Celebrimbor: 30-Day Character Study by cloudyhymns

Chapter 30: Show It All Off

An excerpt from a longer, in-progress fic that's a "Choose Your Own Canon" for Celebrimbor!

Two choices for Celebrimbor's heritage, and how they play out in his avoidance of the Oath--does he stay with his father when he's young, or does he go to Celeborn of the Teleri?

"Where is he?" In the chaos, in the darkness, a long snout settles itself onto Celebrimbor's shoulder. His heart leaps into his throat, but he does not scream--the gentle huff of Huan's breath registers a moment before Celebrimbor falls fully into terror's grasp. The hound presses him to the ground, and Celebrimbor knits his fingers into the long fur of Huan's coat as living shadow shelters him from Fëanor's gaze. The keenest of the Noldor can see to shadow and storm, but not through all forms of living flesh; Celebrimbor is hidden safe and sound beneath the bulk of the wolfhound as Fëanor leaps to the center of the clearing. "No matter! He is a dutiful apprentice; let it never be said that a son or son's son of mine shirked his craft. Draw!"

Celebrimbor hears first of it as a wailing on the wind, lament and something keen like hunger. From the green hills it sweeps on out to the coast, breaking upon the rocks, and Celebrimbor chokes under the cloud of darkness that sweeps over him. "My lord!"

A broad hand catches his wrist and yanks him to the safety of a building-side. "Easy, Tyelpë." Celeborn's eyes narrow; it is more than a lack of light, it is a killing of light, and he shelters his young ward in his cloak.

"Can you hear it?"

"I cannot see it."

"Can you hear it?"

The cloak shimmies as Celeborn shakes his head. "There is nothing at all."

Celebrimbor breathes, sucking in the dark and pushing it out; the ringing is nigh unbearable.

"Who speaks?"

Little Tyelpe's eyes are wide and unseeing. "Fëanor," he whispers, rather than any of the names he calls his grandfather in the company of family. The ringing in his ears is the ringing of his blood, the thumping of his pulse; his fëa struggles against its bonds.

Perhaps, in another time, Celeborn would have asked to know more, and Celebrimbor would have shared those haunting words, but it is folly to yell into the blankness.

Chapter End Notes

This is only one set of choices from the fic--I was hoping to have it completed by the end of the final day, but then I made it to thirty different paths for him and realized it is a much larger project than I initially recognized. It remains a work in progress for now. There are four romance options, other friendship ones, and at least one path where Celebrimbor survives. I think it's high time he got a happy ending, don't you?