Work Text:
It is Durin who finally finds Celebrimbor in those days after the fall of Beleriand, when the lands Celebrimbor had spent so many years in are gone and all of his family’s dwellings and bones are lost to the sea except Himring and Maglor.
Durin II, that is, at least according to the other elves. Celebrimbor doesn’t think he is truly different, for he can remember a trip to Khazad-dûm before. Durin had a scar above his eyebrow, one that he joked was caused when a rock fell upon him in his sleep, and this Durin has the same scar.
Celebrimbor does not question it, not when Durin is the only one left who also knew Caranthir and Curufin and does not speak of them harshly.
“The grief will not leave you quickly,” Durin says one day. He sits upon a stone, out in the open air. Celebrimbor almost thinks he remembers Durin sitting there with Curufin so many years ago discussing lost loved ones. Durin had lost his youngest son by then, one of the many lost in the war against Morgoth.
Curufin had lost his wife, and Celebrimbor can only remember his father’s rage and grief from those days. He knows his father must have done something else, for grief had not been an excuse to avoid duty in those days, and yet his father had not seemed to do anything but grieve.
“No,” Celebrimbor says.
Durin’s face twists beneath his beard, and then he pulls a chisel from his pocket.
“Your father once carved your mother’s name on this stone, beside his father’s name and his grandfather’s. I had hoped he would return one day after the names were gone and tell me his grief had changed to something more manageable.” The chisel is pressed to Celebrimbor’s hand with a sign, before Durin continues, “Carve the names of those your mourn on these stones, and when the marks had faded in the face of time, I hope you will return and tell me you have found peace.”
Durin leaves then, and Celebrimbor is left alone.
It seems foolish to hope that his grief will diminish as quickly as names vanish from a stone, but Celebrimbor does.
He lifts the chisel and begins to work with short, angry strokes, and then with longer ones as he cries over the memories of all he has lost to the past.
-
Durin steps from Khazad-dûm again when the names of Celebrimbor’s uncles and father have finally been washed away by rain and ice and the ravages of time. This time he is called Durin III, and he has bidden Celebrimbor work with Narvi to build new doors to Khazad-dûm.
Celebrimbor finds him in the same grove, the trees now old and bent, and the stones worn clean with time. He has not visited while Durin was gone, and his fingers brush over spots where Celebrimbor knows he carved a name and now there is nothing more to be seen.
“Did it help?” Durin asks, his body timeless as ever and his words holding all the weight of the years that have passed within them.
Durin is the king of a people who die, though he shall find no lasting death for lives to come. Celebrimbor is the son of elves, and he has watched too many die and not return to walk in these lands.
And yet Celebrimbor looks to the stones, fingers brushing over the space where he knows he once carved names. The names are gone, and Celebrimbor finds the worst of cutting grief is gone with them.
“Yes.”