The Kids Are All Right Outtakes by grey_gazania

Celebrimbor (Set after Chapter 1)

I had expected, when we arrived to seek refuge with Círdan’s folk, that someone would bring up Curufin sooner or later. My father’s misdeeds were well-known and, outside of the southeastern lands still controlled by my uncles, his name was now infamous, a byword for treachery and deceit. Though I had repudiated my father’s deeds, renouncing him in no uncertain terms, there were those in Nargothrond who had not been happy to see me stay, and sometimes I felt as though my father’s reputation was hanging over me like a shadow

That was why I’d taken on my mother's name, though I barely remembered her, having last seen her when I was four years old. She hadn’t come to Beleriand. My father had always told me that she had abandoned us, making it out to be a betrayal on her part. I hadn’t learned the truth until I was much older, visiting my uncle in Thargelion, when I had made an offhand remark about my mother-name. Caranthir, apparently fed up with my father’s lies to me, had decided then that I deserved to know what had really happened.

My mother had stayed in Aman. That much was true. But she had insisted to my father that I should remain with her, arguing that the voyage to Beleriand was far too dangerous for a young child.

My father had pretended to agree. Then he had stolen me away in the night, like a thief, unwilling to leave his namesake and only son behind.

Caranthir held me while I cried, and then sat up with me for the rest of the night, indulging my sudden need to know more about my mother by telling me as many stories as he could remember.

I had her eyes, he told me, and her laugh, and her taste for spicy foods. She'd grown eight varieties of chili pepper in the garden in Formenos, carefully crossbreeding them for more flavor and greater heat. She'd named me Tyelperinquar for the way I liked to tug on her jewelry as an infant. She was the strongest swimmer in the family, beating my grandfather and all my uncles at races in the pools of the Híri. She had a sharp temper that was every inch the match of my father’s. She was a genius at making fireworks. She brewed her own cider, both soft and hard. Her father had been one of my grandfather's closest friends. As a child, she’d once smacked my father over the head with a toy cow when he pulled her hair. They’d grown more friendly in their adolescence, and had married soon after my father's fiftieth begetting day.

Looking back, that night had been the start of the cracks in my relationship with my father, though Caranthir had gallantly taken the brunt of Curufin’s anger in my stead. Over the years, the distance between us had grown, ending in that horrible night in the great hall of Nargothrond, before Orodreth’s throne, when I had disowned myself from the House of Fëanor.

Of course I had denounced Curufin. What other choice was there? He and Celegorm had gotten our cousin killed. Besides, I had sworn no oath pertaining to my grandfather’s stolen treasures, and I had no desire to throw my life away and betray my blameless kinsmen in their pursuit.

All of which was to say that, yes, I had expected to be greeted with some hostility. I simply hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, before I had even told anyone my name. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. I knew that I resembled my father so closely that, if not for my mother’s eyes, one might have thought she had no part in making me, and that I had sprung fully formed from one of Curufin’s crucibles. Among some of the Noldor, I didn’t need to give my name in order to be recognized.

What I hadn’t expected was that I would be defended by anyone other than my surviving companions who had escaped with me from Tumhalad, or that I would be greeted as kin by anyone at all. I wanted to thank Fingon’s daughter, but the words stuck in my throat.

Still, I resolved then and there to do all I could to aid Círdan and his people.

Chapter End Notes

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