Celebrimbor: 30-Day Character Study by cloudyhymns

Day 8: The Mirror Cliche

That is the strangest part of it all--that Celebrimbor walks alone to the Mirrormere, steeled boots biting into tussock grasses and hair flying astray in the wind off the river.

The Gonhirrim leave him be, and that is the strangest part of it all--that Celebrimbor walks alone to the Mirrormere, steeled boots biting into tussock grasses and hair flying astray in the wind off the river. He crouches down, and there is nothing but the Misty Mountains looming behind him and the grey of his own eyes and the tempered metal and flame of his hair, just like his family line's--

Curufin pulls him tight, like he never did in life, except maybe, just maybe, this is a memory. A memory, or a dream, and Celebrimbor breathes into it, into the strength that's passed down to him and the riddling and the endless, endless drive to his own destruction. And he bites his tongue, just so, enough to dry it but not enough to break it open, so that he is silent and does not cry, not in front of his hosts, not in front of his father, and before him the Walls of the World are thin indeed.

And he pulls himself back from what was never there and counts the peaks behind him--seven crowned mountains, lit white like steam or starlight aflame, like Fingolfin's white flame, like Fingon's white flame, like Gil-Galad's white flame must be--the fall of Kings, that's all there is.

That's all there is.

Nothing more.

Chapter End Notes

Here's to hoping I cringe less at this in the morning! I'm not a huge fan of the mirror trope haha