The Day Transcending Night by StarSpray  

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Ten

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“Uncle—Tyelko—wait!”

Celegorm halted and turned. He hadn’t expected Celebrimbor to follow him. “Tyelpë—”

“You can’t just—” Celebrimbor stumbled, still weak and unsteady on his feet. Celegorm caught him, and found himself trapped in a surprisingly fierce embrace, even though it had to hurt Celebrimbor to do it. “Don’t just leave. Please.”

“I’m sorry.” Celegorm wrapped his arms around his nephew, careful of the still-healing scars. “I’m so sorry, Tyelpë.”

“I missed you,” Celebrimbor whispered. “If I’d known—”

“You couldn’t have known. I didn’t know.”

“But if I had, I would’ve looked for you. I looked for Maglor.” 

It had only been a minute or so, but Celebrimbor was already shivering—and he was barefoot. “Come on,” Celegorm said, gently turning him around so they could go inside. “It’s too cold to do this out here.”

“You came out here—”

“I was going to the stable. It’s warm in there, but the house is closer. Come on.” Celegorm ignored everyone else as he ushered Celebrimbor back inside and into the bedroom, where he bundled him into bed, trying and failing not to think about how he’d done this countless times when the twins had been younger. Or when Celebrimbor himself had been young and prone to sneaking out of bed to spy on the adults, back in those Treelit days and nights when there wasn’t anything they really needed to worry about him overhearing, so Celegorm had always pretended not to notice until he’d started falling asleep in his hiding place behind the sofa, and then either he or Curufin would scoop him up and carry him back to his bed, filled to overflowing with stuffed toys—bears had been his favorite, but there had been dogs and rabbits too; and for a while, because Caranthir had thought himself funny, an enormous stuffed lizard.

There were no such soft toys to be found here, and Celebrimbor was too big to carry like that now, of course. He had the broad shoulders of a smith, though he’d lost a lot of his strength and much muscle and fat over the weeks he’d spent as Sauron’s prisoner as his body did what it had to to stay alive, and then afterward as his appetite did not come back and he only slowly healed. At least, Celegorm hoped it was only weeks, and not months. He didn’t want to ask, was only grateful that it wasn’t years. The shadows in Celebrimbor’s eyes were still too much like those in Maedhros’. Maedhros had, in time, regained his strength and then some—he had been full of fire then, still young and not yet weighed down by centuries of war and worse—but he had never been the same. As for Celebrimbor—there was yet hope for him, but it looked to Celegorm as though Sauron had taken blades to his spirit as well as his body, and he didn’t know how to help. He hadn’t known how to help Maedhros, either—Maedhros who had recovered in body but never in spirit. Not really. There had been glimpses of the old Maitimo, sometimes, but they had been rare and had only gotten rarer, until after the disaster of the Nirnaeth there was nothing left but the Oath—and then, when that was over, it seemed there was nothing left at all. 

“What happened to you?” Celebrimbor asked. He sat with an arm around his knees, and reached out to touch the scars on Celegorm’s face, the same way Maglor had. Before finding Maglor on the beach Celegorm had hardly ever thought about them—had hardly thought of the fact that he was blind on that side, had just gotten used to not being able to see on his left, and relying on one of the twins or Daeron to make up for it, because he hadn’t really remembered what it was like to be able to see. He was weaker on that side in general, which had borne the brunt of the cave-in and the fight with Dior, but it had been a long time since he’d really felt it as weakness. Now he was all too aware of what the scars looked like, how they would appear to someone who had last seen him without them. And what that weakness would mean in the months and years to come.

“Menegroth caved in,” he said. “I got out, barely. I don’t remember how, and only know that an Ent found me in the snow afterward because Daeron told me. And—Dior laid some kind of curse on me. I woke up in Ossiriand not knowing who I was.”

“Maglor told me,” said Celebrimbor, “that you didn’t remember anything. But you remember now.”

“I only remembered a few weeks before Eluréd and Elurín brought you out of Ost-in-Edhil. If I’d remembered earlier—I’m so sorry, bear-cub. I should’ve been there.”

Celebrimbor blinked at the ancient nickname, and then leaned forward to hide his face in Celegorm’s chest. “I was almost certain before, but now I know this is real,” he sighed. “I haven’t thought of that name in—I can’t remember how long. There’s no way he could’ve…”

“Maglor didn’t think I was real at first either—and you have much more reason to question everything.”

“I’m glad you weren’t there,” Celebrimbor said, voice muffled. His hands fisted in Celegorm’s shirt. “I’m—you wouldn’t have—you would’ve died. He would’ve killed you and it would have been horrible.”

“I should have been there,” Celegorm said. “I should’ve done a lot of things. But I’m here now.”

“He’s going to be looking for me. If he finds you—”

“We’ve faced him before and gotten away.”

“You don’t understand. He’s so much stronger now—” Celebrimbor’s breath hitched. “And he—he hates me and he hates Elrond, and he’ll hate Elurín and Eluréd even more—”

“Yes, well, the feeling’s mutual. But he can’t find us now.” Celegorm gently pushed Celebrimbor back onto the pillows. “You should sleep, Tyelpë. You need all the rest you can get.”

“Please stay,” Celebrimbor whispered, grabbing his hand. “Please.”

“I’ll stay. I promise.” Celegorm climbed into the bed and slipped under the blankets. Even those few minutes out in the cold had seemed to sink under Celebrimbor’s skin, leaving him shivering long after they came back inside. “I love you, Tyelpë. Go to sleep. I promise, you’re safe.”

Celebrimbor fell into a fitful sleep. Celegorm lay awake, stroking his hair and listening to Daeron and Maglor play quiet music, only slightly muffled through the bedroom door. He didn’t move when Maglor came in, not until Maglor slipped under the blankets on Celebrimbor’s other side, so he was tucked between the two of them. They didn’t speak. Celegorm just reached over to grasp Maglor’s hand. He wasn’t sure when sleep took him after that. 

He woke early, and left Celebrimbor and Maglor still deeply asleep. Elurín came inside as he was restarting the fire, but he didn’t say anything. At one time Celegorm would have known whether Elurín wanted someone to chase after him or if he just needed time to himself before he was ready to speak of what troubled him. He didn’t know what to do now—not when he was the cause. So he said nothing and hoped that he was doing right, and tried to ignore the way that Eluréd sighed at both of them. 

He went out to get some fresh air, hoping it would do something to banish the dull ache in his head that had persisted on and off since the beach, and to splash his face with the frigid water in the stream—and came back inside to hear talk of Galadriel. To talk of her was to talk of Nargothrond, and he was not ready for that—least of all with Celebrimbor or the twins. So he escaped back into the now-empty bedroom where no one would see if he sat bent over for a few minutes with his head between his legs, until he felt like he could breathe again and get properly ready for the day.

As Celegorm twisted his hair into a proper braid—no reason to hide his face anymore—Daeron slipped into the bedroom, shutting the door softly behind him. He opened his mouth, and then hesitated. “What do you want me to call you?” he asked finally. “I’m tired of worrying that I’ll start a fight before I can even say what I want, just by addressing you.”

Celegorm wanted, more than anything, to hear Daeron call him Lossë—laughing or exasperated or worried but always fond. He wanted to somehow be himself, Maglor’s brother and Celebrimbor’s uncle, and also Lossenol who knew almost nothing of the terrible things in his past. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t…it feels wrong, when you call me my real name. But—”

“Lossenol is as real as Celegorm or Tyelkormo,” Daeron said quietly. “Many people are given an epessë, or several, in their lives. Do you remember what I said of names, then?”

“They are not to be given lightly. I know. I know it wasn’t. I just—” He didn’t deserve it. He never had.

“You have still been yourself, all this time,” Daeron said. “Even if you answered to a different name. I’m sorry that I lied to you. When all of this is over, if you can’t forgive me, if you want—if you wish to part ways, I won’t argue. But we need to work together until at least we can reach Lórinand.”

The thought of parting from Daeron felt like another twisting of the knife in his chest. “Call me whatever you want,” he said finally, not looking at Daeron as he tied off his braid. “And—when this is over, whatever the songbirds want to do, I’ll do it.”

“None of us want to part,” Daeron said. 

“I think Elurín would disagree.”

“Give him time. You know he struggles with some things more than Eluréd.”

“He shouldn’t have to struggle with this. I deserve—”

“He doesn’t,” Daeron said. “He needs you, and he knows that he needs you. What happened between Doriath and now has not been rendered meaningless just because you remember what happened before.”

“It’s not meaningless but it’s tainted,” Celegorm said. “You don’t—to evil end shall come all things that we do—and I am cursed twice over—”

“Ossë lifted Dior’s curse. Unless you mean the Oath, but that is over too.”

“Is the Doom? Is my doom?”

“I don’t care what the Doomsman might have to say about it,” Daeron said, in a tone very similar to the one he’d used when he declared that he was going to swear a binding oath just to get Celegorm to listen to him. “But we have not come to the end yet, and I will not allow it to end as you fear—if it must end. I don’t want this life we’ve made together to end, Lossë.”

“What happens when it’s time for you to leave?” Celegorm asked. “To sail west? I can’t go with you. The Valar won’t allow it.”

“I won’t go without you,” Daeron said. “I don’t care how long it takes.”

“That’s—but what about your family? What about Menelas, or Nellas, or—”

“They’re safe. I think they will be happy, when they return from the Halls. I hope that Nellas has already found happiness. If I take ship and leave you behind I will not have that same assurance, and I can’t live with that. If a parting is truly what you want, and not what you think I should want, then I won’t argue. But if you are just going to use me to punish yourself for deeds long since past, then I will argue—I’ll argue until the end of time.”

Celegorm glanced over at him and then quickly away, unable to bear being on the receiving end of such a look. There wasn’t really a good word for what lay between them, him and Daeron, no good way to describe it except as the most precious gift Celegorm had ever been given. They weren’t brothers but they weren’t not brothers, and Celegorm wasn’t in love with him but he wasn’t not in love with him. The last time he’d felt anything even remotely as strongly for another person had been very different, and—

“Someone else loved me once, I think,” he heard himself say, “and all it brought him was darkness and death.”

“When you were Oath-bound?”

“Oath-bound and doomed—I have been doomed since the moment I drew my first—since I drew my sword in Tirion to swear that oath, and—there’s no reason to believe that has changed, whatever you think of the Doomsman.”

“I don’t agree.” Daeron crossed the room and took Celegorm’s face in his hands, as he had on the hilltop the night before. “Lúthien stared inevitability in the face and made it change, and I think her son did the same.”

“He meant to wound, Daeron. Death was too easy for me, he said.”

“And he has wounded you,” Daeron said, very softly. “I can see it. But wounds can heal, even if it’s slow—and in changing your fate he set the stage for more. Your survival saved my life—and it saved Eluréd and Elurín’s, and in their turn they have saved Celebrimbor, and who knows what his survival will mean?”

Celegorm sighed, and leaned forward until his forehead met Daeron’s. “Ossë—let us change the words to this verse of the Song, he said. I don’t think he meant to be any kinder than Dior.”

“I do not think Ossë is either kind or cruel,” said Daeron.

“I deserve cruelty more than kindness,” Celegorm whispered.

“No you don’t. And you won’t get it. Not from me.”

He wanted to believe that. He knew that he should believe that—but even after the night before, doubt lingered. Daeron would do what he thought he had to, to keep them all safe. Including lie. And he couldn’t forget what that lie had cost Maedhros—if he’d known the truth he could have gone after them, he would have gone after them, would have done whatever he had to do to stop Maedhros from casting himself into the fires of the earth after the Silmaril. And as for himself— “You know what I’ve done, Daeron. What I’m capable of.”

“Yes, I do, the good and the bad—and I’m still here.” Daeron stepped back. “Talk to Elurín, Lossë.”

“I have talked to him.”

“Keep doing it, then. Don’t make him think you’ve given up on him.”

Celegorm had meant to go hunting that day. They had good stores set aside for the winter—plenty even with two extra people added to the household, since Eluréd had gone to Edhellond—but he needed to be out in the woods, doing something more useful than just sitting around making his nephew and the twins uncomfortable. When Daeron left he finished dressing. When he emerged to find his bow, he found Maglor waiting for him. “Is everything all right between you and Daeron?” he asked. 

“Better than it should be,” Celegorm said. 

Maglor frowned at him. “What does that mean?”

“Just—nothing. We’re fine.”

“Tyelko—”

“It’s fine, Cáno.” Celegorm reached for him, and Maglor wrapped him up in a tight hug. He couldn’t believe that he’d ever taken this for granted—having his brother right there. “I told you, I didn’t want to drag you into my mess.”

“Tyelko, I’m just glad that you’re here to have messes to drag me into. Where are you going?”

“Just to see if I can bring back something fresh for dinner. I won’t be gone long. Won’t even leave Daeron’s Girdle.”

“Do you have to?”

“You,” Celegorm said, feeling Maglor’s ribs through the shirt under his hands, “are too thin. Yes, I have to.”

“I’m fine—”

“You aren’t.” He drew back to look at Maglor’s face—too gaunt, still with dark circles under his eyes. He wore the new clothes that Eluréd had gotten for him and they hung too loosely on him; he’d always been more slender than Celegorm, but this was different. He wasn’t so thin as to be truly alarming, but it was still painfully obvious that he had been going without a lot of things for a very long time. He kept running his fingers over the fabric of his shirt as though continually surprised by its softness. But more than that it was the way he both flinched away from and leaned into every single touch he received, the way he seemed startled whenever Daeron smiled at him, the way he held himself apart, unable to even pretend to be entirely at ease much of the time; the way he couldn’t really look either Eluréd or Elurín in the face. Celegorm wanted to ask when the last time was that he had gone among other people, but was afraid of the answer. “I’ll be back soon,” he said. “A few hours at most. I promise.”

“You don’t have to promise,” Maglor said. “Just be careful.”

Celegorm kissed his forehead. “Keep an eye on Tyelpë for me.”

“Is all well between you and Tyelpë?”

“I think so. For now. He’s…” Celegorm hesitated. They hadn’t yet spoken of their other brothers, not really, and he didn’t think either of them were ready to. But it needed to be said. “He reminds me of Nelyo. At Mithrim.”

Maglor nodded. “Me too.”

“We should have been there.”

“Yes, we should have. But we’re here now, and—that won’t make up for our absence, but at least we won’t make it worse. And at least now…” He had his thumb pressed into his palm, nail digging into the scars. Celegorm grabbed his scarred hand, pulling it away. “We’re together,” Maglor said, very softly. “We’ll figure out the rest as it comes.”

“We will. We’re all going to be fine.” As he said it Daeron came back inside, and Celegorm glanced at him. “I was right last time I said it,” he said, “and I’m going to be right this time.”

Daeron smiled, though it didn’t really reach his eyes. “I hope so,” he said. 

The woods were quiet, but there was still plenty of game even though he didn’t venture far. He brought home several rabbits, and sat outside to skin and dress them. Elurín came out after a little while to take the furs. “Elurín,” Celegorm said. 

“Not yet,” Elurín said without looking at him. 

“I love you,” Celegorm said anyway. Elurín paused for just a second, but said nothing before disappearing around the house. 

Inside, Maglor and Daeron were talking music by the fire. Celebrimbor sat on the floor by Maglor, wrapped in a blanket and resting his head on his lap as he watched the flames. Maglor had a hand resting on his head. Celegorm thought he wasn’t really listening to the words, and just drawing comfort from their voices. Maglor was smiling, and sounded more like himself just then than Celegorm could remember hearing him since—well. Sometime before the Dagor Bragollach, probably. Eluréd was in the storeroom, and emerged as Celegorm set the meat on the table. “That will make good stew,” he said, keeping his voice low. “It might be easier for Celebrimbor to eat—he hasn’t been, really.”

Maedhros had had very little appetite after Angband, too. “Maglor needs to eat more too,” Celegorm said, trying to tell himself to stop thinking of Maedhros. “Is Elurín—”

“He’ll come around,” Eluréd said.

“Should I chase after him or let him come to me? I used to know, but now I can’t tell.”

Eluréd thought for a moment, as he brought out carrots to chop for the stew. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Let me speak to him tonight, but I think he needs a little more time.”

“I don’t want to put you in the middle—”

“I’m already in the middle, because I want to be. We can’t part again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame you for running off,” Eluréd said. “I think I would’ve too—and it’s clear to me that you were meant to find Maglor.”

“It was clear to you before that we needed to go to Lindon.”

“No, it was clear that we needed to go north, and going to Lindon just seemed like the safest course. Then Ossë got involved, and things changed. We’ve spoken of going north in the spring, but the more I think of it the less certain I am that we should. Celebrimbor is only slowly regaining his strength, and it’s only going to get worse in Eriador unless something changes drastically—and the Enemy holds the Gap. We’re all good at passing unseen, but they’ll be watchful now, and there’s nowhere to hide in between the mountains.”

“We’ll see what it looks like come spring,” said Celegorm. “I’ll go north as far as the Gap to see, when the time comes—just to look. And as far as we know the Enemy doesn’t know anything about me or Maglor—we have that advantage.” There wasn’t much he could offer except his skills in woodcraft and his aim with a bow, but Maglor was as mighty a singer as Daeron, and with the twins they would be a formidable force, even going against Sauron as strengthened as he was. 

He thought that Celebrimbor might know more of that than he could or would say. But he didn’t want to press him for answers—not when he still seemed so fragile. He’d been trying not to think about Curufin, either, about what he would say if he were there, but that was as impossible as trying not to think of Maedhros. But he was glad to see that Celebrimbor and the twins seemed to like one another. Whatever reason Eluréd and Elurín had for going to Ost-in-Edhil the way they did, at least they didn’t seem to regret it.

He wondered, then, what Finwë and Thingol thought of all that had happened and was happening—of all the ways their children had both hurt and helped one another, all the different layers of hate and love that existed between them. 

It occurred to him suddenly to wonder what his father must think of him. Of the way he’d abandoned his Oath—could the tapestries show that he’d forgotten it? Would someone tell him? Would he care? Celegorm didn’t think he would. He thought of his father’s snarling rage in the wake of Losgar, after Maedhros had stood aside, and imagined even worse directed toward him and—

“Lossë?”

“I’m fine.” It didn’t matter what Fëanor would think. He was dead, and Celegorm could never return to the west, so they would never meet again; and if Celegorm regretted not being there to stop Maedhros at the end, or to save Amrod and Amras in Sirion or Curufin and Caranthir in Doriath, he did not regret never getting his hands on a Silmaril. He didn’t want to care what his father would think. He wanted to hate him. Except that it had always mattered, his father’s approval and all the ways he’d known that he hadn’t ever really had it, and he didn't know even now how to let it go. “I’m just going to go wash up.”

He retreated back to the stream and after washing his hands until he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore he just sat and stared at the water. Thinking of his father inevitably led to thoughts of his mother. Who wasn’t dead. Who had no idea, most likely, what had really happened to him, or to Maglor, who would only hear rumors of Celebrimbor as ships escaped into the west, who might never learn the whole truth if Sauron managed to overrun the world, succeeding where Morgoth had failed. 

“Tyelko?” Maglor came to kneel beside him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you often cry over nothing?”

Oh. He wiped his sleeve over his face. “What do you think Ammë would say if she could see us now?”

Maglor sighed, and then wrapped his arms very carefully around Celegorm’s shoulders. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I miss her too.”