Chapter Text
The elf comes to him one day like the crisp air of autumn, their long strawberry blond hair in a messy braid draped over one shoulder, their eyes are like silver stars, distant and yet warm. They wear the loose clothes of the Silvan elves of Ossiriand, he can spot a faded green vest embroidered with freshwater pearls hidden under the strange elf’s cloak.
Celebrimbor lifts his head from his studies and puts down his quill. He hadn't expected any guests, not that late into the evening. He wipes the weariness from his face and mind, it is always a pleasure to get visitors in Eregion, no matter the hour. Eregion has been steadily growing for centuries, elves from Lindon and other corners of Middle Earth trickling into his realm and city. These days the city never slept, the shops of the stone masons were always busy and the forges never quiet. Still he felt it was missing something of the grandeur he had hope to accomplish. It felt empty and cold no matter how many more of the Noldor decided to settle and pursue their craft here, it didn't quite feel like home.
“What brings you to my abode, mellon-nîn?” He gets up and brushes the sand and ink from his fingers. There is still half a decanter of fruit wine in one of his cabinets he could offer his guest. He doesn't mind the mess, the maps and diagrams and notes scribbled here and there, the stacks of parchment on every surface, Celebrimbor hopes his guest won’t mind either.
But his guest only smiles warmly and waves him off and steps over the threshold into Celebrimbor’s study.
“I should be the one to come bearing gifts, my Lord, the hour is late and you seem occupied. I did not wish to disturb you, please sit.” Their voice is deeper than Celebrimbor had thought, rich and dulcet, like a cat’s content purr.
Celebrimbor is too transfixed to move. He wrings his hands and watches his guest take in the room. He can’t quite put his finger on it but something about the elf seems familiar. The way their sharp eyes instantly snap to the rock sample, the finest pink marble they had found, sitting on Celebrimbor's desk. The way their fingers tap appreciative across a piece of fool’s gold veined with emerald and silver.
“No, please, I feel I must insist. Make yourself feel at home, friend.” He clears his throat and takes a few steps and clears the chair opposite his by the desk off its contents. Mostly research notes on the nearby quarries, the quality of the granite, slate, marble, sandstone, the amount of clay that can be found in the riverbed. He puts them next to his neatly organised stacks of letters from the stone masons. He also pointedly ignores the golden seal of Gil-Glad peeking out from beneath the stack.
That could wait for another day, he thinks, what can’t wait though is that decanter of fruit wine. It must've been quite a journey for his guest to arrive this late at night. He grabs a set of dainty crystal flutes, a gift from one of the glassblowers.
He can hear his guest’s slow and soft footfalls on the marble tiles. Feather light and determined they make their way around the room. Before they stop. He turns around again and the vast nothingness of space between him and his guest has almost disappeared. They are frozen to the spot. Celebrimbor balancing the two glasses between his thumb and finger. His guest looking almost guilty, like they had been caught in the act of doing something they shouldn’t.
Their eyes flicker to the hammer, his grandfather’s hammer and his heart twinges.
“This is a fine tool, very beautiful. Who made it?” Their voice flows from their lips like liquid gold. One slender finger brushes the handle and Celebrimbor knows what they must feel: smooth steel tempered perfectly, singing under their fingertips as if it was a living, breathing being, calling to be used. He indicates that yes, his guest can pick it up if they so desire.
His guest does. They turn it over, run their fingertips reverently over the jewels embedded into the head, over the swirling roots and branches of the two trees, mingling like they used to. They cradle it lovingly, almost like a child. “The balance is extraordinary, and it is light as a feather. Is it made of adamant? And those gems, I have never seen anything purer or more beautiful. It makes my heart sing to have held something this exquisite.”
Then those slender fingers are stretched towards Celebrimbor, and the hammer is being returned to him with a dimpled smile that is full of flashing teeth. “I’m sorry, I shouldn't have.”
“No, no it is quite alright. It is a tool after all. It’s a shame to see it gather dust, I know.” Celebrimbor huffs and hurries to put down the glasses before taking his grandfather's hammer from their hands. His guest nods. He answers with a relieved smile of his own, relieved to have found a kindred spirit in his mysterious guest. “It belonged to a great elven smith, actually. Fëanor was his name.”
“Fëanor.” His guest hums the name, trying it out and tasting it in their mouth. Their eyes crinkle into laugh lines at the corners. “What a coincidence, for I have heard that name before.”
“Really?” It had not even dawned on him that anyone not of the Noldor would know that name, much less be familiar with the man and the work it belonged to.
“I heard that a great smith resides in Eregion, Celebrimbor, whose work is promising to be greater than that of Fëanor of old.”
He laughs at that. Greater than Fëanor? Him? No, he thinks to himself, Celebrimbor, son of no one will never step out of the shadow of Fëanor. The light would be too harsh and too blinding. He closes his eyes for a moment and he finds that his hands grip the hammer a little tighter. Then he slips his politeness back in place. “You flatter me.”
“Are you him?” Their eyes widen and suddenly their face mirrors that of someone who has been lost at sea and finally sees the distant light on the horizon. They sink to their knees, head bend slightly in supplication and their braid unravels even further. The next words are a deep murmur. “It is an honour. I have long wished to learn the craftsmanship of the Noldor, who were taught by Aulë himself.”
Celebrimbor's breath catches at such a display. There are freshwater pearls woven into their hair on fine golden chains, they catch the soft light of the candles and make it seem as if their hair is a halo, alight in flame.
It feels wrong, he takes no pupils, no students to pass on the craft to, but the beauty of creation wants to be shared. And he would be desperate for a kindred spirit. Something he had long looked for in the other Gwaith-i-Mírdain. Someone who truly understood. Celebrimbor reaches out his hand and awkwardly lays it over the rough and mended hem of the cloak the elf is wearing. Ever so careful he avoids brushing his hands over the elf's shoulder or to touch his hair.
“Please do get up, the floor is so cold this time of year.” He sighs and slowly sinks down to a crouch next to his guest. Their cloaks pool around them, his heavy and rich and velvety green, the guests a faded roughspun grown-green. Celebrimbor tries for his best smile. It is better to serve pain with honey after all. “I don't think I could teach you much. I’m no Aulë, or Fëanor for that matter.”
He can feel the other elf’s shoulders sink and tremble with disappointment under his hand. The cloak doesn’t hide much, doesn’t protect its wearer as much as Celebrimbor had hoped. It is a thin threadbare thing after all, torn and mended. He removes his hand.
A sharp intake of breath, and then: “How was he?”
“Who?”
“Aulë.” They whisper and tilt their head slightly upwards. The light of the fire reflects in their eyes and there is something sad in them. Some age old sorrow. It is gone in a flash. It must have been a trick of the light, maybe his own imagination. Whatever it was, it makes him hesitate.
Celebrimbor leans back on his heels. His mind provides glimpses and brief flashes on its own. Happier days. Halls filled with riches they had pulled from the earth. Clever hands and minds welding them into something new, pouring their joy into it. He remembers a strong hand on his shoulder.
“Kind, he enjoyed teaching and sharing his crafts and knowledge with those who wished to learn them. Then when we Noldo had our own forges and shops he would walk among us, praise us and take trinkets home with him. I remember he once took a ring I made.” He traces the shape of it with one his own finger, the swirling pattern, embellished with flowers cut from emerald and lavender gemstones, set with diamonds and engraved with poetry someone long dead had written. “Please excuse the wanderings of my busy mind. Sometimes it feels like it was only yesterday. Even though it was ages ago and almost none now live who remember it. ”
Even among the smiths and sculptors he had collected here in Eregion only few had been in the forges and halls of Aule, only a few among the Gwaith-i-Mírdain still remembered him. It was a certain kind of knowledge that was fading. Maybe he, too, would fade one day.
“I only wish to preserve what beauty remains in this world.” He tries.
“Is that what you are creating here?”
“In a way. I doubt it will ever be achieved in this age. Not by me, not alone.” He chuckles. He adds the next sentence more as a joke, an afterthought. “Now, if you wish to know about the deeds of Fëanor, you might have to consult a history book in the Halls of Lore.”
The guest’s steady gaze meets his own. Unblinking and unflinching. It is the way they stubbornly set their jaw and hold themselves, Celebrimbor had thought him a simple woodland elf, their spirit dull and faded after the wars and the breaking of Beleriand, but no, he was wrong. This one is all fire, bright and untamed and determined.
“Are you not his kin? Is it not the duty of the descendants to be greater than their forebears?” Their voice rings out in the quiet of the room. It pulls at something in his mind, something faded and dusty and fire warmed, an old feeling he had hoped he had all but forgotten.
“Maybe among your people…” He tries again, it is late and he has work to get back to, letters, diagrams, Gil-Galad… Work they could help you with if you let them, a voice in his head reminds him, and he wants to, it has been so long since he and Telenor had spent nights in the forge. It would be best to send them away for now, to let them return the next morning, or next week. “I’m sorry I do not think I quite caught your name? How rude of me, my apologies.”
He hadn't even asked, had not even offered the barest of politeness and formalities that were expected. Celebrimbor feels even more guilty, so carried away had he gotten.
He helps them both up. He is still holding the hammer. The guest takes it and places it gingerly back on its pedestal where it can rest unbothered for another century. Celebrimbor nods a thank you.
They only smile and brush a few strands of thick hair out their face, adjust their vest and flatten the wrinkles out of their precious cloak. “They call me Annatar.”
They are standing so close to each other that he can feel the other elf’s breath ghosting over his cheek. He throws caution to the seven winds, had he not already promised his cousin he would look into whatever matter that concerned Gil-Galad now? He may need every extra pair of hands he can get. “Well, Annatar, it would certainly be a lordly gift to have you work with me.”