Arafinwë doesn't know what brings Celebrimbor to his office, but when his great nephew enters, Arafinwë sets his quill aside. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" He asks as Celebrimbor looks at him with a narrowed expression, like he can't quite tell if he wants to say what it is he's come for.
"Sauron," he says, simply.
"Ah," says Arafinwë, setting the quill more permanently aside, and pushing the letter he was working on to follow it. "I had wondered if you would find out," he says, and nods towards the door. "Perhaps my chambers would be a better place for this conversation, it isn't the sort of one to have here." he says, with a nod towards the formal office— and doesn't say that it is, mostly, because this is not the sort of conversation he wants to have without a drink.
Celebrimbor nods, and neither of them talk as they walk through the halls of the palace. Celebrimbor, he is sure, has spoken to Maedhros at some point about his experiences, and the torture, but Maedhros wouldn't understand what it is like to be taken in by everything you want to hear.
It's been long enough that Arafinwë calls him Sauron within his thoughts more often than not, rather than Mairon, but it has taken time. More time than he had cared for, to reconcile the two images in his head.
He hadn't realized who it had been, but then again, neither had Celebrimbor.
When they reach Arafinwë's chambers, he offers him a drink, and settles on the couch beneath the window, tapping his fingers along the rim of the glass.
"What did he offer you?" Celebrimbor asks, and Arafinwë smiles ruefully.
"What did he offer you?" he returns, instead of answering, and Celebrimbor swallows his own drink.
"Nothing worth it," he answers, after a minute, and Arafinwë nods, not pressing.
"He offered me fantasy, turned almost to reality."
Celebrimbor refills his glass, and tips it against Arafinwë's. Maybe they both need this, Arafinwë thinks. No one else will understand. They see the monster, the necromancer, the man that willingly killed and caused cities to fall, all loyalty beside Morgoth. And he was that man, more than he was the maia who played upon what Arafinwë desired from Feanor. He had chosen an identity, and spun a web of candy-coated half-truths that kept Arafinwë from pressing against the truth. He had been Mairon once, and it had been that identity that had kept Arafinwë complacent, that had meant that he didn't follow his brothers until he did, almost too late.
"Grandfather, you mean?"
Arafinwë winces, but nods. "Amongst other things," however much those had all stemmed from the same place. He twists the ring on his finger, a gift from Feanor; a silver band entwined with gold, and a far cry from the style that Mairon had crafted for him.
It is easy to accept that Sauron had been cruel, everyone knew that, but what most people cannot fathom is the delicate way that he had slipped rings onto Arafinwë's hands, and the care that he had taken to make Arafinwë lose himself in pleasure.
"The rings you made," Arafinwë says, looking at Celebrimbor. "The elven ones, why did you forge them?" he asks, and Ceelbrimbor shrugs, turning in his seat to look out of the window.
"I suspected something amiss." he says, and takes a sip from his drink. There is shared guilt he knows, for not realizing what should have been obvious from the start.
"Tell me, if you had realized when he knocked upon the gates of your city, and even if you had turned hima away, do you think it would have stopped him from making the ring?" he asks, and Celebrimbor blinks at him.
"What do you mean?"
"If it hadn't been you, would it just have been someone else? Someone who would not have thought to craft three rings untouched by his power." He doesn't know, and he doubts Celebrimbor does either, but he says it, in part to ease Celebrimbor's guilt. They lapse into silence. He will not say that some good came from it, but he will not say that it was entirely preventable either.
They finish their glasses as the sun begins its descent, the yellow lights of the room starting to attain a golden hue to them. "How did you forgive yourself?" Celebrimbor asks eventually.
Arafinwë stares into the liquid in his glass before responding. "I… don't think I have, not really, not fully." Celebrimbor hums, and Araifnwe looks at him through the corner of his eye. He has accepted it, had before he crowned Feanor, but he would be lying if it hadn't been part of what he had chosen to do. He didn't feel fit to lead the Noldor- he barely had before that, and then…
Mairon had never hurt him, not like he had Celebrimbor. He had not died, had not led to the death of people he valued, but he had seen that same seduction in the darkness— still did, in fact, because despite everything, it was love of Feanor that drove him to it all. In truth, he doesn't think he will ever be able to purge his fëa of the taint, it is only fitting that he would take upon himself his own form of doom.
"There are days I am not certain that I ever got out." Celebrimbor admits. For a split second, Arafinwë wants to bite his tongue, and to take back everything he's said, everything he has exposed about himself, but the urge passes quickly, the fact that this is Celebrimbor, and the long ages since mellowing the knifehoned reflex of subterfuge.
"You did," he says, pushing a piece of hair that had escaped his braid behind his ear. "You died but… he is gone, vanquished." He says. He remembers when they received the news, the streets had rung with joy, from all the factions of the city. He had only felt cold, relief and shame warring inside him even then.
"Do you ever miss him?" Celebrimbor asks quietly.
Arafinwë lets out a long sigh, the complicated coil of emotions he is certain he will always associate with Mairon jumbled together. "I do," he admits. He expects Celebrimbor to judge him, because he expects everyone to, but Celebrimbr just clinked their glasses together again.
"I hate him, I love him, he killed me." He thinks Celebrimbor, too, expects judgment, but Arafinwë is not the right person for that. He knows exactly how charming Sauron could be. This time it's Arafinwë that clinks their glasses together, as the sun sets behind them. "Where do we go from here?"
"I rather think the only option is to continue." Arafinwë says. He wants to have better advice, he wants to be able to offer Celebrimbor something better than non-definitive understanding, but he can't. All he has is memory and the rings on his finger that used to be made by somebody else. Neither of them is his wife.
"How do you love grandfather?"
"I never stopped."
They sit on a slice for another handful of minutes until the Celebrimbor stands. "Thank you," he says, and Arafinwë nods.
"It wasn't your fault," he says, and Ceebrimbr smiles.
"It wasn't yours either."
When he leaves, Arafinwë stays on the couch, lost in his thoughts, twisting the silver and golden ring aorundhis finger until Feanor returns.
"Curufin said that Tyelpë came?" Arafinwë nods, and presses a kiss to the back of Feanor's hand.
"He did,"
"I'm glad," is all he says, adjusting the loose strands of Arafinwë's hair. Arafinwë just smiles at him, and not for the first time, thinks about the long, long history of their family saying nothing of importance, and the masks he has perfected. And yet he is here, and he cannot find himself to regret letting the secret twined around and around in his throat out.
