Falling Stars by Tyelca

Celegorm

In the Halls of the Dead, Celegorm watches Lúthien and her descendants.

The prompts for Celegorm were Childhood, Hunting, Orome & Huan, Strength & Beauty, Wickedness, Love/Unrequited.

Of all of them, Celegorm is the one that watches the tapestries, studies each and every one as they are put up. He follows the events in the world, a reality he is no longer part of. He watches, and he wishes he were there.

Being dead isn’t what bothers him anymore; after some time one got used to the feeling of bodylessness, used to the Maiar that appeared without warning. Being dead itself isn’t the problem for Celegorm. No, it is the boredom that accompanies it; there is absolutely nothing to do. Talking and trying to resolve issues that can never truly be resolved could only keep him occupied for so long.

So he follows the tapestries, studies them intently as if he can live through stranger’s lives once more. He knows it is futile and that others watch him with pity (those that don’t curse his name, that is), but he doesn’t care and he doesn’t stop.

One by one his family comes to Mandos; he greets his brothers but merely watches his cousins as they, one by one, succumb to the Doom Námo had proclaimed. He does not get close.

The tapestries showed him how they died and he feels no desire to speak to them, to mend wounds not of his making. He will take responsibility for his actions when asked, but he will not apologize on others’ behalf. So he keeps his distance and follows the happenings in Beleriand. Time works strangely in the Halls, or perhaps it is simply that some tapestries take more time to weave than others. Many events are put up in random order, the gaps between them slowly filled until a chronological history is laid out.

Celegorm follows Beleriand. But more specifically, he follows her and the echoes she leaves in the world. Ever since he first laid eyes on her, she blew him away; she stubbornly crawled her way into his heart and refused to leave. Her beauty, but underneath that her fire, her personality. It drew him in and for weeks he orbited around her, like a moth cannot help but circle a flame. He stalled her inquisitions to her lover with tales and false promises, trying to keep her close for just a little while longer, until eventually she began to question his words, his intentions and at last his sincerity. It hurt, but her words were true and if she hadn’t said them, he doubted he’d feel as strongly about her as he did. After that he hunted her; whether he would kill her or take her in once he’d caught her, he didn’t know yet. At the time he didn’t have to know yet.

He hadn’t known she had died before he was killed as well; he had discovered it on one of the tapestries. In the beginning he had tried to find her in the looping corridors that Mandos allowed him to wander, until someone finally told him she was not here.

That damning statement was something he’d fervently denied to himself, searching and intent to catch at least one more glimpse of her. It took a long time for him to accept he never would anymore.

He had killed her child, a murderer and kinslayer in his own right, as the boy had killed him. But that was the single act he had neither done for or to her; some things went further, were older than his infatuation that he refused to name love.

He died in vain, of course; they both did. But Celegorm likes to believe he died for a cause, at least, and not his own pride and vanity. Though in the end it doesn’t really make a difference. So he follows her grandchild, the girl and her sole heir that survived his blade and his orders. He follows her to Sirion, compares the child to her, and the girl falls short in every aspect. Yet he does see the similarities, the stubbornness. Some of her best qualities, weakly reflected back through twice-diluted kinship. But there is more. Celegorm isn’t sure if it is his imagination or not, and he doesn’t speak with others about it. But he sees it, clearly, even through the medium of Vairë’s weaving. For all that this child has Lúthien’s best qualities, she has his flaws. Again, weakly and diluted, not as intense or as alive as he himself was, but there all the same. A marriage of the traits that defined them.

Celegorm watches her grow, fall in love, marry, have children, provoke war and then flee. So much like him, like her, like them together; but not completely. Not entirely. He finally realizes that when he reaches the tapestries chronicling the third Kinslaying. There is a small part of him that blankly stares at the horror that is unleashed, more savage and brutal than the first two he was part of. He follows the threads depicting his brothers and watches as two are suddenly cut short. Celegorm takes a moment to close his eyes and prepares himself for another tearful reunion.

Perhaps it is desperation, perhaps he only sees it clearly now because he is a spectator rather than a participant, but he cannot help but wonder whether even the Silmarils are worth this slaughter. Especially when they should stand together against the Dark Lord’s power.

But it is the young woman he is focused on. He knows he would’ve stood his ground and would’ve been prepared to meet his death. And he has; Lúthien would have too. But the girl does not.

When she jumps over the cliff Celegorm turns away from the tapestry. It was a dream, he tells himself. A fancy, a wish.

When the Ambarussa stumble into Mandos, bloodied and weary and leaning heavily on each other, he is the first to take them in his arms. His little baby brothers; the ones that never should have seen as much as they did, the ones that should never have come to Beleriand in the first place.

He embraces them, clutches them close, smells the drying blood and the scent of battle on them. No, not battle; slaughter, he corrects himself. He doesn’t like to think the word, but forces himself to do it anyway. He inhales deeply, for any slice of life is something he desperately craves.

He sneaks a glance at the nearest tapestry despite himself, and doesn’t know whether he should smile or curse when he sees Maedhros and Maglor take in the two boys she’d left behind. Twins; he wonders if it’s because of guilt, compassion or to replace those innocent red-haired boys they’d lost.

So her legacy still lives on, Celegorm muses to himself. Her blood against his upbringing, her legacy against his culture. He is curious what will win out in the end.