here we go again by lonelyvisitor  

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it's a rich man's world

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No matter. The wedding feast began tonight, and Orodreth had an inexhaustible task-list spooling ahead of him; as bridegroom he knew his son had his own, if of a nature more emotional than logistical. So having dispatched his daughter to deal with the candles, the innkeeper of Ellairë resolved to confront his linens-crisis.

As he was making haste down the hill to Sildis’s laundry, counting the copper coins in his pockets as he went, he found his path obstructed. This was not uncommon on the island, for flocks of roving goats had made their home here far longer than any elves—yet in Orodreth’s present case the obstacle was two approaching travelers, both lavishly attired and wearing shaded spectacles.

One was small and dark, the other tall and fair.

“Returned from the Doomsman’s Halls, by popular demand.” The blonde spoke with premeditated choreography and pointed to his fellow. “He’s the brains.”

“I am,” said the black-haired one. “Ow! Don’t kick me.”

“Say the bit, Curvo.”

“Fine. ‘And he’s the brawn.’ Hello, Artaresto. Missed us?”

“Oh no.” Orodreth began an uphill retreat as hasty as his approach. “Absolutely not. I expelled you from my kingdom, from my life, it cannot, it must not be—”

“Come now, coz.” Stealthy Celegorm had contrived to stand in his way again, and he was broad as he was tall. “We wouldn’t miss the event of the season.”

“You were not invited! Moreover, you are dead.” Orodreth’s glance twitched between his two cousins. “Or you were, lately. And you would have been even less invited, had I known that Mandos spat you out.”

“And history deems us the cruel ones!” With a flourish Curufin removed his spectacles, leaving them to hang from the delicate beryl chain around his neck, all of a piece with his sparkling earrings—Orodreth was feeling positively dingy in his tarnished silver. “Come now, ‘Resto. We’re here to make it up to you.”

“Make it up to me?” Orodreth found his voice on the edge of hysterical laughter, and so drew upon outrage to steady himself as he stormed again in the direction of the local laundress. “You are aware that tomorrow at daybreak my son weds a descendant of Lúthien, upon whose line your kin and you personally have brought gravest insult and injury—that his lady mother has cause enough already to undermine my hostmanship?” Oh, he’d suffered much discourse with Elwing about how many pelicans would be involved in the proceedings. “And that’s before my Aunt Galadriel gets word, forever-unfriend of your father—”

“Yes, yes, kinslaying, and neither love nor mercy.” Curufin clasped together craftsman’s hands in ring-bedazzled piety. “We’ve repented of it, darling.”

Indeed their presence on Ellairë, beyond doom and death, seemed to speak of this. Orodreth recalled his own foggy centuries of contemplation in the Halls—yet in doing so became more convinced that the brothers Fëanárion had somehow found a loophole.

“No one is going to believe you!” he hissed as the fiends followed him into a billowing fortress of brightly-colored cloth, Sildis’s wares hung out to dry. He knew anyone who saw Celegorm and Curufin had set foot on the island would be of like mind: “They’ll probably think you’re here to steal the Silmaril from the bridal diadem.”

Orodreth immediately regretted saying this, and that anyone had ever hinted to him what Elrond’s wedding costume might entail. With dread he watched as a most curious look passed from Curufin’s mauve-grey eyes to Celegorm’s still shaded gaze. The elder brother only laughed.

“The Silmaril? That old thing! Can’t say I take any interest. I’ve returned to life to hunt the hart and hare, not hallowed jewels. Nor my fellow elf.”

He spoke humbly, yet Orodreth noticed how his eyeteeth were filed to points, as they had been from the Years of the Trees to the first of the Sun—a quite deliberate cosmetic intervention, if Celegorm had indeed been reembodied in unfangéd form.

“Then why,” Orodreth grit his own jaw, pushing forward through silks and sheets, “are you here crashing my son’s wedding?”

In the vigor of emphasis he’d taken down a kimono and two tablecloths. When Orodreth emerged from this freshly-laundered cavern, old Sildis stood before him with arms crossed, a flock of inquisitive employees paused behind her at the creekside amid the tubs and washbins.

“You’re three moons behind on your bill, Angarátion.”

“Please.” In the confusion of textiles, Orodreth searched himself for copper. “Half my beds are bare, I’ll pay you back next week—”

Yet Curufin was already dropping silver coins into the lady’s palm.

“Does that settle it? Very well. We’ll take whatever our good cousin needs.” He made a nonchalant shrug at Orodreth’s stare, as various bales of linens assembled for their benefit. “It’s just as I said! We’re here to make things right. Think of it as a wedding gift for your son. We’ve been dying to meet him.”

Curufin smiled at the joke, assuming it was self-evident. Orodreth stood bemused, wondering how it was that one so recently emerged from the underworld could be thus endowed. But then Curvo had always been prudent, financially speaking, not unlike Uncle Finrod—one of many passions the two of them had shared. Whereas the last king of Nargothrond never seemed to see dividends from his investments and inheritances, be they inhabitable cave- systems or ramshackle country inns.

In the midst of Orodreth’s fretting, Celegorm had draped a languid bicep over his shoulder. “And after all,” he purred—as his brother came in step with them, securing his purse to his belt, “why shouldn’t two of your oldest friends be at your side at this most joyous occasion?”

Orodreth recalled similarly sweet words being bandied about as he’d clutched white- knuckled at the gilded arms of Finrod’s throne.

And then he saw the carts of spotless sheets and tablecloths, napkins and towels and lacey draperies. He wondered if Elwing wouldn’t be more open-minded after sleeping in a freshly- made bed, instead of that nest she’d been keeping in the eaves.

###

Down at the docks, meanwhile, Gil-galad rushed toward a newly tethered sailboat of clear Arafinwëan provenance—like the bird-born missive that had summoned him again to the harbor, it bore the seal of twined snakes.

He watched anxiously as three figures emerged from the hold. One was fair-haired, one dark threaded with gold, one vaguely reddish—one of them was his birth father!

And I haven’t the faintest idea who! Gil-galad thought. Giddy as an elfling, he came bounding down the planks, which swayed under his enthusiasm; and though the first man he came upon seemed the athletic type, capable of holding his balance, at the moment he seemed quite unsettled.

“Hail to the High King,” said Fingon, a customary greeting to all who had held the position. Yet by the look on his face it seemed he had not determined whether to speak in a joking or an over-formal manner before opening his mouth. In spite of the rumors that tied them they were not well-acquainted, and his words betrayed a brimming nervousness sprung from the awkward fact.

Gil-galad grinned, and bowed in what he hoped was a soothing manner. “Hail yourself!”

“Artanáro!” Now Finrod approached with open arms, and kissed him thrice—cheek, lips, cheek—in the Telerin fashion. “My favorite nephew.”

“Don’t say that to my father!”

Fingon furiously blinked at this demonstration of familiarity while Celebrimbor came loping forward, brushing windswept auburn locks off his face.

“Finellach,” he laughed, with eyes that crinkled like warm embers.

“Uncle Tyelpe!” Gil-galad clasped his arm. “Good to see you in one piece, old man, and me unscorched!”

“Well!” said Finrod, in a tone of gracious abstention from remarking that he was the only true uncle present—a great one, no less. “It took your father long enough to extend the invitation, but here we are, before the happy day. Where is Orodreth? I’ve got twelve dozen oysters, and I know he always runs out of ice...”

“Orodreth.” Gil-galad now drew back, and smiled disarmingly as he mused aloud. “That’s the thing—he can’t quite know you’re here yet.”

In truth he hadn’t thought this far into his plan. His father would no doubt be alarmed to see three more potential fathers added to the guestlist. Gil-galad knew he’d find the time and place to reveal this information in a sensitive and controlled manner, but in the short term he needed a ruse.

Then he spied a quantity of abandoned barrels at the edge of the dock—perhaps they had lately housed smelt or seabreams.

Gil-galad turned again to his potential fathers, voice redolent with flattery. “I suppose you’re all very limber, aren’t you?”

###

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Chapter End Notes

Artaresto is Orodreth's Quenya name. Artanáro is Gil-galad's. Angaráto is Angrod's (hence Angarátion).

Finnellach is yet another Gil-galad epithet meaning 'flame of hair and eye.'