The monster in the mirror by Aprilertuile  

Celegorm was sitting at his desk in his room. On the wall in front of him stood a small mirror with a golden rim. A pretty piece, certainly. Not a piece from Valinor, but one made with great care and skills.

Celegorm hated it.

He was in Himring. He was in Himring, in his brother’s fortress. It wasn’t Nargothrond. No, it wasn’t the wild either.

Celegorm took a deep breath, turning away from the mirror, counting aloud to focus his attention on something, his voice seemingly too loud in the silence of the room.

He would be heard. He shouldn’t be heard. His brothers couldn’t know. No one could know!

He winced, as he saw the mirror of his room from the corner of his eyes. He hated mirrors now.

Once upon a time he didn’t care if there were mirrors around or not. He had always been vain, like all noldor from Valinor, but his vanity laid entirely on his hunting skills and Oromë’s acknowledgement of him, not in physical appearance.

But now...

What he saw in mirrors...

He always did his best to not see the mirror. To not watch them, not let his attention stray to them. It was getting hard to hide that new quirk of personality from his brothers. Harder not to flinch at sights and sounds only he could see and hear.

He shivered, his eyes on the small mirror in front of him.

Himring was a chilly place. Celegorm didn’t know when he stopped caring about the cold. Or perhaps he simply could use the cold as an excuse. No wonder he was suddenly shivering, considering the cold... Even if he was shivering because he suddenly saw from the corner of his eyes a dreadful form of a dead elf, or Huan.

In the mirror he saw himself smiling like a deranged beast. A creature of Morgoth, bathed in the blood of its victims.

He shivered.  

Maybe that is what he was in truth. Maybe being in those cursed lands had cursed him to become the very thing he spent his life hunting.

A beast to hunt other beast.

Ha! A beast? No. Not even.

A monster to hunt other monsters.

He jumped, startled when he heard a knock at the door, and saw it open.

Only two of his brothers would enter his rooms without waiting for him to open the door to them and only one would bother to knock.

He turned to look at the imposing presence of Maedhros, his elder brother.

“You look tired brother.” Maedhros commented, studying him with sharp eyes.

“Oh you know how it is. Sleep can be hard to find.”

It could be hard to find sleep when one spent their night sitting in front of one’s reflection in the mirror arguing with themselves. Trying to convince themselves that the mirror was lying, that its image was a trick. Didn’t truly exist.

“Curufin seems worried.”

“Curufin just lost his son and seems to be in the mood to treat everyone around him as a child as a result.” Celegorm answered.

Speaking, Celegorm stole a fast look at the mirror.

The distorted grinning figure of himself gave him the will to throw something at the mirror. He looked away briefly and stood up to go up to the mirror and take it down. He had enough.

He was a monster, he knew, but he had enough of seeing it revealed in that cursed mirror.

He already knew he was bad news anyway. Always knew that.

Maedhros just watched him in silence, frowning.

“I remember once getting rid of all mirrors I could find.”

“It’s ugly, it’s only showing my ugly raccoon eyes and I already know I’m tired, I don’t need to see it as well.” Celegorm answered lightly.

Was it a trick of the dark shadows coming out from Angband, or was he just losing his mind? Was it the curse? The oath? Was he just following on their father’s madness, losing his mind in turn?

“I used to always see a shadow moving in the corner of my eye.”

Celegorm shivered at that.

He did too. Often. These days more often than not, a shadow the shape of his greatest failure. The shape of Huan. Injured. Obviously dead.

“The face of an orc with red hair, calling me what I am. What Morgoth and Gorthaur tried to make of me. A monster to haunt my brothers with... I wonder often if they succeeded.”

Celegorm’s mouth took a downward turn, even as he could feel the hair on his neck rise as he could see in the corner of his eyes shadows coalesce to form his most recent nightmare.

Don’t react, don’t react, don’t react!

“What do you see brother, I wonder?” Maedhros whispered.

Did he react? Surely, his brother was too perceptive for his own good at times. What tipped him off however...

“Nothing, I’m fine.”

“Don’t lie to me. Not about that.”

“Nelyo...”

“How long has it been going on, brother?”

Celegorm shrugged.

It was unclear when his mind became a bog full of traps and tricks. It wasn’t like he kept a dated diary of the horrors his mind could present him with.

“Curufin thinks you’ve started to act strangely since Huan disappeared.”

“Strangely? Perhaps I just have a conscience and regret acting in such a way that Huan chose to leave me after spending centuries at my side? It’s not like I lost my closest companion when he left me, after all... Can’t imagine why I’d regret his departure.” Celegorm answered bitterly.

“So Curufin’s right. It started with Huan’s disappearance.”

“First of all, I regret the fact that Huan left me, it doesn’t mean anything is happening. Second, Huan didn’t disappear. Huan is dead.”

“You don’t know that.” Maedhros said calmly.

“Yes. I do.”

The certitude in his brother’s voice had Maedhros stop and look at him cautiously.

“Huan is dead, there is absolutely no doubt about it. I know it to be true. You may doubt if you wish but don’t try to give me hope because you will simply not succeed.”

“How could you know?!”

The Huan-like corpse haunting Celegorm days and nights was a pretty good indication that he was. And the fact he could swear he felt something tear his throat out when he was just sitting in his rooms in Himring, doing some research on the local crops, was also a pretty good indication.

But it was nothing he felt he could tell his brother. He’d think him insane. Because he knew those weren’t illusions. He knew.  Huan was gone.

The shadows around him, the mirror, the dark laughter haunting him... All that may be psychotic illusions of a broken mind, but Huan’s shadows... no.

That he knew was real. He could feel it. It was real. Huan was still at his side. Always. Forever. And if it was all he could have of his old friend then he’d welcome it also.

Or perhaps it was really all a sign of insanity.

Maedhros may have seen something in his face or demeanour for he seemed to deflate and sighed tiredly:

“Very well then. Just know I understand what you’re living. You know how to find me when you want to talk about it.” He said before reaching for the door.

“I don’t want to talk about it brother... But I will answer you: In the shadows, I see all my failures, those I killed and those I couldn’t save, and Huan who, in my arrogance, was both. In the mirrors... In the mirrors I see the monster I am. The monster I never wanted to be.”

Maedhros looked like he wanted to say something to that, but in the end he silently let go of the door’s handle and stepped back toward Celegorm, to embrace him.

Celegorm hid his head in his brother’s neck and despite himself, helplessly started to cry silently, tears falling for all those shadows, or for the blood on his hands, or for himself. He didn’t know.

Finally he shook his head, took a deep breath and let go of Maedhros, stepping back. Maedhros hesitated, but without another word, he left the room, left Celegorm to his solitude again, to his shadows.

To his regrets.

To his unvoiced grief.

... To his madness.

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