Chapter Text
I have been alone for so long.
I have returned from the East, after many years. I have seen such sights there: ice fields, scarlet meadows, violet cliffs, lakes of fire. Towers of stone crowned with temples, crumbling cities with black roads. A lake that forms a perfect circle. A bent spire of unnamed metal. I have seen where the land ends and the eastern sea begins: dark and cold and answerable to none. I cannot love the sea, but I admire its vastness. The power and majesty of it cannot be denied. Men live on its rough shores. There are few places Men do not live. They breed so quickly, and they have spread across the land. Their minds are open, malleable. They interest me, but only so much. Like the sea, I can understand their power and potential. Like the sea, I hold no love for them.
I do not need more Men. I have enough, and it would be effortless to obtain more. I have returned to the West, because I seek the Elves. Elves are like swords, in that they are edged. A fine point. More dangerous, but more useful, than an unworked piece of metal. More desirable. The Elves' talents are so great that some few have managed to impress me. Fewer still have achieved feats that have defied my own abilities.
Their very strength is an obstacle. The Elves I have encountered thus far have not been so malleable as I would like; they held a dim view of our collaboration. The Lady of the Noldor met with me willingly, but her conversation frosted over while we spoke. She is proud and would not accept my gifts. A disappointment, as more than any other, I sought her favor, one of the greatest Noldor yet living in Middle-earth. Her alliance could have been good fortune or a grave error, for her eyes see too far, and she has known too much sorrow.
The people of Lindon were wary when I came. The guards at their gates carried spears, and their walls were fortified and spined. Their bright eyes were cold, and their words to me as guarded as their hearts. They asked questions as sharp as their spears. My calm answers gave no cause for doubt, yet they doubted. Gil-galad would not grant me an audience, in spite of the offers I made. These Elves have been much pressed and harried, so unlike the Elves of the first days. Suspicion has grown great in their hearts, and they even distrust each other. That is not displeasing to me, but it does not serve me in this instance.
I do not expect all Elves to trust me, yet I remain certain some will take the risk. There are always those curious enough, daring enough, or naive enough. My own master worked with the Elves and won their confidence in Valinor. He taught them many things, deceit and anger not the least of them. Elves are curious and eager to learn. Most hide their weaknesses within their desires. To obtain what you want, first offer them what they want.
Ost-in-Edhil is a world apart from Lindon. I have never seen an Elven city like it. Men and Dwarves walk here freely, among the Elder Children. The outer walls are built for elegance rather than defense. I admire the fine curve and sweep of them, and I imagine how my armies would cut through and demolish them.
I am greeted here with smiles rather than weapons. The gate attendants are dark, like most Noldor. They share glances at my appearance. They want to discuss me, to ask each other what the meaning for my presence could be, but they will not be less than collected in my presence. "What is your name?" is their first question.
"I am Annatar, called Aulendil, also known as Artano." These are names I might have held under my other master, the first I served. Generous, creative names. Why should I not pretend to be who I could have been? Lies that rest closer to the truth are less easily perceived as untruths. The Elves have already given me many names, but I cannot reveal any of those today. Those names would close this city to me, no matter how open it is. My real name is a secret, and I will keep it close, as it burns within me. I have not spoken that name since the war ended and took my master with it. Maybe I will speak it again in the days to come, but not yet—least of all to these Elves who may have founded an open city, yet have not completely dropped their guard.
"Where have you come from, Annatar? Of what people are you?"
"I fought with the host of Valinor in the Great War, and I remained here as an Emissary of the Valar. The will of my masters first sent me east, but I have returned to rejoin the Elves. And that, too, is the will of the Valar." The words are not entirely lies, but with omissions and careful phrasing, they mislead.
"Annatar Aulendil," they say instead, "you are welcome here."
When I ask for an audience with their lord, they grant it. It seems so easy, but I am the wary one as I wait in his hall. I am alone here, without allies, with a certain vulnerability. The master of this house is a Fëanorian, and I know that family and their sharpness. Surely, he is the one most likely to see through my deceptions. Though his guards were less guarded. Though his city's walls are graceful. Though I stand here in his hall, having offered them nothing but a name.
When the lord of the city appears, I experience a feeling I have not known since the end of the Great War. Amazement cuts through me. I am so rarely startled, that the very existence of my own surprise shocks me further. Expecting to find the Elf guarded, I drop my own guard. He must see it in my eyes. I feel them widen, but not in time to control them. My lips part, and I am present like an actual creature of flesh, ruled for a moment by breath and heartbeat.
The cold silver of his diadem and earrings is all the brighter next to his warm skin. Brighter still are his cool, gray eyes. So like Fëanor in his features. So like his father Curufinwë. Though when he smiles, his face transforms, and his strong resemblance to his forebears is diluted by gentleness.
It is not his resemblance to the Elves who lived before him that startles me. It is not the soft way he smiles. It is not the fact that one of his standing was so willing to meet and welcome me so openly, when the Lady Galadriel and the Elves of Lindon were so resistant to my overtures. It is the burst of heat that suddenly expands within me when I look upon those Elven features that are both very familiar and very not.
I have knowledge of all the Elves my Lord knew when he was honored in Valinor. He did not pay any great attention to this Elf, far more taken by the Grandfather. My Lord, looking upon this one, would not have seen him as I see him now: the radiance flowing from the Elf's face, his expanding soul as silver as the jewelry he wears.
His fëa rises from his hröa. My spirit, brighter and hotter, rises in concert. The Elf does not perceive what I see, with the sight of an Ainu. No one in this city could witness it, save myself—the silver and the gold of us reaching out to each other. Against my will—I do not know his will, but it is against mine. One light fierce and searing, the other cool and glittering, they strike each other and merge, drawn with an inevitability as certain that of as a stone falling from a height toward the earth, or a wave curving toward the shore. Our collision. This cannot be. Yet it becomes truth. I do not want it, but it is not a matter of my desire.
Is it fate? Do I believe in fate? No—I am against it, the anti-fate. I stand in opposition to what was decreed. Despite this, I cannot deny or prevent the way our souls merge together, shaping themselves around each other. For an instant, I see once again the sweet green-gold fields of Almaren, the first trees spangled with singing stars...
Celebrimbor's reaction is immediate. His expression falters, then his stance. He almost loses his footing. We stand in silence, both on the verge of admitting what we both know, yet holding back. I am aware of what has happened, yet I do not know how it could be so. I have grown so far above such base trivialities. I am too altered; too much of my Lord entered and remains within me.
"Annatar Aulendil, we are honored by your presence,"says Celebrimbor at last, slowly. The first thing he says to me is my name, false though it is. "I am Celebrimbor, son of Curufinwë."
I must take care of my features. I have made this mask, and I must maintain it. I must say the necessary words. Ceremony will guide me, if nothing else can. "The honor is mine. I thank you for your hospitality."
"Our hospitality is for all. But you are most welcome."
I have an advantage now, but a tenuous one, and double-edged, like all dealings with Elves. I will not press this advantage yet. I must not press it. To press it will be to endanger it, and that I will not do. Our souls collided, mine and Celebrimbor's, and then receded, but where they met there remains a golden line, a chain of linked rings, binding his being to mine. I wrap my hand, the hand of my spirit, around it. No Elf can see this. Another Maia or a Vala could, but they are not here. Only I am. I, alone.
I realize, belatedly, that an hour or more has passed as we have stood here staring at each other. Our unspoken union has twisted time. If one of Celebrimbor's household sought to interrupt us at any point, I did not notice. Unthinkable, that I should fail to be aware of everything around me at all times. I heard of such an inconvenience occurring once before, to another Maia, but she was most unlike me. I must regain control. I cannot stand staring at this Elven lord for centuries in his hall.
"Celebrimbor," I say. It is the one thing I say then, for a long time. In spite of my struggles and my will, time escapes us again.
I have been alone for so long, but I am so no longer. This was not my plan, but it must be my plan now. To be worthy, to be successful, a plan must be dynamic. It must account for the unaccountable. I know this, because I am the unaccountable. I am the unlooked for element that ruins the plans of others. Now I stand in Eregion, with my first foothold, and I am committed to its ruination.