Chapter Text
Celegorm is dying.
He's stabbed Boy-King Dior Eluchíl in his own halls after his refusal to give up the Silmaril that rightfully belongs to the Sons of Fëanor. Dior stabbed him back. So now they're dying together about it.
It feels poetic enough that Maglor will probably add a line or two in his Noldolantë to commemorate the occasion. Well, Celegorm reasons, that's if Maglor survives the rest of the battle. He's already watched two of his baby brothers die in these caves, and he's well on his way to becoming the third.
Now he lies sprawled atop Dior's body, heaving in ragged gasps as blood bubbles down his lips. At least Dior seems to be faring worse.
Or maybe not, because Dior somehow finds the strength, even though his eyes are glassy and unfixed, staring vacantly at some point on the cave's ceiling above the two of them, to gasp a curse: "For the sake of me and my kin you've slain, Celegorm Fëanorion, my ghost will evermore haunt you through your Darkness Ev—"
Then he interrupts himself by coughing up a bright red bubble of blood. Celegorm would have laughed — the boy King is such an embarrassment to himself and his people that he can't even get through swearing an Oath properly — if he wasn't liable to choke on his own blood in the attempt. On the other hand, he's all but drowning in plenty of his own blood already. He can at least try to get the last laugh in before Mandos's call grows too loud to ignore. Or it's the call of the Void he's hearing, which is even less desirable.
He splits his lips open in a grin and gasps the needed intake of breath. Air whistles straight through a punctured lung on one side. The sensation of burning in his chest overwhelms the persistent crush of the Oath.
Before he can even begin the deathbed mockery, the last thing he'll ever do in Beleriand, his fëa is yanked from his body by force.
When he is conscious enough to have thoughts again, Celegorm's first is that the Void got tired of waiting for him to hurry up and die.
His second thought is that the Void is surprisingly warm and comfortable. He keeps his eyes closed and relaxes further.
Wait, something's below him. And there's enough of a him for there to be something beneath him, and physical eyes for him to keep shut. Wasn't he supposed to be a houseless fëa by now? Maybe he got tossed into the Void on top of a pile of other brothers who'd died while sacking Doriath. Which would make this more of a metaphorical physical sensation than an actual physical sensation.
Celegorm wants to rest, and he's feeling surprisingly at peace. The pain between his ribs and the ache in his sword arm are gone. It doesn't hurt to take a breath.
Hold on. Do dead things need to breathe?
Almost regrettably, Celegorm cracks his very physical eyes open to complete the realization that he still possesses a hröa. The scene before him is familiar enough: it's his room in Formenos. There's even Treelight streaming in through a half-covered window.
This is a good development. Maybe he actually isn't in the Void, and this is part of Mandos's healing-therapies for the newly deceased. There are definitely worse fates that could have befallen the Dispossessed Sons of Fëanor. Celegorm wonders if Caranthir and Curufin will share the same Formenos as this one, or be in different Formenos-es (languages are, admittedly, one of Celegorm's crafts of choice, but he has bigger things to worry about than proper pluralization), or be somewhere else entirely.
If it's the first, then maybe Amrod is still in this Formenos. But he's been dead for so long that, if this is the receiving hall, he's hopefully moved on to the next stage of reembodiment.
Celegorm realizes he knows next to nothing about the process of reembodiment. Are there concrete stages to pass between, like rooms in a house?
Then the body beneath him shifts.
Celegorm props himself up on his elbows to get a good look at who he's actually laying on top of. It's Dior Eluchíl himself, last and least son of a long line of sons of bitches, blinking his own eyes open.
"What the fuck."
Dior's eyes fly open. His stillness freezes into rigidity, pinned beneath Celegorm's weight. He echoes, "What the fuck."
"You're dead. I slew you."
"I know that," Dior spits, "and I slew you back. You should be in Mandos — or worse, damned as you Fëanorians are — and I should be dead."
"We are dead," Celegorm says.
"No," Dior insists. "If I was dead, I'd be passed beyond the Circles of the World, in eternal bliss with Eru Ilúvatar, not trapped beneath my killer."
"Well then, you're not dead, and you don't look like you're dying anymore," Celegorm snaps, "which reflects a job poorly done on my part. Should I fix that?" He pulls himself up to sit astride Dior's hips, and surveys the space to locate the nearest sharp implement. If those are allowed in Mandos, because he's still pretty sure that's where he is, despite Dior's skepticism.
"What the fuck is wrong with you," Dior hisses. He uses his newfound (though still limited) freedom to prop himself up slightly onto his elbows, which Celegorm can feel by the shifting against his thighs, and asks, "Where are we?"
"Formenos," Celegorm answers absently. He's spied a small utility knife on the corner of the bedstand. If he can angle himself enough to reach it in a single motion, he'll hold the advantage even after releasing Dior from beneath him.
"Where?" Dior repeats. Then he gasps, and there's frantic scrabbling against Celegorm's legs to try and press himself against the headboard.
Celegorm recognizes a prey response when he sees it, and is well aware that he's not the hunter that caused it. Dior is trying to put distance between himself and something near the doorway. Celegorm twists around to see just what it is.
"—There you are, Tyelko," says what is definitely Caranthir's voice. He's speaking in Quenya. "Going on this hunt was your idea, and now all of us are nearly ready to leave while you're nowhere to be—"
Caranthir is here, and alive, and there's no low-quality Sinda fletching sprouting from his eye socket — only a look of annoyance on his face that suddenly shifts to surprise as he takes in the scene fully.
"Caranthir," Celegorm breathes.
"Carnistir. My name is not an Indision sá-sí," his brother corrects, still in Quenya. Then he rolls his eyes, though a flush creeps up his neck to betray him. "Father's only just left for Taniquetil and you're already sneaking strangers into your bed."
"Strangers?" Celegorm repeats, in Sindarin. "This is Dior fucking Eluchíl. You know him. His wife killed you." Celegorm gestures at Dior beneath him, who is still pinned but nevertheless grinning on behalf of his dead wife's vindictive streak in a manner that only emphasized the terror coursing through him.
Caranthir blinks. "What did you say?" he asks, in Quenya again.
Something is seriously wrong. Celegorm knows that Caranthir knows Sindarin. Why would Mandos strip his brother of an entire language, and let Celegorm keep it?
Celegorm switches to Quenya as well to ask maybe-Caranthir about another part of his previous statement that has only just processed in his mind, "Father left for Taniquetil."
Caranthir looks at him like he's stupid. Which is how he looks at a lot of people, sure, but Celegorm is hurt by the lack of camraderie in the shared recency of their deaths. Caranthir confirms, "Yes, you were there to see him off, along with the rest of us. Whether he'll actually play nice with Ñolofinwë once he gets there remains anyone's guess. Now, are we hunting or not?"
"We are," Celegorm responds nearly instantly. Memories are rushing through his head, and a sneaking suspicion is crawling up the back of his throat. "Tell everyone I'll be down shortly, I just need to take care of something first."
Caranthir snorts and stalks off.
As soon as he's gone, Dior asks, in Sindarin, "Why is your definitely-dead Kinslaying brother here, and, I ask for the third time, where is h—"
He is cut off by a hand wrapped around his throat, cutting off his breath. Celegorm doesn't need a knife to kill, though it would be quicker. He leans in close and hisses, in Sindarin again, "What the fuck did you do."
Dior Eluchíl, son of the half-Maia witch Lúthien, gasps like a fish out of water. Celegorm releases his grip just enough for Dior to wheeze out, "What do you mean, what did I do? I don't even know where we are."
"You cursed me," Celegorm recalls, "with your dying breath. Oh, what did you say, may you haunt me through the Darkness —" and then he puts together the last pieces of just what is going on, and begins to laugh hysterically.
Dior has the audacity to look affronted once the hand is removed from his throat entirely. "I did, but I thought it would be beyond the Doo—"
Celegorm interrupts him (mid-heave of laughter himself) to crow, "You didn't finish the line. It's supposed to be everlasting Darkness. You not only failed to recite the relevant part of the Oath properly, but you didn't even correct yourself correctly! You died before you could finish damning us to the Void, and now you've just damned us to relive the Darkening instead."
"The what." Dior's face is even more pale than before.
"The Darkening of Valinor," Celegorm explains as his laughter fades further, "where the Trees are killed, and Morgoth steals the Silmarils. Oh, and kills my grandfather in the process. It's why we went to Beleriand in the first place, to get the jewels back." He's done laughing — his face and jaw hurt from the strain. Fully exhausted, and with the heavy weight of implication falling on him all at once, Celegorm rolls off of Dior to lay flat on his back beside him and stare at the stone-hewn ceiling of his room.
He could still probably take the boy king in a fistfight like this, if he needs to. Instead, he stares vaguely upwards, listens to the future echoes of Doom pounding in his ears, and says succintly, "Fuck."
"Fuck," Dior agrees.
This could still absolutely be an overly convoluted scheme set up by Mandos to convince Celegorm to repent in his ways or something else profoundly sentimental. But he doesn't feel like he did that much wrong himself. Sure, there was the whole Lúthien incident. And a Kinslaying or two. Both of which, he notes, were downwind of Morgoth stealing the Silmarils in the first place. So really, everything can be chalked up to his doings.
But with an opportunity like this in front of him, Celegorm wasn't going to sit by and just let everything happen all over again.
"Don't fuck anything up any more than you already have," he tells Dior before leaving him to try to stop the whole mess before it even starts. "And if you do, nobody here speaks Sindarin, so they'll listen to whatever I tell them. After all, here I'm a Prince of the Realm, and you are nothing to no one."
Dior's eyes narrow in obvious disdain. Then he seems to get enough sense in his head to realize that Celegorm is actually being a considerate person, and stays where he is.
First he heads to where his brothers are milling about, lazily putting on shoddy gear and chatting amongst themselves. Well, the gear itself is actually ridiculously expensive, but the workmanship is shoddy with naïveté that comes from craftsmen who rely on the safety of Valinor to protect them more than the equipment itself.
As soon as Celegorm steps into the room, they all fall silent, which makes it very obvious that they were talking about him. Maedhros — scarless, well-built Maedhros, with both his hands, it's almost too much for Celegorm to stand without screaming or sobbing or hurling something at a wall just to watch it shatter — opens his mouth to speak, but Celegorm cuts him off first.
He remembers to say it in Quenya, at least: "I'll be a bit longer. I need to talk to Grandfather before we leave."
He's about to turn to do that when he sees him, curled up by the fireplace.
The next thing he knows, Celegorm is on his knees, hands and face buried in Huan's fur, shaking with every breath. He's not crying. He's definitely not crying.
Huan, because he is such a good and wise and loyal hound, is more than happy to let Celegorm not-cry into his side. His tail wags. Celegorm can hear it thumping against the woven rug. It's the finest music he's ever heard.
Celegorm lets himself have this reunion for only a minute or so. Then he stands up, wipes his eyes on a sleeve that is far too soft for him to have worn when he died, turns on his heel, and leaves the room with an emphasized, "I'll be back," to his brothers.
The muttering starts up again long before he's out of earshot.
Next he goes to Grandfather Finwë, who refused the summons to Taniquetil along with everyone else in Formenos except for Fëanor. He's seated in a worn wooden chair, a hunk of wood in one hand and a knife no bigger than his thumb in the other. Celegorm valiantly tries to talk Grandfather into going out with the hunting party, taking a long and scenic walk, or even travelling to see his sons reconcile before all of Aman. Anything to get him out of the fortress (as poorly-built as it is, with Celegorm's hindsight) before Melkor comes. With Finwë to hold the Noldor together after the theft, they might have the numbers to stand a chance in the Nirnaeth, or even to mount an offensive on Angband sooner. He's old friends with Olwë, and might be able to talk him into peaceably borrowing the swan-ships. Father might even heed his counsel.
Grandfather refuses. "I am old, Turkafinwë," he says, eyes crinkled and gleaming, "and my bones need some rest today."
Celegorm wants to tear out his hair. He could probably fashion it into a sturdy enough rope to bind Grandfather hand and foot and cast him across the back of his saddle. Everyone else in the fortress had the good sense to run when darkness fell. How can he shove such wisdom into Finwë before it kills him?
He doesn't want to — not in the least because he has no idea how it's actually supposed to work — but he plays his last, most desperate strategy: "I think I've had a vision of Foresight. Something terrible is going to happen in Formenos, and you shouldn't be here when it happens. No one should be."
Infuriatingly, Grandfather laughs. "Foresight? I'm sure the spoils of your newfound gift seem terrible to you, child of Aman," he says, smiling at Celegorm like he's presenting his first ever squirrel carcass, "but surely it is not so terrible that the strength of the Noldor cannot fix it."
"You can't!" Celegorm insists, throwing his hands in the air and subtlety to the wind. "It's Melkor! He'll steal the Silmarils and kill you while he's at it!"
Now Grandfather looks at Celegorm like he's unwell. Or gone completely mad. While he's definitely more physically well than he was before dying violently, Celegorm does consider the possibility that he is truly going mad in some pre-death hallucination brought on by severe blood loss. Then he remembers Dior upstairs, the half-baked son of a witch that he is, and decides this is probably the sanest he's ever been.
Oh. Grandfather is talking to him. "…the gardens of Lórien, if you need," he is saying. "I know your father may object, for reasons I completely understand, but if that is what's best for you I will see that it happens."
No. Absolutely not. The last thing Celegorm needs is even more Maiar getting involved in this situation. He takes a deep breath and schools his face into something that hopefully looks much calmer than before. "You're right, Grandfather. Irmo must have been playing tricks last night." Never mind that last night was the eve of battle five centuries from now. "I should go get some fresh air."
"That sounds like a wonderful idea, Turkafinwë," Grandfather says. The smile returns to his face, and he returns to his whittling.
Out of options, Celegorm begins to head back towards his brothers, to rescue those he can of the people he cares about. Grandfather died (and seems insistent on dying again) before the Doom fell upon the Noldor — Mandos might be kind to him and let him return early. He's sworn no Oaths, after all.
Then Celegorm pauses and reconsiders.