Celebrimbor: 30-Day Character Study by cloudyhymns

Day 15: Big Ideas, Part Two

A new short fanfic/character study on history and ways of mending.

Not beta read and a combo of the big ideas, so a bit of a twisting of the day's prompt. (Sorry!) Might turn it into something longer in the future ^^

Epoxy, for joining. Celebrimbor mixes it with long threads of glass, draws it about the joints with gloved fingers; it grows warm under his touch. About him, the sounds of the city grow--it will not be long now before someone seeks him out for "more pressing matters."

So Celebrimbor works the epoxy until it moves no longer, pushing it back and forth to give himself space to turn ideas about in his head. Polishing, almost, until their true nature is revealed.

They will ask for him to aid them again--he has survived, he has always been good at that, and that is what the refugees need to do. But what is he in someone else's halls, anyway? In a way, that is all Celebrimbor has ever known--the Road underneath his feet and the call of the Sea in his ears.

"Should we shut the gates, my lord?"

Celebrimbor tilts his head. "No," he says, firm yet soft even if his mind wanders far away. "No, let them in."

And the minister bites her mouth but does his bidding.

Strange, that, too, how forever and always, he has been drawn to speak for a group of people. But he is only one Elf, in the end, one of many Telperimpar who have come before, and Celebrimbor sees them in the city as it rises above the plain.

White stone, and white ships, and white mountains; not so far removed from Tirion as the lengths between them. Celebrimbor sinks his fingers into the holly, lets it bite him back, soft leaves turned harsh by biting winters and berries red as a warning.

He fires the pipes by wood, malleable under low heat, and carves the city's wooden ships by hand. Fire, and water, and salvation; one cannot be had without the other, as Celebrimbor cannot cut his Noldor father and Teleri mother free so much as remove a hand. Around him, the Gwaith gather. Not by any formal accord, or by any force of arms--no, Celebrimbor blinks, and each time he looks away from his work, there are more. Noldor, of course, but some sons of Men, and they will be the first to lose their way under the smokes and vapors of fire-gilding and silver-working.

No fault of theirs--it never has been--but nothing appeases Celebrimbor less when he places them in their graves.

Perhaps that is what draws Annatar to him and him to Annatar--the dance with irreversible change, just shy of the melting point. What is most beautiful is most deadly in their line of work, and this, Celebrimbor should know, but instead, he breathes it in. Fire gilds him with mercury and silver and gold, and Celebrimbor lets it happen--his hands were always meant to be silver. Weren't they? Who's to say it wasn't meant to be this way?

Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't; Celebrimbor concedes. But metal has to be removed with heat, and all the heat in Eregion answers to Him, and glass pricks his fingers.

Just as always, he is late. He has never been on time, especially with his words. What more he could have said, what more he should have said--Celebrimbor puts the valve he tinkers with to the side and shuts his eyes against the bright red of his uncle's hair. His regret is not shame, but it is deep and drowning just the same, sticky-sweet like honey.

That was the last time he saw any of them, wasn't it? It's all begun to blur in the years, but Celebrimbor still knows--the one he said goodbye to was Maedhros. It was never his father, and it was never going to be.

So he twists the metal of history and fate in tighter about himself and sets to building, for that is what he knows how to do without fighting what he is.

Chapter End Notes

Sooo I had plans for this today, and then I got Very Derailed. But hopefully it was enjoyable, even if it's short!