Celebrimbor: 30-Day Character Study by cloudyhymns

Day 22: What Do They Think About You, Part One

Thoughts on Celebrimbor from Elrond, Narvi, Curufin, and Celegorm.

Elrond
Complicated, to say the least. Celebrimbor is someone who Elrond looked up to, and also the one whose people Elrond inherits--Celebrimbor's people, and their pains. I'd like to think that Elrond inherited some of Celebrimbor's love for knowledge and the act of recording that knowing, and that Elrond sees him in every letter or rune that he makes.

Elrond sees beauty and pain, for him the two are forever intrinsically linked, for what is beautiful is beautiful because there is another state to compare it with. Absence, or corruption, or lack. He will forever see Celebrimbor as beautiful--not, in my eyes, in a romantic way, but as someone and something flawed and uncertain and proud and ambitious and all the more beautiful for the layers.

Narvi
I'm not sure how their ages compare, but I could see her having an auntie or older coworker sort of feel to her. She sees Celebrimbor as fundamentally closer to her kind as the others, not by any nature of his heritage or craft, but because he *listens* and knows how to keep his mouth shut. While Celebrimbor is sociable and eager to learn, teach, and share, he does not speak of the Stone-Tongue or disclose more than he is told he may, even to the Gwaith.

It is for this reason that the Dwarves of Khazad-dum are so willing to work with him. If he were a lower smith among the Gwaith, they would have chosen him, too.

Narvi also sees Celebrimbor as quite punny and enjoys his dad jokes, even if they also drive her crazy.

Curufin
I'd like to say that Curufin is proud of Celebrimbor, or at least, I'd like to think that. His memory of Celebrimbor will forever be tinged with regret, but as soon as he may, Curufin leaves the halls and watches his son from afar, sees the Art he has wrought and the bridge he has mended and marinades in his sorrow that Celebrimbor does not see himself the same way.

There is nothing that Curufin can now do to fix the holes he has left in Celebrimbor, the ones he should have helped form solid and strong when Tyelpë was young, and now he has to watch as Celebrimbor's mix of pride and uncertainty tears him apart at the seams, as Annatar has his way with him and utterly destroys him.

And all Curufin can think, but never quite say, is that it should have been *him,* not this overly-gentle son, who bears the price of the creation of the Rings.

Celegorm
Is the only one not to blame Celebrimbor for falling for Annatar. He, of all the Noldor, would know what it is to be loved by one, the creation and destruction and loss of humanity in the face of the divine.

He still considers Celebrimbor overly soft, however, and often remarks to Curufin that his son would be better off bludgeoning his opponents with the flat of his sword rather than crossing their blades. But this disapproval of Celebrimbor is less of his physical toughness--rather, that Celebrimbor does not know when letting go would be a mercy, and so will let wounds drag on that should have been laid to rest many years ago.

Chapter End Notes

Ouch, this one hurt :c