Atarinkë by clotho123

Atarinkë

This vignette takes place during the Dagor Bragollach, whilst Celegorm and Curufin are fleeing towards Nargothrond.

Tolkien vacillated over whether Eöl was a Sinda or one of the Avari.  In this story I make him the latter.

They had to halt in the end to rest the horses.    Curufin and Celebrimbor came up from the rear and they sat on the damp ground to chew waybread.  Not lembas, but it was sustaining enough.  When they had eaten Curufin told Celebrimbor to check the sentries, not a very necessary job, since Celegorm had set them less than an hour before, but Celegorm understood his nephew needed practise in war as well as craft, all the more so since Celebrimbor had no natural skill for it.

Strange that Fëanor’s only grandson should have so little fire.  All his father’s talent for craft to be sure, but he was quiet, gentle, dutiful.  The very image of Curufin in looks, save that his eyes were blue, but quite unlike his father in character; just as contained, calculating Curufin was not like the first Curufinwë in that way.  Curufin had fire, but it was of a banked and smouldering kind, not at all the image of their father’s unchecked blaze.

“He is too like his mother,” Curufin said, only just aloud enough for Celegorm to hear.  Celebrimbor was already out of earshot, carefully settling his sword hilt as he went to obey his father.

Celegorm was surprised by the words, for Curufin had always been fiercely proud and protective of his son, and would hear no disparagement of Celebrimbor’s unwarlike nature.  He had struck Caranthir once, hard in the face, and that had been the only time since earliest childhood that Celegorm remembered seeing Curufin openly lose his temper.  Yet it would be surprising if he had not wondered at times what his son would have been like, had he had a different mother.  A mother with grey eyes, and a soul as fiery as any child of Fëanor…

Others might believe Aredhel Ar-Feiniel had been fondest of Celegorm amongst her cousins, but Celegorm himself knew better.  Aredhel and he had been friends, good friends, but it had been Curufin she had loved. It was Curufin she would have married, defying if necessary all the laws of their kin and even of the Valar (for none knew whether marriage between half-cousins would be deemed permissible, no half-cousins existed in Valinor outside the house of Finwë).

And it had been Curufin who valued his status as Fëanor’s favourite son too well to place it at risk.  Fëanor would not have cared how many laws or Valar his son defied – but a union with the line of Indis…  True he had been welcoming enough to such of his half-brothers’ children as formed friendships with his cousins, but friendship was one thing and marriage… careful, calculating Curufin had not been prepared to risk it.

Celegorm had never known whether words had passed between them, but after a time Aredhel, although she still hunted with the brothers, had stopped joining Curufin at work in the forge.  And after a longer time Curufin had married a meek, pretty, blue-eyed girl whose father had been one of Mahtan’s students. 

And Aredhel had turned her back on all of Fëanor’s line in Mithrim.  Refusing to speak to any of them she had set her mouth hard, and devoted herself to her brother Turgon’s motherless daughter.  And later she had gone to into hiding, with Turgon, to a city whose whereabouts even their close kin did not know, but where anyone of the least sense should have guessed she would be greatly bored.

And later still she had ridden to Himlad, whether to see him, as she had said, or to see Curufin, he might never know, for before they had returned from visiting Caranthir she was lost again.

Curufin might have professed not to know what Aredhel had seen in Eöl, but Celegorm knew.  An Avar of Noldor kindred: tall, dark-haired, and proud; skilled in smith-work and not without sullen fire.  Yes, Celegorm knew what she had seen.

Her name was not mentioned between them now, anymore than Curufin ever mentioned the name of his wife.

He is too like his mother…

A meek, pretty, half-Telerin girl, who on the ruined quays of Alqualondë had put Celebrimbor’s hand in his father’s and walked away from husband and son without a backwards glance.

Celegorm looked at his brother, and saw in Curufin’s eyes an unfamiliar look of fear.

“One day,” Curufin said, “I will lose him.”