Post by Admin on Jan 1, 2021 21:19:10 GMT
Author: Sian22
Ranking: Tied for 1st place
Summary: Deep in a Dol Guldur dungeon, Celebrimbor must hold his silence to ensure his greatest work stays free.
Rating T: for strong subject matter
I gave up the Seven first.
It was a dreadful moment. One I shall not forget and had never thought to meet. His minions, slavering with excitement, hooting and cackling with glee, knew they had found the first breaking point and I, to my utter shame, could not hold out a moment more.
Where are they, Filth?
They returned me to my cell, limp and soaked in black despair; tossed me down upon the flags like a soiled, discarded rag and in my heart that was all too near the truth. I am not a soldier but I am my people’s lord, and this first act of abasement caught me between the hammer and the anvil. I could not fade and I could not hold, and so, in my mind I searched for crumbs of absolution.
They were only lesser rings. Not a journeyman’s first efforts, but neither were they tempered with a master’s steadiness. They would influence and reverberate but not suborn. Durin and his folk---Children of mighty Aulë, strong as solid stone---would surely be proof enough.
Valar forgive me.
I so wanted it to be the truth.
----------------------------
For the Nine I held out longer.
When first his servants assailed me before the gates of the Mirdain I fought with all my might, vainly and hopelessly, for they were too many and I too weak, and they grappled me in ugly iron chains.
At first some care was taken to not inflict any more damage than already done. The cool, damp cell was somewhat tolerable as prisons go. I had a pallet and grey wool blanket. A tiny window set with iron bars. A chamber pot. Even a crude spoon for eating with. “At least I am alive”, I thought, and set about sharpening it in secret, hatching inchoate plans of flight and hoarding this glimmer of hope to myself.
How naïve it seems an afterthought.
Of course they threatened the tools of my craft.
Without eyes I could not behold the curves of beauty. Without hands I could not shape and thus the moment came again--hard and pitiless as iron.
This time, fearing more deeply what would come to pass, I left myself. With a fëa tethered but lightly to hröa, days and blows passing like endless roiling storms until…
I broke.
Again.
“Nice and sharp she is.” The legion of other cuts were of no account but the oddly thin-faced chief jailor’s message was all too clear. His stinking breath gusted up against my face and black dagger tip pressed into my cheek. I knew the time would come when I had to give them up else the more important secret slipped.
Such simple things, the Nine: bands of white gold and mithril with little ornament but made with growing skill. What will happen to them? Will he keep them for himself or bind the unwary with their greed? Will he make a company of Captains to spur his legions on?
I do not know, but it can be nothing good.
Forgive me.
Nienna, mist grey and pitying all who weep, wash at my disgrace with your silver tears.
---------------------------------
How long has Vana’s tapestry unwound since? Weeks? Months? I have no sense of time. Stars wheel within my blood but I no longer see their dance. Long before, they stopped up my window and there is none here to ask for news.
I will not sully myself with Black Speech.
Is it the gate of winter now? I do not feel cold but the blains, red and swollen, adorn my feet and unbroken fingers like an itchy, evil lace. They will only worsen as the Dunedain’s Mettare comes. ‘Go away’, I plead, maddened by them more than the lice, but then, I still.
Remembering.
If it is cold then months have passed.
Good. Let time run like a river in Spring’s spate and bring them ever closer to their goal.
I have sent the Three away. Two to Ereinon and one to Artanis. Leagues and leagues they have yet to pass for their path will not be straight or swift. We in Eregion are overrun by the Enemy and they must not go openly, nor in the hands of a messenger any should expect. They are not of the One but still a part mastered by it, and the pull of Shadow could be too strong. There is only one in whom I trust their might: Aiwendil, master of shapes and changes of hue. By ways long and secret, he will take them to new homes. Lindon, with its scent of the Western sea and tang of red Uinen’s tress upon the rocks, shall host the Rings of Air and Fire; Caras Galadhon, of golden bloom and carpets of sweet-scented elanor, shall hide the Ring of Water.
Even here the memory of climbing the great mallorn trees can make me smile. The muscles of my abused face protest but my lips do quirk a little—both Lorien and Lindon are beautiful. And safe. And sure. Or as any realm of the Eldar can be when even the strongest--Nargothrond and Gondolin--can fall.
I turn then and press my cheek against the freezing stone, take up my spoon in my left hand to distract myself and scratch a filigree against its face. It does not do to think of Rings. The Three, powerful and eternal, last bulwark against the One, must not be too much in my mind.
He is subtle and I am losing strength.
Inexorably. Inevitably.
I fear that more than any single thing.
Even the opening of the door.
-----------------------
“Filth…confesssss… “
“Never! Never!” I cried and this time they set a different test. I was in the earth, their earth, pouring into my nose and lungs, deep and dank and heavy; I was in their earth, choking, fighting for scraps of air through a river of cold regret; buried so far I could not breathe and then, another voice:
Peace, my son said the deeps of the sea where Ulmonan glitters like a pearl. Peace, I am here and will succor you; and the bucket beside became a waterspout, rose up and drenched my face, and then they let me go for water they still fear, here.
On the muddied floor I closed my eye but it was only sleep, not death.
------------------
I was such a fool.
His voice was beautiful. Smooth and sable and utterly mesmerizing in one so fair and free with his talent, who bore gifts and smiles, and praise that warmed me more than it should.
Though Gil-galad and Artanis received him not, in Ost-in-Edhil we did. I had learned much in my days of smithing--of mined metals and gems from the Dwarves of Moria; of settings and design from Enerdhil of Gondolin; yet I had not his skill. Beauty melded to bright metal with power woven in.
It was the height of craft and learning. I set aside my doubts and watched as our new High Smith spread joy throughout the halls. My Brotherhood was entranced. They had a thirst for knowledge and Annatar was a well, a treatise on how to make the metal dance, to thrum with promise and turn it to something much more than simple ornament. I stood at the back of the crowded forge and watched the air shimmer with each blow and came to see something else.
He was also a master of doors.
Some were feints: wide open, beckoning thresholds too alluring to resist, and some were locked. An artificer--in the true and original meaning of the word—he showed so much and yet told so little of himself, and in my heart the flame of disquiet grew.
“Will you not take a hand at the cross-peen, Celebrimbor? Make a trial of your own? Surely you do not wish to be lesser skilled than your guildsmen?”
“Let others essay first.”
Lord of Gifts? Servant of Aulë? Beloved teacher? He was all this and more, worryingly so, yet even when my Lord and Lady turned their backs on him and left I was too uncertain to speak out. I said nothing. Watched and waited; learned with all the rest to make the metal bend instantly to the forger’s will, sing with energy and promise.
I did not flinch when he often took my hand and pulled me to the bench.
Always I had some excuse. Cardonil needs more time. Accounts are due next day. I met that angelic smile with outward deference; bided my time until he left for parts unknown and I could work in peace.
I knew exactly what I should make.
We, the Firstborn, remember the beauty of the Undying Lands, watch the dry leaves fall and flowers fade each season and regret. No spring can redress it, no fleeting burst of life can assuage its eternal ache, and so, I took my own unsullied tools, my own rough skill and made three Rings of Power. Tempered them with Sirannon’s snow-fed springs. Felt the note of joy inside--an atonement, if you will, for the evils done by my house.
Each hearkened to a Silmaril’s final fate. Fire for the one cast by my uncle into a burning pit. Water for the second flung into the sea. Air for the third set into the sky to sail with Vingilot. In this way their Names and form honoured the Aratar:
Narya, red and gold; a fire to set courage and strength and hope in sinew; to preserve the bones of earth; to honour the ardor of Aule’s craft.
Nenya, mithril and adamant; shining as a star upon the waves, glistening like the shells of the Ulumuri; a shimmer that can conceal, preserve unstained and hide from evil; to honour Ulmo who loves so First and Secondborn.
Vilya, gold and sapphire, mightiest of the three; blue as the Veil of Arda, as the Elder King’s great staff; to envelop and protect, heal and preserve; honouring Manwë who preserves unwithered the peace of Valinor.
They were a challenge. The greatest and hardest work that I had done, the fairest rings in Middle-Earth; wrought in secret; apart, I believed, from his binding spell.
How very wrong I was.
It was all a trap.
And I walked my people into it.
-------------------------------------
“Filth, confesss…or we shall fly your body like a flag.”
Oddly this heinous threat left me most unmoved. The moment the One declared itself we knew that we were lost. Those who wore Rings put them off, durst not use them or give them up, and he, more terrible than we could countenance, came upon us in open war. Eregion lies in flames and still he searches; celebrates each inevitable discovery, crows loudly of it that I know their fate.
They can take my hröa, beat it, burn it, turn it to a fearsome banner of direst warning, but I am unafraid. Whatever they do to me, the Three will remain untouched by him, pure and uncorrupted.
This time when the lashing ends, I swim up through the river-mud of throbbing pain and catch the vinegar-sharp scent of regret, wondering what it means. Grief for my people? Shame at my stupidity? Anger at my cowardice?
Yes and yes.
And then I laugh.
It is also the stinging brew they cleanse me with.
-----------
I am the last of my father’s house and yet I am my mother's son.
Those who knew Tirion’s glistening walls and diamond streets remember her--an elleth of a wholly different look and temper from my father Curufin; so much that it amazes me that she, quiet and kind, so soft in heart, mild-eyed, should cleave to one high-hearted and always bold. He was his father’s favourite—alike to Fëanor in all ways and from him I have my father-name and my skill. If he is steel—strong and durable, yielding only at extremes--I am silver--enduring, but not showy or vain. Delighting only in that my work honours Eru’s song.
She refused his pleas. Serving Estë as she did, she would not leave, and I, a youngling barely past majority, was torn; wishing to stay with her and yet mindful of my father’s admonition to always look to the honour of our House. I stood on a Swanship’s deck with chill snaking up my spine but also a yearning in my heart.
I wanted skill. I am my father's son in that.
Once in Middle-Earth I looked rather to my beloved uncle—Felagund of the Shining Caves-- who knew what virtue lay in toil and humility; that will alone could not translate honour into substance if the sentiment within went unmatched by deeds without. By the sword my father’s family could never win what they lost by treachery and at last I broke with them utterly. Turned away. Sought out Gondolin and set my focus to creation.
There, while a treachery long-foretold came to fruition outside that sheltered world, I molded myself, apart as ever. Dalliances bloomed here and there but never deeply or for long-- the fires of the heart never moved me as did the flickers of the forge—and my partners could not know how much a blessing that would be.
I was not remembering the lesson I had been taught.
Once, at the bleak shores of Araman, I stood by my father's side and quailed with him to hear the words of Mandos, solemn and terrible, declaring a doom that would follow, Age by Age, all who declared the Oath. I crossed the sea and held fast to my fraying pride, followed my uncles not from Nargothrond. Swore no oath and yet still I did not understand.
The reach of those ringing words. Their eternal and subtle chains. The portent of my father's naked sword, blood red before the torches' glow.
'Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well.'
'To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well.'
I did not see.
I am the last work of my father and my grandsire and shall suffer the selfsame end.
It is a bitter cup within the dregs.
--------------------------------
‘Filth, confesssss….”
They come each day to feed me now no sustenance but oily water, leavened by a steady diet of mockery and humiliation. The blanket is moth-eaten and breaking down. My little patch of sky is blocked. There is nowhere to hide but inside my mind. Each time they ask and each time I run.
“Mind the alembic now, hold it steady, Inglorëa.’
“Yes, master. Like this?”
“That is right. Watch and you shall see silver separate from the gold, the wisdom of Aule’s fashioning.”
Sometimes, I grieve there is none to call my mother name this side the Sea; none to call it at the last and give me hope, but perhaps that is just as well.
There is none here to witness my final shame though the Yrch have vowed that all shall see it.
Mandos judge me kindly.
I was silent then.
I know I may only gain my honour back by keeping silent now.
--------------------------------
It is dark in here. An irony that there is no shadow for there is no light. All is chill and damp. It makes me want to laugh how much I craved a bath at first and now I am soaked and shivering. Burning inside with quite another fire. Fearing the cold that rises more than the air, the last bits of the blanket lie under me, the softest thing I touch.
The coughing, damnably, hurts most my broken ribs.
I am going to die here. Alone. Like a broken bird fallen on an empty mountaintop or a sailor sunk down in the deeps. Salt tears burn my face, run past the hollow of my chest to drop, one by one, upon the wool. I lament, but no echo of it shall pass beyond the mountains.
Perhaps that is fitting, too.
I still feel Varda’s kindling in my blood. Somewhere the sun lifts the sap to run in the trees with life. Somewhere my people fight, and sing, and die. Long before, I gave up singing to pass the time and so now I do what I can to remember the beauty of the things I crafted: ‘Speak friend and enter’-- Durin’s Door below Silvertine that was the first marrying of my slight kitchen magic to mithril and my friend Narvi’s skill; the Elessar, green as the verdant glades and glorious, with something of Anor at its heart.
I laugh a little madly, for remembering even now instills the urge to create. What do they make of my scratchings on the wall? Settings and chasings and arabesques, row upon ordered row, becoming smaller and sparer with time. When my ruined fingers would no longer move, I took the nail between my teeth and now I am too weak for even that.
I still devise them in my mind.
The foetid current stirred a bit and I felt a faint rush of warmth, cracked open the blood crusted in my eye to see--
a butterfly. Manwe’s servant; so fragile a thing to be here where all is unyielding stone. What portent does she bring?
Wings of gold and silver kissed by a sheen of blue and green and red. Sparkling as clear air above the deep green-blue of water, all underneath the sun.
Then, I knew.
They are the colours of my rings.
Oh, but I could weep if I only had the breath.
There came the barest brush. She swooped to rest as a kiss upon my brow and then alit upon one unbroken finger.
Safe. They are safe. And there is naught to forgive. What has been wrought shall turn in the end to gold.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel. I felt light and thin. And all of gossamer.
I let my hröa go.
---------------------------------------
Author’s note: Celebrimbor has no known mother name. His father name Telperinquar is Quenya for ‘silver-fist’. I could not resist the urge: Inglorëa is a version of the Noldorin ‘gold-heart’.
Ranking: Tied for 1st place
Summary: Deep in a Dol Guldur dungeon, Celebrimbor must hold his silence to ensure his greatest work stays free.
Rating T: for strong subject matter
I gave up the Seven first.
It was a dreadful moment. One I shall not forget and had never thought to meet. His minions, slavering with excitement, hooting and cackling with glee, knew they had found the first breaking point and I, to my utter shame, could not hold out a moment more.
Where are they, Filth?
They returned me to my cell, limp and soaked in black despair; tossed me down upon the flags like a soiled, discarded rag and in my heart that was all too near the truth. I am not a soldier but I am my people’s lord, and this first act of abasement caught me between the hammer and the anvil. I could not fade and I could not hold, and so, in my mind I searched for crumbs of absolution.
They were only lesser rings. Not a journeyman’s first efforts, but neither were they tempered with a master’s steadiness. They would influence and reverberate but not suborn. Durin and his folk---Children of mighty Aulë, strong as solid stone---would surely be proof enough.
Valar forgive me.
I so wanted it to be the truth.
----------------------------
For the Nine I held out longer.
When first his servants assailed me before the gates of the Mirdain I fought with all my might, vainly and hopelessly, for they were too many and I too weak, and they grappled me in ugly iron chains.
At first some care was taken to not inflict any more damage than already done. The cool, damp cell was somewhat tolerable as prisons go. I had a pallet and grey wool blanket. A tiny window set with iron bars. A chamber pot. Even a crude spoon for eating with. “At least I am alive”, I thought, and set about sharpening it in secret, hatching inchoate plans of flight and hoarding this glimmer of hope to myself.
How naïve it seems an afterthought.
Of course they threatened the tools of my craft.
Without eyes I could not behold the curves of beauty. Without hands I could not shape and thus the moment came again--hard and pitiless as iron.
This time, fearing more deeply what would come to pass, I left myself. With a fëa tethered but lightly to hröa, days and blows passing like endless roiling storms until…
I broke.
Again.
“Nice and sharp she is.” The legion of other cuts were of no account but the oddly thin-faced chief jailor’s message was all too clear. His stinking breath gusted up against my face and black dagger tip pressed into my cheek. I knew the time would come when I had to give them up else the more important secret slipped.
Such simple things, the Nine: bands of white gold and mithril with little ornament but made with growing skill. What will happen to them? Will he keep them for himself or bind the unwary with their greed? Will he make a company of Captains to spur his legions on?
I do not know, but it can be nothing good.
Forgive me.
Nienna, mist grey and pitying all who weep, wash at my disgrace with your silver tears.
---------------------------------
How long has Vana’s tapestry unwound since? Weeks? Months? I have no sense of time. Stars wheel within my blood but I no longer see their dance. Long before, they stopped up my window and there is none here to ask for news.
I will not sully myself with Black Speech.
Is it the gate of winter now? I do not feel cold but the blains, red and swollen, adorn my feet and unbroken fingers like an itchy, evil lace. They will only worsen as the Dunedain’s Mettare comes. ‘Go away’, I plead, maddened by them more than the lice, but then, I still.
Remembering.
If it is cold then months have passed.
Good. Let time run like a river in Spring’s spate and bring them ever closer to their goal.
I have sent the Three away. Two to Ereinon and one to Artanis. Leagues and leagues they have yet to pass for their path will not be straight or swift. We in Eregion are overrun by the Enemy and they must not go openly, nor in the hands of a messenger any should expect. They are not of the One but still a part mastered by it, and the pull of Shadow could be too strong. There is only one in whom I trust their might: Aiwendil, master of shapes and changes of hue. By ways long and secret, he will take them to new homes. Lindon, with its scent of the Western sea and tang of red Uinen’s tress upon the rocks, shall host the Rings of Air and Fire; Caras Galadhon, of golden bloom and carpets of sweet-scented elanor, shall hide the Ring of Water.
Even here the memory of climbing the great mallorn trees can make me smile. The muscles of my abused face protest but my lips do quirk a little—both Lorien and Lindon are beautiful. And safe. And sure. Or as any realm of the Eldar can be when even the strongest--Nargothrond and Gondolin--can fall.
I turn then and press my cheek against the freezing stone, take up my spoon in my left hand to distract myself and scratch a filigree against its face. It does not do to think of Rings. The Three, powerful and eternal, last bulwark against the One, must not be too much in my mind.
He is subtle and I am losing strength.
Inexorably. Inevitably.
I fear that more than any single thing.
Even the opening of the door.
-----------------------
“Filth…confesssss… “
“Never! Never!” I cried and this time they set a different test. I was in the earth, their earth, pouring into my nose and lungs, deep and dank and heavy; I was in their earth, choking, fighting for scraps of air through a river of cold regret; buried so far I could not breathe and then, another voice:
Peace, my son said the deeps of the sea where Ulmonan glitters like a pearl. Peace, I am here and will succor you; and the bucket beside became a waterspout, rose up and drenched my face, and then they let me go for water they still fear, here.
On the muddied floor I closed my eye but it was only sleep, not death.
------------------
I was such a fool.
His voice was beautiful. Smooth and sable and utterly mesmerizing in one so fair and free with his talent, who bore gifts and smiles, and praise that warmed me more than it should.
Though Gil-galad and Artanis received him not, in Ost-in-Edhil we did. I had learned much in my days of smithing--of mined metals and gems from the Dwarves of Moria; of settings and design from Enerdhil of Gondolin; yet I had not his skill. Beauty melded to bright metal with power woven in.
It was the height of craft and learning. I set aside my doubts and watched as our new High Smith spread joy throughout the halls. My Brotherhood was entranced. They had a thirst for knowledge and Annatar was a well, a treatise on how to make the metal dance, to thrum with promise and turn it to something much more than simple ornament. I stood at the back of the crowded forge and watched the air shimmer with each blow and came to see something else.
He was also a master of doors.
Some were feints: wide open, beckoning thresholds too alluring to resist, and some were locked. An artificer--in the true and original meaning of the word—he showed so much and yet told so little of himself, and in my heart the flame of disquiet grew.
“Will you not take a hand at the cross-peen, Celebrimbor? Make a trial of your own? Surely you do not wish to be lesser skilled than your guildsmen?”
“Let others essay first.”
Lord of Gifts? Servant of Aulë? Beloved teacher? He was all this and more, worryingly so, yet even when my Lord and Lady turned their backs on him and left I was too uncertain to speak out. I said nothing. Watched and waited; learned with all the rest to make the metal bend instantly to the forger’s will, sing with energy and promise.
I did not flinch when he often took my hand and pulled me to the bench.
Always I had some excuse. Cardonil needs more time. Accounts are due next day. I met that angelic smile with outward deference; bided my time until he left for parts unknown and I could work in peace.
I knew exactly what I should make.
We, the Firstborn, remember the beauty of the Undying Lands, watch the dry leaves fall and flowers fade each season and regret. No spring can redress it, no fleeting burst of life can assuage its eternal ache, and so, I took my own unsullied tools, my own rough skill and made three Rings of Power. Tempered them with Sirannon’s snow-fed springs. Felt the note of joy inside--an atonement, if you will, for the evils done by my house.
Each hearkened to a Silmaril’s final fate. Fire for the one cast by my uncle into a burning pit. Water for the second flung into the sea. Air for the third set into the sky to sail with Vingilot. In this way their Names and form honoured the Aratar:
Narya, red and gold; a fire to set courage and strength and hope in sinew; to preserve the bones of earth; to honour the ardor of Aule’s craft.
Nenya, mithril and adamant; shining as a star upon the waves, glistening like the shells of the Ulumuri; a shimmer that can conceal, preserve unstained and hide from evil; to honour Ulmo who loves so First and Secondborn.
Vilya, gold and sapphire, mightiest of the three; blue as the Veil of Arda, as the Elder King’s great staff; to envelop and protect, heal and preserve; honouring Manwë who preserves unwithered the peace of Valinor.
They were a challenge. The greatest and hardest work that I had done, the fairest rings in Middle-Earth; wrought in secret; apart, I believed, from his binding spell.
How very wrong I was.
It was all a trap.
And I walked my people into it.
-------------------------------------
“Filth, confesss…or we shall fly your body like a flag.”
Oddly this heinous threat left me most unmoved. The moment the One declared itself we knew that we were lost. Those who wore Rings put them off, durst not use them or give them up, and he, more terrible than we could countenance, came upon us in open war. Eregion lies in flames and still he searches; celebrates each inevitable discovery, crows loudly of it that I know their fate.
They can take my hröa, beat it, burn it, turn it to a fearsome banner of direst warning, but I am unafraid. Whatever they do to me, the Three will remain untouched by him, pure and uncorrupted.
This time when the lashing ends, I swim up through the river-mud of throbbing pain and catch the vinegar-sharp scent of regret, wondering what it means. Grief for my people? Shame at my stupidity? Anger at my cowardice?
Yes and yes.
And then I laugh.
It is also the stinging brew they cleanse me with.
-----------
I am the last of my father’s house and yet I am my mother's son.
Those who knew Tirion’s glistening walls and diamond streets remember her--an elleth of a wholly different look and temper from my father Curufin; so much that it amazes me that she, quiet and kind, so soft in heart, mild-eyed, should cleave to one high-hearted and always bold. He was his father’s favourite—alike to Fëanor in all ways and from him I have my father-name and my skill. If he is steel—strong and durable, yielding only at extremes--I am silver--enduring, but not showy or vain. Delighting only in that my work honours Eru’s song.
She refused his pleas. Serving Estë as she did, she would not leave, and I, a youngling barely past majority, was torn; wishing to stay with her and yet mindful of my father’s admonition to always look to the honour of our House. I stood on a Swanship’s deck with chill snaking up my spine but also a yearning in my heart.
I wanted skill. I am my father's son in that.
Once in Middle-Earth I looked rather to my beloved uncle—Felagund of the Shining Caves-- who knew what virtue lay in toil and humility; that will alone could not translate honour into substance if the sentiment within went unmatched by deeds without. By the sword my father’s family could never win what they lost by treachery and at last I broke with them utterly. Turned away. Sought out Gondolin and set my focus to creation.
There, while a treachery long-foretold came to fruition outside that sheltered world, I molded myself, apart as ever. Dalliances bloomed here and there but never deeply or for long-- the fires of the heart never moved me as did the flickers of the forge—and my partners could not know how much a blessing that would be.
I was not remembering the lesson I had been taught.
Once, at the bleak shores of Araman, I stood by my father's side and quailed with him to hear the words of Mandos, solemn and terrible, declaring a doom that would follow, Age by Age, all who declared the Oath. I crossed the sea and held fast to my fraying pride, followed my uncles not from Nargothrond. Swore no oath and yet still I did not understand.
The reach of those ringing words. Their eternal and subtle chains. The portent of my father's naked sword, blood red before the torches' glow.
'Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue. To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well.'
'To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well.'
I did not see.
I am the last work of my father and my grandsire and shall suffer the selfsame end.
It is a bitter cup within the dregs.
--------------------------------
‘Filth, confesssss….”
They come each day to feed me now no sustenance but oily water, leavened by a steady diet of mockery and humiliation. The blanket is moth-eaten and breaking down. My little patch of sky is blocked. There is nowhere to hide but inside my mind. Each time they ask and each time I run.
“Mind the alembic now, hold it steady, Inglorëa.’
“Yes, master. Like this?”
“That is right. Watch and you shall see silver separate from the gold, the wisdom of Aule’s fashioning.”
Sometimes, I grieve there is none to call my mother name this side the Sea; none to call it at the last and give me hope, but perhaps that is just as well.
There is none here to witness my final shame though the Yrch have vowed that all shall see it.
Mandos judge me kindly.
I was silent then.
I know I may only gain my honour back by keeping silent now.
--------------------------------
It is dark in here. An irony that there is no shadow for there is no light. All is chill and damp. It makes me want to laugh how much I craved a bath at first and now I am soaked and shivering. Burning inside with quite another fire. Fearing the cold that rises more than the air, the last bits of the blanket lie under me, the softest thing I touch.
The coughing, damnably, hurts most my broken ribs.
I am going to die here. Alone. Like a broken bird fallen on an empty mountaintop or a sailor sunk down in the deeps. Salt tears burn my face, run past the hollow of my chest to drop, one by one, upon the wool. I lament, but no echo of it shall pass beyond the mountains.
Perhaps that is fitting, too.
I still feel Varda’s kindling in my blood. Somewhere the sun lifts the sap to run in the trees with life. Somewhere my people fight, and sing, and die. Long before, I gave up singing to pass the time and so now I do what I can to remember the beauty of the things I crafted: ‘Speak friend and enter’-- Durin’s Door below Silvertine that was the first marrying of my slight kitchen magic to mithril and my friend Narvi’s skill; the Elessar, green as the verdant glades and glorious, with something of Anor at its heart.
I laugh a little madly, for remembering even now instills the urge to create. What do they make of my scratchings on the wall? Settings and chasings and arabesques, row upon ordered row, becoming smaller and sparer with time. When my ruined fingers would no longer move, I took the nail between my teeth and now I am too weak for even that.
I still devise them in my mind.
The foetid current stirred a bit and I felt a faint rush of warmth, cracked open the blood crusted in my eye to see--
a butterfly. Manwe’s servant; so fragile a thing to be here where all is unyielding stone. What portent does she bring?
Wings of gold and silver kissed by a sheen of blue and green and red. Sparkling as clear air above the deep green-blue of water, all underneath the sun.
Then, I knew.
They are the colours of my rings.
Oh, but I could weep if I only had the breath.
There came the barest brush. She swooped to rest as a kiss upon my brow and then alit upon one unbroken finger.
Safe. They are safe. And there is naught to forgive. What has been wrought shall turn in the end to gold.
A Elbereth Gilthoniel. I felt light and thin. And all of gossamer.
I let my hröa go.
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Author’s note: Celebrimbor has no known mother name. His father name Telperinquar is Quenya for ‘silver-fist’. I could not resist the urge: Inglorëa is a version of the Noldorin ‘gold-heart’.