Chapter Text
Ereinion has always been fond of the morning. In the night, after his minder has left him and the halls are dark and quiet, he rises from his bed and reaches for the draping curtains that hide the window. He pulls them apart and ties them back, and through the glass comes Elbereth’s starlight.
When the dawn comes, and Arien brings the first lights of day, it finds Ereinion’s window first. With this he rises, before even his father the king. He slips from the bed and settles in the corner of his room, drawing toys from the basket and entertaining himself until Celebeth returns to watch him for the day. He has a routine.
It is unwelcome when it is broken, but the sorrow in Celebeth’s eyes tells him that this time, his morning is not his to govern. She rouses him before even Arien has the opportunity, shaking him by the shoulder and speaking urgently in his ear.
“Ereinion,” she says, “we must go. Come, rise, let us dress you quick. You cannot stay here anymore.” Ereinion follows loosely as she pulls him to his feet and dresses him in a tunic and leggings. I don’t understand, he thinks, and wonders at her hastiness. Where must they go? Why can they not stay?
Where is Atya?
He asks Celebeth this, as she takes him in her arms and hurries down the stairs. They are headed to the stables, he knows. She does not answer him.
Ereinion is passed off to an ellon once they reach the doors to the stable. The ellon is dark-haired and stern-faced, and already he is mounted upon a tall chestnut horse. Celebeth does not retrieve a horse of her own.
“You are not coming with us?” Ereinion asks, because surely if Atya is not coming, then Celebeth will. She was bid to watch Ereinion always, when Atya could not. That is her job. Atya will be disappointed when he finds out that Celebeth has not done her job.
“I am off to seek Nargothrond, my prince, and offer my service to King Orodreth,” Celebeth tells him, but this does not soothe Ereinion’s confusion. She serves Atya: the real king, the High King. He receives no more word on this, however, because then the ellon that sits behind Ereinion on the horse is urging it forward, and they are riding fast.
What is so urgent, wonders Ereinion, that he could not say goodbye? The ellon’s — and Ereinion does not even know his name! — arm is wrapped around him tight, keeping him in the saddle, and they are riding far in a direction that Atya has never taken him. Did Atya approve of this? What if he is not even supposed to be leaving, and they are taking him away against his father’s wishes?
“I want to see Atya,” says Ereinion when the horse finally slows. “Where is he?” He feels the ellon’s arm tighten, and a quiet breath is let out just a little harsher than is typical.
“You cannot see him,” the elf says. “He is gone. I am taking you somewhere safe, and they will take care of you there, because your father is gone.”
“But where has he gone?” Ereinion asks. Surely Atya would not just leave him. He had not said that he would be gone forever. Only a few days ago he had said goodbye, and that he was going somewhere for a little while—that he would return. Nobody had said anything about forever.
The ellon hesitates. Ereinion can tell, because the arm around him goes tense, and even the horse slows down a little bit. He wonders if it is listening too.
“Mandos,” he says at last, and the word is rough, as if it does not wish to be spoken.
Ereinion is quiet.
He knows that name— or, well, he thinks he does. The memory is somewhere in his lessons, but it is indistinct, and he cannot hold it. A place, maybe? Or a person. He doesn’t wholly remember. His brow furrows as he tries to grasp it, mouthing it to himself, Mandos, Mandos, but it doesn’t bring it to his mind any easier.
“Is that far?” he asks after a moment. “Will he be long?”
He doesn’t get an immediate answer. All that he hears are the heavy hoofbeats of the horse and the roaring wind.
Ereinion waits. Atya always answers him, even when the answer is long in coming.
“…Yes,” the ellon says, eventually, though it does not sound like the kind of ‘yes’ Ereinion is used to.
Ereinion nods, though the ellon cannot see it, because he is staring hard at the path.
That is alright, then. Atya has gone far away before. Important places, where Ereinion cannot follow. He will come back, as he always does.
Still, something does not sit right. The word Mandos won’t leave him, and it feels very heavy, and Ereinion does not like the feeling.
He does not ask again.
“What is your name?” Ereinion asks instead, because he has been wondering.
“Peldir,” he answers quietly in return.
Peldir is taking him far away from home. Arien is in the sky, now, like she had not been when Celebeth woke him up. Ereinion is happy to see her light; the sky is too bleak without her to light it up. It is why he is not very fond of the night time. Even Lady Elbereth’s stars don’t do enough to make it anything other than frightening, and sad.
He knows, from Atya’s stories, that once there was a time where there was no light at all, other than the stars. The sky was always dark, and time passed the same, but it was as if it was night always. Ereinion could not imagine such a world, where Arien was not there to bring the day time, and Tillion to light the night. But, he supposes that is why Lady Elbereth is so amazing. Her light has been here since before Arien’s.
This does not do anything to make Ereinion fond of the night.
At last Peldir pulls the horse to a stop, and before them there are many elves, and they look busy, hauling crates, so they do not turn to look at them. But one elf does: he has very pale hair — Ereinion does not know whether he should call it silver or white — and his eyes do not shine like Atya’s, or Peldir’s, or Celebeth’s. They are blue, like Atya’s, but they are unlit, and don’t have the same glow, like Ereinion’s.
Peldir dismounts quickly, Ereinion in his arms, and puts the elfling on his feet so that he may bow. “Lord Cirdan,” he says breathlessly. Cirdan nods politely at him in return, and Peldir straightens back up again. They get close to one another, and Peldir is whispering, and then they both look at him before walking a great distance away.
Ereinion knows that this means they are speaking about something private, and they do not want him to hear it, so he does not make a move to follow them. Instead, he steps away from the horse, and looks around. There are still lots of elves moving crates around, and Ereinion realises that they are on the shore. The crates are coming from big boats at the docks. He looks past the boats, at the ocean, and thinks that it is very beautiful.
There are only a few elflings that he can see. Two of them—older than he is—are playing in the low branches of a nearby tree. They are climbing very fearlessly, how Ereinion likes to, and he can hear their laughter easily, even over all the noise of the shore.
Beneath them stand two elves. Ereinion thinks they must be their parents, because they look very alike, in that way that families do, and they are silent, focused on watching the elflings’ every movement.
One of the elflings shifts too quickly, her foot slipping on the bark. Ereinion stills where he stands, watching. He thinks she is about to fall, but rather, she jumps straight from the branch.
Her mother is already there, arms raised as though she had been waiting for it. She catches her easily, with a small sound that might be a laugh, or relief, or both, and spins her once before setting her down again. The child laughs too, bright and untroubled, and reaches for her again as soon as her feet touch the ground.
Her mother drops to the ground and pulls her close, and touches her hair, and they are both smiling widely. Ereinion watches this, and something in his chest feels strange.
Atya looks at him like that, sometimes: when he climbs too high, or stands too near the fire. Careful, like he is the most important thing in the world, and he needs to be protected.
But Ereinion cannot remember the last time Atya caught him.
He tries to think of it, because surely it cannot be that long ago, and he knows how it feels. Warm and kind and lovely, and very safe, like Atya always is. Ereinion thinks and looks really, really hard for that memory.
He has been carried, of course, very often: by Celebeth, by others in the halls, when he is tired, or when they are in a hurry.
But that’s not the same.
He looks back to the tree. One of the elflings is climbing down now, slower this time, but when he reaches the last branch he lets go all the same. His father catches him just as easily, steadying him with both hands before setting him on his feet.
Ereinion can’t help but keep watching them, because now he’s wondering: who is going to catch him when he jumps from trees, now, because Atya can’t?
Eventually Cirdan and Peldir stop talking to each other, and they come back, where Peldir takes his horse by the reins and thanks Cirdan. He looks like he is about to leave, and Ereinion steps forward, ready to say goodbye, but Peldir doesn’t look at him. He turns and leaves, and he does not look back, and Ereinion watches with very wide eyes. Was no one going to say goodbye anymore?
Cirdan turns to him, and looks down with what Ereinion thinks is a rather critical eye. “You are Ereinion?” He asks. He has a very deep voice.
“Yes,” Ereinion replies. Cirdan raises an eyebrow at him, very sternly, and he wonders at what he has done wrong. Atya always looks at him very warm, and very proud, and he thought that he did well that time. He spoke very clearly– he didn’t even mumble!
“My Lord,” Cirdan says. “You will call me ‘My Lord’ while you live here.” Oh. That is what he has done wrong. This is puzzling, because Ereinion has never called anyone Lord before, and he was of the idea that princes were supposed to be above lords, but that is alright.
“Okay, my Lord,” says Ereinion, and Cirdan nods approvingly.
“Come with me,” Cirdan instructs, and turns on his heel. Ereinion hurries to catch up to him and keep his pace. He wonders why Cirdan does not carry him, because everyone else does, and Atya has told him it is because it is hard to get places fast when you are with an elfling who cannot walk as fast as you do. Surely if Cirdan is walking so fast, he would get there faster if he carried him.
Ereinion begins to feel as though maybe Cirdan is not very fond of him. They only just met, so perhaps he is just unfamiliar? That’s alright, though perhaps he could be a little less stiff. It is difficult to keep up with him when he is walking with such long strides.
Cirdan leads him into a very big house, though not as big as Atya’s, and leads him through winding dark halls that all look very much the same. Ereinion worries that he may get lost when he does not have a guide, because there are not even paintings on the wall that he could use as landmarks — that was what Atya told him to do, if ever he got lost.
They stop once they reach a room that is a little smaller than his bedroom at home. It is very plain, and not at all exciting, but there is a bed in the middle, and a desk like in Atya’s study, and a basket in the corner like the one he has in his room, the one that is full of toys. Ereinion wonders if there are any toys in there.
“This is to be your room,” Cirdan says, “while you are here. There is a room across the hall—”
He steps back into the corridor, gesturing toward a door opposite. Ereinion follows a pace behind, though he is not certain when he was meant to move.
“—it is there that you will meet your tutors each day. You will be introduced to them soon enough.”
Ereinion nods, though he is not sure if Cirdan sees him. They return to the room, and Cirdan crosses it in a few long strides, already speaking again, with a very steady voice, like when Atya talks to the soldiers.
“Any clothes you may require have been provided. They are suitable for both leisure and formal appearance. If there is anything lacking, you may bring it to my attention. My rooms are at the end of the hall.”
The words come too quickly. Ereinion tries to follow them, to hold onto each instruction as it is given, but they slip past him, one into the next, until they blur together.
Room. Tutors. Clothes. Hall.
He doesn’t understand. He stands very still in the middle of the room, his hands empty at his sides, and looks around, as though maybe it will all make sense if he looks, or if he waits long enough. It doesn’t.
The bed is not his. The desk is not his. Even the basket in the corner—which is very much like the one in his chambers at home—does not feel like his.
Home.
The thought comes suddenly, and with it everything else. The window, where the light found him in the mornings, and the halls he knew like the back of his hands, and Atya. Ereinion’s throat tightens.
He doesn’t like this room, and he doesn’t want to be here, and he really, really wants to go home.The feeling rises up quickly and without warning, hot behind his eyes. He draws a breath, uncertain, and looks toward Cirdan.
He waits, because he knows that something is going to happen. When he is upset, there is usually something—someone who kneels, or reaches for him, or speaks more softly. There’s always a lot of uproar when Ereinion gets upset. He doesn’t move, because he’s not really sure what to do, and he really does want to cry, but he waits.
Cirdan turns toward the door.
“I will have someone fetch you for lunch in a couple of hours,” he says.
Ereinion almost speaks then. There’s something he wants to say– maybe ‘wait’, or ‘please’, or even ‘Atya’, because he has been wanting his Atya since he woke up this morning, but whatever he wants to say gets stuck, and Cirdan is already in the hall.
The door closes behind him with a very quiet, very dreadful sound.
Ereinion stands and stares at the door, and for quite a long time he doesn’t move.
The room is very still. There is no sound beyond the walls, no voice in the corridor, no footsteps returning.
He’s not entirely sure when he started to cry, but when he raises his hands to rub at his sore eyes, he finds that they are wet.
All Ereinion can think of, after a while, is that he has not even had breakfast.
*
Ereinion meets his language tutor first.
He introduces himself as Indor, and he is very gentle, with a voice like music. His hair is red like fire.
“I will teach you language,” says Indor, “and also poetry. I am very glad to meet you and teach you, my prince.” He is smiling, and he reaches out to shake Ereinion’s hand. The handshake is formal, and impersonal, but this is the first smile that he has seen in days, because in this time he has found that Cirdan is very stern, and not quite unhappy, but not joyful like Atya.
“Thank you,” he says to Indor. “I’m excited to begin my studies.”
Then he meets his combat instructor, Gladhedir, who is very loud, and very strong-faced. He has Atya’s hair: dark, long, and thick.
“We’ll start small, boy,” Gladhedir says, “but I’ll make a warrior out of you yet.” Ereinion nods, holds his hands together behind his back, and straightens his shoulders, just like Atya showed him.
“Yes, sir. I’m ready.”
And last his lore-master. Her name is Feleth. She does not smile like Indor, or laugh loud like Gladhedir, but she does not seem very stern.
“Hello, Ereinion,” she says, and then nothing more. She sets a big tome on the table in front of him.
“Hello, my Lady,” says Ereinion, very quietly.
Gladhedir gives him a short wooden sword. There are other children in the field where they stand, older than he is, their practice blades striking against one another with sharp, rhythmic cracks. Ereinion stands apart from them, and cannot help but feel very small.
He is guided a few steps away, until there is space enough for him alone. Gladhedir stands before him, watching.
The sword is heavier than Ereinion expects. It drags slightly at his arm, and he shifts his grip, curling his fingers tighter around the wood in hopes that it steadies it.
“Hold it like this,” says Gladhedir, stepping forward.
His hand closes over Ereinion’s, firm and certain, moving his fingers into place. The sword is pressed into his right hand alone, his left pushed away.
Like this, it feels heavier, and Ereinion stills, afraid for a moment that he might drop it.
“Do not strangle it,” Gladhedir says. “It is not trying to flee.”
Ereinion loosens his grip at once.
“Not that much.”
Ereinion tightens it again, slower this time, trying to find the place between.
“Your stance,” Gladhedir continues, stepping back. “Right foot behind. Left forward—no. Straight. Straight, Ereinion.”
Ereinion shifts, his feet scraping lightly against the ground. It feels wrong, but he is not sure why. He frowns, glancing briefly at Gladhedir, wishing he would simply show him.
Gladhedir does not.
“Again.”
Ereinion adjusts.
“Too narrow.”
He moves his foot.
“Now you are leaning back.”
Ereinion tips forward quickly, overcorrecting.
“Not so much.”
Ereinion stills, caught between movements, uncertain where he is meant to settle. His arms are already beginning to ache with the effort of holding the sword aloft.
“Look at me,” Gladhedir says.
Ereinion does.
“Again.”
This time, he tries to follow more carefully. Right foot. Left. Straight. He adjusts slowly, piece by piece, until Gladhedir steps forward once more and nudges his shoulder, just slightly.
“There.”
Ereinion holds very still, afraid to lose it: this touch, this warmth.
The moment passes quickly.
“You are leaning again.”
His arms begin to tremble not long after that. The sword grows heavier the longer he holds it, as though the wood itself is weighing him down. His grip slips, just a little.
“Fix it.”
Ereinion does.
They continue like this—adjust, correct, adjust again—until Ereinion is no longer certain how long he has been standing there. His legs are sore, his shoulders tight, and still Gladhedir watches him with that same sharp expression. Ereinion thinks, distantly, that he must be doing poorly. Still, he listens. He takes each correction and tries to shape himself around it, the way he has been taught to do. That, at least, he knows he can do well.
To his right, there is bright, hearty laughter. Ereinion glances over before he can stop himself. The older elflings have cast their practice swords aside. One shoves another, grinning, and they fall together into the dust, wrestling. Their instructor says something that makes them laugh harder.
Ereinion looks back quickly. Gladhedir is watching them too.
For a moment, his expression shifts, and it is less sharp, almost—
Then it is gone and he looks back to Ereinion. His gaze travels over his stance, his grip. He nods, once.
“Better.”
The word lands heavier than Ereinion expects. He lets out a breath he had not known he was holding, his grip loosening at once as relief slips through him. His arms drop slightly before he catches himself and straightens again.
“Go now,” Gladhedir says. “Your next lesson awaits.”
Ereinion lowers the sword properly this time and hands it back, careful, as he has been shown.
“Thank you, sir,” he says. Gladhedir has already turned away.
As Ereinion leaves the field, the laughter rises again behind him—loud and easy, filling the space he has just left.
Ereinion walks a little straighter.
He will do better tomorrow.
*
When Ereinion is twenty-six, Cirdan comes to him in the earliest hour of dawn.
Arien’s golden light hasn’t fully overtaken the sky yet, and instead what seeps through his windows is thin and grey. It doesn’t have her gold, nor her warmth, and he finds his room is very cold.
He is only half awake, truly, when he notices Cirdan’s figure slipping into his room.
He sits on the end of the bed, which is very strange, because he has always seemed very attached to physical distance. Ereinion remembers once he tried to give the shipwright a gift— a small swan, made from folded parchment. Cirdan had taken it carefully, as though it may bite, which Ereinion still thinks is silly. Then he had backed up several, several paces.
So to see him now, seated so close to Ereinion that he can feel the mattress dip— he wonders if he must start fearing for his life.
”Ereinion,” Cirdan says, and his voice has a tone. It is not much, because even if the Dagor Dagorath were to come the same evening, his voice would not shake, but it’s there. It’s softer, a little, edged very faintly with pity. Ereinion straightens very fast, and he does not feel half asleep any longer. The blankets pool in his lap.
His heart begins to beat a little faster. Perhaps the Dagor Dagorath is here, indeed— he had not thought it possible for such things to be heard in Cirdan’s voice.
Their eyes meet.
“You understand, I am sure, the complications of your origin,” he begins, “before you were brought here.”
"Yes," Ereinion replies quickly, because Cirdan dislikes nonverbal responses. That, he had learned very quickly. The first time he had answered a question of Cirdan’s with only a shake of his head, he remembers, the conversation had been derailed in favour of Cirdan’s swift, stern correction. It left him feeling very small, and quite ashamed.
“Yes,” he repeats more carefully, because Ereinion is fairly certain that Cirdan frowns upon hastiness, too.
"Then you must also understand,” Cirdan continues, “that the matter of your parentage is complicated also— most especially with your father no longer here to pacify the public." Ereinion stills, only slightly.
In truth, that had not been something he knew. But he supposes that it does make sense.
He does not remember his mother, and quite honestly is not entirely sure that he has ever met her. He thinks he did, maybe once, but not for a long, long time, and Atya is not here anymore to tell him stories. He would have, if Ereinion asked. He wonders if she is alive. He wonders sometimes, if she is— does she want him?
Ereinion knows that this is a point of contention for the older elves. He remembers, back in Atya's court, being cornered by lords and ladies asking him about his mother.
Your mother, my prince? Where is she?
He remembers not knowing how to respond. Ereinion would back up very far, until he could not anymore, and stare straight down at the floor and his feet.
My prince?
He remembers Atya yelling at them, and they looked very ashamed, and apologized to him. But there’s no Atya now to raise his voice and make them all stop asking.
"Yes."
Cirdan inclines his head at him a little, and his lips pull very gently into a frown. "Then you will hear me when I tell you that my advisors and I have made a decision.” He pauses.
“Ereinion... it is your mother-name, is it not?" Ereinion opens his mouth to respond, yes, yes, and I love it— but Cirdan does not wait for an answer.
"And with no name for your mother herself... it calls down suspicion, you must understand. You are not a bastard, Ereinion, I know you are not, but there are a great many elves who do not share my mind in this.”
Ereinion’s hands curl tight in the blankets.
”So my advisors proposed,” Cirdan continues, “that we give you a new name."
For a moment, Ereinion does not move.
He does not understand how this will help, at all, and he thinks that this is a very cruel thing to do to him, though he has never thought Cirdan wretched.
He confesses this to Cirdan; his confusion.
“I do not understand,” he says, voice straining. “How would that change anything?”
"A new name,” replies Cirdan, “would be entirely unattached to your parentage. It would invite no questions; questions that can we not afford to keep evading."
"Why can I not just use Artanaro?" Ereinion pleads. He does not want a new name.
Ever since he came to live in Cirdan's dwelling, he has felt as though Atya and the palace have gone very, very far away, and every day they slip further down his mind, where he cannot reach them anymore. He is losing Atya, though he promised to be with him always. Ereinion does not want to lose his names as well.
"With father-names come mother-names," Cirdan says, and sighs. He brings a hand up to rub at the tense lines between his eyebrows, and he looks very weary.
For a moment, Ereinion feels guilty; he knows, now, the strain he has brought to Cirdan. The questions that he hears now, following him wherever he goes.
This weariness, he thinks, is the most expression he has ever seen from his guardian.
"Alright,” Cirdan says at last, lowering his hand. "Let us say this. If you agree to take on this new name, which would make many things easier for the both of us, I will refer to you as Ereinion in private.”
He hesitates. His own name, a secret.
”I do care for you,” Cirdan adds quietly. “I understand that these past years have not been easy. Truly, I do not wish to make them harder.”
Ereinion frowns, studying him. He can admit to himself that this is the furthest Cirdan will concede. It is not... unreasonable.
But he feels lost and, for the first time since he joined Cirdan’s household— very young.
He has seen elves receive epessë’s— as his father would call them— before, but they have always overlain their names, not replaced them. This feels much, much more final.
Irrationally, Ereinion feels a great pressure of tears build up behind his eyes, and he blinks hard against it.
The world has already taken his father, and his mother too, and his home and his happiness. Now, Cirdan tells him it is to take his name too.
”What is the name?” Ereinion asks, because that is all he thinks he can do, besides crying.
“Gil-Galad,” replies Cirdan. “We can change it, if you would like.”
Gil-Galad.
Star of radiance.
”No,” he says, and finds— to his own surprise— he means it. If he is to take a new name, at least it will be beautiful.
”I like Gil-Galad just fine.”