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Houseless, Celegorm wanders through the deep darkness of Doriath. His body lay behind him, dead on the floor somewhere within the winding caves of Menegroth that would forever be his-- and his brothers’-- tomb. He has refused the call to Mandos. He cannot, in good faith, return over the sea. Not with what he has left to do.
His steps float lightly, just above the ground, and though he raises his hand to brush aside twigs or branches, he finds himself passing right through them. He feels empty and hollow, and as though he is nothing, and in truth that's all he is. Nothing. Nothing but a whisper on the wind, searching hopelessly to atone what little he may before he has to face his bitter judgment.
He does not know how long it has been. The world around him is grey and out of focus, and he cannot tell day from night. All he knows is that no matter how loud the call for his fëa to give up and spirit away may be, he cannot listen. He cannot stop until he finds them.
After what might have been eternity, he stops looking. Still he resists Mandos’ summon, but he feels his resolve weakening. His grasp on reality-- on what may or may not even be real-- is slipping. Everything gets blurrier, and bleaker, and his form feels somehow even emptier, and distorted. The longer he ignores the call, the more he can feel himself dissipating. Perhaps if he waits long enough he will be unmade entirely, and there will be no halls nor even void for him to face in the end.
He is wandering through the ever-darkening trees, aimless and unguided, when he hears the crying of a child.
Children, he realizes as the sound echoes in the grey around him. He nearly stumbles on feet he doesn't have as he scrambles through brush and branches, trying to find the source of the sound. If he had a heart it would be thundering in his chest, though he can hear it pounding all the same.
Out of the corner of his vision he catches two bright little heads, gleaming silver, crouched close together on the ground. Without a sound he approaches, but they must have sensed him all the same, for they hush their sniffles and hurry to their feet, cowering against a tree and clinging to each other.
At last, at last he has found them. Dior's twin sons, who were abandoned cruelly in the twisting, portentous maze of trees by Celegorm's own people. Celegorm the Cruel he may be, but to bring harm to little children… He thinks of his younger brothers, and of Celebrimbor, when they were so small. His heart aches, and he reaches out to them, forgetting for a moment he is not whole.
They flinch from him, and at the same time he notices what lay at their feet, and though he has no stomach he feels a stone drop in his gut. Two little bodies, covered in moss and fallen leaves, their bright silver hair dulled to the same grey as the world around them, with their hands clasped together tightly.
So he is too late, after all. Suddenly the summon to Mandos screams in his ears louder than ever, and he fights to ignore it. He cannot leave them now. Not when they are scared and alone, and-- He remembers the sensation of fading, how his fëa has weakened and withered as he has resisted the halls. No. He may not have been quick enough to save their bodies, but he will not let their souls be torn apart and siphoned away to nothing.
Celegorm kneels on the ground before them, and says in a softness usually reserved for his younger brothers or nephew when they were so young and frightened, “Are you lost, little ones?”
They look into each other’s eyes, and their lips tremble in unison as they nod, phantom tears spilling down their cheeks.
“Where is Adar?” Says one.
“And Naneth?” Says the other.
Celegorm wishes he could remember their names, wonders if he ever knew them to begin with. “I don’t know,” He says, and wishes too that was the truth. He knows very well they are rotting deep in the stone belly of the forest, just like he is. He forces his eyes not to drift down towards the corpses in front of him as the thought crosses his mind, and closes them for a moment instead.
When he opens them, he reaches a hand out again, and this time they don't flinch away, but again they share an apprehensive look.
"Would you like me to help you look for them?" Celegorm asks, and he sees their hands clench around each other tighter, but one of them reaches out and takes his hand. He is surprised to feel the touch of something solid against him, and when he extends the other, the second child takes it as well.
Relief washes over him and he smiles, standing up slowly and carefully. He is not sure where he will take them, but away from their withered physical forms is a start. He steps backward, and they follow him, stepping over themselves, either not noticing or not caring.
With one tiny hand in each of his own, Celegorm walks back into the grey maze that he came from. Now what? He thinks. He can't just wander directionless through the trees forever. He has to find a way to make sure their spirits return safely to Mandos. He can hear the summon buzzing faintly in the back of his mind, but can they? He doesn't know how to ask, or if they would even understand.
It feels like another eternity of wandering in near-silence, before one of the boys stumbles, and Celegorm's grasp on his hand is the only thing that stops him from sprawling to the ground. He is unharmed, but startled, and begins to sniffle and whine. Celegorm scoops him up into his arms, and hushes him with comforting words. The other child reaches up at him, wanting to be held as well. Celegorm hoists him up, holding one child on each hip as they continue on.
They reach out to each other, clinging to each other and grasping with little hands into his shirt, and they each lay a head on his shoulders, yawning. “You must be tired,” Celegorm murmurs, and holds them tight, realizing that for the first time since he left his body that he also feels tired, and suddenly heavy. His eyelids flutter and he nearly loses his footing himself. Perhaps they can stop for a while, to rest. The boys need it…
Celegorm ungracefully lowers the three of them to the ground, careful not to jostle the sleepy children too much, but he nearly falls back as he settles into a crook in the roots of a great tree. The twins adjust themselves in his lap, curling up with their heads on his stomach and their hands still gripping tightly together. Their breathing slows as they fall into some semblance of sleep, and Celegorm wonders if they need to breathe at all. Am I even breathing? He feels numb, somehow heavy and hollow at once, like boat flooding with water.
Absently, he smooths his hands over bright hair, tucking aside loose strands, and brushes his thumbs over soft cheeks as eyelashes flutter under his fingers. They look at peace, and he smiles down at them, feeling the heat of tears burn his eyes. He pities them as deeply as his wretched soul can. They deserved a life far better, anyway. Children were not meant to be born in times like these. When they return it will be in peace beyond the sea, in a land bright and unpoisoned by the hands of Morgoth. He hopes they will find a comfort in the woods of Oromë, even if they are not like to these.
He mourns them even as he holds them, and says a quiet prayer for this first time since his death, since he can’t remember when. At least they had each other. He thinks, and remembers how they had been holding each other so tightly where they lay, and even now. He remembers watching the light leave Curufin’s eyes, watching Caranthir crawl to his side when he was too broken to move himself. They had held each other nearly as tight. Would have, if only they had not been too bloodied and weak for their fingers to grasp. He wonders where they are. He hopes they made it home okay. He hopes-- prays -- the little ones in his lap find their way, too.
They were too bright for this dark world. It is almost as though there is an inner light shining through them, with the way they glow. Like two little stars in his lap they gleam, and it is only when he squints from the brightness of them that he realizes they are shining, it is not simply the haze of his mind fooling him.
So bright that he can no longer make out their features, and he can no longer feel them against him. He reaches out for them, and passes through as tiny particles begin to float away from them. Thousands of specs of light drift from their forms, like fireflies, like the entire night sky in his lap. Up and away, into the west the lights fly, until there is nothing left before him.
Celegorm feels like weeping, but he knows with certainty they have gone home. Their spirits will fly swiftly over the sea, and when they awake they will be with their mother, not some stranger in the woods. They are at peace, and now he can be, too. His deed is done. His business is finished. He can let go.
His own eyelids feel heavier and heavier, and he lets them drift shut, no longer willing or able to fight against the call needling in the back of his mind. He doesn't know what awaits him. Be it the halls, or the void, or if his fëa is finally just too weak to remain whole. Whatever is to come, he will accept with whatever slivers of grace and dignity he might have left. Wherever he wakes up, should he wake at all, he will welcome it.
When his eyes close, it isn't darkness he sees, but a burning whiteness that seems to come from behind his own eyes. And he hears his name, in every voice that has ever spoken it, backed by a one that is deep and rumbling, and terribly familiar:
Turcafinwë. Tyelkormo. Celegorm the fair, the formidable, the fell. Son of Fëanáro. Welcome.