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Ereinion keeps his head tucked tightly against Celebrimbor’s chest as he is carried from Nargothrond.
His sister is still there, and his father. His mother is dead, and that is enough for his father to have decided Ereinion needs to be taken away. Taken to Círdan, who Ereinion has never met before, but who his father swears is kind and will take care of Ereinion.
Celebrimbor has sworn nothing, but he has agreed to leave Nargothrond with Ereinion.
Ereinion lifts his head. Not enough to see everything around them, because he doesn’t want to see the way from Nargothrond. It will hurt more, he thinks, if he can remember how to return and does not.
“Celebrimbor?” he whispers at last.
Celebrimbor is strange. He has always been strange, as long as Ereinion has known him, but he has been kind too. Ereinion knows how much Celebrimbor has given up, and he had seen the stack of tools Celebrimbor decided to leave behind so that he could carry Ereinion instead.
But Celebrimbor has always claimed to not have a home to return to. Ereinion forces down his thoughts that this is wrong. Ereinion doesn’t have a home now either, and he needs to know how Celebrimbor doesn’t cry like Ereinion wants to.
Celebrimbor looks down at him until Ereinion can gather his thoughts.
“Does this mean I’m never going to have a home again?” Ereinion asks. He doesn’t add the part about being like Celebrimbor. Finduilas had said that was rude, two weeks before Orodreth had decided to separate his children and send Ereinion somewhere safer, and then she had told Ereinion to be good when she kissed his hair and told him goodbye.
He will be good, if only so Finduilas won’t have a reason to be more upset.
Celebrimbor’s hold tightens.
“Home is our memories,” Celebrimbor says, and Ereinion is too young to know the weight of memories that press down upon Celebrimbor, but even he can hear the sorrow in Celebrimbor’s voice.
“But you always act sad when I ask you about the past,” Ereinion says. “I don’t want to be sad when I think of home.”
Celebrimbor doesn’t say anything in response to that, even when they arrive in Círdan’s lands.
He does find Ereinion when news comes of Nargothrond’s fall, and all Ereinion can do is cry for a home that is now only a memory.