Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1. The Wedding
2. The Wedding Night
3. Huntress
4. Hair
5. The Reason
6. Toleration
7. Girding for Battle
8. The List
9. Bratling- NEW
10. Naming

Because this isn't written lineally we'll be shoving new chapters in between old ones. New Chapters will be marked < NEW as well as in the chapter index.

Chapter Text

The bride was resplendent in her samite gown, and jewellery of a thousand flawless, priceless jewels brought from Western Shores.

The groom was a shadow beside her, a tall man though his hunched shoulders diminished his height.

“Are we right to do this?” Maedhros asked.

“His fiefdom is rich, his forces are vicious, and he has a hatred of Morgoth rivalled only by his hatred for the Noldor,” Curufin replied.

“That does not reassure me,” Maedhros snapped. Maglor looked worried, casting constant glances at the bride with her roughed lips, and the dusting of rose powder on her cheeks which were the colour of snow and had remained that way since the news of her betrothal was broken to her.

“What better way to mend the gap, and begin compensating for whatever it is we did to him, then with a Princess and a Princess’s Dowry?”

“I thought you said he was rich.”

“A man with a great amount of gold needs only one thing: more gold. Caranthir can tell you all about that,” Curufin said, “and it gets rid of her. I tire of having to bow my head to a woman.”

“She is your elder and your superior,” now Maedhros was truly alarmed, and not just about the marriage.

“She is a woman and my sister, and what use to me is a sister save to replace the daughter I never had, and further my interests?”

At head of the table, the bridegroom; the Moriquendi of Nan Elmoth was sipping Vanyarin White Meade without any respect for the vintage, and glaring at anyone who tried to strike up a conversation. Left in a sort of deficit of noise beside him, the new bride overheard her brothers easily with her sharp ears.

Celegorm fisted her hands, letting the pain of her wedding band sinking into her skin override the pain in her heart.

Chapter Text

He stared at her.

She stared at him.

The bed between them might as well have been the Sundering Sea. The heavy duvet with its thick embroidery of ferns had been pulled back by some industrious servant to reveal the very white sheets beneath.

“I can sleep on the rug,” The Moriquendi, brand new husband of hers (she should probably start trying to use his name), commented after another moment of dour staring.

“Don’t be stupid, they’ll be looking for signs of that,” she snapped, arms crossed boldly in front of her. She had spent the evening cursing the weight of her samite dress and jewellery. Now left in a white silk shift, liberally weighed at the hems and adorned at the bodice with seed pearls and silver thread, she wanted the armour-like dress back on.

Her maids, or rather the maids Curufin had assigned to her for her actual maids would have been in agreement about keeping the dress on, had giggled insipidly as they stripped her of anything she could possibly use as a weapon. Then they had dabbed a honey smelling perfume under her ears, between her breasts (causing her to slap the maid in question, then spend the next ten minutes apologising profusely for her instinctive reaction), and at her wrists.

At least she thought it was meant to smell like honey. There was no way to discretely sniff her wrist, so she didn’t bother hiding the action.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to figure out what they dosed me with.”

“Sandalwood.”

“What?”

“Sandalwood. The perfume you have on is sandalwood. It is a perfume that comes through the Eastern Trade Routes, from beyond the Orocarni. It is meant to be an aphrodisiac.”

His face didn’t twitch the entire time from its expressionless setting.

Oh fuck you Curufin, Celegorm thought, adding another entry to the list of reasons to beat her brother stupid when she was given the chance.

“I’m not going to bed you even if I do not sleep on the rug,” The Mor– Eöl said after a moment, and she bristled. What? The sole princess of the House of Fëanor wasn’t good enough for him?

“I am not in the habit of bedding women I do not know,” he said further, easily ignoring her darkening expression, which usually would have had men backing away and reaching for something to defend themselves with.

“Well they’re still going to want proof of consummation,” she looked at the bed. She’d had everything planned out in her head, but it had all gone down the shit-hole the moment she had actually been confronted with the situation in question.

“Do you have a knife? They took the one I was going to use.”

He silently handed her a black handled blade sheathed in black leather (a theme, she had noticed, in her new husband’s accoutrement. Black. Black. Black. Black. And blackened silver branches with black diamond stars set between, in the circlet he wore). She pulled it and raised an eyebrow at the bone blade.

“Dragon’s tooth,” he serenely answered her unspoken blade. Then it was his turn to raise an eyebrow when she toed off the delicate white and silver slippers that had been swapped for her equally delicate gold and diamond slippers (yes, they had given her matching footware for her nightware; someone, somewhere, would get punched for this.) and got up to stand on the bed.

She took the dagger, and delicately stabbed her big toe. Then proceeded to drip the blood creatively over the bottom sheet, smearing it here and there, until it looked like the bridal sheets she’d seen hung from windows in the past.

She handed him back the dagger, hopping from the bed to sit on its edge, and apply pressure to her toe until it stopped bleeding.

Now E…. Eöl was looking at her like she’d just declared that the audience for their wedding night would be arriving shortly.

“What?” she asked in annoyance.

“Are they really going to look at our sheets?” he asked in tones of oh Eru can you believe the fucking Noldor?!

She was adept at recognising such a tone. She got it a lot from the nice pieces of arse that always came out to glare at her when she got too close to the border of Doriath.

 Mabung? Bebung? Megmeg?

Mablung?

Beleg?

Beblung and Maleg.

Yes.

That was their names.

Sometimes they even managed to talk to one another about the weather without shooting at one another.

“Yes,” she nodded, “they’ll come bursting into the room around dawn to surprise us to make sure we can’t stage the scene, and parade the sheet through the main hall before hanging it from a visible window.

Now he was giving her a look like she’d just told him that baby-orcs were a traditional wedding feast delicacy for the Noldor.

“I see.”

They continued to stare at each over across the bed.

“Well. Dawn you said?”

“There abouts.”

“We will wake up before dawn and make sure everything is set then.”

Eöl (no mental stutter this time. Good job!) toed off his boots, shucked off his tunic which made a suspiciously heavy ‘thunking’ noise when it hit the chair. Then he took off another tunic, two jerkins, and a undershirt.

Left in just an undershirt and leggings; considerably less bulky then he had been during their wedding feast (though still a wall of muscle she had no chance of breaking without a lot of planning) he lay down on the bed, pulled the covers up over himself and stole two of the pillows.

“Why all the layers?” she asked, gingerly slipping under the covers herself when she realised hovering at the edge of the bed just looked stupid, and wouldn’t change anything.

“Insurance,” he replied cryptically.

Then with a sigh he rolled onto his side, back to her like she wasn’t a threat, and appeared to fall asleep.

Celegorm was left to stare at the ceiling and try to feel insulted that he didn’t think she was a threat. Every so often he would stir, and it was only when she wasn’t smacked by paws flailing in imaginary chase of rabbits that she would remember that she was not sleeping next to Huan.

He was very warm.

Eöl, she reminded herself. Eöl Moriquendi. Lord of Nan Elmoth.

Was she going to have to call him “My Lord”?

Fuck.

The heated brick that had been used was rather superfluous actually, it was like lying next to a small furnace.

Celegorm stared at the ceiling a while longer, pondering the mysteries of life. Like how Curufin had seemed hurt and surprised when she told him their Father would have disowned him for what he’d done.

She yawned.

She tried to think some more.

Bah. Sleeping was for the philosophical types like Maglor anyway.

Celegorm fell asleep.

-

“Wake up,” a warm hand shook her shoulder and she roused from the nice comfortable hollow of warmth she’d been lying in to punch wildly at whoever was daring to wake her.

Her hand was caught in a far larger one, causing her to startle right the hell out of bed and adopt a defensive position against the wall.

Her new husband gave her a very long, thoughtful look that had her hackles raising.

“It will be dawn in half an hour.”

“Oh right,” she shook herself, took a few breathes to calm down her heart and straightened.

E…. Eöl was stripping.

She stared.

Goddamn.

Look at the muscles on his back.

And his ar–

“What are they going to do exactly?” Eöl asked .

Eöl, Eöl, Eöl, Eöl, Eöl. She’d have to find a mirror and practice using the name like she had when she’d had to stop calling Nerdanel ‘Mother’.

“They’ll burst in, toss us out of bed, check the sheets then take them off to parade them around. I will get taken away by the Ladies in the group to commiserate about what awful beasts men are,” Celegorm yawned, then craned her neck. Did that tattoo go all the way around?

He half turned towards her.

“Why is that?”

Yes.

Yes it did.

“Well men are awful beasts, and it’s another way to make sure the marriage was actually consummated. I should have knowledge no maid should have after all,” she began tugging off her shift, finding the room far too cold.

She balled the material up against her chest for a moment, then told herself she was being stupid and threw it in the general direction of his clothing.

“I’ll just sort of make pained noises and,” she looked at his height, guesstimated, and traced a vague shape in the air, “give them a vague measurement.”

He looked insulted at the shape she’d drawn.

Oh what? Not big enough for the ladies to sigh over in false horror?

Men.

And their egos.

And their fake cock sizes.

He turned to face her fully.

Oh.

She retraced the shape, far more generously than before. He nodded, satisfied at this correction, gave her breasts an appreciative look, and slipped into bed again.

Something in the water, she thought desperately, it’s something in the water. And it was not just the weapons of the Þindar that were mighty apparently.

Though to be honest, the only way to classify that would be as a weapon.

She stared at the bed, far too unsettled to even crack a smile at the mental joke, and slid back into it, tucking the duvet up under her armpits while he pushed it down so it covered his waist.

There was something very unnatural about it. It all seemed awfully posed to her.

“Good enough?”

“Good enough,” she stared at the ceiling very pointedly, not thinking about the crotch of the man beside her.

There was a discrete rustling of material and soft footsteps in the corridor.

“Here we go,” she muttered, and half lidded her eyes so it would look as though she was startling out of reverie when the people assembling outside the door came bursting into the room.

“Fucking Noldor,” she heard her husband mutter under his breath in that particular lilting Þindarin he sometimes slipped into. She agreed utterly.

Chapter Text

They communicated, most of the first year, through notes. 

He did not visit her bedchamber; she did not visit his. There was a suite of rooms meant for the lady of Nan Elmoth and she took them, and the quiet, gentle maid whose backbone she was not at all sure was there. 

It was through a note- and a package- that things began to change. 

“What is this?” she asked her maid. 

“I don’t know, my Lady.” the other elf replied, folding down the clean sheets. “It was delivered by my Lord’s steward.” 

She looked down at the plain wrapped package with trepidation, though she did not show it, features schooled ever to a blank mask. She drew a pearl-handled knife from her bodice and cut open the paper and twine. 

Nestled there, in pinewood shavings, was an armband. Made of silver and pale gold, it showed a hunting scene- a pack of hounds pursuing a stag, a huntress following in a night-lit scene. In the knots of the branches she saw the knots of marriage; in the flowing of the huntress’s hair, the weaving ribbons of fidelity, loyalty, honor and trust. Each of the hounds was a little different, but all wore a collar that matched the garb of their mistress. The stag was pierced through with an arrow but proudly ran on, pearl feet tearing at the silver roots through which he was chased to his doom. 

On the inside was inscribed her name and titles, in flawless quenya. 

She put the arm band down, throat tight, and picked up the note. 

In her distant husband’s spidery writing, she read: 

‘The ring throws off your aim, Huntress.’ 

Chapter Text

Celegorm’s hair was the hair of her grand parents. Long and flowing and silver, when unbound it stretched from the top of her head near to her feet. It was rarely loose, for its length hindered her work with knife and bow, her ability to chase after Huan between the dark trunks of the unforgiving trees. When she did let flow her hair, her maid would help her brush it and sigh. 

“It is so beautiful, my Lady.” She said. “Like a mantle forged from a silver river.” 

The servants, it seemed, had picked up on their dark master’s love of precious metals; more often Celegorm had heard her hair compared to moonlight but she knew a compliment when she heard one, and accepted graciously. 

Celegorm was given to understand that her husband’s hair had not always been black, though the circumstances were unclear to her. Now it was the color of ink and midnight. Like her, he kept it bound in a series of braids, which he learned from the dwarves he called kin; the better to keep it safe from the fires of the forge where she so often found him. 

The first time Celegorm saw Eöl with his hair down she could hardly believe her eyes. 

Not as long as her mantle, no, but to his hips and near his knees. Unhindered by ties or clasps it flowed like a black river, lazy and slow. 

It was curly. The steam of the natural pools was not doing it any favors; a black snake it twisted away from Eöl’s skilled fingers to wrap about itself in glee at its newfound freedom. 

Eöl was cursing softly in dwarvish as he combed, clearly an old habit as there was no heat to it; Celegorm silently retreated from the bath house without alerting her husband to her presence. 

Once she was free of the place she laughed, a hard and hopeless laugh at the sheer audacity of the hair to curl, of her husband for having it, of herself for finding helpless joy in so small a thing as the way black strands twisted up in the damp steam. 

Chapter Text

When Celegorm and Eöl wed, she was aware that his epessë of Moriquendi was well-earned; living in a forest so dark and rarely venturing out into the bright world beyond had been things her older brother Maglor had warned her of. 

Yet his absolute distaste for the sun- for any light source other than those cast by fires, or light-lamps, or the stars- was both astounding and annoying as hell. 

It caused their first real married argument, if such a disagreement between two people merely occupying the same space could be called such. 

“Your people shun the sun as much as you do!” she said, hands tightened into fists and nails biting at her palms. “We are not meant to live such shadowed lives!” 

He watched her and his black eyes gave nothing away. “Go where you will in the light of day, my Lady.” he responded. “I will not go with you.” 

“I will not be shamed by travelling alone when I bear the signs of a married woman!” Celegorm sharply replied.

“None would be so stupid as to make comment when you’ve an entire pack of brothers ready to hear.” Eöl had pointed out. 

“My brothers are not responsible for my honour any longer, you coward. You are!” 

That simple fact infuriated Celegorm. Her worth was equal only to the worth that her husband placed upon her; she who had fought and slain countless orcs and dark things, she who had ridden to war at her father’s side as equal to her brothers. She, now married to a dour-faced elf who would deny her the rights due her as a Noldorian Princess because- 

-he was walking away. 

“WHERE are you going?!” 

“To show you the reason.” He said behind him, and clearly expecting her to keep up he rounded a corner. 

Celegorm’s anger, quick to rise, was just as quick to fall in curiosity. She followed, bidding Huan wait for her. 

Eöl did not look behind him nor did he speak. They walked the long, dark halls of his fortress and met not one servant. At a corner Eöl stepped into a niche that was not a niche, it was a stairwell; and he began to climb. 

Celegorm climbed after him. The stairwell was narrow and she had to work to keep her balance. They spiralled up for some feet and still Eöl did not utter a word. 

At last they emerged in a tower. Celegorm looked about for she had not known the tower existed; surrounded by open windows it showed Nan Elmoth at all sides, tall trees straining to reach the same height as the platform on which they stood. In the distance she saw the lazy snake of the river drifting by, and the mountains, and the roads that would lead eventually to the dark fortress beneath. 

The sun was at such a height that half of the tower was in shadow. Eöl stood there and rolled up the black linen of his sleeve. 

“I have done you a disservice.” He said, and Celegorm looked at him, filled with bewilderment. “It is not that I do not wish to join you on your hunting.” 

He approached a sunbeam cautiously, like a cat. He circled it, weighing its measure. He looked up and caught his Lady’s eyes. 

“It is that I can’t.” 

He stuck his arm into the sunbeam. 

The results were immediate; a reddening of the skin led straight to spontaneous combustion, flames licking up Eöl’s forearm. With a soft hiss that spoke of long-accustomed pain he pulled his arm back. Bereft of the sun, the flames went out, leaving only red, blistered flesh behind. 

Celegorm opened her mouth and closed it. Perhaps a part of her wished to lunge forward, to drag the elf away from the danger. It was a stray impulse; one she ignored. She looked her husband up and down. “Should I fetch a healer, my Lord?” she asked. 

Eöl shook his head. “It is the pain of a few hours; it will heal by itself.” He stepped away from the sunbeam back into the shadows of safety. 

“There are always amongst my people those who have not seen the sun for many weeks, and long for it.” Eöl said without looking at her. “And you have not applied yourself to your subjects as you could. Take a list, and make a roster; let your hunting companions be ever varied, so that they do not sicken and become frail in our forest.” 

Celegorm daughter of Fëanor heard the sense in this. She heard the words ‘your’ and ‘our’ and nodded. 

The Lady of Nan Elmoth would go hunting long in the sun. 

The Lord of that realm would wait for her beneath the eves, where he was safe. 

Chapter Text

Eöl had been watching his wife’s jaw all evening. 

It had gotten so tight that he thought, perhaps, she would bite on a sugared almond too hard and her face would break into a thousand shrieking pieces. Celegorm had not been happy when he told her that they were to host the princess Lúthien, but she had done her duty; all night his wife had been a paragon of grace, with the strength and indomitable spirit of a Lady of the Noldor. 

Now was another matter. 

Lúthien was as Eöl remembered her; not improved with drink. Beside her Daeron stared into his own cup, too timid to tell his childhood friend off, too polite to leave her at the table, too low in rank to do much more than offer up a song- an offer that was promptly rejected, as ‘you’ve been singing all night, Daeron, let us have some peace and quiet for once!’ 

With her cheeks flushed from the heady wines Eöl had warned her would not be kind to her mental facilities, Lúthien Tinuvel scraped her knife across her plate and said, carelessly, “I do so love your gown, Lady Celegorm. The color is beautiful. It brings to mind burning ships.” 

One could have heard a pin drop. 

Celegorm worked her jaw. Beneath her fingers the wood of her chair creaked dangerously and Eöl felt a sort of floatiness come about him. 

“Shut up, Lúthien.” 

He heard the bones in Celegorm’s neck creak as she turned to look at him, pupils dilated, ready and willing to abandon all reason and launch herself at the tipsy Tinuvel, who was looking at Eöl as though he’d grown three heads. 

“You told me to shut up!” She said, sounding far more petulant than normal. 

“I did.” Eöl acknowledged. 

“No one tells me to shut up!” 

“We are in my fortress, in my forest, and you, little girl, have insulted the woman I wed. I will tell you to shut up, and by Mahal if you do not I will spank you like the child you are and I will send you home crying to your father with a note pinned to your collar.” 

Lúthien turned red- even redder than Celegorm’s dress, which Eöl had helped her pick out. He’d made the ruby drops she was wearing, and she’d complained the whole time about how the skirt would hinder her movements. 

“You wouldn’t dare.” Lúthien said. 

“Try. Me.” Eöl replied. “Or perhaps you would rather face the woman you’ve insulted on a proper practice court?” 

Celegorm’s grin was feral, and Eöl could feel the rage radiating off of her. 

Lúthien stared at them both. 

“I apologize.” She said sullenly. 

“Louder, brat.” Eöl said. 

Lúthien glared hotly at him. “I apologize, for my words. They were in poor taste. If you’ll excuse me, I believe it is time for me to retire.” 

“I agree.” Eöl said, and he did not take his eyes off of the princess until she was out of the room, Daeron scuttling after her, throwing fearful glances back as they were converged upon by tittering, horrified ladies in waiting. 

The heavy oak door of the dining chamber closed with a thud, and Celegorm said, “I could have taken her.” 

“A very wise dwarf once gave me the best piece of advice I have ever heard.” Eöl said. 

“And what’s that?” his wife asked, finally releasing her grip on the steak knife she’d been keeping in her lap. 

“Never play an ace, my wife, if a two will do.” 

Chapter Text

“Darts?” 

Celegorm ran her fingers over the fine silver tips of the darts in question. She slid them into her garter belt. “Check.” 

“Bone-handled dirk.” 

Tucked into her modestly tall travel boots. “Check. Throwing axes?” 

Her husband patted the half-stiff leather jerkin he wore underneath the second shirt. “Check.” 

“Throwing knives?” 

He pulled up his sleeves and showed her the sheathes strapped to his forearms. “Check. Fainting Lady?” 

Celegorm patted the delicate golden drop pendant around her neck, with its top that could- be means of a hidden hinge- be opened to contain a few  drops of the poison in question, which would immediately rend the consumer as feeling faint and queasy, easily excused from a table.

“Check.” She said. Her husband sighed and pulled on his third shirt and final jerkin. “You know,” he said, “we could easily solve this problem byturning down invitations to dinner with your brother.” 

“Family is family.” Celegorm reminded him.

Yes, family was family- but that didn’t mean that the Lord and Lady of Nan Elmoth had to like visiting Curufin. 

Chapter Text

Eöl’s Handy List Of Brothers In Law 

Not To Be Confused With The List Of New Cousins 

Fuck Where Did I Leave That List

1) Maedhros/the Tall/The One Handed/Nelyafinwë/Russandol/Maitimo

-The oldest one 

-he’s got hair that looks like a rust bucket attacked him

-is he fucking his cousin?

I think he’s fucking his cousin

-definitely fucking his cousin. One of the F-ones. 

-Could have been king but isn’t because he’s fucking his cousin.  

2) Maglor/Mighty Singer/Makalurë/Kanafinwë

-The one with the harp

-bit of a nancy

-what the hell is with all the cats? CATS EVERYWHERE

-Might have permanent tear marks on cheeks. Or perhaps proof of using rouge. 

-looks like he uses rouge. 

-Would be paid top dollar if he chose to be a tavern wench. Note to self: Work that into next discussion. Broaden his horizons. 

3) Caranthir/Carnistir/The Dark/Morifinwë

-He’s in love with that human woman, the one who skins orcs 

-the dwarves hate him 

-you’d think he’d have learned not to try and shortchange a dwarf but nooo

-don’t listen to your brother in law

-he was only raised by dwarves

-he knows nothing 

-can’t tell the difference between a mattock and a pick axe 

-constantly looks ill

-Face is so feckin’ red, does he drink too much? Note to self: Ask wife. 

4) Curufin/The Crafty/Atarinkë/Curufinwë/WHAT THE FUCK IS WITH ALL THESE FUCKING EXTRA NAMES MAHAL-DAMNED NOLDOR 

-Ruddy pillock

-Should have been drowned at birth

-wasn’t

-more’s the pity

-lives closest

-Has bratling. Bratling is okay. Note to self: take bratling on for a few seasons. Could be decent smith if kept from father’s penny-pinching lemon-sucking shadow of an existence. 

5) Amrod/Pityafinwë/Ambarussa/Amras/Telufinwë/Umbarto? Ambarto?

-not even gonna feckin’ try telling them apart

-red hair 

-too many names 

-Fun to mess with. Yell Ambarussa and see which one turns quicker

-one doesn’t like fire. Forgot which. Note to self: ask wife

-or exhibit firebreathing for family talent contest in Hithlum

-serves the little bastards right for greasing my horse’s saddle

-YOU WANT WAR YOU NOLDO BASTARDS YOU SHALL GET IT 

Chapter Text

Eol looked the elf standing in front of him over.

The young one shuffled uncomfortably and would not meet his eyes.

“So.” Eol said, and the other elf jumped. “How many names have you got, then?”

“J-just one.”

“and it is?” Eol asked patiently.

“Telperinquar, sir.”

It took Eol a moment to make the translation. “Celebrimbor?” Silver Fist? Mahal was Curufin that cruel?

“Yes, sir.”

“My name isn’t Sir.” Eol said. “It is Eol. And, mind you, that’s the only name I’ve got.”

“Yes Sir.”

Hopeless.

“Why are you here, Celebrimbor?”

“To, to visit my aunt. Sir.”

“I see. Now, why are you really here?”

Celebrimbor managed to keep his chin high and his dignity intact for perhaps minute and a half before deflating. “Father wanted me to get a look at your trade contacts.”

Eol closed his eyes. Mahal give me strength.

“And why do you want to be here?”

Celebrimbor’s eyes could politely be described as ‘dewy’. “I’ve heard tell that you are a smith of great skill. I would like- I would hope- that perhaps I, I mean you, could..”

Oh he couldn’t turn the poor lad down. It would be like kicking a puppy who hadn’t been petted once in his life. Not to mention Celegorm would refuse to come to his rooms at all and they were only just starting to speak to one another without notes.

“Very well. Go to the tanner and then to the tailoress- Nissa. She make you an apron that fits. If you aren’t here tomorrow morning at first light I will wake you up. You will not like it.”

Celebrimbor looked as though he was going to hug his uncle, but thought better of it. “Thank you sir! You won’t regret it, I promise you won’t!”

I am regretting it already. “Alright, alright, that’s enough, now shoo. I’ll have gloves for you when you come back tomorrow.”

Celebrimbor didn’t quite skip out of the forge, but it was a close thing.

-

Celegorm kept a suite of rooms apart from Eol. She was having her hair brushed by one of her noldo maids as one of the moerben of Eol’s staff laid out her dress when they heard something across the hall. It sounded remarkably like her nephew yelping.

“My lady?” her maids both asked as Celegorm stood and grabbed a knife from her bedside. Huan raised his great head when his mistress made for her door. Dressed still in her nightshift, holding her blade tightly, Celegorm eased the door open-

-to see her husband dragging her nephew by his collar out the door.

“-and I did warn you, brat.”

“But it’s always dark! I didn’t mean to sleep in, I swear! I- OW!”

Celebrimbor appeared to be soaking wet. That had to be the fault of the bucket that Eol was holding in one hand. He noted his wife and inclined his head. “My Lady.” He said pleasantly, then continued dragging her yelping nephew down the hallway.

Celegorm shut the door, shaking her head. She’d warned Celebrimbor. He’d made his bed; now he had to lie in it.

When Eol said first light, he meant first light.

-

Celebrimbor stilled when Eol walked past him. The moriquendi shook his head. “Keep hammering.”

Celebrimbor continued, then stilled again when Eol’s hand closed on his elbow. there was no sudden squeeze, no force of violence, just a gentle shove and lift.

“If you keep your elbow here,” Eol said, “your arm tires out less, and you hammer more evenly. There’s a thread I can tie so that when you’re holding your arm right, it doesn’t squeeze; it helps you to remember. Would you like me to do that?”

Celebrimbor nodded, and Eol retrieved the string and tied it about his arm.

“Very good.” Eol nodded and looked over the flat Celebrimbor had been working on. “Keep at it, brat. It looks fine.” He patted Celebrimbor on the back and went to his own work.

Celebrimbor couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat; he didn’t bother trying.

-

“WHAT DO I DO?!”

Celebrimbor stared up at where his uncle was in a dragon’s mouth. Eol didn’t seem all that inconvenienced by this, as he was wearing his galvorn; he was hammering on the dragon’s snout with the butt of his dagger.

“YOU STAB IT, BRAT!” He called back down.

Celebrimbor whimpered and charged.

-

“And..done.” Eol stepped back and looked over the shirt- mail, overlaid with fine blue-violet dragon scales. It nicely matched the gauntlets. “Very good. Matches your bloody hair. Or it would if you had any left. Go on, take a look.”

Celebrimbor turned and gazed into the mirror. He watched the way the light of the lamps played off the scales. It almost made up for the shortness of his red hair, sheered down after a goodly amount of it had been burned.

“Now, next time you’re out hunting a dragon,” his uncle said behind him, “Remember your helm.” He patted Celebrimbor. “Don’t worry, bratling. It’ll grow back.”

“Has Aunt started talking to you again?” Celebrimbor asked.

“No, not yet.” Eol said. He was grinning. “Don’t worry. I’m sure by the time you’ve killed your first troll she’ll let me into the same room as her again.”

“…trolls?”

—-

Celegorm looked over the long hunting knives, twinned so that she might wear one on either hip. There were eggs of iolite laid in the otherwise plain dragon-horn handles.

She looked up at Celebrimbor, standing straighter, smiling wider, for all his hair had grown back only an inch or so.

Perhaps, she thought, her husband would make a good father after all.

“Very nice work, nephew.” She said. “Very nice, indeed.”

-

Something dropped on Celebrimbor’s desk. He blinked down at it. “What’s this?”

“Trade contracts.” Eol said, pulling up a chair and sitting down across from him. “Lies and slander, of course. Send me a sketch of the face your father makes. Better yet, tell me all about it when you come back.”

Celebrimbor gazed at him, chest tight.

“When I come back?”

“We haven’t even gotten to battleaxes yet.” Eol said. “And you still need to kill a troll.”

Celebrimbor laughed. “Yes,” he said, “I do.”

Chapter Text

“Lady if we go any further off route we shall enter forests unknown!” Ecthelion called out worriedly behind you.

“That’s the point you dumb idiots, now ride faster, Celegorm’s pregnant and I want to get there before she has the baby. I am not going to get another chance to see her looking like she swallowed a Palantir!”

-

Unfortunately Aredhel’s information network had been slightly off and Celegorm had already had her baby but only a month earlier. Enough time for the child to lose the squished rat look and gain an angelic, tiny face that almost made Aredhel want to have a child of her own.

Almost.

“Name?” she prompted again and Celegorm’s eyes did that guilty shuffle to the side.

“I…am not the best at naming things,” Celegorm reminded her, “my son is… no different. And I want him to have a good name.”

Aredhel thought about this.

There was Celegorm’s hound Huan (meaning Hound.)

The mighty hunting bow Orome had given her Annaquingo (meaning gift-bow)

The sword her father had made her Aicecet (meaning sharp-sword.)

And the two daggers she bore that she had made herself, with dogged determination, after someone had said it was a good thing she was not talented in the forge for forges were nno place for women: Hyarasicil and Foryasicil ( meaning left-dagger and right-dagger.)

“Huh,” she thought about it, “pity your father isn’t here, he’d have an idea or two I’m sure.”

“I would remind you that Turkafinwë is my epessë and father actually named me Inyafinwë,” Celegorm reminded her dryly, “not that his themed set of names was all that creative.”

Aredhel cringed a little at the reminder her cousin’s actual name meant female-Finwë

“He’d probably want you to name him Avarfinwë,” Aredhel joked but then they caught each other’s eyes and the bad joke was suddenly hysterically funny. They cackled and howled with laughter, and then Aredhel poured them both tea and pretended Celegorm wasn’t wiping tears not of mirth out of her eyes.

“Well your moth-”

“Tyelkorme and Carnistir.”

“Yes well bu-”

“Hasty-riser, and Red-face. The only reason I was my mother’s favourite daughter was that she only had the one. And even then probably not.”

“Who do you think was her favourite daughter then?” Aredhel grinned.

“Oh Maglor to be sure.”

They both laughed.

Aredhel sighed, “well surely your husband has named him?”

Celegorm’s face turned stormy.

“He won’t.”

Aredhel felt the words like a blow and sat there, shocked, her tea going cold in her hands.

“What?!”

“He won’t name him,” Celegorm ground her teeth together, “not until he’s twelve. It’s something to do with the tribe he was born into. They did not name their children until they were twelve.”

“Oh,” well that was a relief, for a moment Aredhel had thought she had stumbled upon some sort of cruel and abusive situation.

“Well what have you been calling him this past month?”

“The child. Our child. Our son. Him.” Celegorm shrugged.

“Telkormë Fëanáriel that will not do!!” Aredhel huffed angrily at her cousin until Celegorm looked guilty enough that Aredhel’s feeling of offence was appeased.

“Let me hold him again,” the child was passed over to her. He was a warm and comfortable weight, and barely stirred, quite content to nap through her visit.

“Huh,” she thought again.

She looked out the window at the ever present twilight.

“You allowed to use Quenya here? I heard you weren’t…”

“Oh the ban has been lifted,” Celegorm gave her a hard grin, “I mentioned to Finrod how I felt as though I was losing a part of myself being denied my own language and next thing I knew he’d been talking to Elu and…”

“Finrod…can twist anyone around his finger.”

“Why people think he’s the nice innocent one of that family I don’t know,” Celegorm agreed, “though the lifting of the ban is only for me and only in special circumstances.”

“Well I think this counts, we’ll pretend that you chose the name.”

Aredhel gently stroked her cousin’s child’s cheek. He opened his eyes, yawning, and she saw they had already lost their kitten grey and were the rich dark colour of Celegorm’s.

“Lómion,” she decided.

“Lómion?”

“Lómion,” Aredhel nodded firmly.

“Lómion.. pretty, poetic even, but not vanyarishly, I like it.”

“Vanyarishly is not even a word,” Aredhel just rolled her eyes.

“Lómion,” Celegorm grinned to herself, turning the name over her tongue.

Yes. It was perfect.