His Royal Highness, Prince Celebrimbor of Doriath by elvntari

The first letter was an insult.

Celebrimbor,

I’m sorry I couldn’t stay. I know you’re strong enough now to take care of yourself. I love you,

Daeron

He had torn it to shreds and thrown it into the fireplace.

Dramatic, yes, but nothing compared to the mess that he had been left in. Strong enough to take care of yourself ? His aunt was dead, he’d never had a mother, and now his father had fucked off to Eru knows where —the man who was supposed to protect him; to support him. It was hard not to take it personally, especially when he’d always been paranoid that his father was disappointed in his son’s musical proficiency (or lack thereof). Or maybe he assumed that because he wasn’t an artistic child; he was less sensitive, stoic, or perhaps unemotional. Strong. A horrible gut feeling told him it was a little bit of both.

He found himself hypnotised by the way the paper turned at the edges as he watched it burn, crumbling into ash. It was so final—there would be no retrieving it from the flames, smoothing it out and tracing his fingers over the letters. There would be no more. There had been no return address. His father would simply forget that he ever had a child, and he would learn to pretend that he never had a father, and then they would continue living, and never think about each other again.

—

The second letter was, frankly, incomprehensible.

The ink bled through deep, right into the back of the parchment, and it was still damp, staining his fingers as he touched it. There were words, but they were seemingly random, and some so obscured by the spillages that he could only make out a few runes. That, and his name.

Celebrimbor,

I —              

—lone—understand me      

I am afrai—no—

—ry

East—the sea—I

Maybe it was art that he couldn’t understand. Some sort of twisted poetry, but all it managed to twist was his stomach, leaving him feeling uneasy.

He left Doriath that week. Not because of the letter (or, at least, that’s what he told himself), but because of the way people stared at him, heir of Thingol, orphan, recluse. They did not treat him kindly, and those who did still treated him with caution. He was a remnant of a tainted bloodline of traitors and runaways, and then he was a remnant of just one traitor, just one runaway. He and Dior were not alike.

He didn’t bring anything with him, save a few things to eat along the way, and the long-abandoned signet ring that he had forged as soon as he knew how—his house hadn’t had one, and he felt uniquely able to make something. He never got any more than an “oh, that’s lovely.” It was a cool metal that sent a rush of chill across his skin as he slipped it on, forcing the fine hairs on his forearm to stand on end. He stood just within the girdle, waiting for the sensation to melt away into his own body heat, and to feel like a part of him. Or waiting for some rush of courage or determination that would drive his feet forwards, out through the gently shifting wall of magic that had kept him warm and safe since the day he was born.

He had only been present for one birth in his life when he had accidentally walked in on one of the maids, who screamed at him to use some of his maia healing powers on her. He didn’t have any, but he held her hand, and she seemed grateful enough for that, even if the women tending to her looked as if they wanted to kill him. Her husband had been taken by Morgoth, she said, she was completely alone in the world—no family, no lover, barely much of a job—and she’d have to give that up, too, she supposed. The baby was born still in its amniotic sac, and all he could think when looking at it was about when he was ten, and his father rode out with him to the edge of Doriath to show him the girdle. It looked the same.

Doriath was a womb, and he was being reborn. He wondered if his father would be proud of that metaphor, even if it was all he could come up with. His father had probably thought something so much more poetic, more beautiful, more unique when he had left, but he wasn’t trying to follow in his footsteps. He’d long ago found that he was no good for that.

Instead, he shut his eyes and stepped through.

It felt like a passing through a thin sheet of water, like the faux waterfalls at the public baths, except rather than falsely hot, it was pleasantly cool. He looked back at it from the other side. It was completely invisible. He was out. Melian had let him go. The thought made him feel strange; he wasn’t sure if it was disappointment or relief. Then he wondered if it had been intentional, or if she had simply forgotten that he existed, caught up in the excitement of having a new, appropriately chipper, and charismatic heir. He shook himself. That doesn’t matter now.

The forest seemed lighter outside of the Girdle—lighter and colder. He pulled his cloak a little tighter around his shoulders and began to walk.

Before he found Nargothrond, he found Songbird. She had been sitting on an outcrop of stone in the centre of his route, plucking at a harp that had been carved out of the rock. The tune was strange—unlike anything he had heard before—with a sharp jolt to each note (there was probably some technical term that his father would know, but he had never learnt it). It would’ve been grating, but she played it well enough that it lulled him into coming in closer.

“What’s your name?” He had said.

She hadn’t even needed to look away from her work to answer him, almost as if she was used to the question. “If I tell you mine, will you give me yours?”

His father had warned him to pay attention to wording when speaking to strange creatures in the forest—they could be tricksy—use words to play games with you, lure you into signing away things that you really shouldn’t. His grey eyes had always seemed to darken. Like storm clouds, Celebrimbor had thought, even if all he ever saw of storms was the blurred darkening of the sky above. The rain never seemed to hit Doriath.

“If you give me yours, I’ll tell you mine.” He replied, after a moment of peace, to which she smiled, and let the final notes of the tune echo around the forest.

“Clever elf. Tell me your name, then”

“Cele—” He found himself hesitating. Was that really a safe thing to tell this creature? “Maltenbor,” he said, and she smiled. Fist of Gold . Stupidly close to his real name, just as he was now stupidly close enough to see how unnaturally sharp her teeth were, how thin her wrists seemed, to look at her long fingers as they drummed against the top of the stone harp—how could a stone harp even function? He didn’t ask. He desperately wanted to know.

“I,” she said, holding out a hand for him to shake, “am Songbird.” He didn’t take it. “I am an apprentice to another of my kind — the greatest of all minstrels.”

Celebrimbor (or was it Maltenbor? How far into him could she read?) laughed. He had heard that phrase enough times to know it held little meaning. His father used to get so angry when people would bandy it around, claiming some new so-and-so was set to take that prestigious title from him, but his anger was sharp and clever and a quick lash of “if that’s greatness, then I don’t want it anyway.” He had always known where he stood. No one could beat him. No one ever would. He tried not to think about the time his father taught him to play the harp and told him that someday he might even be better than him. Celebrimbor was supposed to be the successor. A new generation of greatness. He hadn’t been.

“What is his name?” He asked.

“I cannot tell you that,” she cooed. She looked young—no older than Dior—but something about the way she spoke, and how she looked at him reminded him of Melian.

“Where are your parents?”

“Your destination is twenty leagues west of here.”

“Thank you.” Then a thought occurred to him. He had been travelling for weeks. “How far am I from Doriath?”

“Two leagues.” Her smile seemed to widen, and he knew what had happened. She wasn’t going to let him leave without a fight.

He held up his signet ring—iron. He had forged it from iron for durability, and because iron was protection; all of the gateways of Doriath were lined with it. She hissed. “If you let me leave, I will give it to you.”

“I don’t want it,” she growled.

“Please, it’s a small price to pay.”

“I don’t want it!” She stood up and backed away from him. Then she waved her hands, and the illusion around them dissolved. It had been a simple trick: the light from the end of the forest and the dark of its continuation had swapped places. He must’ve circled the whole of Doriath walking towards what he had thought was the way out. “If I had known you had iron, I wouldn’t have kept you so long,” she sighed.

“Why did you keep me?”

She chuckled. “I wanted to see how long it would be before you noticed you were walking in circles.”