Notes: The dramatis personae has been updated, including the approximate age of the children in human years.
Thanks to chisscientist and Elenluin for leaving reviews!
III. Down
In which Maedhros and Fingon have a heart to heart, Celegorm and Galadriel set out to find a powerful helper and Curufin makes a disastrous decision.
The air was cool up here and the stars shone brilliantly, like diamonds scattered over black velvet. Maedhros was lying on his back and staring up at the sky, feeling his own breaths flow in and out of him by turns in waves of cold and warm air.
Fingon was lying next to him, his hands clasped behind his head and one leg propped up by the ankle on the knee of the other.
"So," Fingon said at last after they had been lying silently next to each other for what felt like an eternity, "Spill. What's wrong?"
For a moment, Maedhros was tempted to answer with "Too damn much", but he bit it back and actually thought about it.
"It's all right," he said at last. "I mean there's stuff that's are bugging me, but everyone has those. I am fine—and I am not going to whine like a brat about the little things that aren't going my way. It could be a lot worse, so I shouldn't complain."
Fingon turned his head to look at him. "Follwing your logic you shouldn't be allowed to rejoice either, since there are a lot of people who're happier than you are. Then again, you're doing a splendid job being unhappy as it is, so you and your dumb philosophy should be fine."
"You make this sound more dramatic than it is, really. A lot," Maedhros said with a grimace.
"Yeah, maybe. And maybe not, because you are someone who'd rather chew his own leg off than admit that he has a problem." Fingon snorted.
"There is no problem," Maedhros said.
"Liar. I've watched you for some time now and something is bugging you, as in 'really bugging you'."
Maedhros narrowed his eyes. "It's almost as if you want me to whine."
"I wanted to say that I was lending you an ear as a friend for your woes and worries, but if you want to put it in derogatory terms so badly, then yes; I am telling you to whine."
Maedhros smirked at him. "Tough luck, because I won't." He remembered something and sat up. "We've been up here for quite some time, I think we should go and look after the others," he mumbled almost to himself and crawled over to the edge of the roof. Meaning he would have, if Fingon had not suddenly grabbed him by the collar and yanked him backwards. Maedhros' stomach lurched and then he found himself flat on his back, blinking up at the silhouette of his cousin.
"That's what I meant!" Fingon said heatedly. "That's exactly what's wrong with you! All you ever think about are your brothers!"
Maedhros pried Fingon's fingers off his shirt and sat up. "Excuse me, but one of us has to do it. Contrary to some other people I can't only ever think of how to fill up my free time or lie down on sofas to talk about my problems," he said, his tone interlaced with the beginnings of annoyance.
"Now you're being an ass."
"And you're being jealous," Maedhros retorted.
Fingon seemed honestly taken aback at that. "I'm not jealous," he said.
Maedhros narrowed his eyes and decided to press his advantage. "Yes, you are. I know you've been peeved because I can't come over and spend as much time with you anymore, but some of us do can't spend all their time playing games because they have important things to take care of."
Even as he said the words he became aware of what he was implying and judging by his darkening expression, Fingon had noticed it as well. But the words were out, they had been intended to sting and they did and there was not taking them back.
"If you want to insult me with being irresponsible then grow a backbone and say it to my face," Fingon said in a tone that suddenly reminded Maedhros that it was a bad idea to start a fight with your cousin when both of you were perched on the roof of a tree-house some thirty feet above solid ground.
"I wasn't—I didn't mean to say that you were irresponsible," he back-pedalled. The lie came out as easily as the sincerest of truths and he knew that neither believed it for a second.
"Then what did you want to say?"
"I wanted… I didn't…. I am just trying to do everything right and look out for my brothers!" Maedhros said heatedly. "I am the eldest and an eldest brother just has some—some responsibilities!"
"Yeah, I would know, in case you've forgotten," Fingon said, his voice hard. "And I know that you raising your little brothers isn't one of them."
"Why are you always going on about that?" Maedhros' temper flared and he struggled to wrestle it down again. Calmer, he continued, "There's nothing wrong with me taking care of them."
Fingon noticed his visible effort to stay civil and thankfully tried to calm down as well. "You're not just 'taking care of them'," he said after taking a deep breath. "You're around them every hour of the day and you yourself told me that you are teaching them the sword drills, that you are studying with them and that they come running to you with every problem they have."
Maedhros bristled. Why on Arda was Fingon so intent on turning everything he was doing on its head to make it look bad? He tried valiantly to rein in his annoyance, but still the words came out sharper than he intended. "So what? We get along and naturally they'd come to me and I'd help them. Is that a problem?"
Fingon crossed his arms and shook his head. "No. The problem is that you are in over your head picking up your father's slack and you don't even notice." He stared at a piece of moss that had grown over the wood of the roof, then lifted his eyes to meet Maedhros' gaze.
Maedhros' expression turned dark. Slowly he stood. "Do not judge my father or anyone else in my family. You're not part if of it and you don't know the next thing about us," he said warningly, looking down at his cousin.
Fingon watched him, narrowed his eyes and then got to his feet as well. "Do you," he said slowly, "even notice how as soon as someone dares to criticise your family, all of you Fëanorions draw back and close yourselves off, hackles raised and start to growl? Weren't you the one who wanted us to stick together earlier? But lo and behold! One bad word about the Holy Fëanor and we is gone, it's back to you and us. Can't take a little bit of hard truth, all of you, huh?"
Maedhros looked away. "I just don't want you to talk about something you have no idea about. You don't know what's going on in my family." He paused and then the frustration that had been waiting behind a crumbling dam just spilled forth. "No one knows anything about us, yet everyone is talking about my father as if they knew him and judge him when they have never met him at all."
Fingon briefly looked like he was about to say something snappish and rash and in that moment he resembled his own father very much. Maedhros bit his tongue mere moments before he could snap back at him when he realised that this was exactly what his father would have done if he'd been arguing with Uncle Fingolfin. For a brief, bizarre moment Maedhros wondered how they'd gotten here, both acting out their respective father's roles as if the boys were somehow obliged to continue their feud.
Fingon apparently realised this in the very same moment, remembering that he was not Fingolfin and that he was not talking to Fëanor, because he forced the tension out of his shoulders and quietly said, "I am not everyone. I am your cousin and I know your father who happens to be my uncle."
Maedhros' mouth was drawn into a tight, thin line. He looked away. "You don't." For a brief instant he was tempted to add Hell, Ibarely know him, but it would have contradicted the point he was trying to make, so he didn't. He looked back at his cousin. "You've barely ever talked to him. We are the only ones who know him. And he is a good dad. He cares for us, just like your dad cares for you."
Fingon shook his head and then crossed the roof in three long strides, whirling around when he reached the edge and walking down the length again. After he had done this four times, he stopped, as if he had reached a conclusion and turned around to face his cousin, planting his feet shoulder-wide and asked, "Then why is he leaving you alone to fend for yourselves most of the time?"
Maedhros only barely held back an exasperated groan. "Because he is busy, in case you haven't noticed. He has work to do, and he can't stay at home."
Fingon cocked his head to one side. "Important work?"
"Yes."
"Work so important that he cannot come home to his sons every day?"
There was a sly glint in Fingon's eyes that made Maedhros feel uncomfortably like he was being cornered. "Looks like it," he ground out grudgingly.
Fingon's smile only confirmed his suspicion. "Work so important that it takes the Silmarils to lure him out of his workshop."
For a moment, Maedhros was actually at a loss for words. When he opened his mouth all that came out was, "Fingon, you damned—"
But Fingon cut him off. "Don't blame me for putting something in perspective that your father did."
Try to turn the argument around as he might, Maedhros could not deny his cousin had a point without sounding like a complete fool. Fingon had not done anything. Father had left them alone often and for long spans of time. This was a fact. Fingon was stating these facts, but that did not make him an obnoxious nag.
"I don't blame you," Maedhros said and made a tired gesture, waving off some invisible thing in front of him. "Just stop with the jabs. I know it could be different. I mean I can see your family. I'm not blind and I am not stupid. But my dad is not like your dad. It can't be helped that his work is so important to him. But he's doing it for everyone's benefit, not just for his own." His expression brightened when he remembered something that even Fingon would not be able to brush aside. "Take the lampstones for example. Everyone in Tirion is using them now and they can't imagine life without them! What they don't seem to think of is that great inventions don't grow on trees. They take a lot of time to come up with. And if he is rarely at home as a result, it's only natural I as the eldest should take over his duties."
Fingon watched him through narrowed eyes for a very long time until he asked, "How long did it take you to rationalise that to yourself until you finally believed it?"
For a moment Maedhros was tempted to throw his cousin off the roof. The nerve! He settled for raking his hand through his hair. "By Lórien, you read one of those psychology books again, didn't you? It did not rationalise anything. That's simply how things are."
Fingon shrugged. "In this case I'm amazed that you can't even explain something you're doing everyday which just so happens to muck up your entire life."
Maedhros had half a mind to let out a cry of frustration. "I did explain it, but it's not my fault if you're not able to understand!"
"You're making excuses on your dad's behalf, that's not the same as explaining why you have such a messed up role distribution in your family."
Maedhros rolled his eyes, turned away and shook his head. How the hell was he supposed to explain it when Fingon was so intent on not wanting to understand—damn it. "I give up. You don't get it. You're too young."
"I am almost as old as you," Fingon shot back.
Maedhros made a dismissive gesture. "Yes, but you grew up differently. You're still just a child."
Fingon mulled it over. "Yes, I am a child," he said. "As are you."
Maedhros opened his mouth, then closed it again. "You wouldn't understand. It's complicated," he said at last.
Fingon heaved out a long, weary sigh. "And that's where you've got it all backwards. It's not meant to be complicated. We're children, as we are supposed to be. But I think you have forgotten that because you are so busy running after your brothers and are in over your head picking up the pieces your father left behind." He paused. "You know, I may not be you, and I may not know your dad like you do, but I know one thing and that is that children aren't supposed to raise their siblings, teach them sword drills and studying Tengwar with them and what have you—and no reasons you can think of for parents being busy will be able to convince me otherwise. And I know you don't even buy it yourself, not really. You keep telling yourself and everyone else that you are all right, but in reality you're so far from "all right" that you couldn't see it even if you bent over backwards with a telescope."
"If you think so," Maedhros scoffed and waved him off.
Fingon narrowed his eyes and then averted his face. "The day you admit to being wrong will be the day the sky falls down."
"We wouldn't be fighting if you weren't so intent on force-feeding me your opinions."
"I was just trying to help," Fingon said sharply.
Maedhros looked back, trying to keep his face blank and his voice even. "In this case it might be better if you stopped trying so hard, because, well, you're not helping anyone. Rest assured that if I ever need you to save me from something, I'll ask."
"Fine," Fingon retorted. "Have it your way."
They shared a few minutes in uncomfortable silence with neither of them knowing what to say now that the mood had been well and thoroughly busted.
"We should go back," Maedhros said at last, his tone deliberately casual. "The hiding game is over, if you ask me."
Thankfully, Fingon decided to go along with ignoring the invisible elephant in the room - their row- and pretending nothing had happened. "Well, it was fun while it lasted," he replied carefully.
They shared a glance and then climbed down and off the roof. They carefully dropped onto the flet, then crept into the silent tree-house.
Fingon was the first to climb down and while he did, Maedhros briefly rested his head and shoulder against the door frame and rubbed his eyes. He was tired and a burning feeling behind his lids was becoming gradually more noticeable whenever he blinked.
When he stepped off the ladder and onto solid ground next to Fingon, he turned around and said, "Let's look for the others and see whether they've found Galadriel yet."
Fingon nodded and together they headed back in the direction of the palace. It was a good a place as any to start looking for their siblings.
Maglor's fingers were racing over the keys as if things as if errors, inertia and insecurity did not mean anything to them. When he felt like this, mistakeswere something that happened to other people. This was where he was good at. This was when he truly felt whole. When his hands were translating the notes in his head into movement as fast as they entered his mind, when the flow of time slowed down and rhythm, melody and harmony wrapped around him in a cocoon of sound to form the one place where he was really at home.
He changed keys with the effortlessness of someone who spoke the language of music with more familiarity than his mother tongue. Major turned to minor and instantly the colour of the music behind his eyes changed, faded, turned washed out and pale. His fingers descended the claviature, leaving the bright, translucent realm of sounds of the upper keyboard and entered the cavernous netherworld of the deep, vibrating bass tones. His fingers slowed down. Each note was now a hesitant step in an eerie netherworld, each movement of his finger triggered another soul-shaking note the went straight to the marrow of his bones. The steps became faster, changing from a hesitant walk to the violent beat of war drums, relentless, loud and unbearable, like a marching army. His right hand flew up and there was a shower of blinding high notes, like the singing of sword being drawn and steel meeting steel. Like two waves rolling towards each other the music built on the opposite ends of the keyboard, louder and louder and more pleading, more threatening, racing toward each other, both of his hands moving toward the middle, dissonant, screaming, until the tension was almost unbearable and the melody begged to be released in a fountain of final harmony—
Maglor gritted his teeth. They were hurting as if he'd heard nails drawn down over a chalkboard. He wanted the resolution, but that was not how it sounded in his head. He threw a short glance at Caranthir, who was sitting on a second piano stool, his brows knitted and his eyes looking at nothing in this world. Turgon was leaning onto the piano with his eyes closed and although he tried to hide it Maglor knew the music was hurting him as much as it was tearing at his own insides.
He made his decision in a matter of split seconds.
With great effort, he wrenched his fingers away from the beaten path and instead of releasing the cacophony into a final tritone, he slowly unravelled the tangled skein of hostile notes into a dominant seventh, which grated slightly, but ultimately faded out with the first and third note staying longer than the others, then took the other notes out in ones and twos, and released the last chord into a wistful four-three-suspension.
His fingers ran a rapid arpeggio passage from the middle of the keyboard up until the notes turned high and ethereal and he ended with the trill of a singing sparrow taking flight.
Maglor leaned forward, his weight resting on four fingers for a few breathless moments, then he slumped back and withdrew his hands from the keyboard to rest them in his lap. He sat utterly still. For a few moments, neither of the three boys moved.
It took another few minutes before Turgon finally regained his voice. "Holy Valar."
Maglor stared at the keys. He felt strangely detached, as he always did when he tried to find his way back out of the realm of music and back into the real, living world.
Turgon walked around and stared at the keyboard as if he was expecting a magical contraption that explained what he had just heard. When he did not find anything, he raised his eyes to stare at Maglor. "You composed that?"
Maglor nodded slowly.
Turgon looked at the piano again. "That's insane. I mean … I mean I saw what you were playing. I saw the sky and the sun and then the caverns and the battle and..." Turgon made a vague gesture with his hands. "That's unbelievable. You got a grip on music that's worthy of a Maia."
Before Maglor could say "Thank you", Caranthir rose and walked over to them, running his fingers along the polished wood of the piano.
"I did not hear that piece before," Caranthir said. As usual, his voice didn't betray what he was thinking. It was neither enthusiastic nor disdainful nor particularly impressed.
"I haven't played it before," Maglor replied.
"You mean you played that just … you thought of that while you were playing it?" Turgon's eyes were wide.
"Yes. No. I mean, it's a variation of something I have been writing for a long time," Maglor said. "The framework's the same, but the in-between is different, you see?"
"Fairly light-hearted for your standards," Caranthir remarked.
Maglor flinched slightly at those words. "I guess."
He could see Turgon's eyes stray to the three big piles of sheet music that were covered in his narrow, pointy hand. Elegy ofthe Light, Obituary No. III, A Gallery of Thunderstorms, Danse macabre and Requiem for Almaren were lying there and Maglor could see Turgon's eyes catch on the titles and then, of course, his gaze flickered over to Maglor with poorly concealed worry.
Maglor met his gaze stubbornly. Turgon seemed to notice the implications of his weighty look and cleared his throat. "Anyway," he said. "That's amazing. Has your father ever heard this one?"
Maglor's face darkened. "No. And I don't think I'll show him. He's never been very happy if I asked him to listen to me playing. He does not like music. He does not like anything much, except his work."
Turgon frowned. Then he shrugged. "I honestly don't get that, but that's his loss." He scratched his head. "Boy, I wish I could play half as well as you do. Fingon once said I'm so bad I could probably play a dissonance with one key alone and, er, he may not be wrong." He leaned over Maglor's shoulder. "Still, I that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to be able to play."
Caranthir rested his elbows on the open piano case and stared pensively at the strings that were strung on the heavy metal frame inside the case, then at Maglor until his eyes came to rest on Turgon.
"You are able to keep a rhythm, right?" he said with the tone of an editor who was asking a scribe applicant whether he knew how to spell.
"I may not be able to play the piano, but I'm not dumb," Turgon said sharply.
"In this case we may be able to do it together," Caranthir mused, flat out ignoring his cousin's indignation. "Kano, come over here where I am standing."
"Why?" asked Maglor.
"Because you can play the harp and I can't."
Maglor did not really understand what Caranthir was getting at, but he got up nevertheless and walked over to the side of the piano where the lid stood open, held up by an artful wooden joint of polished wood and brass, revealing the intricate inside of the piano with strings, the padded hammers underneath, bridge and soundboard.
"Good." Caranthir rounded the piano with long strides and took Maglor's seat on the piano stool. "Turgon, you stand behind the piano. The part where the lid is closed. Yes, right there."
Turgon assumed his position, resting his hands on the polished wood and throwing Caranthir a questioning glance. "And now?"
"Now we play."
"Huh?"
Caranthir rolled his eyes. "I am reconsidering whether I should believe you when you say you're not dumb. We play the piano. Together. Obviously."
Maglor couldn't help but look puzzled as well. When Caranthir noticed this, his shoulders slumped. "Seriously, do you both have anything in your heads at all? I mean besides sheet music and," he made a dismissive wave in Turgon's direction, "your static engineering je ne sais quoi."
Turgon looked at Maglor. "Jenny says what?"
Maglor shrugged helplessly.
Caranthir groaned. "Forget it. We are playing together, at the same time. Turgon, you set the rhythm. Percussionwise, everything is yours. Use the lid, use the sides of the corpus, whatever. Keep it simple, don't rush, don't lose the beat. And don't punch through the wood, the piano was expensive." He turned to Maglor. "You're the man for the strings. You can pluck them, dampen them, however you like. You'll play the second part, and I'll avoid the notes you're using, because I will be playing the first part on the actual keyboard."
"Wait." Turgon straightened. "We're making three instruments out of one?"
"Exactly that."
"That's genius," Turgon blurted out.
Caranthir gave him a thin-lipped smile. "We are extraordinary, I believe I told you so."
Maglor felt the tension ramp up immediately and he hurried to intervene before they broke out in their next squabble. "So, what do you want to play?"
Both boys pondered this. "Something light-hearted?" Turgon suggested.
"More like something easy for the new boy," Caranthir threw in.
"Cats in the Cradle?" Maglor proposed.
"I said 'light-hearted'," Turgon groaned.
"No, it's fine," Caranthir cut in. "It's a children's song. Everyone knows it, it's easy to remember and the rhythm is simple enough even our dear cousin should be able to pull it off without a hitch."
"Fine," Turgon said.
"Fine," Caranthir shot back, then glanced between both of them. "Ready? Okay, I'm counting in. One-two-three-four."
And they did it. Maglor was surprised, because while the piece wasn't very difficult it was one thing to play it alone, but another thing entirely to play it with three people on one instrument, trying not to get in each others way and keeping to the same beat. This was exactly why he usually preferred to practise solo instrumental pieces than asking his brothers to join in. Every single one of them would inevitably want to take the lead over the others and the few times they had tried it, it had always ended in chaos.
Turgon however was content with being assigned the rhythmic section and honestly, he wasn't half bad at it, Maglor himself was fine playing the subtler background sounds by plucking the strings on which Caranthir in turn built his first part with the actual piano solo.
The rhythm and the two melodies interwove and then split in three when Maglor began to independently play an improvisation with his left hand. Turgon looked up, impressed, and even Caranthir gave him a brief smile before he went back to his keys.
They finished the song with only a few errors and then looked at each other.
"We work well together, don't we?" Turgon asked.
"Seems like it." Caranthir smirked.
Maglor looked between them and then he grinned. He used to keep close to Maedhros and the twins, because Curufin and Caranthir seemed too disagreeable to get along with, and he had been drawing his feeling of self-worth and recognition from his distant father alone, firmly believing that once he lived up to his father's standards and elicit praise from him, he would have finally done something that was truly remarkable.
To his surprise, he found it didn't matter to him that it was Turgon who had praised him and that it was him and Caranthir whom he now felt a strange camaraderie with. Their odd little trio had formed out of the blue, but Maglor thought that this was much better than chasing elusive shadows, wishing to belong where he was not wanted and living on praise that was never given. Maybe he had been going about this all wrong. Maybe he had been looking for company in all the wrong places. Maybe he would never get his original wish, but there were other possibilities. This was fine. This he could live with.
"Another one?" he asked.
Celegorm did not pay attention to where he was running. His mind was fully occupied with conjuring up curses down upon everyone in his family that would have made Melkor cower. Branches and twigs where whipping his face and he batted at them, slapping them out of his way, and then all of a sudden a girl slammed into him. For three very confusing seconds, the stars and sky and trees were all whirling below, above and around him, and then he landed on his back. The force of impact punched his breath punched of his lungs for the first time when he hit the ground and then a second time a split second later when the girl landed on top of him.
Celegorm let out a stifled groan and opened his eyes only to come face to face with his cousin Galadriel who was already righting herself up.
"Are you quite all right?" she asked, a crease of worry between her brows.
"Am I—are you mad?" he bit out between pained puffs of breath, sitting up. "Can't you watch where you are going?"
"I did, actually. I knew we'd run into each other. I did not account for both of us needing to slow down, though. I am sorry." She stood and offered him her hand.
Grudgingly, Celegorm took it and allowed her to pull him to his feet. "Where were you anyway?" he asked, his tone miffed. "We've been looking for you all over."
"I looked into your pond," Galadriel said.
Celegorm waited for her to continue, but she did obviously deem the answer self-explanatory. "And?" he prompted.
"And I did not see Huan," Galadriel added.
"Well, I would've been surprised if you'd found him in the pond," Celegorm said. "He's a dog, not a turtle."
Galadriel narrowed her eyes marginally which made her look very reproachful and a little bit scary. "I was being serious."
"Well, so was I," Celegorm said. "He's not a turtle. And he doesn't really like water."
Galadriel blew a strand of her out of her face with a desperate face. "I should explain myself better. I can see a lot of things in the water. The future, for example. Or if I want to know where I put a book I've been reading and I'm not able to find, I just need a pitcher and a bowl of water and if I look hard enough, I can see where it is."
Celegorm blinked. "I'm not sure I'm following. You look into a bowl and you see stuff you've misplaced and are able to find it again."
"...yes, basically. The bottom line is if something exists in the world I can see it in the water."
Celegorm frowned, mulled the sentence over in his head once, twice, then the fog of ignorance was pulled away from his mind and the implication of what Galadriel had said opened up before him like a bottomless pit. He paled. "No—are you saying that Huan—" Celegorm stiffened.
"If Huan was dead, I would see him." Galadriel said, obviously untouched by the horrifying spectre which had just risen on the horizon in Celegorm's mind, something he had never thought of before, a concept that was so foreign, so eldritch, so cruel, so unlike something that should be able to exist in the Undying Lands, it made the marrow freeze in his bones. "Or at least I think so. But the fact remains that I cannot see him. It means he is gone."
"If he isn't dead, he can't be gone. I mean, where would he go? He has to go somewhere!" Celegorm gesticulated wildly.
"I don't know. This is what has me stumped as well." Galadriel frowned and scratched her nose. "The thing is I don't recall something like that happening ever. Usually there are at least hints and traces which can lead you to what you are looking for, but there is nothing of Huan which tells me where he could be at. I was wondering who to ask, because I don't think this is something we can do alone and I don't think our parents could help us either, so that leaves—"
"—exactly no one," Celegorm finished. He slumped against the nearest tree, the warmth draining from his hands and feet and shivers starting to run down his spine. He tried to think, tried to come up with a clever plan, but his head was dreadfully empty. But there was also an emptiness in his chest he felt now that he was no longer occupied with running and being angry. It was a spot right where his heart was and it felt hollowed out, wounded and for some reason he knew that the thread that had always tied him to Huan ever since he'd first met him had been severed. He felt awful, his legs were trembling; it was as if someone had just yanked his soul out of his chest and torn off one half. Huan was gone, his shaggy, big, smart, wonderful dog; Huan who had been gifted by him by Oromë himself, the only Vala Celegorm remotely liked—at least as much as one could like an eldritch, mostly shapeless creature which was not really a person, but only the manifestation of a concept in the world. What would Oromë say if Celegorm told him he had lost his dearest friend who had been gifted to him by the god of the woods and the hunt? What indeed?
The idea occurred to both children in the same moment. Galadriel's eyes widened, but Celegorm was faster. He snatched her wrist and pulled her after him. "Come," he said, "quickly! He'll know. He'll help us, I know he will!"
"Where are we going?" Galadriel shouted against the air whistling in both of their ears as Celegorm pulled them both along between the trees that darted past them.
Celegorm turned his head around and grinned. "I thought you could see the future, cousin?"
"Even my water cannot see what's going on inside of blockheads!" Galadriel retorted.
"You are just too proud to admit that you're not the all-knowing wisecrack you want to be," Celegorm shot back.
"I believe you wanted to tell me where we were going!"
"I believe you are trying to change the topic!"
"Celegorm!" Galadriel squeezed his fingers. Tightly. Very tightly.
"Ouch!" he yelped. "Fine, fine! Don't break my fingers! We're going to Oromë's shrine!"
"You have a shrine for Oromë?" Galadriel stopped dead and the force of arrested movement almost yanked him backwards onto the ground. Celegorm caught himself stumbling and turned around, still holding her hand.
Galadriel was eyeing him with an expression full of wonder. "I thought you Fëanorians didn't get along at all with the Valar."
"Kindly stop defining us all by the opinions of our father, would you?" Celegorm said, his tone a bit sharper than he had intended.
Galadriel was silent for a moment. "Sorry. I did not know you were so faithful to the gods. That still doesn't explain the shrine, though."
"Well, as you see there are situations where it can come in handy to have a god on short call." He smirked.
Galadriel knitted her eyebrows and a few moments passed in silence. At last she shrugged. "Well. Yes. I can't argue against that."
"Good. Ready to go on?" He jerked his head in the direction where the shrine was hidden.
Galadriel nodded. "Ready."
Both children started running again without another word. They forged on until they reached the edge of the gardens. The bushes and trees grew thickly here and there was barely any light coming in through the canopy of leaves and branches overhead.
It felt like standing in a real forest, which was why Celegorm preferred it to every other spot in the garden. Here, hidden away where no curious eyes would find it was a stone stele, cracked and grown over with moss. It looked older and old, truly ancient, as if it had been put here in Tirion long, long before the Elves had set foot on it. It had once belonged to the wood that had covered the hilltop of Tirion, but the stonemasons who had built the palace had either not seen it when they had raised the walls, or they had seen it and had wisely been afraid to move it. And now it was standing in a forgotten corner of the gardens, hidden behind a belt of wild-growing trees, bushes and ungroomed grass, and Celegorm had often wondered if nobody else ventured here because they had forgotten about this place or the stone itself was keeping them away.
A strange inscription ran down its front side, foreign, alien letters that were jagged and not at all like the smooth, flowing Tengwar his father had introduced as the standard script. The letters themselves were glowing slightly in an emerald green sheen. The air around the stone was humming with power.
"This wasn't made by Elves," Galadriel said.
"No," Celegorm said quietly.
"I have never seen something like that before." She gingerly ran a hand down the stone and then there was an electric crackle and she jerked her hand back as if the stone had burned her.
"It's all right," Celegorm said, squeezing her hand briefly before letting it go again. "Okay. I am going to call the god. It's important you're silent and do nothing to disrupt it. Best sit on the tree root over there."
Galadriel eyed him questioningly, but she obeyed and took a seat on a gnarled old root of an oak which arched almost a foot over the ground.
Celegorm took a deep breath, steeled himself and then broke off a branch of holly which grew on both sides of the stele and placed it in a crack on the stone. Then he went down on his knees, placed his palm on the cold face of the stone and closed his eyes. He was afraid. One did not call lightly on one of the Valar. They were extremely powerful and as erratic as a thunderstorm. In a way they were like simplified people, missing all the complex parts and shades of grey. They were either good or evil, completely calm or destructively angry. There did not seem to be much of an in-between with them. But what they all had in common that there was not a single one of them who liked to be disturbed in vain. He just hoped his cause was valid enough for Oromë to hear him out. He took a long breath in, then exhaled.
"Oromë," he started and his voice was jittering on the last syllable, but when he continued his voice grew firmer and stronger with every word, "Lord of the Woods, Head of the Great Hunt, Who First Showed Us The Stars, I beseech you to hear me out. One of your children, Tyelkormo Turcafinwë, pleads for another, Huan, who has been lost and no eyes on this world can find him again. Rashly I sent him away with only his well-being in mind, but Huan left no trace and not even my cousin Galadriel, noble daughter of Arafinwë the Far-Seeing, can find him. We need your eyes all-seeing, your ears all-hearing, your wisdom that is boundless to help us in our plight. Hear me out, Master Of All That is Wild and Untameable, for your child Huan is gone and needs you as much as he ever needed you. In the name of the stars uncountable beneath which you found us, in the name of the contract that was struck between us at Lake Evendim, in the name of myself as who I am by true name and soul and being, I beg you to hear me out."
The humming in the air grew stronger and the strange signs under his hand began to glow so brightly the skin between his fingers grew translucent and green. Celegorm tried to pull his hand away, but found he could not.
I hear you.
The voice made his teeth chatter and his skull rattle and it echoed between the trees and when Galadriel gasped Celegorm knew she had heard it as well.
Turn around so I may look at you.
Celegorm felt numb, but he turned around as if guided by a greater will, his hand still on the stone. Suddenly, the world below the trees was flooded with silver light and for a moment he was blinded. Galadriel and he shielded their eyes and when they lowered their arms, they could see the creature that was standing between the tree trunks.
Its features were blurred by the bright light that emanated from it like from the heart of a diamond that was filled to the brim with light, like looking at a sun up close. And yet both children could see a few things, and they both stumbled back.
The creature was three times the height of an elf, magnificent and splendid and utterly foreign. Its antlered head, face and long neck belonged to a stag and from the shoulders on its body flowed into the form of a mountain lion, long and sleek and ended in wolf's paws. Folded on its sides where great feathered wings, brown and silver and a long tail flicked around its hind legs.
You called, Oromë said, and I have come. He stepped closer soundlessly, rising like a tower, no, like a mountain above him. Tell me, what has happened to Huan?
Curufin raced through gardens. He did not pay any attentions to the shouts of Finrod and Aredhel which quickly faded behind him, he did not heed he bushes and thorns which were whipping his face and ankles and tearing at his shirt. He could barely see where he was going because everything was so blurred, but he forged on relentlessly until he reached the wall that surrounded the gardens and drew the border between the palace proper and the woods that were rising beyond and up the hill until the hills turned into the slopes of the Pelóri.
He was breathing hard and leaning onto the wall, trying to sort through the jumble of his thoughts and thinking of what to do next. He really, really wanted to climb over the wall and run away. Maybe Father would be worried. Maybe he should engineer it so that something horrible was to happen to him and then everyone would go looking for him and when they did not find him they'd regret ever having treated him wrongly.
Stupid Finrod. Stupid Aredhel. They knew nothing, they were no one and yet they acted as if they were better than him, smarter them him and now they had forced him to run away in his own home. Out of sheer frustration he punched a tree trunk and then screamed when pain lanced up his wrist like lightning. He cursed and kicked the tree again which earned him nothing more than a sprained toe and more pain.
He was so furious he was not even sure anymore who it was he was angry at. His father and Nelyo and Kano and Aredhel and all the others became one in his mind, a confused mixture of faces and memories.
He tried to blink the tears away, but they just kept coming which only made him more furious.
"Stop it!" he screamed at no one in particular but boy did it feel good to scream, because there suddenly he felt like he was filled to the brim with bad, dark stuff that threatened to make his head burst and when he screamed it was not quite so bad and the pressure lessened ever so slightly and his headache was drowned out.
He slumped with his back against the wall, almost choking on his own fury and hatred at everyone and everything. Maybe he should do something stupid for real. Something really, really dangerous. That would show them all not to mess with him. Maybe father would be worried for once.
What if Curufin did not come back? Would Father be afraid? Would he look for him?
Unbidden, Finrod's earlier words came back to him.
"Deep down you know that there's something else he should have been for you and you know how much he failed you. He probably doesn't even care about it, just like he doesn't care about anyone but himself."
He's wrong, Curufin thought at the same time some reluctant part of him admitted that Finrod was right. He stood there, leaning against the wall while breath after shuddering breath rack through him. Something black and hateful unfurled in his stomach. No, Father would probably not notice if Curufin was gone. But there was something he cared about. And it just so happened that Curufin knew exactly what it was and how to take it away from his father.
Slowly, very deliberately he stood and wiped the tears off his face with his sleeve and then started to walk down the garden wall until he reached a narrow gate whose lock he had picked first when he'd been no more than five years old and had continued to do so whenever he felt like taking a stroll in the woods beyond the gardens. Mother never knew about it which was good because she'd no doubt have forbidden him to go there alone. Even in Aman where the watchful eyes of the Valar watched over almost everything, there were some places where nobody with half a brain would go without a sword, a good bargaining chip or a death wish.
Curufin did not have a weapon. He did not have money. He also and very notably did not have a death wish.
But he had a lockpick, a plan and a desire for revenge which clouded enough of his common sense that he did not even hesitate or look back over his shoulder when he steered his steps in the direction of the dwelling of Melkor.
Notes: Uh-oh.
