to all things housed in silence by queerofthedagger  

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Curufin

Valinor

Curufin remembers the way a smithy smells before anything else; the wood fire, the melting metal, the dry, hot air.

It is dirty and harsh and real in a way that few things are, back in Aman. He wonders often—later, after—if perhaps that is why his father loved it so.

It is its own world, is the first place his father truly looks at him—the fifth of seven children, and the only one to show any real interest in his father’s most beloved craft.

Later, Curufin can never tell what came first—his interest, or his father’s eagerness for it. He tries to tell himself that it does not matter; that, clearly, it was ever meant to be like this, his own son, too, following in their footsteps.

Some nights, though, in the darkest hours, he cannot quite bring himself to believe it. Cannot quite look at the way he always, always falls wildly, ridiculously short of his father’s achievements. Cannot help but wonder if perhaps, there had once been something, someone else he was supposed to be.

That comes later, though.

For most of his youth, Curufin splits his time between his father’s forge and trailing in Tyelkormo’s wake, whenever his brother deigns to be around.

This, at least, never poses a question. Why Celegorm, Carnistir asks him once—not sullen, just curious, his head tilted almost birdlike.

Curufin had shrugged and watched where his brother was driving Makalaurë to tears of rage. “He is the only one who understands.”

It had not made sense, except for all the ways in which it did. Carnistir had seemed to understand it too, for he had not asked again.

It is less simple with the others.

While he is still young, Maitimo cares for him often, whenever their parents are occupied. As he grows older, Curufin keeps finding things to begrudge him, though—his status as the eldest; the easy pride their parents have of him; all their brothers and cousins gravitating around him.

Curufin has his father’s love above all else, he knows this. Some days, in shameful, secret moments, it does not quite feel like it can be enough.

He has no patience for Makalaurë. The same, very obviously, is true in return.

“You are too similar,” Tyelkormo jokes, one day. Curufin does not speak to him for weeks, in the aftermath.

Still, when it comes down to it, he loves them, their close-knit entanglement, the way he is never alone.

It is one of the earliest things his father teaches him, outside of the forge; they may drive you to madness some days, little Curufinwë, but always remember—there is nothing more important than those you belong to by blood and skin and bone. Never, ever forget it.

And Curufin does not. He does not.

It is a strange thing, when he is the first of his brethren to take a wife.

He knows what many in Tirion say, when the engagement is announced; a well-respected Noldor maid, her own craft jewellery work—a fitting choice, for Fëanáro’s favourite. A little too fitting, perhaps.

For once in his life, though, the choice has nothing to do with his father. Turundë understands him as few others do; she does not bow to his temper or his sharp tongue, only ever rising to meet him. She knows what he speaks of when he talks of his work, does not flinch from the messy harshness of it.

The day she bears him a son is happier than the day he held a hammer for the first time.

And still, and still.

She does not stay by his side, refusing to be pulled into the brewing conflict. Their son does. Curufin considers that a worthy price for her to pay for her faithlessness, and does not think about the way it burns.

Exile

He moves back home, once his family removes to Formenos, his son in tow.

It means Telperinquar grows up among the same madness that Curufin was raised in, and even if he had not come for loyalty and love of them, this alone would have been an argument in favour of it.

It is, for a brief time, like being taken back to simpler days. No matter his father’s knife-edge temper; no matter the concern that, more often than not, now graces Maitimo’s features.

No matter the absence of their mother, and Curufin has never been as close to her as his older brothers, but this—

“It was her duty to stay with us, no matter what,” he says to Tyelkormo, one night. “She did not; it is her own choice.”

Tyelkormo looks at him and says naught. Curufin knows it is right, though, and does not think of the ache deep in his chest whenever he thinks of her, or Turundë after her, turning their backs.

Tirion goes dark, his father raises his voice to an Oath, and Curufin is the first to join him.

His father leaps at an unarmed elf, sword glinting with menace in the light of torches, and Curufin is the first to unsheathe his own blade. His father sets fire to the boats, eyes expectant on Curufin, and he is the first to join.

He only pays mind to keep his son shielded, leaving him in the rearguard. It had been Telperinquar’s own choice to come, but he is still young, still untested. It is still on Curufin, above all else, to protect him when he must.

He does not pay the same attention to his youngest brother. Amrod is brought off the burning boat, coughing and howling, and Curufin—

Curufin did only what he had to do.

Always remember—there is nothing more important than those you belong to by blood and skin and bone. Never, ever forget it.

And Curufin does not. Except. Except.

Early Beleriand

Amrod no longer looks at him. Neither does Amras. Whenever Maedhros does, his eyes are dark.

Curufin stops meeting them. He did what he must, as his father had demanded.

That ship I destroyed first, his father had said, and Curufin had felt the ice-cold shiver of doom down his spine. Refused to acknowledge it. Refused to do anything other than raise his chin, meet his brothers’ eyes—as if any of you had done anything other than he and I.

If it were Amrod and Maedhros he cannot bear to look at, alas—it does not matter.

And it does not, when they find their father crumpled amidst burnt earth and grey ash. When he looks at them, his eyes still burning, burning, burning, and makes them promise their vengeance anew.

When he bursts into flames, and Curufin tries, tries and tries and tries, to hold onto him. When it accomplishes nothing, leaves him with nothing but his skin blistering, peeling away, one last souvenir of the father he loved to the point of ruin.

It does not matter. Perhaps none of it does, after all.

It would have been easy in the aftermath to lose himself to it—his father’s absence, Ambarussa’s judgement, Maedhros’ capture. In his fury, for Maglor and his inaction, and the grey-scale despair of those first few weeks on the clammy, joyless shores of Mithrim.

But there is Celegorm, who pushes him with sharp, impatient words; whose edges are all for show, only there for Curufin to cut himself against, whenever he needs to. There is Celebrimbor, who watches him with dark, worried eyes. There are their people, and their promise, and the dark enemy still holding what is rightfully theirs.

There is the Oath, inevitable and iron-heavy.

There is no escape. Most nights, almost, almost, almost all nights, Curufin believes that he is not looking for one.

Maedhros ’ Abdication

Findekáno brings something back from the mountain. Curufin is not sure that the mangled creature is his well-wrought brother, inexorable pride and joy of the House of Fëanor.

“He will heal,” Celegorm says, his face grim.

Curufin looks at Amrod, who, nowadays, only ever stares back in hatred. He is not sure that that would be a good thing.

There is no joy in being proven right when Maedhros announces—not to them, but their people and Fingolfin’s, also—that he will forfeit their father’s crown.

You will avenge me, their father had said, blistering certainty bright in his eyes, even as he was fading before them.

Curufin stares at his oldest brother and wonders with scorn running so deep that he can taste it in the back of his throat how he could betray such a promise so easily.

Back in Aman, he would have never—

“You will fall in line,” Maedhros says, when, in private, Curufin tries to argue. His eyes are silver-bright and fey, and in that moment, he burns so terribly that it feels worse than looking at Fëanáro in a rage. “This House stands together, Curufinwë, as it ever has. Or have you forgotten our father’s teachings so quickly?”

Curufin flinches from the words, bows his head. Bites his tongue until it bleeds.

Maitimo would have never spoken to any of them as such. Whatever animal Findekáno had returned to them, Curufin is not certain he still recognises it.

It is the only time he ever tries to argue with Maedhros.

No use, bargaining with beasts, Celegorm used to say.

No use, his father used to agree, eyes alight on Indis and her brood.

Curufin knows better than to ignore a lesson well-taught.

The Long Peace

Himlad is an escape. Is a reprieve to lick his wounds, a chance to fall back into a routine that does not have to take into account the sensibilities of brothers that try his patience.

Still, often, the grief catches up with him, racing along in his shadow across the open plains. Still, the scars winding around his arms sting when he spends long nights in the forges they built. Still, the Oath drives him on, ever sharp-edged in the centre of his chest.

He is not so blind as to be ignorant of Celegorm’s worried eyes, Celebrimbor’s uncertainty. What do you want me to do, he wants to snarl, some days—does so, once or twice after too much sour wine, into Celegorm’s obnoxiously unmoved face. He is gone, dead and gone, gone, gone, and we still have accomplished nothing to avenge him.

But there is Celegorm, their hunts, the steady constant of his company. There is his son, long nights in the forges, his skill soon surpassing Curufin in spades (and he does not doubt, then, if this is truly what he was meant to do. He does not).

There is the Oath, like fire beneath his skin, driving them against Orcs and beasts, against Morgoth’s never-tiring reach for them.

Curufin learns to meet him head-on. Learns to wield his sword as easily as his tools. Learns to forge weapons better than anything they had ever accomplished in quiet, peaceful, narrow Aman.

Maedhros is pleased whenever Curufin presents him with those, and he thinks—

In this, at least, they still recognise each other, eyes ever fixed northward with hatred.

They will have their vengeance. They will, because they must.

The Dagor Bragollach

When the land goes up in flames, Curufin feels, for one brief, terrible moment, the exact same sensation he had felt just a little under 450 years ago—chest caving in, lungs being crushed, skin and flesh and any ounce of hope being burnt away in brief, agonising seconds.

“Atar.” Celebrimbor’s hand is warm and steady on his shoulder.

Curufin comes back to himself. Looks at his son, his most beloved creation. Looks at his brother in the doorway, watching—always watching, never hiding his concern as well as he thinks he is.

“Do we leave, or do we fight?” Celebrimbor asks. He is watching Curufin as closely as Celegorm is. There is no fear in his voice.

He wonders if Fëanor had felt the same kind of pride, back when Curufin had leapt to his side without hesitation. When he had set fire to his own brother, if only to be given another spark of his father’s approval.

He straightens his shoulders, raises his chin. “We fight. Always, we fight.”

They last a week.

A week of choking smoke, of poison belching forth from Angband’s pits, of the air being thick with the stench of dying land, dying Orcs, dying kin.

A week of fighting until their limbs shake and their armour is caked with blood and grime.

At the end of it, he meets Celegorm’s eyes and knows it is no use.

When Celegorm says, “We make for Nargothrond,” Curufin does not protest.

Anything, anything is better than having the same grey-fell eyes of his oldest brother look at him and all his failures with judgement anew.

Finrod takes them in, and for once, Curufin cannot muster his usual derision.

They barely made it to Nargothrond. Celebrimbor had carried away injuries that he survived only, Curufin knows, due to Celegorm—still praying, always praying, making use of the skills a God long ago taught him.

Being listened to yet, every once in a while. Curufin refuses to feel gratitude, but for the time, he has tired of the scathing hatred.

They settle into the deep halls. They tend to their injuries. They grieve their fallen, theirs and those of Nargothrond, Angrod’s and Aegnor’s names heavy upon Finrod’s bowed shoulders.

For a time, back in Aman, Curufin had liked Finrod well. Before—before the chasm between their families grew. Before his father looked with increasing scorn on the golden House of Arafinwë, and all that associated themselves with it. Before, before, before; Curufin thinks, wandering dimly lit corridors at night, that ever his life seems to split in two, these days.

The truth is, those first few weeks, no one has the energy for anything other than reeling recovery. News still makes it to them daily—Fingolfin’s death, the fallen Gap, their brothers’ survival, against all odds.

In the midst of it, Curufin does not see much of Finrod. Does not pay his absence much mind, either. He sleeps. He eats. He tends to their people. He finds a forge for himself and Celebrimbor to work in, and returns to forging swords and knives, to forge arrowheads that will not miss their mark.

He does not pay Finrod much mind. Until he does.

It starts with late nights. With running into Finrod when he wanders Nargothrond’s corridors, mapping the lay of the caves. Avoiding sleep.

They never talk, those nights; mere silent acknowledgement, and a mutual refusal to prod and poke at what keeps the other awake.

“Stop staring,” Celegorm tells him during dinner one night. His eyes are knowing. Curufin ignores the urge to get up and leave.

Curufin does his best work at night. Their strange camaraderie grows when Finrod discovers that fact and starts visiting his forge in those late hours.

“It is because no one disturbs me then,” he tells Finrod, pointed, brow raised.

Finrod smiles and gestures as if to say, go on then; his eyes a tangible, burning weight at the back of Curufin’s neck.

They talk, then. Short and casual at first, a testing of boundaries. Thinly veiled insults met by infuriating humour. Discussions of craft met with far-reaching knowledge. Grief not spoken of but sitting between them, their eyes ever drifting into the empty, burnt north, before finding each other once more.

A challenge met, every time.

After that, it is easy, so very easy. Finrod talks of building Nargothrond, and takes him riding the next day to show him the outposts, the guards and scouts.

They add their people to Nargothrond’s defences shortly after.

Curufin shows him how to temper steel, how they imbue their weapons with power beyond what the forge fires offer. He and Celebrimbor start outfitting Nargothrond’s warriors alongside their own.

They talk, and talk, and talk, as if there rests not an age-old chasm between their houses, gaping and raw.

Celegorm watches with dark, knowing eyes. Curufin takes to avoiding looking at him.

It is easy, is the thing. An endless dance of battling wit and wills, and Finrod somehow, shockingly, meeting him for each and every step.

Curufin thinks of Turundë often, those days. How she had refused to come with them.

Thinks of Findaráto, brightly golden and unwavering in the dark of Tirion’s torchlight. He had never made a secret of his opinion on Fëanor, the name today still a blank, untreated space between them.

And yet, he had come, across the Ice and through torment he speaks not of. Curufin wants to dig his fingers in, slide his nails under the edges of the armour Finrod wears like second skin. Wants to break him open, and find what he hides so skilfully underneath.

He kisses Finrod for the first time on the one-year anniversary of their arrival in Nargothrond.

He had been drinking with Celegorm, too much, too quickly, both of them growing too maudlin.

Recently, his brother has grown crueller. In response, Curufin has grown less patient, less tolerant. Most nights, it stays at harsh but brief exchanges, at subtly veiled digs for the soft parts they know of, all too well.

Tonight, though, Celegorm had aimed his vitriol at Celebrimbor, at how much time he is spending in Finduilas’ company. “Just wait, your son will end up a real Teler, after all; just make him sing and dance like dear Ingoldo used to on Alqualondë’s beaches, and they will take him as one of their own in no time.”

It had taken everything within Curufin to get up and leave, rather than throw the heavy goblet of wine at his brother’s face. It had taken no thought at all to find himself in Finrod’s chambers.

The moment Finrod opens the door, Curufin pushes inside, hands on Finrod’s chest before he knows what he is doing.

He does not expect resistance. Does not expect Finrod to stop him with an easy shift of his weight, hand fisted into the front of Curufin’s tunic, his knee lodging itself firmly between Curufin’s legs to stop him from moving.

“You have been drinking,” Finrod says, his voice mild but eyes sharp. “Did you know the Edain have a saying? That the drunk and the children are always honest? I am not sure the hypothesis holds up, but—“

Which is when Curufin kisses him, something brittle within him finally giving way.

It is graceless and clumsy, too many teeth and frantic hands. But then, oh then—

Finrod stills him, steady hands, solid body. Tangles his fingers firmly into Curufin’s hair and pulls, moves his head just so. Kisses him properly, then, and Curufin knows he ought to protest, should wrench back control, but—

But. He lets Finrod touch him however he likes and, for once, refuses to think it all to death.

He should, of course, have known that it would not last. He simply did not think he would be replaced this easily by a Man who seems not to have seen a bath in considerable time.

Finrod does not speak to him in private first. He announces himself to the court, spreads out his betrayal as if it were nothing, and it does not hurt, it does not, because that would mean that it meant something. It does not. It did not.

He announces himself to the court, and Celegorm rises to meet him. In his wake, Curufin delivers the final blow, his rage a spitting, merciless thing eroding the innards of his chest. He does not look away from Finrod’s face once as he does it, condemnation rolling off his tongue as smoothly as endearments did, mere days ago.

Celebrimbor leaves the hall, keeps his distance from them. Curufin lets him and ignores the desperate anger that ever seems to sit on his son’s shoulders in the days that follow.

Perhaps in some distant part of himself, he still hopes that it will stall Finrod, any of it. That he will not leave; that he will not betray them so utterly.

It does not. He does not.

Curufin gratefully takes the wine that Celegorm hands him that night, and remembers his father’s words.

There is nothing more important than those you belong to by blood and skin and bone. Never, ever forget it.

It had been folly to think they could shirk their duty, even if only for a while.

“The Oath demands its answers,” Curufin tells Celegorm, the night they prepare to go in search of news. “We do what we must.”

He does not think of Finrod, marching into Angband on his own. He does not.

Celegorm does not answer him, but Curufin can read his thoughts on his face plain as day, the silent doubt in the Oath’s power.

That is alright, though; if Celegorm must think himself yet free of the weight of their duty, he may as well. It does not change the existential fact of it.

It does not change what they do in its wake, Oath and Doom finally catching up with them, making them pay for the time wasted.

Lúthien, how low it makes them sink; her escape, and the humiliation of it. Huan, and his betrayal, yet another one in the line of sacrifices to be made, in their pursuit; his abandonment, and how it hollows Celegorm to the core.

Finrod’s death, for the forsaken Man and his maid; Curufin, when he sees them in the aftermath, thinks he has rarely ever loathed anything or anyone more.

Celebrimbor, looking at them with bristling, burning disgust that is more alike to his grandfather than he would ever like to hear, and spitting words of repudiation and reproach.

“My father I can call you no longer, after all that you have done. Do you not see what you have come to, turning into the very thing you claim to resent?”

Even now, underneath the anger, Celebrimbor sounds desperate, sounds like a child.

Curufin does the only thing he can; cut him loose, atrophy the wound. Make sure that he will never, ever change his mind, and hope that perhaps, if there is any mercy left in the world, that may yet save him.

“Weakness is an evil, dearest son,” he sneers, and watches as it runs across Celebrimbor’s face like a punch. “To stay like a dog, even after having been betrayed, is worse than that—it is what a coward would do.”

Celebrimbor stares at him, a moment, two.

In the end, he turns and walks back into the caves that have ousted his family, and does not look back.

Curufin hopes he never will.

They reach Himring in the death of night, humiliated and sore on a single horse and with none of their people.

Curufin meets Maedhros’ accusing eyes, all his failures laid bare, and feels nothing, nothing at all.

The Nirnaeth Arnoediad

Unlike some of his brothers, Curufin needs little convincing.

They have a duty to fulfil. They have vows to keep, and they have tarried and done nothing for way too long.

Not to mention that victory would lend them power beyond the fulfilment of their Oath. It would not bring back his son, or Celegorm’s mutt, certainly; but it would prove that they merely did what they had to. That there had been no other way, and that they were right—they were, they were, they were.

He throws his support behind Maedhros, ignores his brother’s disdain at the act. Ignores how Fingon ignores him with derision written all over his features, the few times they fail to avoid each other, and how too many of even their own people look at him with wariness, now.

Ignores Maedhros’ silent accusations at all the support that is not given, due to their actions.

We did what we had to, he wants to snarl. What else would you have us do? March into Angband alongside golden Ingoldo, and betray our house and name and Oath?

But Maedhros never admonishes them with words, and Curufin never defends himself.

That, perhaps, says everything that needs to be said on the matter on its own.

They flee from their defeat with nothing but their horses and the armour on their backs.

They flee with nothing but utter demolition, with no hope left, with everything taken from them.

Maedhros crumples into a shell of himself, and Curufin finds no energy left within himself for derision. Finds it not within himself to prod at his brother until he builds himself back up, if only to answer; finds in himself no pity, no sorrow.

They flee to the Ambarussa’s fortress, and Amrod still does not speak to him. They survive; they hunt; they wait.

When Curufin hears of Nargothrond’s fall, it is only Celegorm who stops him from tearing the fort apart piece by piece.

“Perhaps he survived,” Celegorm says, one strong arm around Curufin’s chest, holding him fast.

He does not know what he would do if Celegorm let go. Would like to find out.

He laughs, and he sounds like his father. “Yes, perhaps; because ever luck has been on our side, has it not?”

Celegorm says naught. Curufin thinks, involuntarily, of Finrod. Golden head and brighter heart, sharp tongue ever knowing exactly what to say.

Not even he could fix this now. Perhaps he should be glad that he is dead, has been so since before everything began to fall apart.

But then, that is not true. Then, everything has been rotten from the very start.

Prelude to Doriath

If anyone were to ask, it is the insult of Dior’s brazen display. It is revenge against Doriath as a whole. It is the Oath, their duty, their vengeance.

When Celegorm calls, Curufin follows without hesitation.

If anyone were to ask—

No one does. The truth is this: Curufin is tired. The truth is: they do what they must. The truth is: all he wants now is to raise his sword and sink it into something soft. What comes before or after is of little consequence.

He was never going to be anything other than that.

Chapter End Notes

The name of Curufin's wife, Turundë, comes from the marvellous list of Elvish names by Chestnut_pod, and means "She who triumphs." <3

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