to all things housed in silence by queerofthedagger  

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Caranthir

Valinor

Caranthir’s favourite place in all of Aman is his grandfather’s library.

He spends a lot of his early childhood in Finwë’s palace, easily irritated by the ever-loud house, his boisterous brothers, his parents, who love them but are unpredictable whenever either of them is hit by an idea for a new project, by bouts of inspiration too all-encompassing to be put off for long.

It is calmer, with Finwë, his own children moved out by then, starting families of their own. Grandchildren visit often, but where his father’s house ever feels as if it refuses quietude as a matter of principle, the palace has an abundance of it.

Most notably, the library—not the large, beautiful, carefully curated one where Finwë welcomes guests from all over Aman, friends and courtly adversaries coming together for long, benign debates that never seem to lead anywhere.

No, Caranthir admires that open, light-flooded space, but what he loves, what he almost considers his, his and his grandfather’s alone, is Finwë’s private library. Tucked away in the private wing of the palace, it is cramped, dusty, and dimly lit. The volumes lining the shelves are brittle with age and often do not contain anything of grand note.

Finwë loves those books, though, their long-faded stories of the continent to the east that Caranthir, when he was a child, only believed in as one does in fairy tales. It certainly sounded plausible, but so did a lot of things that had, once you looked more closely, little actual substance.

Not so when Finwë speaks of it. Often, he sits with Caranthir in the creaking leather chairs, Laurelin’s light only barely reaching through the high windows, and talks of the land he left behind—its star-struck skies, its mountain ranges. The sharp, clean air of winter, the dark entanglement of woods. Of legends, and lurking shadows, and how often they could not tell apart thrill and fear.

“Why did you leave then, if you loved it so?” Caranthir asks once, only once. He does not understand yet the wistful twist to his grandfather’s mouth, the strange mixture of love and longing with which he looks at the world around him.

Finwë ruffles his hair in the way that Caranthir hates but tolerates from Finwë alone. “You will understand, one day. I wish you would not, but you will. Patience, little Moryo, is a virtue.”

Then, Caranthir rolls his eyes, bites back his protests and, yes, his impatience.

Later, much later, he does understand. When he does, he will think of Finwë, basked in golden peace, and wish that he had listened.

Caranthir grows up like this, between the ceaseless chaos of his father’s house and the quiet of his grandfather’s palace.

Where Maitimo shines in court and at his grandfather’s side in public, Caranthir stays in the back, watching, listening. Where it pulls Makalaurë onto any stage he can find, Caranthir likes that he can easily fade into the background. Where Tyelkormo races through forests and Curufinwë spends hours in hot, dirty smithies, Caranthir broods over long, weathered documents, crams his head full of numbers and logic, with abstracts and law and science.

It is not like his family does not understand; often, Fëanáro will spend long evenings talking to him about whatever he is currently working on—linguistics, geometrical applications to different crafts, philosophical concepts. History, politics, anything that Caranthir currently burns for, his father will meet. So will Maitimo and Makalaurë, Amras once he is old enough. Nerdanel is ever happy to clean him out a corner in her workshop, let him work there, let him talk through whatever theorem is currently twisting his brain into knots, until it clicks. Always she knows how to ask the right question, to force him to take breaks for tea at the right moment. To let him brood in silence in others.

It is just that it never quite changes the fact that, at the end of the day, Caranthir, for the most part, prefers his solitude.

It was not always so, is the truth. He remembers trying.

Early on, when he was very young, it had been Makalaurë. Makalaurë, who sang for him, Makalaurë who approved of his childish mischief, Makalaurë who would follow Caranthir’s pragmatic, mathematical mind like few others did, musical theory closer to it than most would expect.  

Inevitably, though, Makalaurë would return to Maitimo. Theirs was an understanding, Caranthir learnt early on, that he could never hope to match.

He tried only a few times with Tyelkormo, for all intents and purposes the designated brother Caranthir should have been closest to. It fails spectacularly—not immediately, not for lack of trying on Tyelkormo’s part, but it does. It is like they are as different as they can possibly, painfully be, and not in a complementary way.

Curufinwë never tried anything he had no interest in; Caranthir was scarcely insulted when he did not make the very short list.

He did not bother at all with the twins.

He loves his brothers, each and every one of them. It is only that each and every one of them loves someone else a little better than they love him.

He learns to make his peace with it, to not begrudge them their love.

After all, there is always Finwë, too. Out of all his grandchildren, it is only ever Caranthir he lets handle those ancient relics he had carried all the way to Aman.

Caranthir ever makes sure to do so with the utmost care. By then, he has learnt to recognise a rare and precious thing when it is offered to him.

Exile

There is no question about Caranthir’s going to Formenos.

His family might drive him to exasperation some days, but they are his family. He has no interest in staying in close or any other kind of contact with his brood of cousins, no matter what Finwë wishes for, not-so-subtly, sometimes.

In many ways, little changes in their fortress up north. Like all his brothers, he is used to travelling around, is used to carving out space for himself in any new environment. He has his family close, those who matter, for the most part.

He does not think of his mother, hard-eyed and proud, watching them leave. Does not think about his father’s increasingly harsh words, his short temper. How they will not see him for days on end, not even Curufinwë. Does not think of the growing sadness sitting on Finwë’s brow, the way he bears himself as if he knows something the rest of them do not.

The darkness comes, and Caranthir learns of fear. Learns how it wraps around your throat, seeps into your skin, tastes in the back of your throat. How it will render you immobile, struck stupid. How no book, no great theory will help you in the moment that your heart starts beating out of your chest.

It is Caranthir who finds Finwë on Formenos’ marble steps, crimson like a taunt spilling across the white; Finwë’s long, black hair, so much like Caranthir’s own, looking wrong, wrong, wrong, fanning out around the mutilated, once beloved head.

Then, Caranthir learns of rage. Learns what it means to have it alight every part of you, to feel it burning in your blood, teeth rattling, bones shaking. Then and there, he finally understands Celegorm, the animal wildness of him.

It is Curufin who leaps to their father’s side first, the moment they reach Tirion, but it is Caranthir whose voice rises the highest, who bares his teeth at the horrified faces around them. Oh, how he despises them all, useless and helpless, even now, even as their beloved king lies to rot. The one who had brought them all here; the one to pay for all their folly.

Everything after is a blur—the boats, the blood on his hands. The retching over the side of the railing as the sea rages beneath them.

“You will get used to it,” Makalaurë says, a cold hand heavy on Caranthir’s shoulder. Caranthir does not tell him that it is not the boat making him shake with furious misery, still.

In retrospect, he is not sure that that is what Makalaurë meant, either.

He comes back to himself, only truly comes back to himself, when his father takes torches to the boats.

The night is cold, the sky full of stars. Caranthir stares up at the constellations Finwë had taught him—from books, more often than the sky, Tirion rarely ever dark enough to see many of them—and feels himself grow numb all over.

What would he think of them now, if he could see them?

“Carnistir,” his father says, and there is a warning in his voice, something foreign and terrible.

Caranthir holds his gaze. Looks at where Maitimo stands to the side, arms crossed, his pale face white in the darkness.

Such a waste, he wants to say. What point does this prove, what use does it have?

“Carnistir,” his father repeats, flashing teeth and fell eyes.

Caranthir takes the torch.

When his youngest brother’s screams tear through the night air, he wishes, he wishes, he wishes—

Early Beleriand

Caranthir learns quickly that there is no use in wishing for anything. Learns to understand his grandfather in ways he never had before, whenever Finwë had talked of Middle-earth; its fascinating beauty, yes, bursting from between the dark and the rot of it. Why he would leave, too. How, ever it feels as if something is watching, as if a draft always makes its way beneath your clothes, no matter the number of layers. How any joy is ever followed by fresh grief, as if any reprieve has to be dearly bought.

And oh, how dearly they pay.

Their father dies, and Maedhros is taken, and it is all they can do not to shatter in the face of it.

It is all Caranthir can do to function; Celegorm and Curufin may rage, and Maglor may drown in his grief, and the twins may loathe them rightfully, but they must go on. They must; there is no other way.

So, he lets Maglor lean on him. Meets Celegorm head-on, over and over, laying out the strategic soundness of not marching into Angband, no matter the cost. He helps Amras care for Amrod, and he makes sure their people settle into a camp that can sustain them. Takes care that Celebrimbor spends time in all their company and not only with his father, half-mad as he is in his own grief.

He has a new appreciation for his grandfather’s successes and failures at keeping peace between his children and grandchildren. It does not make him resent the half of them any less, only makes him miss Finwë more.

No use in shedding tears, though. They move forward, because they must. Because one day, they will enact their vengeance for all that Morgoth has already taken from them.

Caranthir will make sure of it.

Maedhros ’ Abdication

“You may think of it whatever you like,” Caranthir says, for what feels like the dozenth time, “but that does not change that it is the logical choice.”

Caranthir may think of it privately whatever he likes, but it is true; he has listened to his grandfather and oldest brother, has watched them in court, with enough attention to know it to be true.

Maglor looks at him with furious, red eyes, the wine long-since having gone to his head. “I know it is, Moryo; I made the logical choice for thirty godforsaken years. That does not mean that it was the right one.”

It is no use arguing with him, Caranthir knows. They have been over this endless times. Taking the wine from Maglor, he sits beside him, leaning back against the old oak, and casts his gaze across the lake. In the distance, the Nolofinwëan camp is a bustle of activity.

“Be that as it may, he is asking you to support him now. You do not need to agree with him for that, but how could you deny him, after everything?”

It is a low blow, and Maglor makes a noise so full of contempt and sorrow, Caranthir feels almost bad about it.

“I know what you are doing,” Maglor says, rolling his head until he can look at Caranthir up close. His expression is impossible to read. “And I know that you are doing it for me—why you are doing it. But that does not mean that I do not hate you for it a little.”

Caranthir nods and looks away. There is nothing to add to that, after all.

The Long Peace

Thargelion is a reaching, a becoming. He knows of the weight, the importance, of Maedhros trusting him with the outpost. Knows it is its own wordless gratitude for Caranthir’s support, and he pours that into the foundations he builds, into the strength of his people, into the alliances he forges.

It takes years, takes endless, endless hours of work and late nights, of failures and trying again, again and again and again. Of gritting his teeth and swallowing his pride, but the results, at last, flower beneath his hands.

He sees his brothers more or less often, those days. Celegorm and Curufin less, which suits him just fine. Maglor more, although some of the ease and rhythm they had fallen into during those first few years stutters, fails.

Maglor returns to Maedhros as he was ever wont to do, and Caranthir does not begrudge him, he does not—has not done so since he was a child, and saw the way Maglor’s face would transform whenever Maedhros turned to him.

He does not begrudge them. He does not visit Himring as often as he could, either.

He meets Haleth at the height of the flourishing of his realm.

In truth, Caranthir knows that domestic life is not to be his lot, all other reasons that would stand against them aside. They have a duty, and while any Oath is simply a contract, and a contract can be broken if one is determined enough—well.

Loyalty means something yet, after all. He cannot abandon his family any more than he can negate his own nature. He would not.

And still, and still, they fall together for those few, precious nights that she stays. Long have the Noldor in Beleriand forsaken the strict scriptures that relationships had once followed in Aman, and yet.

He does not tell her what it means—what it would have meant to him, once.

She, too, knows loyalty, ever fierce before her people, ever smart enough to talk circles around him into the deep of night. She never tires of him, or of how to prove him wrong, and they may only have days—short, precious days—but he knows that this would not change.

He knows it in the same way that he knows that she cannot stay. It would not be her, if she did.

He asks regardless, because he would never forgive himself if he did not. Knows the answer before he finishes the question.

Haleth leaves with the dawn, a brush of lips and a sharp smile, and Caranthir loves her all the more for it.

She grows old, for her kind. They see each other occasionally, in those almost, almost peaceful years.

He never asks again. She never does either. And yet, she takes no husband, leaves no heir.

And yet, when she dies, Caranthir is ready to uproot the very fabric of Arda, of anything that dared to ordain the fate of Men to be so.

He understands his grandfather better than ever before. Understands him less than ever he thought possible.

The Dagor Bragollach

In a way, the fire feels like retribution. Like an inevitable conclusion, like the only possible ending point to the weight on his shoulders.

It is not, it cannot be. Unlike some of his brothers, he may not think the Oath an inescapable power of its own—no contract that does not have a loophole if one is only clever enough to find it—but it is not nothing, either.

It is a promise, if nothing else. And Caranthir may be many things, but a traitor has never yet been one of them.

The flames drive him south, and Caranthir is grateful for it. In a way, the cold indifference of the Ambarussa is easier to bear than spreading out his failures for Maedhros to pick apart. Easier than Maglor’s pity, his concern, than bearing it all within Himring’s walls.

And truly, the twins are not so much indifferent as rightfully distant. It is a kinder attitude than anything Caranthir could have mustered, had his own brothers almost burnt him to death.

He strengthens their forces with what is left of his own. He makes himself useful.

He thinks of his fortress, the clear mountain lake. The library, small and dusty, with high windows letting in little sunlight.

He thinks of home, and then he takes the thought and puts it away.

No use, Finwë used to say, tugging at Caranthir’s braids with a knowing smile, shedding tears about the past, or the futures you did not choose. Remember it well.

The Nirnaeth Arnoediad

Caranthir works. He functions. It is what he does.

He builds new alliances. Tries to restore old ones. When Maedhros calls for his Union, he hearkens.

He goes over strategy with Maedhros and Fingon endlessly. Establishes supply lines. Negotiates with the Dwarves, deals with the Men. Does not think of Haleth and her fierce loyalty, how much he wishes it were her at his side now, standing firm as the waves crash over them.  

Caranthir knows what hinges on the outcome of this. Knows it on the grand scale—Morgoth gaining strength, their own people breaking into smaller factions, growing weaker.

Knows it in terms of their family—Celegorm and Curufin, barely constrained from their madness anymore. Maedhros, unfaltering in the north but ever short on hope since he returned, and whatever he can muster ever tied inextricably to Fingon—a disaster waiting to ensnare them all.

The chances of victory grow thinner with each year of their idleness; Caranthir would never admit so out loud, but Fingolfin, in years past, had been right to be concerned.

So, this—it is all or nothing. Caranthir knows this.

He does everything, everything he can to make sure that it will not end in cataclysm.

He does not see Uldor’s betrayal coming.

He should have; looking back on it, he should have.

But he did not—only sees Maglor leaping, with fury twisting his fair features, and skewering the Man with one well-aimed blow before he ever gets close to Maedhros.

Caranthir thought he knew what failure felt like, after Finwë, Haleth, after Thargelion went up in flames. As they leave the heaving, shaking mess of a battlefield behind them, the forest swallowing them whole, he knows that it had been nothing compared to what awaits them.

There is nothing more to work for, no need to function.

Maedhros does not see any of them but Maglor. Maglor looks at nothing but him.

Caranthir knows he deserves this, in a twisted sense. He should have paid more attention; he should have known, should have—

He pulls away from the others as much as he can. Watches, silent, as Celegorm and Curufin whisper among themselves. As Maedhros lets them, hollow-eyed and silent, at last. As Amras bears their presence, and Amrod does not, whenever he can help it.

We are hurling towards our doom, if we do not do something—anything, Caranthir wants to say, some nights. Wants to shout it, snarl at their inaction, invoke their Oath if only it rattled them out of their inaction.

He no longer trusts himself to. Finwë had ever said that one was never quite done learning lessons, in life; Caranthir thinks that this cannot possibly be what he meant.

Prelude to Doriath

When Celegorm calls them together, Caranthir knows it is a terrible idea.

And yet.

They need a plan. They need a chance, a splinter, only, of hope; anything to hold onto, anything at all. If there is anything left worth dying for, then Caranthir thinks it would be this.

If only they can win this one fight, carry away the Silmaril, if only—

It may not fix everything, but it may stop Maedhros from looking like he will wander off one day and not return. Will make Maglor forgive Caranthir, if not for all of his failures, perhaps for a fraction of them.

He knows it is a terrible idea; knows, deep in his bones, that the dread breathing down his spine is a warning.

And yet, and yet. 

Celegorm calls, much like Maedhros had, not too long ago.

And so, Caranthir answers.

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