A Hundred Miles Through the Desert - Chapter Forty

[starspray]

Fandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Sons of Feanor, Elrond, Feanor, Daeron, various others
Warnings: n/a
Summary: After years in Lórien, Maglor and Maedhros are ready to return to their family and to make something new with their lives--but to move forward, all of Fëanor's sons must decide how, or if, they can ever reconcile with their father.
Note: This fic is a direct sequel to High in the Clean Blue Air. 

Prologue / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

 

The news that Aredhel had returned came as a shock. “She was here for weeks, and you didn’t tell me?” was all that he could think to say when Celegorm finally shared it with him, after the commotion over his green hair died down and after Maglor and Daeron left with Calissë for Taur-en-Gellam.

“She didn’t want anyone knowing,” said Celegorm, “and none of us wanted to overwhelm Maeglin.”

“But—is she—”

“She’s not angry with you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

It was. Of course it was. Aredhel had been his friend too, in their youth—the three of them had roamed Valinor together for years, and it had been Aredhel who had introduced Curufin to Rundamírë. And then everything had gone wrong, and then she had vanished into Gondolin and then again when she’d left it, with no explanation either time—and then when he’d had a chance to do something right, he’d just—

Celegorm flicked his forehead, just between his eyes. “Stop that. I told you she isn’t upset.”

“But she didn’t—”

“She’ll turn up when she’s ready, when she’s satisfied that no one’s going to run Maeglin out of Tirion or something.”

“What if that does happen?”

“Odds are he’ll end up in Imloth Ningloron,” said Celegorm with a shrug. “I don’t think that will happen though. But she really does not want it widely known that she’s back yet.”

Curufin rolled his eyes and shoved at Celegorm’s shoulder. “I heard you the first time. I can keep secrets.” It came out more accusing than he meant, but Celegorm didn’t rise to it.

“Just for a little while.” Celegorm paused for a moment, and then said, “She said that Grandfather sends his love to everyone.”

Curufin remembered little from Mandos; those memories faded quickly after one came back, leaving behind only hazy and dreamlike impressions. But he remembered Finwë’s spirit whispering the same thing to him—give them all my love, Curvo—and he remembered only deciding to return without Celebrimbor because he knew that Finwë would be there with him, that same warm and comforting presence that had helped Curufin himself in the immediate aftermath of his own death. Now, he just nodded. It was so hard to think of Finwë and not think of what Maglor was going to try to do. Curufin didn’t believe it would work, but he was afraid that, in spite of his words, Maglor was starting to believe it might—and Curufin was far more worried about Maglor’s heart being crushed by failure than he was about Fëanor hearing of it.

It was a relief to return home to Tirion, even though Curufin couldn’t fully banish his anxiety for Calissë being so far from them. Before they left his mother’s house he took another one of the palantíri; he missed his father too, and even if Fëanor wasn’t using his own palantír—which Curufin honestly hoped he wasn’t, hoped he was spending his time with the twins instead—Curufin could at least look for him. And he could look for Maglor and see how Calissë was doing, if the stone cooperated. Maglor was infamously hard to find, and Curufin doubted that would have changed since his return from Lórien.

Rundamírë saw him unpack the stone later, and frowned. “Just keep that thing out of Náriel’s reach,” she said.

“Of course.”

“You aren’t going to start looking back at all the terrible things, are you?”

“No.” Curufin caught her hand and kissed it. “My interests lie solely in the present, I promise.”

“Good. And what about the future? You wanted to wait until after Carnistir was married, but he seems quite content to languish in betrothal for the next few decades.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Curufin protested, but it was true that Caranthir and Lisgalen had stopped talking of potential wedding plans or dates. Curufin took that to mean that they would just vanish sometime and reappear with golden wedding bands instead of the silver engagement ones, eschewing any and all traditions except for the ones that actually married them, which needed no witness but Ilúvatar. “But you’re right, we shouldn’t put anything on hold until whenever they decide to do—whatever it is they’re going to do. Honestly, they might never get married just to be contrary.”

“That sounds like something Carnistir would suggest,” Rundamírë said, laughing. “In which case we should disregard them entirely when making our own plans. Just one more child, and then I’ll be content—I have no desire to attempt to surpass your parents in sheer numbers.”

“We’ve already surpassed them in daughters,” Curufin said, just so Rundamírë would laugh again. “But remember what Carnistir said! If you keep talking about just one more, we’ll certainly end up with twins.”

“You’re both being ridiculous.”

“It’s happened before!”

“Would you mind?” Rundamírë asked, growing serious. “Twins, I mean.”

“No, of course not.” Curufin leaned in to kiss her. “One more child or two—I would love them just the same. But I also cannot help but remember the toll it took on my mother, and how worried everyone was when Ambarussa were born.”

“Both Nerdanel and Ambarussa turned out perfectly fine,” Rundamírë pointed out.

“It was still frightening.” Curufin had been a child at the time, but old enough to understand something of what was happening, and certainly old enough to notice how afraid his father had been in the weeks just after Amrod and Amras had been born—both for them and for Nerdanel.

Rundamírë was unmoved. Her three pregnancies had been as easy as such things could be, and there was nothing that could dampen her confidence. “I’ll be fine, whatever happens.”

That night was Curufin’s turn to tuck Náriel into bed. He entertained her with a retelling of part of the story about the dwarves and the halfling and the wizard; Náriel liked best the part where they escaped the Elvenking’s halls in barrels. Then she asked, as he made sure her favorite stuffed rabbit was nestled under the blankets with her, “Are you and Ammë really going to have another baby?”

“Yes,” said Curufin. “Would you like that, having a baby brother or sister?”

“Oh yes! ‘Specially if Calissë’s going to go off on adventure without me.”

“Just a few more years, my love, and you’ll be old enough to join her.” It was something Curufin had been trying not to think about—he wasn’t ready to have both girls going off into the world without him, even accompanied by their uncles or their brother. Going to Nerdanel’s house for a visit was one thing—that was right outside Tirion, less than a day’s travel away. Calissë would no doubt be wanting to go all the way to Ekkaia next, or to explore the unknown lands of Avathar in the south, or other equally far-flung places, and Curufin was dreading the time when she could just get up and go without even needing to tell anyone where she was off to.

“I don’t mind,” Náriel said through a yawn. “I like staying home. I just miss her.”

“I miss her too, but it’s only until springtime. And you and I—we’ll make all kinds of things together this winter, won’t we?” Curufin leaned down to kiss Náriel’s forehead. “And that means you need to go sleep.”

“Goodnight Atya,” Náriel yawned again. “Love you.”

“I love you too.”

The next morning, Náriel accompanied Curufin to his workshop. He lifted her onto his drafting table so she could watch as he paged through some old designs he’d drawn up but had not yet had occasion to make. “What are you making?” she asked.

“I want to make a gift to welcome my cousin back,” he said. “You remember the stories about Irissë?” He pulled out a drawing of a hair piece, something elegant but not too elaborate. He had not been thinking of Aredhel when he’d drawn it, but now he thought that it would suit her. “What do you think of this one, Náriel?”

Náriel looked at the drawing, lips pursed as she considered the question. She was already much more serious and thoughtful than her sister. Celebrimbor teased her for it sometimes, tickling her until she stopped frowning and started giggling. “It’s pretty,” she pronounced finally. “It looks like a flower. Like one of Grandmother Ennalótë’s roses.”

Curufin looked back down at the drawing. “So it does,” he said. “I had been thinking of white gold, and aquamarines for the gems, to stand out against Irissë’s dark hair, but maybe rubies would be better.”

“I like pink roses,” said Náriel.

“Rose quartz, then?”

“Oh yes! That’s my favorite.”

Curufin laughed. Náriel’s favorite gemstone changed by the week. “Rose quartz it is. And that means we need to pay Elessúrë a visit, because I don’t think I have any.”

It was nice to have a new project—and to have someone in mind to gift it to afterward. Gathering supplies took him all over Tirion, with Náriel in tow. She wanted to know about everything, and everyone they spoke to was more than happy to answer all of her questions. “Like father like daughter,” Curufin heard more than once, always accompanied by a smile.

People had said such things about him when he’d been small and always following Fëanor about. It made him smile to have those words now directed at him, but there was also worry niggling at the back of his mind. His likeness to Fëanor had made him a favorite—and it had not taken him long to realize what that meant, as he started to grow up and notice the ways that his relationship with his father was different from his brothers’. Mostly it had not seemed to matter much—they all had their own interests, and if Fëanor had favored Curufin in many ways he had been equally free in his affection with all of his sons—or so it had seemed to Curufin, at least. That had changed as things got more tense in Tirion, as his feelings toward the Valar had changed—he had clashed most obviously with Celegorm, the two of them so often shouting or snarling at one another. Celegorm had turned away from the Valar himself, eventually, but not fully until the Darkening, but there had been distance and tension between Fëanor and Caranthir, too, and the twins. Curufin remembered wondering how Fëanor’s feelings could change so drastically toward any of them—and then, much later, he’d wondered if they had, or if Fëanor had just been more careful to hide his favor or disdain in happier days.

He didn’t wonder about that anymore—it had been a change, and it was a change Fëanor deeply regretted now, though Curufin wasn’t sure he fully realized how much damage it had done.

Curufin had worried about falling into the same trap, but so far he did not think he was in any danger of that. He could not fathom loving Náriel more than Calissë just because she was more interested in forge work, or loving either of them more or less than Celebrimbor, or neglecting one or more of them in favor of another for any reason. All he wanted was for all three of them to be safe and to be happy.

When he and Náriel returned home after picking up a large case of rose quartz from Elessúrë two weeks after they’d all come back to Tirion, Rundamírë met them with two rolled up letters in hand. “For you, Curufinwë,” she said, holding them out. “I had a pair of blue jays come pecking at my window an hour ago.”

“From Ambarussa?” Curufin asked as he shed his cloak.

“I assume so,” said Rundamírë. “They’re the only ones who would need to use birds—I imagine there is already snow in the mountains blocking the paths back down.”

“Are they stuck all winter?” Náriel exclaimed, aghast.

“They like it that way,” said Curufin as he took the letters.

“But why?”

“You’ll have to ask them,” Rundamírë laughed. She hoisted Náriel onto her hip and kissed her cheeks, pink with the chill that was settling over Tirion. They would receive no snow for some time yet, but it was certainly the time of year for curling up by the hearth side with blankets and hot drinks. “Your uncles are all very strange, Náriel, but Ambarussa are strangest of all.”

“That is certainly true,” Curufin said. “I’ll just take this to the workshop and then I’ll be in.”

“We have guests for dinner,” Rundamírë said. “Your cousins and a few of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain—and Telperinquar is home. He’s out in the workshop.”

“Tyelpë!” Náriel exclaimed, and after squirming to be let down she darted away down the hall toward the workshop.

Curufin paused to kiss Rundamírë before he followed her. “Did he come alone?” he asked.

“Yes. Irissë and her son are still with Findekáno and Gilheneth, but I think Elrond and his family have gone to Eressëa for the winter.”

“Have you written to Irissë?” Curufin asked.

“Not yet, but I’m putting together some things for her and for Lómion for Midwinter. Let me know when your gift is done, so we can send them all at once.”

“Of course.”

In the workshop, Curufin found Celebrimbor laughing as Náriel told him all about what he’d been missing in Tirion in his absence. After managing to get a few words in to greet Celebrimbor himself, Curufin put his gems away and turned his attention to the notes from Ambarussa. One was from Amras, who had more legible writing than Amrod; the other was from Fëanor. Amras had only written a few lines to assure Curufin that they were all fine, and that the paths down the mountain were blocked, and so no one should expect to hear from them until spring. Unless you take up another one of the palantíri of course, Amras added at the end. I think we all tend to forget that part of their purpose is to speak over distances and not just to see things and spy on people, so I thought I’d remind you.

Fëanor’s note was longer, small letters crammed onto the bit of paper the bird had been willing to carry. Curufin skimmed it, looking for anything notable either good or bad, but there was nothing that stood out. There was time yet for Fëanor to go a little mad, trapped up the mountain in the snow, but so far he was enjoying both the quiet and the distance from Tirion.

By the time Curufin put the letters away, Náriel had finished telling Celebrimbor all of the important news. “So where is Calissë, then?” Celebrimbor asked, since Náriel had informed him that Calissë was away on an adventure, but not where or with whom. “I swear that I left her quite safe at Grandmother’s house.”

Curufin laughed. “She’s off in Taur-en-Gellam with Maglor and Daeron,” he said. “In Maglor’s last letter he said she’s charmed half of Thingol’s court and made friends with all of Daeron’s youngest students.”

“That is an adventure,” said Celebrimbor as Náriel giggled. “I’m surprised you allowed her to go.” Curufin shrugged. “Better, I suppose, than going off with Amrod and Amras to the mountains.”

“That, I would have refused,” Curufin said. “At least in Taur-en-Gellam I know she’s sleeping in a proper bed and not on a tree branch somewhere like a squirrel.”

“Squirrels make nests,” Náriel said. “Uncle Tyelko showed me one once. They’re cozy!”

“And still not suitable for little elven girls,” said Curufin. “We’ll leave the squirrel nests to your uncles.”

As autumn faded from its bright colors to the softer browns and grey skies that heralded winter to come, Curufin finished the rose-shaped hair piece and tucked it into the package of other Midwinter gifts that Rundamírë put together for Fingon’s household. He made other gifts for his brothers and various relations, and attended parties with Rundamírë and Celebrimbor. Maedhros made his own way to Eressëa to visit Elrond, but continued writing to Náriel, who was more willing to practice her penmanship when it meant she got silly stories about hedgehogs and Huan, including drawings, in return. Celegorm sent Curufin a badly-knit scarf made out of hideous yellow yarn, and Curufin sent back a set of bright green hair ribbons. Things were busy but settling into a routine, and it was nice.

He didn’t get a chance to take out the palantír again until an evening when Rundamírë was visiting her sisters and Celebrimbor and Náriel were busy building a fortress in her room out of blankets and pillows. Curufin retreated to his own bedroom, and settled onto the bed with the stone on his lap. He looked for Maglor first, and found him with surprising ease, seated on the floor of a comfortable looking parlor with Calissë on his lap, each of them with identical, intent expressions as they listened to someone—Curufin recognized the look on Calissë’s face as the one she wore when entirely absorbed in a story. It was startling and funny to see it mirrored in his brother. He noticed also that Maglor was dressed very warmly, even sitting so close to the fire—he still hated to be cold.

Curufin withdrew from the stone and sat for a little while, fighting the temptation to look for Maglor’s past. He had spoken of it only haltingly, never in much detail—only just enough to get the rest of them to stop asking questions. Curufin had told Rundamírë that he wouldn’t look for the dark past, and he had meant it, but now he had it in his head; and he was still his father’s son and sometimes that meant he couldn’t quite make himself leave well enough alone.

He leaned back over the stone, and this time the vision coalesced into a large and shadowy room, lit by red braziers along the walls, where dark figures hovered. The doors opened and Maglor stumbled in, dirty and bruised and with his clothes in tatters and his hair in tangles, shoved from behind by the orcs that then pulled him forward. Curufin watched his eyes dart around, taking in the room and its occupants. This was not Maglor bowed or broken; he remained defiant even when forced to his knees, his arms bound behind him, shoulders thrown back and chin raised up. But Curufin knew his brother and he could see the fear in his eyes when he realized who it was that sat on the dais before him. But he still didn’t shrink back, even when the gag in his mouth unraveled and the Necromancer clearly commanded him to sing—drawing him into a trap, into a battle like the one that had felled Finrod long ago. Maglor clenched his jaw, baring his teeth, looking for a moment as wild and fearsome as Celegorm, and for a few minutes Curufin thought he would refuse entirely. Then he relaxed his muscles all at once, and opened his mouth. The palantír was soundless, but Curufin did not think Maglor’s song was a loud one. It was the sort of posture he adopted when singing very softly, when singing lullabies or something equally gentle. Curufin watched as he kept singing even when the Necromancer rose to counter him; he could almost see their songs flowing back and forth, making the air shiver, Maglor somehow resisting far longer than Curufin would have thought possible, even for him.

Then something happened and Maglor crumpled like a puppet with its strings cut, and Curufin shoved the stone away, breathing hard. He’d intended to look for his father next, but he didn’t think he could bring himself to look for anything in the palantír again that evening. Instead he shoved it back into its bag and then dropped it into the chest by his side of the bed before retreating downstairs to his workshop. He didn’t have anything in particular to lose himself in, so he emptied the shelves that held his various boxes and jars of gemstones and set about reorganizing them and making a note of what gems he needed to make or find more of. Anything to stop thinking about the image of Maglor falling.

He didn’t pay much attention to the passage of time until Celebrimbor came looking for him. “It’s very late to be doing that, isn’t it?” he asked, crouching beside Curufin where he was seated on the floor in front of the shelves.

“Is it?” Curufin looked up. “What’s the time?”

“Nearing midnight. Ammë just came home. Did something happen?”

“No.” Curufin started putting everything back onto the shelves. “I’ve been meaning to reorganize, and figured I might as well get started while I was thinking about it tonight.” It wasn’t untrue, he told himself. Celebrimbor didn’t need anything new to worry about, and it was just his own foolishness that had upset him. Maglor was long out of Dol Guldur, and as recovered as it was possible to be.

“I got a letter from Ingwion today,” Celebrimbor said. He sat down on the floor, crossing his legs as he watched Curufin. “About that feast of Ingwë’s—all kinds of things will need to be made and constructed for it. Stages, tents, pavilions, decorations.”

“The whole of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain will be wanted, then, as well as all the rest of Tirion’s crafters,” said Curufin. “You must all be excited.”

“We are—it’s nice to have a large project to look forward to. Your work will be wanted too, you know.”

“Whatever Ingwë wants, I suppose,” said Curufin. “It’ll be another year, year and a half?”

“Give or take. He wants it to run through Midsummer. Maglor’s going to be busy if he really wants to finish this song of his beforehand on top of whatever it is Elemmírë’s planning.”

“Yes, he will. Has he spoken to you of it?”

“No, but I don’t think I have anything to add. I remember Finwë fondly but not terribly well.”

Curufin grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know. Hand me that jar please?”

Celebrimbor obliged, and said, “Are you worried about Calissë?”

“I’m always at least a little worried about all of you,” Curufin said, “but no, I’m not particularly worried about her tonight.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Atya,” Celebrimbor said quietly.

“That isn’t how fatherhood works, Tyelpë.” Curufin reached out to muss Celebrimbor’s hair. “It’s no great burden; I’m not lying awake at night thinking of all the terrible things that might befall you. I’m just—too aware that there are things that I cannot protect you from, or your sisters. At least now they are mundane, everyday sorts of things.”

Celebrimbor shoved his disheveled hair out of his face. “But you are worried about something. Is it Maedhros?”

Curufin sighed. He picked up an almost-empty jar of sapphires and made a note to start making more the next day. “In part.” In large part. Maedhros wasn’t as haunted as he had been before he’d gone to Lórien, but something about the very idea of speaking to their father seemed to be driving him at times back to that old state of mind, however much he tried to protest otherwise. He was unhappy in much the same way that Fëanor often was—and was it any wonder? Curufin had been Fëanor’s favorite for a long time, but Maedhros was the eldest, the heir, and had been even closer to their father for even longer; it had been Maedhros who was the first to see the Silmarils after they were completed, before even Finwë or Nerdanel. There had been deep love and trust between them, even after the Darkening, but it had shattered when Maedhros had refused to take part in burning the ships. Curufin hadn’t been present when Fëanor had raged at him—he had been with Celebrimbor, struggling to explain what had just happened and why—and he did not know what words had passed between them, but Maedhros had not been the same afterward.

They’d all forgotten about that, in the wake of the horrors of Angband and the rescue from Thangorodrim. Maybe Maedhros had made sure they all forgot. However much they’d fought over his decision to abdicate the crown he was still their oldest brother and their leader, and if he was not going to speak of Losgar again, then the rest of them wouldn’t either. It was a habit they’d made of a lot of things, not speaking, and even now it was hard to break out of it. Curufin had only recalled that rift opening at Losgar recently because Fëanor had come to talk to him about it before he had left Tirion. There was a lot that Fëanor did not remember with much clarity, between the Darkening and his own death, which wasn’t really surprising, but Curufin hadn’t been able to answer the tentative questions that he’d asked about it, and Fëanor had not said what had brought Losgar back to his mind all of a sudden—it wasn’t hard, though, to guess.

“Atya?”

“Why were you so willing to speak to me again, when you returned?” It was a question Curufin had never dared to ask before. It hadn’t really mattered, because Celebrimbor had been willing to speak to him—he’d been happy to see him. The why of it had been a thing Curufin hadn't wanted to bring up, lest Celebrimbor remember all of the reasons he should not be so happy. Enough time had passed now, though, that even if they did end up arguing about it nothing would be ruined. It would be awful, but it wouldn’t be the end.

Celebrimbor did not answer immediately. When Curufin looked at him he saw the faint frown on his face as he stared at the ground, putting his thoughts in order. Finally, he said, without looking up, “It wasn’t the same thing.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No, it was—I’d had a lot of time to think about what happened, to come to terms with the things you did and the things you didn’t do. Grandfather dragged all of you down with him when he swore his oath—though I really don’t believe he expected anything to go as it did. I think he really believed the Teleri would be willing to either join us or at least lend their ships. But he still expected all of you to follow him without question or hesitation.”

“I expected the same of you,” Curufin said quietly.

“Not exactly the same. You never had me swear the oath, and you could have. I would’ve done it willingly right up until Beren came to Nargothrond. When we parted, I couldn’t follow you and I couldn’t bear to watch you fall the way you were, but I never actually doubted whether or not you loved me. It was just that you were becoming someone who could not show it as you should anymore, and I was afraid that if I did follow, and if I did keep defying you or trying to argue, that you would stop. At least when we parted I could believe there was something left to salvage later.”

Maybe there had been—until abruptly there wasn’t. “Is that really all it was? Time?”

“Time and regret.”

“Maglor had that too,” Curufin said after a moment.

“That’s different again,” said Celebrimbor. “He’s more like Maedhros than like me—and I was never left alone as he was. I had people I could talk to, to confide in and to help me make sense of it. Maglor never had anything like that until he came here. But now, I’m not sure there’s anything more that you can do to fix what’s between them and Grandfather.”

“I know. It just feels like there should be.”

“What you can do is come with me tomorrow to meet with everyone to organize who is going to do what for this upcoming feast, and getting materials, and all of it. You’re much better at all of that than I ever was.”

As distractions went, this was an obvious one, but Curufin had used the same tactic on his own father and couldn’t really be upset about it. “All right,” he said. It would be good to have a big project to occupy his mind anyway—and to work with others in both the planning and execution of it. If it was complicated enough there would be no room for worry. Curufin put the last jars back onto the shelf and rose to his feet. “Can I see Ingwion’s letter?”

The meeting the next day was crowded and chaotic; there were meeting halls scattered throughout the city for just such a purpose, and the one in their neighborhood was more than half full by lunchtime, with members of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain of Eregion in addition to their friends and family and anyone else who had happened to catch wind of something going on. Word would spread even farther in the coming days. Celebrimbor liked to deny that he was any good at organization or any sort of leadership, but of course that was a lie. He hated the paperwork and the minute details of the logistics, but that didn’t mean he was bad at them—and he was very good at people. Curufin sat and watched him call everyone to order, listened to him speak and make sure others had a chance to say their piece or put forth their ideas, of which there were plenty. Curufin, along with half a dozen others, took notes and jotted down questions they would need to send back to Ingwion, starting with the most obvious: where was this great feast to be held? Everyone had their own ideas of where would be the best place, but ultimately it would be Ingwë’s choice, probably in conjunction with Fingolfin and Olwë and Elu Thingol—and with Turgon and Angrod and others who were the princes and lords of their own smaller realms who may or may not want to be anywhere near this grand undertaking.

Curufin thought it should be held somewhere away from any cities or realms, somewhere perhaps on the open plains out west that stretched for miles and miles, all rolling hills and wildflowers and grass. There would be plenty of room to set up pavilions and tents—to create a small temporary city for the duration of the feasting. There were rivers and lakes aplenty, and there would be game for hunting, and room for racing and other games. That was what he would do, but it was just as likely that Ingwë would choose to hold it instead outside of Valmar, near the Ezellohar where most grand festivals were traditionally held. They could make it work, but if it was to be as big as Ingwë wanted, as Ingwion had hinted at in his letter to Celebrimbor, then Curufin wasn’t sure there would be room, not between the forests and the farmland and the cities of Tirion and Valmar, not to mention the Pelóri right there.

Regardless, it wasn’t his decision, and Curufin was quite happy to take what directions he was given and to follow them, wherever the feast ended up taking place. Make something lovely was what it would boil down to, and that was always his favorite kind of challenge. He also enjoyed all of the work in the background—the logistics, the details, the coordination, all the things that frustrated Celebrimbor. He had learned most of those skills in Beleriand and found that he was good at them; it was one reason he and Celegorm had worked so well together in Himlad, because Celegorm was not good at those things, but was good at all the same things Celebrimbor was.

As the meeting dissolved, and everyone either departed or broke off into smaller groups to talk further or about something entirely different, Celebrimbor sat by Curufin. “Well, that was productive,” he said, looking over the pile of paper in front of them. “This should be fun.”

“Is that what it was like in Ost-in-Edhil?” Curufin asked.

Celebrimbor smiled. “Whenever we had some big project, yes—though we never had anyone else to ask for clarifications before.”

“Not even Gil-galad?”

“No, he never asked for anything so big. He was happy to let me have my fun in Eregion while he enjoyed the peace and quiet of Lindon. He was a good king,” Celebrimbor added after a moment, “a very good king. We were never close in friendship before, but that might change now if he has his way. He seems thrilled to come back to no responsibilities at all; I’ve never seen him so light or heard him laugh so often. Even Elrond doesn’t quite know what to do with it.”

Someone came over to ask for Celebrimbor’s opinion on something. Curufin waited until the conversation was over to say quietly, “Have I told you lately how proud I am of you, Tyelpë?”

“I don’t think I’ve done anything lately to warrant it.”

Curufin could list two dozen things from the last week alone—the stained-glass lampshades he was making for Eärwen that glowed like the finest jewels, the gentle way he teased Náriel into laughter every day, the way he had organized this large and very disorganized group of artisans in less than half a day, the way he had taken his cousin Maeglin under his wing determined to ease his way into Noldorin society, or at least to find a place for him where he could find his footing and figure out what he wanted to make of himself. Curufin wasn’t going to say all that out loud and embarrass Celebrimbor in front of everyone, so he just shook his head, smiling, and said, “You don’t have to do anything. You’re just yourself.”