The Unread Visions of a Higher Dream II: The Light Under the Mountain by Prackspoor  

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V.2

In which lost things are found, divided souls reunite, and things that have been broken come, at last, back together.

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*

Celebrimbor was so surprised that he almost fell over backwards and dropped Annatar. His breath hitched and he held his friend at arms length, not sure whether he had heard right or if his brain had finally started to break down after going nearly three days without sleep, leading a rescue expedition through destroyed mines, and facing down a Balrog.

“You are alive,” Celebrimbor breathed, and his grip around Annatar's chest tightened. He was afraid that if he let go of his friend, he would slip from his grasp and vanish again – for good this time.

Annatar looked back at him. At first his expression was tired and pained, but then a change went through him. Something disjointed about him seemed to pull itself together with great effort, mending some of the invisible cracks that could be felt everywhere about him, and slowly a wry smile worked itself over Annatar's face.

“Why of course I am,” he said. “And you are back down here, despite my efforts to make it possible for you to get out of the mines in the first place.”

Annatar's expression was a mixture of amusement and annoyance – like Celebrimbor had done something that was impossibly stupid in Annatar's opinion, but everything had worked out exactly in Celebrimbor's favour, and thus the Maia was unable to fault the elf for it.

Celebrimbor was so relieved to see him, to hear him talk – his voice slightly rough, but still with that familiar sardonic, nonchalant tone of his, as if nothing of note had happened, as if everything would be fine. He felt like his bones and joints had turned soft and he was unable to hold himself up for much longer.

“Why of course I am here,” he said, imitating Annatar's tone, and he couldn't help but smile, his mouth stretching so wide it was almost painful. “You didn't think I would leave you here, did you?”

“To be honest, I had hoped that you would be sensible enough not to come down here again, though I didn't really believe it,” Annatar said, letting go of Celebrimbor's shoulders. “As I said, I knew you would come back, no doubt against the counsel of many smart Dwarves who told you it would be suicide.”

Celebrimbor shrugged. “Actually, the Dwarves were in favour of doing it as well. I proposed that we would perhaps still save some of their sisters and brothers if we went back, and they agreed immediately. So a group of miners, warriors, and engineers came back down here with me, evacuated the survivors, killed the Balrog, and returned the survivors to the surface.”

Annatar looked at Celebrimbor, his mouth hanging slightly open, as if he wasn't sure whether the elf was taking him for a fool or not. “You did what?”

“Found the survivors, finished off the Balrog, and brought them to the elevators. The others wanted to leave then, because we couldn't find anyone else, but then I thought of you and although the ring wasn't able to find you I turned around and – ”

“Wait,” Annatar interrupted. “Which ring?”

Smiling, Celebrimbor held his hand up for Annatar to see. Aulë's Ring was gleaming on his fingers. Annatar stared at it incredulously. “I might have thrown together a concept for the prototype of a ring that was able to find the survivors down here in the mines, based on our most recent research back at home.”

Annatar looked as if he had momentarily forgotten how to form coherent sentences. “You – what.” He stared at the ring, then his eyes flickered back at Celebrimbor. “Are you – telling me you are wearing a prototype of a Ring of Power, even though –”

“It was quick work,” Celebrimbor said hastily. “Not at all as thorough and accurate as I might have liked, and given more time, I would probably have been able to work out more kinks, but … in the end it did what it was supposed to do.”

“I don't care about the ring!” Annatar said and suddenly he was sitting up straighter, grabbing Celebrimbor by the shoulders again. “Are you quite insane to try something like this without at least a dozen trial runs – and before working out the issues of the exponential demand of energy of self-enhancing powers, which come with any circular creation? As far as I know we were still working on solving that particular issue!”

“I didn't quite have time for that. I was on something of a time limit,” Celebrimbor replied evenly.

“You were – of course you were.” Annatar gave him an exasperated look, then gazed intently into Celebrimbor's eyes, as if he might see some damage behind them, if he only looked close enough. “But you are alright?” Annatar's eyes flicked to the ring as if it might go up in flames any moment and scorch both Celebrimbor and him from existence.

Celebrimbor grinned sheepishly. “I think it was feeding on me, but otherwise I'm fine.”

“It was doing what.”

“I wasn't able to figure out how to keep the demand for power chained to the source inside the ring while opening a channel for the information to feed back into me, so I think the ring might have been drawing from my own strength in order to work. The two-way transfer of power is something we'll have to keep in mind when we work on this in the future; it might become a problem if the rings are drawing their power from external sources – Annatar, is everything alright?”

“You are even more insane than I thought,” Annatar said, staring at him. “If recent events have made one thing abundantly clear, it is that you have no sense of self-preservation. At all.”

“It wasn't that hard,” Celebrimbor replied with a shrug.

“'It wasn't that –'” Annatar repeated, but then he interrupted himself. He ran one hand down his face, obviously struggling for some countenance. “Obviously it wasn't that hard. What could possibly be difficult or even dangerous about creating a ring that feeds off of your own strength, subsequently entering an inferno on the slim chance you might save a few Dwarves, as well as, oh, let me think, confronting a Balrog?” He rubbed at his temples, then looked up at Celebrimbor. “Remind me to never let you out of my sight ever again if there is even the slightest chance that you might encounter even moderate danger, Tyelperinquar.”

“Hey, it wasn't me who almost got himself killed here,” Celebrimbor retorted.

“I didn't almost get myself killed,” Annatar said with a snort. “You didn't think that one puny Valarauka would be enough to destroy me, did you?”

The grin dropped off Celebrimbor's face instantly. “I wasn't sure,” he said quietly. “I mean, I knew you were powerful, but that Balrog was one of Morgoth's own corrupted creatures, and –” Celebrimbor interrupted himself, then looked up and down Annatar's well and truly battered form. “Just look at yourself, ” he said quietly.

Annatar shifted where he was leaning against the stone. “I was only … resting.” He struggled to sit up a bit straighter, grimacing when he tried to push himself off a rock to his left. “I will admit that the beast gave nearly as good as it got, but there was never a danger of me dying, Tyelperinquar. I am fine.”

Celebrimbor could tell that Annatar was lying through his teeth, but this was not the moment to call him out on it. So instead of arguing when his friend tried to get to his feet, Celebrimbor grasped his arms and helped him stand.

To his surprise, Annatar accepted his help without complaint and let himself be pulled up. When both of them were standing, Celebrimbor looked his friend over. Annatar might have fooled any other observer with his deliberate show of nonchalance, but Celebrimbor knew his friend better than that. The differences were so minute that they were almost unnoticeable, but in the dim gloom of the glowing puddle of what had once been the drill Celebrimbor saw how Annatar moved infinitesimally slower than usual, how he carefully shifted his weight onto his left leg, how his features briefly wanted to twist into something before the Maia schooled them back into a blank expression of carefully crafted equanimity.

“Can you walk?” Celebrimbor asked, his hands hovering near Annatar's shoulders just in case.

Annatar snorted and straightened up to his full height. “By now you should know that the operative word for me is not 'can', but 'want'. The latter necessarily induces the former, so they are all but equivalents to me. As for your question, though …” He threw a distasteful glare at his destroyed surroundings. “Yes, I very much want to get out of here and back into civilized society, if you don't mind.”

Celebrimbor nodded. “Yes. Let's get out of here.”

 

***

Slowly, they made their way back to the elevators. The mines were silent, and they felt entirely empty now. As they picked their way between fallen boulders and rogue fires, Annatar let his eyes wander over the charred remains of Dwarves that littered their way.

Celebrimbor followed his gaze, and for the first time took in the sheer number of corpses around him – forever destined to lie here in their final resting place, until their bodies turned to dust.

“So many,” Celebrimbor said and stopped. “So many that we couldn't save.”

Annatar's expression was strange. “Yes,” he said. Then he looked at Celebrimbor. “But don't you dare blame yourself for this, Tyelperinquar. It was too late for them the moment the Balrog appeared. You had already gone above and beyond the call of duty when you decided to come back down here – against all common sense, I might add – and try to rescue those who had survived.”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said. “But still.”

Annatar didn't reply to this. He didn't agree, but he also didn't argue the point, and for that Celebrimbor was grateful.

“Maybe we can get them out as well,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “When the survivors have been cared for. They deserve a proper burial.”

Annatar nodded slowly. “That they do.” He gave Celebrimbor a few more moments before reaching out and giving his sleeve a gentle tug. “First of all, though, we have to get out of here. Come on.”

 

When they made it back to the elevator cages, the Dwarves were gone. However, they found Hardin's horn leaning against the wall: someone must have left it here in case Celebrimbor came back.

Celebrimbor took the horn in his hands and blew it three times. It took a while for the elevator cage to come rattling down, and even longer until the winch had pulled it up, but Celebrimbor was just glad that there was someone still operating it all in the first place. He couldn't have faulted the Dwarves if they had just left the elevators unattended after Celebrimbor had run off like a madman, barreling towards what might well have been his death by a misstep in the dark, or an encounter with one of the dark creatures that haunted the mines.

Someone seemed to have believed, or at least hoped, that he would return, and Celebrimbor was grateful for that.

It took a long time until the elevator reached the ground level of Khazad-Dûm and they emerged out of the dim shaft into the glare of hundreds of lantern stones. After so long in the darkness of Habbad-Dûm, Celebrimbor had to shield his eyes at first.

When Celebrimbor and Annatar stepped from the cage together, the eyes of the Dwarves operating the elevators bulged with shock and surprise. However, this was in no way equal to the reaction that they got when Celebrimbor and Annatar entered into the throne room side by side, walking in on what must have been a crisis meeting of the assembled nobles of Khazad-Dûm, together with their staff and servants and scribes. The room was chock-full of Dwarves and echoing with the sound of them shouting orders over each other, each one trying to make themselves heard.

The moment the great doors opened, however, every head in the room turned in their direction, and all at once, every eye was on them. The room was so silent one could have heard a pin drop. Celebrimbor could see Fundin, who was standing next to the throne at the far end of the hall, looking over to where he and Annatar stood, and the moment he saw them Fundin froze. His hand fell open in his shock, dropping his pen to the ground.

Celebrimbor scratched his head. “Well, ah. We're a bit late, it seems.” He let his eyes wander over the tapestries on the walls to try and avoid the hundreds of stares directed at the two of them. “But we're back.”

 

***

It took several more hours before Celebrimbor and Annatar were allowed to leave. Apparently, the aftermath of a catastrophe brought a lot more work with it than the incident itself. Celebrimbor was brought to a table covered in maps and lists of names, and asked to corroborate the statements made by those Dwarves who had returned earlier. He was also required to describe the incidents in the mines once more, then the rescue mission itself, including the number of survivors and those they had identified as dead.

Celebrimbor watched Branka, who was also standing by the table to the right of Harko Bristlebeard, as he recounted all this. However, the Dwarven woman didn't challenge any of his points, which seemed to confirm to both Harko and Durin that his accounts were sound and lined up with the statements of the other members of the rescue team. Harko Bristlebeard was silent as well. He eyed Celebrimbor for a long time, but mentioned neither the Balrog nor the rescue mission with even a single word. Suddenly Celebrimbor remembered Harko's son, who had apparently been down in the mines as well. Had they found him? Had he been among the identified corpses or would he forever be lost, burnt to the point of being unrecognizable or fallen into darkness? Celebrimbor had no idea. At the time he hadn't even given it a single thought, and he dared not ask now.

Following Celebrimbor, Annatar was asked to describe the emergence of the Balrog and his own battle with it. No one ordered him to do anything, though. Quite the contrary: every Dwarf kept a respectful, almost awestruck distance from the Maia, even while crowding around him to hear everything he had to say. Even his battered appearance did nothing to detract from his awe-inspiring aura – quite the contrary, this seemed to enhance it even further. Even Velech Blackhammer did nothing more than glower at Annatar.

Annatar tried his best to answer the Dwarves’ many inquiries, but Celebrimbor could tell that his patience was running out. His answers were short and grew ever more clipped the longer the questioning went on. Annatar confirmed that he had felt the Balrog coming, even if he had recognized the threat for what it was too late. Despite the lords and ladies repeatedly asking for it, he could not be moved to describe the fight itself in any detail – suffice it to say, Annatar said curtly, that he had managed to wound it severely enough that Floki had been able to deal the killing blow later on.

After that, the talk was mostly of logistics. Whether the miners deemed Habbad-Dûm worth salvaging, or whether the lowest level should just be closed up so as not to disturb the peace of the Dwarves who had died there. At this point Floki, Harko, and Duma all spoke up and suggested moving the corpses back up and into the Halls of Waiting, so that the dead might find a proper resting place among their own kin.

Celebrimbor was leaning back in a chair that someone had thankfully provided him with, glad that he was relegated to a mere spectator and didn't have to talk for once. Stars, he was tired. He hadn't noticed it before, but now that the mad venture was over, now that everything was done, the exhaustion that he had put off again and again and again crashed down on him with a vengeance. He closed his eyes and let the sound of voices around him turn to a muddled din, comforting in the background.

After a while, he opened his eyes again. Annatar was standing next to his chair, one hand lying on the backrest next to Celebrimbor's head. His attention was on the group of Dwarves gathered around the table in front of them, who were currently discussing whether the Doors of Durin could be reopened and when.

Celebrimbor looked him up and down.

Annatar was standing ramrod-straight, his attention was fixed on the Dwarves. And yet, for all that he was acting like he was well, Celebrimbor had never seen his Maiarin friend look so – so wrong. He hadn't noticed it as strongly in the dimness of the tunnels and he hadn't paid attention to it as long as there had been more urgent things on his mind – he had found Annatar, wounded but alive, and that was all that had mattered. Now however, in the bright lights of the lamps of the throne room and with the time to regard his friend properly for the first time ever since they had been separated from each other, Celebrimbor noticed for the first time just how battered Annatar really looked.

Usually, Annatar kept an impeccable appearance that could not be tainted by water or ashes, dirt or rain. His surroundings only ever seemed to touch him as far as he allowed them to. As a result, his appearance was always radiant and clean, his white robes always pristine and stainless. Right now, though, the damage Annatar that had taken became glaringly obvious. His golden hair had been turned ash-blond by dirt, soot, and fire, the locks tangled and singed in places. His face was covered with burn marks, cuts, and bruises. The skin over his left eyebrow had been split, as if a claw had slashed him there, and his cheeks were grey. His robes were burnt and torn in places, the white fabric turned black by ashes and singes. His knuckles were skinned and red, as if he had hit his fists very hard against something.

Celebrimbor knew that what he was seeing, the body that his mind told him he was seeing, was nothing more than raiment for Annatar to wear – and yet.

How badly is he hurt, Celebrimbor wondered, if the wounds of his spirit are bleeding into his physical form?

But he knew that Annatar wouldn't appreciate it if Celebrimbor called attention to his state in front of the assembled Dwarves, so he decided to keep his silence for now.

 

Much later, after they had finally been dismissed, they were walking the hallways of the palace side by side. The hallways were empty, and the echoes of their footfalls echoed strangely in the abandoned corridors. Durin had sent them off to rest, but Annatar had been taken by a growing restlessness the longer the meeting had dragged on.

After he and Celebrimbor had left the throne room, Annatar had insisted on visiting the workshop where Celebrimbor had forged the ring, and to review the process that he had used to create it.

“Why now?” Celebrimbor had asked. “Can't this wait? Surely this has time until after we've had a night's rest.”

“I don't think it has,” Annatar had said. He appeared calmer after Celebrimbor had pulled off the ring earlier, but he still kept throwing suspicious glances at the pocket of Celebrimbor's waistcoat, in which he was carrying the little trinket. “I don't have the slightest idea what you created here, and I don't think you fully grasp it, either. I don't want to indulge in leisure while we still have that unknown quantity around.”

Celebrimbor had felt incredibly tired ever since he had pulled off his ring, but he realized that there would be no point in arguing with Annatar about this. In the end, he had agreed to come along. Half of him wanted to be there when Annatar reviewed the formulae, because deep down Celebrimbor knew that he had made some kind of breakthrough that they hadn't been able to achieve before now. He just wanted to see Annatar's reaction when he read the calculations, imagined the process in his head, and realized this as well.

The other half of him – just wanted to stay by Annatar's side. Celebrimbor still barely dared to believe that he had done it: that Annatar was back, that it was really over. A small, insistent part of him was certain that if he allowed Annatar to so much as vanish around a corner in the hallway, the dream would burst: the rescue would never have happened and his friend would be gone forever.

I'll just go with him, Celebrimbor thought. That way I can stay by his side, answer his questions, and afterwards I can collapse into my bed and not rise again for five days straight.

He knew that he had overtaxed himself down in Habbad-Dûm, and he knew that he'd probably pay dearly for it. However, that wasn't what worried him most right now.

He threw a side glance at Annatar who was walking beside him.

Annatar looked strange. His eyes were too bright, his back was too straight. Something about his posture and his mood reminded Celebrimbor of too many fatally-wounded soldiers he had seen in the ditches and trenches across Beleriand in an age now past, who refused to show weakness in the face of enemies and comrades alike. You never saw them buckle, you never saw them stumble, and then all of a sudden they were dead and you didn't even know when or where they had gone down.

Celebrimbor touched Annatar's elbow gingerly. “Are you sure you do not want to rest first? You don't look well.”

Annatar laughed, his teeth too white in his ashen face. “Nonsense,” he said, brisk and dismissive. “As if I would allow a brief encounter with one of the Urulóki to keep me from going about my business! No, I feel fine. Let us go and see what great idea this crisis has brought forth in your mind, Tyelperinquar. To be entirely honest: rash and reckless though it might have been made, I cannot wait to learn the details of your ring, seeing how it obviously worked far better in some ways than any prototype we have made until now,” he added lightly.

Celebrimbor wanted to argue that any prototype, no matter how fascinating or extraordinary, could surely wait until tomorrow to be examined, but in the end, he didn't.

They walked together, their pace fast and their steps evenly matched. Then, just as they were about to exit the palace – out of the corner of his eye, Celebrimbor saw a break in Annatar's even step, just the slightest stumble.

And this time, Celebrimbor caught him when he fell.

***

 

“Now this is just embarrassing,” Annatar said. The annoyance of his tone was blunted somewhat by the fact that he looked like he would collapse again at any moment, and the fact that he was sitting in Celebrimbor's bed, his back propped up by three cushions.

“I don't know, I would call it 'worrying',” Celebrimbor rebutted and let himself fall down into the armchair that he had pulled up to the side of the bed. “I'll never again believe you when you say 'I am fine'.”

Annatar snorted. “That makes two of us then.”

Celebrimbor sighed. “Honestly now, how bad is it?”

Annatar looked down at his bruised hands, down his tattered robes. “It is suboptimal,” he admitted at last.

“How suboptimal?”

Annatar didn't answer immediately. He turned his hands over in the warm glow of the lampstone on Celebrimbor's nightstand, which was the only source of light in the darkened room. Annatar examined the burns, the bruises, the tears that were everywhere on his form, then leaned back against the cushions again.

“Usually, I would leave my body behind at this point,” he said bluntly. “Discard it like a worn-through cloth. Leave it to die.” He smirked at Celebrimbor's shocked expression. “But, as you should know, my body is just another raiment to me. Leaving it behind usually hurts me as little as it would hurt you taking off a jacket.”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said, trying to will his heartbeat to calm from where it had spiked painfully during Annatar's little speech. “It is just … I associate it with you. For me, it actually is you. To think that any part of you, no matter how insignificant, would … ah, but there is my incarnate perspective speaking again, isn't it?”

“Quite. My body is not me.” Annatar waved his hand, but then stilled and seemed to reconsider something. “As it is, there are still certain drawbacks and limitations to reincarnation,” he admitted. “If I were to let go of this body in my current state, I would not have the energy in the foreseeable future to recreate a form that is even marginally as powerful as the one I am wearing now.”

Celebrimbor watched him, noting the indefinable feeling of thinness about him, the grey tint to his face, his tattered robes, the faded gold of his hair. “And so you are going to hold on to this one.”

Annatar nodded. “Yes. It will be … difficult, I expect. It is beyond what I would usually count as worth salvaging, and I do not have a great deal of strength at the moment.”

“Can I – ” he started, but Annatar interrupted him almost immediately.

“No, Tyelperinquar, however honourable your intentions may be, you may not lend me your strength to replenish myself, seeing how, were I to really draw on you, you would not only die on the spot, but immediately be consumed and wiped from existence,” Annatar said sharply. He seemed to become aware of how harshly he had spoken, because he sighed and massaged his temples as if fighting off a headache. “Thank you, Tyelperinquar,” he said, more softly now. “But you have poured enough of yourself into that ring of yours already. Take your own advice and get some sleep.” He smiled thinly, obviously attempting to take the edge off the sharpness of his earlier words.

There was a brief pause.

“Is there anything I can do?” Celebrimbor asked at last.

Annatar shook his head. “No, you have done enough. I just need a bit of time. There is much I will have to do in order to save this form. I need to rest.”

“How do you mean to do that? You told me the Ainur didn't sleep.”

Annatar threw him a brief glance before looking down at his own form again as if he didn't quite recognize it any longer. “We do not. But right now I am expending my strength to remain in contact and communication with the world beyond myself. If I am attempting to heal this form, this energy could be better spent elsewhere, which is why I shall … retreat, for a time.”

Celebrimbor nodded, trying to hide the cold feeling of fear rising up his spine. Everything inside of him was urging to beg Annatar to stay awake, to stay conscious, as if he might slip away and fade otherwise. But he understood that retreating from the world was Annatar's best chance to survive at this point.

“Do you want me to take you to the healers?” Celebrimbor asked with forced nonchalance. “I brought you here because my room was closest to where we were when you … fell. And since your own bedroom does no longer have a bed, because you don't sleep and rather wanted to have the second and third bookshelves fit in there, instead, I thought...” He trailed off, not even knowing where he was going with this sentence anymore. “I mean, the healers could help you better than I can, perhaps.”

“No.” Annatar shook his head. “No healer can help me with what I need to do. It will be best if I can take my time somewhere where no one can disturb me.” He paused. “Besides, I would feel more at ease if I knew that I had left my fana here with you, rather than with anyone else here in Khazad-Dûm.” Annatar looked down, and seemed to become aware that he was currently occupying Celebrimbor’s only bed. “If you don’t mind, that is.”

“Of course not.” Celebrimbor forced himself to smile. “If you want to stay here, then stay.”

“Where will you go?” Annatar asked.

“I will stay with you,” Celebrimbor said without the slightest bit of hesitation.

Annatar looked surprised at first, but then he smiled. “I expected no different from you,” he replied.

 

***

 

About a week after their return from their desperate rescue mission, Fundin visited Celebrimbor in his chambers. Annatar had not woken yet, and Celebrimbor hadn't left his rooms in all the intervening time.

“I thought I should look in on you,” Fundin told him. “No one's seen in you in the halls or the city ever since you returned, and I told myself I better make sure that you don't forget about eating or drinking.”

“Thank you,” Celebrimbor said, accepting a sizeable package of food and sweets, already knowing that he wouldn't be able to eat it. He just didn't have the stomach for food lately.

“How's your friend?” Fundin asked.

“Unchanged,” Celebrimbor replied, trying to appear nonchalant about it. “But he doesn't … work like we Incarnates do. I cannot tell whether he's improving or not. His unchanged state might not mean anything. Perhaps he is just taking his time.” He shoved away the possibility that Annatar's stalled recuperation might be owed to other, worse reasons.

“Ah, well. I wish him the best, then.” Fundin put down another package of food on Celebrimbor's desk – how in the world was he supposed to eat all of this? Celebrimbor wondered – then laid a few books and journals down next to it. “I thought you might appreciate a bit of reading material to take your mind off the waiting. You know, to make the time pass a bit faster.”

As it was, Celebrimbor hadn't been able to read either. He had tried, of course, but after sitting down with a short Rhûnian novella, he had eventually realized that he had been staring at the same page for the last two hours but retained nothing of it. After that he had given up on reading.

“Thank you, I might try to read it later,” Celebrimbor said evasively. Then he sat down on the sofa in front of the crackling fireplace, indicating for Fundin to do the same. “But do tell, what news from the realm? Have things calmed down somewhat?”

Fundin barked out a sharp laugh, but sat down nonetheless. “I wish. Have you ever noticed how smoothly and effectively things work during an crisis situation, only for events to get confused rapidly and become ever more tangled up afterwards?”

Celebrimbor nodded. He resisted the morbid urge to reply that he had seen enough wars to know that particular problem very well.

“Well, that's just how things are now. We have come out of the immediate thick of events, but there are still many things that must be resolved, none of which could be addressed until now.”

“What will happen now?” Celebrimbor asked.

Fundin sighed heavily. “Many things. The kingdom isn't the same as it was two weeks ago. The fallout of the catastrophe must be dealt with, but there are social, medical, and political elements to it as well. Most pressingly, Duma, Velech, and Harko might have meant well, but they still planned nothing short of a coup against their king on the night you made the ring. Durin cannot let that stand, not if he is to remain our ruler. He is currently considering the measures he will take against them.”

Celebrimbor stared at Fundin. “But they were only thinking of the good of the realm, however twisted the execution might have been.”

“Perhaps. But you must not forget that it began with a slight to their cultural sensibilities, and that this is what drove them to their later, greater measures. You acted rashly and without regard to our customs and traditions, and thus you offended us. Nothing less – but also nothing more. A misstep happened and apologies were made. More importantly, no lasting harm came from it. The Balrog especially had nothing to do with you, and the most that they could reasonably hold against you was an unintended insult, and one made in good faith at that. They cannot simply resort to violence and a coup in retribution.” Fundin sighed. “I know we tend to act viciously when we are wounded, and lash out when we feel threatened… but we cannot let vengeful impulses dictate how we rise to problems; and meet harm that is done to us with harm that we do ourselves. We have to be better than that. Our leaders especially.”

Celebrimvor nodded thoughtfully. “About half of Khazad-Dûm was probably siding with them, though. How would Durin ever justify this to his people without losing the support of the greater part of the realm?”

Fundin shrugged. “I don't know.” He leaned back and closed his eyes. “I honestly do not know.” A few seconds passed in silence. “But we must find a way, and therefore we will.”

“No one ever said it would be easy, right?” Celebrimbor laughed hollowly.

“No. In fact, when he offered me my post Durin made it abundantly clear that I would live my life trying to live up to impossible expectations of everyone around me.” Fundin shrugged. “Of all the things I could complain about in my work, No one told me is not one of them.”

“But isn't that just the point?” Celebrimbor could feel himself growing agitated. “No one did tell you what could happen, mainly because they themselves couldn't have imagined what degree of upheaval one idiot of a Noldo and his stupid ideas could cause.”

Fundin sat a bit more upright. “Kurfi –”

“I'm sorry I brought this upon you, Fundin,” Celebrimbor said quietly, and all of a sudden, on the last word, his voice broke. “Ever since I've set foot into Khazad-Dûm, I have caused nothing but trouble with my wilful short-sightedness. I was so consumed by what I wanted to happen that I disregarded every single Dwarf in the realm in favour of it. Most of all I disregarded you, and I am – I am so sorry.” He buried his face in his hands, because he couldn't bear to look at Fundin any longer.

He heard Fundin rise from his seat in the armchair and sit down next to him on the sofa. Carefully, Fundin laid an arm around his shoulders. “It is alright, Kurfi. We have talked about this already. You apologized, and I forgave you.”

“But that's not even important, is it?” Celebrimbor looked up, meeting Fundin’s gaze. “What you might say and do matters only a little – because the ripples of my actions have had an effect that reaches far further than the two of us. I pulled the entire realm of Khazad-Dûm into this. And it doesn't stop simply because I apologized. I thought that maybe after we went down into the mines and rescued as many survivors as we can – perhaps then it would be over, everyone would be good, everyone would be fine, but – that's not the way life works.”

Celebrimbor shook his head and stared straight into the flames dancing in the fireplace. His vision of the tongues of fire kept blurring and blazing oddly. “An apology solves nothing. A gesture doesn't end anything. Nothing is over yet. I did everything I could to make things right again, but your realm is still falling apart, and all those Dwarves are still dead, Annatar is still dying, Harko and Duma are still being taken to trial –”

“Kurfi, you need to stop talking,” Fundin said calmly, but bluntly. “Contrary to what you might think, it is very important to me that you apologized. As for the other things you said – yes, your actions have had consequences that no one could have foreseen. But you can't undo those things. We are where we are, and we have what we have, and we must work with that.”

Fundin turned a bit in his seat so that he was facing Celebrimbor straight-on. “Besides, just as much as you bringing Aulëndil into Khazad-Dûm has not gone unnoticed, neither has your descent into the mines. You have done as much as you could to make amends, Kurfi, and no one can reasonably demand any more of you. You made a grave mistake, but you also made great amends. Your anger does not help anyone now, and it is only hurting you. Let it go.”

Fundin reached out and squeezed Celebrimbor's clenched fist, which was digging into the fabric of the sofa so violently that his knuckles were turning white.

“One would think that someone with my history would have known that actions have consequences,” Celebrimbor said tonelessly.

“One should think so, yes.” Fundin hummed. “So isn't it good that once in a while, a forgetful, headstrong elf gets another chance to be reminded of it? Besides, it is not only our mistakes and errors that come with consequences. An honest good deed will make its ripples all the same. One good turn may bring about another, and honest remorse will not fall on deaf ears.”

Celebrimbor looked up, taken aback at this. When Fundin gave him an encouraging smile, though, he couldn't help smiling back. He laughed quietly and wiped his sleeve over his eyes. “I guess so.”

“Don't worry too much,” Fundin said. “You might not believe it, but we have recovered from greater disasters in the past. We are not crumbling, and your friend isn't dying. At the moment everything might look uncoordinated and broken, but … you know, even a damaged kingdom is stronger than it looks, and so is your friend. Just give it time.” Fundin gave Celebrimbor's hand another squeeze. “You will be amazed what every single one of us can come back from. It will be fine, you will see.”

*

Later the same evening, just after Fundin had left, Celebrimbor sat by Annatar's side, not touching him or talking to him, just watching his friend's still form. The Maia had been lying like this for a week now: devoid of any signs of life and with no indication of breathing. Celebrimbor felt strange sitting next to his friend, who had at all times appeared untouchable by the world, if not entirely invincible. This image had been shattered to pieces after Annatar had clashed with a foe just as powerful as himself, leaving him broken and wounded to a degree that terrified Celebrimbor like few other things he had known.

What could he still be sure of, if even the friend he had considered invulnerable could suddenly die on him?

For Annatar was now lying in Celebrimbor's bed, motionless and grey-faced, and Celebrimbor was keeping watch over the nearly destroyed husk of his friend, who had retreated to a place deep within himself, working and restoring and repairing a thousand little lacerations, tears, and damages in places too deep for any healer to reach.

At last, Celebrimbor couldn't hold himself back any longer. He reached out and took Annatar's right hand in his own. The Maia’s skin was cold to the touch.

“Promise me that you'll come back to me,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “Or else …” He laughed brokenly, realising how laughable any threat that he could make must seem. “Or else I will hold it against you forever. I climbed down into that horrible place for you, so the least you can do in return is to come back to me, do you hear?”

He paused. “Please come back to me,” he repeated quietly.

 

***

 

Annatar woke and the first thing he felt was pain.

It blazed through him, white-hot and ice-cold all at once, like a frozen lake hit by lightning. He immediately retreated again, curling up into a small, unfeeling node at the very centre of the body, far removed from most of the nerves or muscles that could ache.

When he tried to shift his sluggish vessel of a body into a different position from there, he noticed the weakness in the limbs. His hold over them was tenuous, like a hand continually losing its grip on something slippery.

It wasn't as bad as a full disembodiment and subsequent reincarnation, but it came annoyingly close. He felt compressed, like liquid fire being poured into far too small a vessel that was air-tight on top of everything, stifling his strength by depriving the fire of oxygen. He was estranged from his own body, like a hand that had been shoved into a glove that no longer fit; almost overwhelmed by the multitude of muscles, sinews, veins, and nerves. For a moment, he felt acutely unable to steer such a needlessly overcomplicated and aggravatingly fragile vessel.

The urge to let go of this form and leave its needless ballast behind was momentarily overwhelming, but Annatar fought it down and waited. His control over his body was threatening to break with every moment. It only allowed for rough, imprecise movement so long as he wasn't allowing himself to inhabit the body fully, but instead steering it with rough commands from a remote location. This was the exact reason why controlling a vessel via mind alone worked so badly compared to possessing it. In order to steer a body, a certain degree of … investment was indispensable, and anything else would only ever amount to unsatisfying solutions. It was a trade that came with incomparable control over something corporeal that could never be reached by remote command. The drawback was vulnerability. At some point in time, every Ainu had had to learn this lesson, however unwillingly. In the end, every single one of them had made the trade regardless – to varying degrees of investment and success both. The main difference was that some of the Endless Ones had been more aware of what they had been getting themselves into than others.

He briefly considered retreating once more and giving himself a bit more time to repair himself, but in the end, he decided against it. He could bear pain very well – as a Maia he had never had such an intimate and immediate relationship with it as Incarnates did. He could mostly ignore it, if he chose to. What he couldn't ignore, however, was the acute boredom he faced while locked up inside his vessel with no possibility for interaction with the outside world. No, that wouldn't do. He wanted to wake up, he just had to take care not to get overwhelmed by doing it too fast like he had the first time.

When he was more certain of himself, he slowly extended himself into his body again, slowly building his awareness into its more remote corners and gradually adjusting to the pain that came with the physical capability to feel.

When he had gotten used to it, he opened his eyes. He saw a chiselled stone ceiling, its reliefs doused into stark grey shadows and warm highlights by the glow of something to his right. Slowly, other impressions surfaced through the background noise of general feeling, like small bulbs of light surfacing from a dark pond, before vanishing again.

Warm air. Fabric beneath his hands. The weight of a light blanket.

Ah yes, the bedroom.

But there was another feeling, somehow more distinct and more poignant than the rest. Something warm was curled around his right hand, and from it a surge of warmth and strength was seeping upwards to his shoulder and from there, right to where his heart was.

Annatar turned his head and saw that Celebrimbor was sitting in a chair next to his bed, collapsed against the headrest and armrest of his seat. His eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and even. Annatar's eyes wandered further down to find Celebrimbor's left hand, which was stretched out over toward the bed, resting lightly on Annatar's own. It didn't take much to guess that he had been lending Annatar his own strength, no matter how strongly Annatar had warned him against it.

Annatar snorted, but there was no real anger behind the sound. “You impossible, obstinate creature,” he said softly and slowly extricated his hand from Celebrimbor's grip. The surge of warmth subsided.

Annatar ignored the distinct feeling of loss, and instead turned onto his side so that he might better regard the elf’s sleeping form. Celebrimbor appeared at ease in his sleep, but his face was marked with the tell-tale signs of deep exhaustion. Small wonder, after everything that he had done. If Annatar judged him even remotely correctly, Celebrimbor had pushed himself far beyond the boundaries of his physical limitations in the aftermath of the Balrog attack. What with the rescue mission Celebrimbor had led, his creation of a magical ring, and then, of course, lending Annatar his strength, despite the fact that he must have been entirely drained himself…

“What does it take for you not to take these risks and potentially destroy yourself for the sake of others?” Annatar asked with a weary sigh.

Indeed, he couldn’t even allow himself to think about how close, and how often, Celebrimbor had come to dying – and only over the course of the last few days? Weeks? He had lost all sense of time while he had been busy repairing his fana. In the end, though, it didn’t matter.

Every single instance was one time too many.

Annatar thought back to the conversation that they had had after Celebrimbor had returned from his wake for Narvi. Celebrimbor might have acquiesced in the possibility of his own death with a horrifying casualness and fatalism, but Annatar wouldn’t accept it. Not now. Not ever. Even if Celebrimbor regarded his own demise as some inevitable consequence of being incarnate, Annatar would not allow it to come to pass.

Annatar thought back to the moment when the Balrog had emerged, when his thoughts had actually gone blank with terror for a split second, as he had, for a terrifying, dreadful moment, been certain that this was the moment when he lost Celebrimbor – the moment when his vision of Celebrimbor in the Halls of Waiting became reality, and he would be forced to watch as the thing that was most precious to him in the world was taken from him.

He wasn’t able to suppress the tremor that shook his form. The memory alone sufficed to make him feel physically ill.

What then, if Celebrimbor really were to be taken from him – by a malicious turn of fate, by an accident, or even by the elf’s own unwillingness to fight his mortal nature?

The moment I lose him, I will fall apart myself.

The realization was less shocking than he had expected it to be. Annatar guessed that he had known it for a long time. There had been a time when he would have balked at this knowledge – of being so deeply tied to another and depending on them. At some point, however, he had simply stopped thinking of Celebrimbor and himself as two separable entities. They had spent so much time together, so many hours drifting through their shared thoughts and ideas, that – to imagine a world where Annatar was suddenly alone again, thrown back onto merely his own self, and feeling only emptiness where that radiant mind had once rested against his own –

I will not allow it, Annatar thought. I will not allow you to come to harm, Tyelperinquar. And if I must stop the stars in their course, if I must push the world off its axis, if I must destroy death itself – then I will do it. I will do anything it takes to keep you at my side. Safe, and here with me.

Annatar regarded the elf for a moment longer, then pushed himself up on his elbows. He hesitated for a moment, torn between two conflicting desires, then he reached out and gently brushed a dark lock of hair from Celebrimbor's tired face.

Celebrimbor made a small noise, shifted, and – woke.

Annatar quickly pulled his hand back.

Celebrimbor's body tensed as he righted himself from his slumped position. He rubbed his eyes, then blinked. It took a few moments for his gaze to come into focus, but then his eyes landed on Annatar and they widened. “What – you're awake!”

The transformation that went through the elf was nothing short of amazing. All of a sudden every trace of sleepiness was gone; in an instant, Celebrimbor was wide awake. His gaze found Annatar looking back at him and – by the stars and the darkness between them... A fire lit up in Celebrimbor’s eyes, so bright and strong that Annatar didn't even dare to allow himself to consider the reasons for it, let alone try and put a name to what might have caused it. The implications –

Celebrimbor immediately leaned forward, interrupting that perilous train of thought. His hands reached out to touch Annatar but then stopped, obviously wanting but not quite daring to when reason caught up with his impulse. “How long have you been awake? How are you?”

“I am well. Perhaps not fine, but far better than I have been before.” Annatar pushed himself up into a sitting position and leaned against the headrest of the bed.

“So you will be able to…”

“Keep my current body, yes.” Annatar’s lips quirked up in a small smile.

Celebrimbor returned the smile, relieved. “That's … good. I'm glad.”

“As for your other question, I haven't been awake for long, but long enough to notice that you have been reckless once again.” Annatar pointedly looked at Celebrimbor's left hand.

Celebrimbor's smile turned into a wry grin. “And you are going to reprimand me for it, first thing after you've woken up.”

“Truth be told, I might as well give it up as a lost cause at this point,” Annatar said, rolling his eyes. “If you are so intent on destroying yourself, I might as well just stand aside and let you have your way.”

“But there's the catch, isn't it?” Celebrimbor said, and his tone was unlike anything Annatar had ever heard before. It sounded teasing, almost sly, like a cat closing in on a prey. “You could never do that, couldn't you?”

Annatar gave him an unimpressed look. “Don't underestimate my ability to enjoy watching an incorrigible self-destructionist like you get what's coming for him.”

“You're one to talk,” Celebrimbor retorted. “You stood in the way of a Balrog for me.”

“And I'm beginning to regret it.”

Celebrimbor laughed. “As if. You know, Annatar, when it comes down to it, you're not a good liar after all.”

Annatar wanted to protest, but then thought differently of it. He bit his lip, then just let himself smile. His body really seemed to want to do so. “No, maybe I don't care about some pretences as much as I used to.”

Celebrimbor chuckled, then fell silent. For a while he just looked at Annatar, with absolute focus and a slight, soft smile on his lips, as if nothing else in the world mattered.

“It is good to have you back,” Celebrimbor said at last.

Annatar wanted to answer, but for everything that he could have said in reply, there were a thousand things that he wanted to say, but couldn't, still couldn't… At least not at this point.

“It's good to be back,” he said instead.

It had to be enough. For now.

Everything else would have to wait just a bit longer. Until the last pretences were gone.

 

***

 

“Show me that ring of yours,” Annatar demanded one day.

Celebrimbor looked up from the Rhûnian novella which he was (finally) close to finishing. “The ring? Is that what you have been brooding on all that time?” he asked.

“I have given it some thought”, Annatar replied.

Even though the Maia still wasn't back to what could – in a figurative sense – be considered full health, he had categorically refused to let himself be kept out of commission any longer after he had woken up. He had spent the very next day intently listening to Celebrimbor's descriptions of how he had made the ring, then going over the calculations involved and trying to reconstruct the process and the maths behind it in his mind.

“I think I know now which things I have to look for in it,” Annatar continued. “Can I see it?”

Celebrimbor closed the book. He walked into the bedroom and fetched the ring from the locked drawer in the nightstand where Annatar had insisted that Celebrimbor keep it for the time being. Celebrimbor turned the unassuming gold band over in his hands and regarded it for a few moments, then left the bedroom and walked over to where the Maia was sitting in one of the armchairs by the fireside (at a closeness that would have been uncomfortable to say the least for any mortal being).

Annatar extended his hand and Celebrimbor handed the ring over to him.

Annatar turned it over in his hands, running his fingers over the smooth surface and the crystal shards embedded in the ring, examining it. His face betrayed nothing of his thoughts as he did. At last, he looked up at Celebrimbor.

“How does it work?”

Celebrimbor sat down on the armrest of Annatar's chair and explained it to him.

When he had finished, Annatar was regarding him with an absolutely flat expression.

“You just couldn't resist, could you?” he asked. “I should have known that after I told you about that in-between state of physicality and spirituality you would try something like this sooner or later. Casting your own soul out of your body based on nothing more than one conversation and good faith that it won't immediately destroy you is so very you, Tyelperinquar.”

Celebrimbor smiled. “Yes, our conversation when we came here was one of the minor inspirations for the purposes of the ring. But while it determined the How, I considered the What far more important.”

“And that would be?”

Celebrimbor regarded him evenly. “Finding all of you. Protecting you. Bringing you home.”

Annatar smiled briefly before his expression turned pensive and he looked down at the ring once more. “The ring's protection not only extends to others, I should think,” he said slowly.

Celebrimbor frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that by all rights, you shouldn't have survived your helter-skelter suicide dash into the drill chamber when you came looking for me. Did you at no point notice that the temperature in the chamber was high enough to keep mithril in a liquid state?”

Celebrimbor blinked and stared. Truth be told, that hadn't occurred to him until now. Not really.

“Oh,” he said.

“Oh?” Annatar repeated. “Is that all you have to say after barging head first into an inferno, obviously without a second thought as to whether you'd make it out alive in the first place?”

“I didn't really think of myself back then,” Celebrimbor admitted.

Annatar let his head drop back against the headrest of the armchair. “That's just the problem, isn't it? You never think of yourself.”

Celebrimbor shrugged. “It didn’t seem important at the time. But now that you mention it, the ring was created from something that Aulë himself had made … so it would not be far off to assume that it holds some powers over Fire and Earth, as well as the ability to shield someone from those elements. Like all the other Great Rings that we've tried to create before, there seems to be two aspects to all of its traits. It also seems to have a two-way connection with its bearer, drawing on their strength in exchange for protecting them and showing them what they seek...” Celebrimbor trailed off for a moment, then perked up again as something else occurred to him.

“By the way, there was something that I have been wanting to ask you for a while now,” Celebrimbor said. “When I was down in the mines, I used the Ring's bond to Aulë to try and search for you as well, but it didn't find you. Obviously you were alive, though, but I still couldn't see you anywhere. Do you know why that might have happened?”

Annatar was quiet for a long time. The silence in the room built up to something almost solid, shot through with tension, like a thundercloud that was carrying lightning just under its surface.

“It –” Annatar started, then broke off again.

It was painfully obvious what he wanted to say, but couldn't for whatever reason, so Celebrimbor decided to just say it for him.

“Your bond doesn't exist any more, does it?” he asked softly.

Annatar's gaze shot to him, his strange amber eyes locking onto Celebrimbor's own. His shoulders were tense, as if he was readying himself to bolt from the room.

Celebrimbor sighed, then averted his eyes. “I almost guessed as much,” he said. “But it doesn't matter.” He picked at the fabric of his sleeve, noticing the tension in the room being replaced by sudden bafflement.

“How do you mean that?” Annatar asked carefully.

Celebrimbor still wasn't looking at him. He knew that his friend needed the illusion of not being seen right now, of not being scrutinized.

“I've had a similar inkling in the past, once or twice,” Celebrimbor said. “You didn't really speak of Aulë a lot, and all of your reasons for travelling Middle-earth seemed to lie in your own person, rather than in being an ambassador of the Smith. If you ever spoke of him, it struck me that you didn't really seem to … revere him, let alone like him. So I just guessed that you had gone your separate way at some point in the past.”

Annatar was silent.

Celebrimbor turned back to him. “It doesn't matter in the end, does it? You are who you are, I am who I am. We have both chosen to cut some ties in our past, and we have both forged new bonds since. It shouldn't make us deficient that we chose to … walk different paths than those that had been foreseen for us.”

Annatar inclined his head to one side, his eyes searching Celebrimbor's face intently. “No, I guess not,” he said at last.

There was another silence, but this time it was less loaded and more pensive than before.

Annatar looked down at the ring lying on his palm again. “In any case, you have done remarkable work on this, on the fly and under time pressure at that,” he said. “The aspect of protection, though – ”

“We should incorporate this into our design for the Greater Rings,” Celebrimbor finished.

Annatar blinked. “Yes.”

Celebrimbor smiled. “I think the library here might have some useful books for our research in that regard.”

“On Ring-smithing?”

“In a broader sense. On mathematical topology, to be exact. While I made the new prototype, I was thinking about our basis for our torus definitions … and I believe we might need to review our definition of the configuration space of our rings to include complex manifolds.”

“It would enable us to use holomorphic functions for the mapping,” Annatar mused. “Which in turn would make the entire basis of the calculations a lot smoother… yes, the idea has some merit.”

Celebrimbor tapped his chin pensively. “I have an inkling that I found a treatise on the topic in a book that I read here a few centuries ago. I was considering finding it again before we leave.” He looked at Annatar with a challenging grin. “Do you think you're up for some research?”

Annatar gave him a lopsided smirk in return. “Tyelperinquar, by now you should know that I am always up for anything that brings us further in this endeavour.”

 

***

 

The library was abuzz with the low, soothing noises of muffled steps, whispers, and soft voices. Coloured light bathed the uppermost level in a soft purple sheen.

Annatar had left his seat some time ago to look for a referential work on hyperbolic geometry. If Celebrimbor paid attention, he could hear his friend rifling through a shelf to his right, about two aisles over.

Fundin was sitting in the third chair of the group of seats that were clustered around a small table next to the huge glass-wall at the backside of the library. When he noticed Celebrimbor listening for the soft rustling noises coming from between the aisles, the dwarf put a bookmark between the pages he had been reading and set the book aside.

“Your friend is recovering quickly,” he said.

“Yes, he is,” Celebrimbor said. “Unfortunately, his recovery goes hand in hand with a lot of impatience and restlessness on his part. I needed to get him out of the rooms and give him something to occupy himself with.”

“Understandable. He doesn't seem like a creature that could remain still for very long.”

“Quite,” Celebrimbor agreed with a laugh. “It took a Balrog to keep him down for a few days, but even then he was out and about again as soon as he had woken up.”

“Heh, he's much like you in that regard, I should say,” Fundin chuckled. “I distinctly remember that one time when you broke your right arm, and then showed up the next day with your arm in a sling and demanded we let you keep working, because you didn’t know how to busy yourself otherwise.”

Celebrimbor laughed. “What can I say? I get bored quickly when I’m all by myself and haven’t got anything to do.”

“Much like your friend Aulëndil, I wager.”

Fundin, Celebrimbor noticed, spoke more easily of Annatar now. Perhaps it was because Annatar had unequivocally proven himself an ally of the Dwarves down in the mines when the Balrog had attacked – or perhaps it was because Annatar had been wounded so direly in the process, demonstrating that no matter the differences between him and the Dwarves, he was also like them in some ways. In the end, it didn't matter. It was the first time ever that Celebrimbor was accompanied by his two best friends at the same time, and to his great surprise and joy, Annatar and Fundin seemed to get along reasonably well.

The first few minutes had been awkward as both Fundin and Annatar tried to work around the fact that they hadn't actually talked before and the most that they knew of each other was their mutual Elven friend – not to mention that they had gotten off on anything but the right foot. After a while, though, both of them had lost some of their initial stiffness and soon afterwards they had tentatively started to talk about mundane things. To Celebrimbor it had been hilarious to watch his two most eloquent friends trying their hands at smalltalk, but in the end he was simply happy that Fundin and Annatar got along now.

Celebrimbor looked down the rows of bookshelves when Annatar exited the aisle. The Maia glanced over and threw him a brief smile before continuing to browse the shelves along the outer aisle, his back to the wall of stained glass.

Celebrimbor just watched Annatar for a while as he moved down the shelves, scanning the rows of books intently for the title that he was seeking. Celebrimbor was familiar with that particular look on his friend's face. He knew that expression so very well by now: the focus, the intent, the single-minded purpose. He knew Annatar's efficient, graceful movements when he pulled a book from the shelf, and his quiet determination to find what he was looking for. Everything about him was achingly, wonderfully familiar. Well – almost everything.

For a moment, Celebrimbor's gaze caught on the sharp scar that slashed through the left eyebrow down to Annatar's eye. The scar would remain, Annatar had told him, likely even after – if ever – Annatar assumed a new form. Some scars did not heal, the Maia had said, especially if they went deeper than a mere physical wound. And yet, it seemed not too high a price to pay in exchange for a life, for a future, and Celebrimbor had told Annatar so. When his friend had only frowned at his reflection in the mirror, Celebrimbor had added that many people considered scars to be a very attractive trait, and Annatar's student Alane would certainly find them positively dashing. Celebrimbor had to duck out of the room after that, because otherwise a viciously well-aimed Complete Guide to the Grammar of Western Khuzdul might have come flying at his head.

Celebrimbor took great care not to mention it again and took great pains to keep a straight face whenever Annatar threw him a challenging glare, daring him to breach the topic again. However, when Floki came to visit, only to stare at the Maia and comment that Aulëndil looked like he'd lost a particularly bad pub fight, Celebrimbor's resolution to stay serious evaporated on the spot and he broke into a gale of laughter. Annatar, naturally, had just glared in the beginning, but eventually even he hadn't been able to hide the smile tugging at his lips. “Not quite,” he had said. “I won the fight.”

The memory faded and Celebrimbor became aware that he had been smiling to himself.

“There never was any question of whether you would return to Habbad-Dûm to save him, was there?” Fundin asked all of a sudden.

Celebrimbor blinked out of his – reverie? – and turned to face his Dwarven friend. “What?”

“It didn't matter that Harko, Duma, and Velech had cornered Durin that evening, did it? No matter whether Durin would have allowed it or not, no matter whether it would have helped Khazad-Dûm or not – you would have returned to Habbad-Dûm to save him,” Fundin said. It wasn't a question.

Celebrimbor didn't have it in him to deny it. “No, it wouldn't have mattered,” he admitted. “I mean – of course it made things easier that the nobles agreed to the plan, and I am glad that it could help the realm in some way, but…” He gave a helpless shrug. “In the end, all of that wasn't even a consideration. There was just too much on the line. My friends were down there. Annatar was down there. I mean, what would you do if there was someone you loved and they were in danger? Wouldn't you think: I am not going to lose you, I will not allow you to come to harm, I will protect you, come what may? That is what friends do for each other, isn't it?”

Strangely, Fundin looked for a moment like he might disagree, but then he merely said, “It certainly is what you would do for your friends.”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor said. “Of course.” He paused, then started again. “When I was younger … it took me a horribly long time to determine what I wanted, and an even longer time to realize what I needed. All this time I had been seeking something to give me purpose after I realized that the fate of my father didn't have to be my own. I just wanted to have something – or someone, I could dedicate myself to, without reservation, and with my entire strength, wisdom, and power. Something that, even if I died doing or knowing or experiencing it, it would have been worth it. That was, of course, a very fatalistic and needlessly complicated way of looking at life in general, when all I truly needed were some friends.”

Celebrimbor shifted in his seat. “So I started looking – I started making an effort to reach out to people for the first time in a long while. And the results were overwhelming. I got to know Narvi, you, Floki, and all the others here in Khazad-Dûm. I started to get to know my estranged aunt Galadriel once more, and after she left, I really made an effort to connect with all those who stayed behind – who had chosen me over her, for some reason. It – it was so rewarding, I cannot even put it into words. And then of course there came Annatar.” Celebrimbor paused. “I was used to being alone and fending for myself, but now that I have gotten to know all of you – now I can't imagine living without you.”

“So you finally found it, then.” Fundin smiled sadly. “Something worth dying for.”

Celebrimbor closed his eyes, humming softly. “Not quite. A few centuries ago, I would have agreed with you.”

“And today?”

“Today I would say that I found something worth living for, and that this is an indefinitely nicer and more lasting thing to have.”

Fundin looked at him for a long time. The soft humming of distant voices and the rustling of paper was the only sound in the great library.

“You have changed, Kurfi,” he said at last.

Celebrimbor looked up, surprised. “How do you mean that?”

“I was just thinking of what Baldur said when you came here,” Fundin said. “You came to us so many years ago, angry and lonely and drifting like a leaf on the wind. Over time, you lost the anger and you found many friends, but even after you had been ruling Ost-in-Edhil for years, your soul still appeared to be drifting, refusing to truly settle anywhere. But you are different now.” Fundin's sharp, weighty gaze searched Celebrimbor's own eyes. “Your heart has grown roots at last, hasn't it?”

Celebrimbor stole a quick glance at Annatar, who was completely absorbed in browsing the bookshelf along the length of the room, before looking back at Fundin, who had followed his glance.

“I think it has,” Celebrimbor said.

---

Chapter End Notes

Okay, so that was the last actual chapter of The Light Under the Mountain.
This means were done, right?
– Right.

NO.

Did you seriously think you'd be rid of me and this story after a paltry 130,000 words? Hah, no!
Ahem. That is to say, while this might have been the last proper chapter of this story, stay tuned for the inevitable epilogue!