Smudged by cuarthol

Smudged

“My lord!  Excellent news!”

Gil-galad looked up, expectation mixed with mild humor on his face at the eager young scribe who had come to stand before him.

The scribe held up an old, water-damaged tome and declared with absolute assurance, “We finally know who your father is!”

Gil-galad’s face fell into one of pure puzzlement at that.  “I- I know who my father is,” he said, wondering if he had misunderstood.

“But I found it!” the scribe insisted, opening the book to a page he had marked.  “It was the water damage, it smeared the ink.”

“I don’t understand,” Gil-galad said, still feeling remarkably confused.  “I know who my father is.”

“But we had differing accounts,” the scribe said, as if Gil-galad was not, in fact, to be considered a legitimate source on the subject of his own parentage.  “There have been no less than three lineages proposed for your birth, each with very strong sources to support them.”

Gil-galad took a deep breath and gave his most politically gentle smile.  “What is your name?”

“Tecindo, my lord,” he declared proudly.

“Tecindo.” Gil-galad repeated.  “I am going to say this just once more and I beg you, listen to my words.  I know who my father is,” he said, enunciating each word in exactingly.

“But the book,” Tecindo said, and against his better judgement, Gil-galad found his eyes following the scribe’s finger to where it tapped slightly on the list of names of the house of Nolofinwë.

The writing was neat, the lines straight, but right in the middle a bit of water had - just as the scribe had said - smeared the ink, obscuring part of the tree.

There, embellished with a great deal of pompous adjectives which Gil-galad had always found tiresome, read the following:

Fingolfin, father of Fingon, fath-illegible black smudge-Gil-galad Ereinion.

Gil-galad’s smile became slightly more strained.

“Are you telling me,” Gil-galad said very slowly, “that some scribe read Fingon, smudge of Gil-galad Ereinion and did not, for whatever reason, presume that there were in fact words which had been written there and were now obscured, but instead chose to dub me son of Fingon thereafter?”

“Yes!” Tecindo said, looking as if he had cracked some ancient mystery.

“That this person," Gil-galad continued, "rather than interpret Ereinion as the son of Erien, they rather chose to erase my mother entirely from the history of the Noldor, not to mention dismiss the many accounts of my father as well?”

“Precisely,” Tecindo said, feeling quite proud of his discovery.

But Gil-galad was not quite finished following this thread.  “And that due to misreading an old, damaged book, and presumably then copying out the legible parts and ignoring all other histories to the contrary, that somehow a general disagreement about who my father is has grown up among the scholars of Lindon?  A disagreement that does not seem to be put to rest by my word, but rather by the discovery of the original book from which the inaccurate account was created?”

“Y- yes,” Tecindo agreed, looking somewhat as if he was beginning to realize he was, perhaps, being led down a rather fraught path in which the king continued to grow increasingly displeased-looking.

Gil-galad took another long, deep breath.  “Tecindo.  You seem like a very enthusiastic scholar of royal history.”

Tecindo’s smile had all but disappeared now and he gave a nervous little laugh.  “Well, I would not say-”

“Therefore,” Gil-galad said, cutting him off, “I am going to appoint you as the royal scribe of correcting the false family history of the High King of the Noldor in every single book in which it has been so copied.”

Tecindo’s eyes went wide.  “Bu-but that could be hundreds of copies!” he sputtered.  “Scattered all over Middle-earth!”

“Might it?” Gil-galad asked, the picture of innocent astonishment.  “Well then, I imagine it will be an exciting appointment, filled with travel to many interesting locations and meeting new people as you inquire after every single book in which Gil-galad son of Orodreth does not properly appear.”

Tecindo almost opened his mouth to object but good sense won out at the last moment and he gave a resigned bow.  “Yes, my lord.”

“Don’t let me detain you further,” Gil-galad said.

Tecindo hesitated for a moment, then bowed again and left the hall.

Gil-galad could not help a soft chuckle as he looked back at the open book before him.  “So this is the source of all the misconceptions,” he mused, wondering how a water-smudged bit of ink in a single book had managed to re-write Noldorin history to such a degree.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.  “Oh, grandfather,” he breathed softly.  “I do hope you get a laugh out of this some day.”

Chapter End Notes

Erien was the daughter of Fingon in a discarded concept of the legendarium.  I decided to bring her back and fix the scribal error that led to the mass confusion on Gil-galad's parentage.