Today I found a little sachet that smelled of dried lavender leaves and opening it out poured a soft mound of golden curls. Soft as down and gleaming like the sun they piled in my lap and caught the light in every shade of yellow and burnished gold.

I had forgotten the beauty of your hair Celegorm, the way it felt to touch, the cool strands slipping through my fingers at the times when you would et me hold you. You never liked to be touched and held. No, you were independent and fussy as a baby and grew into an independent and stern elf.

You came into the world with your huge blue eyes open to greet us, and as you were laid in my arms I saw your glorious hair. It curled around your tiny face in blond rings, the color fascinated me, I had seen it before of course, but never in my family. Unlike the fiery glow of Maedhros's red and the somber night of Maglor's black, yours was yellow as the changing light of the trees. So when you reached your majority, your coronet was not the gleaming pure mithril of your brothers, but a reddish color, made by my father, of burnished gold.

You never seemed to need me or your father, unlike the others you never sought the caresses and attention of us. But then you never complained of that, you were content, I think, to stay by yourself or to send your days with Oromë. I remember the day you came home carrying the big brown puppy that Oromë had given you.

"What is that?" Maglor had asked as he backed away. You tossed your beautiful hair and said, "He's my dog, Oromë gave him to me and he'll always stick by me because I love him!"

That night your father was frantic because he couldn't find you. After searching for an hour we discovered you under your bed curled up with Huan in your arms. Feanor patted Huan's head and in his gentle way smoothed away the strands of hair that had fallen into your eyes.

"This animal will be faithful, it is in his blood. It was good of Oromë to give such a gift to our son."

"He already loves him, perhaps you could make a collar fit for this great dog." I said, but your father pulled away saying, "I cannot, I have just discovered a way to construct a marvelous thing, perhaps something unlike any jewel in the thought of the Valar. I haven't the time to make a collar, maybe later."

Then he left and worked all night in the forge, he never knew that you had heard him, but I knew you had. And yet it didn't seem to bother you for you went on to master your father's language as one other. A great speaker and well loved, you where often called on to teach the children. I know you never wanted to admit it, but you loved the little ones.

Aredhel was your special pet and she was the only one you would allow to braid your long yellow hair. She would sit and prattle and you would listen patiently longsuffering under her tiny clumsy hands as she played. I never quite understood why you would allow her to play with Huan and your precious hunting things but you did. Perhaps it was her youthful years that made you more ready to bear her company, for the young do not judge. You even allowed her to cut your hair and hers to make a braid of the two colors. She made two I remember, and you wore them ever after.

As I finger the soft curls in my lap I recall the time I found you both asleep in the long grass by the pond. You had been swimming and had a picnic and there you both slept. She curled right by you and laid her black head on your shoulder in her sleep. You had your arm around her tiny shoulders and an expression of sweetness that I rarely saw. The way your hair mingled in the changing light of the two trees, the raven locks of Aredhel and your golden tresses, it was almost like Maglor's song, night and day meeting and blending in twilight.

And she adored you in her little girlish way, she had two older brother's and yet to you she clan to the most. You taught her all you knew of the animals and hunting and she was a good pupil. If not for the feud between the families you may have always been such friends, but Celegorm you allowed the argument of your father to spoil the love between you and Aredhel. You didn't see her pain, but I did, she loved you as no other and yet because your father did, you turned your back on her.

And it was then that I was afraid for you, I saw something in your that frightened me, yes even me, Nerdanel. I saw cruelty. So I knew when the final madness seized your father that you would follow, and it, this cursed quest fro revenge would bring out all that was bitter and loathsome in you. No! Stay that thought! I never thought that you heart could have been evil of itself; but something, ….something you lacked as a youth had given rise to such a longing for your father's approval that you would do anything for him.

And so when the time came you used all the power and gift of speech and pulled the hearts of the elves away from the Valar and they went. Even Aredhel went with her father and brother's, but she went more for you then anyone else. And she still wore the braided bracelet, she went charmed by your words.

In that moment when you first spoke I sought and held your eyes moment and pleaded with you to stop. But you did not, and for the first time I felt my mental connection with you falter.

On the day you left Valinor it snapped.

Nerdanel, Wife of Feanor

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Author's Note: Celegorm went on to become the most brutal and hated son of the Feanorian brother's. He was always known for his desire for power and for his failed love of Luthien. Tolkien tells me that when he heard of Aredhel's death at the hands of her husband he vowed than that he would never love anyone more then his cousin. However when he first saw Luthien in the wood he thought for a moment that it was Aredhel come back, and so he felt he could never let Luthien go. Unfortunately after her escape some of Feanor's madness came over him and he sought after the Silmarils ruthlessly.

He died at the hands of Dior, Luthien's only son, Dior was also called the fair, perhaps after the Feanorian son, but more likely because he was also very beautiful. When the bodies were found Celegorm had clasped Dior to his heart in a seeming last plea for forgiveness, but Celegorm's servants then left the sons of Dior to die in the forest. Thus is the bitter end of Celegorm and even now he paces the halls of Mandos in pain, wailing the loss of the boys and his loved ones.