Some changes in life
Not long after the late autumn-celebration over that Hinata had given birth to Durin's second son Rurik, Celebrimbor and the other Elves had to return to Eregion before the first snow blocked the mountain paths too deeply so they would not be able to leave the Misty mountains at all.
Narvi watched the group of Elves on their horses from a well-hidden window as they left, secretly wishing that Celebrimbor could have stayed until spring at least.
"He is a surprisingly pleasant company despite being a Elf, when finding something we both can talk about without any misunderstandings…"
That his paternal family had a history of befriending the Dwarves in the First Age, helped Celebrimbor a lot in having a good guess in how to act around the Stone children of Aulë.
Well, he had promised to write so Narvi had something to look forwards to, even if Celebrimbor most likely would be a rarely seen visitor in Khazad-dûm simply because it was a Dwarven realm. Unless he was invited to return, it would be rude for him to show up out of the blue.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Spring year 812 of the Second Age:
As they had promised on the night of celebration over the birth of little prince Ivar roughly half a year earlier, so did Celebrimbor and Narvi stay in contact though writing letters to each other.
One of the first letters from Narvi, which Celebrimbor got in Eregion though a messenger bird, happened to become the start of their written conversation about the passing of Queen Dowager Freja only a quarter of a year after the birth of her second great-grandson, Rurik:
She was already past her 250th year since birth, a high age for a Dwarf of either gender, and showed faint signs in her movements of that she would not live long enough to see the little princes grow up. But her sharp mind remained clear until the end, and she passed away peacefully in sleep during the night.
Celebrimbor, who had witnessed a lot of different manners of deaths for both his fellow immortal Elves and the mortal races over his long life, had to agree that passing away during sleep was one of the most peaceful ones.
"The late Queen Dowager was a mighty Dwarrowdam, not only from her social position by marriage, but in personality as well. A such person will always leave a void after herself when she leave life, and others will find it hard to fit into that role."
Looking around from his balcony on the second floor to his house, Celebrimbor wondered for a moment what he could tell for news in the letter he would write to Narvi. Everyday news would be old already by the time said letter arrived to her hands, so he needed to find something more important. Maybe he could tell her of how Ost-in-Edhil had its most important districts finished, and that it would likely grow with time as it was the capital of Eregion?
In the streets below, did Celebrían enjoy a walk with a few of her close friends, as they just had came back from checking how things were at a fruit farm outside the city.
"It is great that lord Elrond sometimes can be here as a guest and help out with the healers we have here in Eregion. It would not be pleasant if our mortal trade partners and allies might need their help, and it turns out that they have no idea how to treat a mortal illness!"
That had been something Celebrían realized when the trade started to grow better about two or so decades ago, and both her parents had praised her for the very important reminder that had been forgotten in everything else about governing the city.
"That is true, I would not be surprised if that was one of the major reasons to why the race of Men chose to work with the Noldor during the First Age, rather than Doriath; The borders around their own realms were not closed!"
All six of them, including Celebrían, had some form of family ties to long gone Doriath though a parent, but thanks to being born in the Kingdom of Lindon where Gil-galad ruled ruled as High King, their upbringing were vastly different from how it could have looked like in Doriath.
"Celebrían? Did we say something wrong?" one of her friends asked at seeing how the silver-haired daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn suddenly looked sorrowful.
"No, it is just...sometimes I enter a emotion of deeply longing to see those relatives who died during the First Age...I want to meet them face to face, to really getting to know them for real, as living people, without just seeing them as persons from other people's memories and stories…"
Not just her four maternal uncles, their wives and cousin Finduilas who had been the princess of Nargothrond, Celebrían also wished to meet her paternal cousin Nimloth, the daughter of her late uncle Galadhil, and her spouse Dior Eluchil, the son of Luthien and Beren. Even with knowing that many of them might be reborn in Valinor, it did not help to lessen how Celebrían sometimes felt lonely. Especially given how many family members that had been lost to death long before her own birth.
At the suggestion of some tea and some nice finger sandwiches to eat to the tea at one of their favorite restaurants, Celebrían cheered up a little bit. Her friends knew that it was nothing unusual for her to feel sad about her lost relatives and in generally did agree on that it must be some of the traumas her parents once suffered to have affected Celebrían already in the womb. She was not among the ones who were worst affected by what the parents had gone through, but still a member of a risk group and Elrond had requested the healers here in Ost-in-Edhil to not dismiss anything strange in her behavior.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Later that evening, did Celebrían visit Celebrimbor in his house to let him taste of what she brought along in a small basket.
"It is too dry, are it not? I worried about too much flour..." she asked when he found his offered bread bun too dry.
"Maybe it is not too flour, but rather too much yeast or too little fat."
Despite her high social status, Celebrían wanted to know some basic cooking so she could surprise her future husband one day with something she had done with her own hands, as a sign of how much she loved him. She had some talent to not be a total disaster in the kitchen, and being a beginner in how to make bread was a legal excuse for this failure.
"Give those to the painters so they can ease sketches. That way, the buns will not be wasted."
Bread was very good to ease with, if it was soft enough. Those bread buns would likely need to be moistened with water before any of them were used by the artists, but Celebrían would not need to feel ashamed over how dry they had ended up in the start.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Author note: I know it seems to go slowly with their newly started friendship turning into romance eventually, but please remember that while Narvi is a legal adult by Dwarven standards since she was 45 years old, Celebrimbor would still view her as underage due to Elves coming of age when they enters their 100th year since the begetting. Any romance feelings now would make him feel like a pervert, sorry! Besides, I want to give other Dwarven characters and the other Elves of this time a chance to be part of their story too
Eregion as a Elven realm was founded in Second Age year 750, the same year as Narvi is born for my stories, so she and the realm is roughly the same age without that Celebrimbor knows that detail. Even for Elves like the Noldor with all their crafts and skills, it would likely take some decades to build a city from scratch depending on the building materials, where they get the food for all the workers and such details
It is impossible to know if Celeborn was the only one of his family to survive the Second Kinslaying where the Kingdom of Doriath were utterly destroyed, or if they were among the victim for the Third Kinslaying later at the Havens of Sirion. But from the Second Age it seems like Celeborn and Celebrían are the only ones left of the royal family of Doriath outside Elrond and the mortal descendants of Elros
Celebrían is not meant to have some form of mental disorder, I simply headcanon that she, as a child of two survivors of the horrors from the First Age, is still somewhat affected by their traumas without the Elves really knowing how it happens and how that could possibly play a part in why she will end up sailing to Valinor for healing in the Third Age