Miracles Great and Small by janeways

Chapter 1

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Celebrimbor hesitated, then cracked open the seal with some trepidation. Letters from the High King always had that effect on him. They shouldn’t, as he so often reminded himself—it was just that he was an independent sort, uninterested in the constant drama of politics, and, if he was being honest, uninterested in being supervised.

Celebrimbor may have disavowed his father, but some traits were inherited, it seemed.

He knew he ought to give Gil-galad more credit. Celebrimbor had been given a remarkable amount of autonomy, really, and Gil-galad wasn’t the interfering sort. But still—the rich grain of the linen paper, imprinted with the watermark of Gil-galad’s house; the deep blue of the wax seal—it was an unpleasant reminder of his being (however little Gil-galad did to make him or anyone feel) subordinate.

He took a sip of coffee to fortify himself, and unfolded the page.

My dear Celebrimbor—

‘Alright, informal, that’s a good sign,’ he thought, his tension easing slightly.

—You are cordially invited to join—

‘Oh, no.’

—myself and my household for a celebration of the winter festival of lights. It is my great hope that you will attend, as we have sadly missed your presence at court—

‘Ohhhh, no.’

—and your family (and of course, Erestor) so dearly wish to see you.

‘Nooo—’

*

Eight days, Celebrimbor kept reminding himself. It was only eight days. Eight days in the lifespan of an Elda was woefully insignificant, so infinitesimal a percentage that it was impossible to calculate. ‘Then why does it feel so long?’ he thought. He had only just arrived—“Barely on time!” Erestor had scolded, in that particular way of his—but already he felt a headache coming on, his thoughts thick in his head as tree resin. The thought of the fried food to come made his stomach clench. And the socializing—somehow, that seemed even less appetizing than the grease.

“At least we get gifts afterwards,” Elrond murmured in his ear, apparently sensing his discomfort. They stood next to each other on the raised altar, behind Gil-galad among the other members of his household. Celebrimbor was the only guest. He did not know Elrond well, but he did not judge him as one who enjoyed crowds—or at least, being in front of them—any more than himself.

And what a crowd it was. It seemed to Celebrimbor that thousands of Lindon’s residents had amassed in the chapel and the connected palace pavilions to hear their High King speak. His back was silhouetted against the light of the setting sun streaming through the western windows, the quicksilver of his hair and the gold threads of his robes refracting every beam onto the gold and white surface of the chapel’s interior. He was resplendent, and he spoke with grace of miracles, of hope, of family. Celebrimbor could feel his headache worsening.

As the last rays of sunlight faded, Gil-galad concluded to deafening applause. As the hall fell into darkness, a hush swept over the crowd, and then, from the silent gloaming, the spark of steel on flint. A single flame illuminated the High King’s face as he lit the lights marking the first day of the festival. A shower of sparks and flames erupted as attendants lit their own lights: one candle to light the others, and one to signify the first night. Tiny flames like pinpricks of starlight shimmered across the palace grounds and out into the city as revelers, many-pronged candelabras in hand, made the journey home.

Descending the steps to the courtyard below, Gil-galad whispered in Elrond’s ear, loud enough for Celebrimbor to overhear, “That part with all the fire does always make me a bit nervous.” Celebrimbor did not turn to look, but from the corner of his eye, the High King seemed to glitter a little less blindingly.

*

After the first night, families celebrated together or in small groups until the festival’s grand conclusion, and so it was that Celebrimbor found himself in a small, cozy, candlelit room with The High King of the Noldor and defacto leader of all elvendom in Middle Earth, a librarian, a young herald who insisted on referring to him as a “cousin,” and—most disconcertingly of the whole group—Maglor. Kinslayer, thrice accursed and disposed, last of a ragged house long bereft of any nobility. Or, as Elrond kept calling him, “Ada.”

How, exactly, Maglor had come to reside in Lindon was something of a mystery to Celebrimbor, but it at least seemed that he was considered less of a threat by the general Eldarin populace if they had him close at hand, where they could keep an eye on him. And apparently, Erestor had informed Celebrimbor, his impromptu street recitals had become quite the hit. Maglor now sat perched on the arm of an overstuffed chair in the corner, vielle tucked under his chin. Celebrimbor eyed him warily from his own corner across the room. Maglor either did not notice, or, more likely, did not deign to acknowledge the staring because he did not care. He was a prince, a famous bard, a notorious scoundrel—he was used to staring.

No one else was staring. Gil-galad seemed utterly unperturbed to have one of the most hated elves of the First Age in his personal chambers, fiddling away without a care in the world. (Something in the weeping of the strings caught the edge of Celebrimbor’s memory—Maglor used to play that song every year when the family gathered together for the festival of lights, Celebrimbor remembered dimly. He pushed the thought away.) He felt far away; a witness to this scene, but not a part of it: uninterrupted, it played out before him, the room bathed in quiet candlelight, a vignette of perfect domesticity.

The only thing that seemed amiss was him.

*

On the third night, he was asked to light the candles and say the blessings. Heat rose to his face as he stumbled over the prayer, the words of his own language foreign in his mouth, the tune long-forgotten. Maglor began to hum the melody, and soon all of them were singing, his own unsteady waver swept up in the small chorus of voices.

Later that evening, the five of them exchanged that night’s gifts—small things, trinkets, really—and Celebrimbor felt a flash of shame that he once more had nothing for his uncle.

*

On the fourth night, Maglor made dinner. (Erestor, remembering his many attempts at the culinary arts throughout their youths, had supervised.) The traditional foods of this season were fried—fried shredded potatoes topped with a sauce of the last of fall’s apples, an Avari specialty that had been adopted early on by the Noldorin newcomers, and fried balls of dough filled with jelly and topped with sugar, a Sindarin tradition. “Plenty of fat to get us through our winter hibernation!” Gil-galad laughed, patting his stomach as he forked another helping into his mouth.

They were fatty, far more so than Celebrimbor remembered of his youth, in the dark of Beleriand before the rising of the sun. Food had been scarcer then, and wealth less readily spent, and supplies more thinly stretched. While his father had been busy devising new and clever devices to keep their homes well-lit and their encampment well-protected, Maglor had found time to come to him and tell him stories of the Great March, and the sacrifices of their people, and he had made stretching a night’s worth of oil into a week’s seem like a game. Absently, Celebrimbor wondered what stories Maglor had told Elrond and Elros, and as he chewed, he considered for the first time the love between his uncle and his cousin.

*

On the fifth night, as Elrond lit the candles, quietly singing the prayer, Celebrimbor closed his eyes and mouthed the words. Elrond could not have been mistaken for Maglor—no one could—but even so, Celebrimbor could hear his uncle in the song: the timbre of a note here, the lilt of a vowel there. ‘He must have picked it up as a child,’ Celebrimbor realized. He wondered, distantly, if Elrond would have children one day, and if Maglor would teach them to sing their prayers, too.

*

On the sixth night, Celebrimbor joined Gil-galad, Elrond, and Erestor for a game of spinning tops after dinner. They played for coins and candy, like Celebrimbor had with his uncles and their households as a youth. “Do you remember that particular winter in Himring,” Erestor asked him, “when it was so cold we could not stand to remove our gloves, and not one of us could get the proper grip for rotation?”

Reflexively, Celebrimbor exclaimed, “Yes! No one could get the damn things to spin, and they just flopped over, every time.”

“At least you had an idea what they would land on,” Gil sighed. Of the three rounds they had played, he had lost every single one.

“Yes, and that’s how we could tell my Uncle Tyelko was cheating—it landed on the winning side every time!” Celebrimbor joked, laughing at the memory as he twisted his top. Watching it spin, it occurred to him that he had not spoken the name “Tyelkormo” in half a millennium.

*

On the seventh night, Celebrimbor had a gift for his uncle. Maglor betrayed nothing with his perfunctory but gentle, “That is very kind of you, nephew,” but next to him, Elrond’s eyes shone. Gil-galad had requested oil lamps, as was custom among the sea-elves who raised him, and although the air was thick with smoke and the food was heavy with grease, Celebrimbor felt lighter than he had in years.

*

On the eighth night, the final night, the people of Lindon once more crowded into the chapel and the connected pavilions. They stood, silent, as the sun dipped below the horizon. Once more, Gil-galad took a flint in hand and struck a spark, and the people followed his lead, the gold of the chapel and the cream-colored limestone of the palace set afire by the light of thousands of flames. His voice rose in song, and the people sang with him, their prayers echoing out over the courtyard and across the city.

They sang long into the night, prayers and histories and songs of the Great March. They sang until their candles burned to nothing, flickering out in wisps of smoke. And they kept singing as, one by one, they turned from the face of their king and started for home.

*

The winter winds whipped across the plains of Eregion, and in his rooms in Ost-in-Edhil, Celebrimbor shivered. Sitting at his desk, his ever-present mug of coffee steaming, he tapped his quill impatiently on the edge of his inkwell, as though the right words might be driven forth and laid to parchment by his insistence. He was not a politician, and he was not a warrior. The boldness of his innovations was of a different sort than was required here.

Courage, Celebrimbor remembered his uncle once saying, is the ability to make a decision and commit to it. He had laughed bitterly then, the edges of the sound sharp and jagged, and Celebrimbor had in his innocence wondered what it meant. Then he didn’t have to wonder anymore.

He had been courageous, once, a long time ago.

Drawing a deep breath, he picked up his pen, and began to write.

Dear Uncle Maglor,

I wished to express my gratitude for the thoughtful gifts—