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Chapter Text

Celegorm was sitting by the fire, alone of his brothers here. At his side where his few remaining people, those who didn’t betray him in Nargothrond and miraculously didn’t die in the Bragollach.

Of his brothers, Maglor and Maedhros were as usual side by side, and acting as if they already bore the weight of the deeds were were still ready to commit.

Curufin was busying himself by making last minute adjustments to the attach of Maedhros’ prosthetic hand.

And the twins were with Caranthir, busy talking about Eru only knew what.

Finally they had agreed, all of them, that they needed to attack Doriath. Of course, Maedhros had felt the need to send a messenger first, just in case Dior would prove to have a better survival instinct than Thingol, Luthien and Beren combined.

Celegorm had no such hope.

“Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue” Námo had said, and although the Valar were many things, no one could say of Námo that he was a liar.

So… No, Celegorm didn’t believe they’d succeed this time any more than they had in any other endeavour of theirs that was related to the Silmarils.

However… That didn’t mean they could just stop and allow those thieves to keep their family’s property. A stolen item didn’t belong to the thief.

Just because Thingol had had great hope of using Morgoth to get rid of Beren doesn’t mean that the elf had been right to ask for a Silmaril as bride price. Silmarils didn’t belong to Beren in the first place, so he couldn’t give them away.

So they’d try to get their property back against the Doriathrim and the Valar’s curse.

And wouldn’t that be fun?

Celegorm looked at where his siblings were, each of them, and decided to add an entry to his journal.

If nothing else… Well…

He opened his bag and pulled the old notebook from it.

It wasn’t the first one he had, nor the last probably. It was a habit everyone in the family had: Fëanáro and Nerdanel had instilled in all their children the necessity of taking detailed notes when travelling or doing research, a habit they themselves had gotten from Mahtan.

Thoughtful, he opened the journal to one of its earliest entries, and snorted in amusement.

Alright so keeping detailed notes was a habit but he hadn’t really kept up with it all too well apparently.

The first entry dated back to just before the disaster of Alqualondë. Oh how he had been so painfully young and naïve at that time. Sweet misery…

Celegorm would summarise this first entry by: “all is well, all will end well just because we’re hoping for it, nothing bad can happen…”. That had been so painfully young and ignorant of him.

The second entry in it was when they were in Beleriand, soon after their arrival:

“Living with a constant night when we’ve always lived in light is strangely easier to do here in the Outer Lands than it was in Valinor.

I suppose that back in Valinor, I just kept expecting to just wake up one day to things back to normal, whereas here, everything is just too different, so there’s no way I can just believe that one day all will be back to normal.

When I say everything, I do mean everything.

Animals, even those of a familiar species, react differently here. They are wilder, less trusting, less easily approachable. A wolf will sooner bite you than let you pet them whereas in Valinor, a wolf that bites an elf is a wolf that will not survive long for Oromë’s Hunt will rid Valinor of everything that might be a danger.

Well anything that might be a danger and isn’t called Melkor or Ungolliant I guess.

Anyway, plants too are very different:

We’ve seen so far many more species of mushrooms than I ever knew existed.

Sadly, I neither like nor trust mushrooms, be them a known species or a strange and new species.

One new thing we all struggle with however, is the lack of safety. Here, everyone is in danger, all the time. Men, women, adults or children, it doesn’t matter, danger is here and if someone isn’t careful, tragedy will strike.

In Valinor only the most adventurous were ever really in danger. Only those who sought danger out ever found it.

Here we’ve met orcs already. Dark creatures who seek to kill us whenever we cross paths. Beings created by Morgoth, certainly.

Their attack patterns aren’t predictable so far, as a result, everyone is in danger constantly. Man, woman, children… It doesn’t matter, if they exist, they’re liable to be attacked by those creatures.

Although I guess that is what we chose. By coming here we willingly and knowingly chose to leave the relative protection of the Valar, meaning that we chose to live side by side with real danger.

Alas, Valinor knew neither real danger, nor grief. I honestly think that it might have been better if both those things were known.”

Celegorm tilted his head at that, and nodded. Yes, that had since then been confirmed beyond even the shadow of a doubt, the orcs were a creation of Morgoth, beings born from elves and men that Morgoth or his lieutenant perverted beyond all imagination.

And it had honestly been one of the most terrifying things they had discovered on these lands. Being tortured certainly wasn’t a nice prospect, but being so tortured that their own nature could shift and change to the point of losing everything elven they had? Everything good and hopeful gone to dust?

No hope for redemption, no hope for the future, just… Hatred and pain and desire to kill and reduce the other races to slavery?

No, that had certainly not been a nice discovery there.

And Celegorm wondered what became of the souls of the orcs when they died. If they even had their soul still when they became those malign creatures.

Oh, how he was dearly hoping to never be in a position to get a far too personal answer to that question.

Chapter Text

The next entry in the diary was longer. Celegorm tilted his head, half curious, reading it:

“We lost dad today.

We were fighting an army of Morgoth. There were these giant demons of fire. They felt like distorted maiar. Burning, gigantic, fighting them is… Well. I’d say a lost cause but…

And my father was a fool. He broke the line, tried to go too fast. He had no patience. He didn’t wait for Maitimo, or Makalaurë or even me or anyone. He just ran first. His people who followed him were pretty much decimated and he was badly injured in the attempt.

The army of Morgoth left us alone, but our father burst into fire. His own spirit did that. I’d say I’d be impressed, but truth is that I’m… I’m unreasonably angry.

If he hadn’t broken the line.

If he had waited for us.

If he had taken just one moment to think.

If he had looked at the approaching creatures and be less arrogant…

The Fallen maiar of fire, the Valaraukar, they’re an unnatural fire presence, even those of us used to work with fire can’t stand them. Killing them is hard and mostly costly in lives and necessitate cooperation and a very good understanding of one’s own weapons.

So far we’ve seen orcs, and wargs, and Valaraukar.

I have to say, the Valaraukar are the worst to meet in battle.

Wargs are like wolves. Pack animals. They’re just more enraged, and perhaps more powerful for it. Perhaps. Hunting them like one hunts wolves seems to work for the most part. It’s better to be wary of being bitten. Even elves are liable to become ill if they’re bitten by a warg. But traps, arrows, sword even, can work to bring them down as they work on wolves.

Orcs are… Beings that hate everyone else. They’re of average strength, fear us about as much as they hate us and will attack in group, never alone. If they see a battle turn badly for them and their fell masters aren’t around to terrify them into fighting to the death, they’re more likely to flee to regroup later than to remain in battle with us. They’re also not that well equipped to say that Gorthaur was supposedly once a student of Aulë. I’m guessing that Gorthaur doesn’t care much for those creatures. Every weapons we have work again them. Running away can also work if you’re lucky.

Most of the orcs are pretty stupid on average. The clever ones are the ones that are truly dangerous.”

Celegorm tilted his head to the side, interrupting his reading briefly, thinking: They’ve met other creatures of Morgoth now.

Dragons, worms, fell spirits, giant spiders. And they’ve lost so many people to all those creatures…

He shook his head and started reading the entry again:

“All this rambling to say… Dad’s dead. Maitimo, as our elder brother, took the crown. Long live the king and may his reign be less tragic than that of Finwë or our father.”

Celegorm sighed. Again, he now felt that when he wrote those entries, he’s been so terribly young. It was terrible to read.

“May his reign be less tragic” as if that was even possible with the doom of Mandos over them. Námo had well and cursed them into failing everything they ever attempted and losing everything they ever gained one way or another.

Celegorm tilted his head, musing: “I hope he one day comes to see how stupid cursing us this way was.”

Celegorm saw one of his people look toward him with a puzzled face, but he shook his head, without pulling his eyes from the notebook and turned the page.

Chapter Text

The page held a soft leather bracelet. Something that Celegorm had worn for a while before the leather cord snapped and he put it in his notebook.

The bracelet’s colour had dulled over the years, but once upon a time, the leather cords had been a vibrant red. It had been a gift from a Sinda elf.

“Maitimo was caught by Morgoth a few days ago.

Morgoth sent us a letter, offering to parley with us. Maitimo offered to go with twice the force Morgoth was supposed to bring. Only Morgoth came with more. Far more would be my guess by the marks left by the encounter and the fact that all of my brother’s guards died.

I tried to follow the tracks. They led toward Angband, and sadly by the time we realised something might be wrong it was already too late to attempt to intercept them.

Makalaurë refuses to hear that Maitimo is gone for good. He called himself our brother’s intendant. I hope dearly for his sake that our brother is dead. I shudder to think what his fate might be otherwise.

So in the end, we retreated here, to a lakeside.

We made a camp, then we started to fortify it just in case we were attacked.

And that’s when we met the local elves.

Communication is pretty difficult, they don’t speak our language, nor do they speak Primitive Quendian. Although the elves I met seemed to recognise some words from Primitive Quendian, more than from our Quenya, so… we built upon that. I learnt that the name of the one I met was Faradeth and that the lake was called Mithrim.

Communication is so slow going, it’s terrible, but the sound and rhythm of this new language is fascinating. Admittedly, it’s flowing more strangely to my ears than Vanyarin Quenya, but far less strangely than Valarin so…

I guess I get to learn a new language now, and as it’ll be useful, none of the siblings will get to tease me about it.

I wonder if the name of Faradeth has a specific meaning. I hope one day I’ll know.”

Celegorm looked mildly amused as he read this entry, but also somewhat sad. Faradeth. Huntress. She had died years ago. Celegorm had barely managed to understand the meaning of her name before Morgoth had launched an attack on lake Mithrim and the sindar elves there had suffered heavy casualties as they retreated not so slowly back toward the camp of the Noldor.

There the tied had turned against the creatures of Morgoth, but nevertheless, it had cost Faradeth her life. She had left a family behind. Her husband and child had moved among his people and they remained with his people until the cursed Bragollach when they both died.

But oh yes, Sindarin had been fun to learn, and was by far more logical than Valarin.

Chapter Text

Celegorm snorted as he read the next page:

“Maglor is at it again. Trying to plan to get Nelyo back. He hasn’t grasped yet that Moringotto is using our brother as bait.

If that’s even our brother in truth.

And he hasn’t grasped either that our first priority should be safety not trade or politics or what not.

“Have you spoken to the leaders of the local elves, Tyelko?” Yes, I did. But not about trade, not about local politics.

I talked with them about our enemy, about what they’ve lived until now, about until they survived. All things that Maglor in his… ah, wisdom, think are superfluous because of course we arrived better equipped and with a literal army, with several people taught by Aulë and so of course…

Arrogance at its finest, like it’s not that same arrogance that killed dad.

First rule of survival: adapt.

Adapt to your environment and the threats of it, not barge in like you own the world and can change it to your will.

We have the best teachers here who can tell us exactly what we need to learn but no it’s all about trade and ego.

I told him he could learn Sindarin if he wanted to work on trade and such so badly. It’s not like our people and theirs are shy to barter goods anyway, there’s no need for policies and other such idiocies as far as I’m concerned!”

Celegorm grimaced. Maglor’s strategy had been to settle in the land, find allies and trade partner that’d find interests in common defences, which he really should have seen but well… He was a hunter… And he had been a bit too… Stubborn and tired of all the arguments they had then and…

He hadn’t listened.

His brother’s strategy wasn’t a bad strategy. Just… Their tempers were short and Maglor and him had never learnt to communicate properly with each other.

Quite frankly with the distance and wisdom of time, Celegorm preferred Maglor’s strategy than Maedhros.

Chapter Text

Celegorm raised an eyebrow at seeing his penmanship become excessively arbitrary on the page. His father would probably have had a nervous breakdown over this had he ever seen him write that badly.

However…

“Findekáno did it.

He saved Maitimo. He saved our brother.

It was supposed to be impossible. We supposed it to be impossible. From all reports… From the scouts reports, even from my own scouting, Maitimo was hung high up on a cliff of Thangorodrim. It was impossible to get to him, let alone free him and get back down with him.

Although… I suppose that our… Cousin didn’t need to climb the cliff up or down in any way, shape or form.

He came to the settlements of the Fingolfinians on the back of one of Manwë’s eagles.

Does that constitute a miracle, I wonder?

Certainly it looks like our dear cousin got the help of a Vala, if only by the goodwill of one of the giant eagles.

Maglor went there to see if there are news. Funnily enough he’s the one of us that people object to the less.

And they collectively find my presence the most objectionable.

In any other circumstance I’d be pretty proud of myself for that one, but now it’s in the way of me seeing our brother again and, alright, no one forced me to tell Irissë that she reaped what she sew and that she doesn’t get to call me a kinslayer and blame me for Alqualondë and in the same breath to blame me for not sharing with her and her people the spoils of said kinslaying… But it’s my brother over there…

And they have no right to keep our brother from us.

Just because it’s one of them who managed with the help of a miracle to save him from Thangorodrim, doesn’t mean that now they get to forbid us to help our brother.

They better allow us to see him soon, or I just won’t wait to get their authorisation to go see my brother.”

Oh yes, Celegorm remembered well that day. It had been such a mess of emotions.

First he had met and argued with Aredhel, his cousin blaming him for being a kinslayer and murdering some of their kin in Alqualondë, which, yes, he did, he admitted it, and honestly? He regretted Alqualondë.

That fight had been a mess, no one knew what even happened. Sure they went there to steal the ship, but no one ever thought anyone would fight them, let alone that anyone would draw weapons there.

To this day, Celegorm still didn’t know who had brought weapons into it in the first place. He suspected their father of course, but it remained a mere suspicion. He had no proof and no confirmation of it.

And going into Alqualondë to get the ships, he’s had his own doubts, the noldor as a whole weren’t sailors, so stealing the Falmari’s ships, and using them was already iffy at best, and that was without considering that by stealing the ships they were risking Ossë’s anger. And then they added the kinslaying into it.

The kinslaying on its own was deed that no one should take lightly.

Taking a life, be that of an elf, a man or an animal should never be done for no reason. As the Law of the Hunt dictated, all life is sacred. All life should be respected.

But on top of that the reason for it had been the height of stupidity. Stealing ships to cross the sea when only a bare precious few among them even knew how to pilot a ship.

But his father made his choice and refused to listen to reason. And so Alqualondë happened.

And so he admitted his role in it. He did. He murdered elves and survived the fight.

But Aredhel, not happy to call him a monster for his deeds in Alqualondë, also had the gall to call him out for burning the ships and not allowing the rest of them to sail out of Valinor… like they had the right to blame them for a crime and still profit from the spoils of said crime?!

That argument had devolved very fast, needless to say, he didn’t think his friendship to Aredhel was ever quite the same after.

But then after that, the eagle came and stopped in the middle of the Fingolfinian camp and Findaráto soon came to tell them that “Maglor need to come, Findekáno just came back with Maitimo”.

Celegorm when he heard had felt faint for the first time in… Well, ever probably at that point.

Fingon had managed to do what his brothers and him had been unable to do. What they had thought impossible to do.

To this day, Celegorm still blamed himself for not having seen a way to save his brother sooner. And the knowledge that Fingon had succeeded? Going in there untrained, unaware of the danger, just… According to his tale, SINGING, and then receiving the help of an eagle of Manwë when he prayed for help?

That had indeed been extremely hard to accept and live with for a while.

Chapter Text

Celegorm looked vaguely amused as he saw the next entry:

“A new orb raised up to travel the sky some days ago. The Sun. Its rays somewhat similar although a bit more removed and limited than that of Laurelin.

It sails the sky for about 12 hours and disappear in the horizon, leaving place to the first orb, the moon, that reminded me of Telperion when I first saw it days ago.

That too sails the sky for about 12 hours.

The alternation of light and deep dark makes working in the dark side of the day… Trickier.

We find that we have to adapt our activities now. The hours of the Sun are excellent, if very warm moments to work outside, while the hours of the Moon are better to work indoor.

The sharp alternating light and dark makes it more difficult to adapt our vision to the dark. It’s like every return of the hours of the Moon, we end up returned to the blindness we suffered from when the two Trees were killed.

It’s been a few days already and already some plants are being dramatically affected, Trees are obviously liking the light, they have new blooms, but some other plants are dying. Flowers are starting to grow here and there. Left over from the Spring of Arda that were said to have been put into an eternal sleep by Yavanna, waiting such a time light would return to the continent.

Animals too have started to adapt. Some, like deer, use the dark moments of the day to sleep while other species, like owls, seem to prefer the dark, like in Valinor they preferred flying under Telperion’s light.

Some of my brothers dislike the change, call it a danger.

For one, I find it fascinating to witness. The surprising speed at which some dark plants are dying, and some others are growing seem almost unnatural. The speed at which animals are adapting their life’s schedules is also an excellent example of nature’s adaptation skills.

And another thing to note is that… During the hours of the Sun, orcs and wargs don’t come against us. They hide. I don’t know if it’s that they fear the light or are adversely affected by it, but at least that’s a few hours in the day in which we’re almost guaranteed relative safety. It’s more than we’ve had before.

I mean, unless it’s been a pure hazard that since the Sun arose, the orcs haven’t appeared to attack our scouting parties or hunting parties during the hours of the Sun. But I doubt it. They still come at the hours of the Moon. They still attack whoever is still out there when the light of the Sun disappears.

I found also that athelas, and other plants that we believed were pure leaves in this land are actually growing flowers now. The Athelas resemble more and more the version we had in Valinor.

So do a few others.

It’s making me miss Oromë’s Woods. Some plants are starting to look somewhat like it used to look in the Woods and… I think more and more about Him…”

Celegorm tilted his head to the side.

A fond memory, somewhat. And since then it’d been proven indeed that Morgoth’s creatures preferred to hunt them at night, not during the day.

It made day-time guard shifts and scouting safer, but the same activities at night more dangerous. It allowed them to strategically place people in need of some experience and recovery and calm during the day while those in full health could take night shifts.

That had worked at least until the Bragollach. And then that had worked again until the Nirnaeth when their number became so critical that they couldn’t really afford such a rotation anymore.

Chapter Text

Celegorm skipped the next page, that had been filled with angry words against the Fingolfinians who decided to keep them out of “their” side of the camp regardless of the presence of Maedhros there, like that side of the camp hadn’t been given to them in the first place out of pity, and not much information, and his eyes fell on the following text:

“The healers of the people of Fingolfin have finally come to their senses and asked ours for help. For what herbs grow here that are intended for healing to help with Maitimo’s injuries and for what to do for infected wounds. A few of our healers went with them to their camp with most of our supplies, so now I have a list of herbs to find to replenish our stores.

-Athelas in priority. And I know we had Athelas in Valinor but here, under the constant starlight, its flowers are slightly different than what the healers of Fingolfin would know. For one, the plant never seemed to quite grow flowers at all.

-Basalm poplar buds

-Bay Laurel

-White Willow bark

I sent some of my hunters in various locations known to have those plants and I, myself, took Huan, and a few close companions and went also to our last hunting ground, where I’m sure I smelled Athelas. I am dearly hoping at least a few of us will find something so that if Nelyo, or anyone else but Nelyo first, needs it, we’ll have it.

Athelas, we’ll be able to use straight away, but basalm poplar buds, bay laurels and white willow bark, we’ll need to prepare in order to use it properly, so I’m dearly hoping we find enough Athelas to answer to all our needs at the very least.”

Celegorm nodded, fingers touching the page with feelings:

That period between the return of his brother and the moment he finally could see him with his own two eyes instead of through rumours and whatever Maglor was willing to tell them had been… Hard to take.

He spent it drowning in guilt and fear that he was going to learn one day out of the blue that he just lost his brother all over again.

Seeing his brother himself hadn’t been any better though, he had been so injured… So unwell… that seeing that Maedhros found Huan’s presence soothing, a welcome, known comfort, Celegorm had just set Huan to remain near Maedhros, much to the healers’ annoyance, but Maedhros’ _ and so Fingon’s_ relief.

And they had found athelas. They had also relied heavily on Songs of Power and tricks and knowledge from the healers.

They had managed. Somehow. 

Chapter Text

Celegorm snorted as the next page was straight up months after the rescue of Maedhros.

Well, he had been preoccupied at this time he supposed.

“Nelyo’s finally back with us. I almost thought that Fingolfin wouldn’t let him leave. At least Fingolfin’s side of Mithrim is far more easily invaded than Angband was if need to stage a rescue.

But no, that wasn’t necessary.

But Nelyo’s here and he gave me back Huan, with the comment that my dog looks like he needs exercise, and that perhaps I do too and he’d love it if I could hunt something that’d make a meal that’s not bland.

Has he met me?

So I went hunting. I know where to find deer, they’re not too difficult to track down and Huan was delighted indeed at the exercise.

Funnily enough, and contrary to what most people believe of me, more so now, the best quality of a hunter is his patience. His second quality is his ability to shoot straight. The third is his silence.

A good hunter must be able to walk for hours to look for or follow tracks or to lay a trap and wait in hiding for hours, in silence.

And even with all that, there are always hunts going sideways.”

Celegorm snorted in amusement.

More than a thousand year’s old as counted in sun years, and he still rambled about hunting at every opportunity. Misery…

Well if he was honest, that didn’t change much. Hunting was still and ever would be His Craft.

But also he had forgotten to note that mindfulness and awareness of one’s surrounding were vital to survive a hunt. Forgetting such details? For shame… Oromë would have disowned him from the Hunt for that alone if he knew.

Or would at least have given him a lesson in not forgetting his surroundings.

He shook his head, pushing aside all thought of the Vala.

“This time I was lucky, I indeed caught a deer. I hope the others didn’t notice, but I left the heart out in the forest for… Well… Sacrifice to Oromë. I know I saw a fox take it and run with it so it’s not lost at least.

The part of hunting I like the least is sorting out the animal afterward while keeping the dogs, not Huan, just the regular dogs we have in our side of Lake Mithrim, from getting to the meat.

But I managed. Or more to the point, Huan managed to instil the fear of a Hound of Oromë into them.

And once I’ve given the meat to the cooks so they could cook a communal meal, I took the part I set aside and went to work myself.

Nelyo deserve something actually tasty. And something easy to chew.

I made my favourite venison stew from memory.

For that I needed :

-Venison meat (I provided it)

-Carrots (the cooks had some)

-Onion (likewise)

-Celery (I had to buy some to a harvester)

-Potatoes (The cooks again)

-Peas (The cooks gave it to me)

-Beef broth (I had left over from last time I made some, it’s great to have in handy)

-Red wine (as if we were ever out of wine in this family)

-Tomatoes (I’m so lucky here that the cooks had kept some)

-Tomato paste (The cooks were in the process of making some for later use)

-Garlic (The kitchen had some)

-Various herbs (I had to go find Thyme and rosemary, I’m almost ashamed of the cooks here)

-Olive Oil

-Salt and pepper.

The basics is this : slowly heat the oil, add garlic, let it cook for a few, then remove it from the pot. Add venison, cook for a while until the meat is brown on all side, and remove it from the pot.

Pour wine in the pot, let it simmer, add the garlic again, and then the venison and then everything else, all the vegetables, and herbs, and let it simmer for nearly two hours. Add the peas only in the last quarter of an hour or so.

I made the mistake of adding them first once. Honest mistake, never did it again. I didn’t have peas left at the end.

I shared the meal with all my brothers, including Nelyo.

I was alarmed when he started crying but it wasn’t… Bad. He said it was the memories. That for once he remembered something good.

One of our first journey to the wilds of Valinor with dad after I started working and learning with Oromë.

I had made something similar for the family back then.

I hope we can do more to help him recover. And I also hope, dearly that we can do something about thrice be cursed Morgoth. He needs to pay for that he did to my brother.”

Celegorm nodded. That hasn’t changed, but alas, until the Powers-that-Be in Valinor decide to help, there wouldn’t be much that they would be able to do. Valar were way beyond the abilities of elves to handle, alas.

Or perhaps that was a good thing or his father would have found a way to get Valinor rid of Manwë, Námo, Varda and Oromë on principle alone a long time ago.

Chapter Text

There were a few other pages that Celegorm skipped, of random recipes he tried for his brother’s sake and that he knew by heart already.

“My brother should have kept the crown. Fingolfin don’t deserve to have it just because he decided against the opinion of anyone here to cross the Helcaraxë. But Maedhros’ mind was set and the deed is done.

Although I’m half convinced that Nelyo had motives he didn’t disclose to us when he decided to pass the crown to Fingolfin.

At this point I think that the Nolofinweans and Finarfinweans could and should have just created their own kingdom somewhere else.

Frankly nothing forced us to consider each other as the same people.

To start with, our reason to come mostly wasn’t theirs, and their reason to come, in the vast majority, wasn’t ours.

I certainly will never consider Fingolfin as my king. The day he wants anything from me, he can ask Nelyo. I’ll obey my brother, not the uncle with the habit of profiting accidentally or not from our family’s misery.”

And Celegorm could say that he still didn’t consider him his king. Nor any from his side of the family.

They were so unable to live together even for safety’s sake that Maedhros and Fingolfin agreed to separate and live away by weeks of travels all over the map of Beleriand.

Frankly Fingolfin’s people as the newcomers should have been the ones to relocate.

And perhaps one of Fingolfin’s family would have had the words to stop Finrod from going on that stupid quest of his if they had been in his stead. His own tentative had been a clear cut failure.

But really who went on a quest with a certainty of death as a reward?! Not most people, that’s for sure as most people from Nargothrond saw sense.

“Anyway, what’s done is done and now we’ve left the lake side. A stupid move, but what do I know? It’s not like we chose to settle in Mithrim because it was a fantastic place to stay for survival: water aplenty, easy food source, retreat paths clearly mapped, a fortress we built to withstand Morgoth’s army, right?

Better to leave it all to Fingolfin as our king and go on our merry way to rebuild -again- and see how many of our people will survive whatever come up while we travel with people who aren’t necessarily hardened travellers or warriors.

And lo and behold, what was obviously a high risk happened: several of my people were injured in an attack from wargs today. We came too close to their nest I suppose. Of course we killed the wargs and torched the nest, but the damage was done.

And one of them at least, I’m not sure will survive it.

And if they die because on the road we lack the resources we had in Mithrim… I’m not sure what I’ll do. Because we created that settlement for our people’s protection. And now we don’t have it anymore and we’re on the road because Nelyo came to an agreement with Fingolfin.

An agreement that endangered our people.

And if any of them die, I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive Maedhros for that.

Because it’s one thing for my brother to be grateful for his survival, we’re all grateful to Fingon-the-hothead-who-didn’t-think-two-minutes-and-got-out-of-there-by-a-miracle-of-Manwë-that-literally-no-one-else-could-have-replicated…

But it’s another to say outright that our people’s safety can be jeopardised because Nelyo wanted to ‘heal the rift’ between our people.

Like anything will ever be solved.

He thinks I’ll be on my best behaviour here? He can dream. I’ll make an effort for Angrod and Aegnor, sure, but no one else of the extended family.

And by experience I can tell that none of the cousins want to make an effort with us either. Nelyo healed nothing at all by robbing our people of our hard won safety.

NOTHING. AT. ALL.

So Nolofinwë can burn. His family can burn.

And I hope for his sake that Maedhros can live with his decision and the victims it’ll do, because every single elf who’ll be injured or killed until we’ve settled again can be directly laid at his feet… And for all I love him… I won’t forget.”

And he didn’t forget.

And Maedhros knew well that he never forgot and never forgave.

And Maedhros never cared. He had his goal. His plan to be a torn in Morgoth’s side, and lived to be the General that Morgoth’s armies feared.

But Celegorm was never made to be a general, and he knew it. He was a hunter. He knew and valued each of his people, and he still attributed the responsibility of each of the injuries and death that happened between the moment they left Mithrim and the moment they finished building Himlad mostly to Maedhros.

There was a distance between them since then. They still loved each other. But there was no erasing the resentment they felt toward each other.

Not that Nelyo or him ever showed it. He still obeyed his brother and leader, and Nelyo still showed his trust when it mattered. 

But it was there since then.

Celegorm turned the page idly, eyes flickering quickly toward his elder brother who seemed to feel it and turned toward him with open curiosity. 

Celegorm didn’t acknowledge he saw it and went back to his notebook. 

He let his gaze fall on his notes and decided to skip that page too. 

It was a count of everyone who died during that journey. He didn’t  need to reread it to remember the name. 

He could still see in his mind the death of each of his people, or the moment he learnt they died. 

He was such a terrible leader… Curufin was less attached to the individuals, a few exceptions apart. Maedhros clearly was too. 

Maglor and Caranthir had their friends, otherwise they cared for the group too, not to the individuals, but… 

Chapter Text

The next page had him smile despite himself, a fond memory:

“We received a surprise today. A bad one. Sort of.

As we left our side of lake Mithrim, we left with what belonged to us, including the sheep we have for wool.

And this morning one of the babies recently born was gone. I found traces of a wolf, a single one, and following the tracks, I found bits of fur, blood… and lamb’s breast bones.

Not a surprise I was happy to find. The shepherd was downright horrified that a wolf would do that.

Honestly, I’m not. I’m more surprised that it never happened before now.

The trick now will be to keep the rest of the herd safe since the wolf no doubt noted how easy it was to separate the lamb from the rest of us.

I was also surprised that the mother sheep didn’t intervene, as mothers tended to fight for their young, no matter the species, but the shepherd told me that it’s one that had 2 lambs. It’s possible that the one that died was more adventurous and that it walked away from us by curiosity, alone, and the wolf found it far enough that it had no chance to come back I suppose.

On the other hand, it’s a single wolf, and its tracks are uneven. I think… If we can catch it… We could perhaps convince it to work with us. For us. In exchange for food. Tame it so to speak. Feed it, convince it to help us instead of hunting us…

But for that I’ll need to convince Curvo. My brother is always so skittish about adopting a wild animal…”

The entry had stopped there, only to pick up a few days later with a triumphant tone:

“I did it !

I both convinced my brother of the good idea to add an experienced wolf to our pack of dogs, and convinced the wolf it’s a good idea to join us.

The wolf was easier to convince than my brother. He’s stubborn and has no appreciation for wild-life.

‘Just kill it Tyelko, we have no time for your shenanigans’ Really, it’d have been such a waste…

The shepherd too didn’t appreciate my idea but if it can save more of his sheep, he’ll take it.

This animal is magnificent. And I say that with Huan looking extremely put out at me admiring another canine. Like I’d replace him, daft dog.

The wolf is a slick hunter, wilder than the ones I’ve met in the past in Valinor. Defiant. He’s alone apparently for there was a shift of leadership in his pack when a young wolf challenged him.

He’s tall, thick grey fur, golden eyes. I mean by that naturally coloured golden eyes, not the eerily luminous golden eyes of some maiar.

He’s been struggling to hunt with a bad paw. But he’s strong, and when he was at full strength, I think it was a fearsome predator.

And he agreed to guard our sheep and alarm of the danger. A danger he’ll identify better than our dogs.

Huan apart I mean, but Huan remains with me most of the time and won’t guard our herd. So now we are the proud owner of a guard wolf.”

And, Celegorm thought, wilfully ignoring the mention of Huan, he had deeply loved that wolf for the few years it had lived with them.

Once the animal knew he could trust him, he’s been extremely loyal, a good companion, and in the end he became an excellent teacher for the puppies born to his own dog pack and had enjoyed many a day curled up near a fire, joins aching, resting in his older age.

He had died peacefully. A rare luxury for this predator in these lands.

Celegorm had grieved his departure.

So had Huan at the time.

Curufin had said he didn’t care, but Celegorm had seen the tombstone that suddenly popped up where he had buried the wolf.

He hadn’t made it, it was stone with metal accents, and it hadn’t come out of nowhere, so Celegorm knew it had been pure talk from his brother.

Despite his grief, he had been smug when he realised: his brother did love that once wild wolf. He had made his brother love a wild animal! Something his brother had claimed high and low would never happen.

Of course, he never acted smug or mentioned it, otherwise his brother would have closed himself like a clam and undo all his hard work that stood as proof, and Celegorm couldn’t bear the thought of that.

Chapter Text

Tyelkormo skipped the next few pages.

They concerned the building of their home in Himlad. Exhausted ramblings about why he wasn’t made to bother building a stone house, and should have been allowed to roam the world free of such constraints.

Which was mostly a reaction of having to help the building, for the second time since they came to Beleriand.

Ah, if only his foolish past self knew that it wouldn’t be the last time he’d lose his home…

Perhaps he wouldn’t have let himself become so attached to his wild, darkened, dangerous land and its unpredictable animal lives.

Himlad… A land that he missed more than he missed Valinor. Although he also missed Oromë’s Hunt more than…

He shook his head and looked back at the journal in his hands.

No use crying over spilt wine.

He flipped the page again and took a look at the page:

“The building of our home is done. Hopefully it’ll remain our home until the end.”

Celegorm snorted. Such a fool’s hope…

“Curufin has his workshop built to his specifications and he and his sons are seemingly having a love affair with it.

I swear I’m the only one with sense in this house.”

Celebrimbor had loved that forge and that workshop. Celegorm’s eyes fell on his hand where he wore his favourite ring. His LAST ring. Or more to the point the last ring he bothered wearing.

It had been the first thing Celebrimbor had crafted in that forge. A simple ring of silver with a diamond incrusted in it. It did nothing. But it was enchanted to remain undamaged. It had somehow survived the Bragollach and his fight with a Balrog.

His nephew’s work was unparalleled.

But also, yes, he had been the only one with common sense in their home.

“They’ve locked themselves in the workshop. I guess they’ll forget again that we have a rotation of days and night now. I guess I better tell the cooks to prepare nothing that can’t be eaten on the spot working.

Again.

If there’s one thing that never changes no matter where we live…”

“And yet,” Celegorm whispered so quietly it wasn’t noticed by his brothers, “things did change…”

“I just wish we didn’t separate as we did. I know why Maedhros did it. I know that strategically it sounds good on paper.

But Morgoth is a Vala. His closest servants as far as we know, are Maiar.

No matter what’s pretty on paper I’ve seen first hand what maiar can do. They’re not elves. They’re far beyond us. And Valar…

If Morgoth decides to move against us, separated, we’ll be weakened, and that won’t help us.

But apparently, according to Maedhros, I speak like a hunter, not like a general. I should understand better the value of not putting all of our enemy’s targets in one same tempting place.

But that’s forgetting a bit quickly that in nature there is more safety in number for the weaker species than safety in spreading out thin.

We should be a school of fishes in the ocean of Beleriand. Or a herd of deer in the plains of Beleriand rather. Not a wolf pack spreading to attack a prey on all side. Because said prey is bigger than any other prey in existence and may well end up picking us off one by one.

Ah but why do I bother writing that here. I already presented my arguments to Maedhros and Maedhros didn’t listen. He plays by a totally different handbook and now we’re all all over the map.

There are many a decisions taken that I do NOT agree with these days. And third in line in a dispossessed house means that I have not a lot of power to my name. More than the general people, but far less than I wish right now.”

Yes, well, that still hadn’t changed. It had even worsened. First with the Bragollach then the Nirnaeth. Alas he got used to that by now. He got used to their dwindling influence and fast disappearing ability to fight Morgoth.

It was frustrating. He wasn’t a general nor a soldier really, but the hunt he knew. Prey and predators, he knew. Valar, he knew more intimately than his brothers. And yet, they never listened.

His own brothers don’t make hunter sense. Well, people in general don’t make hunter sense.

His hunters were once great with that. They at least made actual sense.

At least they did before war happened and too many died in the Bragollach, and the remaining ones lost hope and abandoned him in Nargothrond making themselves breakers of oaths and betrayers… 

Chapter Text

The next page contained a drawing of a various tracks, and of the mountains of the pass of Aglon:

“Himlad isn’t a forest, it doesn’t have the natural beauty and attraction a forest would hold for me…

And yet I found so many interesting tracks already when I went hunting at a reasonable travelling distance from the fortress.

Rabbits, wild horses, wolves.

It’s promising. I guess.

I’m not in love with Himlad. but I guess I’ll manage to live here.

But my aim right now, is the mountain above the pass. I intend to visit it and learn all its secrets. It would be… Too stupid to leave ourselves vulnerable to an unknown threat because mountains aren’t very practicable.

Huan decided to accompany me on this exploration mission.

Well, I call it a mission but in truth, it’s nothing but me going to do what I do best: flee toward the natural world whenever people are getting too annoying.

Curufin wasn’t happy at my disappearing, but Curufin had needed me to remind him to eat during the day cycle twice this month alone, so Curufin can keep his opinion for himself until the day he doesn’t need me to babysit him whenever he finds something to keep his attention. Over-focus isn’t a sign of maturity or whatever the hell he tells himself to make himself feel better over missing obvious things.

So we’ll alternate, I’ll focus for a while on myself and pretend that Curufin isn’t going to be absolutely miserable until I come back to take our people over again.

Huan is delighted. I can tell. He never liked spending too long in a city. Which is logical. He’s a creature of Oromë. A being of the Hunt. His natural state of being is that of a hunting hound, not that of a lapdog.

So this little project of mine is as interesting to him than it is to me. He’ll get to run, perhaps to hunt, and to hear as I do the breath of this land.

Right now we’re staying on an easy path on the mountain, but I foresee that the easy path will soon disappear. It’ll be fun.”

Oh yes, it had been fun. Truly fun. The mountain had been a delight to explore. And his joy when he had reached the summit one day, after several tries had ended up in failure had been… He’d never forget it.

It had felt very different from the joy of racing up the summit of Taniquetil with some of Oromë’s own maiar.

Of course he always lost to them back then, but each time he’s gone a bit higher, and felt a thrill of danger… And Celegorm snorted in amusement. Danger. Any of the maiar there would have caught him or disappeared with him at the first sight of true danger.

In Himlad however, there was no miracle. So he had needed to be careful. It had been fun to stretch his skills once more. The mountain was something so different and so delightful…

And Celegorm considered correcting that entry of the journal, when he wrote it, he hadn’t loved the land, yet. But he had grown to love it…

And then he had lost it.

He flipped the page, eyes greedily focusing on the words and drawings on the pages under his eyes:

“I didn’t think I’d see anything living up there. I was mistaken.

There are goats, marmots, eagles, vultures, other predators and prey kind I suppose too. I am mildly disappointed in myself: of course there are animals up there. There was on Valinor, why not here?

I just assumed that the closeness to a pass that leads to Angband and the mountain itself would discourage life but… It’s a stupid reasoning.

Of course life would extend here.

I was so happy to see the tracks and the animals from afar. So much so actually that I haven’t hunted any of them, just drew them. Huan’s still too happy to be out of the fortress to be mad I skipped the opportunity to hunt.”

Celegorm snorted at that. That alone had been an achievement…

“But fact is that Huan needs to eat too. We both went hungry tonight, but tomorrow we’re going to have to hunt. Me alone I wouldn’t care much for a few more days but Huan deserves better, and the mountain has actually a quite nice amount of wildlife.

Also hunting in the mountain will be fun.”

It was. He went there for years with little starting gear, just surviving off of the land.

Actually, it had been lucky that the Bragollach happened in winter, for in summer, Huan and him spent months at a time alone in the mountains, just to recover from being forced to be sociable. If the Bragollach had happened then…

Celegorm shuddered at the thought of being separated from Curufin and from their people, their loyal people for the Bragollach.

Chapter Text

Celegorm chose to skip the next few pages. He however stopped at one, when the name of his nephew kept his attention.

“Celebrimbor and I left home in a bit of a hurry, leaving behind Curufin in a terrible temper.

And my darling baby brother is in a frightful mood because my much beloved baby nephew told him that he wanted out of the fortress and decided that he’d come with me the next time I’d leave for a few months.

The following screaming match was interesting to witness.

According to my brother, I’m suicidal, one of these days I would leave and never return and no one would ever find out whether I was kidnapped by Morgoth’s forces or killed by them or just killed by a wild animal by being stupid. His son shouldn’t trust me to keep him safe because I apparently can’t keep myself safe, and leaving the fortress for any length of time was an idiotic endeavour.

According to my nephew, I’m the perfect uncle, my brother is paranoid and everyone is in danger anyway, going with me isn’t any worst than staying in his father’s forge.

Both had pretty savage argument with me in the center and quite frankly, I greatly disliked that. It was almost enough to make me decide to not go on a hunt anytime soon, but… The prospect of living with my brother when he’s feeling protective of his son and believes me to be the danger here… Not a palatable prospect.”

To be fair to his past self, Celegorm was still tempted to flee his brother’s presence at the mere mention of his nephew. The reason of his brother’s anger changed, but the anger was still there.

“So we fled home left home in a perfectly reasonable manner”

Celegorm snorted. Yes, he remembered. And he remembered well that his brother was far too alike to their father still at that time, and his anger had had the same effect that his own father’s anger had had on him once upon a time in fair and highly hypocritical Valinor: the only result that his brother’s anger had, was to make his own son run away from him. Oh not forever but...

Well, not forever at that time.

“in the middle of the night.

Celebrimbor is thrilled and I swear he still sounds like his child-self when he is that excited about something.

Huan is miffed that Celebrimbor is coming with us.

Huan likes leaving home with me, but leaving with my nephew means that our hunts will be basic, and we’ll get to one of the hunting shelters so it’s just basically trading a house for another when we could be just running free.

I considered briefly going to Himring. Making a journey of it to see my current favourite brother, the one who’s perhaps a mad general but at least isn’t actively mad at me for simply existing in his son’s presence, and to show Celebrimbor the tracks and traps to be careful of on the road, again, and just… make it as safe as possible for my nephew so that his father isn’t actually tempted to murder me when we come back.

But Huan would hate it even more than being in a hunter’s shelter, I would also hate it, because Himring is even stricter than Himlad is, and Maedhros tolerates no exception, while Curufin ensured that his people knew I could come and go as I please.

So Huan would be miserable, I would be miserable, and my nephew would be severely disappointed, so I decided against it.

We’ll go up the mountain a bit. I know we have a shelter available there, and there’s usually enough preys around to live a couple of months there if need be.

Huan will be able to roam free, and I’ll be busy trying to not cry at the number of failed hunts led with a baby hunter who knows the basics but goes on a hunt to keep up his skills perhaps once every dozen years.

And just to be clear? That’s NOT ENOUGH to keep up his skills.”

Celegorm snorted in faint amusement.

His nephew, his favourite family member, was actually a terrible hunter. Sometimes he made the effort, decided to go with him, but the younger elf was so obsessed with his work that he generally made his decision only when he felt he needed distance with his father and then realised all over again that hunting wasn’t what crappy romance made of it, but was an outside activity entirely unrelated to jewellery work, and that he had to be SILENT when he hunted, and yes, hunting did involve getting one’s hands dirty with blood and gore.

Never a fun thing for people who preferred to get their hands dirty with coal and whatnot.

He wondered if with Orodreth and Finduilas, his nephew learnt better?

… Probably not. Orodreth didn’t have the authority over him necessary to override Celebrimbor’s love for the forge on a daily basis and that is what would be needed in truth for him to learn better.

Celegorm shrugged and flipped the page:

“I knew that my darling nephew didn’t keep up with his skills, I knew that hunting was so far from his priorities that he only thought about it once every few years…

But apparently taking care of his bow and arrows also are also a “once in a few years” sort of priority.”

Celegorm nodded, distantly horrified for his past self’s discovery.

The bow had been in such a bad state…

“Those are weapons. Serious weapons. They could save his life one day. But no, why bother taking care of it with as much care as his dagger and sword?

I never in all my days saw a Valinorean bow become mouldy and picked by worms. I didn’t even know it was POSSIBLE?!

And I’m not even going to bother mentioning the state of the arrows because I’m pretty sure those arrows are the ones I gifted him the last time he came hunting with me, and the feathers are all but gone.

I remained calm in front of him but for the love of all that’s holy in this world, we’re at war! A bow and arrows may not be the most practical weapons but any weapon is better than none. If you have a weapon and you can’t guarantee you’ll never have to use it in defence then at least take care of it!

When Celebrimbor tried to show me that no, I’m seeing things, his bow his fine, he drew the string and the bow snapped at the same time as the string did. 3 different pieces!

‘Hm… Perhaps I left it under the cupboard for too long.’ Celebrimbor said.

Under. The. Cupboard. For. Decades.

I am about to give a magistral lesson to that child as to proper bow handling.

He never wanted to bother before past his initial introduction to hunting but now he won’t have the choice anymore: either he listens and actually start applying what I teach him or we’re going back home and I’m dropping him back in his father’s arms.

And he’s certainly not borrowing my bow in this hunt.

He’s going to learn how to take care of one if he ever wants to come out with me on a hunt and for the record:

A bow needs to be waxed or oiled. I prefer waxed but oiled works as well and it should be kept in a proper linen sheath, not simply shoved under a cupboard!

In addition, he’ll need to understand that a bow is never left strung for decades.

That is NOT how it works, and all it’ll do is damage the wood and kill the string.”

Celegorm had some difficulties hiding his smile at that.

In retrospect it had been bad but not deserving of the hours of explanations and ‘do it again’ he’d inflicted on his nephew. Although after that his bow had been stored properly in the armoury and cleaned and kept properly. 
So at least there was that… 

Chapter Text

Celegorm kept reading, even as he was aware that time was passing and getting them ever closer to the moment they’d finally attack Doriath and his heart was starting to thrum in his ribcage in anticipation.

“I’m pretty sure Celebrimbor will not forget to take care of his bow anytime soon after the lengthy conversation we had on the subject. I thought for a moment that Celebrimbor would decide to go back home to Himlad but no, he decided to stay with me.

So I will hunt, and build up some food supply and we’ll explore the area, mostly.

I’m pretty sure that Celebrimbor will be happy with that anyway. His aim was to escape the fortress and a project that doesn’t work as intended, or so I was led to believe in the midst of our conversation on bow care.

I wonder if I could teach him to cook his favourite hunter recipes instead. The lad likes to cook sometimes. He says that cooking is a lot like chemistry, but with less dramatic effects when something goes wrong.

Apparently cake batters and mixed salads are less likely to explode than chemical ingredients. Who knew…

I think, depending on what I manage to catch I’ll teach him that venison stew again, the one him and Nelyo love, and the fluffy bread recipe. Perhaps also how to smoke meat and preserve whatever fruits and vegetables we can find gathering in the area.

Hopefully that’ll be more successful than teaching him proper bow care.”

There was a skip, a change of date:

“Convincing my nephew to stay in the shelter while I go hunt for us is an exercise in patience, alas for him, his legendarily stubborn grand-father was MY father, and his no less stubborn father is my brother. I’ve known how to deal with their brand of stubbornness since Curvo was born.

So I went to hunt, hoping for rabbits or goat or something, but I caught a deer.

Huan was particularly happy to be on the hunt with me. So much so that we probably took longer than we should have and disappeared on my nephew for a solid day. BUT the hunter shelter is well hidden, and the path was looking and feeling pretty clear.

Thankfully I was right, and nothing happened, but for Celegorm being more moody when I arrived.

I haven’t seen him pout like that since he was a child. It took me back and I just wanted to give him some candied fruits and pick him up for a walk as a result but alas, alas, my darling nephew is actually an adult, and an adult smith at that.

He’s far heavier than he used to.

Not impossible to carry in emergency, but not fun to carry for no reason.

Anyway, teaching Celebrimbor to cook his favourite meal is a health hazard.

But success, no one lost a finger or an eye despite Celebrimbor’s best efforts. I swear he knows how to cook generally speaking, but I don’t know why, this evening he was distracted and moving his hands in wide gestures as he talks. No matter if he has eggs in hands or a knife.

While I directed him in cooking the venison stew, I set some meat to smoke, cut some nice pieces for Huan to eat which prompted Celebrimbor to ask if Huan really needed that much but really, what did he expect a dog the size of Huan to eat? Air?

I suppose he never paid attention to what Huan eats when we’re home. Which is logical I suppose, Huan rarely eats with us, and tends to eat when I go rest in our room or go take care of the fortress’ dogs.

In any case, I’m of the opinion that all dogs should be able to enjoy a nice thick meat-covered bone to chew on, it’s good for them.

And it also ensures that Huan doesn’t look at me like I put his newborn pup in the oven because I’d have left him nothing from our hunt…

There are priorities in life, and one of mine is to ensure Huan lacks of nothing he needs to live well, be it food or exercise, and that he has no need to look like his world just shattered, more so over a piece of meat since, yes, that dog alas inherited most of his dramatic nature from Maglor somehow.

So now, Celebrimbor is fretting of the meat I set to smoke and as I noticed we had every ingredient necessary to make bread, I will go prepare it.”

Celegorm couldn’t help the look of regret that crossed his face as he read. Those had been deceptively quiet times, but happier despite all the uncertainty.

Celebrimbor and Huan… Perhaps the only two regrets he really had over the ways things went down.

The next page started with a recipe. The bread previously mentioned probably.

Celegorm took a closer look and nodded: yes, that was it.

“The ingredients for the bread are simple. All the members of the Hunt of Oromë know how to make it, that’s how simple it is.

Few ingredients and few steps :

-Flour

-Yeast

-Salt

-Water

Mix everything together then let it rest. The magic of it is that contrary to most elaborate breads, favoured by people outside of the Hunt of Oromë in Valinor, this one requires no kneading, no further steps, no folding into any fancy shape, no additional ingredient thrown in.

Just mix everything, and let it rest for about 12 hours.

It’s just past dawn and I just finished to mix the ingredients so in about 12 hours, we’ll bake the bread.

Or as Celebrimbor said: ‘he can do it if I tell him how and how can he learn if I don’t trust him to try?’

And why not? It involves lighting a fire, and using a large cast iron pot with a sturdy lid. It’s nothing fancy and Celebrimbor is good with fire usually so…

In any case, the process will be the following:

Light a fire, put the pot on the fire, complete with the lid.

Then take off the lid and put the loaf of uncooked bread into the pot, and put the lid back in place for about 30 minutes.

Then remove the lid and let it bake for 15 more minutes or so depending on how the fire’s going.

Then remove the pot from the fire and remove the bread from the pot and let it cool down before trying to eat it.

And tonight we’ll be able to enjoy freshly cooked bread with our venison stew.

And honestly? Today I’ll start the process of making Celebrimbor a new bow. It doesn’t sit well with me that he’s here with me and only has his sword for protection.”

Celegorm snorted at that.

For all the good that it did…. The bow only saw light in that one hunting trip, and then technically when it was left behind to burn with the rest of Himlad.

At least Celebrimbor brought the weapon he was most proficient with: His smithing hammer.

Oh and his sword too yes.

Chapter Text

The next page was decorated with a nervous doodle. Taking a look at the content of the page, Celegorm understood why:

“A storm is approaching. I can feel, see and hear it in the distance.

Celebrimbor doesn’t believe it is so close and wants to go back home before it hits us. That child has the survival skills of a dead bird.

I had to give him the explicit order to remain here and not leave the shelter.

Now I wonder how he managed to survive so long if he doesn’t know already what to do and not to do in case of approaching storms.

And I find that when I’m around my nephew, I’m paranoid.

He shares in his father’s stubbornness and is sure we can make it home before the storm hits. And if we came on horses, eh, perhaps.

But we did NOT come on horses so...

We’ll need at least a day of travel before we’re down the mountain, and I absolutely refuse to be caught in a storm with Celebrimbor in the mountain when we could just stay here, protected from the elements.

‘It makes no sense to stay here when we don’t know how long the storm will last’ He said.

We all know a storm will not last too long. 24 hours was the maximum a storm had lasted since we arrived in the area.

I’m not playing dodge the lightning bolts for anywhere between 20 minutes and 24h because my nephew decided we should go home at the most inconvenient time.

I’ll admit I also cheated a bit, I set Huan on him too. If I can’t trust him to obey me, and I can’t trust myself to not get distracted by a task, I can at least trust Huan to keep him indoor.”

Yes, he had trusted Huan at that time.

Celegorm shook his head, but returned to his reading, noticing that there was a short time skip in the notes:

“I was right. One hour. The storm was upon us in one hour.

Celebrimbor’s shocked at the speed of the storm, and at its current strength.

I have no idea why, this storm is clearly not natural: there is the smell of the storm in the air, but under it? An icy electric smell mixed with something that I can’t define by anything but ‘other’.

That’s a Vala thing. None of the Valar ever smelled right they all had their distinctive scent mixed with that ‘other’ thing.

For example, on top of that undefinable scent, Manwë had a similar unnaturally clean lightning bold smell.

Lady Vána smelled of a lot of different flowers depending on her mood. No other smell but flowers and freshly turned soil.

Lady Yavanna smelled like trees and turned soil and oddly had a hint of forge in her too. I suspect it’s her bound to lord Aulë.

Speaking of, Aulë smelled of forge and melted metal and warm stones. It’d be disturbing if I hadn’t learnt to love the smell of the forge as I learned with my father.

Oromë… Oromë used to smell of fur and warmth and blood and old, old woods, with a hint of flowery scent.

I don’t really know for the others, I didn’t spend long enough in their presence to know for sure.

And the only Vala active around here is Morgoth. So I guess that this? This is his doing. This scent comes from his powers.

And I wonder that Celebrimbor can’t tell.

So my guess is that the storm will rage over Himlad until Morgoth’s attention shifts.

At least now Celebrimbor has stopped demanding that we leave now.

It’s better if we stay indoor until danger has passed.

Storms here are something else than storms in Valinor.

Never a storm would have endangered an elf over there. Maiar were watching closerly when lord Manwë warned of a storm.

But here… lightning could and would strike an elf. Winds would blow us off cliffs if there is one nearby, or could fell a tree upon us.

And this is a mountain. Stone when wet become slippery pretty fast.

Even me, for all the confidence I have in my own abilities, if caught by such a storm outside, would just find a large stone that looks sturdy and hide against, placing myself as low on the ground as possible.”

Yeah, that hasn’t changed. Trees were possibly the worst thing to get under in case of storms. They attracted lightning.

“Celebrimbor just remembered that I have been caught out in a storm before and is currently pestering me with questions of what did I do and was it that dangerous?

Yeah, it was that dangerous.

And I sought shelter where I could, crouched low on the floor, making myself as small as I could, and prayed:

I was deep in a forest and days away from an actual shelter, the worst configuration possible in a lightning storm.

And usually I watched out for those, but this time I couldn’t. It wasn’t a natural occurrence and appeared out of the blue. Literally. One moment we had a blue sky and a coldish sun of early spring, the other we had lightning striking at trees around us.

Not a fun time at all.”

Yes, he understood why the page was littered with nervous doodles: The situation had made him nervous and he couldn’t do anything obvious about it since Celebrimbor had been there and taking his cues from him.

Chapter Text

There were a few more pages of daily life, arguments with Curufin, arguments on ethics with his nephew, and then a very large gap in the dates before the next one, and upon seeing it, Celegorm was tempted to skip it.

He remembered well what pushed him to make notes again.

“We lost Himlad.

We lost also a number of people. Children, adults, fighters, non-fighters, elves, not-elves, Noldor, not Noldor…

Morgoth’s creatures came upon us with such a fire and such a force that we couldn’t fight it off.

I tried.

Eru knows I tried.

But I failed. Most of the people loyal to me alone are dead. Dead for having tried to defend our land and our people from the invading force.

Ah invading force, as if they were there simply to invade and not to eradicate us.

I, we, made sure they paid dearly for that victory… But the cost of it was…”

Celegorm nodded.

Truly, the Bragollach had been a terrible thing to witness, and he fervently hoped never to have to face such a thing again.

Ah! Who was he kidding. If he ever did, he was dead anyway.

“Doriath kept their borders close to us. The girdle of their maia-queen prevented our entry. A good number of people died because of this.

But it’s duly noted. Doriath’s leaders clearly wanted to let Morgoth eradicate us Noldor.

If they want to play that game, we’ll play it.

I had nothing against them until now, but if they wanted me to be the monster of their personal story, there was no better way to go at it than that.

They better hope that whatever Doriathrim leave their little protected city never crosses my path.”

Celegorm’s face turned into something terrible and ugly at that, a fire in his eyes speaking of revenge at hand for the unnecessary death of some of his people.

“Finrod is trying to claim that Doriath owed nothing to us.

That’s true.

That doesn’t change the fact that even our children found themselves stuck at the border, and that by them doing so, almost none of the children survived until we found Nargothrond.

Because Doriath decided to side with Morgoth against us.

I’m not about to forget that.

I got injured fighting against a Balrog. I don’t remember much of the rest of the way, how Curvo found Nargothrond or anything of the sort.

I only now months later, start to be able to use my hand for something as detailed as writing.

I’ll have a hell of a time retraining to hunt.

And the irony is… I may have kept my right arm… But I’ll never hold a sword again with it.”

Celegorm nodded again.

He hadn’t yet, even to this day.

Thankfully no one of their brothers had commented on his new habit to fight with his left. Celegorm believed that none of them wanted to know in truth what injuries pushed him to train his left as a dominant hand.

“I learnt when I woke up from whatever injuries related daze I was in that we got news from our siblings.

They’re all fine. They all had to double up to survive, they lost some of their territories, but they’re fine.

Maglor retreated with Maedhros.

Caranthir retreated with the twins.

But Angrod and Aegnor didn’t or perhaps couldn’t retreat anywhere.

Orodreth came to Nargothrond as well.

Fingolfin is dead and Fingon is our new high-king.

I hope Fingon will either have a kid, name his heir someone out of his family, or have more luck than those who’ve held the high-kingship until now because Turgon is still very much nowhere do be found and if Fingon dies or is otherwise kidnapped, we absolutely cannot be stuck with an absent high-king.”

That was still true to this day. Turgon came to the Nirnaeth and then retreated back home and now… silence again.

He was high-king, technically, Celegorm supposed, but considering that no one has seen or heard of him since then… Noldor all found a local leader to lead them in the absence of the supposed high-king.

“I don’t know why Angrod and Aegnor didn’t evacuate. I don’t know if they even could.

Maybe they got the warning too late.

Maybe they had something they wanted to protect and just… Stayed until it was too late.

Maybe…”

That even now remained a question that Celegorm had no answer for. And he wondered if there was anything he could have done that might have tipped the balance the other way around.

But… Probably not. It was a force made to eradicate all opposition that Morgoth threw at them on that day.

Chapter Text

A name on the next page had Celegorm bare his teeth in a grimace.

“Finrod allowed a man to come to his realm and allowed a man to sway his mind.

He usually has a formidable survival instinct. He usually isn’t careless with his life, that’s the whole reason he built Nargothrond to start with.

But the man, Beren, came, claiming that he needed to steal a Silmaril from Morgoth to marry the girl he loved…

And Finrod agreed to help.

It was all I could do to avoid killing Beren on the spot as a wannabe thief of one of the Silmarils. Finrod and Beren were not so slowly convincing Finrod’s people that going after Morgoth’s crown was a great idea.

So I spoke up.

I spoke up and reminded people of the oath. Of what it’d mean for them to attempt it. I meant it as a warning.

I figured, if his people refused to go because they were reminded with both the consequences of failure and the consequences of success, Finrod would reconsider his suicidal course of actions. Having an oath to help the man doesn’t mean having an oath to follow any stupid plan the man could come up.

Sadly, Curufin also spoke up after me and weaved terror in the heart of everyone living here. I don’t think anyone here will put their nose out of Nargothrond willingly after that.

That was not my plan.

That was not necessary.

That was not wanted.

But alas I do not control my brother. And he had an idea, his own plan that he saw fit to enact.”

Celegorm snorted at that. For all the good that did them…

“Finrod left anyway. The fool. He had a handful of people loyal to him with him. The others all chose to remain behind.

I don’t think we’ll see Finrod alive again. Not on this side of the sea. I alas know him too well to believe he’ll change his mind.

Or perhaps his own oath is as badly worded and binding as our own oath for the Silmarils, who know? Certainly not me.

My brother is campaigning for me to take the crown of Nargothrond.

I don’t see the point of taking the leadership of a people he bespelled to be afraid of even their own shadows.”

That was actually confirmed. The people of Nargothrond was now known for being unwilling to leave their city for any reason. His brother had had a dramatic effect on the city.

Or perhaps that was the natural result of their people breaking their oath of loyalty to them. Breaking oaths always had deep consequences.

Who knew?

There was a gap of time and then the next date:

“Huan found and brought to me a girl. Thingol’s own daughter to be exact.

My brother was enchanted by her on the spot. I’m not convinced, and I’m pretty sure that’s not… Natural.

And I’m sure about it for a few reasons.

First is my brother:

He is already married and wouldn’t do that to his wife.

And even his own ambitions have limits. Or had limits before he met Luthien.

The second is me.

I never felt any interest toward anyone. No one, in my eyes, feels like a potential partner. I don’t want one, never wanted one and frankly I never saw the point of being shackled to another being this way. But upon meeting Luthien, I too felt… Something disturbingly like attraction. It’s not even that she’s pretty. It’s… Something else.

So as a result I was oh-so-ready to feed a poison to the girl and send her back on her way to Doriath under armed escort if necessary while the slow but lethal poison would take effect, just so Thingol and Melian could share the grief they inflicted on a number of my people.”

Celegorm grimaced. He should have ran his sword through her straight up and avoided all the drama that’d follow.

Oh, he’d have lost Huan on the spot also probably. But frankly, that was his biggest regret to date. Giving a chance to his brother’s stupid plan instead of enacting his own and losing his chance to get rid of one of Doriath’s pests.

Not a mistake he’d make again, that was for sure.

“Alas, I let him convince me of the good idea of trying to force Thingol to agree to marry her to me. His reasoning was that if she died as I planned, it’d only give more weight for Thingol’s desire to keep all of us out, men, women and children alike. Whereas if the girl was married to one of us, he’d never be able to justify again leaving our people to die in case of emergency.

Which… I mean, it’s a fact I suppose. Curvo also figured that if we controlled Luthien, we’d also have a way to enforce it when Maedhros would ultimately try to rally people to push back at Morgoth.

After the Bragollach? It was only a matter of time before something had to be done somehow.

Result of the matter, with no answer from Thingol I lost patience and prepared a damn poison to feed the girl. She was too aggravating. But Huan saw me, and took pity on her and helped her escape.

He came back to me later, somewhat alongside the rumour of Luthien’s miraculously saving Beren, and running Gorthaur off the tower.

That seemed to give some courage to Orodreth because he threw us out for the predictable death of Finrod, which I find hilarious because, frankly? No matter what I did or said, Finrod was going to die on that senseless quest of his.

And the same ones who called us cowards for refusing to help Finrod and Beren’s stupid quests have banded together to throw my brother and I out of Nargothrond. I’m in awe of their courage… Not.

I’m sure we’ll never hear of them ever again, too afraid of putting their nose out of their little city.

But on the way we also crossed path with Beren and Luthien. At the sight of them again I saw red, and wished only to kill them both, wannabe thieves that they were.

But that failed. The fight that followed was short. And Huan again decided that the lives and pride of Beren and Luthien meant more than our unbreakable oath and centuries-long friendship.

I feel I should have known: ‘To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well; and by treason of kin unto kin and the fear of treason…’

It’s only a wonder that Huan didn’t betray me sooner I suppose.”

Celegorm had to take a deep breath and purposefully relax his fingers that had tensed on the page.

“Now we’re in Himring, and our brothers’ welcome was seriously lacking. I heard some of their people whispering in the shadows.

They think we, Curufin and I, are monsters. Closer to the orcs than even my darling elder brother can ever be.

At least that means the people are less wary of Maedhros in return, I suppose.”

Celegorm vaguely wondered what it meant about him that he only regretted not having just plainly tried to kill Luthien on the spot when they met. 

He was pretty sure he’d have failed, she did spread a sort of disturbing attraction around her. Huan himself wasn’t immune. Hells, MORGOTH wasn’t immune. But at least it’d be clear enough for everyone. 

Chapter Text

“Maedhros and Fingon have been busy plotting.

They have in project to unite the free people of Beleriand to attack Morgoth now that Thrice-be-cursed Luthien and Beren ‘proved’ it was possible to oppose him.

I think they forget a bit fast that he creepy-happy couple only proved that if Morgoth lowered his guard and you came with maiarin powers you stood a chance.

Last I checked none of us had maiarin powers, the maiar were all happy pretending no danger exist, alongside their Valar in Valinor. Aside from Melian but if they honestly believe that Doriath will move to help a Noldorin plan along, my brother and cousin are more naive than I believed they could be.

Doriath locked Noldor out during the Bragollach. Doriathrim just hope that noldor as a rule will be eradicated from Beleriand.

Doriath will NEVER move to help.”

And Celegorm had been right on that one.

“Thing is that Maedhros doesn’t want to see that. He claims, and believes as far as I can tell, that Doriath would have perhaps joined us IF Curufin and I hadn’t attacked Luthien as we did.

Again, he’s forgetting the Bragollach.

I haven’t.

Curvo hasn’t.

But my brothers, all of them, have. Or they have chosen to believe that the situation wasn’t that bad and Doriath had their reasons.

Yeah. During the Bragollach, Doriath took in even the Northern Sindar they usually banned out of the Girdle with as much hatred as for us Noldor.

But not us.

The meaning is clear enough for all to see.

It’s just sad that my brothers have chosen to not see it. To not believe it.”

The sad thing is that they still refused to consider the question. To them, as to everyone else, Doriath’s refusal to help was a just answer to what Curufin and Celegorm did to Luthien. It’s a shame, but Celegorm was past caring.

“No matter. I’ll do my part.

We’ll attack Morgoth. Gather as many allies as we can. Hopefully we can at least reclaim some of our lost territories and some safety for our people, if nothing else.

We’ll fail, very probably, to recover the Silmaril. That’s about as sure as the sun raising up every morning. But perhaps we can succeed in some small way.

Currently Morgoth possesses in truth most of the territories of Beleriand. Perhaps with careful planning and enough allies, we can change that?”

Celegorm shook his head.

How naive and optimistic he had been.

Reality hadn’t been that kind. It never was to be fair.

He shrugged. He learnt better. All that could go wrong, would go wrong. That’s how they’d die one day, he was sure of it.

And frankly now he was over trying to change course to a kinder fate.

The oath wouldn’t allow for a kinder fate.

Celegorm knew he wasn’t strong enough to fight the oath and Mandos’ curse. Not now, and perhaps not ever.

Chapter Text

There was blood on the next page. Ash. Or dark smudges at least.

Celegorm didn’t need to read it to know what it said.

“Maedhros and Fingon agreed on a plan a while ago. The Union of Maedhros.

Yeah. They, we, should have known better.

Námo did curse us to fail everything. Maedhros being in the thick of organising it all, naming the damn thing after him even?

We were betrayed.

By our allied men. Or by Carni’s allied men.

Nargothrond didn’t, or still couldn’t, come out of Nargothrond. Cowards, cowards… Curvo’s little spell should have long been erased… And still they didn’t come out.

Predictably, Doriath didn’t move their asses either.

But, I mean, they didn’t move during the Bragollach and wanted to let Morgoth kill off all the Noldor, so I suppose it’s just more of the same with them. Selfish and cowardly. I almost want to live long enough to see Morgoth inevitably win the war against us all and finally turn against Doriath.

Just to see their faces when they realise that their own past action, or past Inaction more to the point will have left them with no ally…”

Well the Fëanorians weren’t Morgoth but still… Doriath will have to realise they have little to no allies left in this world either way. Because no one will come to their aid against their army now.

“Sadly we lost a good number of allies.

Fingon died for one.

We were all injured. Hundreds of our people died for basically nothing.

Most of our kingdoms fell.

We’ve retreated to Himring while we heal, but I’ll be honest, we cannot stay here. We don’t have the manpower anymore to keep Himring a safe place. If we stay here, Morgoth will crush us next.

And the worst part in all that is that now, none out of the 7 of us has the manpower anymore to lead our own army.

Now Nelyo has no choice but to hear my voice. Either we stay together and defend each other… Or Morgoth’s creatures will have an easy time picking us off one my one.

Now I see three paths.

The first, my brothers and I take too long to recover, and Morgoth’s eyes turn to us in Himring and we’ll be traps like rats and die on the spot, not very cheerful but alas realistic.

The second, we can retreat to the mountains and play wack the orc there until it kills us. Or in the same vein, we secure a forest, and we make it damn hard for the dark creatures to find us while we pick them out one by one.

The third… We do something utterly stupid and try to get the gem back from Doriath.

Doriath cannot use the gem for anything but decoration. Pretty sure any of my brothers would be able to make something harmful to Morgoth’s pets out of it.

But that involves bringing war to Doriath and Maedhros is reluctant.

Kinslaying this, kinslaying that…

What sort of ‘kin’ is deliberately leaving innocent ‘kin’ in reach of the orcs when it’s in their literal power to do something about it, hm?

Doriath did that, hence they’re certainly not my kin, hence whatever we do, it’s war yes, but it’s certainly not kinslaying.

But whatever. Right now we need to survive, later we’ll see how that goes.

And I’ll be honest… Carni’s injury doesn’t fill me with confidence, and Nelyo’s current state is… Well, there’s a reason why I’m the one who led our people here and not either of my elder brother.”

Celegorm grimaced. Maglor had been very busy trying to ensure Maedhros would survive, and Maedhros was… Verging between fading after Fingon and doing something stupid that risked aggravating his injuries.

“So now all we can do is wait, reinforce Himring and hope for the best.

I absolutely hate this. I feel both useless and too exposed… Fuck this life.”

Well, Celegorm could say with certitude that ‘fuck this life’ still was a feeling that applied beautifully.

More so even these last few years. Nowhere was safe anymore.

They had no real home. They had a base in Amon Ereb, but they mostly lived to fight the creatures of Morgoth in the vain hope of stalling becoming overrun.

Chapter Text

After that were only blank pages.

He had been too busy, too tired, too… something to write again.

But as they were finally going after Doriath, he thought that he should put one to paper, just in case.

He picked up his pen, and ink, and penned the date at the top of a page:

“After weeks upon weeks of arguing with my eldest brother, he finally relented.

Tomorrow, Doriath will fall under our swords.

When news came that the arrogant son of Beren and Luthien, Dior of Doriath, dared to wear the Silmaril like a random necklace, we were all spread out in Amon Ereb, Maedhros and Maglor and their people kept the fortress, but the twins, Caranthir, Curufin and I and our respective people, however few they may be, were spread out in the old territory of Amon Ereb.

Being spread out like that both ensured that we were set a bit like a spider web around the center that was the fortress.

From that formation, we were picking out the dark creatures that were attempting to approach the fortress and our elder brothers.

But the moment we heard that Dior, the half-mortal child-king of Doriath had the nerves to display himself wearing the jewel of our family, we all returned to the fortress.

We argued. Oh, we did.

Maedhros won by virtue of being the oldest.

He sent a letter to the little king of Doriath.

Obviously Dior refused to answer or even to consider our letter.

And now, after weeks and weeks of arguing, Maedhros finally listened. Oh he didn’t listen for the pleasure of it, no.

We have reasons to suspect that Morgoth is testing Doriath’s borders too. So I went to investigate and ‘lo and behold, I trespassed without being stopped by either elf-warden, or Girdle.

Doriath. Is. Defenceless.

So either we take the Silmaril back from the hands of that incompetent baby king, or Morgoth will take it back sooner or later.”

Celegorm’s smile was savage, the light in his eyes a deadly unhinged shade.

“We gathered every single one of our people and we’re marching on Doriath. We’ll reach their border tomorrow.

And if there is any justice in this world, I will get the pleasure of taking the Silmaril from Dior’s bloody neck!

Although according to Námo’s curse, probably not. So perhaps I’ll just have the pleasure of tearing Dior’s heart out so he’ll disappear and give the crown to a leader that will perhaps see the sense _ or be traumatised enough that they’ll see the sense _ of fearing us and leaving the Silmaril to my brothers in exchange for the knowledge we’ll leave their people alone.

I almost pity the Doriathrims for having leaders so hypnotised by the damn thing.

At times I wish dad hadn’t made the damn thing. Or that we hadn’t sworn that stupid oath. I truly never saw the appeal of fighting for a cold gem of all things.

But right now?

Vengeance for the inaction of the Doriathrims during the Bragollach will be mine. So I’d swear the bloody oath all over again with full knowledge of how it’d end just to have this shot at avenging those of my friends, and their families, who died senselessly.

And if we get to put our hands on the Silmaril in the process… Well… All benefits, no downside.

If, when, this is over, I’ll… Put in writing what happened and if we got the damn gem. Unless I forget again.”

Writing so, Celegorm put the pen and ink away, and then closed the notebook that he slid into his backpack.

Hopefully this time he’d have something hopeful to report.

Chapter Text

Celegorm, Caranthir and Curufin died in Doriath. 

Maglor couldn’t think of anything else right now.

 
3 of his brothers died in that ill-thought out plan. 

They had been forced to burn the bodies before leaving the borders of the ruins of Doriath.

There was no way they could transport them. There was nowhere they could bury them and… The body of elves deteriorated fast anyway. Better to burn them there than to leave them to rot. 

But they had taken the bags and weapons of their brothers with them. 

And now, back in Amon Ereb, Maglor went to Celegorm’s old room. 

He was tired. 

Tired of grieving. 

Maglor let his eyes slide on his brother’s room. 

In truth it didn’t resemble him at all. It was just a room his brother used when they were gathered here. 

But Maglor finally put his attention to the bag he had carried inside. 

Celegorm’s backpack on the other hand felt like his brother. It still had his brother’s smell even. 

With shaking hands, Maglor opened the bag, and looked inside. 

And right on top, he found the journal. The old, barely held together still journal that his brother still carried with him everywhere. 

Maglor’s hands were shaking as he pulled the journal out of the bag and opened it. 

His eyes went over all the entries. 

And at times he laughed. 

And at times he cried. 

And at times he shook his head with an exasperated: “Oh brother…”

Because in this journal he found his brother again. The one he saw grow up. 

The one he loved. 

The one he teased and could live with. 

And not the monster, the almost orc, that the numerous rumours of him and Curufin’s deed made of him. 

He only stopped reading when Maedhros entered the room, looking gloomy and resigned:

“I was looking for you.”

Maglor closed the journal and showed it to Maedhros. 

His brother just looked at it from a few steps away, but made no move to come and take it. 

“You shouldn’t, brother.”

“Shouldn’t what? Read my brother’s last journal?”

“They are dead. No amount of reading their journals will change that. Just… Put it away.”

Maglor took a deep breathe and shook his head. 

“You grieve as you wish to. I will grieve our brothers as I wish to. And if that means being reminded that Celegorm wasn’t the monster rumors make him out to be, then I’ll gladly read this twice over.”

Maedhros sighed. 

“Do what you will. But come. We’ll gather in the great hall. Hold a vigil for them. For whatever value that will have for their fëar.”

Maglor nodded, and rose to his feet, his brother’s journal in hand. He’d go. And he’d finish reading that journal. And perhaps he’d copy it to a newer notebook in the desperate hope to keep something that’ll remind him of his brother as he once was. 

And perhaps, perhaps one day they’ll claim the Silmarils back, and they’ll be able to meet again in Mandos. 

Because for the sons of Fëanor, being unable to reach each others via Osanwë was a terrible feeling. A sense of loss and loneliness that none of them knew how to live with.