And I'll Bloody Up My Hands (As Long As You Don't Have To) by electroniccollectiondonut

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Chapter 5

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The next day is the first day of the New Year’s Festival.

Celegorm wakes before dawn and slips out, leaving Curufin to sleep partially because he needs it and partially because Curufin is going to insist on a bath after days of traveling and a night of tears and Celegorm doesn’t want to be dragged into a tub that’s as much fancy salts and oils as it is water. He’s perfectly happy with the little clear pond on the palace grounds, and there’s the added bonus of drawing outrage from all the servants whenever he bathes there.

He arms himself and dresses in muted navy blues he took from Maglor years ago that he thinks look garbage on him but make it easy to sneak through the sharp early morning shadows, then makes his way to the stables. Huan is rolling around on a patch of lawn not far away, but as far as Celegorm can see, he isn’t doing anything he shouldn’t, so he leaves him be and settles himself behind a barrel to wait for Fingolfin.

He waits longer than he’d expected to before Fingolfin comes out in plain black riding leathers with a little pack slung over his shoulder and one knife on his belt. Celegorm can’t say he’s seen his uncle often since he arrived in Beleriand, but he’s sure that he usually looks more kingly. Right now, he just looks like Fingolfin-

No.

He looks like Nolofinwe. He looks like he did in Tirion before everything fell apart and grandfather was killed and they all fled to Beleriand under Doom. And isn’t that a joy to think about: when Fingolfin finally looks like himself, it’s when he’s getting ready to go out and challenge a Vala.

Celegorm follows close behind Fingolfin’s horse, careful not to be seen as he trails him down a meandering path through the trees. The path goes west and north for a mile or two, then turns east toward Angband so sharply that Celegorm almost misses the corner. After a while, Celegorm’s stomach makes him aware that it’s past breakfast time, but he ignores it for the moment. He has bigger concerns than a late breakfast.

Fingolfin seems to have noticed the time as well, for he guides his horse off the path through the thin underbrush. Celegorm goes to the trees to keep following, and after a few minutes, Fingolfin comes to a little meadow. It’s small, really not much more than a grassy little clearing, painted green-gold in the light that comes after dawn but before the sun has fully risen.

Celegorm presses himself back against a tree’s trunk, and the difference in temperature between sun and shadow is almost jarring. He watches Fingolfin turn his horse loose to graze and sit down in a beam of sunlight. He’s slightly envious when his uncle pulls bread and fruit from his pack, but he again pushes down the feeling. He can worry about food later.

Fingolfin eats his breakfast, then just sits in the sunlight for a long while. Then, without giving any warning, he stands and mounts his horse and rides back toward Barad Eithel much faster than he’d been coming this way. Celegorm doesn’t try to keep up; he knows full well that he wouldn’t be able to. Instead, he takes his bow from his back and checks the string, then begins searching out a rabbit or a bird he can hunt for his breakfast.

By the time he makes it back to the city, the festival is in full swing and he’s managed to get himself soaking wet after tripping into a puddle. It’s nearly lunchtime and his stomach is growling because he gave up on the rabbit he was chasing as not worth it when it dove into a warren and his momentum sent him flying into a thorny briar, so he changes into dry clothes and wanders through the market stalls until he finds someone selling something that tastes good.

Even with as much riding on this visit as there is, it’s nice to be at a festival again. It’s been a long time, and while Himlad had more than its share of parties and hunts before Dagor Bragollach, parties and hunts aren’t the same as a proper holiday festival. The decorations are predominantly blue, as befits a New Year’s celebration, and people are selling hot pastries and soups and various other wares, from little copper-a-piece wood carvings to richly dyed and embroidered blankets.

He ends up buying a bowl of venison stew and a piece of heavy bread, then climbs up onto a low roof to eat without being pushed around by the crowd on the street. He’s also been convinced into buying some little metal hair beads.

The woman who’s selling them claims they’re handmade from top quality silver, but his father was the greatest smith in history and even he, who’s been in a forge maybe a week out of his whole life, can tell she’s a bald-faced liar. They’re just some sparkly grey alloy that his father would never deign to so much as look at, and the way they’re all exactly the same says they’re probably mass produced and worth maybe a quarter of what he paid.

But it’s a festival, and arguing with the bead lady was more fun than he’s had outside of a hunt in… a long time. He continues to make his way around the market part of the festival until it starts to get dark, occasionally buying something interesting or strange. The sky is a breathtaking swirl of violet and orange as the sun begins to sink below the horizon and sellers pack up their wares for the evening and everyone moves to the city square.

Most everyone is making the traditional offerings to the Valar, which was never something his family did back in Aman, but Celegorm finds himself mouthing along with the prayers to bless the upcoming year, and even joining in with the ones to Orome. Then the square stills and an air of waiting comes over everything. People talk softly, eyes cast upward to the rapidly darkening sky.

Celegorm turns to the man next to him to ask what’s going on, but before he can open his mouth, a low whistle fills the air, and Celegorm looks around in alarm only to find that everyone is still looking at the sky. The whistle quiets abruptly and there’s an instant of silence as everyone watches with bated breath. Then-

The sky explodes in color.

Celegorm knows his expression is probably that of an elfling on his begetting day. The display is completely dazzling, and he wonders who came up with that . The less logical part of him thinks for a moment that perhaps his father isn’t dead after all. Of course, that’s a ridiculous thought, and he dismisses it immediately after. Still, his father would have loved this.

Now that he’s watching for it, he can see the thin trails of smoke as things fly into the air. Before they can come down, they burst into sparks of every color under the sun, swirling out into simple shapes with loud pops and bangs. The sparks hang in the air for a moment, and when they start to fade, the next smoke trail begins.

“It’s brilliant work,” someone says next to him, barely audible over the loud sounds, and he jumps, heart going a mile a minute. He looks over and realizes it’s just Curufin and wills himself to relax.

“Is it?” he asks, turning back to the sky, and even though he’s shouting, another round of rapid pops nearly drowns out his words.

Curufin nods in his periphery and leans close to speak into his ear so that he doesn’t have to shout. “They’re calling them fireworks. I got a look at the shells in the forge earlier. Apparently, some powders that can be produced aren’t just flammable, they’re explosive. Put enough of them together with a few chemicals, and…” Curufin gestures at the sky, currently awash with concentric circles of gold sparks. He sounds a little jealous and very frustrated. “It’s an obvious continuation of Father’s research with light.”

Ah. That would be the reason for the jealousy. Curufin has boxes upon boxes upon boxes of their father’s notes, a lifetime of work with all manner of sciences, and someone else figured this out before he did. In a way, Celegorm understands. Their father left a lot of legacy to live up to. But still. “You can’t discover everything,” he says, his tone flat and matter of fact because Curufin would take anything else as patronizing.

“I suppose,” Curufin admits after a long pause, grudging. Then, a little smugness slipping into his voice, “I have discovered a lot of things, haven’t I.”

He has. He’s just as brilliant as whoever came up with the fireworks. Probably moreso, not that Celegorm is ever going to say so out loud. Curufin doesn’t need his ego to get any bigger than it already is.

The fireworks display goes on for a while longer, but eventually, it gets cold and the fireworks end with a dramatic finale and everyone goes inside where it’s warm. Curufin startles to find Fingon sitting at the desk in their room, though Celegorm isn’t nearly as surprised as he could be.

“Well?” he asks expectantly.

Curufin visibly tempers his annoyance and sits down on the other chair in the room. Celegorm sits on the edge of the bed and begins thinking through his anwer. Not that there’s much to think of, admittedly. Fingolfin is king, so they can’t actually stop him from doing anything he’s really determined to do. If he goes and gets killed, then Fingon is in charge, which would be good since Fingon was more rational about this whole making a stand against Morgoth situation the first time, except that they need the ruling monarch to be the rational one and they need Fingolfin to be the ruling monarch, two things which seem mutually exclusive at the moment. Which brings him back to the fact that Fingolfin is king and they don’t have any control over what he does.

“Well,” he finally decides upon, though it’s more of a heavy sigh than an actual word. He scrubs his hands over his face, then meets Fingon’s eyes. “I wish you were the king,” he says, bluntly honest.

Fingon shakes his head. “No. Not unless my father dies.”

Celegorm waves him off. “No, I know, but at least if you wanted to challenge Morgoth, you’d write to Maedhros and build up an army first.”

Fingon manages to go sickly pale despite the fact that his skin is Vanyarin brown. He sways in his seat and Celegorm shoots to his feet, hands on his cousin’s shoulders to steady him. Even Curufin is up, looking at Fingon with barely hidden concern. “Morgoth?” Fingon says weakly after a moment.

“Morgoth.”

“Oh.”

Fingon’s voice is tiny, little more than a whimper, and he looks like he’s about to keel over where he’s sitting. Celegorm isn’t entirely sure what to do about that, so he settles for tightening his grip on Fingon’s shoulders and pushing him back so that he’s leaning fully on the chair.

“I’m fine,” he manages after a while. His breath is strictly measured and his spine is straight and his face is blank, and Celegorm recognizes the posture as the one that means I’m at the end of my rope and it’s fraying, but damned if my pride will let you see it . He’s used it himself a few times, and seen it often enough from his brothers. But Fingon sounds steadier now, so he lets it go and moves back to the bed.

“We need you in charge without your father actually being removed from the throne,” Curufin says, returning the conversation to its earlier topic as he goes back to his seat.

Fingon is silent for a very long moment and when he speaks, his expression and tone are so thoughtful that Celegorm isn’t sure he’s entirely aware that he is speaking. “What about a regency?”

“A regency only happens when the reigning monarch is too incapacitated to rule soundly,” Curufin says, all but rejecting the idea.

Fingon looks extremely reluctant to be admitting to the truth in Curufin’s words, but he nods. “You’re right, of course. But it’s the only thing I can think of short of a nonviolent coup that might put me on the throne without killing my father.”

“Incapacitated?” Celegorm asks, beginning to sound thoughtful himself.

Curufin nods. “Very sick or injured or in a questionable mental state. Or underage, but that doesn’t really apply here.”

Celegorm nods, and he can feel Fingon’s eyes on him as he crosses to the wardrobe and pulls out his good quiver. He brings it back to show Curufin and Fingon and twists and pushes a few of the decorative rivets set into the leather and a hidden compartment pops open. It’s a clever bit of engineering that he’d done entirely on his own a few years back to hold onto something he really shouldn’t have in the first place.

In the compartment are three heavy black orc arrows with broad, jagged heads and ruffled but serviceable fletching.

“I think we can manage incapacitated.”