Chapter Text
It had been a strange day, to say the least, at first he and all his brothers had been attending a meeting until it all got too boring for him and he decided to head out with his two younger brothers. Curvo had seemingly gotten his hands on some kind of weird scroll talking about a contraption that could be built for transportation and decided he wanted to test it out. It all had been going smoothly until there was a small pack of orcs that decided it would be a good time to attack them, this obviously led to a fight but something weird had happened. Somehow the contraption had been activated without being completed and now he found himself standing on some weird road made out of solid rock in the middle of a storm.
It was clear he was no longer at home.
Celegorm got snapped out of his thinking as a thought shot through his head about his brothers. He instantly broke out into a sprint leaving the road behind him and dashing into the forest where the sounds of metal clashing came from. As he arrived it was clear he had no reason to worry as the last orc had his life stripped from him by his little brother and left with the world with a loud shriek.
“You two are alright!” he exclaimed with relief rushing to embrace both of his brothers. Normally Caranthir and Curufin were both not keen on his antics but it seemed like they would accept it for this once.
“Of course we are, it was only a couple of orcs,” Curvo scoffed at him, yet Celegorm knew his longer long enough to detect the undertone of love in his voice.
“Though it is lovely embracing each other in the rain in a field filled with dead orcs, shouldn’t we try to go and find some shelter?” Caranthir questioned with his usual sarcastic tone.
“I saw a building further up the road, that seems like our best bet.”
“Lead the way then brother, we’ll follow you.”
Just like that the three brothers set out in search of shelter, over the year they had gotten used to living in uncomfortable situations and leaving behind most of their royal luxuries but still it was no fun to be drenched from the rain. As they got closer to the road Celegorm saw something, it hadn’t been there earlier that night, he was certain of it. Ordering his brothers to stay at the edge of the woods he jumped back onto the road and grabbed a weird glass rectangle from the ground. He looked it over with great curiosity and stashed it on his belt next to his sword. It wasn’t until he saw something move in the corner of his eye that his attention went elsewhere, further down the road a small figure had been running towards a building.
Were they a threat or not? If they had something to do with all these weird things then Celegorm would be certain to keep them away from his brothers. Climbing a nearby tree with ease he jumped from branch to branch until he caught up with the figure, but where he had expected some kind of orc it was instead a young-looking girl with fear written all over her. She suddenly looked up at the trees and Celegorm froze where he was, had she seen him?
By the way the girl had closed the door, it seemed like she had not, instead, Celegorm thought she had definitely not seen him. The girl had a sweet face and a kind feeling about her, hopefully, she would be willing to offer them shelter during the storm.
Settling on the fact the girl was harmless, almost considered cute with her small stature, he called to his brothers to let them know he found a place to stay. Curufin got back to him the quickest while he could see Caranthir making his way through the forest, with the way the lightning illuminated the world it was easy to identify them. They gathered on the porch of the quaint little cottage at least being able to get out of the rain.
“So this is what you saw?” Curufin asked skeptically. Celegorm could understand it, the cottage clearly did not look very well taken care of but it would be better than nothing he thought.
“Do you have any better ideas?”
“No, I do not,” his younger brother admitted with a glare of stubbornness to rival their father’s.
“I thought I saw someone inside earlier though. do you think they will let us stay?” Caranthir asked.
“Only one way to find out!” Celegorm replied with a boisterous laugh.
Turning around he knocked on the door, it had only been fifteen minutes at most since he saw the girl disappear into the house, clearly she would still be awake. When he got no reply he knocked again but with more force, maybe she couldn’t hear it because of the storm?
Suddenly Caranthir gave him a nudge to the side and yelled, “Open up, we know there is some inside this building and we won’t ask again.”
That was one way to do it Celegorm guessed hoping there would be some motion of life this time, however, nothing happened. Sharing a look the brothers quickly managed to open the lock, Curvo was a master smith after all and a lock like this was like child’s play to him. When they got inside they found it completely dark, not a single fire was on to warm the place up. Strange Celegorm thought, the girl must have been freezing and would need to warm up.
“Caranthir, could you get a fire started here?” He asked his brother.
“Of course I can, but what will you be doing?”
“Curufin and I will go and talk to the owner to explain the situation.”
“Good luck,” Caranthir wished him with a humph happy to tend to the fire and avoid any unnecessary social interactions.
Sharing a quick glance together he and Curvo made their way up the staircase, it was not difficult to find the room the owner was staying in as there was a rather obvious trail of water giving her location away. Standing in front of the door the two of them could hear a soft shuffling on the other side, evidently, the girl was awake.
Giving each other a nod Celegorm turned around and opened the door without any hesitation. With Curufin close behind him, he steps into the room and scans it through, it was a simple but nice room except for the girl standing frozen in the middle of it looking as if she was face to face with Morgoth instead of some elves. Seeing her from closer by Celegorm realised she was even smaller than he imagined, clearly she posed no threat to them in any way.
“Do not be afraid we mean no harm to you, we just want to talk,” he said in his most sweet song voice he could muster up.
It took a few seconds but he got a reply, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak that language,” the girl had spoken in common with a soft voice doing nothing to hide her fear.
“Oh dear,” he muttered.
“This will be an issue,” Curufin spoke behind him in Quenya, “this terrified little thing here clearly will not let us stay now will she?”
“We do not know that yet, she is scared which I can understand but she also seems sweet, you can feel it too right brother?”
“I most definitely can feel it too, this does however not take away from the fact she will not cooperate.”
“What if we can show her we mean no harm?”
“And you will do that how exactly dearest brother.”
He turned around to his little brother and gave him a grin before continuing to talk, “Hmm what kind of gesture would make you feel at ease in that?”
“I doubt anything, how would you feel with two people bursting into your room who are twice your size and carry weapons.”
“You’re right! We are carrying weapons which make her more scared, if we take them off and give them to her she might feel more at ease.”
“I am absolutely not giving away my weapons to a little girl while there might be orcs roaming outside.”
“Then what do you suggest huh? I still have that weird thing that was lying on the road that might belong to her, what if we have that one back?”
“Well I suggest we leave the gi-”
Curufin halted mid-sentence as he suddenly saw a small streak of dark hair flash past him and go out the door, “Huh,” he spoke, “Seems like she decided to make a run for it. So much for your friendly introductions, it seems.”
Deciding to ignore his brother for now he decided he could do only one thing, and that was to yell really loud, “Caranthir, she is heading down the stairs most likely to escape please try to intercept her!” before following with a simple, “Please stop!” in the common tongue.
Both he and Curvo decided to not chase after her not wanting to drive her even further away, however, Celegorm could not help but feel a wave of guilt as he heard a loud thud downstairs and a soft scream clearly indicating the girl had injured herself. Deciding nothing was clearly working he decided to make his way down towards her in a calm tempo, hoping to not startle her further in case she was injured.
As he and Curufin reached the bottom of the stairs they could see the girl being held by Caranthir, yet a double check made it clear his brother was more supporting her than really keeping her in place. As their eyes met his brother sent him a cold glare, clearly he was not impressed by what was happening and was trying to tell him to fix it.
Taking a step forward from where he stood he took his time looking her over, apart from her ankle which seemed to be rapidly swelling the girl seemed otherwise fine. She was clearly not understanding the situation and as he saw her small figure next to his brother he could see why she felt intimidated, she hardly reached Caranthir’s chest. Deciding to just try and do this Celegorm took a step forward until she was just out of arm’s reach before taking the weird rectangle from his belt.
“We are sorry to scare you,” he started in common, “we only seek shelter from the storm an-”
He was cut off by the girl who spoke something but in a different language this time, it sounded harsh but not in the way black speech was. As she looked up at him he could see her tear-filled eyes but before he could do anything to try and comfort her she passed out.