Master of My Blood by Cheeky

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Chapter 1

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Gildor

I am haunted by shards of light. 

 

Brief, glinting fragments of memory that pierce the dark. Glimpses of the life I used to lead, the life I might have led. Pieces of utopia spiraling past me before vanishing into dust as I reach for them. 

 

In those pieces of light lays my father. 

 

I am Elven. My memories are like the pages of a book I can open and pour across every detail, each piece of my life sitting there for me to discover again and again, except for those years with my father. The years I spent bathed in his light. Those years are shattered. My life begins in the dark. I know he existed, I know he loved me. I see glimpses of the time we had together, but my crystal clear Elven memory? It begins when I lost him . . . When he left me. 

 

I can remember the leaving. 

 

I was young and yet not young, a gangling boy. Growing until my legs were too long for me, caught between childhood and manhood, an awkward half man/half boy creature, as far from the perfection of my father as you could ever get. 

 

He was golden, I was dark and non-descript. He shone with light, drawing all eyes towards him. I hid in corners. Some of those who would whisper loudly behind my back would comment on it, our dissimilarity. Is he really the King’s?  they would say. Do you think he has stolen a foundling and claimed it as his own? They were always whispering, sneering, watching. Jealous of the small Laiquendi who might one day be King, eager to find a chink in the story and discredit me. 

 

Not that I cared about being King,  not at all. I did not wish it, and surely, my Father would always be there. What were they worried about? 

 

And then one day he wasn’t. 

 

He sat me in his study. We were alone and he was as uncomfortable as I had ever seen him. My father, who was always stunning in his power and confidence, owner of the most beautiful words, now stumbled over those words as if they all deserted him. 

 

What he told me made no sense . . . And was horrifying. 

 

“You are leaving me!” I cried. 

 

“I will be back,” he said quietly,  but we both knew it was a lie. 

 

“What will I do? Without you here they will tear me into shreds!” I will crumble to nothing without you, I said to myself but I did not tell him that. “They hate me!” I cried instead. 

 

“They do not hate you Gildor. You are one of them. Orodreth will protect you from the worst of them. I have charged him to keep you as safe as if you were gold, until I am back.” 

 

I said it then, what we both knew but he did not say. 

 

“You will not come back! They will kill you.” 

 

And he leaned forward to take my hands in his. 

 

“I am more clever and more powerful than perhaps you know. It is not as dire as you say.” 

 

He had never, never lied to me before. There is a first time for everything. 

 

“Why does this man matter more to you than me?”  

 

“He does not! He does not, Gildor. He is but a foolish, selfish child. You are worth ten of him.” 

 

“Then why go?” I was ashamed of the hot tears that burned down my cheeks. I wanted to be a man, not a weeping child. 

 

“I made an oath. I know you do not understand. I cannot break it. I cannot. As much as I might want to. I cannot do it Gildor.” 

 

It is a hollow excuse to my ears. 

 

I wanted to run away. I wanted to take to my heels, slamming the door behind me and just go, outside to scream at the stars. But I could not, for suddenly my minutes with him were ticking away, flowing through my hands to bleed upon the floor. I could not waste a single one of them. 

 

Instead I sat, tears upon my face, while he tried to justify the unjustifiable. 

 

I wanted not to watch him depart also. I could not bear it. 

but I was there . . . How could I not be? Drinking in every last moment of him. 

 

“Be good,” he told me as he held me close, “Stay safe.” 

 

“You stay safe.” 

 

I knew he would not. 

 

“Do not listen when they attempt to run you down, Gildor. You are a jewel more precious than any other. I should know,” he smiled gently, “I have several, but none shine as bright as you.” 

 

He must have lost his mind. He had the Nauglamír. I do not shine as bright as that. 

“None will harm you.” He repeated his reassurances of before. “I promise. They know they will have me to answer to, in this world, or the next.”  

“What about them?” 

He knows who I mean. The silent, brooding Feanorions who came begging for shelter and then tried to take that shelter from us. 

“You are safe with them. You are family.” 

“You are family! That does not seem to matter!” 

He simply shrugged a shoulder as if their betrayal was of no importance  to him. 

Another lie. 

It was one of them who stopped us speaking. One of them who stole those last moments away from me, a hand reaching out to grip my fathers shoulder and turn him so his light, his attention, disappeared from my view. 

“Do not do this, cousin.” Silver hair fell across those flashing eyes, in a face like thunder. “When did you turn into such a fool, Findaráto?”

How dare he. 

“I thought you, of all people, would understand the binding of an oath, Tyelkormo,”

My fathers words were cool, silky smooth and yet filled with ice, “so nice of you to deny me my defences.” 

“Anything to put an end to this idiocy. I was hoping you would come to your senses.”

”Have you?” 

The Feanorion blinked then as if Father had slapped him. Those words hurt. 

“I do not want to be in the position of having to take that silmaril from you. Believe me I will, Findaràto or no Findaràto. I have no choice.” 

“As I  have no choice, Tyelko.” Fathers voice is suddenly softer, kinder. “If I am lucky enough to survive to see it, you can have it. I have no wish for it.” 

I hate that man, that silver haired, dark eyed son of Feanor. Not because he turned my Father’s men against him, because now—with age and hindsight—I can understand that may not have been all it seemed, but because he stole those moments. He entered our goodbye and suddenly it was all about him. 

Did he even know who I was? I am not sure. Did Father ever tell him? Or was I just another boy to his eyes, not a cousin at all? 

For all the love Father bestowed upon me, all the time he spent with me, for all the public knowledge I was in Nargothrond, outside those walls nobody knew who I was. Nobody knew Finrod had a son at all, save Galadriel. 

And it seemed to me he did nothing to change that. 

Of course he never came back. 

I refused the face the inevitable. I imagined his travels in my mind, wondered where he might be, justified the absence although deep down I knew the truth of it. It was a long way to travel, a complex mission, he was indeed powerful as he had reassured me. The lack of his return not mean failure. 

As Orodreth’s face grew longer, sterner, as the ladies of the palace fussed around me —poor orphan boy as I obviously was—I carried on in stubborn, optimistic oblivion, even right through the day I woke up knowing he was absolutely, inconclusively gone. 

It was as if a light had gone out even as the sun shone. That was the day my memories shattered, the day I tried to capture the essence of him, of him and I, in my mind and could not. Still I did not face it. Still I shut my mind to the truth and no-one was brave enough to force it upon me . . . Until Galadriel arrived. 

Galadriel: half of Nargothrond were afraid of her, the other half disapproved of her, but no one could look away. As glorious as my father, she commanded attention without lifting as much as a finger, simply by breathing. 

I loved her. 

She was the only one, of all of them, who looked at my small , dark, ordinary self and saw Finrod. 

As far back as I could remember, all I had to do was enter a room, tilt my head, turn with a smile, all those smallest and most unimportant glances and movements, and I would hear her catch her breath,

“I see you in him, Ingoldo. He is so like you.” 

And Father would glow. 

Perhaps that is why she said it? To make my Father happy. For Galadriel has the power to strip your mind bare. She could see all parts of me. She would know I was not Finrod at all. She is not a fool. Still living in a world full of those who pointed out how unlike my Father I was,  it made my heart sing to hear it. 

She arrived in a blaze of glory, shut herself away with a pale, silent Orodreth, and I hid like a child. 

I did not want her to find me. I did not wish to hear what she would tell me. I would run from it as long as I could. 

But hiding from Galadriel is an impossibility. My attempt was an abysmal failure. She did not even bother chasing me herself. She sent a messenger telling him exactly where to find me. 

“You are wanted,” he said, “in your rooms.” 

Only a fool would not obey the summons, and I was not a fool. 

All I could feel when I entered was her sadness. It was unfathomable and it terrified me. Yet she smiled when I entered as she always did. 

“Come sit with me Pitya-ingoldo.” she said. “The sight of that beautiful face is a balm upon my soul.” 

And so I sat. You did what she told you. 

“I have been talking,” she said gently, “to Orodreth. I have told him a Nargothrond without Finrod is no place for you. He has agreed you can come with me.” 

What? 

“I cannot go with you!” I cried, “and Orodreth cannot send me. He promised my Father he would keep me safe until he returned. He cannot send me away!” 

“He is keeping you safe.” She sighed, “He is not sending you away. He has not forgotten his vow to your Father, but Gildor, Finrod will not be back. I know you know this.” 

I would not listen to this. 

“I will not go with you.” I dug my heels in. “I will be here waiting when Father returns.” 

“Gildor,” there is an edge to her voice, a firmness that was not there before. It makes me wince. It is the voice she used that everyone—save my father—would obey. He would simply laugh. “I know you have felt it, as I do, his absence from the world. He is gone. He will not be coming back and you must face this. He would want you to face it and he would want me to help you.” 

I would not cry. I would not cry. I would not cry.  

That wish was an abysmal failure also. 

The reality of that day I had awoken knowing my world was missing his light—reality I had been so steadfastly avoiding—crashed down upon me like a sledgehammer, crushing my heart to pieces. It sucked the breath from my lungs and left me gasping. It was a loss too huge to understand. 

He cannot be gone,” The words struggled their way out between my sobs, “He cannot be gone.” Although I knew the truth of it since the moment he told me of this foolish enterprise it now seemed too huge too to comprehend. There was not a trace of him left in my world—him, who has been the centre for it for always. I was untethered; lost.

I felt her hand upon my head, fingers gently stroking the strands of my hair. An arm around my shoulders pulled me to lean against her. 

 

“I know,” she said quietly. “It seems an impossibility the brilliant light of Finrod is lost to us but as much as it breaks our hearts it is true, Pitya-ingoldo. I, at least, still have you.” 

 

“I cannot go with you.” I repeat it, when her unexpected, uncharacteristic softness has helped me regain my control. “I cannot live in Doriath. I would hate it.” The thought of a life in that sterile world made my Laiquendi soul shudder. I have never understood how the fiery, rebellious Galadriel ever managed it. 

 

“I will tell you a secret then,” she smiled. “Celeborn and I will be leaving Doriath.”

 

“Leaving?” For a moment I panicked. Surely she did not depart on a fools errand also? 

 

“I cannot remain here without my brother, and there is a world to see Gildor. So I shall see it. Some of Celeborn’s people will come with us, and some of yours . . . Of your mothers. We go east, over the mountains. It will tear at my heart to leave you, just as much as every day in this land of Finrod’s without him destroys me. Tell me you come with us?”

 

It was a different proposition altogether. 

 

“You are leaving? With my people?” 

 

“Some of your people.” 

 

A new world? A place to expore? Despite myself the thought of it excites me. 

 

“Father wanted me to remain here.” I was certain of that and it was the only thing that caused me to hesitate. 

 

“Are you telling me Finrod, the explorer, Finrod, friend of the dwarves, discoverer of Men, would not want you to step out into the world and experience every part of it when you had opportunity?” 

 

She was right. Father often spoke of places he would take me, things he would show me when I was older. Now he never would.

 

“He asked me to stay safe, to stay here. He asked it of me.” 

 

“There is no safeness for you in Nargothrond.” Something in her voice sends a chill down my spine. “I have foreseen it.” 

 

And so it was decided. I would remain at Nargothrond only until Galadriel had arranged her departure from Doriath then I would be sent to travel with her, wherever that would take me. Yet even as the idea of seeing what lay beyond Nargothrond’s walls thrilled me—the possibility of travelling with my mothers people meaning no longer would I be the odd Laiquendi in a sea of Noldor—still it felt like a betrayal. 

 

And so, when my aunt had left me that evening, I did not fall asleep in my bed, but instead crept quietly down the dark corridor to my fathers room, holding my breath as slowly, silently, I opened the door without so much as a creak. 

 

As the lamp flared into life, flooding the room with its light, it almost felt as if he might still be there. His desk in the corner was cluttered as it always had been, papers strewn across it, a pen left lying as if he had just finished a letter before dashing away to attend to more important business. 

 

And my eyes stung with the threat of unshed tears.

 

If I were to leave here what should I take with me? To walk away and leave all the beautiful things he so loved behind? Betrayal heaped upon betrayal. I knew Orodreth would keep them safe for him, but still, Orodreth was not his son, I was

 

It was then that I saw it, as I stood, bewildered, in the centre of the room wondering where to start and what to do. 

 

Lying upon his bed . . . My dagger . . . And a letter. 

 

Gildor. 

 

His immaculate, elegant handwriting shaped my name across the chrisp white envelope. 

 

The dagger I had coveted since I first laid eyes upon it, the very first evening I spent here, freshly brought from my mothers wood, tear stained and terrified. I had slept in this room with my father for many weeks when I first arrived until he was sure I felt safe in Nargothrond. The dagger was small, its hilt bejewelled . . . exquisite. 

 

“This came all the way from Tirion. A city across the sea in Valinor.” He said softly, picking it up when he saw my eyes alight on it. Tirion meant nothing to me then. I had no idea where it was or what it might be. 

 

“It sparkles.” I loved the dance of light upon the tiny jewels. I had seen nothing like it in all my life, and reached out a hand to try and catch that light. 

 

But quickly he snatched it beyond my reach. 

 

“Too dangerous for you, little one. This blade is very sharp, it might cut you.” 

 

But as I grew, every time I visited this room I would seek that dagger out. Eventually he would let me hold it, swinging it through the air as if it was a sword, killing the imaginary enemy. It was the perfect size for me. 

 

“I will give you this one day, Gildor,” he told me, “for your very own to keep, when I think you are a man.”

 

And here it was, left for me. 

 

Slowly I reached out a hand, picked it up, feeling that cold heavy weight in my hand. It was a perfect gift. 

 

He thought me a man.

 

The letter terrified me. 

 

I did not want to read it. What would it say? I would be sure to cry. I could not bear to read his last words to me, a goodbye, for what else could it be? I could not bring myself to look upon that familiar hand trying to explain his leaving me. 

 

I put it in my pocket unopened. One day perhaps, but not today. Instead I curled up on his bed, pulling the blankets around me, lying in the half light, shards of it glinting off my fathers treasures, drinking up the smell, the feel of him, and eventually I dreamt of him sitting at that desk while I nagged him to join me outside, doing something . . Anything . . More interesting than his work. He always complained about my impatience, my inability to sit still, and yet he always gave in with a smile and joined me in the end. 

 

The opening of the door shattered my dream sending me bolt upright in fright. 

 

Why was he here? 

 

I was so angry. How dare he come here . . . To my fathers very room. How dare he. 

 

“Get out of here! You are not welcome!” 

 

He simply raised his hands in supplication and walked through the door.

 

“I did not mean to wake you.” 

 

My hand curled round the cool, hard metal of the daggers hilt. It was soothing in a way. I may have been only a boy but I could defend myself. Why did he not turn and leave?

 

“This is my fathers room. I want you to leave.” The shaking of my voice betrayed my uncertainty, much as I did not wish it to. 

 

And still he did not go.

 

“I am sorry,” he said then, “for your fathers loss. If it helps, I have disavowed mine. I do not expect you to understand what that means to a Fëanorion. We disavow nothing so for what it is worth I am dead to him now. I do know that is not the same.”

 

He has disavowed him? I am stunned to silence. 

 

“I thought we should talk.” He said then as my silence hung in the air. “You are owed an apology from us and my Father and Uncle will not be giving it.” 

 

“How did you know I was here?” It was a foolish question which had nothing to do with the subject at hand but I was only a foolish boy. 

 

And he smiled. 

 

“Everyone knows you are here. Do you not know Orodreth has guards at every corner watching your every step? You are the most precious citizen in Nargothrond. If you thought you could enter the Kings room undetected you were wrong.”

 

I hated that. I hated everyone’s eyes upon me all of the time. It was something I was looking forward to leaving behind. 

 

I sat on the bed, arms around my knees, blankets heaped about me and he sat beside me without so much as a by your leave. 

 

“I am Telpe.” 

 

His face was open and honest. It made me want to like him as much as I wanted to hate him. I knew his name. 

 

“I know who you are Celebrimbor.” 

 

“I would like to know you better, Gildor. The two of us—fatherless, alone in the world, cousins—we should look out for each other.” 

 

Why did he think I needed him to look out for me? I did not! 

 

“You do not have to worry about me. I am not alone. I have my aunt. I am to travel with her.” 

 

My defiance got me exactly nowhere. 

 

“Oh, I know.” He says lightly. “She asked me to go with you.” 

 

“She asked you to go?” 

 

She asked him to come with us? Him? A Fëanorion? One of them? 

 

“Artanis is my family too. I have known her since I was born.”

 

“You killed her brother!” 

 

All my anger slid off him. 

 

“My father prevented Finrod having the support from his people he needed, Finrod chose to go to certain death. I had nothing to do with either of those things. She understands that. But you can relax. I refused her offer.” 

 

And then, despite myself,  I was curious. 

 

“What will you do?” 

 

“I thought to go to Gondolin.” 

 

“Gondolin!” He was crazy. “They let no one into Gondolin. That is if you can even find it.” 

 

He laughed, leaning towards me patting his pocket as if we shared a secret between us. 

 

“I spoke to Finrod before he left. He has told me where he thinks I should look, written me an introduction I hope convinces Turgon to let me through the front door. I will simply have to hope it works.” 

 

“Why would Father do that for you?” 

 

“Because he knew I disagreed with my own father. He knew I was sick of it all, sick of all of them, ruining their lives chasing after pretty jewels, even him. I told him he was a fool . . . Finrod. What was he thinking?” 

 

And briefly he turned away from me, so I could not see his face, his eyes. Did he cry for my father, or his own?

 

 When he turned back to me there was no sign of it. 

 

“So you will see the world with Galadriel and I shall hide away in Gondolin, but perhaps we will meet again, little cousin. I do think I will get bored in Gondolin eventually.” 

 

And I found myself hoping we would meet again, one day. He was not what I thought he was. He cared for my Father. He hated the jewels as much as I did. 

 

 

I wish he had not then gone off and made his own.