Mandos sings to him, as it does to all elves, but Celegorm has had centuries of learning to block out his brother's rehearsals, and this is no different. There's lots of reasons why: fear— maybe of death, of what he'll find in the Everlasting Darkness. His mother would call it the stubbornness he inherited from his father, even though they both know it's a lie. It's always come from Nerdanel and Feanor both. He thinks one of his brothers would call it spite.
Whatever it is that drives him, he walks from his body, past those of Dior and Nimloth. He kneels at the side of Curufin and Caranthir, kissing the tips of his fingers and pressing them to their foreheads. He'll see them soon enough, but he is older and younger brother both, and two of his younger brothers lay just as dead as he does. He failed to protect them.
The woods surrounding Doriath are quiet. His brothers have left; the dead to the Halls, and the living to regroup, the survivors are even further. Even the birds have all been scared away. He meanders through the woods, generally towards the coast, stepping over fallen logs, and passing trees. And then, just on the edge of his awareness, there is a sound. He stops, focusing on the sound alone, more than he ever could when he still hunted, and had to be aware of threats as much as prey.
He follows the sound, until he rounds a tree to see two small children huddled together. He blinks, and yes, he thinks, those are Nimloth's sons, her hair standing out. He can't remember their names. He doesn't go closer, not yet. He can't decide if he should or not; not when they might still be alive, but the choice is taken from him, when one of them looks up, eyes darting around the trees before settling on him.
"You can see me?" Celegorm asks, and the child nods.
"What happened to us?" Celegorm takes a step closer. The initial thought that maybe, they could simply have run when the killing started is dashed. If they can see him too, they must be dead.
"I don't know," he says, and the child nods, the braver of the two he thinks, and for a moment, it's not twin silver haired Sindar princes he sees, but the Ambarussa from a time before the Trees went dark; it's enough to make the flickering ghost of a smile appear. Simpler times, indeed.
"Nana and Ada are dead, aren't they?" Celegorm nods, and so do the children. They don't start crying again, just wipe their faces with their sleeves.
"Are we dead too?", and this time, it's the other twin that asks.
"I'm afraid so."
The twins look at each other, and he gets the distinct feeling they're having an entire conversation he isn't privy to. "Where are you going?" The first twin asks.
Celegorm shrugs. "Mandos, eventually." And the Everlasting Darkness after that, but that isn't the sort of thing he'll tell them.
"And not yet?" The second twin asks, and Celegorm shifts his weight to point west, towards the coast.
"I've decided to go at my own pace."
"You can do that?"
"Well I'm still here, so I guess so."
The twins look back at each other, hands clasped between them. "Could we come?"
Celegorm nods his assent, the children climbing to their feet. They let go of each other's hands to grab his, and then they start to walk.
"What are your names?" he asks, after they've been walking long enough for the sun to start skimming the tops of the trees.
"Eluréd,"
"And Elurín," They answer, not quite in unison, but close enough that they don't miss a step. The names make him frown just slightly, their sister gets her own name, and they get names they will never be able to make their own. His father had named them all for their grandfather, but at least first and foremost, they had always been themselves. "And who are you?" Celegorm looks down at the two children at his sides, both of them looking up at him.
"My name is Celegorm."
"You're the reason we're dead." Eluréd says simply, and Celegorm expects them to let go of his hands. He's surprised when they simply let the statement hang for a minute, as all three of them keep walking.
What did he say to that? That he is? That their parents killed him? That he's sorry? He's fairly certain any of his other brothers would be better suited to this conversation: when they had all been young, they had gone more often to Maedhros for comfort than either of their parents, and people trusted Maglor, personable and charming. Curufin had a son which meant he had experience, and the Ambarussa would have been able to relate to the fact that they were twins. But none of them were here, only him.
"I am," he says, "I'm sorry," he adds after only a second of hesitation.
Elurín grips his hand a little tighter. "You're dead too." He says, and Eluréd nods.
"But you're here with us. Nana and Ada aren't." Eluréd says, and Celegorm looks between the two of them, the traded off sentences so much like his own brothers. If he hadn't had the Ambarussa, he is fairly certain it would be far more dizzying to walk between them.
"What's the good in being upset?" Celegorm laughs gently and looks back up at the forest that stretches out before them. "You come back to life." Elurín says, not like a question, but a statement. To think that these children have always known death. He has, of course— grandmother Míriel had been gone before he was born, but it had never been a casual fact before, but an oddity people rarely spoke of. His expression flickers, lips drawing together. Had Dior just given them the silmaril, then he could still have his children in his underground city, but no, instead each one of them was dead.
"I'm sure you will too." At this, they look at each other, reaching behind his back to grip each other's hands.
"Maybe, the glowing man wasn't sure."
"Glowing man?" Celegorm asks, brow drawing together in confusion. Eluréd nods, and mimes reaching tall above himself, pushed onto his tiptoes. On the other side Elurid jumps onto a stump they're passing, to pat at Celegorm's hair.
"Nana didn't know we saw him. He was talking about the fact that grandmother wasn't always mortal. Looked a little like you." Eluréd nods in agreement with his twin's assessment.
Their grandmother, Luthien. And that… well, in a different world, they might have been his grandchildren, or non-existent. Like with all the what ifs, it still comes to nothing aside from him walking with them, all as dead as each other. But she had married Beren, who hadn't been eldar… but mortal. Which meant that the 'glowing man' they spoke of had probably been Eönwë or another one of the maiar.
"You could choose to be men?" The twins seem unsure, responding somewhere between a hum and a sound of agreement. "Which would you choose to be?"
"We don't know." They say, and for a long while, none of them say anything.
Despite being dead, there is still the sensation of exhaustion, and each step seems to make the children fall a little farther behind, kept moving only by his hand in theirs. They reach a small clearing, and he looks down at them. "Do you want me to carry you?" He asks, and the two blink at him, the words seeming to take a long moment to register before they both reach their hands up in an unspoken ask to be picked up.
He obliges, and when they're comfortably settled, one on each hip, he continues walking, humming an old lullaby he remembers… Maglor or Curufin singing, he can't remember which. Potentially both. Before too long, both children are fast asleep. He walks through the night, the stars high above unchanging.
By the time that morning breaks, the craggy ledge of this section of the coast has come into view, and the forest has started to fall behind, the press of trees on all sides thinning out. The twins stir against his shoulders, and Eluréd knocks the back of his shoulder blade with his elbow, reaching his hand up to rub at his eyes.
He leans down to set the Sindarin prince back on his feet, holding out the same hand as yesterday for Eluréd to hold onto. He adjusts Elurín to a more stable position, though it comes to no importance or surprise when less than two minutes later, he wakes, and Celegorm repeats the process of setting him down.
Eluréd looks wide eyed around them, and when Elurín finishes rubbing at his own eyes to clear the sleep from them, he too, stares in shock. "We've never been this far from home," Eluréd says, looking behind them at the towering trees. And they would never go back, not now. Either they would die, as men do, or as elves, and even then… even if they wished to return, he doubts there will be a continent left.
The call to Mandos is stronger than it was, harder to ignore now that he's not as focused, single-mindedly, on walking forward, and keeping the sleeping children from falling from his grasp. They reach the cliff, sea breeze ruffling the pale strands of his hair— similar, very similar to Eluréd and Elurín's.
Celegorm sits at the edge, legs dangling. Far below, water crashes against the rocks. There's a twin on either side. Elurín leans against him, legs drawn up, and Eluréd sits upright, clutching onto Celegorm's hand. "I'm scared," he says, and Celegorm looks over at him.
"Of what?"
"Dying." Eluréd answers, and on the other side, Elurín hums in agreement. He looks out over the water like he can see Valinor on the horizon. There had been whispers that Dior was not like normal elves. Too mortal, too alien. Celegorm wonders if the children are here because they are not yet consigned to immortality or mortality, the same question he had wondered last night. There has to be some reason why they are still here.
"You're already dead," he reminds, gently, and Elurín shakes his head.
"Not like men, not like elves." He says, and Celegorm tilts his head to acknowledge the truth in that.
"No, just… waiting." He agrees. He can't tell how long they spend sitting there, staring out over the water, the song of Mandos calling. His brothers are there, his father. It's where he belongs, but he won't leave the children alone. If Mandos wants to demand his presence, then he can wait until Celegorm is ready to leave Beleriand behind. The Noldor chose their Doom, and defied the Valar; he refuses to think they can be surprised that he is doing the same now.
Eventually, it's Elurín who looks at him. "Tell me about Valinor?" He asks, and Celegorm can see the fear, and the curiosity in him. Caranthir had been like that as a child, had asked for reassurances in ways that were quantifiable, that came with knowledge rather than platitudes.
He pulls the twins closer. "It's beautiful." He starts, a flicker of a smile as he thinks of home. "Safe; if you hunt you find deer rather than spiders, and Tirion puts even Doriath to shame." Because it is Tirion that is home, even if the twins will most likely go to Tol Eressëa when their time in the Halls is done— provided they go to the Halls at all.
He spends the afternoon telling them of Valinor, Tirion, and the Years of the Trees. The sky overhead has turned a stark golden colour, beginning to be run through with pink. The ocean reflects the colours back at them, and he commits the sight to memory. Morgoth has tainted this place, but this… this is still beautiful, and he will not get to see the sight again, not in Mandos and perhaps not ever.
The twins both seem enraptured, and he remembers that Menegroth is— was built underground, and beautiful as it was, it left little chance for sights like these. There are twin thumps against his shoulders, the twins reaching their hands across his lap to twine together with each other.
"I think I've made my choice." Elurín says, and Celegorm looks down at him, easing one hand to drape over his shoulder.
"Have you?" He asks Eluréd, who watches as the sun sinks below the horizon, and nods, sitting up straight again.
The two look at each other, and grab his hands.
"I choose to stay with you, which means that I'll go wherever the elves go." Elurín says, and then his eyes widen, looking out over the water, and almost moving forward, before Celegorm pulls him back into his lap. "Can you hear the music?"
"The call of Mandos." He confirms, and it also confirms what he question was regarding the twin's status of immortality. Eluréd purses his lips, swallowing thickly, and then looks at him and his brother.
"Me too. I choose my brother. I choose him." He says, and this time, Celegorm is expecting what is going to happen, and pulls Eluréd into his lap before he can move.
"Then I think it's time we let Mandos stop waiting."
hr
The Halls of Mandos are vast, wide corridors, lined with tapestries. Some of the stories he recognizes, others he doesn't. Of those, he thinks Maglor would know more of them, and whatever songs are sung.
They pass people: single elves with wounds that haven't healed, and ones who look free of injury. They pass small groups: lovers and friends, and siblings who have found each other.
They walk. Eluréd asks why, and Celegorm answers it's because he's searching for others. The twins don't ask again. They fall into a pattern. They all walk, until the first twin tires, and then Celegorm holds them until the second one begins to. They switch, and he holds the second as they first one walks. And then, when they're both tired, he holds them both, and walks forward. Left foot, right foot, down another hallway full of people he doesn't recognize and past another corner that leads into somewhere identical except the tapestries. And then they stop, and get something that comes close to sleep, one child pressed to either side, his arms around them.
When they wake up, he braids their hair back from their faces, in simple Noldorin fashion, before starting it all over again.
He calls the space between rest 'days'. He doesn't know how accurate it is, because it feels like going in circles, but it's the closest thing he has to a sense of time. Neither child ever gets any larger, because Mandos is a place for healing, not for change, not for growth.
They never run into anyone who recognizes the twins; more who look at Celegorm with disgust, and more still, who look at him, and the twins he carries with him, and look at them with pity. He thinks they see a man and his twin sons, killed too young, because no one would ever expect to see Celegom carrying the twin sons of Dior and Nimloth, therefore no one ever thinks to guess it.
It's in the middle of the… Celegorm calls it a month and a half, though in the timelessness of the Halls, it's hard to tell how long it's really been, when the maia appears before them, in robes that can't seem to decide between lilac and grey. "The children are healed enough to leave the halls," the maia says, and Celegorm tightens his hold on their shoulders for just a moment, before letting go. The children look at each other, and then at the maia.
"No, we will not leave unless he comes with us." They say, and Celegorm blinks, their hands slipping into his. The maia looks… tired, and if they can be, amused.
"Very well then," the maia says, and vanishes. Celegorm bends down to let Eluréd climb onto his back, arms wrapped around his neck, and lifts Elurín into his arms, and he resumes walking. He doesn't comment that neither of them asked to be picked up, and neither of them ask to be put down, they all just hold a little tighter to each other.
They find Caranthir first— or more accurately, Caranthir meets them at the edge of his own little fiefdom. Celegorm didn't even know that anyone icould/i garner power like that here. There's a carved out section of a wall that he seems both to live in, and to carve more out of every day. There's a crack far above that lets in grey sunlight. On all sides, are a collection of other wandering spirits, and it's them, Celegorm can tell, that told Caranthir of their approach. A few of them are faces he remembers from Caranthir's forces from Thargelion.
There is relief in seeing him again, and he pulls Caranthir into a hug, half mad, half desperate. After that, they stop wandering through the halls, better two of them in one place, than none.
Curufin finds them next.
And for a while, it's just the five of them. Celegorm realizes that the carved out section of the wall is more than just a living space, but what Caranthir has chosen as a weak point. He's covered over it with a tapestry that portrays a night on the Helcaraxë. It's… beautifully woven, but Celegorm knows that Caranthir chose it because no one wants to look at it too long, and the thickly woven strands of blue, and black and grey, and in the centre of the tapestry, oranges, and reds and yellows of a fire.
They don't talk about Doriath.
They don't talk about the silmarils.
Not until the twins have fallen asleep, and only then in hushed whispers while Eluréd and Elurín sleep with their heads on Celegorm's lap. When they wake up, Celegorm braids their hair, and Caranthir fixes his work, pinning flyaway strands that Celegorm had never worried about, in place.
The children spend their days playing, as much as they can. They play pretend, and create some form of jumping game that uses the stones in the floor as guide points that Celegorm can't figure out the rules to because the boundaries seem to change each time they play. Sometimes— most of the time if he's honest, they manage to drag the other spirits that have sworn to follow Caranthir into their games.
He knows they pick up 'Atar' when they overhear he, Curufin, and Caranthir talking about their father, and it's during one of their games, that Elurín falls. Eluréd runs to him, and pulls at his sleeve, saying "Please, Atar- Atar you have to help." It's only then that the full gravity of the situation hits him. Elurín calls him the same, trying to stem his tears against Celegorm's shoulder. It can't hurt, not here, but it's instinctual. The expectation of pain, and the feeling of it can sometimes be the same thing. He holds Elurín close, and runs one hand through his hair to soothe his tears.
Curufin and Caranthir both look at him with matched looks of doubt, but they don't flinch when the twins call them 'uncle' either.
When Feanor finds them, he sees a set of twins with Celegorm's silver white hair, and a Feanorian lisp and iassumes/i. No one bothers to correct him.
Caranthir teaches them math, and Feanor teaches them to read as best he can with neither quill nor paper.
And then the Ambarussa arrive. They're intrigued by the children, and the children with them, red hair and silver, two sets of identical faces. The only elven twins in existence as far as they know.
During the day, they stay away from talking about the Oath, about Maglor and Maedhros, and the impending risk of failure, of what happens then. It's only when Eluréd and Elurín sleep, curled up in Celegorm's lap, that they discuss what they all know is coming. No one says it is inevitable, but Celegorm assumes they're all thinking it.
At least, no one corrects Feanor until the maia returns. This time, all of them jump to attention, and the maia just looks around the hall of guarded Feanorians, and then down at the children who have stopped playing but seemed unconcerned. "Their parents are petitioning for their release." The maia says.
"We will remain as long as they do." Eluréd and Elurín say in unison. Celegorm blinks, and he can't help the fondness that comes from that. All of them, rather than simply him. Family, he thinks. The fondness doesn't last.
The maia looks around at the circle of kinslayers that surround them. "And if they are consigned to the Everlasting Darkness?" They ask, and Celegorm knows that they think that the Oath will fail. Privately, Celegorm worries the same, but he won't say it. They all avoid talking about it in front of the children because it is a grave fate that they do not deserve to share in. Not when their deaths were their fault to begin with, because fond as they all are of the twins, they should be growing up, alive, in Doriath with their sister and their parents.
The twins look around them, and back at the maia in the shifting robes and nod decisively. "Then that is what shall become of us."
"Your parents won't accept it."
"They don't have to." They say, and that's the end of the conversation. Celegorm swears he can almost hear the maia muttering something unkind about Feanor's kin under his breath, and Celegorm laughs as what that means about his stubbornness. Inherited, rather than genetic. Whatever children Dior and Nimloth will get back, when they are eventually consigned to the Everlasting Darkness, will not be the same ones that they lost. Stubborn, Feanorian.
The next day Celegorm sits in front of the twins, and they stop the hand game they're playing. It's one the Ambarussa taught them, and one Celegorm can remember seeing them play when they were children, and they had all thought of the trees as permanent fixtures.
"Why are you still here?"
Eluréd shrugs, and Elurín reaches out a hand for one of Celegorm's. Twice now, they have been told they can leave, and twice they have rejected it for a kinslayer. They call him 'Atar', afterall.
"We're scared."
"Of what?" It doesn't escape his notice how it reflects the conversation on the cliffs. He doesn't know if it's intentional or not. It's the reminder that they are still children, kept in almost perpetual stasis.
"Everything." He opens his arms, and they move to press against him, and he leans against the wall. Like they slept before they found Caranthir, like they still do most nights.
"We're scared of growing up,"
"And of what Valinor will be like,"
"And of the dark," And that is something the Halls had very little of. They aren't a colourful, joyful place, in washed out shades of rose pink and grey, but it is never truly dark either, aside from the black threads woven into the tapestries. He can understand their hesitation. Here they are safe, and they know, ultimately, what to expect day in, day out.
"This is no place to raise children." He says, and looks around at his brothers, and his father, and the dead who surround them. The single crack of sunlight far above that heralds the potential of a weak spot. Only Caranthir would try to escape Mandos before their Doom could be fulfilled. Only all of them together might stand a chance. A chance at freedom is a poor thing to raise children on.
He feels more than sees them nod against his chest. If they ever do get out, he thinks he will be honour-bound to return them to Dior and Nimloth. He killed them and their sons, and has taken the twins from them in every way that matters beyond that. He doesn't want to— mourns the idea of waking up without twin bodies on either side of him, and thinks of a lifetime of looking at every silver haired Teleri hoping it to be them. The idea burns, but it is the right thing to do. They cling to him because he was there when they were dead and undecided, and is istill/i here despite everything, but when they are grown, they won't need someone to hold their hands anymore.
They aren't his sons— they don't look that much like him, not really, not beyond their initial colouring, but they've picked up a tandem effect, same as the Ambarussa, and those who find their strange corner of the Halls assume, like Feanor did. Those who know better sometimes seem to forget that Eluréd and Elurín hadn't always been Celegorm's. Even he does most of the time, when he braids their silver hair, the same silver that his own is, and when he hears them talking excitedly in Quenya rather than Sindarin.
It's not fair, he knows, that he should get to spend so many centuries with them as children. No child, despite what their parents may wish, can stay young forever. He's pulled from his thoughts when the children look up at him, distracted from the previous conversation. "Why does grandfather call you a different name?"
"All our uncles too."
Celegorm blinks. "You mean like how Caranthir is also Morifinwë?" They nod. "It's tradition that each child receives multiple names, a mother name, and a father name. And for most of us, what we translate it into."
The twins nod in understanding. "What do yours mean, Atar?" Eluréd asks, and Celegorm lets his head lean against the wall.
"Tyelkormo Turcafinwë… hasty-riser, and strong in body." It has been a long time since he has thought of their translations. It had mattered to him, when he arrived in Beleriand, which name to use.
"I want one," Elurín says, and Celegorm makes a questioning hum.
"Can you give us one?" Eluréd adds, mostly as explanation.
They're already starting to fade off to sleep when Celegorm whispers "Maybe," and kisses the tops of their heads.
They're still asleep that night when Feanor starts to say "Your sons,"; none of them flinch uncomfortably anymore. They had once, when Eluréd and Elurín had still meant 'children they killed', and 'princes of Doriath'. But now, they have denied their chance of getting out for them. They no longer cling to Celegorm alone, but still, they never stray outside reach of one of them. If not Celegorm than the Ambarussa, or their doting grandfather, and less commonly, but still often enough, Caranthir or Curufin. It's in those moments that they all remember that Curufin had been a father in his own right. "What do their names mean?"
They all look away, with the reminder that Feanor had died before the true and proper transition to Sindarin in the open, and saw even less of the line of Melian. "They are, ultimately Sindarin princes," Caranthir says, and it is perhaps the most diplomatic way any of them could have said anything.
Feanor narrows his eyes. "I assumed it meant star-something. What do their names mean?"
"Not quite," Celegorm says, looking down at the fast asleep elflings leaning against him. "Heir and remembrance of Elu Thingol, respectively," he answers after a pause..
Feanor frowns, the same frown that Celegorm had worn half an age ago when he had learned the same thing. "And you haven't renamed them?"
"It didn't feel like my place." He defends, and doesn't mention how they had asked him to.
"They call you 'Atar'." Feanor says with a flat look; the one that Celegorm recognizes from when he was himself, still an elfling traipsing mud and grass into the house.
"What would I call them?"
Caranthir responds with a readiness that leads Celegorm to think that his younger brother has been thinking about this. "Calaniën, bright tears."
Curufin shakes his head, "No, no, too depressing. Coiendë, centre of life, of your heart."
Celegorm watches as they trade names back and forth, and reach no common consensus. When he falls asleep, it's to a parade of names running through his mind.
The next afternoon, Feanor comes to sit beside him, and Celegorm looks at the peaceful expression on his fathers face. The Halls have been good for him, he thinks. He never seemed so at peace while at Formenos, and certainly never after. "Their names must be truly theirs." His father says, and Celegorm knows he means it in the same way he has been thinking.
"No Finwë names." Celegorm says, and his father inclines his head in agreement.
"I only meant that perhaps, instead of reaching for great deeds they shall do, name them for, instead, what they are now. They mean something to all of us," he says, with a wave towards the hall around them. "Caleffírië perhaps, to recognize their role amongst the dead."
Celegorm shakes his head. "They are names they shall have to live with, when we get out." When, not if. He had brought ruin to more than enough people to bring them into the Everlasting Darkness too.
Feanor gestures at the hallways lined with tapestries. "Perhaps you will find the answer you are looking for in them,"
It takes days, but eventually, Celegorm decides on ones, and he tells the children when they wake up, five days after they had asked to be given them.
They both smile at him, and he nods more to himself.
"What are they?" Eluréd prompts, and Celegorm laughs gently.
"Patience, I'll tell you when next the maia comes, and they can be declared as yours." he says, and both twins pout at him, with expressions he iknows/i the Ambarussa must have taught them.
It's not long later that the maia appears, as Celegorm knows they would.
"I assume that I shall walk away empty handed again." The maia says, and the twins nod.
"We have a favour to ask first." Eluréd says, and the maia cocks their head. They step back to stand beside Celegorm, and it's instinct now to reach out a hand to place it on their shoulders. "We need you to witness a naming ceremony."
The maia's eyes widen, but they gesture for them to continue.
Celegorm takes a deep breath, and kneels down, grabbing Elurín's hands in his. "I bestow upon thee the name 'Lavmarië', bringer of goodness, for both myself, and the people here." He smiles at Elurín, and nothing changes, despite what he half expects. There is no flash of light, there is no revelatory shake of earth beneath them.
He pulls back, and pushes a stray lock of Elurín's hair behind his ear, and then turns to look at Eluréd, who takes the offered hand quickly. "I name thee Leruvacalë, a symbol of a brighter, free, future." When he drops Eluréd's hand, there is a rumble of applause from all the dead gathered around. There was a time, there would have been different ones he knew, when they first arrived. But there had been more than one of the souls who had been healed, more through the light of the twins than time alone.
The maia slips their hands into the opposite sleeves, and wears the closest thing Celegorm thinks he's ever seen to a smile. "You have brought much suffering to these halls," the maia says, and softens their expression just slightly. "And yet you have brought more life to them than they, by rights, deserve. It shall be done. I will inform their parents. Arise Eluréd Leruvacalë, and Elurín Lavmarië." They say, and vanish.
The Ambarussa waste no time at shortening the names, calling them 'Calë' and 'Arië'. Everyone else follows suit.
When Maedhros dies, everyone cries. Out of grief, out of love, and fear of what will come. They expect to see Maglor turn the corner at any given moment. Celegorm doesn't let go of Eluréd and Elurín, and none of them speak.
And then a day passes, two, another visit from the maia who walks away still without Eluréd and Elurín.
During the nights, Maedhros tells his brothers and their father about Maglor, and the silmarils. Celegorm learns to swallow around the lump in his throat when he thinks about what will happen to the twins if they go to the Everlasting Darkness with them. Some days, he thinks that Curufin and Caranthir are thinking the same thing, when they work on the hole in the wall, and stop to look at the children. It happens more and more now with Maedhros returned, and the fear of Maglor's eventual arrival pressing heavily on all of them.
Maedhros tells Eluréd and Elurín stories about Elrond and Elros, and when he does, he seems lighter. Celegorm fears, at first, that they will react poorly to them, the twins that lived, their sister's— their sister who married a star— sons. But instead they curl up on Celegorm's lap, and ask for more stories of their nephews, who are older than them, who Maedhros helped to raise.
It takes arguably too long for Celegorm to realize that what they're making is a door, even if hole is a more accurate term, and what he had been calling it in his mind. "Why this?" He asks, and Curufin looks at him with a smile that he's always shared with Caranthir.
"We are a family of inventors. We just forget that for a while." If they cannot get out as most do, then they simply have to make another way through.
It's nearly done when Celebrimbor arrives. Celegorm doesn't realize that it's his nephew— pale and gaunt— until Curufin is up and halfway across the floor, the almost fragile spirit crushed to his chest, both of them on the ground, that Celegorm does.
It is only later that night, once all the children are asleep— because despite how old Celebrimbor is, he is nephew and son, and grandson, and he is hurt beyond what Valinor can heal. "We can't go yet," Curufin says, running a hand through Celebrimbor's hair. He needs more than they can give beyond the Halls, and even if Maedhros won't admit it, so does he.
There's murmurs of agreement from all of them, cognizant of the children between them. "So we are in agreement that until Celebrimbor is healed, that we shall keep the door closed?"
They all nod, and Curufin presses a kiss to Celebrimbor's temple. He will, they all knew, be freed eventually, not bound by their oath, but he also knows that none of them will leave him behind if they escape.
Celebrimbor heals, slowly. Some days he seems to do naught but sleep, others he sits and stares at nothing. And then, one day, Celegorm wakes up to see Eluréd and Elurín teaching him their hand game, and some of his arrow wounds have closed.
They get a year from Celebrimbor, or at least as much of one as they have since Maedhros died, and Celegorm is faced with the realization that not only has he cared for the twins for longer than their parents, by far too many times for him to want to consider, but that, more than that, they would be long since grown had they been… outside, had they left when they first could have, or any time after that the maia has come to offer it to them.
It is strange to think of them as grown, not when they still sleep curled beside him, and he can carry them on his hip, or when they sit enraptured by Maedhros's stories. Mandos is a place for healing, not growth. It's no place to raise children, and in that regard, he is right. They can't be raised here, only stay in stasis. It isn't the first time he has acknowledged this fact, but it is the first time the true weight of itime/i has settled with him.
Whatever they come out as will not be the same as the children that died at Doriath. They speak Quenya amongst each other, it's what Feanor taught them to read, it's the lullabies they all sing, and more than Quenya, it is their lisp and their very names themselves. Leruvacalë and Lavmárië, as acknowledged by a maia.
They call him Atar.
And then, one day, after the maia has come and gone once again, and Celebrimbor has had something that borders on a screaming match with his father about breaking out of Mandos— and they all, privately, think that the fact that he is healed enough to do so is a good sign, that Feanor tells them it's time.
Eluréd and Elurín sit up and look at the tapestry that has covered the door for two ages. "You mean to say we're leaving?" Elurín says, quick to understand, and seemingly giddy with the possibility of something new/
"We are, pityo," Feanor says, and the children look around at all of them, all more healed than they had been when they came. Celegorm thinks part of that comes from them. Unflinching, and bright, and a distraction from the tragedy of the tapestries on every wall.
Eluréd grabs his hand, and Celegorm squeezes it gently.
The sun is bright on Celegorm's face when he steps into the sun for the first time since the night he arrived. Even that last sunset hadn't been like this, not warm but ghostly, with the sounds of Mandos calling him forward. He can still remember it, even now. The children in his arms look around them in wonder for their first view of Valinor.
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Maglor follows Elrond Peredhil off a boat, and does not expect all of his family to be there when he does. It is strange to think of his older brother as a father, but Celegorm can admit, seeing the way that Elrond gravitates towards him, leaning into Maglor's space, that there can be no doubt what care exists between them.
"I didn't realize I had any cousins but Celebrimbor," he says, and Celegorm looks up at where his sons— ihis sons/i— are talking animatedly with the ring bearers.
Maglor hums, "Nor did I," he says, and Celegorm sees the way his brother looks between him and the twins, eyes catching on the shared hair, with an expression that seems just to hover on the edge of the truth.
Celegorm throws an arm over Maglor's shoulders, and throws a smile at his nephew (because it's easier to think of Elrond as Maglor's son rather than the nephew of his own). "Lavmárië and Leruvacalë," he introduces, with a smirk. "But you would know them better as Eluréd and Elurín,"
Maglor blinks, and looks between Celegorm and the twins. The sons of Dior and Nimloth dressed in red tunics embroidered with the Feanorian star, and looking no more uncomfortable than they would in silver. Celegorm laughs when the only thing Maglor can think to say is "How?"
"I walked with them from Doriath to the coast," He says, not quite an explanation, but as concise as he can make it without explaining the whole story, which he will one day, if only to feed Maglor's curiosity.
Beside them Elrond looks at his uncles and then back at Maglor, with a barely concealed smile. "Atya, it seems like family tradition to take in half-elven twins. When Elladan and Elrohir arrive, will I have to worry about them?"
Maglor just looks at him. "Do you want any more?"
"No, but maybe you'll have to worry about Caranthir deciding he wants some of his own."
"They are yours then?" Maglor asks, and Celegorm looks at Elrond, and knows that Maglor means more than blood.
"They are." He confirms, and can't help but grin at his grown— but only barely— children. Perhaps strangest of all, they look more like him now than they did as children despite growing into their features, and despite how many years they have spent outside Mandos, Celegorm doesn't think that seeing them in the sunlight will ever stop being the best experience he can envision.