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How long it lasts, Celebrimbor cannot gauge, for the stars are black and the candles overturned. The hearth burned some time ago, and the coals have gone cold. (Many hours, then.)
He ceases to wonder when Sauron will return. Perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps any moment. The outcome will not change. Celebrimbor will answer in riddles, and the pain will go on.
(He hopes that Sauron will be long delayed, for the object of his quest is most terrifying than his return. For the Orc who sought him out mentioned the commander who defended the wall, and hate inflamed crafty eyes before Sauron tossed aside the pike in his hands, seconds away from pinioning his prey like a trophy kill.)
He will go after Elrond.
For this reason Celebrimbor fights for each breath, swallowing blood and forcing himself to sit upright and concentrate, hurling lances at his cousin’s awareness and commanding him to withdraw.
The soothing reassurance is unshakable. ‘Have courage, Tyelpë! Help is coming.’
Nae, there is no rescue for him in this life. His hands will never wield hammer and fire again, and his mind was savaged by the enemy to whom he had offered the wealth and wisdom of his forefathers. Even now Celebrimbor shudders with cold, his heart pounding erratically as it is forced to endure.
Yet if he gives in now, Elrond will not stop.
(He will not stop until he has nothing more to give, and this Celebrimbor fears more than anything. Woe to the warriors of blood and brotherhood, who raised up children with hearts as fierce and loyal as wolves! For the true followers of Fëanor carry the same noble aspirations, who would have joined in his oath without compulsion, and willingly would they have fallen with him and each of his sons.)
Elrond deserves to live. He who was orphaned by such madness, forced to carry the same mantle — he will not perish for Celebrimbor’s folly.
And so Celebrimbor reaches out again, this time to the one who carries the nine. Galadriel will hear him. She will force Elrond to retreat — drag him away if need be.
(He does not know that the wall has already fallen. That the battle is lost. That only a handful of survivors remain, and these are cast aside with increasing disdain as the Orcs fail to procure the one whom Sauron seeks.)
‘Hold on, Tyelpë! Not long now.’
Elrond’s mind is veiled, but something leaks through the shields he has masterfully crafted. His words are concentrated — forced almost. Tainted with the exhaustion of battle and the weight of his armor. Surely he will not come. He cannot, not when Sauron will return in tenfold rage when his prize cannot be found.
Coarse voices rail in the adjoining stairwell. Orcs squeal before Elvish steel plunges into their throats. The door is jostled once, twice, and then kicked down by someone too impatient to find another way.
When Elrond strides in, a sword in each hand, his armor black and his hair drenched with mud and Orc blood, Celebrimbor finds the strength to shout at him after all. Without any respect for the wisdom of his elders Elrond yells back, gesturing with his swords from himself to Celebrimbor to the battlefield beyond. He parries Quenya like he was born on the wrong side of the Bruinen, batting down each and every sensible argument from the Lord of the City in some ridiculous demonstration of honor and adoration. In poetic synchrony they both stop haranguing each other and fall into pained silence, Elrond as he sheathes his swords and hovers healing hands over the arrows that have ceased to hurt, Celebrimbor as he memorizes this last moment with his young cousin, praying that he may carry it to Námo’s halls.
“You shall not die,” Elrond rebukes him, pressing his hands down gently so that the arrow buried in Celebrimbor’s shoulder slides out as the wound heals from within.
Ah. So he must still be nagging the lad through ósonwë. Well, as long as he is listening….
Elrond shrugs off the warning of Sauron’s imminent return, the gesture clumsier in armor than he anticipates, perhaps, given the sudden grimace before he softly closes the door to give Celebrimbor privacy in his thoughts. “Sauron will not return before he retrieves the nine. His pride will be his downfall.”
“His pride was wounded irrevocably by Lúthien,” Celebrimbor reminds him fiercely, hollering when the arrow in his thigh catches on bone. Elrond soothes the retrieval in a near panic, whispering apologies as the pain dulls to a throb. Grabbing his cousin’s shoulder to shove him away (for he will live now, but only long enough for the Lord of the Rings to reinflict every wound), Celebrimbor snarls a curse that will wound, shattering their oath of kinship and forcing Elrond to gather his pride and leave him behind.
He does not have the strength to push hard, yet Elrond falls with a startled cry all the same. He does not rise, staring at the crumbled wall until he stops shivering and finally starts to breathe again.
All censure flees Celebrimbor’s mind as he wrenches away from the pillar, crawling to Elrond’s side. All he can smell is smoke and roasting flesh and blood, but the latter is stronger as he pries Elrond’s hand away from his side.
“What have you done?”
Muddled grey eyes blink sluggishly before Elrond returns to himself. He curses softly, finally focusing on his own peril as he breathes sharply through his nose.
“Hate trolls,” he mutters. The low cough is wet, and then drenching as he turns his head to the side, blood surging up to spatter the floor.
Suddenly Celebrimbor has no time to explain his hasty, ill-spoken words, nor worry for Sauron’s return (for Elrond may not live long enough to defy him). He scrabbles at battered armor, his ruined hands useless until Elrond breathes in forcibly and helps him unlatch the clasps.
Silver chainmail is nearly scarlet. The fine loops are severed in many places, foul-smelling with the seep of Orc poison. A broken arrow shaft scrapes Celebrimbor’s palm. There is nothing to bind the trickle that gushes down Elrond’s side the moment the pressure of dented armor is released.
“Ai!” Celebrimbor exclaims, thrusting the heels of his hands against the flow, as if he can stop it with a healer’s song. “Why did you not heed me? Why did you come?”
Shall both of us now be lost?
The brush against his mind is ever gentle, with neither scold nor hurt for the reckless manner in which he tried to banish his cousin moments before. Celebrimbor can’t help but let him in.
Grey eyes are soft, their light already fading as Elrond clings to him in spirit, scarcely able to lift the hand he slides down Celebrimbor’s wrist. ‘Help still comes, Tyelpë. Have courage.’
“Nae, it shall come for both of us,” Celebrimbor insists, reaching out to cup Elrond’s cheek and brush away an errant tear.
Elrond leans into his palm, accepting, and his eyes flutter longer before he forces himself to wake. His next breath rises only halfway before it catches, gurgling on the exhale. Grey eyes flicker with fear. ‘Do not leave?’
“Never!” Celebrimbor says breathlessly, wishing that it was his heart failing; his lungs filling with blood. He stretches out beside his cousin, clasping his shoulder and pressing their foreheads together. Peace and restoration and fondness and grief he floods into Elrond’s mind; every perfect memory, every lost moment he would seize with both hands, if Námo would only give him a little more time.
In turn, Elrond is the cool spring wrapping around his turmoil, reflecting love and understanding and hope and acceptance, for he never craved more than he was given and he was cherished far more than any orphan and stranger to Eregion deserved.
Time! Give us time! Celebrimbor pleads to Námo and Manwë and all who will listen. Elrond’s skin is cool; his breaths more shallow.
‘Melda Tyëlpe, alámenë,’ Elrond expresses on a sigh. His mind brushes Celebrimbor’s as surely as a caressing hand. Then his chest falls and does not rise again.
Crushing Elrond’s forehead to his own, Celebrimbor kisses his brow and weeps.
He is not left alone for long.
He does not track the shadows.
But the one who should not be here, who should have perished in ashes and flame, is the one to whom Celebrimbor owes the vilest gratitude from this day until the black tower falls.
Scarcely has Elrond’s breath left him than Sauron returns.
He is livid.
He will not be cheated by the convenience of death.
He drags Elrond away as Celebrimbor screams, breathing over him and thrusting his hand against the still chest. Celebrimbor crawls on his elbows, cursing the one who cannot even show mercy after death.
Then Elrond’s jaw twitches, a bird’s chirping keen breaking from his throat, and malice glitters in searing eyes as Sauron offers Celebrimbor back his cousin as one more convoluted gift.
He can’t help but huddle over Elrond all the same, shuddering when he sees blackened scores where wounds were sealed and the stuttering, too fast pulse as a starved heart tries to accommodate this unnatural second chance. Grey eyes are muddied like ash heaps, roving from one figure to the other without truly seeing.
“I can bring him back over and over until you beg me to let you break his neck,” Sauron croons, crouching beside them with perfect hair and robes unstained with battle smog. “Now you will tell me what has become of the nine.”
“Do your worst,” Celebrimbor stammers, bracing himself around his rasping, (living!) cousin. Death will still find them both, whether or not he concedes, and many more will fall if he surrenders.
He nearly takes it all back when the Deceiver smiles.
He nearly takes it all back when the first bone crunches.
When Elrond dies again.
When his next breath is a keen of despair.
When Celebrimbor feels more pain than cognizance.
When his own hands are….
When he can no longer reach out to hold his cousin.
When there is fire and burned flesh and wails that echo long after the sound ceases.
When it all stops, Sauron cups Celebrimbor’s face like a gentle father, pity softening his eyes to a familiar shade of blue. (He did not realize until now that he subconsciously associated fair hair and kindly eyes with his uncle Turcafinwë.)
“I can save him,” Sauron murmurs, as if he has not already crushed Elrond’s spirit and revived him so often that he cannot differentiate one form of pain from another. “I can restore him. Maedhros's little commander. I would put a star on his brow so that no one may touch him.”
“I know your lies,” Celebrimbor rasps. “You would sooner spear his heart and hang him from the wall, after gloating in your triumph.”
“No!” the Deceiver answers with pitying gaze. “I would make him a prince. Beloved and cherished by his people.”
“And chained!” Celebrimbor accuses.
The answering shrug is indifferent. “You are that chain, Celebrimbor. He was always coming back for you.”
In this knowledge Celebrimbor cannot help but hang his head, for it is truth. He shudders when a hand smooths down his hair, like one would caress a favorite horse.
“Give me the nine, and he will live without pain,” Sauron whispers. “Or shall I remind you how Morgoth created his army?”
Ai, this last thought will break him, surely! Against his character (yet what does he have left save this shell of himself and a future of lies?), Celebrimbor nods.
He would have done it, he confesses freely when it is over. He would have told Sauron everything.
That choice, mercifully, is taken out of his hands. For while Sauron hunted for the nine there were gathered together three, and while Dwarves marched upon the city they banded together to save the few who survived. The light of mithril blinds Sauron, shattering his triumph as each warrior strides over the threshold.
There is the lady in white, with a circlet on her brow and a sword flashing to her palm. There is the commander of sea and sky, whose blade is wreathed red and whose silver hair shines like the final sunset. There is the golden king, whose hand reflects the hue of a trampled banner, who will not fall without burying his glaive in the enemy’s heart.
They gather as one and Sauron hesitates… and then he is gone.
(One day he will master the art of his own ring, and then he will laugh. For this day he knows fear, and the revelation will endure in both Celebrimbor’s proudest moments and his waking haunts.)
The light fades from the warriors, but not from the rings. Narya knits bones as a sailor weaves rope to strong beams. Vilya envelopes the spirit as a king guards his people. Nenya embraces and eradicates and shields and soothes, for it is in the nature of her bearer to heal and fight and comfort and cling to those she loves.
It is clear that Elrond does not wish to wake, but Gil-Galad leaves him no choice. He cradles his herald, mourning lingering bruises where the troll struck and greying scars that will never forget Sauron’s taint and the first huffing, birdlike cry when Elrond comes to himself, searching for Celebrimbor and anticipating pain.
When he realizes who holds him, his first act is to beg forgiveness. His next is to slither from Gil-Galad’s arms, reaching for his cousin.
There is pain in dark eyes when Gil-Galad permits him, lifting Elrond to lay them side by side, his gentling hand resting on the shoulder that shivers with lingering shock. Elrond wraps his hands around Celebrimbor’s, grieving for that which rings cannot restore, and buries his face in his cousin’s shoulder. (He will sleep for days, and be haunted for many more to come, and yet he will heal, and that in itself is a marvel far exceeding anything Celebrimbor has seen in Middle Earth.)
He detangles one arm and wraps it around Elrond, pulling him close, and closes his eyes against tears when he feels his cousin’s chest rise and fall. The king’s other hand moves to rest on his head, as if Celebrimbor is a child avoiding sleep, and the evocation of peace envelopes his fëa.
He closes his eyes, not entirely unwillingly, and sleeps without dreams.
When he wakes in a hollow surrounded by streams, he is not alone.
His first sight is Elrond’s relieved smile.