The Future's In Our Hands by StarSpray  

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Celegorm

Written for the Swinging 40s prompt: “Very luckily for you and me,the uncivilized sun mysteriously shines on ‘good’ and ‘bad’ alike.” — e. e. cummings

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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.