Sirion by Grundy

More Weight

Celeborn was still angry, hours later. Not with his wife – he had long since accepted that in giving Galadriel his heart, he bound his fate up with the Golodhrim exiles, for good or ill. This was not her doing, and she knows he does not believe it to be.

No, he was angry with her wretched cousins, the Kinslayers. Why must it always be his kin they slay?

The first Kinslaying he had been blissfully ignorant of. The Lindar of Alqualondë were kin to the Sindar of Doriath, but so long sundered that the Sindar had known of the deeds of the sons of Fëanor the Accursed only when their cousins the sons of Finarfin confessed. Even his beloved Galadriel had breathed no word of the blood on the quays – a crime of omission he had understood only much later, long after he had forgiven her silence.

If the Valar would condemn her for standing against her cousins in defense of those who had done them no wrong, Celeborn wanted none of them. He cannot say he would not have done the same in her place. Who were they to judge what she had done at the harbor of the Lindar when it was their blessed ways that had loosed the Enemy on the world?

But the second Kinslaying, the one that had destroyed his home, that one he had seen with his own eyes. It was not only Galadriel who had taken up arms to defend his people – was he not a prince of the Sindar? – but his queen had charged him with defending something far more important. He had been tasked with spiriting little Princess Elwing safely away from the carnage.

I trust no other to do this, Uncle!

Had he but known he carried not only the last of Thingol’s bloodline, but the Silmaril as well, how differently might things have ended? He would have happily given the sons of Fëanor what they desired – he would have shoved their precious jewel right down Celegorm’s treacherous throat and bid his brothers cut it out.

Now he has failed again, and his failure can once more be counted in the corpses of his people. The sons of Fëanor have struck again. A third Kinslaying, as though two had not been monstrous enough. This one will echo in horror through the annals of the Eldar, though – they have killed those who had escaped them last time, those who had escaped the Enemy when he overthrew Gondolin and Nargothrond. None of those who have arrived too late to aid the Havens have words for the enormity of the crime.

If the what the Exiles say is true, the dead will be returned to life on the other side of the sea, but what good is that to those who remain in Ennor, barred by the whim of the Valar from joining their kin save in death?

Little Elwing numbered among the dead this time, and whether the Kinslayers have the jewel or not is no matter, for they have taken something far more precious – they have her sons Elrond and Elros, the last of the line of Luthien. The Exiles may account them only minor princes, but they are also princes of the Sindar, and with their mother’s death, Elros is the rightful king.

His king was captive, and he must sit here, packing what can be made useful from the ruins of Sirion, rather than riding out after the two surviving Kinslayers and their followers. He was almost grateful that Elwing was dead – at least she will not know that her trust, unlike her mother’s, had been so gravely misplaced.

He felt, rather than heard the sigh.

Galadriel did not wish their disagreement to be noted by the others, then.

You cannot still think riding after them would be of any use?

There is resigned patience in her tone. Truthfully, it would probably be as much a disaster as Galadriel and Cirdan say. And yet…

I know it does not become you to sit idle when those you care for are in danger, beloved, Galadriel whispered. But I truly believe they are safe with Maitimo, as safe as any can be in Beleriand.

Safe, perhaps. He may yet hope they are safe.

But what of happy? The children have never been exposed to violence. Not only had Elwing protected her sons to the best of her ability, Sirion had been a peaceful place until now, where the most upsetting sight young eyes might witness was the results of a hunt or an accident in the kitchens or forge. And they were only six. Even for the edain, six was a tender age.

You may not wish to hear it, but we all adored Maitimo. And Makalaurë’s voice could make nightingales sound like crows.

All meant all her kin. Maedhros was the eldest of her generation. But Celeborn was not sure Galadriel understood that the cousin she knew in childhood was destroyed in Angband. What Fingon brought back from Thangorodrim was an elf altered not only in body, but in soul. She might trust Maitimo with children, but Celeborn cannot trust Maedhros. He was too long in the Enemy’s power for that.

Not that he could say that to her.

She has never spoken of what passed between her and her cousins before they drove her, wounded and near collapse, from the ruins of Menegroth. If Celeborn’s own cousin hadn’t chanced to go back, there would have been one more sin to lay at the Fëanorions’ door. Oropher had found her unconscious in the snow, bleeding and nearly as cold as the dead, and carried her for miles until he found other Iathrim fleeing toward Sirion.

It is only now, when she has volunteered to go to retrieve the boys after a decent interval that he worried about it. Until today, he had always hoped that the remaining Kinslayers would die before his beloved could come face to face with them again. Now he dared not hope for that, for anything that kills them endangers Elros and Elrond as well.

Such cheerful thoughts, my love, Galadriel murmured in his head.

Then she was there in person, somewhat disheveled – it looked as though she had been digging through some of the buildings damaged by flames, judging by the layer of ash on her clothes.

“You worry so much,” she said softly.

He pulled her into his arms, kissing her forehead. How can he not worry? They hold his young kinsmen, his king, and all too soon, his heart in their keeping.

“I will come back to you, Celeborn Galadhonion,” she whispered, reassuring him with both voice and mind. “You will not be rid of me so easily.”

You are mine and I am yours and I will not let my cousins come between us.

“I will hold you to that, beloved,” he replied quietly.

He knew she meant it, but he cannot help the shadow of fear that fell over him whenever he thought of her near her murderous kin.

A heart could only stand so much loss. She would be the one that breaks him.