#Celechwes au

[tanoraqui]

I’m nearing 6,969 followers and my friend suggested (when it happens) I celebrate by taking crackship prompts, and my brain immediately began rotating Celechwes through the entire third generation of the House of Finwë one by one, wondering how each would work. So that’s where I am, tonight.

[zealouswerewolfcollector]

Tolkien Fanfic Reading Month - Days 17, 18 and 19

I caught up with an_evasive_author's For We Walk by Faith, Not by Sight

WIP, Maedhros/Fingon, M, mind the tags

Sweet, angsty and gorgeously written. All you can want from a fic.

Finally finished @tanoraqui's Celechwes Fixes the Noldor

63805 words, Maedhros/Fingon/OFC

I promise you will fall in love with Celechwes just like Maedhros and Fingon did.

Maedhros and Fingon on a Tropical Vacation, a ficlet from @polutrope's collection 'Tis the Season (To Be Tra-La-La-Lally)

Around 1200 words, Maedhros/Fingon, M (soft)

This fic warmed my heart and made my day. Polutrope's modern AU is absolutely brilliant.

To Bring Mirth into His House by Anonymous

WIP, Finwe and his grandchildren, G

Finwe trying to be a good grandpa. Only Maedhros and Maglor chapters have been posted so far, but I already love it so much!

everybody needs a second chance by @myliobatis

1212 words, Turgon and Thingol, G

Turgon and Thingol bond over being too tall, having mortal sons-in-law and other things they have in common. Funny and sweet.

[thelordofgifs]

Some fantastic recs here, going to check out all the ones I haven’t already! Might I add some longfics:

we will make this place our home by @leucisticpuffin (kidnap fam 1970s AU)

Quenta Narquelion by @cycas (the First Age from the perspective of Fëanor’s ghost)

Celechwes Fixes the Noldor by @tanoraqui (Gil-galad son of threesome)

All That Glitters Gold Rush AU by @allthatglittersisnotgoldrush (the Silmarillion Gold Rush AU, if you want something REALLY long)

I’m gonna be spending a lot of time stuck at home so hit me up with fic recs

[tanoraqui]

Accounting for Family

A 2.5k Celechwes story (with Fingon and Maedhros, of course!) set in Fourth Age Aman.

Halfway through the Accountants Guildmaster’s introductory speech at the Richest Elf in Aman recognition ceremony, Celechwes nudged Maedhros’s arm and murmured, so quietly that it was thought as much as sound, “Is it possible that Caranthir came to this event without realizing what it was for?”

She wasn’t concerned about the Guildmaster noticing. Elnedior Laindaeriel was infamous for her long speeches, entrancing to herself and soporific to most others. Thus, Celechwes’s people-watching: first and foremost the spark of life growing in her midriff, but then (the speech was so long) her fellow audience-members in their wide, tiered semi-circle around the stage. 

[keep reading on AO3]

[tanoraqui]

So it looks like somebody is working on what could be a Celechwes Simulator game: store.steampowered[.]com/app/2697000/Windstorm_The_Legend_of_Khiimori/ (Or at least that was my first thought when I saw it)

You're right, it's my girl!

13th century Mongolia is the home of history’s best horse riders. The land is beautiful and vast, full of wonders and intriguing tales to uncover. Be prepared for harsh climates, steep cliffs, and amazing landscapes. Keep yourself and your nomad camp safe from danger by strategically planning your delivery routes across the wide steppes, over snowy peaks or through the scorching desert. Expertly navigate the wilderness to reduce risk of diseases, injuries, and threats to your camp.

This is perhaps when I should admit that I 100% did stat Celechwes out for D&D 5e. I have yet to try playing her, but she's lv2 Ranger/lv12 Rogue and her base speed is 60ft. I homebrewed a little to trade 1/3 of her rightful Sneak Attack damage for her horses being able to dodge and dash better.

[tanoraqui]

For the russingon ask game : 4 (+ Celechwes <3 ?) and 24

(Belated response to this ask meme)

4. What do they each think is the other's most attractive quality?

Maedhros falls in love with people for qualities he yearns for but cannot find within himself. In Celechwes: her refusal, nay, innate inability to be bound, by responsibilities or worry. In Fingon: his relentless optimism, hope, faith, estel.

Fingon falls in love with people for qualities that he shares but which he worries, in his heart, that he's only faking. In Maedhros: his compassionate instinct to look out for others, with protection are care, often beyond and before looking out for himself. In Celechwes: her flinging-her-self-from-a-cliff 110% commitment to a course of action, be it a race or a political scheme or love, once she has decided to do it.

Celechwes, to be perfectly honest, fell in love with both of them when she watched Fingon slide off the eagle by the edge of Lake Mithrim, and Maedhros stumble-fall after him, though she didn't know it at the time. She fell in love with both of them for kind of the same thing, which she does have herself but which she really needed in those dark days of the Enemy's recent, savage assaults on her people: the ability to simply endure and go on. There's a difference between them, though: in Fingon, his relentless optimism - but where Maedhros sees (sometimes needs to see) an easy-coming faith, Celechwes better sees how much it's often a matter of force of will. And in Maedhros: his blazing, unceasing fire.

(And if you were looking for horny responses, well, I'm a strict headcanoner that the fëa > hröa rule means that elves are, on average, distinctly demiromantic by modern human standards, and most likely to be turned on by things they love about a person. But also: Fingon can do a smirk, usually while sparring, that communicates with a single lopsided flash of teeth, I'm going to kick your ass and I'm going to look so good doing it that you're going to be so angry-horny that you fight worse and I kick your ass even harder, in a vicious cycle that ends with both of us naked and me #winning, and it has NEVER ONCE FAILED to send Maedhros into a competitive tizzy.)

.

24. What’s a Russingon AU you often daydream about?

I suppose the superhero au... They're openly archnemeses with intense foe yay and secretly living out a Superman/Lex Luthor raising-a-child-together domestic au; it's so good... Their son's superpower is negating other people's superpowers; he literally COULD be a Villain's perfect brainwashed-clone(ish) superweapon against the Hero, but instead they took him out of the test tube as an infant and bought a house together in a nice neighborhood with a good school, and when Ereinion is like 14 they'll finally let him burst onto the super-scene as Kid Valor, who was toootally speed-grown in a test tube in the past year in a villainous FëaTech lab, but broke free and is now Valiant's new sidekick...

Celechwes is already their friend (and sometimes third in bed?) by the time Erein is born, and Maedhros and FIngon both sometimes call her for advice on "normal" childhoods, because she's the one of the only people in the world who knows about their secret relationship but wasn't raised in, well, the house of Finwë. So she'll randomly get a call like, "Hey, which would be more traumatic for a four-year-old: to be told that their dad isn't coming home for an unknown amount of time because he has Musically induced amnesia, or to be introduced to their dad who doesn't know who they are?" And she has to be like, "I don't know - but Erien's a pretty smart kid, and he does know about your night jobs. Did this sort of thing ever happen to either of your parents, when they were active heroes? How did you feel about it then?"

Sometimes she babysits. She's Erein's second-favorite aunt (Aredhel wins on sheer coolness.)

[tanoraqui]

Ask meme: what song got stuck in their head when they were in the grocery store just now and how do they feel about that? For Violetta if GG is still your bag; Celechwes if not. Thank you!

[ask meme]

I can do both! Hm, both are pretty dependent on where in their respective timelines they are, though...

Violetta is most likely to have gone to the grocery store like a normal person during her time in Mechanicsburg. She finds herself humming a patriotic song that the municipal band was playing a few days ago at some ribbon-cutting ceremony the Burgmeister attended with his staff in tow. She briefly thinks, with reflexive patriotism for her own home, that the Sturmhalten City Anthem is better, then remembers that actually it isn't and also she hates everyone back there, especially Tarvek. She genuinely thinks that the Parisian City Anthem is better, but the Mechanicsburg song better serves her cover, here, so she doesn't stop herself from humming it. It is pretty catchy, even if the lyrics had an unsettling amount to do with tearing people to pieces then making the parts dance with a well-placed electrical current.

For Celechwes, well, after the initial reconciliation of the Noldor and renewed determination to fight Morgoth all together, Maglor set to writing some rousing, heartening, slightly bloodthirsty, and above all catchy songs for marching, fort-building, farming, even for battle... Some were such good earworms that they passed through the Girdle and people started absentmindedly singing them in Doriath...to which Daeron and other great singers of the court took personal offense, so they started composing their own ridiculously catchy earworms about the beauty of Menegroth and the whole realm of Doriath, the joys of traipsing through the trees, gathering nuts and berries, hunting in the glen and singing with songbirds... These, in turn, made their way back to the Noldor...

This long-distance, passive-aggressive back-and-forth competition continued all the way until Dagor Bragollach. Celechwes was always more partial to Daeron's.

[tanoraqui]

...so, do Celeshwes and Fingon and Maedhros have a recurring sexy roleplay that is, approximately, the music video to Ghengis Khan but they take turns being the jealous one? (Or is that just the superheroes au?)

Ok first I want to note that I described their go-to sexy roleplay scenario last October of my own accord and it DOES overlap with this in vibes.

Superhero au ABSOLUTELY, omg. Celechwes prefers to avoid the sexy melodrama Valiant and Pheonix regularly enact on news camera, because she's not interested in being a subject of gossip the evening news. But in private? Oh hell yes. They switch around who's who. Maedhros still likes being damselled - or rather, Maedhros likes being rescued. Fingon does a surprisingly good villain rant (he's heard a lot.) Celechwes likes taking advantage of her superspeed to knock them both to the floor and kiss them.

In canon, though...I don't think so. A threesome is novel enough; they haven't gotten around to the idea of inventing adultery. Largely because I think Elvish marriage tends to be very...committed. Soulmate-esque. It is For Life and everyone means that. So, cheating does happen between people dating more casually, but once people are married, if they're committed enough to get married, it's basically tautologically impossible that they would look anywhere else.

"But they've already accepted the premise that one person can love 2 different people at a marriage level?" you ask. Listen: logic only gets you so far. Also, frankly, the idea of 1 person leaving their sworn partner for another? It's. Touchy. So they're just not going there.

That said, once Finwë, Miriel and Indis are all all three revived and wed, they will roleplay the Genghis Khan scenario beat for fucking beat, including, of course, the wife's sexy vengeance which descends into a threesome. (Fingolfin walks in on it once on an attempted surprise visit, and is traumatized for his immortal life.)

[tanoraqui]

For the character ask game: Celechwes and accidentally causing a fire!

[ask meme]

Celechwes considered herself something of an expert of the many waybreads of Beleriand - on eating them, at least. She'd been sent on her way with the many rich breads of Ossiriand, as varied as the nut flours each Laegrim tribe boasted as the best base, all perfectly suited to long, happy wandering. She'd ridden night and day on strength of the fluffy but fulfilling wafers of the eastern field-lands, the ever-enduring hard seedcakes of the northwestern mountains, and the surprisingly homogenous loafs of the squabbling Noldor (though she could always tell a baker who'd crossed the Helcaraxë from one who hadn't. They were, quite simply, more sustaining.) On a few occasions, she'd even been gifted one of the small, round loafs which Melian made with her own hands for those Marchwardens who guarded the Girdle along the edge of Nan Dungortheb, each bite of which seemed to make the whole world brighter.

And of course there was the waybread of home, including from her mother's own oven. Peroldhaleth was no great journey-leader, sustaining all her people with her craft. But elves had been baking petty waybread for kith and kin for longer than they'd been elevating lords and ladies for the skill. Celechwes had long-since given up trying to explain that Perolhaleth's recipe really needed the many long days at sea, gently absorbing ambient salt and dampness, in order to be really "done", and it just wasn't made for in-land journeys. Now, she just gratefully accepted the bundles of bread and made sure to dunk them in streams every time she camped.

Good waybread couldn't be made on the move. It needed at least a camp with real intent to stay a while, to rest, recuperate, and prepare for the journey ahead. Even so, Celechwes had made her own waybread from time to time - in her mother's oven, or with kitchen time borrowed in one village or another, or even over a cookfire of her own if she found a particularly nice patch of land and decided to rest for a while. She habitually picked up odds and ends of trail-cooking supplies; she could make a good, true-sustaining oatcake or nutbread if she put in the effort. Good enough for herself, at least, and browned just the way she liked it!

She'd all but stopped that after the Enemy returned to the north. First, every place that used to be as safe as the wild ever were was suddenly under strange and terrifying threat. Then she'd been busy, criss-crossing the continent with urgent messages for the war. Even as peace stretched south of the Leaguer, gone was the lackadaisical I'll end up on that side of the forest sometime this year; I'd be happy to bring your letter to your cousin post of the Years of Starlight, and with it, spontaneous idle camping and baking.

Beside, every Noldorin fortress of note had a lady leading a team of bakers dedicated exclusively to waybread and other field provisions. Celechwes's bread was suitable for herself, stubborn and just enough willful hope to sustain a lone rider through the night, a little saltier and damper than most inlanders liked it. It was nothing on the mass quantities of waybread needed to sustain an army, each slice replete with the determination, joy, fire, and everything else required to carry a warrior through patrols, marching, cold northern nights and pitched battle, and they didn't stint the couriers their share.

She watched through the glass oven door (only Noldor!) as her third attempt in a row caught flame, and she burst into tears.

Lady Maedhinest, Loaf-Ward of Barad Eithel, rested a hand on her shoulder. Though capable, Celechwes knew, of kneading a five-pound pile of dough on her own, her touch was gentle.

"This may just not be the task for you," she said kindly. "There are countless other--"

"What?" Celechwes cried. "I cannot take up arms, I cannot heal the wounded, I cannot ride out--"

For the whole of the north still burned, the air tasted of fetid smoke even here in the heart of Barad Eithel; the siege had broken but that just meant the vast army of orcs and smoke-ghosts and dragons that spit flame swifter than the fastest courier could ride was now broken up and roaming free, their movements unpredictable but always savage. The only person to get out unhindered of late had been Fingolfin, and--

"There there, my lady," Maedhinwest murmured, warm arms encircling her. She sensed, perhaps, that calling Celechwes your majesty right now would make her fall apart completely. As much of a failure as her stupid burning waybread, burning helplessly like everything else.

Celechwes let herself be guided to a chair, and blew her nose on the proffered handkerchief. At least they'd long-since shooed all the under-bakers from the room, so maybe Celechwe wouldn't devastate morale with rumors of her general incompetence at the position she'd so boldly stepped up for, and never thought she'd actually be in.

[tanoraqui]

And What Came Next

What follows re-incarnation for Celechwes, Fingon and Maedhros as a family—specifically, as parents.

(Plot-free self-indulgent 3.5k ft. all-new OCs)

When Maedhros returned at last to life, the first question between him, Celechwes and Fingon couldn’t be, “Should we have another child?”, though all three were interested in yes . But the first question had to be, “Can Maedhros peacefully cohabitate on a continent with a Silmarils not held by him or his immediate kin?” Then the second question had to be, “Can Maedhros continue to peacefully cohabitate on a continent with a Silmaril not held by him or his immediate kin?” Then the third question had to be, “By the way, what is going to be the effect of dropping this firebomb in the middle of Noldorin politics?”

(Not to mention many questions like, “What in Eru’s name were you thinking?”, “How could you betray everything we fought for like that?”, “Why didn’t you simply move on?” and “Do Himring’s cornerstones really still stand?”)

And then they had to ask questions one and two, albeit less so three, again for Amrod and Amras, and again for Caranthir, and again for Celegorm and Curufin…

Until one night, as the three of them strolled together along a rocky southeastern beach beneath a star-bright sky, Maedhros drew in a breath in the way he did when he was about to present an argument; and said, “I think we should have another child.

[keep reading on AO3]

[tanoraqui]

☔for the fic ask game!

☔Is there a fic concept you have that you'd like to just explain and share because you're not sure you'll ever write it? If so, what is it?

There is in my heart a canon divergence fic, maybe proper narrative maybe just bullet points, which I have functionally written out as much as I ever will below this cut, in which:

Shortly before the Fall of Númenor and more importantly the Changing of the World, Finrod has a Prophecy of what's coming

He tells Celechwes, who says, "Oh, I...am not okay with it. I didn't plan to go back, but if I can't? If the road truly, utterly only goes one way? That's- that's not okay. I can't, I won't live like that."

So Celechwes goes and talks to some people (quietly, unofficially), who talk to some other people (quietly, unofficially)...

She ends up leading a small fleet that sets out from a southern port just a few days before the Númenoreans are expected to land in the north (fully aiming to avoid the Men). it's about half veterans of Beleriand who have never felt like they fit in on Aman (45% Fëanorians but many close followers of Fingon and more non-Noldor), a quarter elves from other places who don't want to be cut off forever from what was once home, and a quarter Aman-born elves who've grown up on stories of mortal lands and who feel a little restless in the Land of Bliss.

(Finrod joins at the last moment. Amarië found him sitting on a balcony overlooking Valmar and sadly playing the song he once played as the Beorlings woke to see their first shining elf-lord, and she said, "Findaráto Ingoldo, Finrod Felagund Adanil, I will not willingly part from you again - but nor do I want to arrive in the lands across the sea only for war a second time, too late to see all their storied beauty. Also, you know Mingoneth* convinced Veryawendë* to join the fleet, right? Can you imagine how much trouble they'll get into with only Celechwes for supervision?" And he looked up, and saw that she'd packed both their long-distance travel bags.) *OCs, see: "Of the Golden Horde"

(By then, Rawen Ectheliel, once Lieutenant Right Hand of Himring, had already apologized to her wife - who thought they were done with this sort of thing - and followed her lady aboard. She IS done with this sort of thing (ie, rebellion; the House of Fëanor...as it became). But she lost Himring; she couldn't abide herself if she let ill fate befall Celechwes as well.)

The thing about being on at sea when the world abruptly turns from flat into a globe, sailing from a continent that is no longer on said globe, is that you get EXTREMELY turned around and lost. And, frankly, split up as a fleet.

[Cue: several-decades-long montage of several hundred elves - about half hardened (relaxed, but still hardened) war veterans, a quarter friendly nature people just trying to get home, and a quarter kids (in the eyes of all the rest) who have never met a real mortal before - scattered throughout the new southern hemisphere in ones and twos and a few coherent shiploads, trying to find each other and - for most - make their way north toward the lands and people that they know best.]

(If they happen to arrive in time to help beat the ever-loving shit out of Sauron, that's not, like, a drawback for anyone.)

Adventures are had! Hardened war veterans process trauma and old grudges (and sometimes get new ones). People re-find old homes and settle down once more, or realize that either home or they have changed and continue onward with their new companions. Kids grow up.

After a number of sidequests and other delays - flooding rivers, saving an innocent forest from an encroaching swarm of giant spiders, saving a small country from a neighboring evil king influenced by fell whispers from the depths below his castle... It occurs to some of them that all these delays might not be coincidence. They haven't received any official penalties from the Valar for their, er, polite but overt defiance of if not the letter than certainly the spirit of several laws, but...

"I think we are being made Agents of Good," Amarië said thoughtfully. "I think the price of being here is that we must lend a hand where it is needed, where the Great Ones fear to tread for their touch is not...'delicate'...at the best of times."

Celechwes did not like being used without her permission. But, fallen Beleriand never forgotten, she couldn't fault Amarië's analysis.

"I think we should try leaning into it," Finrod suggested. "They'll see that we're here in good faith, and no doubt speed our journey to where our hearts most yearn to go."

(The nearby stream blooped encouragingly, because Ulmo had been explicitly forbidden from giving explicit messages again.)

A few nights later, a local Mannish hunter approached their camp. Emphasis, perhaps, on Man-ish. Her eyes were the blue of a northern wolf-dog. She asked for help scouring the nearby mountains of a dark cult.

[cue: several more decades of montaged adventures. the local folk legends will be rich for generations]

They do arrive in the north just in time to help kick Sauron's fucking ass. Though not early enough to avert the tragedy of the Battle of Dagorlad, they learn later. But before the final, would-be pyrrhic victory; when the soldiers of the Last Alliance are marching into Mordor proper.

Galadriel is the first to know - she's aiding in a healing tent on the foul northern border, ready to ride in a second wave or to hold firm any retreat, when a mind touches her which she hadn't expected to feel again ere either the remaking of the world or her own death and rebirth (for she still had no intention of Sailing.)

Alatariel! her eldest brother calls. How goes the day? I've missed you, of course! Also, do you have a recommendation for where best to land 500 assorted elves, men and cavalry mounts coming up from the south, that we may swiftly come to whatever aid you all need?

A day later, a small host stood at the crest of the path past retaken Minas Ithil, looking out over the shadowed plains of Mordor. All before them was bloodied and embattled: Men fought Men, Elves fought Orcs, eagles and other goodly birds clashed in midair with giant bats and scrawny but deadly petty firedrakes. The very earth groaned in pain beneath the enemy's chains. And far in the distance, near the foot of a fire-spitting mountain, two star-studded banners - one white on black above a white tree, one silver stars on a blue field - approached a red eye on black.

At the head of the bannerless Host of the Returned, Rawen - generally elected battle-leader - raised her blade. Celechwes put a hand on her arm. "Do not call 'Súlaearil.' It's embarrassing. Don't do it." "My lady," Rawen protested, with her particular intonation that made it clear she was saying 'your majesty.' "No," Celechwes said firmly. "'Finwë and the North'?" suggested the elf on Rawen's other side, once third in command of Fingon's Dragon-frighters. "Can't go wrong with that," agreed Finrod, a little further down the line. Rawen sighed. Her blade, which had sagged a little, she raised straight again, then pointed forward with that battle-cry that had long united the great Siege-line of the Noldor: "Finwë and the North!"

"FINWË AND THE NORTH!" roared the Host of the Returned - all hardened veterans by now, though less brittle in it than some had begun. The fiery-faithful of Himring and the valorous of Barad Eithel, the quick of Ossiriand and the cunning of Nargothrond and the devoted of Doriath, the bold and restless of Aman and those who loved Middle Earth so dearly that they could do naught but defend it; slayers of orcs and spiders and feller beasts, saviors of lands besieged and heroes of legend, swept down from the heights to descend upon Sauron's unsuspecting eastern flank.

Ahead of them all streaked a single swift rider, blond hair streaming in the wind of her passage. Her mount was a prong-horned antelope from the plains far to the south, faster than any cavalry horse (and not usually suited to riding, but blue-eyed Alatar had whispered it some encouragement before they'd parted).

They leapt the first line of the enemy, hastily reassembling itself to meet this unexpected new foe. They jerked and dodged and ducked through the others, as behind them the battle lines slammed together. Jagged orcish blades came at her, and the sharp iron of men enraptured or enslaved to the dark, but mostly in passing - they didn't have time for a single rider driving through with no weapons of her own, her only goal the bright silver-on-blue star in the distance.

Eventually a pair of clever firedrakes managed to herd them up one of the low, ragged cliffs that spurted up here and there on the barren land. Celechwes rolled off her antelope to avoid a stream of fire and ran the other way without hesitation - the quick, clever creature would get to safety far more ably with no heavy elf on its back. Without, slowing, she sprinted off the edge of the cliff.

She'd planned to tuck and roll to the bottom, then pick herself up and keep running. The land ahead was clear for a few miles, save for the pits. Instead, great, sharp talons grasped her gently, and (non-specifically) familiar wings beat around her, with a screech that echoed in her bones.

She laughed as one Great Eagle dropped her carefully toward another. With a sailor's grace she landed with both feet on its broad, shifting back, and returned a joyous screech of challenge into the racing wind.

Below and ahead (though less far with every wingbeat), Ereinion Gil-galad looked up. Eagles had been screaming for battle all day, all month, but for a moment he could've sworn -

Celechwes's eagle dove to avoid a vampire. She dropped her knees and gripped its feathers tightly, and thanked the stars that she wasn't trying to do this while keeping someone from bleeding out from the wrist.

As they dove toward the volcano and the forces advancing against one another there, she eagle-shrieked again, in greeting this time, and shouted, "Erein, hold your position! Re-enforcements are coming!"

Even - nay, especially the High King of the Noldor in Middle Earth knew better than to question the finest royal courier in Beleriand, much less his mother the queen. "Hold!" Gil-galad bellowed over the clash of blades.

Celechwes circled back up, looking back across the field. But Sauron, too, had heard her message, and knew a victory when it was about to slip from his grasp. Mighty and fell, he strode forward toward the banners of Gil-galad and Elendil, and the kings of Elves and Men.

In swift, vicious, terrible combat they were soon joined, Sauron with his dark, burning blade and Gil-galad with bright Aeglos and Elendil with shining Narsil. Likely, at best, all would have been slain -

But Celechwes hadn't been the only one of her host riding hard across the dark plains, dallying with no enemy save the greatest foe. She was only (as ever) the fastest.

"HEY, GORTHAUR!" yelled Finrod Felagund, with a particular intonation that made it clear he was saying, Hey, motherfucker! "I CALL REMATCH!"

And this time, as he raised his voice in a Song of trust unbroken and faith fulfilled, of Sea and sand and second chances, Amarië of the Vanyar Sang with him, their souls entwined, she who had learned to Sing from Maiar on the slope of Ezollohar where stood the Trees; and with them also Sang their daughter Veryawendë Tinúviel, named by prophecy from both parents, fated to be a bright melody in darkness and a great change in the world, and this was not her time but still the Great Music swirled thick around her; and you bet your ass Galadriel had also ridden down from the north to join as fast as she was able -

The last time Galadriel and Amarië joined their voices in powerful harmony had been the final duel between Morgoth and Finarfin, Anairë, and the last of the Host of the Noldor. With Sauron's power reflected and redoubled unto himself through his terrible Ring, this duel was no less hard-won, but it was very definitively won. They even prevented him from erupting the volcano as a final spiteful blow.

"We should destroy the Ring," Gil-galad said at the end, exhausted, bloody, and leaning on Elrond for support. Isildur eyed it - shining golden on Sauron's cut-off black hand - with battle-fire lingering in his grey eyes. "I would rather claim it as weregild, for Anarion - " "For the love of - " said Celechwes, dismounted now that the worst of the battle was over (though there was a great deal of mopping-up to do, of orcs, corrupted men and etc.) "Is this still the Noldorin influence?" she demanded, of nobody in particular. "Or is it a new Edainic thing? No, I suppose Thingol fell to it in the end, too - is it being inland? Do you not spend enough time near the sea, and that's why you're constantly obsessed with cursed jewelry? Here, I'll do it - don't go anywhere, Erein; I'll be right back."

She shucked off her leather hauberk to use as a glove, picked up Sauron's still coal-hot black hand, and sprinted up the volcano slope before anyone else could say a word.

"...I'm really sorry," Elendil said into the relative quiet that followed, "I think I know who you are, my lord - " he bowed toward Finrod, as best he could while leaning bloody and exhausted on Isildur - "and Lady Galadriel, I'm so glad you caught up with us. But I'm not sure about any of these other ladies who have come to our rescue? Including that one?" He jerked his head toward the bright-haired figure already halfway up Oroduin's rocky slope, with the air of a man wondering if he should call for soldiers to chase after her.

"That's my mother," said Gil-galad.

"Ah," said Elendil and Isildur, with perfect understanding. They, too, had mothers.

The Forge of Sauron rumbled ominously, shuddered and spat out first sparks, then sprays of lava. Celechwes, briefly out of sight in the cavern near the top, sprinted back down ahead of the molten rock, empty handed.

"Everyone move!" she shouted. "Should've evacuated first! Go, go, go!"

And then everyone lived happily after - though a lot of them probably did Sail not long thereafter, including most of the Host of the Returned - including the Finrod, Amarië, and Veryawendë, though not bold-hearted Mingoneth, and Celechwes, and Gil-galad. Because they'd accomplished a Great Task and Aman is, actually, objectively more pleasant for Elves than most mortal lands (and Beleriand was still gone). The spiritual weather is just so much better. Everyone stuck around to see Elrond and Celebrian get married, though, and to meet their kids and see Gondor and the Greenwood both regain their feet.

With no Gil-galad to come and sort out several conflicting emotions about his parents, Fingon does stay in Mandos, keeping Maedhros company for longer...but not too much longer. There weren't many casualties among the Host of the Returned, but Rawen Ectheliel was among them (her last thought is that her wife is going to be really, truly, perhaps irrevocably disappointed). She manages to find them before she leaves, the memory of Thangorodrim which Maedhros has made to hang from in his self-pity, self-loathing and twisted self-aggrandizement, where Fingon sits by his feet out of loyalty, devotion, stubbornness, pride and fear; and she gives their behavior such a scathing review that Fingon actually pulls his shit together a few years later and tentatively leaves, and Maedhros pulls one of his hands out of the chains.

[tanoraqui]

let the record note that of Celechwes/Maedhros/Fingon, in the new Barbie Mug Shots meme, Maedhros would be guiltily holding his sign like a normal person, Fingon would be #posing, and Celechwes didn’t get caught because as soon as the cops showed up, she disengaged and dropped into a dead sprint, and nobody put in enough effort to chase her because she’s relatively very unthreatening. She’ll be back later to get them out, either because she asked around until she figured out the bail system or with a combination of bluffing and the fact that some Noldorin courier friend taught her how to pick locks.

[tanoraqui]

[spins the ‘nursing a tetchy printer OC random facts roulette wheel again] while Celechwes jogged from her discreet observation spot of the Battle Under Stars back to the half-fortified city where most of the Falas had retreated, she and her companion had an on-and-off whispered debate as to whether Celegorm specifically was a Maia. Celechwes argued that he wasn’t distinct enough from the other shining Elves, nor was his hound—if he was a Maia, then they all were, and surely that was absurd. They weren’t as great as Melian or Ossë but they were far too Elvish too be common nature spirits. Her companion—an elf named Palliel whom she didn’t know well and who was later killed by orcs before the Siege-line settled—argued that of course they weren’t ALL Maiar, but the one who’d led the charge had a particular light and about him—and not just because his hair was unusually silver! And the hound was obviously more than a mere hound; didn’t you see how his eyes, too, shone?

(What mattered, they agreed, was that the Powers Across the Sea had sent help, when even their own Queen and King of the Forest had only been able to offer a promise of displaced refuge.)

Celechwes never told Celegorm. She didn’t want to give him an even more-swelled head. In retrospect, she wonders if knowing would’ve given him something to hold on to.

[tanoraqui]

The one thing I think I failed to fully express in Celechwes Fixes the Noldor, though it was very clear in my mind throughout, is the relative heights of the main characters

[tanoraqui]

Curufinwë Spite Gifts, and Other Welcomes

The extended experience of being welcomed (more or less) to the House of Fëanor…once they belatedly find out about your secret threeway marriage.

404 FA – 0.

Celechwes was choosing tiny sandwiches from the eastern buffet table when Edhellos caught her by the elbow. Edhellos bent her blond head as though eyeing Celechwes’s sandwich choices and whispered in her ear, “Is it true that you’re already pregnant?”

“Wha?” said Celechwes. She hastily swallowed the cucumber-and-cheese sandwich in her mouth and said, “How did you hear that? That’d be so fast—”

“Thought so,” Edhellos said with satisfaction.

She tugged Celechwes to the side, away from the buffet table crowd (resurging as the sun set and dinner plates came out). As they walked, she murmured, “As far as I know, Maedhros told Amras, who told Fingolfin, who told Lalwen, who told Finrod. Now Finrod is telling…”

“Everyone,” Celechwes finished, rolling her eyes. Though she wasn’t actually annoyed at Finrod’s incurable gossip habit—it was impossible to be annoyed at anything today, with the elation of her new union and the new life budding within her own. And as long as he didn’t—

She added quickly, though not too quickly, “Fingon must’ve told Maedhros—”

“Of course.” Edhellos rolled her own eyes, with the fond resignation that characterized much of the Fingolfinian–Arfinian faction’s view of Fingon’s ceaselessly loyal friendship with Maedhros Fëanorion.

Celechwes silently doubled down on her determination to make these people work together. She leaned unconsciously into her new marriage bond, and Fingon and Maedhros’s bright spirits both leapt to hold her.

[keep reading on AO3]

[tanoraqui]

Celechwes Fixes the Noldor: The Musical! Playlist!

(Spotify link)

(DETAILED NOTES ON AO3)

Why yes, it is fully 27% Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron soundtrack, why do you ask? It's also 10% Taylor Swift. 30 songs, ~100 minutes all the way through, songs arranged in order of story beat!