IV. Celebrimbor accepts the inevitable.
they say you were created to do great things
(Legacy by Memphis May Fire)
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If someone had approached me a thousand years ago without cringing or stiffening, without fear or judgment in their eyes – I'm not sure what I would have done. I might have stood stock-still, I might have feared for my life. I might have broken down in tears. I certainly would never have expected such treatment.
I was in the background from the time I was born – just another Feanorian, another in a long line of possible heirs to an insane throne. The only unique element of my existence is that I had no cousins. Finwe's line takes the form of tiers of multiple children – my great-grandfather had five, my grandfather seven, three of the five had multiple offspring, but only one of those seven had any children. In the eyes of the masses, I was the sole heir to a legacy of madness.
I can have no children. This line will die with me – my uncles knew this, and had intended themselves to be the end of my grandfather's blood. I am the result of the single disagreeing factor – Curufin, my father. He was the mirror image to my grandfather and certainly the most lunatic of his surviving sons. Not in erratic behavior; on the contrary, he was quiet, charismatic, and cunning – not entirely unlike Caranthir, but for the length and breadth of is madness. He simply did not know where to stop. He was loyal to a fault to our family, and knew that we needed to carry on for ages immeasurable, and I am that product. He didn't realize what a disservice he was doing to the world – or if he did, he chose to ignore it.
The nobler, saner lines of the Noldor will be carried on as they should be, by Galadriel and Turgon. They may not be the purest or most innocent, but the lines of Fingolfin and Finarfin are untainted by the madness that corrupts Feanor's own.
The inhabitants of my fair city bow to me, smile at me, and greet me. They hold me as a good leader, one that would give up his life for them. Maybe they think that I am trying to make up for the horrors perpetrated by the rest of my family. They might even be under the impression that nothing worse can be done to them by their own kind, I do not know. The only reason I stay here is to use them. They are my alert system.
The second they begin reacting weirdly – to something I say, something I do – when they begin behaving with fright or awe – I will know that I have finally followed my father into his lunacy, into his dark world where there is no right or wrong, only power and loyalty. A never-ending fight to the end of the Arda.
This is where I am right, and he was wrong. I will not inflict that upon the world. I will go to my death as soon as I feel as if I am living in a time a thousand years past, when people look upon me with fear or judgment.
I will singlehandedly end the insanity that I was born into.
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