#[thinks about 2nd age elven politics a bit] you know the reason gil-galad's parentage is so flexible

[tanoraqui]

This is ABSOLUTELY written for everyone who shouted in the reblog tags for more. You bastards, I had to look up so many place names and he’s barely gone anywhere

Celebrimbor didn’t linger in Valmar, no longer than was necessary to acquire decent clothes and a tolerable sword. The Vanyar were curious, but too polite to ask delaying questions of someone on a time-sensitive mission from the Valar themselves. (More like on leniency from the Valar... Celebrimbor couldn’t say what he’d expected when he swore his Oath, because he hadn’t really expected anything, save more pain for his defiance. He still thought he would rather be cast into eternal Void than see the Three, and then all Middle Earth, in An– in Sauron’s hand.)

Time-sensitive though, yes. Mandos had said nothing more, but the new Oath gnawed at Celebrimbor’s gut, urging action, and he’d been in enough deadly battles and wars to sense when one was drawing to a breaking point, even from idyllic Aman. For war this was, though war begun, resumed, or unending he didn’t know - the Vanyar said that 4,762 years had passed while he was in the Halls of Mandos, but the only details they could give of Arda was some vague story about Numenor earning its own destruction. No word of Sauron, none of Laurelindórenan or Lindon, much less any of the other races...

He avoided Tirion, even though his heart years to walk its shining childhood streets for even just a few minutes (and perhaps to acquire a better sword). He avoided Alqualondë for many reasons. He couldn’t avoid Avalonnë, but he slipped through as quickly and quietly as possible, borrowing a small boat and a few weeks’ rations on the strength of his name and putting to sea before rumor of that name could spread to someone who knew someone who’d died because of his foolish trust and inability to defend his people from the consequences...or worse, to a cousin (if any lived again) or a great-aunt or -uncle, or worst of all, his grandmother.

The last time he'd seen Nerdanel was on the new shores of sunken Beleriand, where he’d clasped her hands before her West-returning ship and told her that even if she could persuade the Valar to take him, he would not go, for now, for the first time, there was a chance to build something truly good in this land—and to rebuild, which surely was owed. The parting before that had been a moment's meeting of eyes across the square as Feanor raised his blade and Celebrimbor's father and uncles all followed suit. If he saw her again now, with Eregion burning in his wake and a brand new Oath simmering through his veins, he didn’t know how he could bear a third farewell, or even a greeting.

He was an indifferent sailor, but one person alone couldn't sail across the sea anyway. He set his aim and prayed that the Valar, or at least Ulmo, really did mean him to have a fighting chance.

And so it seemed Ulmo did, for the skies remained fair and, as far as an indifferent sailor could tell, the waves carried him more than swiftly east. So his thoughts turned to what he had to do once he reached shore:

Eru Ilúvatar hear me, I will see the Three, the Seven and the Nine all free of you, and even your One, unto the End of Days! Manwë, Varda, and Aulê witness and remember my vow, and cast me into Darkness everlasting if I fail!

He ran the words over and over in his kind, and then all the workings he remembered of the Rings. Destruction was the obvious, simple answer. But he, Celebrimbor, had wrought the Rings as well, damn it—most of them, at least. If it was possible for one crafter to seize undue control, it had to be possible for the other. Even Annatar couldn’t—

Sauron. Even Sauron couldn’t build a path truly passable to only one power. It might be blocked, hidden, guarded, locked to a key only it’s master held…but Celebrimbor had learned lock-picking in tandem with lock-smithing, as a youth when the Trees still shone, and no matter how Sauron had perverted it, he knew the spellwork crafted into his own rings of power.

Sauron the Foul, the Deceiver. Gorthaur, Lord of Werewolves. First Lieutenant of Morgoth; killer of Finrod, Celebrimbor’s cousin whom he’d loved; chief engineer of the Dagor Bragollach, in which thousands had burned, including more cousins.  He’d bragged about it, while systematically pressing hot iron into Celebrimbor’s own flesh. That was the first and only truth of him. For decades it’d been easy to know it,  defending Eregion from orcs and corrupted men until they could defend no more—why now did his mind keep turning to Annatar, shining friend and colleague of skill like no other, who had only ever been a lie?

He knew this simple answer too, in his heart. The Three, he’d kept safe; the Seven and Nine he’d been too weak to save; and somehow, Sauron’s other victory through all that hot iron, knives, and nightmares made true had been to remind Celebrimbor that he’d loved that lie. He had taken that lie into his heart, his bed, the deepest working of his craft (grinning at each other like madmen over a burning forge, a new world at their fingertips). He’d shared dreams with that lie, of Arda made as beautiful as Eldamar - he had, at least. He would’ve sworn Annatar shared them, too. He could almost still swear it—there must have been truth in the lie, to make it so convincing. Before he’d been Sauron, he’d been Mairon, and worked the same forges as Celebrimbor’s own great-grandfather in Aulë’s workshop.

No more, he reminded himself sternly. Only lies, and empty seduction. One could love a dream and know that it was only a dream. Already he could feel the pall of dark power wafting faintly over the eastern land. 

Celebrimbor did little to steer his ship other than point it east and pray, but Ulmo was kind: barely half his rations were done by the time he approached the quays of Mithlond. They were far, far fewer than he remembered, smaller, with not so much a city as a large fishing village behind them. But the boats remained as fleet and strong as ever, and tall, silver-bearded figure stood on the dock to welcome him.

The city shouldn’t have been so diminished. There shouldn’t be even the faintest pall over this land, not with that elf standing tall to greet him. Celebrimbor flung himself off the boat before it’d even touched the dock, and nearly shook Círdan by the shoulders. 

“Where is it? Who took it? What happened?”

The old shipwright laughed of all things, caught his frantic hands and held them down. “I’m fine, Winyafinwë, as are my Havens, and all the people who dwell or depart from here. I gave it to Olórin the Maia when he arrived two thousand years ago, for I saw that he’d need it more than I. Presently he goes by ‘Mithrandir the Wizard’, or ‘Gandalf’, if you need to hunt him down—but I expect your paths will cross sooner than not.”

Celebrimbor’s heartbeat slowed. There were few things in Arda more reliable than Círdan’s foresight. Not least because it was oft augmented by Ulmo himself, who would never lead the beloved shipwright astray. 

Though another reliability was clearly still Círdan’s tendency to treat everyone born after the coming of Oromë to Cuiviénin as a slightly wayward niece or nephew. The only mollification was that there was some justice to it, age-wise, and Celebrimbor had seen him speak to Galadriel, Fingolfin, and at least one Maia with the exact same calm amusement.

“Good, good.” His hand rose to absentmindedly rub his chest, where the fire of his Oath, quiescent at sea, had awoken in sight of shore. “I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here...”

The twinkle faded from his old friend’s eyes.

“Alas, I do not—or at least, I know enough not to delay you with all the questions I could ask.” He turned away, beckoning Celebrimbor to follow. "What I don't know is if I can offer you a night's rest in my halls. Dark things are riding in the north—I cannot see what, but I fear you are needed as soon as possible."

Celebrimbor followed him. He couldn't stop glancing around the once-great city. The capital of Lindon it had been, not as shining and well-wrought as his own Ost-in-Edhil, perhaps, but thriving in the way of a busy port city: merchants showing off their waves, criers sharing the latest court gossip, elves but also men and the occasional dwarf going every which way. Now it was...quiet, and what business there was, they quickly left behind at the docks. It mostly consisted of people preparing to leave.

"Is Gil-Galad...?" he asked, urgent but unable to finish the question. Their friendship had been more political than familial, but a cousin (of some sort) was a cousin.

"Slain by Sauron at the end of the Second Age," Círdan said bluntly. "But he and the last Númenoreans of that age bought us nearly three thousand years of peace."

"Ah."

Círdan added, "His gift of you is with Elrond, in Imladris. And Laurelindórenan has never faltered.”

That news was more welcome. But— "Imladris?"

It was Círdan's turn to look elsewhere. "Founded in secret from survivors of the fall of Eregion, while you were..."

"Being tortured to death?" Celebrimbor finished helpfully.

Celebrimbor had a hundred questions of his own about the events of the nearly five millennia years since he'd last been alive. But the Grey Havens was quiet and so were they, as Círdan walked him to the stables and set him up with a horse, a good map, and somewhat better rations than he'd brought from Avallonë—no one bothered to make truly potent lembas in Aman.

"May the Valar go with you," Círdan wished him. "And, Celebrimbor—" He caught the saddle girth and the younger elf's eyes. "I hope that boat you came in was a gift."

"It was," Celebrimbor snapped, though fire burned softly in his chest. Winyafinwë indeed.

Then he winced. "Though technically I implied that I'd return it. When next someone sails, would you...?"

Círdan smiled again at the folly of youth, and released his girth. "I think I shall wait for you to return it yourself."

unfortunately I have begun to mentally write the Lotr/Silmarillion AU longfic that I would write if I was going to write a LotR/Silmarillion AU longfic. Which I’m not going to do. But if I was, I know roughly how the prologue would go.