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“I mean to forage. Do you care to come?”
It occurred to Talion that he’d never had to ask Celebrimbor’s opinion on such a thing before; it had not been so long ago that where Talion went, Celebrimbor had no choice but to follow.
Now, instead of a severe, echoing voice and a shadowy blur of silver-white coming to answer, it was a very tangible Elf with shiny black hair and bright blue eyes and a surprisingly softer voice.
(That softness had been one of the bigger surprises.
Talion could never have called the wraith soft.)
“Yes,” Celebrimbor responded, setting down the rag he’d been using to scrub one of the windows in the small house they were currently calling home. “I think that would be a good idea.”
As they walked by the door, Talion reflexively picked up his sword and spun it in his hand; it came as naturally as anything else he did, and it was only once he’d sheathed it on his belt that he’d realized, “Do I…?”
Celebrimbor cocked his head.
“…Do I need my sword?” Talion finished uncertainly.
Celebrimbor was quiet for a moment, just long enough to make Talion wonder if he was trying to communicate telepathically- he did that sometimes, they both did, because they had spent sixty years needing to do little more than forcefully think their words at one another to communicate if they so desired. Now they had to remind themselves to speak out loud.
But instead, Celebrimbor approached his bow where it leaned against the wall, picking it up and lighting running his fingers over the runes carved into it. “Probably not,” he said finally, in the same deep voice he’d always had, but now warmer and quieter than he’d ever sounded as a wraith. “But it won’t hurt to take it.”
It had been a very long time since either of them had been able to go on a simple stroll without worrying about Orcs, Uruks, trolls, spiders, Caragors, Ghuls, and every other possible nightmare Mordor had in store for them. By the time Talion was finally relaxed enough to take his free hand off the hilt of his sword, they had been in the forest for nearly an hour.
The area of Gondor they had come to live in was flush with foliage, a good area for foraging- and that was good, since they had to keep their purse-strings pulled tight until their finances stabilized. There was a variety of plants that could be used to treat illness and injury, as well as for sustenance. Most of them were safe, too; far too often Talion had made the mistake of ingesting some herb in Mordor that had left him violently ill, or even dead.
As he foraged, he was vaguely aware of Celebrimbor being somewhere in the vicinity. He wasn’t worried about either of them getting lost; they were both competent at navigating, and with Celebrimbor’s Elven hearing he could easily hear if Talion called out to him.
After he had had a chance to fill the small sack he’d brought with various herbs and flowers, Talion looked around to find Celebrimbor and found that he could no longer see the Elf. A small spike of anxiety quickly subsided; Elves were not easy to sneak up on, and if Celebrimbor had been attacked by man or beast, he would have made some noise or offered some struggle. It was a simple matter of finding the last place he’d seen him, and then tracking the (albeit fainter than a human’s) traces that Celebrimbor had left in his wake, footprints and snapped sticks and a strand of black hair hanging from a low-hanging tree branch.
When Talion finally came upon him Celebrimbor was seated, legs crossed, before a small patch of Blue Milk growing along a small ledge that looked out into the forest. He was staring down at the mushroom, lightly running his thumb along the soft ridges and folds beneath its head. He appeared unaware of his surroundings, hyper-focused on the plant before him.
Talion studied him for a long moment. After so many years, it was such a strange thing to rework the image he had of Celebrimbor in his head to fit the appearance the Elf had now. Certainly he had seen glimpses in those bursts of memory, but for nearly all of their time in Mordor Talion had become accustomed to a translucent silvery-white outline of a long-dead Elf; a long-dead Elf with a partially mangled face, at that.
The Celebrimbor here and now was physical. He could be touched; he could reach out and touch things without possessing Talion first. His movements were slightly slower than that of the Wraith’s, and his words were less forceful too. With the restoration of his body came the restoration of his soul, and Talion found that, although quite serious most of the time, Celebrimbor’s nature had become more serene, less agitated, less bitter or vengeful. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d heard Celebrimbor sneer or regard something with open disgust.
Such a strange adjustment to make; it was at once a new and familiar person he found himself with.
Talion quietly sat down beside Celebrimbor. “Ought to be useful,” he remarked. “Especially for food.”
Celebrimbor did not start, which suggested that he had known Talion was nearby even if he hadn’t commented on it. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose it will be.” The Elf raised his head and looked out into the forest, expression inscrutable. It had been fairly easy to read his expressions once upon a time, mostly because they tended to be some shade of determination or irritation. Now Talion found him less transparent.
(Literally and figuratively, he supposed.)
“It’s quiet,” Talion said lightly.
“Not really,” Celebrimbor disagreed, though his tone was pleasantly mild. “There are plenty of sounds.”
Nice ones at that, Talion considered as he paid closer attention: Small noises of birds and squirrels, the wind in the trees and the trickling of a stream. It was serene, unlike most of the sounds one usually heard in Mordor; most everything there meant to kill you in one way or another, so even the more innocuous sounds had a way of producing some anxiety.
They sat quietly for a time.
It was Celebrimbor who eventually broke the silence. He pulled out a knife and carefully cut the Blue Milk from the ground, handing it to Talion. In the process of this handoff, Celebrimbor did a slight double-take, frowning. “Talion?”
“Hm?”
Celebrimbor reached up and touched Talion’s cheek, lightly guiding him so they were making eye-contact.
“Your eyes,” Celebrimbor mumbled.
Talion gave a small smile and an uncertain laugh. “Have you been sniffing the mushrooms instead of picking them?”
The smile Celebrimbor returned with was weak and sad. “For sixty years,” he said, “When I looked into your eyes, they were blue. It’s only now I’ve noticed they are actually brown.”
This was news to Talion; but then again, he hadn’t really had much chance to look into a mirror whilst in Mordor. The Uruks had no need for them; they weren’t overly concerned with primping themselves. “For my part, I had no idea they’d turned blue.”
Celebrimbor’s hand stayed on his cheek. Talion did not move or attempt to shrug him off; beyond the fact that it didn’t trouble him much, Celebrimbor often seemed dazed at his renewed ability to touch. He had gone for so long incorporeal that he seemed bewildered that he could reach out and feel things now, and so he often made physical contact with things, including Talion.
Talion had noticed that those touches were starting to linger.
In fairness, he could not be sure that this was unique to Celebrimbor, as he had met and befriended precious few (one) Elves in his life. Perhaps this level of physical intimacy was common between friends.
(And if it’s not?)
He refused to answer that question. It wasn’t worth becoming anxious over just now.
The sun had swung lower. Soon it would set, and the thought of being out at night made Talion’s chest tighten. He was not yet unaccustomed to being out at night without the crushing paranoia that something dangerous might be lurking nearby.
“We should return home,” Talion said.
Celebrimbor nodded, smoothly climbing to his feet as Talion strained to haul himself up. Though his movements were slightly slower, slightly less effortless as they had been as a Wraith, Celebrimbor was still and Elf and therefore still more elegant in his physical abilities than Talion would ever be.
As he walked ahead, Talion found himself watching those small movements, the nimble way Celebrimbor maneuvered around brush, the swift way his hand would come up to brush the bark of a tree. At one point, he twisted at the waist to slide between a tree and clump of bushes and Talion was overcome with something that left his mouth dry and his palms sweaty.
He banished those thoughts quickly.
There is no need to complicate this situation.
“Is it difficult,” Talion said aloud, desperate to divert his attention to something else. “To move around so many obstacles, after being incorporeal for so long?”
Celebrimbor stilled for a moment. They had nearly reached the path that led back to their home. “At times,” he said. “Sometimes… Sometimes I forget. Usually I can compensate, and sometimes I can’t.”
He didn’t move and didn’t speak, his back still to Talion.
After a moment, Talion inched forward, moving to see Celebrimbor’s face. His expression was not so serene now, and a touch anxious.
“I am glad for it,” Celebrimbor whispered suddenly. “I am glad to be shed of those powers. I am glad to be an Elf again, with no wraith-magic or ring-magic.” There was a flicker of something like grief across his face. “I am glad to be myself again.”
The breath he took next sounded like it was on the edge of a sob.
It occurred to Talion then that Celebrimbor was not the only one capable of touch; he reached out and put a hand on the Elf’s shoulder, leaning in as close as he dared. “I am glad that you are yourself now too,” Talion said.
Celebrimbor leaned into the touch, and they stood silently for a moment.
The sky was starting to show light shades of pink.
Talion moved his hand to Celebrimbor’s back, applied the lightest pressure to indicate that they should head home. Celebrimbor nodded, expression calmer now, though still with a shadow of sadness.
They walked home in easy, companionable silence.
-End