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

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Chapter 7

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Celegorm wakes before dawn, and this time Curufin is up with him, grumbling about it all the while. They’re going hunting, he’d told the guards working the night shift at the northernmost gate of the city. The pair had looked askance at Curufin, fully dressed but otherwise still more asleep than awake, but shrugged and opened the gate enough to let them out.

“It’s still dark,” Curufin mutters for at least the third time, yawning. His fingers are buried in Huan’s fur as Celegorm leads the way ever deeper into the wood outside of Barad Eithel, and while Celegorm insisted that he change into hunting leathers, his hair is still in it’s frizzing sleep braid, which makes him look a lot younger than he actually is.

Celegorm turns to look at his brother in the sliver of moonlight that’s managed to break through the canopy. “How is it that you can stay up until all hours of the night in the forge but struggle to get up early when there’s actually something on the line?”

“That’s-” he begins, but cuts himself off with another yawn and settles for a rude gesture instead.

Celegorm rolls his eyes and focuses on finding his way to the clearing where Fingolfin stopped for breakfast the day before. It takes a while, and after a few stumbles he realizes that it’s a lot easier to see in the daylight than it is in the dark. Eventually, though, he manages to get where he’s trying to go. It’s by pure dumb luck and a tumble down a short hill that looked farther away than it actually was, but they’re in the clearing, and he’s long since learned to take his victories where he can.

Huan and Curufin follow him more carefully, the latter muttering about how he’s “too tired to be amused and worried at the same time, damn you.”

“Are you alright?” he calls quietly, holding on to a branch as he comes down the unexpectedly steep hill in a controlled slide.

“Fine,” Celegorm grunts, picking himself up and gathering the dropped arrows from his quiver. The orc arrows are still in their hidden compartment, but all the rest scattered in the grass as soon as he hit flat ground. It’s more of an annoyance than anything, but the sun is just beginning to come up over the horizon and he needs to get to a good vantage point before Fingon and Fingolfin come along, and having to pick up his arrows is a waste of time.

He makes sure his quiver is secure and gets ready to climb a tree.

“Wait,” Curufin says, looking somewhat more awake now that it isn’t pitch dark. He produces a small container and a raggedy paintbrush from somewhere in his multitude of pockets. He opens the container and Celegorm sees that it’s black paint.

“Orcs have black blood,” Curufin says by way of explanation.

“Oh, good idea,” Celegorm says, then presses his mouth shut and closes his eyes as Curufin dips the brush into the paint and flings it at him. It’ll lend weight to their story of coming across a group of orcs during a hunting trip, even though the paint is cold and a little bit itchy in the early morning chill.

Curufin nods distractedly. He doesn’t put the paint away but he closes the lid and holds on to the container with a white knuckle grip as Celegorm starts to climb. He doesn’t get far up before he grabs for a branch and misses. Terror dips in his stomach for half an instant, then he plummets the six or seven feet to the ground. He hears Curufin cry out in alarm as he hits the ground and all the breath is forced out of him.

When he opens his eyes a few seconds later, Curufin is leaning over him, wide eyed and frightened.

“What happened?” he demands, a hair’s breadth from panic.

“I misjudged the distance,” Celegorm grits out. It’s more breathless than he would like and he can’t help wincing as he sits up. “I’ll live.” Which is entirely true, even if his back is probably going to be black and blue for weeks.

“This is the second time you’ve fallen because you can’t see properly. This is a bad idea.”

“Noted.”

But Celegorm ignores Curufin’s worry. He wants to be up the tree before he stiffens up so much he can’t climb.

“This whole thing,” Curufin continues, gesturing at everything and nothing, “is a terrible idea.”

“Well, it’s the only one we have,” Celegorm says tetchily, settling himself in some branches so that he can’t be seen from below. “Now go make it look like an orc pack has passed through.”

Curufin looks like he wants to argue, but he just nods sharply and stalks off into the woods with Huan to make their story look as true as possible. Celegorm watches him leave, then settles back in the tree to wait, one dark, wicked looking arrow loosely nocked. The other two are in his quiver, an instant condemnation should anyone see.

His heart thrums a steady beat against his sternum as the sun climbs slowly higher. The pain in his back has settled to a sharp ache, thumping with every heartbeat and worsening if he moves too much. It’s not pleasant, but it’s a welcome distraction from what he’s about to do. His father always emphasized family, and while that never really included Fingolfin, their uncle is still undeniably family, and it goes against every one of the morals he’s managed to keep to be intentionally harming him.

He waits fifteen or twenty minutes before he hears Fingon and Fingolfin coming up the trail into the clearing, and another minute longer before he can see them. Celegorm likes to think patience is one of his virtues, as a hunter, but also thinks this is probably the longest twenty minutes of his entire life.

They sit down in the grass with their breakfast. Celegorm sees a flash of Curufin and Huan, a balck and white shadow, moving through the trees on the other side of the clearing. Curufin looks at the tree Celegorm is in and gestures sharply before disappearing into the underbrush, a silent ready when you are .

Celegorm nods to himself and draws back the bow until the fletching just brushes his cheek. The arrow’s head is barbed and jagged, and he can’t help wincing in preemptive sympathy as he sights down the shaft. He lines up the shot as best he can, then exhales slowly, sinking into the almost meditative calm that comes with target shooting, and releases the arrow.

It whistles past Fingolfin, sinking into the grass three feet to his left and a yard or two behind him. Fingon and Fingolfin both jump to their feet, weapons drawn and searching the woods around them for the threat.

“ Discipline ,” chides Orome’s voice in old memory, and Celegorm doesn’t allow himself to get upset or worried over how bad his aim has gotten. He nocks the next arrow, aims, and then shifts his bow to the right and lets fly.

It’s a closer shot this time, grazing Fingolfin’s sword arm, but it’s not enough.

Last chance. It’s his last chance to get this right.

He pushes the thought aside and breathes deep and even for several seconds before he nocks the third arrow. Compartmentalize. That’s his father’s advice, from a smithing lesson that went so badly he didn’t set foot in the forge for months afterward. He’s since found that it applies to more than just forgework, and he ignores all the thoughts and emotions that aren’t conducive to making the shot.

He brings his bow up, steady even though it really isn’t the kind of bow meant to be shot from a tree, and lines up the shot. The world narrows down to the mark he’s set for himself, on Fingolfin’s shoulder where it won’t be fatal but it will stop him from being able to fight for a good long while. To the right, he reminds himself, and sighs out a breath as he lets the arrow go.

As soon as the shaft clears his bow, all the senses he’d been ignoring come rushing back and he swings down from the tree and starts making his way to a different side of the clearing. He hears the arrow thunk home with a nauseating crunch of bone and a shocked cry as he hits the ground.

Celegorm hears Curufin’s voice in his head before he sees the damage, sardonic edged with horror as his brother and Huan burst into the clearing. I told you so!

Celegorm would like to know what exactly he’s done wrong to provoke such a reaction, given that Curufin is and always has been absolutely terrible at osanwe. He comes through the trees to join everyone in the clearing and Fingolfin’s sword is immediately leveled at him. It drops a moment later, but Celegorm wonders what he’s hit if not Fingolfin’s sword arm as he’d intended.

“The orcs?” Fingolfin asks shortly, glancing at the black paint splattered over Celegorm.

“Dead,” he says. “What-”

But Fingolfin turns around before Celegorm can get his question out, and Celegorm is abruptly able to see exactly what. Fingon is on his knees in the grass with an unmistakeable arrow sticking out of his shoulder. Celegorm knows without having to really look that the wound is bad, and Fingon is probably going to pass out as soon as the adrenaline wears off.

A kernel of dread settles in his stomach, heavy and cold, as he remembers the fact that orc arrows tend to be very poisoned, this arrow specifically. Fingon casts him a look that manages to be both baleful and indignant at the same time, and it’s so obviously saying I can’t believe you shot me! that Celegorm wonders for a moment how Fingolfin doesn’t see it.

He understands a second later when Fingon hisses through his teeth at the pain. Fingolfin looks even more distressed and doesn’t protest when Fingon grabs his hand and holds it tight enough to bruise. Celegorm realizes, for the first time, that he’s already lost three of his children and Fingon is the only one he has left.

He pushes back the guilt that comes surging up with that thought and kneels down in front of Fingon. He pulls out one of his less sinister arrows, a regular wooden one, and breaks off the fletching and the head. He holds it out to Fingon.

“You can bite down on this or you can break your teeth. Pick.”

Fingon opens his mouth and Celegorm puts the stick between his teeth. It’s not ideal, but then, nothing about this entire situation is ideal, so it’ll have to do. Curufin moves behind Fingon so that he can’t pull away when Celegorm grabs the shaft of the arrow in his shoulder.

Fingon closes his eyes, going pale when Celegorm breaks it off. His grip on his father’s hand becomes bone-breakingly tight.

“Breathe slowly,” Celegorm instructs as he pulls the stick out of Fingon’s mouth, not bothering to keep his tone from being harsh. “Orc arrows are usually poisoned and the faster you breathe the faster your heart beats.” And Fingon and Celegorm both know for a fact that this arrow is poisoned.

Celegorm drags Fingon to his feet and waits for his cousin to steady himself. Fingolfin still looks stricken, so Celegorm points at the two horses standing warily at the edge of the trees.

“We have to go back to the city,” he says, and his tone is still harsh, but Fingolfin is listening, so it’s fine. He and Curufin pass Fingon up, and he’s already getting more pliable as the poison begins to set in.

Celegorm spares a moment to speak to the horses, calming them, and then he nods to Fingolfin.

Fingon is delivered to the healers in a poison-induced dazed, pale as the dead and barely hanging onto consciousness as his eyes track everyone’s movements, and Celegorm is suddenly very glad the first two arrows missed, because if Fingon is this bad already, he doesn’t want to know how bad it would have been with three or even just two of the arrowheads lodged in his body.

He, Curufin, and Fingolfin are tossed out when the healers set to work, and Fingolfin paces just outside the door to the healing halls.

“He’ll be fine,” Celegorm snaps, irritated with the constant motion.

Fingolfin stops. “How do you know?” he asks, sounding not at all like the king he is.

Because this entire trip was to make sure he wouldn’t get killed, so I’m not letting him die, Celegorm thinks, but he doesn’t say that

“Because you’re going to stay right here in the palace and make sure of it,” he says, then pauses and lowers his voice, leaning closer so all of Fingolfin’s attention is on him, “and you’re not going to go get yourself killed trying to fight Morgoth in a suicide charge that you can’t possibly win and leave him with the crown.”

Fingolfin does take a step back then, eyes going wide with something not quite like betrayal. “You know about that?”