The Future's In Our Hands by StarSpray  

“Did you do it on purpose?” Maglor’s voice was much sharper than it had been even a moment ago, his eyes gone from soft and sad to hard and stormy as he looked at Curufin, who fought the urge to shrink back. “When you slipped in that puddle and missed your parry, was it on purpose?”

One of the fountains in one of Menegroth’s wide halls had been damaged in the fighting, and overflowed. The floor had been a mess of puddles and rivulets, brownish-red with the mingling of dirty water and blood. Curufin remembered sliding in it, remembered the swoop of his stomach as he lost his balance, remembered—oddly—the bright green of a nearby tapestry on the wall depicting some forest revelry, remembered the flash of a sword—but nothing else. The end had been quick. 

He hadn’t known Maglor was there. 

“No, of course I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said, but even as he spoke he thought: But I do not regret it. 

By the time they had gone to Doriath, Curufin had become someone his younger self, Curufinwë of Tirion, would not have recognized, would have been terrified of, horrified by. It had started even before the Darkening, when his father had come to him with the first sword that he had forged, had taught him all that he had learned himself of the art thus far, and set him to mastering it. Whatever Fëanor asked, Curufin had strived to do—and he did love forge work, had from the very start, loved the heat of it and the satisfaction of seeing the metal bend under his hands into whatever he wanted it to be. He loved the thrill of gem craft even more, of making all manner of stones in all hues and shades and shapes. His greatest delight for years had been presenting his wife with a rainbow of jewelry, of earrings and hair nets and necklaces and rings. 

Swords, though—he had made them beautiful too, at first, with etchings on the flat of the blades and jeweled pommels, but that was not their purpose, not what his father had desired of him. Strength, Fëanor had wanted, and edges sharp enough to cut through anything—through flesh, through bone, through iron. It had been a challenge, and Curufin had always liked a challenge, but it had also frightened him, and there had been no one in whom he could confide that fear. Before, he could have gone to Fëanor—he had gone to Fëanor, with everything—but he could not admit to such fears then, not when they had their source in Fëanor himself, who had begun to sneer at what he deemed to be cowardice or weakness. 

Curufin was almost certain that he was the first of his brothers to begin to fear their father, even before Maedhros, who had watched the growing unrest with keen eyes, who had tried so hard alongside both Fingon and Finrod to keep the growing tension from spilling over into a feud—they had been too young, though, too inexperienced and with too little influence on either their people or their fathers. 

Then Fëanor had drawn a blade on Fingolfin, and everything seemed to go wrong after that. Curufin had not hesitated to join his father in Formenos, because if he feared him he still loved him, and he had not been immune to the rumors and whispers either. Rundamírë, who had stopped answering to his epessë Arimeldë by then, had not begged him to stay, and she had not lost her temper—not in front of Celebrimbor—but she had watched him go with cold eyes, wearing none of the jewels he had made for her, and when he was gone only his son had written to him. Rundamírë had flatly refused to let Celebrimbor so much as visit, and on that point Curufin had not even tried to argue. He did not want Celebrimbor anywhere near Fëanor in those days, not when he was constantly angry, seething with rage at the Valar, at Fingolfin—not at them, his sons, though. Not yet. That had come later. 

They had all gone to Formenos, because what else could they do? To do otherwise would have been as good as declaring themselves against their father, at least in Fëanor’s eyes, but none of them had been happy there. They had walked carefully, spoken quietly, shared bedrooms even though they did not have to, just to have someone nearby. Finwë had joined them, furious with the Valar but even more furious with Fëanor. If they fought, they did it where no one else could overhear. If Fëanor listened to anything that Finwë said to him, he gave no sign. By the time Fëanor had answered the Valar’s summons, Curufin was not the only one of his brothers who knew fear, though he had not been sure even then if he feared Fëanor or feared for him. 

He also remembered fearing for himself—fearing that he might someday follow his father’s footsteps into that horrible, constant, white-hot rage. It had felt as though his brothers were all watching him too, wondering the same thing, though no one spoke of it. Only Finwë had continued to treat him as he ever had, with the same warmth and easy affection that he showed to all of his grandchildren, though even he had grown stern and unsmiling by the end. 

Curufin had already followed his father’s footsteps in almost all other things—in his face, in his talents, his passions. He had even married young, just like his parents. And later, in Beleriand…he had watched his own fears and his brothers’ come true, as he turned into his father at his worst, unable and in the end unwilling to stop himself. His death had been no more than he deserved—less than, even, as quick as it was. He couldn’t even remember if it had hurt. 

Weeks after meeting Maglor by Ekkaia, unexpectedly and not wholly joyfully, they were at last at home—or at least at Nerdanel’s house. Home, at least for Curufin, was his house in Tirion with his wife and his workshop. Only Caranthir and Maedhros had lingered with their mother, Caranthir finding contentment in his gardens and in working with their grandfather, and Maedhros…well, maybe the painting studio would help him find something like contentment, something like happiness. Curufin was not accustomed to thinking of Maedhros as lost, but that was how he seemed more than half the time, lost and somehow afraid, though Curufin didn’t know what it was that frightened him, and he didn’t know how to ask. 

Well, Fëanor frightened him. Fëanor frightened them all, still, in one way or another. He was not visible in the large party that passed by a few days after their own arrival, but Curufin could feel the weight of his gaze all the same. 

“If you want to see him, go see him,” Maedhros had said before Curufin could even get up the courage to ask, even though his own meeting had gone so badly that he would not speak of it to anyone, not even Celegorm.

“He’s most likely to listen to you, Curvo,” Caranthir had added, matter-of-fact. 

Later, Maglor, still as wounded as Maedhros in his own way, had said, “There are things I cannot forgive, things I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive, however much I wish I could. But that should not stop you.”

Curufin had asked Ambarussa what they thought, as they drew closer to home. They had just shrugged. “You must do what will bring you peace, Curvo,” Amrod had said. “We don’t know what we want—to see him or not, I mean—but you’ll be the one living in Tirion. Better to find out sooner than later whether you can stand to be in the same room with him.”

He had not spoken to Celegorm; they were only speaking at all because Maedhros had pushed them together at Midsummer—acting more like himself than he had in years—and anyway, Curufin already knew that he would be against it. He was furious with Fëanor, and rightfully so—and he, too, was afraid, more afraid than he’d ever admit to anyone. Curufin just knew him well enough, even now after everything, that he could tell. Though like Maedhros, Curufin did not know exactly what it was that Celegorm feared.

Then Celebrimbor came, eager to hear about their journey and delighted to find that Maglor had come back with them. When they had a moment alone, Celebrimbor drew a letter and a small wooden box out of his satchel. “Grandfather sent you these,” he said, pressing them into Curufin’s hands. “He wrote to everyone—but he isn’t asking anything of you, I promise.”

“It sounds as though you’ve spent a great deal of time with him,” Curufin said.

“I did.” Celebrimbor met his gaze; his own eyes were clear of shadows. “It’s been—well, for me it has been wonderful, but I never saw much of that other side of him. It’s different for me.”

“I’m glad, Tyelpë,” Curufin said. The only good choice he had made after the Darkening had been to keep Celebrimbor as far from Fëanor as possible, and to keep him from swearing any oaths. He’d failed his son in myriad other ways, including allowing him to go east with them at all, but at least in this he had kept him safe and free—and able to look at his grandfather now with love unencumbered by fear. “I want to hear all about it—but later, when we can find somewhere quiet. I don’t think anyone else will want to speak of him.”

“Of course, Atya.”

Curufin retreated to Maedhros’ room, glad to find it empty. He sat on the bed and opened the box first. It was filled with gems, none bigger than his thumbnail, a small rainbow of them that caught the sunlight through the window and reflected it onto the wall, the ceiling; some of them had bits of light caught in them, making them shine like tiny stars. Curufin picked a few up, frowning a little. They were flawed, each one of them—either with inclusions that did not look purposeful, or with odd and irregular cuts, or nicks on the surface. They were all lovely regardless, but they looked more like a beginner’s attempts rather than the work of someone like his father, someone who had made the Silmarils. Curufin had never known Fëanor to make anything that was not flawless; or at least, he had never kept his mistakes, let alone given them away. He had been as demanding of himself as he had been of his students—and his sons—even before it had all started to go wrong. 

Of course, Fëanor had only come from Mandos that spring. He was still finding his way around the forge again, hands sore and tender without the callouses and scars he had had of old. Even his skills would be rusty, his new body lacking muscle memory, his mind having not been occupied with the making of things for such a long time. Curufin remembered all of that all too well. Still—why send his first attempts at gem making to Curufin? It must mean something, but Curufin—who had once thought so alike to his father that he had never needed to guess at such hints or riddles—couldn’t understand what.

With a sigh, he set the box aside and opened the letter. 

Curvo,

I have been thinking lately of names, and the consequences neither intended nor thought of at the time of the naming. It seems to me now that the name Curufinwë must have been a terrible burden for you, even if it wasn’t meant to be. It was a name I never used for myself, but it seemed to fit you so naturally, even newly born. You looked just like me, everyone said who had known me as an infant, and your mother thought you were sure to inherit my cleverness and my passions. I suppose that has proven true, but you also inherited other, worse things. You were a better father than I, in the end. You sought to shield your son, rather than to draw him into darkness after you. I wish that I had done the same. I wish I had not taught you to make blades, that I had not demanded you leave your wife and child to follow me into exile—that I had not made the Oath and bid you and all your brothers swear it alongside me. 

All that wishing is useless, of course. We cannot turn back time—but if we could there are so many things I would do differently. What I mean to say is: I am sorry. I’m sorry for the burden of your name and of my expectations, and I am sorry for leading you and your brothers and all our people into darkness and doom. It seems to me that someone should have coined a better phrase than “I am sorry” by now. It feels hollow and empty, too simple to contain all the regret that I feel. 

I hope you are proud of your son, Curvo. He has grown so great in both skill and wisdom—in compassion and kindness, even now, even after all that happened to him in Eregion. I saw those tapestries, too, and I saw your distress in Mandos, but could not quite reach you. I’m not sure you would have accepted whatever comfort I could offer. Telperinquar has been my teacher this summer, showing me many of the things he devised or learned in Middle-earth. It grieves me, though, that he hesitates even still to enter a forge, and that he will take no part in gem craft. That was your great love, I remember, and I remember too how much joy it brought you to share it with him as soon as he was old enough. I remember my own joy in watching your young face light up as you mastered new skills, learned new things. 

Returning even to my old skills feels as though I am learning them anew. I’ve sent you a box of my first attempts. Telperinquar has told me of the things each of you keep now, the things you make that don’t work, or are not pleasing to look at, but which hold meaning for what they taught you or for the joy you took in the process of making. Did you know your grandfather Mahtan bade me keep such a box when I was his apprentice? I never saw the point in it—I wanted to master as many skills as I could, and keeping a thing after I understood what mistakes I had made in it and how to avoid them in the future made no sense to me. Nothing less than perfection was worth keeping. I think now that is a lesson I must unlearn, and both you and Tyelpë have much to teach me. 

Your brothers have no desire to see or speak with me again, and I do not intend to try to force any more meetings. It was foolish to do so in the first place. I know that you live in Tirion now, and I promise that I will not seek you out—but if you change your mind, Curvo, I will not be hard to find. I love you so much, and I am so proud of how you have been rebuilding your life, finding happiness and peace. I promise I will not stand in your way.

Instead of a signature there was only a small eight-pointed star at the bottom. 

Curufin read the letter twice more before folding it up and tucking it into the box of gems, which he then placed at the bottom of one of his saddle bags. He had already decided that he would find his father when he returned to Tirion, to speak to him at least once to see if there was something, anything worth salvaging between them. He missed Fëanor so much it hurt, a constant ache under his ribs like his very heart was bruised. This letter, and Celebrimbor’s own words, suggested there was hope—hope for something more than uneasy coexistence, maybe something even better than what had come before.

Even so, fear lingered. His last memories of Fëanor were of someone fey and fell, terrible in his wrath, devoid of all affection or care, a stranger wearing his beloved father’s face. He was not, could not be like that now, else he would not have been released—else Celebrimbor would never have spent so much time in his company, or spoken of him with such clear joy and affection. 

Still. 

It was another day until Curufin and Celebrimbor were able to escape the house by themselves. They walked out into the orchard, trailed by Huan. “I missed you,” Celebrimbor said after they walked a few minutes in companionable silence. 

“And I you,” Curufin said, slipping his arm through Celebrimbor’s. “How was it, really?”

“As I have said, rather shockingly peaceful, aside from the fish pond incident,” said Celebrimbor. “For my part, it was a wonderful summer—except that I was worried about all of you, and about Maglor. We had no idea, of course, that you’d met.”

“It was Celegorm’s idea to keep it a surprise for our mother,” said Curufin, “and I think it made it a little easier for Maglor—there were no expectations to worry about until we arrived.”

“But it went well? Besides the river incident.”

“Our river incident was much worse than your grandfather’s fish pond incident,” said Curufin. Celebrimbor snorted. “Maedhros has some new scars, and we were all furious with him for a few days, but that’s all. It was very bad, but it could have been much worse, and I think there is no lasting harm. Tyelpë, are you all right? Maglor told me that Finrod got the two of you drunk earlier this year, to speak of the past.”

“Oh, that.” Celebrimbor shook his head, smiling ruefully. “I’m all right, Atya. Really. Something had happened to bring it all back for Finrod, and he needed to speak of it to someone he knew wouldn’t pity him and—well, Maglor and I are it, aren’t we? He came as close to being angry as I’ve ever seen him when I suggested he could talk to his companions about it, the ones who had been there with him, and he was in one of those moods where it was just easier to go along than to argue, although Maglor tried. There is something cathartic about getting drunk and crying a lot I suppose, but I am in no hurry to do it again, and I won’t ever again have more than a single glass of anything Finrod gives me. The next morning was awful.”

“So…no harm done?”

“No, no harm. I suppose I do feel better for having said some of it aloud, knowing both of them would understand what I meant without having to ask any questions. It’s nothing I would ever speak of to you, Atya, so please don’t ask. It’s bad enough I know you saw it all through Vairë’s tapestries.”

Even after so much time had passed, after they were both returned to life, it filled Curufin with a terrible, helpless, furious grief to think of what had befallen Celebrimbor in Ost-in-Edhil. “I won’t ask.”

“Did you read the letter Grandfather sent you?”

“I did.” Curufin dropped his gaze to their feet. “I have been thinking of going to him anyway. I know what I said in the spring, but it…feels wrong to just turn my back, when you did not turn yours.”

“It isn’t quite the same, Atya,” Celebrimbor said.

“It’s near enough. My father gave me far more than only his name. You got the best of him, I think, and I got the worst.” 

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s only the truth.” It was something he would have to wrestle with the rest of his life, Curufin thought. Surely it would be better to do it with Fëanor, rather than in opposition. 

They had come to the edge of the orchard, where it met the river. Huan trotted past to sniff along the bank, and they stood for a few minutes contemplating the water and the sunshine and the shade. Finally, Curufin said, “I hope you know how proud I am of you, Tulcafinwë Telperinquar.” Curufin was not one touched by foresight, but he felt as though he had been in some small way when he had chosen his son’s name, though it was rarely used and seldom remembered these days. Strong, steadfast—that was the core of who Celebrimbor had grown to be, no thanks to Curufin himself. He had failed so terribly as a father, just as Fëanor had, in only slightly different ways. 

Celebrimbor smiled at him. The rows of small silver hoops in his ears glinted in the dappled sunshine that filtered through the branches over their heads. He wore no other jewelry, and his hair was loose about his shoulders, dark as shadows. “I do know,” he said. And then he asked, “When you say you have been thinking of going to see him—does that mean you plan on it? Or have you not yet decided?”

“I do plan on it,” Curufin said. “I need to speak to your mother first, though. She is still very angry.”

“She might not be as angry as you think.”

“Still—if she does not wish me to speak to him, I won’t.” 

“I don’t think that’s fair,” Celebrimbor said after a moment. “I don’t think she would ask that of you.”

“Maybe not. I still wish to know what she has to say.” Curufin didn’t really think so either, but he had placed his father above all others once, and he would not do so again. Whatever he decided to do in the end, he did not wish to do it in haste and without thought. There was no danger in hesitation now, as there had been once in Beleriand; there was no Oath slowly grinding him down like a millstone ground grain. He was free to follow his own heart, but he wanted it to align with Rundamírë’s. 

Before he could speak to Rundamírë, he fought with Celegorm. He hadn’t meant to, but Celegorm overheard when Curufin had told Caranthir what he intended to do in Tirion, and there had been no reasoning with him, no way to make him listen. Curufin watched him storm away toward the road south, feeling wretched. “He isn’t being fair,” Caranthir said from behind him. Curufin hadn’t expected his support when the argument got going; it meant more than he would have expected. Huan trotted up, licked Curufin’s hand with surprising gentleness, and bounded away after Celegorm. 

“What if he’s right?” Curufin said.

“He’s not,” Caranthir replied, as though it could possibly be that simple. “He’ll come around, Curvo. He doesn’t want another estrangement any more than you do.”

“We’re all growing estranged again, though,” Curufin said, watching Huan disappear into the distance. Maglor had left first, and then the twins had slipped away, and now he and Celegorm were leaving, in opposite directions.

“No we aren’t. We all went our separate ways in Beleriand, but it wasn’t that that made us break apart.” Caranthir pushed himself off of the door frame and wrapped his arms around Curufin for a moment, holding on tightly. “I’d go with you to Tirion, but I’d ruin any chance of the meeting going well. I’m still too angry.”

“I hate that I’m the only one who isn’t,” Curufin whispered. 

“That speaks better of you than you seem to think. Stop second guessing and go to Tirion. See your wife, and make your own choices.”

“I should see Maedhros—”

“I think he left when Tyelko started shouting. Don’t worry about him; I’ll make sure he’s all right, and anyway I wrote to Fingon. He should be arriving any time now.”

“But if he—”

“For goodness’ sake, Curvo.”

“All right, all right.” Curufin glanced away toward the river, where Maedhros had probably gone. “Write to me if he gets worse.”

“Write to me, whatever happens,” Caranthir replied. 

“If you’re still angry—”

“At him, Curvo. Not at you.”

“But I’m just like him,” Curufin burst out, feeling his own temper rising. He didn’t understand any of his brothers, and he hated it. “In all the worst ways! The only way I haven’t followed him is I never made anything like—”

“Oh stop it, Curvo.” Caranthir cuffed the side of his head. “Just because you’re named for him doesn’t mean you’re doomed to be the same person. He wouldn’t care what the rest of us thought, in your place. He’d just go do whatever he wanted and expect the rest of us to fall in line. That’s what he always did.”

“It isn’t what he’s doing now.”

Caranthir shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe he’s just going about it a different way. You can tell us one way or the other after you’ve seen him. Just make sure it’s on your terms, that it’s what you want and not just what you think he wants.”

It was what he wanted, Curufin thought. At the very least he needed to know whether he could stand to keep living in Tirion, even though it felt deeply unfair that if he couldn’t, it would likely be him who had to leave, in spite of the life he was rebuilding there and the roots he was trying to put down. 

He left Nerdanel’s house at last. Tirion was a very short ride away, and he arrived at his own house early in the evening, as the sky was just starting to turn purple in the east. He had chosen to live among his and his brothers’ former followers—his father’s former followers—and he hadn’t regretted it until that day, when he had to put on a smile when they greeted him with warm delight at Fëanor’s return. Lights were on in most of the houses, warm and golden, and the sounds of the city surrounded him, a comfort after spending so many weeks away in the wilds, where the only sounds were insects and birds—or not even that, by Ekkaia, where there was only the wind and the soft wash of the waves. Perhaps Maglor could have lingered there, for he had always been drawn to water even before his long exile in Middle-earth, but Curufin had been glad to leave. It was worth seeing, and the journey itself had been well worth it, but he was very glad to be back in Tirion. 

Celebrimbor was not at home when Curufin arrived, but Rundamírë greeted him at the door. “You have had a very eventful summer, I have heard,” she said. She had garnets in her hair, glinting red against the warm brown strands, and fresh ink stains on her fingers. “I hope you plan to tell me all about it.”

“Of course.”

It was several days, though, before they sat down to talk of the summer—and of his father. Rundamírë had not seen Fëanor, though she had been at Imloth Ningloron for Midsummer. “It was wonderful to hear your brother’s singing again,” she said. They had retreated to the roof, where there was a flat open space that Rundamírë used as a garden, and where they could lay out soft pillows to sit and watch the stars and listen to the bustling of the street below in the evenings. The air was cool, with a slight bite to it, but Curufin had lit a brazier and Rundamírë had made mulled wine. “He and Elemmírë performed all day for us.”

“He doesn’t like to perform anymore,” Curufin said.

“It did not seem so to me. But I have also heard a great deal about how ill at ease he has been, and I did not see that either—he greeted me warmly enough, and he was as merry as anyone else during the celebrations.”

“I suppose it’s that he was with Elrond and his family,” Curufin said. “He did not laugh much when he was with us.”

“Did any of you laugh much?” Rundamírë asked, arching an eyebrow. 

“Toward the end, I suppose we started to,” Curufin said after a moment. He frowned into his wine glass, smelling the sweet scent of it and the warmer notes of the cinnamon and other spices Rundamírë had added. “I do not regret going, though it was not what I had planned. You and I were going to—”

“You don’t need to apologize to me for it,” Rundamírë said. “I thought it was an excellent idea when Telperinquar told me.” She leaned over to rest her head against his shoulder. “And now I am glad to have you back. Telperinquar also told me that you’re speaking to Tyelkormo again. I’m glad.”

“We were speaking,” Curufin muttered. “Then we fought again the day I came home.”

“About what?”

“Atar. What else?”

Rundamírë sat up and turned to face him. “You really want to see him?” she asked. 

“He’s my father, Arimeldë,” Curufin said quietly. “I need to…I need to see him at least once. I cannot go on living here in Tirion expecting to be able to avoid him. Sooner or later he’ll come to this part of the city, or I will be called to the palace.” Fëanor had promised, in his letter, to keep out of Curufin’s way—but that would cause talk that he didn’t think either of them wanted, and in practice it just wasn’t feasible.

“Is that what you want?” she asked. “To just be able to coexist?”

“I don’t know. I miss him, but I also cannot forget what he was at the end.” And what Curufin himself had later become, his father’s image in all of the worst ways, and none of the great ones. “If you don’t want me to see him, I won’t.”

“I did not try to stop Telperinquar from seeing him. I will not ask it of you, either, but I will not have him in my house. I would not be able to remain civil, and that would ruin anything you try to rebuild. Perhaps in time I will find myself softening, but only if I see proof that neither you nor he will fall into old patterns.”

“That is the last thing I want,” Curufin said. “Tell me if you see it beginning, and I will listen.” He reached for her hand and kissed her fingers, and her frown softened a little. “You and Tyelpë and my brothers—you come first. If my father cannot be content with that…then I suppose civility will be as much as I can hope for.”

“For your sake, my love, I hope he will be. Telperinquar certainly thinks so. When will you seek him out, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what he’s doing.”

“Settling back in at his brother’s court, mostly,” Rundamírë said, “or so I hear. It’s all very strange to hear about him doing the opposite of what he once did. I’m not sure that I trust it.” 

They sat in silence for a while. Someone down the street was having a party; Curufin could hear merry music and the occasional burst of roaring laughter. Elsewhere someone else was busy at a forge, the faint ringing of a hammer against the anvil drifting through the evening. If he lifted his gaze he could see the Mindon Eldaliéva glimmering in the starlight—and beyond, a glimpse of the Calacirya, where Eärendil’s star hovered over the eastern horizon. The sight of that star still made him uneasy. The Oath was no more, but the memory of it lingered, even after so many years in Mandos trying to let it go.

Finally, Rundamírë said, “I suppose until things are more settled we should set aside what we were discussing this spring.”

Curufin had almost forgotten. They had been, tentatively, carefully, talking of children. It had been something on their minds before the unrest had grown too much, too, and it was pure luck that they hadn’t decided one way or the other before everything had gone wrong. Now—Curufin did feel ready, felt on even footing with Rundamírë and optimistic about his brothers, but his father’s arrival had thrown him off balance in other ways. “For now,” he sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve had many things to apologize for, Curufinwë, but this is not one of them.” Rundamírë leaned over and kissed him. “I’m going to bed. Try not to spend all night brooding.”

“I won’t.” He did spend a few more hours at it, though, watching the stars and listening to the music down the street, wondering what his father was doing, if his father slept soundly at night or if he too was still haunted by the past’s shadows.

It was another week before Curufin got up the nerve to seek out his father. He went with Celebrimbor to the palace to help him install the last two windows of Fingolfin’s council chamber. The effect was very pleasing, the stained glass arranged in varying abstract patterns as Celebrimbor had experimented with color and shade and opacity. Fingolfin came in to see the new windows, greeting them both warmly. Curufin lingered only a few minutes after exchanging greetings, and then slipped away as Fingolfin asked Celebrimbor about his methods. 

He spent little time in the palace these days, but he still knew the halls and corridors, and made his way at a deliberate pace toward the rooms that had belonged to Fëanor long ago and which, he assumed, were his again. They were empty—of course they would be, in the middle of the day. Curufin thought for a moment, and then went to the library, an enormous, cavernous room that had been renovated and expanded at least twice since his father would have last seen it. It was not empty, but Fëanor was not there, either—but Findis was. She set her book aside and came to Curufin, smiling kindly. “Try the cherry grove,” she said without Curufin even needing to ask. “I am glad you’re here, Nephew. He misses you.”

“Thank you,” Curufin said, and left before he could be drawn into any longer conversation. Of course—the cherry grove was where Finwë had built his own small workshop. The trees were not the same, of course, but they were descended from those that Finwë had planted. Curufin had never been able to eat cherries without thinking of his grandfather—and so he avoided them, for the most part. He was fairly certain that Maedhros did, too.

The cherry trees were all golden yellow with autumn, and as he walked through the grove the leaves fell around him, gently settling on the ground; the thick layer of them shifted and rustled with every step he took. Curufin breathed slowly through his nose and tried to calm the pounding of his heart. It was very quiet; the birds that usually were to be found in the palace gardens had all flown away south. Past the trees he could just glimpse the woodworking shop that Finwë had built, still maintained and kept tidy in his absence, either out of habit or some desperate lingering hope for the impossible.

“Curvo?” Fëanor’s voice reached him, sounding startled. Curufin stopped and turned. Fëanor stood under a tree the next row over, his hand resting on the trunk and a look of shock on his face. He was dressed in robes fit for the court, deep red and embellished with gold embroidery—doubtless Míriel’s work. His hair was long and loose, and he wore little in the way of jewelry. There was nothing of fury or fear in him now, only the father that Curufin had been mourning for years uncounted.

“Atya,” he breathed, his own fears dissolving like mist in the wind, and closed the distance at a run. Fëanor’s arms caught and wrapped around him tightly, warm and strong and solid and alive. 

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“He sent a letter,” Caranthir said blankly, looking from his nephew to the folded paper in his hand. “To me?”

“To everyone,” Celebrimbor said. “He sent a gift, too.”

“Oh.” Feeling oddly numb, Caranthir took the letter, and he took the gift, too, something half again as big an an apple and wrapped in soft leather. It felt solid, but not terribly heavy. “Thank you?”

Celebrimbor smiled at him. “You don’t have to do anything,” he said. “With the letter or the gift—and if you want to get angry, remember that it was my idea in the first place.”

“I can never be angry with you, Tyelpë.”

“Exactly!” Celebrimbor wrapped an arm around Caranthir’s neck and kissed his cheek before going away, presumably to deliver other letters. Somehow he’d grown taller than Caranthir—when that that happened? And of course he knew that none of them would ever be angry with him. One thing they had always agreed upon was that Celebrimbor was the best of them, and over and over again that had proven true. Even now, it was proving true—he was the most open-hearted, the most hopeful. Caranthir couldn’t think of where he’d gotten it from. Not his father or any of his uncles, certainly, nor his mother. Caranthir liked Rundamírë very much, and she suited Curufin perfectly, but open-hearted could not be used to describe her. Celebrimbor was singular. Sometimes Caranthir wished he weren’t—that the rest of them could be a little more like him. If they had been, maybe things would have gone differently, long ago.

Caranthir retreated to his room. It was small but cozy, with a row of potted plants on each of the two windowsills and a small bookshelf by the desk, which he rarely used. He set the gift, whatever it was, onto the desk and sat down on his bed by the window. He turned the letter over in his hands. The seal was red wax with his father’s star pressed into it, of course—though Celebrimbor also used the star; maybe Fëanor had borrowed a seal from him. His name was written across the front in his father’s bold hand, and the sight of it made his stomach twist up, the same way it had upon seeing him in person by the river. Caranthir had not spoken to him; Maedhros had sent him away immediately, and he had gone, though it had felt wrong to do so, like abandoning Maedhros to some terrible danger. 

That was probably unfair. Maedhros, even now, out of practice and unarmed, could almost certainly best Fëanor in a fight. Of course, that assumed Maedhros would try. Caranthir pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He didn’t want to think about his father. Fëanor had appeared so unlike the last time Caranthir had seen him that it had been almost as though a stranger spoke with his father’s voice—and even his voice had been unfamiliar, far too quiet to belong to Fëanor. He’d spent nearly five hundred years in Beleriand with that ringing voice in the back of his mind, the Oath always there, growing heavier by the decade, a chain weighing him down. Almost he would have preferred Fëanor to come striding back with his old eloquent confidence—at least then there would have been some satisfaction in defying him, in showing him that even if he had not changed they had. Except he’d changed, too. Were it anyone else Caranthir would have described him as uncertain—almost hesitant to approach them by the river. 

He didn’t read the letter. He threw it onto the desk and fled the house out into the garden. His mother was no gardener, and it had been benignly neglected all summer. Plants needed thinning, beds needed weeding. He could dig his hands into the earth and and feel like he too was putting down roots, taking something from the soil as nourishment. As he worked he listened to Celebrimbor and Daeron chatting nearby, and his other brothers moving about and talking with one another. Maedhros was not among them, but when he sat up and leaned just far enough backward, Caranthir caught a glimpse of him through the window of his small painting studio. 

It wasn’t until after Maglor and Daeron departed, days later, that Caranthir finally picked up the letter. It felt like it was taunting him, just sitting there on the desk, and he’d finished all the work in the garden that could be called sufficiently distracting. Curufin had read his letter, Caranthir was sure, but he did not think anyone else had. Celegorm had probably burned his without opening it at all, and who knew what Ambarussa had done. They were a bright and cheerful presence, but rarely confided in anyone except one another—that had been true all their lives. 

He sat on his bed and broke the seal, taking a childish and savage pleasure in watching the star pressed into the wax split in two. 

Moryo,

I have heard that you’ve followed in your grandmother Ennalótë’s footsteps since your return. Tyelpë told me of it in a tone that suggested he thought I would be surprised, but I am not. Elrond has also told me that you wrote to the halfling Bilbo Baggins, primarily about flowers. Do you remember the peonies that grew outside of your bedroom window in Tirion long ago? Your favorite hiding spot when you were very small was among them, to the frustration of your brothers when they tried to play hide-and-seek with you, and you were always happiest at your grandparents’ house, toddling along in your grandmother’s wake, learning the names of all the flowers and butterflies. 

The memories of Mandos are fading, but I can remember seeing your realm in the mountains in Middle-earth, how you turned it too into a garden, lush and green by the lake. Thargelion, I am told it was called. Tyelpë described it to me, described the pride and the joy you took in it, and how it burned in the Dagor Bragollach. How you were never the same afterward. Would you believe me if I told you that I wept after hearing of that? I’ve shed more tears for you and for your brothers this summer than I did in all your lives prior to my death. I could not weep in Mandos, and so the tears must all escape now, at once, I suppose. I keep having to stop writing lest I make the ink run.

There isn’t much else that I can say except that I hope you are finding happiness among your flowers. I hope you and your brothers can come together again as you were before my words and demands broke you all apart. I’m sorry, Moryo, so sorry for all of it. For the Oath and all that came afterward, and for making you all walk that dark road without me. 

You might scoff at these words, and at the gifts, but that’s all right. You can burn this letter if you wish and if you never want to see me again—it will grieve me, but it’s no more than I deserve. You would be within your rights to hate me, but I still love you—

Caranthir did not read the rest of the letter. He balled it up and threw it into his small hearth. No fire burned there, but he’d light one later. As he released it the door opened and Celegorm came in; they’d been sharing the space since Nerdanel’s house had never been intended to house all seven of them. “What was that?” Celegorm asked, looking between Caranthir and the grate. Caranthir’s face felt hot; he knew it was bright red, the way it always got when he was upset.

“Doesn’t matter,” Caranthir said. He rubbed his hands over his face, hating that his eyes felt hot too, and how tight his throat was. The letter only said what he would have given anything to hear before the end of the First Age—it probably said nothing very good about him that all it did now was make him angry.

“His letter?” Celegorm asked, sinking onto the bed beside him. Caranthir nodded. “You didn’t have to read it.”

“It would’ve bothered me if I didn’t.” Caranthir didn’t lower his hands. “What did you do with yours?”

“Threw it away. I don’t care what he has to say. There’s nothing that can make any of it better.”

“I wish he had stayed in Mandos.”

“Me too.” Celegorm tugged Caranthir’s hands away from his face, and then wrapped him up in a tight hug. Caranthir leaned against him gratefully. He didn’t cry, because he refused to waste any more tears on Fëanor, but he still ached somewhere deep in his chest. He had said to Maedhros that spring that it had felt wrong to sit and discuss Fëanor amongst themselves as though they were readying for a battle. It still felt wrong—but it felt even worse to think about doing anything else.

From the outside, it had seemed clear enough that Fëanor and Nerdanel both encouraged all their sons to study a wide range of subjects and crafts, from history to music to sculpture, to forge work to painting and dance. It was true that Caranthir had always been drawn to the gardens of his grandmother, that he had loved flowers all his life—but his father’s passions were so different, and there had always been that unspoken expectation that barring some spectacular talent like Maglor’s, his sons would follow his footsteps, or Nerdanel’s, rather than Ennalótë’s. There had always been that sense of vague disapproval, even if Fëanor had never spoken it aloud, whenever Caranthir had ventured to speak of Yavanna and her folk. He hadn’t had the same courage of Celegorm, who had fallen in love with the deep woods and the wildness of Oromë’s hunt and had not stopped to wait for their parents’ permission before riding away to join it. Even he had left it, though, later—when Fëanor’s disappointment had grown into vocal disapproval. They had fought over it, but of course Celegorm had yielded, in the end. They had all yielded, because what else were they supposed to do? Fëanor was their father, and they had all loved him, however unlike himself he had become by the time he’d drawn his sword on Fingolfin before Finwë and all the rest of the Noldorin court. 

Caranthir did not hate the forge. He had worked in his grandfather’s often since his return, finding Mahtan a much more patient teacher than his father had ever been, and finding also a quiet sort of satisfaction in making his own tools and in crafting small gifts for his cousins or his mother. But he did not love it, not the way his father had—he’d settled for it in the past because the thought of losing his father’s love had been a far worse thing than settling into occupations or pastimes that did not make him as passionately happy as those his brothers found. The problem, he had grown to believe, was that he’d never had ambition. He had been content to be the unremarkable middle brother among the seven, left to his own devices whenever possible, forgotten by most and disliked by many because he could not always bite back the frustration that welled up in him unbidden, breaking free over the stupidest things. He did not have the drive to create anything great or impressive, or to be a leader, or to do great deeds—which was just as well, since he’d never succeeded at any such thing; even his death had been unremarkable, cut down with everyone around him in a hail of arrows unleashed just minutes after they had entered Menegroth. He hadn’t even seen the caverns beyond the entrance hall. Sometimes he wondered if it would have been better if he had died at the Nirnaeth Arnoediad—that had been the most remarkable of his deeds. Trusting the wrong Men, bringing ruin to them all. It wasn’t his fault, he knew—it was not the fault of the betrayed but of the betrayers, he had been told over and over in Mandos until he finally started to believe it. It was still what he was remembered for—that and his temper and careless words regretted as soon as they were spoken.

But his desire for obscurity, his contentment with simplicity—it wasn’t something his father could ever understand, no matter how much he claimed to love him. 

Ambarussa slipped away next, vanishing into the evening after kissing Nerdanel and promising to return in the springtime. Maedhros withdrew into himself again, lost in his own thouhts and forgetting to eat more often than not—and just pushing his food around his plate when Caranthir and Nerdanel reminded him. Celegorm and Curufin lingered, but when Celegorm overheard Curufin telling Caranthir that he was leaving for Tirion, another fight erupted, and—well. That was that. Caranthir couldn’t see a way forward like it seemed Curufin could, but he still believed what he’d said over the summer, that Curufin was the one most likely to be able to really speak with their father, to have a real conversation in which Fëanor might actually listen. It was beyond Caranthir’s abilities or desires, but he wouldn’t take that hope from his baby brother. 

After Curufin and Celegorm had gone, and Fingon had arrived and gone to find Maedhros by the river, Caranthir went back to his room. He’d ended up taking the letter from the fire before lighting the grate that first time, and he’d stuffed it into a drawer instead. The gift—a globe of clear glass with the shape of a pale purple peony inside (at least, he thought it was meant to be a peony), he had put into a chest underneath old clothes he didn’t wear but didn’t want to get rid of. Now he took the letter out, because…maybe Curufin had the right of it, rather than Celegorm. Caranthir was angry, too, but he didn’t want to be. He wanted to return to the relative peace of their journey home, after Maglor and Maedhros had recovered from what they now referred to as the River Incident, when nothing terrible or important was happening, and they were all more or less getting along, not thinking about anything except where they would camp in the evening and whether they should open that last bottle of wine that Amras had discovered in his bag halfway home. 

With a sigh, Caranthir restarted his fire and sank onto the floor by the hearth. He missed Huan, muddy paws and all. At least he was warm and soft, and always knew when someone wanted comforting. Celegorm needed Huan more than Caranthir did, though. He unrolled the paper, smoothing it out on his knees. 

You would be within your rights to hate me, but I still love you—I love all of you so much, but I wonder now if I gave you more cause to wonder than any of your brothers, for you were always so unlike me that I was not always sure how to speak to you or understand your thoughts. I’m sorry—for that and for everything else. I’ve written those words so many times now, and said them aloud, but every time they ring hollow. There are no good words for the depths of my regret. Still, I can find no better words, and can only repeat them: I am sorry. I love you.

Whether or not we meet again, I will choose to imagine you surrounded by peony flowers, in a garden as beautiful as those planted by Yavanna herself, as happy as you were when you were just learning to walk. 

It was not signed except for a tiny eight pointed star underneath the last line. Caranthir stared, dry-eyed, at the last two paragraphs. It was something, he supposed, for Fëanor to have gained something like clarity in Mandos. It was just not enough, and too late—far too late—for it to mean anything. He balled the letter up again and threw it into the flames to watch it slowly curl and blacken, the broken seal melting and dripping onto the old ashes beneath the grate like thick drops of blood. 

When he went downstairs he found Fingon in the kitchen, looking somber and thoughtful. “He’s reading his letter,” he said.

“Where is he?”

“The painting studio. It’s a lovely space.”

“It was Celegorm and Curufin’s idea.”

Caranthir had always liked Fingon, though they had never been particularly close. He had been a bright presence, Maedhros’ dearest friend and a near-constant visitor in the days of joy in Tirion before everything had started to go wrong. Caranthir had paid little enough attention to the tensions slowly building that he hadn’t really understood how bad it was until Fingon had stopped visiting, and Maedhros stopped speaking of him. Since Caranthir’s own return from Mandos, he and Fingon had struck up something like a friendship. Mostly they spoke and wrote about Maedhros, both of them worried about him as he refused in life what he’d refused in death, lost in his thoughts and in the past. The only things Caranthir hadn’t told Fingon about were the drawings he’d managed to catch a glimpse of, before Maedhros could burn them. He hadn’t told anyone of them, except Maglor. “How is he?” Caranthir asked now. 

“He was more willing to speak to me than he has been in the past,” Fingon said. He leaned back against the kitchen hearth, arms crossed. He wore no gold in his hair that day, and it struck Caranthir suddenly how much he resembled Finwë. “I’m glad that he and Maglor have spoken.”

“Barely.”

“It’s more than Maglor was willing to do when I last saw him,” Fingon said, and sighed. “But I can’t tell if the estrangement is as bad as Russandol thinks.”

“It’s bad enough. Maglor could hardly look at him the whole journey back. I think they spoke before he left here, but I don’t know what they said. I just know Maglor was happy to be leaving us.”

“Say rather he is happy to be returning to Elrond.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask you—how does Turgon feel about that?” 

Fingon grinned. “I think he tries not to think about it much. But if he can be civil to your father as he has in the last week since he came to Tirion, I think he can be kind to Maglor. They were friends once. Anyway, it isn’t as though Elrond cares what Turgon or anyone else thinks, even his own parents. He loves Maglor, and anyone who might disapprove is just going to have to learn to keep quiet about it.”

“What do his own parents think?” Caranthir had met Elwing, doing the rounds that all of them had done on their return to life. She hadn’t slammed the door in his face, but it had been terribly awkward on both sides. He’d met Eärendil later and that had gone better only because Eärendil was somehow constitutionally incapable of holding onto anger or resentment. Caranthir had come away from it feeling envious as much as relieved. 

“They met Maglor on Eressëa when he fell out of a tree, I’m told,” Fingon said. “I think that did a great deal to dispel any tension.”

“He fell out of a tree,” Caranthir repeated. Fingon grinned again. “Of course he did.” He’d probably been trying to rescue his cat. 

“Speaking of parents,” Fingon said after a moment, “did you also receive a letter from your father?”

“We all did.”

“Have you read yours?”

“Yes. It hasn’t changed anything.” Caranthir turned away, going to the cupboards to start getting things out for dinner. It would be just the three of them, with Curufin and Celegorm gone and Nerdanel away delivering a commission. He didn’t want to speak anymore of Fëanor—not to Fingon. That was another source of envy—that Fingon had been so happy when his own father had come back, that there had been nothing but joy and love in Fingolfin’s reunions with all his children that had returned before him. 

When he did go to fetch Maedhros, he found him leaned over the table sobbing into his arms, the kind of uncontrollable weeping that took you by surprise and wouldn’t let up until you ran out of tears or breath or both. Caranthir had never seen Maedhros reduced to tears such as those, not even after the finding of Finwë’s body, and it made his own eyes burn, though they remained dry. He was too angry to weep—angry for himself, but angrier for Maedhros, who still loved Fëanor just as much as Curufin did, except that he’d suffered the brunt of Fëanor’s rage after Losgar for daring to defy him even that little bit, and had taken up a Silmaril at the end and been burned by their father’s greatest creation, the thing that Fëanor had placed above all of them in value. 

If only Fëanor had just stayed in Mandos. 

Or maybe not, Caranthir thought, once he got Maedhros back to the house. It was because of Fëanor that they’d left, had gone all the way to Ekkaia—it had been to try to come together again, but they never would have had the thought if Fëanor hadn’t come back, if just seeing him hadn’t made Maedhros look as though he’d just come from a defeat on the battlefield worse than the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Fëanor was the reason Maglor had left Imloth Ningloron, too. They would still be wondering if he would ever come to them, if not for their father. Caranthir couldn’t forgive Fëanor any of it—couldn’t let go of old anger and resentments, or stop piling on new ones, but he couldn’t regret having all of his brothers back either, at least for a summer. It wasn’t like it had been before, but it was something. Even Maedhros had been happy, at least some of the time.

Fingon stayed a few weeks before returning to Tirion. It would be a busy winter, and he would be both wanted and needed. Caranthir did not envy him that. Once they were alone that evening, Caranthir pulled Maedhros into the parlor and sat them both down by the fire, where it was warm and they could curl up on pillows and blankets with books or small projects, and just be. They’d done it often, alongside their mother, since it had been just the three of them there far more often than not. Now Caranthir sat beside Maedhros instead of across from him, and leaned against his side. Maedhros wrapped his arm around Caranthir’s shoulders. “What else did your letter say?” he asked quietly.

Caranthir had told him the bit about Bilbo. Now he said, “Apologies, mostly. He even admitted the words ring hollow.”

“Do you believe him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. The time for apologies was before he died.” Caranthir rested his head against Maedhros’ shoulder. Maedhros leaned his cheek against Caranthir’s head. “Do you believe him?”

“No.” Maedhros whispered the word, and sounded so young and small and hurt that Caranthir almost wished Fëanor would walk through the door just so he could punch him himself. Findis had given him a black eye; Caranthir wanted to break his nose. Then Maedhros asked, “Have you heard from Curvo?”

“Yes.”

“Has he seen him?”

“Yes. He said it went better than he’d dared to expect.” Caranthir didn’t lift his head to look at Maedhros. “He sounded happy.” More than happy—he’d written with such confidence that Fëanor had changed and really did mean what he said in his letters, had sounded so sure that there was a way forward. He hadn’t tried to convince Caranthir to come to Tirion or to change his mind, but Caranthir could tell that it still troubled Curufin that he was the only one willing to hope—but he was also far less uncertain now than he had been at the beginning of the autumn, and Caranthir couldn’t begrudge him that. He loved his brother far more than he resented his father. “Does that bother you?”

“What bothers me is that I can’t imagine a world in which I would feel the same.” Maedhros sighed. “I can’t be angry at Curvo. He’s been trying so hard to—to make things right, to build something new. I’m the one who told him to go see Atar, and I’m glad that he did. That it went well. I am.”

“I know. You should tell him that, though.”

“I did. I sent a letter and a painting back with Fingon. The painting’s awful, but I promised him I’d try.”

“Good.” Caranthir sat up to toss another piece of wood on the fire. Outside the wind picked up, and rain splashed against the windows. There was nothing to do in the garden; he’d harvested all there was to harvest—which wasn’t much, since Ennalótë filled their larder to overflowing with her own produce—and prepared everything for the winter. It was not big, his garden, not as such things went. He’d had much more extensive flower beds and orchards in Thargelion, but he tried not to remember Thargelion most of the time; there wasn’t any point, except heartache. It had been so beautiful, and he’d been happier there, even with all the responsibilities of lordship, than he’d been anywhere else in his life—except maybe that peony patch when he had been too small to really remember, too small for anyone to realize how unlike his father he was, what a disappointment he would turn out to be, long before that realization came and sank into him like a bruise that wouldn’t go away. 

As he leaned back again, Maedhros put his other arm around him too, and pressed a kiss to his temple. “Why do you linger here, when everyone else doesn’t?” he asked. 

“I don’t know.” Caranthir covered Maedhros’ hand with his own. Maedhros had been the first to return from Mandos. Caranthir had been the second, shocked to find himself suddenly sitting up in a meadow of flowers, of Evermind and hyacinth and poppy. He’d lingered a while in Lórien, getting used to having a body again, and then he’d come looking for Nerdanel, missing her desperately and not knowing where else to go—and he just hadn’t left. “There’s nowhere else I want to go. I just—I just wanted to be somewhere quiet, where I could plant flowers and watch them grow, and not have to worry about—about anything else. I don’t want to be a prince of the Noldor anymore. And anyway, someone needs to make sure you remember to eat.” 

Maedhros’ arms tightened around him, just a little. “Are you happy, though? Forgetting Atar, and all of it. In your life now, are you happy, Moryo?”

He’d never actually thought about it, Caranthir realized. He’d just been taking it one day at a time. Now he thought about his flowers and about the feeling of sun-warmed soil under his hands, about the butterflies and the hummingbirds, and how he could always hear voices and laughter drifting through the trees and hedges from their grandparents’ house; he thought of his small and cozy bedroom, and of the way his mother had shrieked and thrown her arms around him when she’d opened the door upon his first coming there. Since returning he’d been worried about his brothers of course—all of them, but Maedhros and Maglor in particular, one of them lost somewhere across the Sea and the other right in front of him but still somehow out of reach; until that summer he hadn’t known how to speak to any of them again, how to try to regain what they’d lost when darkness had fallen—because he thought that was when it had started, really: the fracturing of them as brothers, even before the Oath, before Alqualondë or the war or any of it. Whatever happened going forward, though, they had regained something. It would be different, but it would be good. He also thought of how no one ever called him my lord anymore, and no one ever asked him to partake in any grand plans or campaigns or negotiations, or expected anything of him at all. Fëanor had written of imagining him in a garden comparable to Yavanna’s, but that wasn’t what he wanted—and it wasn’t something he needed to strive for, either.

“I think so,” he said finally. “I can just—I can just be me, now. It doesn’t matter whose son I am anymore. No one cares.” In that moment, listening to the rain outside and watching the flames on the hearth, he didn’t have to be anyone but Maedhros’ brother, and that meant so much more than anything his father could offer him. 

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Two letters. That was something of a surprise, rather than the more expected single letter for both of them at once. Amrod turned his over, looking at his name written in Fëanor’s bold and smooth script across the front. Pityafinwë. He hadn’t used that name in he couldn’t remember how long. Only Fëanor had ever really used their father-names. He and Amras had abandoned even Pityo and Telvo once they had the names Amrod and Amras. Something about them sounded better in their ears and felt better on their tongues. He glanced at Amras, who was frowning at his own letter. There were gifts, too, that Celebrimbor had left with them. 

They had been born late enough that their young adulthood had been shadowed by the growing unrest. Amrod knew he and Amras did not have the same memories of their father that their brothers did. He had always been affectionate and loving—until he wasn’t—but there had always been something dark lurking behind his eyes, at least as far as Amrod could remember. It wasn’t something he’d spoken of to anyone except Amras.

By unspoken agreement they both put the letters and unopened gifts away. There would be time at home to open them, time and space to decide how they felt about it all, away from Celegorm’s glowering, Caranthir’s ambivalence, Curufin’s uncertainty, and Maedhros’ anguish. Amrod didn’t want to leave Maedhros, however much he wanted to be at his own home again, but Caranthir promised to keep an eye on him. 

“I’ve been doing it the whole time anyway,” he said with a shrug when Amrod spoke to him about it. “Try not to worry too much.”

“I’ll stop worrying when he starts laughing,” Amrod said. Caranthir nodded, frowning. There had been moments, too few and too brief, on the journey west that had seen Maedhros smiling and even laughing, but they seemed so far away now that it was like a dream. “Are you sure you don’t want us to stay longer?”

“Just promise to come back more often,” Caranthir said. He slung an arm around Amrod’s neck and kissed his cheek. “We don’t all have to always be living out of each other’s pockets, but I don’t want to just go back to what we were doing before.”

“Of course we’ll come back,” said Amrod. “But Carnistir, who’s keeping an eye on you?”

“I don’t need keeping an eye on.”

They probably all needed keeping an eye on, Amrod thought, but maybe Caranthir needed it the least. 

It was a relief to return to the little house they had built in the middle of the woods. They had their own little garden there, less orderly than Caranthir’s flowerbeds, and mostly vegetables and herbs rather than flowers. Their friends among the Laiquendi had tended to it in their absence, and they returned to find a full cellar and a few bottles of mead and wine, and jars of preserves waiting for them on their kitchen table. Autumn was settling over the world, bringing brilliant colors that faded only slowly to the browns of wintertime. There were only a few other preparations to make before winter came with its frosts and deep snows; they were far enough south of Tirion that in the lowlands it was fairly warm all year round, but they had made their home higher in the mountains, where they could both enjoy and endure all four seasons. Amrod had not liked the way that time slipped past unnoticed in Mandos. Here at least he could count the years by the seasons, even if when they emerged from the woods they found much unchanged. 

That was what he missed about Middle-earth, Amrod thought as he straddled their roof to repair a newly-discovered leak; the breeze had the bite of coming winter in it, and he could hear Amras humming to himself somewhere below him. The passage of time—the way that you could tell. The way things were always moving and changing. He didn’t miss much else, though he’d loved the woods of Ossiriand, and the music of the rivers. Maglor wasn’t the only one who had learned how to hear the Great Music in the flowing water, or who found comfort in it. Amrod could spend hours at a time by a riverbank, lying on the sun-warmed stones, just listening. 

Once the roof was repaired and there was nothing else to do, Amrod and Amras sat outside in a patch of still-warm sunshine with their letters. “Do you think it’ll be worth reading?” Amras asked, rubbing his fingers over the red wax seal. 

“I don’t know. Better to know what he has to say, I think, than to always be wondering.”

“Maybe.” Amras frowned down at his letter. “Tyelkormo threw his away, you know, without opening it.”

“I know. I took it.” Celegorm had tossed both the gift and the letter away, and Amrod had had a feeling he would come to regret it, however much he still hated Fëanor at the moment, so he’d taken both things and tucked them into the bottom of his bag. 

“He’ll be furious if he ever finds out.”

“Maybe.” But he’d get over it, and might even be grateful afterward. That was the thing about being the youngest—even Celegorm could never be angry at them for long. Even in Beleriand when he had been angry at everything, he’d softened for Amrod and Amras—just a little, but it was still something. 

They both looked down at their letters. Amrod had seen Fëanor at a distance, after Maedhros had returned to the house after his own ill-fated meeting. He’d been clad in the robes of the newly Returned, a small dark and grey figure by the river that flowed through the fields behind Nerdanel’s house, just beyond the plum orchard. He didn’t feel as angry as Celegorm or Caranthir, or as hurt as Maedhros and Maglor, or even as conflicted as Curufin. He felt…surprisingly little. A chance meeting would not particularly trouble him, Amrod thought, but he felt no desire to seek Fëanor out either, and he wondered what that said about him—that he could not find within himself either love or hate for his own father, who inspired both of those things in such extreme measures in all others, in whose name he’d done such terrible things, and then died, in the end—even though he hadn’t wanted to. Not for the Oath, not for Fëanor. 

In the end, he and Amras parted to read their letters in solitude. Everyone, even their mother, even their brothers, so often paired them together, speaking of them as two halves of one whole: Ambarussa. They didn’t mind—they encouraged it, even, and felt it to be true. But away from anyone else they often went their separate ways. Amras preferred to roam the forests on the ground, seeking the secrets of roots and stones. Amrod loved best the treetops, running from bough to bough like a squirrel, never touching the ground unless he absolutely had to. That was where he took his letter, climbing up the tallest tree he could find until he had a view of the woods sloping down the mountainside, and the wide vales and meads of Yavanna beyond, golden under the autumn sunshine; a river flowed through them like a silver ribbon laid carelessly over the land. He settled back against the trunk and peeled up the seal. 

Pityo, 

Do you remember telling your mother once that you wished to try your hand at textiles? I think it was lace that had caught your interest, but I did not wish to hear of it. I know it was wrong and unfair of me but I did not think I could bear any of you taking up my mother’s crafts, any more than I could bear picking up a needle or a spindle myself, and so I sought to steer you away from it. Perhaps that was the first wrong that I did you—the first in such a long list. You may have left that desire behind long ago, but if you want to learn, your grandmother would be overjoyed to teach you. Regardless—I’m sorry. I’m realizing that I do not know you as I thought I did, as I know your brothers, and there is no one here who can tell me any more, not even Telperinquar, except that it is said that you have rejoined Oromë’s folk, and that you do not come back much among the Noldor, not even to visit your mother or your brothers.

You and Telvo were always so wild and bright and vibrant, and I don’t know when that stopped. I was preoccupied with other things throughout far too much of your childhood and your youth. I’m sorry. I’m sorry too for all that came afterward—for the Oath most of all. I’ve been told it would have been kinder to slay you all myself, rather than bind you to such a thing. I’ve written these same words over and over, to all of you—that I know there can be no excuse, nothing that makes what I did any better. I forgot what it meant to be a father, when my own died, and then I went and ensured that you all suffered that same loss—and worse, for you were doomed to walk a path I laid before your feet into darkness and death, when you were meant for light and laughter and joy. There is no way to go back, but if I could there are so many things I would do differently. I would forgo the Silmarils entirely if it meant spending that time with you instead.

I am sorry. I still don’t know how better to say it. I’m sorry that I was not there for you in your youth as I should have been, as I was for your older brothers, and I’m sorry for the Oath, and Alqualondë and Losgar and all of the rest. I am sorry that I died and left you all in a strange land to fight such a long war and endure such pain and grief. I hope you and Telvo have regained that bright wild spark of yourselves. I am glad to know that you are together, wherever you are. 

I love you, Pityo. You might not believe it, and I cannot blame you, but it remains true. I love you so much. 

There was no name at the bottom, only his father’s star. Amrod rubbed his thumb over it as he considered the letter. He had once told Nerdanel that he thought it would be fun to try, having seen one of his aunts or perhaps just another lady at the court at it, her hands moving the bobbins around so quickly and with no rhyme or reason that he could see and yet creating something so delicate and lovely and intricate—and he had overheard his parents arguing about it later. He’d been prone to eavesdropping at that time, and he’d heard how vehemently his father opposed the idea, and heard the wearied frustration in his mother’s voice as she tried to reason with him. That was not the first fruitless fight of theirs, but afterward they increased in number and frequency until, eventually, all they did was fight until Nerdanel had left the house for her parents’. Amrod and Amras had wanted to go with her, but it had been clear that Fëanor expected them all to remain with him, and not even Maedhros had had the nerve to gainsay him in those days.

He hadn’t known much about Míriel, when he’d first taken in interest in that kind of work—he’d known her name and her death, of course, because one could not be born into Fëanor’s household and not come to know that grief, but she was spoken of so little otherwise that he hadn’t understood until many years later that there might have been a connection between Fëanor’s grief and his unwillingness to let Amrod learn something of her craft. At the time he’d only thought it something his father disdained, and so he’d abandoned the idea even when his mother later offered to find him a teacher anyway. He’d smiled and said it had only been a passing fancy. She’d had no reason not to believe him, for he’d had many such fancies in those days, flitting between interests like a hummingbird between flowers—and even now Amrod wasn’t sure whether he’d been lying or not. Maedhros had collected skills and interests in something like the same way, but Amrod’s attention had been harder to keep—until Celegorm had taken Amrod and Amras out into the wilds with him once, and taught them something of tracking and hunting and woodcraft. Amrod had fallen in love with the woods, if not quite so much with the hunt like Celegorm, and he’d leaped at the excuse to spend more time out there when Celegorm invited them to go to Oromë with him. That had gotten them away from Tirion and, in addition, time with their older brother with no other brothers or cousins or distractions. That had been a rare thing in those days. 

A part of him, Amrod found, had hoped that the letter would change something. That his father would have some words that would be enough to tip the scales on way or another. It hadn’t. It was nice, he supposed, to be told that his father loved him. Somehow it was disappointing to see that he believed them back with Oromë’s folk, even though they’d let everyone believe the same thing for years and years. Even now, they’d only told Maglor; Celegorm knew they were not with Oromë, but only because he’d gone back himself, and he did not know where to find them—it wasn’t a secret, exactly, but he’d never asked. Of course Fëanor wouldn’t have any other idea—especially since he admitted himself he did not know them as he should. 

Amrod hadn’t thought about lace in years. There wasn’t much call for such things in Beleriand—especially after the Dagor Bragollach. They’d made things as lovely as they could anyway, but practicality had taken precedence. Since returning, he and Amras had kept those habits, and all their clothes and tools were plain and practical, except for the robes their mother had had made for them, and which they’d left at her house after surrendering to last year’s Midwinter festivities in Tirion. Amrod had liked parties, once, had loved the music and the dancing and the laughter, but it had become so rare a sight for all six of Fëanor’s sons currently dwelling in Valinor to be in one place at the same time—and in public—and they’d had to endure so many poorly disguised stares and greetings that felt pointed, and questions that were more probing than was strictly polite. Maedhros had been able to endure exactly half an evening at the party Anairë and Fingolfin hosted, and then even Nerdanel and Fingon combined couldn't convince him to go out again. Curufin had fared better than any of the rest of them, but of course he lived in Tirion, and probably attended gatherings regularly with Rundamírë and Celebrimbor. 

Maybe it would be easier in the future. A summer spent out in the wilds together had changed…something. If nothing else it had brought Maglor back to them, even if it wasn’t something any of them had planned, even though it had been hard and often painful. He hadn’t come back to Valinor the same way the rest of them had. He was so much older now than they were—older, Amrod realized suddenly, even than their father—and had endured so much. More than just the long lonely years of wandering. And even after all that he still made music, even if it wasn’t the same sort of music. He still carved things, and had even learned other newer skills, and seemed to take equal delight in them. Amrod raised his head and looked out over the trees again. The sun was westering, its light slanting over the lands and deepening all the colors. It wasn’t the same as such hours in summertime, but it was still beautiful. The red and orange leaves on the mountainside seemed to glow. Maybe he would seek out his grandmother. Míriel was no longer as out of reach as she had been in his childhood. He’d met her only once or twice, for she came as seldom among the Elves as he and Amras did. Even if he found himself hating lace, or weaving, or whatever else she might teach him, at least he would know her a little better. That was something, too. And maybe speaking to her could help him sort out what it was he really felt about Fëanor. 

He climbed down and walked back home on the ground. His head was too full of uncertainties for him to take any more joy that day in the treetops. Instead he wanted the solidity of the ground, the smell of leaf mould and the sounds of the forest, of creatures scurrying through the underbrush and birds flitting through the remaining berries in thickets and bramble patches. He moved quickly; he wanted to be at home, with Amras. He wanted to forget all about Fëanor, and about the past, and about everything outside their little house in the meadow by the stream. It was with relief that he stepped out of the trees and saw movement through the windows, saw that Amras had come back first, and Amrod wouldn’t have to wait in a silent and empty cottage for him. Silence was the last thing he wanted, and he already felt emptied—of thoughts, of feelings, of sureties. He needed his brother to help him find them again.

Amras was busy preparing dinner, chopping vegetables to add to a pot with herbs and dried meat from their larder to make a stew. They had baked bread that morning, and the house still smelled like it, yeasty and warm. “What do you think?” Amras asked, pausing in his chopping as Amrod removed his cloak and his boots by the door. 

“I don’t know.”

“Did you look at the gift he sent you?”

“Not yet. I left it here. What did he send you?”

Amras nodded toward the window in the southwestern wall, that got the most sun. A silver chain hung there, with many-faceted crystals hung from it in different sizes and at different heights. “Prisms,” he said. “You remember the ones Curvo made?”

“Yes.” They’d loved to watch the rainbows dance around their bedroom when they moved the prisms, and to dance through the many-colored beams. “What did he say in your letter?”

“I imagine much the same he said in yours. Apologies, mostly. Regrets.”

“Yes, the same in mine.” Amrod climbed up into the loft to fetch his own gift, smaller than Amras’, in a little pouch of soft leather. Amras had started chopping the carrots again, but watched as Amrod tipped it out into his palm, a golden chain set with a rainbow of gemstones—opals, emeralds, sapphires and rubies. It was a necklace very like the ones he’d worn long ago in Treelit Tirion, when he’d been more vain of his appearance and had liked dressing in fine clothes and jewels to go to balls and feasts where there was to be dancing and merriment. He thought all the gemstones except the opals must be ones Fëanor had made himself. 

“That’s pretty,” said Amras. 

“I don’t know when I’ll ever have occasion to wear it,” said Amrod as he held the necklace up. It caught in the firelight and lamplight and glimmered. They often went to make merry with the Laiquendi and the Woodelves, but this would only get him laughed at there. 

“But do you like it?” Amras asked. 

“Yes,” Amrod admitted. “Yes, I do.” Fëanor had lamented not knowing the two of them as well as he should, but he’d remembered the rainbows that Amras had loved best, and he’d remembered exactly the sort of jewelry that Amrod had loved. Amrod still didn’t know whether he really wanted to see him again, but this…meant something. If only he could figure out what.

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Amrod had never thought much about his name before, until he saw his father-name scrawled across the letter that Fëanor had written to him—to him, by himself, not him and Amrod together as Ambarussa. It felt strange and wrong to be addressed separately when they usually tried quite hard, when in company, to be two sides of the same coin, two halves of one whole—it’s what they were, even if they felt freer to act otherwise in private. Their brothers saw through it, of course, but Amras hadn’t ever thought that Fëanor had. He’d been occupied by the idea of the Silmarils already when they had been born, and then later by swords and helms and old grudges dredged up by lies and whispers. 

When he listened to his other brothers talk of the Fëanor of their youths and childhoods, he had lately found himself thinking that the things Fëanor had done for them were what he and Amrod had turned most often to Maedhros for, or Maglor. It had been Maedhros who taught them their letters and numbers, and Maglor who had first put their small fingers to harp strings, and how to beat a drum in time to the steps of dancers and the playing of other musicians, and had taught them also their first dance steps. Maedhros had been the big and safe shelter from whatever small horrors or sorrows had plagued them as children. Maglor had been there to climb on and to tickle them until they screamed. Celegorm had later shown them the delights of the wild woods and vales; Caranthir had been best at explaining things in their studies that left them confused, and who offered quiet company when they were upset but didn’t want to speak of it; Curufin was the one who had made all their favorite toys, and who gave them their first lessons in the forge.

It wasn’t exactly the same, Amras knew. Fëanor had not been wholly absent, and he had taught them many things and had often set aside his projects to play games with them or to tell them stories—but he did that less and less often as time went on, until by the time they were growing out of childhood into young adulthood they gave up trying to ask for any of his time at all. It had been brothers that Amras had learned to rely on, rather than his father. Even Nerdanel had grown increasingly distant in those latter days, when Fëanor had demanded utter loyalty of them all, and she had been the only one with a will strong enough to refuse. Amras and Amrod had followed in their brothers’ footsteps, because they hadn’t known there was any other option. One didn’t just say no to Fëanor, especially his sons, especially in those days. 

Now, though. Amras wasn’t sure what he would do if his father asked anything of him. He’d already done all the worst things it was possible to do in his name, for his Oath, for his Silmarils. Death had been the best outcome, though he felt guilty whenever he thought of it, knowing how all of their deaths still haunted Maglor, how he had suffered so many centuries of loneliness. Amras had never known loneliness—even in death Amrod had been right there beside him—and he shuddered whenever he thought of it. It was one thing to part ways for a few hours or a few days, to find peace in the quiet solitude of the forest. It was another thing entirely to be left alone with no choice in the matter, to have to somehow live on in a broken and uncaring world where there was no one left to even wonder whether you survived or not. Amras couldn't have done it. Maglor hated to be told how strong he was, but Amras didn’t know how else to describe him. 

Amras didn’t think he could have faced Fëanor, either, as Maglor had—certainly not in anger, not with the courage to throw his own words back at him and to make him feel even a little bit of what they had all felt in the wake of his madness and death. He shivered at the thought as he made his way deeper into the forest. Amrod took to the high branches, but Amras preferred the cool shadows by the tree roots, and the secrets of the brambles and honeysuckle thickets, the quiet whisper of the leaves underneath his feet. He loved the deep woods, where there was no one to care what his name was, or who his father had been. There were no titles in Vána’s domain, no kings nor subjects. There was only life and death and the delicate balance between them that kept the world going, only the quiet voices of the trees and the music of the flowing streams. 

He went to his favorite place to sit and think, a small cave where a spring bubbled up and overflowed into a small, frigid stream that wound out and away to join with other streams and rivulets, one by one, until they became a creek, which then became a small river that flowed in a silver ribbon of waterfall down the sheer mountainside to a deep lake where Amrod and Amras often went in summer to swim. It was far too cold for that now, and before long the lake and the waterfall would freeze, and they would go in the depths of winter to skate with the Laiquendi under the full moon, the only sound beneath their laughter the scrape of the blades on their feet over the thick ice, echoing off of the snows and the mountainsides. Amras loved those nights. Gliding across the ice felt as close as it was possible to get to flying.

Amras settled in a patch of sunshine, pulling his cloak around him, and regarded the letter. He’d brought his father’s gift, too, and decided to open that first. The soft leather wrapping fell away to reveal a handful of crystals, clearly made by his father but cut in a way that made them seem almost as though they had been taken from the ground. They were strangely faceted, too, and all attached to a slender silver chain, so that when he held it up they hung at different lengths from it, clinking quietly together as they swung. As he lifted them the sun caught them and on the far wall of the cave rainbows appeared, swaying and dancing like sunlight through summer leaves. Amras stared at the sight, suddenly wanting to cry. These were not exactly like the prisms he’d delighted in as a small child, but they were very close. They had been a constant delight, the way they’d thrown bits of bright color onto the walls and ceilings of the nursery when he moved them around. The shades of the colors were different under the autumn sun than they had been long ago in Laurelin’s light, and different again than that of Telperion. When he thought back, though, Amras was certain that it had been Curufin that had made them for him, when he’d been mastering gem craft himself. Fëanor had by then only been interested in far more complex and intricate projects; Amras hadn’t known that his father even realized how much he’d loved the rainbows. He’d forgotten all about them himself, in the wake of everything that had happened afterward. They must be packed into a box somewhere back at the house in Tirion, if they hadn’t been broken in the long years since they’d left that place, alongside all the other little artifacts of his childhood, slowly moldering away as the years passed. 

He set the prisms aside, carefully laying them onto the leather wrapping, and turned his attention back to the letter. Telufinwë, read his name across the front. The last Finwë. He’d never given it much thought before, since it was true more or less—he was the youngest of Finwë’s grandsons, even if he was not the last to be named Finwë—Curufin had followed the same pattern some years later in choosing a father-name for Celebrimbor. Now, though…Amras frowned at the page, tracing his finger over the letters. It felt less personal than his brothers’ names, as though his father couldn’t be bothered to think of a name like clever or commanding or even something like dark for his youngest. He and Amrod were only small and last. Like a coda at the end of the list. Rather like Maedhros was only third—no wonder he wanted so little to do with Fëanor now. Strange how they hadn’t noticed such significance in their father’s choice of names before. Amras sighed and flipped the letter over to peel off the seal.

Telvo,

It rained a little while ago, and as I write this I can see a rainbow arcing through the sky in the distance as the sun comes out. The whole world seems to be sparkling. It is so very unlike Laurelin, the sun, and I am still trying to get used to it. But the rainbow reminded me of you. Do you remember the prisms that Curvo made for you long ago? You used to spend hours moving them along the windowsills of your room so that the shapes and shades of the rainbow lights changed and danced all across the walls and ceiling of your bedroom, and you and Pityo would dance through them, your bright voices echoing through the whole house. 

I’ve asked after you and Pityo, but Telperinquar can tell me very little, and everyone else even less. It is said that you have rejoined Oromë’s folk; I hope you have found happiness there, you and your brothers. I hope you still like rainbows and bright colors, and that you laugh again as you used to when you were young. I miss your laughter; you and Pityo were always full of it, and I can’t quite remember when that changed. When you were still far too young, I think. 

I find suddenly that I cannot remember a great deal of your later childhood. Was I so absent? The Silmarils occupied so much of my thoughts at that time—and then the whispers of the Enemy began to circulate, and—and I missed so much. I had the greatest treasures right in front of me and I did not see them. Somehow in my memory you are a small child delighting in rainbows in one instant, and in the next you are in Formenos, quiet and watchful and with no trace of the smile that once never seemed to leave your face. 

I’m sorry, Telvo. I don’t know what else to say. I killed your laughter and then I chained your bright and vibrant spirit, and then I left you to walk the long road into darkness and death, and I regret all of it more than words in any tongue can say. 

I love you still—so, so much. I hope you still love rainbows, and that you have learned how to laugh again. I’m glad that you and Pityo remain together, even if the rest of your brothers have scattered, though I saw you all depart together this spring, heading west into the wilderness. You used to all go off like that so often, but you were far quieter this spring than you had been in the past; I heard no laughter or teasing among you, or singing—and, of course, there were only the six of you. I don’t know where Cáno has gone, but I hope someday all seven of you can come together again. If my return to life achieves nothing but that, I will be content. 

Instead of a name the letter was signed with a small star. Amras rubbed his thumb over it, and then lifted his hand to scrub the tears from his eyes. He did not want to cry over his father. The letter wasn’t even that long—he’d glimpsed a few of the other letters in Celebrimbor’s hands and knew they were thicker—but it said everything that Amras would have hoped it would say, if he had received it a few thousand years ago. Even only two lines, if he could believe them sincere, would have been enough: I am sorry and I love you. As it was, on the face of it, maybe someone else might call it not enough, call it too little too late. But it meant something—the prisms, a memory that he had never known his father harbored. The plain words of it, unembellished even though Amras knew exactly how capable of fine speech and convincing rhetoric his father was. 

In a house of seven brothers and numerous cousins and friends all coming and going it had been so easy to be overlooked, as the youngest—even though there were two of them. Their parents had always been affectionate, and until the exile to Formenos Amras had never had reason to doubt that he was loved, and had even liked that he and Amrod had been left to run a little wild. But the exile had changed everything—and then the Darkening, and Finwë’s death had made it all so much worse. It was hard to believe that Fëanor had even remembered what love was by the end. His quest for vengeance had been kindled by his love for his own father, but by the time he’d burned away before their eyes, it had long been fueled by something else. Amras usually tried not to remember that, the battle and the balrogs and Fëanor’s ruined body, dissolving into ash that the winds scattered so there wasn’t even anything to bury.

Whatever he had lost in the darkness, though, it seemed Fëanor had found it again in Mandos.

He did not want to cry, but the tears fell anyway. Amras let them, setting the letter on top of the prisms and pressing his face into his arms atop his knees. It wasn’t a violent or desperate sort of crying; it was quiet, and when the tears slowed he felt a little better, as though they’d taken something out of him with them. 

He arrived home before Amrod did, and after thinking about it for a little while longer, he took the prisms back out of their wrapping and hung them over the kitchen window, where the most sunlight came through all year round. They swayed gently on their silver chain, and rainbows danced across the floor. 

Amrod returned still uncertain, but both of them felt a little more hopeful—a little more like Curufin, and less like Caranthir or Celegorm.

Autumn went on, and as the nights grew frosty and the leaves faded to brown, a cloudy afternoon brought the sound of a bark echoing up through the trees. Amras was outside, splitting firewood. Amrod was inside, but came immediately to the doorway. “That sounded like Huan,” he said. Both of them, Amras thought, were remembering Huan’s barking by Ekkaia heralding Maglor’s arrival there. But Huan was back by Celegorm’s side, and Amras couldn’t imagine why Celegorm would be coming up this way. 

It was Celegorm, though. He stepped into the little meadow and halted, staring about in confusion, and with the air of someone who had just woken up after sleepwalking. Amras did not like the look of him at all. His braids were askew and unraveling, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Huan had emerged at his side, but bounded forward to greet Amras and then Amrod. “What happened, Huan?” Amrod asked him. “What’s the matter with him?” Huan just woofed softly. His tail was not wagging. 

“I suppose we must ask Tyelko,” said Amras. He set his ax down and ran to Celegorm. “What brings you here, Tyelko?” he asked, though he was unable to accompany the question with a smile like he wanted to. “What’s the matter?”

“I…is this where you’ve been all along?” Celegorm asked. 

“Mostly,” said Amras.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—Huan was—”

“If Huan brought you here, he must have had good reason. No, don’t leave!” Amras grabbed his hand when he started to turn away. “You look terrible. Did you fight with Curvo again?” Celegorm grimaced and didn’t answer. “Well, come on. You can yell at us if you want, and we won’t hold it against you.”

“I didn’t—I don’t—I’m not angry at you, Ambarussa.”

“Then come inside! I think we still have some chocolate that Aunt Vanilómë gave us last year. Ambarussa!” Amras called as he pulled Celegorm back to the house. “Get out the chocolate, won’t you? I think Tyelko needs it.” Caranthir had sent tea back home with them, too, but this called for something sweeter, richer. Amrod nodded and disappeared inside, Huan at his heels. 

They’d built the cottage with only the two of them in mind, long before they had any hope of rebuilding any sort of connection with their brothers, but since they’d told Maglor about it they had rearranged a few things, and made it so a guest would be comfortable. There was a third bed in the loft, now, and extra pillows to set out by the hearth, and Amrod had just finished another chair for the table the morning before. Neither of them, though, had expected any of it to be needed so soon. Amrod didn’t wait for Celegorm to fumble with his own outerwear, removing his cloak for him, and the too-light coat underneath, divesting him of his bag and his bow and quiver, and then led him over to the hearth to push him down onto the pillows so he could pull off his boots. “You’re half frozen, Tyelko. What have you been doing?”

“I’m fine,” Celegorm started, but Huan flopped down beside him and set his large head on his lap with a low warning noise that was not quite a growl. “Huan—”

“Huan knows you aren’t fine,” Amras said, “and so do we—since we aren’t blind. What happened? Did Curvo go back to see Atya?”

“Did you know?” Celegorm asked. He didn’t sound nearly as angry as Amras would have expected. Instead he just sounded hurt. 

“He asked us what we thought of it ages ago,” said Amrod as he brought out the chocolate to melt into goat’s milk one of their friends had brought them earlier in the day. “Did he ask you? I didn't think he would.” Celegorm looked away. “Oh, I see. You just found out some other way.”

“I just—if he’d told me—”

“You would’ve just gotten angry—like you did anyway,” said Amras. He put a blanket around Celegorm’s shoulders, and then knelt to wrap his arms around him from behind. “And now you’re both miserable, I’d wager.”

“He’s not,” Celegorm muttered. “If he’s gone back to Atar as though nothing happened—”

“If he was going to go about it like that he wouldn’t have asked the rest of us what we thought,” Amrod pointed out. “None of us can hope to do anything as though nothing happened, and I think Curvo would be the last one of us to try. He wants to be better, Tyelko.”

“Why doesn’t it upset you?” Celegorm asked. Amras could tell that he wanted to be angry, but his voice lacked its usual bite. “All of you, even Maglor—even Nelyo—”

“Because we aren’t Curvo, and Curvo isn’t us,” Amrod said. “And he’s the one that has to live in Tirion. Atar spoke in his letters to us like he wasn’t going to try to come find us, or seek a meeting, but that’s just not reasonable if he and Curvo are going to be living in the same city. Curvo does things for Fingolfin and Anairë all the time. He’ll be in and out of the palace. They have to at least have one conversation, just to see if it will be possible. Maybe it won’t be, and Curvo will leave Tirion and build a house beside Ammë, the way she did when she left Tirion.”

“I don’t think he wants that, though,” Amras said quietly. “I’d bet anything Rundamírë doesn’t want to leave—and Curvo has been there a lot longer than Atya. He shouldn’t have to feel as though he must pull up his roots and go somewhere else just because Atar is there. It isn’t fair.”

“Since when has the world ever been fair?” Celegorm said, but his shoulders slumped, and he leaned back against Amras. He was shivering under the blanket. 

“That’s why we’ve got to try to be fair,” said Amras, tightening his grip a little. “To each other, at least, if no one else will, if the world won’t be. Did you argue with Maglor, too?”

“I’m not—I was stupid and he’s not going to want to—”

“I bet he’ll want to see you,” Amrod said. “He still wants to see Nelyo.”

“He doesn’t, though.”

“There’s a difference between wanting something and being able to do it,” Amras said. “Anyway, we want to see you, and keep seeing you—so don’t try to slip away in the night. There’s plenty of room here for the three of us, if you don’t mind it being a little cozy. It’s bigger than the tent, anyway.”

Celegorm sighed, and shook his head. His braids were coming undone, and strands of pale silver hair fell around his face, sticking to his temples. “I don’t mind.”

“Good.” Amras kissed his temple and rose. “You’ve arrived just in time. It’ll snow soon, and it gets treacherous in the mountains in winter, so you’re stuck with us regardless.”

“We’ll have to make you a pair of skates,” Amrod said brightly, as he poured the hot chocolate into three mugs. “We go skating at the lake just down the mountain in the winter, with the Laiquendi. You’ll be terrible at it, Tyelko.”

“You’re awful,” Celegorm said, but he took the hot chocolate. In the window the prisms swung gently, and rainbows danced over all their faces. After Amrod and Amras settled down with their own mugs in front of the fire on either side of him, as the wind picked up outside, promising the snows that Amras had predicted, Celegorm said very quietly, without looking up, “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank us, Tyelko.” 

“You took care of everyone all summer. It’s our turn now.”

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Celegorm knew it had been a mistake to come try to pick a fight with Maglor the second the name Doriath left his lips. Maglor recoiled as though he’d been struck, eyes going wide, face ashen, so the scar on his cheek stood out even more than usual, a stark and awful reminder of all the years he’d spent alone and in pain while the rest of them lingered, undeserving, in Mandos. It should’ve been me, Celegorm found himself thinking as he stared at the scar before making himself look away, because Maglor hated being stared at. He pressed his hands to his own face, to the unmarred skin there, squeezing his eyes shut. If any of them deserved to have been dragged away into darkness and torment, wasn’t it him? Maglor had only ever tried to keep them all together, to keep them all alive. He’d gone along with all the awful things, but only after arguing against them, every time. 

He’d been so angry when he’d left Nerdanel’s house, but all of that drained away in an instant; he could almost feel it leave him, flowing down and away into the stream by his feet. This valley was full of water, flowing streams and ponds and little rivers. It was a beautiful place even with the fading colors of autumn. There was only a faint chill in the air to herald the colder months to come. Celegorm knew without looking, though, that Maglor would be shivering, feeling a deeper cold. He always did when someone spoke of the dark past. 

“None of us got what we wanted in Doriath,” Maglor said. It was meant to be a statement, it should have been a statement, but Celegorm’s words had managed to turn it suddenly into a question. “Celegorm, please tell me you did not want what happened in Doriath.” 

“That’s not what I—Doriath was a disaster.” It had been from the start, as Maglor had warned them it would be; Maglor had argued furiously against it, reminding them of Lúthien’s power that surely her son had in some measure inherited, and of Daeron’s, a mightier singer even than he. They hadn’t known that Daeron wasn’t there, hadn’t known what to expect of Lúthien’s son. Celegorm, with Curufin’s backing, had overridden him. It hadn’t been very hard; the Oath was tightening around them like a vice, more every day, and none of them could resist the knowledge that a Silmaril was come within their reach, if they only dared to stretch out their hands, and Celegorm had been savagely, furiously eager to strike at Doriath anyway. Maedhros might have gainsaid them, but the defeat at the Nirnaeth had broken something in him. Celegorm had been pleased at the time, insofar as anything could be said to please him, since it meant his own influence among the seven of them had increased. Now that was just another piece of guilt to pile onto all the rest.

If he had been older, Dior could have destroyed them all, Celegorm thought. If Daeron had been there, there would have been no battle at all, unless it were a battle of song, which Maglor would have lost. 

As it was, Celegorm’s fight with Dior had been short but fierce, and Dior had delivered the first killing blow. Celegorm had known the second he felt the blade sink into his flesh that he was going to die there in the caves. He’d known it was going to hurt, too—it wouldn’t be quick, and some part of him was sure that Dior had done it on purpose—but maybe that was just because it was what Celegorm himself would have done in Dior’s place. It was probably not true. Few were as cruel as Celegorm had been. Something like clarity had returned to him then, as the blade had been yanked from him so his lifeblood could spill out onto the steps of the dais, thick and dark red, and he’d dispatched Dior much more swiftly—a mercy, he’d thought it then. Dior hadn’t deserved to suffer, not like Celegorm did. 

“Then what did you want there?” Maglor asked now, in the present, in a valley that should not have had to suffer such speech, but Celegorm could tell that he knew the answer already. His voice shook; he sounded close to tears, the way he had after waking up from a dark dream on the journey home from Ekkaia. When Celegorm had asked what the dream was about, Maglor had only said ghosts. He understood that answer a little better now.

They were the ghosts, all six of them and probably Fëanor too. Even now, when all of them were alive again, Maglor could only see them as they had been at the end. No wonder he’d been so eager to get away from them at the end of the summer.

Still. “It was better that way, wasn’t it? All I’d done was make everything worse.” Just like he was doing now, but Celegorm had opened his mouth and now he couldn’t make himself stop. “We all hated each other by then. The Silmaril was gone, we would never get the other two, and it was just—”

“I never hated you! I was angry, but I never—”

“I hated me,” Celegorm whispered, even though he knew he shouldn’t, knew it would only distress Maglor more, that he was ruining everything he’d been trying to do all that summer, trying to drag them all back together into something like the family they’d once been. But it was true. He’d been so much like his father and he’d hated that he couldn’t make himself stop—that he hadn’t wanted to stop, by the end. His death in Doriath had been the best possible outcome, and if it had hurt, if it had been slow and agonizing, bleeding out on the dais before the thrones where Elu Thingol and Melian had once sat in splendor…it was still less than he had deserved. 

And he still couldn’t get away from it. Whenever he thought of his father he got angry all over again, that same kind of corrosive bitterness that ate away at the spirit, that he’d thought he’d left behind in Mandos. It just wasn’t fair, that they had to hear of Fëanor returning and being welcomed back to Tirion, of the worst thing to happen to him being a punch from Findis, who couldn’t seriously hurt anyone no matter how much she wanted to. And to learn that Curufin wanted to see him, wanted to try to regain something even after all they’d done in his name, after what he had done to them—

He’d come hoping for another fight, because Maglor was the only one who could shout him down, just like Fëanor was among the very few who could shout Maglor down. Instead he’d just found one of Elrond’s sons glaring at him with Dior’s eyes, and Maglor less interested in fighting than in trying to understand, to offer comfort instead, when that wasn’t what Celegorm wanted. He wanted that summer to have not been spent in vain, even though they’d all seven of them scattered like autumn leaves in the wind as soon as it was over. He wanted there to have been a reason for his own return to life, as little deserved as Fëanor’s—less so, maybe. He’d done far worse things than Fëanor ever had. Failing that, he wanted a fight he could lose. 

If he couldn’t do something right, this time, if he couldn’t be better—what was the point?

Maglor tried to stop him leaving, but not very hard. Celegorm didn’t look back, and didn’t leave by the road either. That would have meant going back through the gardens and past the house, and the last thing he wanted was to meet Elrond in this mood, Elrond who famously looked so like Lúthien, a living reminder of all the worst things Celegorm had ever done. He retreated to the hills, where the trees closed around him, and he could breathe a little easier in their shadows, hidden from view. In a small glade not far from the forest’s edge he tripped over a half-empty bottle of wine, forgotten by some revelers from the summertime. 

Huan caught up with him, and took his cloak in his teeth, pulling him southward. “What is it, Huan?” Celegorm sighed. Huan just whined. “I’m fine, I’m just—ow.” He smacked his face into a low hanging branch. Huan woofed reproachfully. “Shut up. Fine, if you want to lead, lead. I just—I don’t want to go back to Oromë.” He was starting to think returning to the Hunt had been a mistake in the first place, only he hadn’t known what else to do after he’d come back from Mandos. His mother’s house did not feel like home, however much he loved her. He couldn’t bear the quiet of it. He couldn’t bear Tirion, either, filled as it was with everyone who knew exactly what he had done—as well as Curufin. Ambarussa had disappeared, and if they were content to let everyone think they too had rejoined Oromë’s people, Celegorm wasn’t going to say anything, though he wished he knew what they were doing instead. It had been a mercy and a blessing, for Oromë to accept him back—the same way it had been a mercy and a miracle to wake up to Huan licking his face outside the walls of Mandos, so the first thing his brand new lungs had filled with was the familiar, earthy smell of dog. 

That was a Hunt, though. Not a home. Celegorm hadn’t had one of those since Himlad burned. It didn’t bring the same joy that it once had, either. Oh, it was still a thrill, to ride through the deep woods following the hounds and host of Oromë, the sound of their steeds like a roll of thunder over the ground, the call of the Valaróma echoing through the trees and making his spirit sing. But the satisfaction had dimmed. The sight and smell of blood had not bothered him before, but he found himself hurrying to wash it off now, afterward. 

That summer, after Maedhros’ wounds from the hill cat had been stitched and bandaged, and both he and Maglor had fallen asleep, Celegorm had fled the camp out into the tall grass to be sick, Maedhros’ blood still slick on his palms, the image of him only barely able to sit up on the riverbank, blood soaked and white-faced, still fresh in his mind. Even now, weeks later, Celegorm only had to close his eyes to see it—and to see Maglor beside him, shivering uncontrollably with such a haunted look in his eyes. 

Celegorm balled his hands into fists as he followed after Huan through the trees. It was quiet in the woods, most of the birds flown south and those who remained having little to sing about. The trees were mostly pine in these hills, so it was all still green overhead, and little sunlight came through. Underneath his feet a thick carpet of old needles silenced his footsteps, and he and Huan passed silent and unheeded by all birds and beasts in those lands. Celegorm didn’t really care where Huan took him, so long as it was somewhere away—maybe somewhere far enough away from anyone who might hear that he could rage and scream until something of the fury that had returned to simmer just under his skin was spent. He was still shaking with it, every step he took bringing it back, every thought of his father making him feel hot and itchy. 

He hadn’t seen Fëanor, when he’d come to Nerdanel’s house. Maedhros had, and Caranthir, but Maedhros refused to share what he had said, and Caranthir had exchanged no words with him at all—he’d said that Maedhros had ordered him back to the house in a tongue Fëanor didn’t even know. That was what they were reduced to, Celegorm thought bitterly, kicking savagely to scatter the pine needles before his feet. They were too damp and tightly packed for it to be very satisfying. They were reduced to speaking strange tongues before their father so he wouldn’t understand what they said, and fleeing away into the wilderness just to avoid seeing his face. Celegorm didn’t regret doing the latter, but he hated that it had been necessary. He hated that it didn’t seem to have changed anything, that there seemed to be nothing he could do. 

“What’s the point?” he said aloud. Of course there was no one there to answer. There should have been, but he was alone. Again. Huan was great company and he was grateful beyond words for him, but he did not speak, not with words. They were all trying to do better, be better, but why did it have to be in all different directions? And why was he the only one who did not seem to have a direction to go? All he had was a bow he didn’t want to use anymore, and the anger he’d inherited from his father as assuredly as he had inherited his hair from his grandmother. 

There had been times in Celegorm’s early childhood that his father had not been able to look at him. He hadn’t understood at the time, and it had hurt terribly, to call for Fëanor only to see him disappear into his workshop as though he hadn’t heard. Nerdanel had always swooped in to pick him up and kiss him, to distract him with something in her own workshop or with a new litter of puppies in the palace kennels. Maedhros and Maglor had done the same, with games and jokes, Maedhros often picking him up to swing him around until his tears turned to giggles instead, until he forgot all about his distress at his father’s apparent disregard. 

Those instances had grown less frequent as he grew older; maybe Fëanor just grew used to what he looked like, or maybe the rest of him was so unlike Míriel that it made it easier. The memories lingered, though; but it was years before he’d seen a portrait of Míriel and realized why it was that, sometimes, his very presence seemed to cause his father unfathomable pain. Maglor had found him in the palace gallery, staring up at the painting and twisting his hair around his fingers until it hurt his scalp. “Come away, Tyelkormo,” he’d said, freeing Celegorm’s hair from his fingers and smoothing it back over his shoulders. “Your hair’s beautiful, just like Grandmother’s. Don’t damage it.”

“But Atya hates it,” Celegorm had said.

“No, he doesn’t.” Maglor had pulled him away. “He just misses her.”

It was a grief none of them had understood in those days—not until many years later when darkness had fallen and Finwë had been slain. Celegorm hadn't seen the body—Maglor and Maedhros had been the first to get back to Formenos, and they wouldn’t let anyone else in until they’d wrapped Finwë in sheets and tried to clean away at least some of the blood. “Please, Tyelko, keep them away,” Maedhros had said, ashen and shaking. “Don’t let them in to see.”

That was when Celegorm had first known rage—that deep, painful, burning anger. He’d wanted to go after Morgoth then and there and it was only the knowledge that he had little brothers to protect and try to comfort that had held him back, especially when he had seen the sparks fly from Nahar’s hooves in the darkness and heard the horns of Oromë’s host as they sped northward. 

He’d never even wept for Finwë. The anger had dried up all his tears, even though he’d loved his grandfather—they all had—but he’d loved him most for never turning away, for never looking at his hair and seeing someone else, for always smiling, even though Celegorm was sure now that he felt the grief of Míriel’s absence as keenly as Fëanor did—whatever Fëanor thought about it, about Indis. Celegorm knew now what it looked like to smile to hide grief. He’d learned how to do it himself, though Maglor was always better at it, the way Fëanor never had, regardless of how it made others feel—how it made his own son feel. 

There was no reason that should change now. Míriel lived again, but they all of them had something of Finwë in them too—his nose, his chin, his mannerisms. Fëanor seemed so desperate to see all of them, but wouldn’t he just start turning away again? He’d turn his back because it hurt to look at them and see pieces of his own father, the way he’d turned his back after the Silmarils were taken. Never, ever had he put them first; they were just meant to follow in his footsteps, obedient and loyal.

Celegorm’s vision blurred and it took him several minutes to realize why. He stopped and rubbed his eyes. Huan trotted back to nuzzle at him, whining softly. “I hate him, Huan,” Celegorm choked out. “I never want to see him again, so why does it hurt?” Huan whined again and licked his face before taking his cloak in his teeth again and tugging him forward. “I know, I’m coming.” Celegorm wiped his face as best he could, and followed after Huan. 

After some days Huan started sniffing around, as though looking for something. Celegorm heard distant voices, laughter and singing ringing through the trees. They sounded familiar; some of the songs were ones he had heard in Ossiriand long ago during the Long Peace, before the Dagor Bragollach had burned away all hope. “Huan, I do not want to go among the Laiquendi,” he said. Huan ignored him. “Huan, let’s go, I don’t—” Huan trotted back and got behind him, pushing him forward.

The lands rose steeply as Huan led Celegorm into the mountains. The nights grew colder. Celegorm didn’t bother lighting a fire—he didn’t want anyone to come to investigate, and he was warm enough huddled up against Huan. His dreams were dark and bloody, though. Over and over again he dreamed of his death, of the stones floor of Menegroth growing slick with his blood, the lanterns flickering high over his head in the vaulted ceiling, carved to look like the canopy of a forest. In the dreams it hurt just as much as it had in life, but in the dreams Maglor was there also. Celegorm did not remember his last few minutes of life except the pain and the creeping cold—but Maglor had said he’d been there to see all of them die, and so maybe he really had tried to stem the bleeding, had tried to talk to Celegorm, to plead with him to live. Maybe the tears that fell as unceasing as Nienna’s onto Celegorm’s face were memory and not just dream. Celegorm, Tyelko, please don’t go, please, I’m sorry, I love you, Tyelko please— 

Celegorm woke to Huan licking real tears from his face. He sat up, feeling as tired as he’d been when he went to sleep. “I hope we’re close to wherever you want to go, Huan,” he said as the hound lumbered to his feet. “It’s getting too cold for this.” There was frost on the leaves all around them, and on Celegorm’s cloak, shimmering as it moved when he got up. He pulled it closer around him as Huan woofed and trotted off. He looked as though they were getting closer, he had that sort of satisfied air about him that he got when he found something he had been tracking. Celegorm sighed and followed. 

The little meadow they came to in the afternoon was home to a small cottage, cozy looking with smoke curling gently out of the chimney. Celegorm halted, but Huan bounded across it to greet Ambarussa, who looked past him at Celegorm in astonishment. That gave way to concern, and Celegorm found himself bundled inside, wrapped in blankets, plied with hot chocolate, and then agreeing to stay at least the winter with them.

Ambarussa lived in a small cottage they’d built themselves, close to the Laiquendi settlements but far enough removed that it was easy to pretend there was no one else for miles and miles. They had a little garden and a half-built little stable that was apparently the subject of debate. “If we’re going to be going away more often than we used to,” Amrod said when Celegorm ventured to ask why they weren’t sure about finishing it, “we’d have to ask someone to watch the animals, and as it is we get all our eggs and milk from the Woodelves anyway.”

“Not just wine?” Celegorm asked, trying to tease but finding himself unable to speak lightly enough.

Amrod grinned anyway. “That too.”

“Did you get those from the Woodelves?” Celegorm asked, nodding toward the window where a string of prisms hung. They reminded him of Tirion long ago. Curufin had made prisms for Ambarussa when they were little and he’d been working his way toward making proper gemstones. 

“No,” Amras said from where he was curled up by the fire darning socks. “Atya gave me those.”

“Oh.” Celegorm slouched against his own pillows and turned his gaze away from the rainbows. “What did he say to you?”

“Probably much the same he said to you.”. 

“I threw mine away.”

“And I rescued it,” said Amrod from across the room. He shrugged unrepentantly when Celegorm looked at him sharply. “I thought you might regret not knowing.”

“I don’t care what he has to stay. I don’t want anything to do with him.” 

Amrod was not fazed. “I’m not shoving it in your face, Tyelko. I’m just saying I have it, in case you ever change your mind.”

“We can enjoy the rainbows without having to ever speak to him,” Amras said quietly. “But I think it’s different for us.”

“Of course it is,” Celegorm sighed. He leaned against Huan. The twins were so much younger than the rest of them, a surprise to everyone but their parents. Celegorm thought Nerdanel must have been the one who wanted more children, because Fëanor had been so distant. First the Silmarils had consumed him, and then Morgoth’s whispers running through Tirion, until it was all so tense that it was hard to breathe. Celegorm had been afraid that the bright wild joy Ambarussa had been born with would be crushed in the city, so he’d taken them away into the wilds with him, and had been so relieved when they loved the woods as much as he did. 

It hadn’t been enough to save them, in the end, or himself. But it had kept the weight of it all off of their hearts for a little while longer.

And anyway, the twins were like Maedhros, in that their looks took after Nerdanel and her family. They were not a walking reminder of what their father had lost. Celegorm thought it was no coincidence that he’d clashed most often with Fëanor in those days, and he’d thought even then that it had had very little to do with his loyalty to Oromë. Fëanor had looked at him and seen Míriel, a sharp and constant reminder of what he had lost and whose place Indis had usurped. He had not seen how his own ugliest self was reflected back at him in Celegorm, the already shadows gathering and clinging like the webs of Ungoliant’s Unlight.

The winter passed slowly. Amras had not been joking about the deep snows, and Amrod had been serious about the ice skating. The Laiquendi welcomed Celegorm among them with no questions, only laughter, and he was very bad at skating, at keeping his balance on the knives strapped to his feet. As soon as he was able to stand without falling over or his feet going in opposite directions, Ambarussa grabbed him by the hands and pulled him along, laughing when they suddenly released him and he went careening over the ice, arms flailing, unable to stop until he crashed into the deep snows on the bank. It took both Amrod and Amras to pull him out, snow stuck in his hair and dripping down the back of his neck. “Sorry!” Amras said, clearly not sorry at all. “But it was wonderful, wasn’t it? It feels like flying!” With that he took off, gaining speed until he was going even faster than Celegorm had, when he stopped moving his feet to let himself glide and flung out his arms, head tilted back and hair flying out behind him. The moon was full and bright, and everyone speeding and spinning around the ice seemed gilded with silver, and the air was full of laughter and the quiet scrape of metal over ice. 

Celegorm stayed with Ambarussa two more years, going with them to visit Nerdanel and their brothers, and returning to the little house in the woods. He thought about going back to Oromë’s folk, but something in him recoiled every time. If he didn't go back there, though, he did not know where he should go. “You don’t have to go anywhere,” Amrod said when he ventured to speak that thought aloud. “People join and leave the Valar’s followings all the time.”

“But it’s…what am I supposed to do if I can’t…” If he couldn’t be a hunter, if he couldn’t fix his family—what was the point? He still didn’t have an answer, and Ambarussa were not helpful. They walked in Vána’s footsteps now, and as far as they were concerned, the only purpose of any living thing was just to be. Celegorm understood the appeal of it, but he couldn’t make himself believe it. 

The next time he saw Curufin it was at Nerdanel’s house. It was spring, and the meeting was awkward and silent at first. Finally, Curufin said, “This is stupid. Come on.” He grabbed Celegorm’s hand and pulled him out—not to the orchard, but to the forge in the back of the garden that Nerdanel rarely used these days, a small and enclosed space where they could speak privately. “I’m sorry,” Curufin said, turning to face Celegorm. “I should have told you what I intended to do, but—”

“I’m sorry,” Celegorm said. “I shouldn’t have gotten angry.”

“I understand why, though. I just—I can’t be like you.”

“I don’t want you to be like me, Curvo. That’s the last thing I want.” Maedhros had said something very like that to Celegorm himself once. “I just—I was wrong, and Maglor was right, and—”

“You went to Maglor?” Curufin frowned. “Tyelko…”

“It’s…it was stupid. I shouldn’t have. I’m not going to bother him again.”

“Tyelko—”

“Just be careful, Curvo. Please. Don’t let him—”

“I am careful.” Curufin stepped forward, and Celegorm held onto him as tight as he dared. Curufin was so much smaller than he was, it was sometimes hard to remember that he was also so much stronger. “He is different, Tyelko,” Curufin said quietly, voice muffled by Celegorm’s chest. “It’s not going to go like it did before. And even if it does, I know what to watch for, and both Rundamírë and Tyelpë are watching too.”

“I still hate him,” Celegorm whispered. Curufin started to draw back, but Celegorm didn’t let him go. “But I love you more, Curvo. I just—can’t go to Tirion, or—”

“You don’t have to.”

They went back to join Ambarussa and Caranthir in the garden. Maedhros had gone off on his own, as he did most afternoons. Caranthir wasn’t worried, so Celegorm tried not to be either. 

Then Maglor arrived, sending his hedgehog and his cat scampering through the flowers to herald his arrival. Celegorm slipped away before he came around the lilac bushes, and hid himself in the plum orchard. Maglor found him there anyway, some time later—and when he did, Maedhros was with him. Seeing them together and seemingly happy to be so felt like such a weight lifted off of Celegorm’s heart that he wanted to cry. And even better—they were both to go to Lórien. Maglor wished to go, and Maedhros had agreed because it was Maglor who had asked him. 

Maglor came to find him one more time before they left. “Walk with me, Tyelko?” he said, and didn’t wait for an answer before taking Celegorm’s hand and pulling him outside, through the plum orchard and down to the water. They did not leave the shade of the trees, where it was cool and fragrant. “You said you didn’t mean it like it came out,” Maglor said once they stood by the water. “What did you mean? Why didn’t you want to come back?”

“I did, I think,” Celegorm said. “I was ready, I suppose. I just—out of all of us, I deserve it least.” He didn’t look at Maglor’s face, instead watching the water flow by. He couldn’t hear the Music in it that Maglor could. Sometimes he wished he knew how to learn. “After all I did…”

“Nienna came to me at Ekkaia,” Maglor said quietly. “When I came back late that one evening, I had been with her. She said…she said that the time for punishment and judgment is long past, and I do not believe she was speaking only of me. She said there was a way forward for Maedhros and me, too—for all of us. I couldn’t see it for a long time, but I do now—and if she was right about that, she must be right about this, too. I know about punishing yourself, Tyelko. No good comes of it in the end, only pain for those who love you who have to watch.”

“Are you talking about me or Maedhros? I don’t think I’ve been punishing myself.”

“You blame yourself for not doing enough,” Maglor said.

“I just—there must be a reason—”

“I think the only reason any of us are here is because we are here.”

“That sounds like the nonsense Ambarussa are always saying.”

“Maybe they’re wiser than all the rest of us,” Maglor said. “I asked Huan to take you to them when you left Imloth Ningloron. I was so afraid of what might happen if you were left alone.”

“I wasn’t going to…” Celegorm sighed. “I’m sorry, Cáno. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I know.” Maglor stepped forward, and Celegorm leaned into his embrace gratefully. “You could have stayed. We could have talked about it.”

“I don’t think I’m very welcome in that valley,” Celegorm whispered.

“That’s not true. I know why you think that, but you don’t need to. If you were able to face Elu Thingol, surely you can speak to Elrond.” Maglor drew back, and took Celegorm’s face in his hands. He had strands of silver in his own hair, stark against the darker tresses. That was the first thing Celegorm had noticed when they’d met again, even before the scars on his face. The ones around his mouth were small enough that they could only really be seen up close, like the small fine lines around his eyes. “You’re more than your worst deeds, Tyelkormo,” Maglor said. 

“Nienna told me that in the Halls,” Celegorm said.

“She said it to me, too. Elrond has said it also, and promised to remind me as often as I needed him to. I can’t make that same promise, because I don’t know how long I will stay in Lórien, so you must remember without me.”

“I’ll remember,” Celegorm whispered.

Maglor searched his face, though Celegorm didn’t know what it was he was looking for. They’d once known each other so well that words weren’t needed. All that had changed, and Celegorm didn’t know how to get it back. “You said you dreamed of ghosts,” he blurted out before he could stop himself. “Are we the ghosts, Cáno?”

“Yes,” Maglor said. “I haven’t been dreaming of you lately, though. Not like I used to. You know, Daeron and I spoke of grief once. How it’s so hard to let it go after it has been such a part of you for so long—he has had the same trouble, looking at someone standing alive again in front of him and missing them as keenly as when they died. I have found that grief often feels a great deal like fear—but, sometimes, it feels more like rage. Does that sound familiar, Tyelko?”

He wished it didn’t. “I’m not grieving him. I hate him.”

“You can do both at once. I have. Just—think on it. But don’t hate yourself, please. I want to come back to all of you smiling and happy and together.”

“I’ll try.”

Maglor embraced him again, holding on very tightly. “I love you so much, Tyelko. I always have, even when I was angry. All I want is for you to find peace, whatever that looks like for you. I would ask you to come to Lórien with us, but I don’t know if that’s what you need.”

“I’ve been to Lórien. I don’t think it would help now,” Celegorm said into his shoulder. His eyes burned, but he didn’t want to cry. He missed Maglor already, and didn’t know how he was going to return to the uncertainty of his absence, not knowing when he would return. It would be different this time—he would be safe in Estë and Irmo’s realm, not lost somewhere across the Sea, locked away in darkness or wandering lonely on the shore—but it was still an absence, and coming so soon on the heels of his return, like someone ripping the stitches out of a wound far too early. “I don’t want to tell you to hurry back, Maglor, but I’ll miss you. Please don’t linger too long.”

After Maglor and Maedhros left, early in the morning, Celegorm retreated to the orchard, where he climbed one of the trees and let himself indulge in tears for a while. He didn’t raise his head when one of the twins climbed up to join him. It was Amrod; he leaned his head against Celegorm’s leg and offered nothing but silence and company. Finally, Celegorm said without raising his head from his arms, “You still have the letter Atar sent me?”

“Yes. It’s in my bag. Do you want to read it?”

“No. But I think…maybe I should.”

He took the letter to the guest room he was sharing with Curvo on that visit, and sat on the rug in a patch of sunlight to stare at it. His father’s hand was as bold as it had always been, though the mode of writing was very old—Celegorm hadn’t even realized how much it had all changed over the course of the First Age, as so many new and different people took up Fëanor’s alphabet and adjusted the use of it to their own needs and desires. Celegorm didn’t like his father-name much—he never had, always preferring Tyelko to Turko. Seeing Turcafinwë made him think of the name Curufin had chosen for Celebrimbor—Tulcafinwë—instead. Both names meant strong, but each a different kind, and Celegorm wished he had the same steadfastness of spirit that his nephew did. He flipped the letter over and broke the seal. Better to just get it over with. Better, maybe, to know. All his brothers had read their letters, and if not all of them had been pleased with what they’d learned, at least they didn’t seem to regret it. 

Turko,

Forgive any shakiness in my writing. I have been weeping all afternoon and I had forgotten what a toll it takes on the body, and mine is still too new and unused to such things. I have been reading all the histories and accounts of you and your brothers that I can find—and there are many in Elrond’s collection—and speaking with all those who knew you in Middle-earth. Telperinquar is the only one who can answer for what you are doing now, and even he does not know much except that you and Curvo do not speak, and that you have only visited Tirion once since you returned from Mandos. It grieves him, and he speaks of you as often smiling, but calls your happiness a brittle thing. He does say that Huan has returned to your side, and I am so glad of it. 

I watched you all ride away from your mother’s house this spring, and saw you at the head of the party, leading the way. I hope whatever you are doing this summer, you have spoken to Curvo, have bridged whatever gap lies between you now. All seven of you are scattered in these days, it seems, and have been brought together only by my own return. If that is all I accomplish, I will count my return worth it, even though it is against me that you are united again. 

You did such terrible things, Turko. The Celegorm of Beleriand that I read of is cruel and strange and I cannot reconcile him with the son that I knew, who was forever bringing baby animals home, or birds with broken wings to nurse back to health, who was filled with laughter and light. But it’s my own fault, isn’t it? You would never have done such things if not driven by my Oath, if I had not led you into darkness and doom and chained you to an impossible quest and a never ending war. I do not recognize myself, either, when I look back at that time, when I read the records of my last days. 

I am sorry. I’m so sorry, and I wish there were better words to describe the depths of my regret. I cannot turn back time but if I could I would do it all so differently. I would tell you far more often how much I love you. I do love you, Turcafinwë, so very much. Alone of all my children you take after my mother with her beautiful silver hair, and it used to pain me as much as it brought me joy at times to see her in you. I tried to hide it, but children are often more perceptive than we might wish them to be. It must have both confused and hurt you, and I’m sorry for that too. It wasn’t you, it was the shadows that lay heavily over my own heart. And it isn't quite true, I realize now, that you are the only one to take after Míriel. She died when I was too young to carry a clear memory of her face, but I have seen her since my return. Cáno has her eyes, though when I saw him this summer he was furious and they looked more like the Sea under a storm than anything else. He has gone off somewhere too, but Huan is with him—I can only imagine at your request—and I only hope that Huan will lead him back to the rest of you, though I do not expect it. 

I’ve just written of how you take after your grandmother in looks, but I fear that it is me that you take after most—that the fire of my anger burns in you, too. Like me, you find it hard to let go of past hurts and grievances. For myself, I know it will be the work of many lifetimes to learn how to let it go; I now know what it looks like when I don’t, however, and so I am going to try. Of all seven of you I least expect you to even read this letter. Most likely these words I write now will only be tossed into a fire unread. That’s all right. At least I will have written them. I love you, and I am so sorry that I set you on the path that led to such horrors. All I hope for now is that you and your brothers can find a way back to one another, that you will not remain scattered as you have been. Please do not let me be the thing that destroys your love for one another, too. 

As I finish this letter the moon is rising; like this new body, and the sun, and the rest of the changed world, the moon is a strange thing to me, with its different phases and irregular patterns. It reminds me of you and your own refusal to meet any expectations set for you, and its light matches the soft silver of your hair perfectly. I am brought to tears all over again, for I miss you—all of you—so very much. It is my own fault, this estrangement, but I would do anything to mend it, if someone could only tell me what.

Under the last line was a small, shaky eight-pointed star. Celegorm balled up the letter and hurled it across the room. It hit the door and bounced just as it opened and Nerdanel stepped inside. “Tyelkormo? What’s the matter, my love?” She came to kneel beside him on the rug, and he fell into her arms, sobbing the way he had when he had been very small and the things that upset him so were things she could fix. Nerdanel couldn’t fix this, though. No one could. She rubbed his back and stroked his hair, murmuring soft words that had once brought comfort, but all comforts now felt empty. 

“What does he want?” Celegorm asked finally, when he could catch his breath. He didn’t lift his head from her arms. “How can he just come back and expect us all to—”

“He expects nothing, Tyelko,” Nerdanel said. “He had hopes, but knew they were slim even when he first came here. The Halls did their work; he has been restored—not to who he was before, for that is impossible—but the madness of his rage is gone.”

“It’s too late,” Celegorm whispered. “It’s too late, and I can’t—I can’t—I hate him so much—” After everything that had happened, how dare Fëanor come back only to weep over it. How dare he be horrified over what he’d turned his own sons into. They had become the villains of bedtime stories and the monsters that lurked in the dark, worse than orcs, worse than Morgoth himself, because of the Oath they had sworn, that chained them to itself and wouldn’t let them find any way forward that was not drenched in blood. Fëanor had done that, and he had done it with his eyes wide open, and Celegorm could never, ever forgive him for it. 

“Do not say such things!” Nerdanel said. 

“But it’s true, I—”

“Tyelkormo, look at me.” Nerdanel took his face in her hands, raising him up so she could wipe away the tears on his face, and force him to meet her gaze. “Hatred is a poison,” she said, more fiercely than he had ever heard her speak. “It is the poison that drove all the Noldor to madness, and your father most of all. Maybe you can never forgive him, but you must let go of this hatred. It will only lead you down the same path you walked before. I do not believe that is what you want.”

“No, but—”

“Let it go, Tyelkormo. For your own sake, not for his.”

“I don’t know how,” he whispered.

“You must find a way,” Nerdanel said. Her face softened, and she kissed his cheeks, and then his forehead. “There is a way. Look for the things that bring you joy rather than pain.”

“I don’t know what those are anymore.”

“You can always find something new. You are not bound to who you were before, good or bad. You are not only your father’s son. You are my son, too—do not forget that, Tyelkormo.” 

Curufin came up a little while after Nerdanel left, Huan at his heels. He picked up the crumpled letter and set it on the nightstand. Then he sat down by Celegorm on the floor and leaned against his shoulder. “How did you do it?” Celegorm asked after a little while. He didn’t feel angry in that moment, just empty. Cold. “How did you let it all go?”

“I haven’t,” Curufin said. “I still get angry whenever I think of what happened, I still get…I still get so afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Atya. Myself. I’ve already proven that I’m like him in all of the worst ways, rather than any of the best ones. But I know what it looks like, now, to start down that path. I know what it feels like. All along I’ve been trying to do things differently, better. I’m still doing that. I refuse to run myself ragged trying to live up to his name or its expectations; that’s how I lost myself before. I will never put him or any of his works above my wife or my son or any of you. You come first, always. He knows that, too.”

“But you don’t hate him,” Celegorm said.

“No. I love him. I’m also afraid of him still, sometimes, but that’s different than hate.” Curufin sat up to look at Celegorm’s face. “It helps to have something else to focus on. I have my wife, and Tyelpë. What do you have, Tyelko?”

“I don’t know.”

“Find something, then. It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it brings you happiness. That’s the surest way to let go of all the anger—it will fade away on its own if you find something else to pour your heart and thought into, and by the time you realize it’s gone, you won’t even care.” Curufin reached into his pocket and pulled out a small leather pouch—the gift that had come with the letter. He pressed it into Celegorm's hand. “If you can’t trust his words, Tyelko, trust mine. He is changed. He does care. Tyelpë is right—we are at the start of a new Age, and anything is possible, if we can just try for it. You’ll see.” Curufin got up and kissed Celegorm’s temple before leaving the room.

Celegorm looked down at the pouch. Huan lay down beside him, and Celegorm dropped the pouch in favor of wrapping his arms around Huan’s neck and pressing his face into his fur. He stayed like that for a long time, until he smelled baking bread downstairs and heard Ambarussa and Caranthir bickering about something to do with dinner. Then he sat up, and picked up the pouch. When he tipped it out onto his hand a brooch fell out, the sort meant to fasten a cloak. It was round and silver, and when he turned it over he found the front set with mother-of-pearl, shimmering in the light of the westering sun through the window. The brooch was in the shape of the full moon, and at the bottom more silver had been laid over it, devised in the silhouette of a running hound—of Huan. 

He should have thrown it across the room like the letter. Should have tried to break it against the wall, even though he knew his father would not make something so easily damaged. Instead he slipped it into his bag, letting it fall to the bottom, out of sight but never quite out of mind. 

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