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“Master Rúmil?” the elf asked as the door opened.
For a moment Rúmil thought he conjured a vision from memory, for this elf appeared to be none other than Fëanor returned. But this elf was not Fëanor, could not be his pupil who so long ago had challenged all the Valar and then fallen, and could not be Curufin either, for Fëanor’s son shared his fate. Rúmil cleared his throat, hoping the other would speak before he was forced to think of what to say.
“I am sorry if I have bothered you,” the elf said, and that made it easier, for Fëanor had never apologized for that. “It is only, Finrod - that is, the Prince. He suggested you may be willing to allow me to stay for a few nights. He and the King have promised that I would be welcomed in Tirion, but I do not wish to cause trouble, and I am sure it will be easier for the King if I do not appear until he has time to explain matters to more elves.”
Rúmil raised a hand to stop the other’s words. “There is room if Prince Findaráto wishes you to stay here, but I would know who you are before I take you into my house.”
“Celebrimbor, son of Curufinwë,” the other said, and that made entirely too much sense, even as Rúmil tried to see any signs of the child he had once known in this elf. It had been easier to think of Celebrimbor as a child, and hard to reconcile what he had known of Celebrimbor with the stories that had been told of his life.
“It does not seem like Arafinwë to have requested you call him the King,” Rúmil said after a moment thinking of anything to say. He wanted to ask of other things, and yet he could not. Not now, when Celebrimbor was evidently so recently returned, and had been rumored to be estranged from his family anyways.
“He did not,” Celebrimbor said. He glanced down at the floor for a moment, and then lifted his chin to meet Rúmil’s eyes. “Ereinion did not either, and it cost him support that could have eased matters when Elrond and Elros joined us. I will only call the King by another title when I am sure matters with my remaining cousin will not be complicated by my release.”
“If the last news from those lands is to be believed, Elrond is now married to Arafinwë’s granddaughter. I do not think matters will be complicated by you saying the King’s name nor calling him uncle.”
Celebrimbor shrugged, and the memory of Fëanor rose once more in Rúmil’s mind at the determined set of Celebrimbor’s mouth when he next spoke. “And with all respect, Master Rúmil, I am not content with those thoughts.”
”Arafinwë knows his people. If he thinks it wise for you to call him by his name,” Rúmil began, only to see Celebrimbor’s face flush.
It was obvious Celebrimbor was still annoyed when he spoke. “Ereinion thought so too, and I had to call upon Celeborn and Oropher both to help me rescue Elrond and Elros from those who wished to rid them of the filth of the Fëanorians while Ereinion was gone to visit Círdan. Do you know how long it took to convince Oropher’s servants to allow me into his camp to speak?”
“What?” Rúmil asked. Celebrimbor could not mean what Rúmil thought he did - and yet, he must. There was a desperate anger in Celebrimbor’s tone that could not come from anything but experience.
“They made me beg on my knees, pleading with them and screaming that Elrond and Elros were Thingol’s descendants too. They took me to Oropher eventually, after Thranduil stumbled upon me begging and insisted his father would wish to hear me,” Celebrimbor said as though it was nothing out of the ordinary.
And perhaps it was not worse than the other things Celebrimbor had experienced, but it was worse than what Rúmil had imagined when he thought of what had happened after the end of the First Age.
“He said that the kind of filth that would harm children was best reserved for the Noldor alone, and that he would not see his own kin fall that far,” Celebrimbor said. “I do not think Oropher has any more fond feelings for the Noldor now that he did then, but he was in Doriath when Dior’s sons were lost. I had thought he would require a much greater price, but I would have paid it, even if he had asked me to throw myself at his feet and renounce my family with bitter words.”
Rúmil felt his own words stick in the back of his throat at that. He can picture the words some would have demanded of Celebrimbor, bitter words that Rúmil would consider unsayable but Celebrimbor did not. Celebrimbor glanced at Rúmil’s face and shook his head.
“My father and mother had been dead for years by then. My grandfather as well, and all of my uncles save Maglor, who was lost to me. All of my family was lost to me, except two half-elves who had lost even more than I had,” Celebrimbor said when Rúmil did not speak again.
There was another moment of silence, and Celebrimbor scrubbed at his face.
“If the cost of keeping them safe was to renounce my family more than I had already, it was a price I was willing to pay. If that is something you cannot accept - if your loyalty to my grandfather is so great that my loyalty to them cannot be accepted -”
There were things Rúmil wished to ask, but they stuck in the back of his throat at the wild look in Celebrimbor’s eyes. And they did not matter now, not when all Rúmil could feel was a sinking horror at how much must have happened in Beleriand for it to have come to that.
“I can accept it,” Rúmil said instead of all the questions he still had.
Celebrimbor nodded, anger vanishing from his face, perhaps shoved down again until it bubbled free at the next reminder of how badly things had gone. “Then I may stay?”
“Yes.”
Rúmil had thought it would be a relief to have Fëanor or one of his descendants returned, and it was. But it was also a painful reminder he had not expected to have, of how much they had all suffered.