Chapter Text
Annatar’s face was so twisted by malice that it was only through the strange logic of dreams that Celebrimbor recognized him. The magic of him was different, marked by an absence in the shape of his heart. His small, secretive smile had vanished as if it had never been. In waking life, Celebrimbor was sure he never would have mistaken this creature for his gift-giver.
By that same twisted logic, he knew that the Maia – burning flame in the shape of one of Eru’s children, as if a balrog made beautiful – standing before Annatar was Uncle Nelyo. His magic was bright and familiar, and, as Celebrimbor watched, he reached into his own chest and drew to the surface a silmaril, light indistinguishable from that which Celebrimbor watched cross the sky every night.
Uncle Nelyo grabbed Annatar’s wrist, and the light of him became so bright, flames and silmaril in concert, that Celerbimbor’s vision went white even with his eyes shut.
--
Gil-galad was not by nature a religious sort. Few Noldor in Middle Earth were, and though that was not his only heritage, it was the one with which he had always identified most closely. In spite of his illustrious father’s most famous deed, and Círdan’s affection for Ulmo, Gil-galad very rarely prayed. He wasn’t sure he knew how.
“Please,” he said, rather fruitlessly and directionlessly. “I am no king. I cannot save my people alone.”
Celebrimbor was prisoner, likely dead, because Gil-galad had failed him. Gil-galad had abandoned him to a fate that he had suspected – had known – would be ill. Celebrían Nerissë was missing, possibly dead. There was another fallen Maia travelling to align themself with Sauron. Gil-galad had allowed this to happen on his watch, and he was cursed thrice as a fool for doing so.
Ada never would have allowed this to happen, if he’d been in Gil-galad’s position. He would have risked everything, and saved Celebrimbor, because he was a thousand times braver than Gil-galad had ever been, and a thousand times more blessed also. Fingolfin, who existed only as a gentle storyteller in Gil-galad’s early memories, would never have found himself in this situation at all. He would have been compelling enough to convince Celebrimbor not to trust the supposed bearer of gifts. Gil-galad, though he called himself of their line, found himself utterly lacking at moments like this.
The light that swept across the world was visible, even from inside his tent, and Gil-galad rose to his feet, empty prayers still on his lips, and grabbed his spear on the way out.
--
There was a problem in the dream. Fire spirits needed power and they were going to try to use Annatar’s ring of power.
They could not do that. That was dangerous. Celebrimbor tried to tell them so, but his tongue felt heavy. Everything felt heavy, limbs strangely twisted and numb. Maybe he was Uncle Nelyo in the dream, hanging from his right hand. That was weird.
No. He was awake now, he was certain, awake from a nightmare that had lasted a thousand years, because Uncle Nelyo was there, smiling and hopeful and unscarred, and Celebrimbor could feel the life and light of him. He didn’t think that could ever be, if his dreams were real.
“Hánatto? I dreamed you left. That everyone left.”
Without a flash of light this time, Celebrimbor found himself swept away again, staring into the unnatural ember-brightness that had replaced his uncle’s eyes.
--
“Your brow will stick like that, if you don’t unfurl it sooner or later,” Maedhros said.
“It didn’t when I was six, and it will not now.”
In every way, he was changed from the scarred, dangerous elf Gil-galad remembered from boyhood as the most powerful and brave person in the world. It was a story that few knew, but it remained in Gil-galad’s heart, a part of him as deep as the few memories he had of Nana and Da. He remembered Nana putting him under a bush beside the latrine, where the awful smell would confuse orcish noses, and making him promise to stay still and be quiet no matter what he heard, and he remembered the screaming, and, hours later, he remembered an elf on horseback slaying the orcs, and Maedhros, holding Gil-galad up with his right arm and pressing his face into his shoulder, to make sure that Gil-galad didn’t see. He had brought Gil-galad along to Hithlum, sure that no matter how attached Gil had become in those earlier days, he would be safer and better-loved with Fingon, and the rest was history.
“Your father would be very proud,” he said. “You do a good deal more than simply look like him. Elrond tells me that you’ve been a true brother to him since he came to your service.”
“Jest not. My father would be ashamed of me for freezing in the face of danger. For leaving someone who I- a true friend in the hands of the enemy while those better than me faced danger in my stead.”
“When your father saved me, he was ninth in line for the crown and the entire institution of the monarchy was unlikely to survive if I died there. You are a king and hold a duty that goes beyond any concerns of your heart. He would be furious if you risked your life the way he did his, hypocritical as that sounds. But console yourself with this – I would have been grateful for anyone who came to me that day, but in the aftermath, when I yearned for his company, Fingon was rarely there, being the new sole unifier of feuding clans. Then we were parted, when I took up Himring and herded my brothers east lest there be another kinslaying. Grand gestures are easy, provided you are willing to accept the risk. The slow and painful work of moments like this is much harder.”
“Who sat with you if Ada didn’t come?” It seemed unlike the father Gil-galad remembered, who had sat with him through a hundred nightmares.
Maedhros turned his gaze on the sleeping elf beside him. “Tyelpë, most often. He had no drive for power, no sense of obligation to the familial grudge, and he has never been the sort to turn his back on someone who needed him. I regret that he saw me like that, but I do not and have never regretted the fact that he is a person with such kindness in him. I only wish we lived in a world that rewarded that.”
“He deserved better.”
“He does,” Maedhros agreed, “but one thing I suppose I ought to have learned by now, if I have ever learned anything at all, is that better can come after the bad. These are notes of discord, but the song can and will be better.”
“Thank you for saving him, and for sending Celebrían back to us. If we had lost both of them in a single stroke–”
“Elrond was angry with me for thanking him not yet three hours ago,” noted Maedhros. “I will not repeat his anger with you. Unlike my thanking him, you had every reason to assume I had ill-intent and would not have helped even if I could. But I do swear to you – and I never swear lightly – that I mean to do no ill with this extraordinary gift that has been granted me. Now that I know who I am again, that I am and have always been Maedhros, in all my forms, I will do whatever I can to atone for it.”
“Call it not a gift,” advised Gil-galad, “and never use the word ‘atone’ to describe your being. Call it a duty, or a role, and atone only for your actions, not your nature. As we have surely seen, nature is often beyond us, but actions are – should be, I should say – within our control.”
That was pride on Maedhros’s face. The expression was unmistakable. Gil-galad had seen its like often enough on Círdan’s face, and if he thought back hard enough he could remember it on his other parents. This, though, was the first time he ever recalled seeing it on Maedhros.
Gil-galad had wondered a thousand times what would have happened if Ada had come home from the Nirnaeth, but now he wondered if, in such a future, he would have gained another father, ever-present in his life in a way that so few of Gil-galad’s parents (none of them in truth, save for Círdan) had ever had the chance to be.
“A duty,” Maedhros agreed, “to the song, to the Children of Eru, Yavanna, and Aulë, and to the Flames of the Earth, who need, very badly, for someone to hear them.”
“And to your family also. Do not pretend that you would have gone there for anyone else.”
“At least a couple more,” Maedhros said fondly, and though he was looking again at Celebrimbor, Gil-galad was quite sure that the smile gracing his lips was for him. “Though I fear you risk treason, counselling a Son of Fëanor to familial loyalty.”
“That is one of the advantages of being king. Very difficult to be guilty of treason against yourself.”
Maedhros turned to him again, and his expression was serious. “Treason against the Valar, Gil-galad.” To his silence, he added, “Perhaps they take things less seriously now, with Morgoth beyond reach, but you as king must be as above reproach as possible. It will be ill for your people if their king is doomed.”
“Surely they would not punish me for words. And if they punish you it would not be under my remit as king of elves to see it done.”
“No,” he agreed, “but if the Valar were again to insert themselves into the business of judging those living free on this shore and damning us accordingly… I do fear who else would appear on their list.”
Sauron’s co-conspirator, willfully blind to the evil occurring around him. A price paid in blood, his own and that of others.
“They will not touch him. I will not allow it.”
“Treason,” chided Maedhros once more.
“And you called Ada a hypocrite. Focus on your duties and let me choose the boundaries of mine. I would be no worthy king if I would choose to abandon those who needed me, even in face of danger. I could not walk into a burning city but I will do this.”
Once more, there was pride in his smile, and this time his burning gaze rested solely upon Gil-galad’s face.
--
The dullness of his body when he woke was that associated with a heady combination of herbs and spells. Celebrimbor had experienced it just once before, when his wounds from the Fall of Nargothrond had gone untreated for weeks before his arrival at Balar. His body felt vaguely as if it was floating in saltwater. When he tried to open his eyes, they felt heavy and only the right responded to his command, stickily coming open.
He was in a Noldorin war-tent, of the sort he remembered from the first age. This clearly belonged to a ranking officer, with plenty of lanterns to allow for night work and even a wooden desk.
Tilting his head, he looked to the other side of his bed, and thus had a clear view of the moment when his motion caught Galadriel’s attention. She had been posed and careful about her appearance for as long as Celebrimbor had known her, even in his earliest memories, when she wore yet an apprentice’s dress, but he caught a rare glimpse of her vulnerability at the revelation of his waking, eyes growing wide with surprise.
His mouth was as sticky and numb as the rest of him, and when he tried to speak, it came through muffled and awkward.
“Still,” she ordered, setting her parchment and carved pen aside without care.
Concentrating as hard as he could he pushed towards her the thought, what was real? I dreamed.
She fetched a jug of water from the desk, a low-fired ceramic with a jade glaze in the Silvan style that Gil-galad was partial to. Celebrimbor had been thinking about learning how to make it, to give him a gift. Or maybe he had done that already. He’d certainly given Gil-galad something important.
“Your Annatar was Sauron.”
Anyone else would have tried to be gentle with it, but even as Galadriel was gentle with her hands, bringing water to his lips, she knew that there was no words that would make this wound not burn. He’d suspected, he recalled. Celebrimbor had not given Gil-galad that set of clay bowls he’d been planning on. He’d given him a ring. Annatar had been acting oddly and there had been a need to ensure that those he trusted most were safe.
He swivelled his gaze between Galadriel’s hands, trying to remember if he had also managed to deliver hers in time, and, after a moment, she twisted her wrist, banishing a glamour. He thought he understood, now, why Grandfather was willing to die for the Silmarils. Celebrimbor would have died to ensure that Sauron – Annatar, who was Sauron – had never laid a hand on that that which lay on Galadriel’s ring finger. The image of him prying them from lifeless hands was intolerable.
“Elrond’s spell is too strong,” she said decisively. “You’re not sensible, if you forget that we have them. It may hurt, if I lower it enough for you to be able to concentrate, but I will, if you ask me.”
He nodded, as best he could, which really consisted of his head lolling forward. Jaw clenched with pain, he listened to her speak and remembered that Annatar had invaded his lands and sacked his city, had killed Gwaith-i-Mírdain or scattered them to the winds.
“We could not have saved you,” Galadriel said bluntly. “But as it resolved, we did not need to. You are not the only one who created a gem that could confer power on the wearer. Yet the conditions to do so with a Silmaril are evidently somewhat more extreme, and so too are the results.”
The burning figure in his dream with the Silmaril embedded in his chest and the magic Celebrimbor had known since he was born. “No.”
She nodded. “Maedhros. He and Gil-galad will be rather annoyed I spoke to you first. They and Celebrían have stayed with you, at least one or two, near constantly since the battle.”
The tears in his eyes might have been for the pain, or a hundred other reasons besides. “He died.”
“So he believed also. But alive or dead or elsewise, he walks among us now. And will not be best pleased to see you in pain. Rest, Celebrimbor. All who can be saved are safe now, and all who cannot are beyond harm.”
He would have liked to argue with her, but the full force of Elrond’s spell snapping back into place – it was easy to forget that Gil-galad’s quiet shadow contained within him a piece of the divine, until you felt his power so fiercely – knocked him clean back to sleep.
--
Though Maedhros and most of Gil-galad’s court seemed inclined to allow him to conduct both his duties and leisure from Celebrimbor’s bedside, Elrond was of a different view. After the battle, once Gil-galad had officially pardoned him before witnesses for idiotically following Celebrían into Eregion, he had slept for twelve hours – nearly unheard of for an elf – and then turned himself to the task of ensuring the wellbeing of every person who ventured within arm’s reach. This included Gil-galad, which was likely why he was being dragged away from both duty and friends on a vigorous hike uphill by someone who was – allegedly – his most loyal and dedicated follower.
“Celebrían says it’s a pleasant enough waterfall, though a small one,” Elrond said. “In winter it freezes over entirely.”
“You seem to hear much from Celebrían Nerissë, lately.”
He had never, in all their years of friendship, looked so embarrassed. “She’s very clever and knows this area well.”
“Clever and brave.” Elrond hummed his agreement. “And beautiful, of course.”
“Gil!”
“She’s not much younger than you, you know. A couple centuries at the outside. One of very few people you could marry whose bloodlines are utterly irreproachable by both your royal lineages.”
“Let me at least court her before you begin arranging our marriage.”
A smile like he had not worn in months rose to Gil-galad’s lips. “Ah, but you do wish to court her.”
“Of course I wish to court her. Do you think me a fool?”
“I thought you a fool when you followed her blindly into a captured, burning city where two maiar were actively warring.” To Elrond’s silence, he added, “I could not afford to lose you too. Either of you, but you in particular, mellon.”
“That foolishness,” he said, mulishly, “was not out of deluded affection. I did not see the extent of Celebrían’s virtue until later.”
“Then why did you do it?”
Elrond had been ever cautious, in Gil-galad’s estimation. Perhaps not so reserved as some of his Doriathrim kin, who even now preferred reclusive lifestyles unencumbered by the concerns of the outside world, but with the more mortal form of cautiousness that involved fear for life and limb. He would not have scaled a tree as carelessly as any other elf. But he would, apparently, walk into the jaws of death without understanding why such a matter would be utterly terrifying to all who knew him.
Elrond’s confession came, soft and wavering. “I had seen that light before. When my mother jumped, Maglor tried to cover my eyes, but I saw the light burst free, and I blinked away the burning in my eyes, as she flew away. I was not afraid to go into the city because I knew Maedhros was there, and I knew precisely what power he was armed with. I was not afraid because he would have died before allowing Sauron to harm us.”
“He would not have been the first to die in such a way.”
“I could not stand there and do nothing only to hear later of his death in a ballad. Not again.”
He had stopped leading the way, and Gil-galad realized that his clenched fists were trembling. Elrond, who had handled with far more maturity and grace than any of them the news of Sauron’s return, was left shaking at the idea that someone might hurt Maedhros, son of Fëanor.
Gil-galad understood the feeling, strange though it was. He wondered, suddenly, how well he really knew his best friend. They were both private about the particulars of their childhoods. This was not so strange for those who were young in violent Beleriand, and was especially understandable given the public scrutiny to which they had both been subjected. Yet, though a friendship could be maintained well with only the present, silence had its cost.
“Maedhros saved me,” he said, and wondered when the last time he’d said the words aloud was. “I don’t remember my own parents’ names, or my Nana’s laugh, but I remember Maedhros telling me his favourite stories as we rode for Hithlum.”
“Oromë discovering the elves,” Elrond said, with fondness.
“And Uinen and Ossë.” That had been Gil-galad’s favourite. Uinen, who was kind and gentle and good, had rescued fearsome Ossë from Morgoth’s torment and corruption without giving up any piece of her own goodness. Fingon had loved the story too, and to Círdan it was a matter of practical importance to explain the nature of the sea. This made it one of the few continuities between the three of them.
“He cried the only time he told us that one.”
Perhaps Maedhros had also seen, as Gil-galad had in later years, the parallels between Maedhros’s own story and Ossë’s.
“There was affection between you.”
“I barely remember what Eärendil looked like. But Maglor loved us as a father, and Maedhros… he would never name himself such a thing, but he was. Maglor was the one who wanted to foreswear the oath, to try and fight it and be better, but Maedhros had a different solution. He let the oath in and twisted it with the idea of the ransom, made himself truly believe that keeping us safe was essential to retrieving the Silmaril. He changed himself for as long as he could so that we would be his highest priority, and when he could no longer protect us from himself, he sent us away, loving us more than he coveted us. If I ever have children, I only pray that I have such devotion to them.”
Treason, Maedhros had said chidingly, masking in it real fear that one of his children would be hurt for falling into the same traps he had.
“He said to me that Celebrimbor was not the only person he would have faced Sauron for.”
Elrond turned his face to the sky, failing to disguise his pain from Gil-galad. “I never asked him to die for me. I am tired of losing parents.”
“So am I,” Gil-galad confessed, “but for today, we have that rare experience almost entirely unique to elves. The blessing of the firstborn, though we on this shore rarely experience it.
“Occasionally, we get our dead back.”