50 Prompts: AU Silmarillion by Urloth

Prompt: Unassuming (Celegorm, Curufin)

Trigger warning: Murder

Summary: Another solution to a very big problem.

“This is your task brother; can I trust you with it?” Curufin’s eyes blazed.

“Do remember that I am the eldest,” Celegorm reminded him with a sigh but went to his chest of cloaks and pulled forth the bottom most one.

It was a drab thing that Curufin had often disdained, blotchy and ill-dyed with patches of different drab greens and browns all over. From his armoury he took his bow, the smaller one he preferred to hunt pheasants with.

Then to his bowyer he went and sorted through her wares for unassuming arrows with indistinct fletching and sharp, sleek heads that would pierce bone with ease should he shoot untrue.

All this time Huan danced at his feet, excited for he assumed his master meant to hunt.

“Come along,” Celegorm murmured, and took his faithful companion to the kennels. Huan was a large creature, unnaturally so, and whilst he could be silent when it was required, Celegorm still felt it better that his companion not accompany him.

Huan had ever been the dearest of his friends, above and beyond the Eldar Celegorm knew and he did not want to taint the dear creature. Huan should forever associate Celegorm’s taking up of bow with arrows as a prelude to happy hours of hunting.

Not murder.

The moon was barely beginning to set as Celegorm left Nargothrond on a indistinct horse, cloaked and hooded, bow and arrows concealed beneath the consuming folds of his cloak.

Hours he rode, on the secret road of Nargothrond, until he came to a small dip overlooked by a wooded hill.

In a small valley he left the horse and ascended the hill to wait out the night.

And he waited.

The dawn was loud. Birds called, unconcerned by him after he gave them reassurance he meant no harm to their territories or their nests.

And he waited.

He thought of Valinor and long hours spent motionless, awaiting the appearance of his quarry; the jewel feathered birds or the tree horned creatures which resembled deer in the way that a peacock resembled a goose.

Lazily a small herd of elk browsed before him before suddenly, between one breath and the next, fleeing. Quietly, hood secure around the pale hair that he was so known for and filthy with mud from neck to knees, Celegorm rose, took an arrow and knocked it.

The riders came, eleven eldar, shining with fierce purpose, and one of the dirt-eaters; a mortal Man destined for maggots.

To his cheek he pulled the arrow in a parody of a kiss and as the band rode into the dip, still cast in shadow at this early hour, Celegorm sighted his prey and released the string.

There fell Beren the son of Barahir, in that dip between small, unnamed hills, drab feathers sprouted from his eye. Away from the valley thick with shadow Celegorm son of Feanor stole back the way he had come, paralleling the secret road of Nargothrond though he rode upon it not on his unassuming horse, not until he reached the gates.

None saw him but the Feanorion guards who had taken the place of Finrod’s lacking men and they would never say a word.

Back to his rooms went Celelgorm. He returned his unused arrows to his bowyer and bid her to take the arrows, unassuming all of them, and replace their sleek sharp heads with the blunter variety for practice or failing that, remove the heads and destroy the shafts and fletching completely.

Then to his rooms he went and after cleaning his bow he returned it to his armoury. Then he went to the bathing rooms where he rid himself of the mud that covered him, neck to knees, whilst his man returned his cloak to the bottom of its chest, beneath the cloaks of brighter peacock hues and took his clothing, to the forge of Celegorm’s dear and only nephew, where it was burnt with the nephew unknowing of the part he played.

“Well?” asked Curufin when he heard that Celegorm had returned. The fifth son of Feanor, power-hungry and impatient, came to his brother’s rooms and found Celegorm upon the bed. Huan was curled at his side and seemingly listening to his master as Celegorm read out loud a psalm from the Book of Oromë.

“Do remember I am the eldest,” Celegorm said, keen ears just barely hearing the rumble as the horses of Finrod and his band as they passed the gates of Nargothrond.