Chapter Text
Life in Valinor had, in time, brought Frodo and Sam a profound tranquility.
The air was gentle, the light benevolent, and even the peculiar stillness that pervaded that land had grown familiar. Yet one matter continued to trouble Olórin.
Frodo and Sam displayed a peculiar unease in the presence of Prince Celebrimbor.
All the Elves regarded him with esteem—he was, after all, the Maker of the Rings of Power—but the hobbits’ reactions were strange and inexplicable. Perhaps no one else noticed, yet Olórin, long accustomed to their ways and a friend to the hobbits, could not help but observe it.
Whenever Celebrimbor traversed the halls or gardens, attended by his retinue, the hobbits’ eyes would fall in sudden submission. Reverence, certainly—but interwoven with it was a shadow of apprehension, as though they had beheld him before.
And yet they could not possibly have known him.
Olórin observed in silence. No other High Elf, not even Galadriel, evoked such a singular mixture of awe and dread in Frodo and Sam.
Prince Celebrimbor, silver hands, radiant as nascent starlight, appeared scarcely to notice them. But on occasion, his gaze softened to the little ones as if discerning a truth unspoken.
One afternoon, as they walked beside the water fountains, Olórin could endure this mystery no longer.
“Frodo, Samwise..." he said with gravity. "You regard Lord Celebrimbor as one might a specter. Tell me—why is this so?”
“The Elf of silver eyes?” Sam asked, voice trembling.
“Precisely.”
The hobbits exchanged uneasy glances. Sam paled first.
“Mr. Gandalf… we have never met him properly. Not in person, leastwise,” he admitted.
Frodo drew in a deep breath. “Yet… we saw him, Gandalf.”
“Saw him?” Olórin repeated, low and cold. “How can this be? Where?”
“In the Dark Tower,” Frodo revealed.
Sam nodded, twisting his hands in anxious agitation. “Aye. Throughout Barad-dûr. His countenance upon pillars, his likeness carved in stone, in statues and paintings—etched upon every wall. Wherever we turned… There he was.”
Olórin came to an abrupt halt. Frodo and Sam drew back at once, for upon his countenance they perceived a terror unmitigated.
His gaze drifted westward, distant and unfocused, as though he were piecing together some long-buried calamity.
Though he had never known Celebrimbor in the flesh, he knew the Elf by the fire of his craft. Narya burned upon his finger, and through that flame he had glimpsed the brilliance that once dazzled Middle-earth—brilliance that had, in ages past, ensnared Sauron.
Indeed, he had anticipated envy, manipulation, betrayal.
But not this. Never this.
A fortress adorned with the likeness of the Elf whom Sauron had slain.
Was it devotion? Once noble, perhaps, yet twisted and festering across the ages. Love, perhaps, yet perverted utterly.
Olórin closed his eyes with finality.
Some truths wound deeper than the mind could endure, and some histories are better consigned to the ashes of Barad-dûr.
“My dear hobbits,” he intoned, “you must speak of this to no one. Not to any Elf. And above all, not to Lord Celebrimbor.”
"Forgive us, Gandalf," Frodo shifted, uneasy. “We will not speak of it; we meant no harm.”
“I am aware,” Olórin replied gently. He placed a hand upon their shoulders, kind but firmly. “That chapter of history ends with you. Let it rest.”