I own nothing.
Four years after the beginning of the Second Age of the Sun, the last ship of the Host of Valinor sails back into the West. Celebrimbor is not on it.
He sits by the window in his apartments in Lindon, watching it leave out of the harbor of Mithlond, the gray ship sailing further and further away on a blue sea touched with early morning gold, until only the sails are visible, until finally the ship vanishes over the horizon, never to be seen again. It is still very early. The morning is quiet, and only the servants have awoken, cleaning, opening curtains; if Celebrimbor strains he can pick up the familiar smell of bread baking in the ovens downstairs.
The last ship of the Host of Valinor disappears over the edge of the horizon, and Celebrimbor sighs.
He was given a chance to return to the Undying Lands, along with all the other Exiles still alive at the end of the War of Wrath. The Valar have pardoned you, Eönwë said. Your misdeeds have been forgiven; you may return home now. There is no need to fear the wrath of the Valar. Do you not wish to go home?
And indeed, there were many who took it. The Sindar, of course, and the Laiquendi, those among them who made the journey to the Undying Lands were relieved to leave the lands at war. Many of those who left, Celebrimbor knows, had family who were killed over the course of the First Age, and hope to eventually be reunited with them in the Undying Lands. And the Exiles who returned, he can well believe that they were weary of fighting in strange lands, sundered from kith and kin. Celebrimbor can well believe that they wanted to go home.
But what is home? Celebrimbor wonders to himself, pressing his hand against the windowpane. What is supposed to be home? Are the Undying Lands supposed to be home to me? And misdeeds? he asks himself irritably. What misdeeds am I supposed to have done? What of them, they who were born here in Middle-Earth? What blasphemy are they supposed to have committed against the Valar? What blasphemy am I supposed to have committed? I was but a child when we left the Undying Lands.
I barely remember it at all. And if I do, I remember it naught but as a place of darkness and of doubt.
He does not know where home is. But he doubts that it lies across the great western Sea.
Celebrimbor tries to imagine going to the Undying Lands. He tries to imagine that he set sail with the host of Valinor and landed on Tol Eressëa, that he perhaps went back to Formenos, where he was born, or to Tirion, where his father and his father's kin originated. What would he find there?
His mother still lives; Celebrimbor knows that. So does his grandmother Nerdanel, and her parents. The youngest brother of his grandfather Fëanor, Finarfin, lives still in Tirion. Celebrimbor met him during the War of Wrath, spoke at length with him. Finarfin begged him, the grandson of his half-brother, to return with him to the Undying Lands when Morgoth was overcome. There is family that he has, living still, in the Undying Lands, whom he could dwell with. But what would he have there?
Celebrimbor barely remembers Telpalma his mother. Dark brown braided hair and a faintly reedy voice. A distant memory of kindness and maternal love, in a time before the Sun and the Moon. Unreal.
And of Nerdanel, and Mahtan and Istamë, Celebrimbor recalls nothing at all. He never met the latter two. He knows that there are two occasions when he must have seen Nerdanel, at his birth, and when she rode with Fëanor to Formenos in the chaos after Finwë's death, terrified over the fate of her sons. Celebrimbor knows that he has images of her in his mind. His father used to tell him stories of her when he was small. But how much of that is reality? How much of it is reality, and how much embellishment? He can not say anymore.
There is nothing for me in the Undying Lands.
But what is there for me here?
This is the land where he buried his father. Celebrimbor could say that. He draws in a deep breath, a knot forming in his throat. He and Curufin, they had words. He repudiated his father in Nargothrond, refusing to follow him in evil deeds. But that does not mean that I did not love him still. Even when he became a person I barely knew, I loved him still. Even when he became someone I had never known… And Father is buried here, on this side of the sea. My uncles, they buried him outside of Menegroth, in Doriath.
I wish I could have been there, in the end.
But where has Doriath gone? It has vanished, sunken beneath the ocean, along with the rest of Beleriand, save what is left of Ossiriand, now called Lindon, and a few sparse islands. So much has been lost, and Curufin's grave is only the tip of the iceberg. So much is gone, perished beneath rock and wave, and there is a whole world here that needs to be rebuilt. What shall be his place in it?
Celebrimbor knows that, to many, he is nothing more than a living embodiment of memories that the Elves of Middle-Earth want nothing more than to forget. The last blood scion of the House of Fëanor. The grandson of Fëanor, who called upon the Noldor to revolt and flee the shores of the Undying Lands, he who incited them to commit foul murder of the Swan-Elves of Alqualondë, he who burned to ash after challenging the Balrogs of Angband.
He is told that he resembles him. Truth be told, Celebrimbor barely remembers his grandfather any better than he does his mother, but he is told that he resembles Fëanor greatly. It could be the truth. Celebrimbor takes after Curufin in looks, who was said to be the very spit of his own father. But then, most who meet Celebrimbor admit that he is nothing like what they expected from a scion of the House of Fëanor.
Oh, I know what they expected, he can admit with a rueful smile. They expected a proud, overbearing, larger than life Edhel. Bloodthirsty and strong beyond reason. They expected someone who burned brighter and hotter than Vása herself. And instead, they got me. I don't know what they see in me that is so different from what they expected, but I am evidently a surprise to all.
Those who knew Grandfather say that I am like him and yet not. What is that supposed to mean?
What does it matter?
There is no place for Celebrimbor in the Undying Lands, and he does not know if there will be one in Middle-Earth. He does not know if he will ever find a home here. But a new Age has dawned. The world needs rebuilding. It needs fixing. Celebrimbor is good at fixing things. He always has been. It is a joy to him, to mend, to make whole again.
What was it that Gil-Galad said? I am still needed here. We need everyone we can get.
Celebrimbor smiles, and starts to head downstairs for breakfast.
The world needs fixing. He can do that. He might even break even with all the things that have been broken, in the end.
Mithlond—the Grey Havens (Sindarin)
Edhel—Elf (plural: Edhil) (Sindarin)
Vása—'The Consumer'; the name given by the Noldorin Exiles to the Sun