Work Text:
The air hurt his lungs.
It wasn’t a bad pain, and Celegorm, who did not much understand religion, had something of a theology around the pains and pleasures of nature.
Cocooning oneself in a stiff summer hayfield, for instance, could be a prickly business—but the stalks overhead were so beautiful, in swaying community, that one bravely bore the itch.
He stood now, on the lip of Formenos's widest field, forcing frosty breaths in and out through his nose. There was a tiny icicle beginning to form at the tip.
“What is Athair about, over there?” Caranthir huffed, breaking the snow-clad stillness.
Celegorm stamped his feet for warmth. Each year, Athair sought a tree in the same fashion—but Caranthir was only nine years old, and had not been obliged to carry the axe or pull the sleigh, even a year ago.
Maedhros and Maglor were home a week earlier, then.
In, out, in. “Don’t be a baby,” Celegorm said. “Athair has to see the tree from many angles before he can decide if it is worthy.”
Privately, he thought it a tiresome business, too. Taking a tree from its roots, leaving the bare stump to curdle with sap, was a sacrilege in itself. It mattered not how one accomplished the taking; only let it be quick.
But the world was beautiful, under the lambswool sky. The trade made was this: pain in Celegorm’s lungs, for joy coming in the evening.
“This one,” Athair called, from a dozen yards away.
Celegorm hefted the axe against his shoulder and jerked his chin at Caranthir, so that his younger brother would know to follow him.
If you keep your mouth shut, there are things you don’t ever have to admit. You need never tell, even yourself, how much you know Maitimo to be lonely. How lonely you are, too.
Athair struck the tree down just above its roots. The air was fragrant with its death. A sacrifice, of sorts, even though Saint Boniface had done away with the German’s cruelty in that regard when he held aloft that first, young evergreen.
“Here, I can do it,” Celegorm said, stepping forward. It wasn’t defiance because he was offering to help. Athair looked at him with one quizzical brow raised, beneath his uncapped hair—Athair never wore hats, in the winter—and made way.
Caranthir wasn’t whining, but he didn’t know what to do with himself, so he trotted along after Athair, dragging the long bow-saw through the snow until he was scolded.
Celegorm grasped the stout trunk between his gloved hands. The ache webbed its way between his shoulders. He braced his teeth against it. All along the edge of the field, until the ground hollowed out for the garden, the barn, the house. Athair’s forge was plump with drifts; he had not yet scraped the roof.
The sun was setting; evening was near. The light shafted over them, stabbing at their eyes. Celegorm did not shield his. It wasn’t a bad pain.