North Polar Bear.” The bear rumbled something like a laugh. “I have a real name, too, but that one I won’t tell just for anyone. So, call me NPB, won’t you?”

Celebrimbor, who had previous experience of people hiding their real names and motives, felt a little uneasy about this, but NPB felt like a decent sort of chap, and Celebrimbor was indeed hungry, so he brushed his worries aside and entered the strange house.

NPB took Celebrimbor to a guest room, and then to a bathhouse to clean himself before the dinner. At the dinner hall he first saw other elves, those red and green ones NPB had talked about. They were tiny, but very friendly, and they took him as their distant cousin, albeit a giant one.

“You look a bit like a red elf,” one of them said while they were eating porridge, “but I assure you that we green elves are more important. We work for Father Christmas; we pack presents and write addresses on them so that everyone gets their gifts in time. Meanwhile, red elves just fight!”

“That’s unfair! Without us, you would have a goblin invasion here!” protested one of the red-wearing elves. “Besides, we help Father Christmas at his workshop as well! We invent new presents every year, together with NPB!”

“What do you want to do, now that you have arrived here?” they all asked Celebrimbor in unison. “How are you going to help Father Christmas?”

Several thoughts crossed Celebrimbor’s mind. He hadn’t heard about Father Christmas before, but it sounded like he was a Giver of Gifts, and there was only one other being like that he had known before. He tried to say something, but couldn’t, and when he lowered his eyes, he realised that his hands were shaking. A panic threatened to overcome him, but there had been another word, a familiar one, and it had always been his safe haven.

“Workshop,” he said in a weak voice. “I can work in his workshop. I’m good at inventing things.”

And that’s how Celebrimbor became one of Father Christmas’ Elves.

TBC

Chapter End Notes

I have a desire to continue this fic, perhaps closer to the holiday season.

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Celebrimbor felt very at home in Father Christmas’ workshop. It didn’t take long until he got used to the daily rhythm of the workshop elves. A jingling bell woke him up in his room every morning, and he quickly washed himself and put on his red tunic and trousers as well as a red cap. He wore them proudly, his family colours. Then, he went to have breakfast with the other elves, red and green ones, and only when their bellies were full of porridge and nuts and fruit cake, it was time to enter the workshop for the day’s work.

Sometimes North Polar Bear joined them at breakfast, but as the autumn went on, he became increasingly sleepy and tended to sleep much later than the workshop elves did. He visited Celebrimbor in the workshop between his own duties, though, bringing him news from outside: the news of the local seal community, or the latest adventures of Polar Cubs. His tales were entertaining even though Celebrimbor hadn’t met any of these beings yet. The North Pole felt far from a desolate place.

The elves made toys in the workshop; toys for children living in foreign places Celebrimbor had never heard of. The parcels full of toys and other presents would be brought to the children at Christmas, when the magic of the giver of gifts would be strongest. Or so NPB had explained it to Celebrimbor. He looked forward to that midwinter day with a growing unease – he had already understood that Father Christmas was some kind of a Maia, and Celebrimbor wasn’t particularly interested in facing another giver of gifts in his full power.

Thankfully, there was the workshop where he could immerse himself in familiar things. A group of elves was building doll’s houses when Celebrimbor arrived, and at first, he joined them and helped them to assemble the parts. The empty houses made him melancholic, however, and one day he decided to find something else to do – perhaps something he could improve, too. He wandered among dolls and toy bears (some of them looked rather like NPB), among colourful balls, jumping ropes and pull toys, but nothing picked his interest until he came to the woodworking area of the workshop. The place smelled of sawdust and paint, and it was almost empty. Just one, sad-faced elf sat on the edge of a chair, holding a red wooden block in her hand.

“Oh, it is impossible!” she sighed as Celebrimbor came nearer.

“What is impossible?”

“To make these bricks interesting! Children don’t seem to like them very much; some of them have even written to Father Christmas that they find them dull, and customer opinions are very important to FC. He may discontinue this line altogether, and I don’t want to go back sewing clothes for dolls! But there’s only so much you can do with bricks.”

Celebrimbor’s curiosity was awakened, and he extended his hand. A small wooden cube, painted red, was placed on his palm. He weighted it in his hand; there was nothing special about it, but he instantly liked the shape of the object. There was nothing in it that would remind him of the rings, nothing round and menacing, and he knew that he could work with these wooden blocks.

“I have an idea. We need more of them,” he announced, and was delighted to see the eyes of the sad elf visibly brighten as if she were one of the Mírdain.

From that day on, Celebrimbor spent most of his time working with wooden blocks. More and more elves, mostly those with a red cap like Celebrimbor, came to help him as word got round that there was something new happening in the woodworking department.

NPB visited more often now, for – although he never admitted it – he was curious to see Celebrimbor’s inventions. Celebrimbor felt his previous creativity coming back; Father Christmas’ workshop was a good place for that. His latest invention was the interlocking building blocks – he was very proud of the locking mechanism he had invented.

“I’m happy to be able to create again,” Celebrimbor confessed to NPB as he showed him the latest prototype of the wooden blocks one day.

“What stopped you earlier?” North Polar Bear asked, poking a tower Celebrimbor had built with his paw. The tower didn’t fall, thanks to little wooden studs on top of each small wooden block that fastened the bricks together.

A surge of panic swept through Celebrimbor, and a yellow brick he had been holding in his hand dropped on the floor.

“Someone hurt you, didn’t they?”

Celebrimbor forced himself back to the present. There was still so much to do in the manufacturing process – the bricks were just prototypes, prone to imperfection that made them useless – what was he thinking, he sounded almost like –!

“It was a long time ago,” he muttered uneasily. “I need a break. Could you take me somewhere else, NPB?”

“I thought you would never ask!” Polar Bear exclaimed. “I want you to meet my nephews. Let’s go!”

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To meet North Polar Bear’s nephews, Celebrimbor needed to go outdoors, for they were apparently playing in the snow. NPB brought him more clothes; a hooded winter coat made of thick wool, a scarf and a pair of mittens. It was winter now, NPB told him, and Celebrimbor had to keep himself warm and be careful not to catch a cold.

Winter. Celebrimbor realised that it had been months since he had last been outside. Since his arrival, working in Father Christmas’s workshop had kept his mind busy, and he hadn’t paid any attention to the world outside. He had dismissed his past from his mind, and being absorbed in his new inventions, he had almost forgotten that he hadn’t always lived at the North Pole as Father Christmas’s Elf.

For a moment, he wanted to pull off his colourful mittens and return to the safety of the workshop, but NPB was growing impatient. Jumping on his two hind legs, he urged Celebrimbor forward.

“Hurry up! Paksu and Valkotukka have wanted to meet you ever since they came to visit us! They have built a snow hill for sledding, but if we’re not there soon, they might get bored and go somewhere else, and then it will be impossible to find them amongst the snow – they are as white as the whitest snow, you know.”

“I’m coming,” Celebrimbor announced, defeated, as he hurried behind NPB towards the great main door. Perhaps it would not be too bad to go and get some fresh air – and meet a couple of polar cubs.

Outside, the darkness of the night faced him. Celebrimbor paused on the steps and inhaled cold air. He had not expected it to be so dark in the afternoon, but now he remembered NPB telling him that it was like that at the North Pole: nightless nights in summer, and the Sun disappearing in winter. It was not fully dark, however, for the fields of white snow were glimmering in starlight.

“Is it close to midwinter already?” Celebrimbor asked NPB, suddenly worried. He remembered that the powers of Father Christmas were at their height at midwinter. He had already met the Giver of Gifts many times, for the North Pole was not a very big place after all, but there was something ominous in him that made Celebrimbor avoid him if possible. His bright red clothes, bushy eyebrows and huge white beard felt like a mask, and sometimes Celebrimbor wondered if he was someone else altogether.

“Alas, no! You would know if it was!” the Polar Bear laughed. “We still have a month left. Look, I see my nephews over there! And ouch, they seem to be in the middle of a boxing match!”

NPB rushed down the hill to separate his quarrelling nephews, and for a while there was a lot of commotion and rolling in the snow. When Celebrimbor got closer, however, the fight was over, and both culprits looked quite meek if you didn’t count their wide grins that revealed their sharp teeth.

“He took my sled!” one of the Polar cubs claimed.

“And he took mine!” claimed the other.

“Speak no more! Your problem is solved,” NPB promised, “for me and Mr Celebrimbor will now take both of the sleds from you. He’s a new elf around, and he has never gone sledding before.”

This was not exactly true, but Celebrimbor didn’t feel like correcting the Polar Bear. A memory of childhood was evoked: his father pulling him in a sled up a snow hill in Formenos. From there, they had slid down together, laughing as they went. Back then, Celebrimbor had felt that he was a bit too old for such childish fun, but he had had a good time with Atar, nevertheless.

“Here’s your sled,” NPB said and put a piece of rope in his hand. Celebrimbor was far older now, and many things had happened to him after those serene winter days in Formenos, but suddenly he wanted to try sledding again.

“By all means, join us, Little Ones,” he said to Paksu and Valkotukka (he still didn’t know which one was which). “The more the merrier. There’s room for two in each sled.”

“I’m not so sure about that. I’m a big bear,” NPB grumbled, but he let the Polar cubs run ahead uphill without further complaining. On the top of the hill, Celebrimbor sat down in one of the sleds with one of the cubs who told him his name was Valkotukka. His white fur was very soft and glimmered with tiny snowflakes from his previous rolling in the snow. NPB pushed the sled down the hill, and they came down at a high speed, snow blowing around them. Celebrimbor felt joy bubbling inside his chest, and he was laughing aloud by the time their sled stopped at the foot of the hill.

“Again! Again!” shouted Valkotukka happily. NPB’s rumbling laughter seemed to fill the whole valley.

They spent all afternoon sledding down the hill over and over again until it was time for dinner at the cliff house. Being outdoors and all the laughing had considerably soothed Celebrimbor’s mind, and he felt more relaxed than before. Today, he decided not to eat in his own room as was his usual habit. Instead, he joined the others in the dining hall where Father Christmas already sat at the end of a long table, a table filled with delicious dishes of all kinds.

“The busiest time of the year is about to begin,” Father Christmas told them, and a row of red and green elves nodded knowingly. “We need to work hard, for everything must be ready in time.”

Celebrimbor didn’t mind; he was used to deadlines, they only helped his productivity, as he had learned in Eregion. If only he had a partner with whom he could brainstorm his wildest ideas. The elves who manufactured the wooden blocks were nice, but he wished there could be someone who could really challenge him. That way, the best inventions were born. North Polar Bear was a true friend, but he was too chaotic to boost Celebrimbor’s powers of invention. It would be like asking help from uncle Tyelkormo.

“My nephews took Celebrimbor and me sledding today,” NPB told Father Christmas as they were slurping their hot chocolate drinks that were served with the dessert.

“It was very kind of them to borrow their sleds,” FC answered, his piercing eyes suddenly finding Celebrimbor among the crowd. “Celebrimbor has been a little down lately, I think.”

Father Christmas seemed to see inside him, Celebrimbor noticed with disquiet. He knows more than he says. And of course he does, it’s his nature to know things.

His feeling of unease stayed hidden from the Polar cubs, though. “We had great fun!” Valkotukka declared. “We want to borrow Mr Celebrimbor again tomorrow when we’re going to explore a cave!”

“We don’t know if it’s a cave,” Paksu added quickly. “But we hope it is! We found a rock crevice; it was revealed after an avalanche! And it looks like a secret passage!”

“You’ve been exploring on your own again, aren’t you?” NPB sighed, and from his tone Celebrimbor understood that it was not the first time.

Father Christmas had become very attentive all of a sudden. “Where is this possible passage you’re talking about?”

“At the bottom of Lonely Hill,” the polar cubs answered in unison, pointing towards a lonely-standing fell on the other side of the frozen lake.

Father Christmas was silent for a long time, and again, Celebrimbor felt his sharp eyes studying him. “I see,” he heard Father Christmas say at last. “In that case, I will join your expedition tomorrow. It’s not a place to wander into on your own, not even in the company of brave Mr Celebrimbor.”

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