The Heart Finds its Morning by StarSpray  

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. 
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. 
- “On Friendship” by Kahlil Gibran 

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First Age 465
Nargothrond

A week after his father and uncle left Nargothrond, Celebrimbor was in his rooms, staring moodily at the hearth while twisting a piece of copper wire in his hands, forming and unforming various shapes—stars, flowers, birds. He itched under his skin, wanting to be doing something and unsure what he could do—what he would be allowed to do. Orodreth remained wary, and Celebrimbor did not blame him. They would have to speak sometime soon, and he both dreaded and was eager for it in equal measure. 

He sighed, and dropped his head back in his chair, staring at the shadows flickering over the ceiling. Nargothrond had been eerily quiet ever since Finrod had left, but it had gotten worse over the last few days. 

Then the door opened. Celebrimbor sat up—and blinked. Whoever he had expected, it was not his cousin Finduilas, who closed the door gently behind her and turned to him with a smile. “Hello, Cousin. Am I intruding?”

“No, of course not.” Celebrimbor rose to take her hand. “I’m always glad to see my favorite cousin—though I must question the wisdom of you coming to visit me, especially—”

“Oh, but that is why I have come.” Finduilas sat with him by the fire. “Well, my purpose is twofold—first, I have come to ask you to dine with my father and me tonight. It will be private, and away from listening ears and watching eyes we may all speak openly and frankly. He does hope you will choose to stay, you know.”

“He would be well within his rights to send me to Balar,” Celebrimbor said. 

“He won’t stop you if you decide to leave,” Finduilas said, “but he—and I—hope you won’t. And that brings me to my second purpose. Will you make something for me? I have been working with our healers, since those who escaped Tol Sirion came here, and I wish for something to—oh, I don’t know. Something to help me better comfort them.”

Ideas immediately began swirling through his mind. “I can make you something that will strengthen what you can already do,” he said after a moment, “or at least I think that I can.”

“Yes, that is what I would like. Thank you.” Finduilas rose and leaned over to kiss his cheek. Then she laughed. “Though perhaps I should have waited until after dinner tonight to ask you—I recognize that look in your eye.”

“I won’t forget,” he promised. And he didn’t. If the meal was a little awkward in the beginning, by the end of it he and Orodreth had come to an understanding. 

And a few weeks later he presented Finduilas with a brooch, wrought in a filigree of gold in the shape of a teardrop, to match the cut of the largest and most flawless sapphire he had been able to find, infused with Finduilas’ own songs, for healing and heart’s ease. “Oh, it’s lovely! Thank you so much, Cousin. I will treasure it.”

“It’s only the first try,” he told her. “I will make you a better one.”

And he did try—but disaster struck before he succeeded.

First Age 511
Balar

After Nargothrond fell it seemed like the rest of the world was following after in quick succession, all in just a handful of years. First Doriath—not to the Enemy but to Celebrimbor’s own family—and with that news came word of his father’s death. He had tried not to so much as think of his father after their bitter parting in Nargothrond, but the words there Curufin was slain had been like a sword plunged between his own ribs, and it had been all Celebrimbor could do to keep himself under control until he reached the privacy of his own quarters. 

Then Gondolin, fallen to balrogs and dragonfire, and Turgon slain there alongside nearly all of his lords. Celebrimbor did not hear of it immediately; he was not with Gil-galad when the Gondolindrim arrived at the Havens, having remained instead on Balar in the forges, making not weapons but jewels. It was autumn, the wind off of the Sea cold and salty as tears, and his thoughts were with Finduilas. So much so that when Gil-galad came into the forge, followed by another, Celebrimbor nearly dropped the mold in his hands, thinking for a moment that Finduilas herself had arrived on Balar, somehow alive in spite of all they had heard of her fate. 

But no—this woman was also golden-haired, but there the similarities ended. Finduilas had been slender and delicate and this woman was taller and sturdier, with grey-green eyes rather than soft blue. Hers was also a familiar face, however, though when last Celebrimbor had seen it they had both been so much younger, slipping away from their respective families to meet by the misty shores of Lake Mithrim. He’d hoped, then, that his friendship with Idril might do something to heal the feuds between their families, in the same way that Fingon’s rescue of Maedhros had, but he had not seen her again afterward, never getting a chance to visit Nevrast, or even to attend the Mereth Aderthad with his uncles. “Itarillë?” he gasped.

“Tyelpë!” Idril sprang across the room, and he did drop the mold then, to catch her. “Oh, I’ve missed you!” Across the room Gil-galad smiled and slipped away. 

There was much they each had to tell each other—of Gondolin, of Nargothrond and Himlad, of battles and friends and fallen fathers, and cousins the other would never get to meet. “I wish you had known Maeglin,” Idril admitted, late in the evening when they were both tired and out of tears. “If you had—well. Things might have been different. He might have been different.”

“I wish you had known Finduilas,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “You would have loved one another.”

“Her tale and mine are not so different, it sounds like—except that I have been far luckier. Will you come back to the mainland with me tomorrow? I want to introduce you to Tuor, and to my son.”

“Yes, of course.”

The next morning, on the boat that bore them from Balar to Sirion, Celebrimbor handed a brooch to Idril, silver wings set with an emerald. It was an improvement on the one he had made for Finduilas, though he still thought that someday he could do better—or he would, if time did not seem to be running out so swiftly for all of them. “For you, Cousin. I hope it helps you in all your endeavors.”

Fourth Age
The Gardens of Lórien

Returning to life was—well, Celebrimbor couldn’t say that it was not what he had expected, because he had not known what to expect. But it was strange. All of his senses were brand new and they seemed so much stronger than he remembered. Estë’s folk assured him that it would get easier, that it would not be so overwhelming for long. They said that he should take all the time in Lórien that he needed, to build up the strength of this new body, to get used to having a body again. It should not take long, they told him. The Eldar were not meant for death but for life, and his spirit should be eager to embrace it. 

He did not feel very eager. Even knowing that the One was destroyed and all the other rings rendered powerless—even knowing that Sauron was no more…

As he sat under an aspen tree, watching the leaves flutter and shiver in the breeze over his head, he breathed in deeply. Lórien smelled of flowers and of earth, of water and grass and growing and living things. There was the faint smell of decay, but it was the earthy scent of leaf mould, as last year’s leaves slowly mixed with the soil to nourish the roots underneath. Bees buzzed around him lazily, and a butterfly flitted past on jewel-bright wings. His hands lay on his lap, smooth-skinned and neither scarred nor calloused. There was nothing on or in this new body that showed what had become of the last one, and Celebrimbor could not decide whether he was grateful or not. 

Then a pair of voices reached him, and he turned his head in surprise. In Lórien, one did not meet other people unless it was desired or needed—and he neither wanted nor needed company. But when he looked down the path he found a pair of familiar figures coming up it, hand in hand—their golden hair braided with dandelions and cornflowers, both of them. “Tyelpë!” Idril cried as Finduilas called, “Celebrimbor!” They broke into a run, and he stumbled to his feet just as they joined him under the tree. He caught them, one in each arm, astonished to see them both there, both of them alive and bright and happy—happier than they had ever been in Middle-earth. 

He’d missed them both, his cousins and dear friends, all his previous life, and he had expected to continue to miss them—for Finduilas had been slain so cruelly, and Idril had been lost into the mists of the Sea. 

“How—what are you doing here?” he asked them when he could find his voice. 

“Estë called us,” said Idril, “to come welcome you home.”

“But I thought you were—”

“We found our way to these shores in the end, Tuor and I,” Idril said. 

“And Idril here to greet me when I returned,” added Finduilas, “and ever since, we have awaited you together.” 

Idril had a bundle of cloth in her arms, and now she unfurled it to reveal a cloak, Fëanorian red and embroidered with many small stars. When she set it around Celebrimbor’s shoulders Finduilas pressed a brooch into his hands—another star of gold and silver, set with dozens of small gems in blue and green that caught the sunbeams that filtered through the high canopy above and sparkled like tiny colorful stars. “We made this for you,” she said as he turned it over in his fingers, marveling at the sight of something so lovely—and made for no other purpose but joy and gladness. “Now come—let us go home, all together.”

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