#celebrimbor may not be here in person but he is here in spirit

[nighttimepatrons]

Okay so, I read this fic called Celebrimbor's Huts by Tethys_resort on ao3 (I believe they are @tethysresort here on tumblr) and in the fic Celebrimbor makes these big ass walking mechanical greenhouses and honestly, I read the fic like a week ago and I Have Not stopped thinking about them since!!! like!! they are so silly!! They have the dumbest AI in the world! they are too fast for their gosh darn brains, bless them. Also Apparently they spew carp out too! like what's that about???

as per usual I did NOT refer to the text when I started drawing so maybe they have four legs instead of two but they have two legs to me 🥺

I had too much fun and I regret nothing!

[tanoraqui]

listen this is kinda crack and this is very crack and this is PURE crack, but nonetheless I’m sitting here slightly overwrought at the thought of… Even without Sauron to defeat, I think the Third Age still ends, the Age of Men still begins, with the Choice and wedding of Arwen Evenstar; the departure of Elrond and Galadriel and the final fading of the last great elven-realms of Middle Earth. Maybe they stay a few extra years to meet all the grand/great-grandchildren? But they don’t tarry long.

But Celebrimbor keeps tarrying! Why shouldn’t he? The ring he bears is Narya II, kindler of spirits, a little less great than its (long-since destroyed) original but also never dragged down in the final fall of a One. He married to a Great Maia determined to keep him alive and spiritually whole at any cost. (They’ve debated “at any cost” and compromised on Celebrimbor not getting himself killed and so never direly pressing the issue.)

Yes, the great elven-realms are gone—but I’m not sure they ever made a new one, after losing Ost-in-Edhil and destroying Númenor in retaliation, and being in mild shock for a few years after just barely surviving the destruction of Númenor. The Valar may or may not send Istari in this timeline, because there’s already Celebrimbor and Annatar wandering around Middle Earth and further continents, and for a while whatever of the Mirdain are left to go with them, randomly showing up in different realms to offer technological innovation, loudly and slightly threateningly debate the ethics of the local laws, and introduce/encourage/oversee use of the international currency Annatar introduced when the economy of pretty much every coastal country in the world was conveniently floundering in the face of an unexpected giant oceanic. (They weren’t in shock for that long.) (It’s called the mainad, lit. “precious thing”, pl. mainaid. Celebrimbor officially named it, but you bet your ass Annatar-who-is-emotionally-an-evil-cat was already thinking it.) (Why back a currency in gold or silver when you can back it in a minor deity saying, “Because I said so”?)

(Okay, they more like settle places for a couple centuries at a time, because you need time to get a forge set up just right and really get to work in it. Despite Celegorm’s best efforts, Celebrimbor has never been a camping person, or even an inns person.)

So they just...keep doing that in the Age of Men. It’s like having semi-benevolent trickster gods but inversed to creating order rather than chaos. Except now and then, when absolutely necessary, they do overturn governments. 

But…Celebrimbor is getting tired, metaphysically. Even Narya can only do so much, even for her bearer. Maybe especially for her bearer. Even Annatar can only do so much, when his power is set against the great Marring of the World—to which he once contributed proudly!—that erodes the fëa of Elves just as disease and age erode the hröa of Men. More slowly, obviously, but no less inevitably. 

[Tangential headcanon: in the late First Age, everybody but especially Elves were getting morally shaky and plain unpleasant to be around, in the way stress often brings out the worst in people but…moreso. Morgoth’s Ring, Arda is called, because his defeat came only when he’d poured so much power into the whole world that the rest of him could be chained and exiled. When the other Valar kicked him out of Arda, they managed to card out enough of that twisted, corruptive intent and throw it out with him that now it’s just...wearing. Tiring. To live in this world. Normal amounts of “stress makes people worse” - and the stress can ebb rather than grow and grow. Unless you live in Valinor where it’s aggressively sterilized of even this ultimate, exhausting Marring.]

At first Annatar takes advantage of it—less nagging to not infringe on people’s free will for their own good and the good of the world overall! Finally! Maybe he even argues that they’ve been doing things more or less Celebrimbor’s way for literally 6000+ years with only minimal, at most moderate net average improvement and glorification of Arda, so it’s PAST time to try Annatar’s way where they also use armies, blatant coercion, etc. Tired of the argument, a little less invested than he used to be, Celebrimbor agrees, and the Dark Lord starts to build an empire once more…

But only for a few centuries. He doesn’t get very far. Because once he’s conceded that point, Celebrimbor has less… Is less. It’s just hard to be hype for a dream that isn’t his anymore - he fought the long defeat and, well, he lost. As prophecied three Ages ago on the shore of what would be Lindon. It’s so thoroughly the Age of Men that he hasn’t seen another elf in decades, and it was Maglor who doesn’t count, and he’s tired.

And Annatar lost his own war over 6000 years ago when he admitted, “Well I’m not going to do it without you!”

So, like, Annatar settling some affairs, maybe even letting the “good” guys “win” for the sake of hope or whatever, and just walks away, carrying a half-drowsing Celebrimbor. (Celebrimbor nuzzling into his chest because husband soft, warm, literally and metaphysically.) He walks - or maybe flies on epic wings of fire; one last #drama moment - to the beach where Dave (the Balrog) is sitting with Maglor, who is... if Celebrimbor is half-faded, Maglor has reverted entirely to the frail-but-for-his-Song, half-faded, half-hallucinating beach hobo he was when Dave first found him. Having a companion who was also There, Back Then, and monstrous at the time (and still kinda now) was good for him for a millennia or two, but he’s been exhausted since he threw the Silmaril into the Sea. Since years before that, actually. But if he doesn’t tell the tale, and paean the star and requiem the dead and... who will? And what other purpose has he?

Dave has spent the last couple centuries trailing after Maglor along the shoreline, making sure he eats and sleeps in kind of the way you look after your beloved pet who’s on their last legs and it’d almost be a mercy to put them to sleep already but they’re hanging in there and they still seem happy when they lie in the sun and you love them too much to give up quite yet... (Cracky romance is great but I do think Dave does less well than Annatar at ever internalizing the idea that the Children of Eru could be their equals rather than, like, surprisingly competent sentient annoyances.) 

Annatar arrives to this, Celebrimbor in his arms, and he says, “Come on, Dave, let’s go - it’s time to take the kids home.” And maybe they argue (Dave argues; Dave is a little scared, though he won’t admit it; the Balrogs were servants of Melkor even before they all entered Arda. He’s never been anything but foe to the other Valar. But Annatar used to be Sauron, Deceiver and Gorthaur, Lieutenant of Angband, and before even that he was Mairon, servant of Aulë, so he prevails. And moreover, he builds a boat (which they probably have to con Maglor onto because he’s also still scared to Sail), 

The Men, having “defeated” the Dark Lord, promptly declare it to be the Fifth Age now. Presumptuous - they haven’t even invented the steam engine yet.

[Slightly overwrought, to be clear, because maybe it’s about...care-taking. Maybe it’s about love. Maybe it’s about redemption and no one being lost, no matter how long it takes them to come home. Maybe it’s all a story about learning to respect and care for your father’s differently-born younger children, who are, in fact, yours to care for as well, and not actually a blight upon the world.]

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

the conclusion to the fëanorian tauriel saga! this one’s mostly about the state of affairs after she gets adopted into everyone’s favourite family of murderers, plus a couple of extra bits and bobs. there’s some more stuff i’d like to put down somewhere - a deleted scene, a minific - but this is mostly the end of my headcanons for this particular au. so far, anyway. part 1 part 2 part 3

mandos may have, in the past, given off the impression that fëanor would remain within the halls until dagor dagorath

that statement was always a bit of a conflation of terms. like everybody else in the halls, fëanor would get a clean pass for reinbodiment as and when he attended elf afterlife therapy and got a handle on his shit. it’s just nobody thought he would ever do that

but he has done that, and more besides. he’s honestly been clear to go for a while now, he just refused to leave until his sons were ready

and since then... mandos will admit to certain political pressures exerted towards keeping fëanor under lock and key

but over time, those pressures slowly yield to the fact that mandos absolutely cannot deal with this lunatic for the rest of arda

death has not put a damper on fëanor’s unstoppability. he was preoccupied for a long while with the damage done to his sons but with them all out he had a conspicious lack of things to Do

and a bored fëanor is a dangerous fëanor

so yeah. fëanor is less released from the halls of mandos as he is unceremoniously kicked out. mandos refuses to talk about it. the maiar of the halls throw a massive party

this all happens on extremely short notice. as in, manwë announces his release like half a day before it happens

this of course throws his extended family (and a decent proportion of the rest of the continent) into this massive frenzied whirlwind of panic. everybody thought they’d get more warning than this, and nobody knows what’s going to happen next

at the epicentre of this maelstrom is the elf himself. fëanor doesn’t know either, he’s still trying to catch up on everyone he left behind and everything that’s gone down since he died. so much has changed, and he’s still stumbling groggily in the darkness

at some point between his long-practiced apology to finarfin and the maglor encounter everyone’s been dreading, though, he makes an unexpected discovery

he has a daughter now. apparently

her name’s tauriel, she smells like woodsmoke. he first meets her when she wanders into the living room, blinks blearily for a couple of seconds, goes ‘hi dad!’ and immediately falls asleep on his lap

and it’s not like he’s not incredibly stoked to have another child, it’s just how???

the first time he asks this question, the motley collection of relatives and old friends he’s talking to all come to the same conclusion

they can either (a) walk him through the history of tauriel’s growing friendship with and eventual adoption into the least reputable branch of the house of finwë or (b) dump the latest copy of the grand unified tauriel conspiracy theory on him with absolutely no context

considering they’re the hellfamily and friends, they go for the chaos option

it takes fëanor, like, two days to read it. the thing was ridiculously elaborate even before people started competing to come up with the craziest possible theories

the people around him keep the ruse going as long as they can stretch it. eventually celebrimbor takes pity on him, and legolas fills in the details

(legolas currently occupies a position in the fëanorian internal hierarchy not dissimilar to fingon’s. he has no idea how to interpret that)

fëanor also just. talks to tauriel. about how she came, and why she stayed

the next day, fëanor loudly announces to the entirety of tirion that he has a new daughter, her name is tauriel and she’s amazing

she’s been a de facto part of the house for years but this is the first official confirmation of it. the news, and the gossip, spreads all over aman

not that this marks a massive turning point for tauriel. even without a big announcement, she made which side she was on pretty clear back when shit went down

and honestly her life hasn’t changed that much since then. she still spends most of her time exploring noldorin country or chilling in the forest with her silvan friends

this isn’t too uncommon a situation for a member of the house of fëanor. they usually do their own thing, whatever that may be. even nerdanel abandons her house every so often to spend a year or two in the mountains

even in tirion, it’s not that different. she still crashes in the same place, hangs with the same people

she just also occasionally does stuff for :mobster voice: the family

she’s part of the second generation’s extremely overprotective mutual defence web. she has a few responsibilities vis-a-vis the definitely-not-minions. she’s not quite as magnetic as her older brothers, but she’s charismatic enough people tend to both legitimately like and let their guard down around her

she goes to court events sometimes, if she’s in town and in the mood. she’s not virulently allergic to it like celegorm but she doesn’t thrive there the way elrond does. she prefers lower-city forge parties. way more booze, way less bling

(the greenwood elves have stopped needing to bring her along to every political meeting for quote-unquote moral support. everyone knows who she rides with now, and the court bureaucrats tend to give her people whatever they want without the need for extortion)

she’s not the rowdiest of fëanor and nerdanel’s brood, but that’s really not saying much. she’s kicked off the last vestiges of social respectably and indulges fully in her family’s ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want, because who’s seriously going to tell a kinslayer they can’t do something?

a decent proportion of the population of tirion, it turns out. eh, the arguments are always fun

that’s the state of tauriel’s life when fëanor comes back. afterwards - like i said, it doesn’t change terribly much, fëanor rocking valinor to its core notwithstanding

he is massively, intensely supportive of everything she does. she knows that it’s partially that this family is just Like That, but she also gets the vibe he’s overinvesting a little? she’s the only one of his children who doesn’t have a reason to hate him

but they get along fine. he’s had a lot of practice at being a dad, and is trying to improve on his personal faults. his relationship with her is blissfully uncomplicated compared to the mess most of his pre-death bonds are, and while she’ll protect her brothers from him if need be she’ll protect him too when the world is out to get him

there’s this moment at one of those fancy court galas. tauriel’s chatting with some sindarin visitors when something explodes a few rooms away

almost immediately, she locks gazes with curufin, who’s peoplewatching some distance away. they have a conversation conducted entirely in eyeflicks that could be summarised as ‘did he just...’ ‘alas he probably did’

they stride out of the hall together to rescue their idiot dad from the consequences of his terrible decisions

that’s another subtlety to the way the fëanorians work, tauriel is discovering. the siblings hellspawn may be a constant fight cloud of bickering nutbags (with the obvious exception of herself) but they all always out-sane their dad

she keeps learning things like this as the years roll on and her families get closer. she finds silvans having tea with nerdanel, tirion craftselves looking for her in the woods. across both of her worlds, she’s building a posse

(just like her brothers did, long long ago under the light of the trees. when next the host rides to war, there will be those who follow tauriel’s banner)

even legolas has mostly gotten over it. their initial friendship, after all, was founded on them both being chaos children. tauriel is one in a way they called silvan in greenwood and noldorin in aman, fully conscious that the powers that be disapprove of her shenanigans and deliberately and vindictively defying them

legolas’ style is more sindarin, vaguely aware that the rules exist but doesn’t really understand how they apply to him. he did sneak a dwarf up the straight road, after all. him and tauriel got up to so much nonsense when they were kids, and no matter who else she runs with, he’ll always be her best friend

he’ll never be fully comfortable with the literal childhood horror stories she’s taken up with, but for her sake he’s willing to try. they might be scary, but, he’s realising, they can be fun too

(even if he does spend most of their family gatherings hiding behind elrond)

and then, one day...

tauriel doesn’t exactly pine for kíli, but she does kind of regret how it all turned out. she wonders what being in a relationship with him would have been like, sometimes

but he’s a dwarf, and she’s an elf, and she can’t leave the undying lands, and dwarves aren’t supposed to come here. they are sundered until the breaking of the world

when she tells this to fëanor, this massive smug grin spreads across his face. ‘unless’

three hours later, they’ve turned fëanor’s front room into a base of operations. maedhros is on project management, caranthir is on logistics, amras is going down a list of maiar they can strongarm. celebrimbor stops by, looks at the plans on the walls, and, somewhat excitedly, goes ‘are we breaking into the dwarven afterlife???’

yes. yes they are

epilogue:

when the end comes and all elves return to cuivénen, certain people tauriel knew back in middle-earth discover what she’s been doing for the past few ages

they get the full skinny later, after they talk to her and stuff, but the first whisper they hear is ‘tauriel’s been taken in by the fëanorians’

reactions vary. tauriel’s mama, who doesn’t recognise the name, goes ‘the spirits of fire? that’s sounds so much like her, i’m so happy she’s made friends’

tauriel’s mummy, who does recognise the name, is laughing too hard to speak

and thranduil cradles his head in his hands. ‘of course’ he mutters ‘of course she fucking did’

[warrioreowynofrohan]

The Silmarillion as a TV/Netflix Series (Part 6)

This is by far the trickiest part, because I have no specific ideas for adapting the strategy and tactics of the War of Wrath. But there are a few big points to settle first. One of the major questions is whether the Valar themselves are going to be involved in the war.

If they are, it’s hard to imagine how the war could take 50 years.

If they aren’t, it’s hard to imagine how it could be won at all: the Vanyar-Noldor army of Valinorean elves is not especially larger than the original Noldorin forces in Middle-earth, and the remaining forces of the Sindar and Noldor of Middle-earth are so far depleted as to be neglibible. So, if it was virtually impossible for the Noldor to defeat Morgoth when they first arrived near the start of the First Age, or during the Long Peace, before he’d had the time to develop more and more dragons and other monsters within Angband, it’s hard to see why it would be possible for similarly-sized Elven armies to defeat him now. (Remember, the Valinorean Noldor are only 10% of the original group of Noldor.) Also, if the Valar aren’t involved, it’s hard to see how the war could be so cataclysmic as to literally destroy the landmass of Beleriand.

The Silmarillion states “The Host of the Valar were arrayed in forms young and fair and terrible, and the mountains rang beneath their feet.” I take this as meaning at least some of the Valar did go to war themselves; while it’s possible to read the phrase as referring to only Maiar, that seems like far from the most obvious reading. Manwë and Varda would not go (I think Tolkien said or implied this somewhere), but Tulkas and Oromë, whose purposes specifically include combat against evil things, certainly would. Ulmo, also, would undoubtedly be involved. And I think Aulë and Yavanna would as well, for love of the shapes and creatures of the world that Morgoth had destroyed and corrupted. I’m not as good as imagining Vana and Nessa in battle-shape, but it’s certainly possible. Of the Fëanturi, Lórien, Estë, and Nienna would come at some point, but in non-combat roles and to do what healing and cleansing of land and spirits as they could. And all these would be accompanied as well by large numbers of Maiar. (Including Melian! Likely including Curumo as well, he seems like the type of person who would want to be involved.)

If there’s a question as to why Eönwë would be commanding when Valar are there, I don’t see a contradiction. The general of an army is neither inherently the most powerful warrior nor the person of the highest social status. If he’s generalling, it’s because that’s the role he’s suited for.

The second major question lies in the basic contradiction between timelines indicating the War of Wrath took about 50 years, and the statement that the onslaught of the winged dragons lasted for “a day and night of doubt” and is one part of the battle noted where the Host of the Valar was on the defensive and retreating. Now, I have no military knowledge, but even to me it seems obvious that a war which lasts for fifty years and in which the largest setback for the victorious side lasts for one day make no freaking sense.

And on top of that, cinematically a fifty-year war would be very difficult to depict. So for the show, I think we’re better off having events proceed considerably more quickly than that.

As far as individual episodes go:

Episode 1: This episode is set-up. In Valinor, preparations for war, and the rising of the Star of Eärendil, seen in Middle-earth (including by Maedhros and Maglor, and Elrond and Elros). In Middle-earth, some scenes of Maedhros and Maglor raising the twins (I think it’s stated somewhere that they went far south, beyond the regions where Morgoth’s for es had a heavy presence). Some scenes on Balar dealing with the aftermath of the Fëanorian attack on Sirion. (What do they do with Fëanorians who surrendered afterwards? What do they do with Fëanorians who changed sides and fought on in their defence but who they still don’t trust?) The episode ends with arrival of the Host of the Valar.

Episodes 2 through 8 are the War itself, which, again, I have no idea how to construct. The Elves of Valinor are arriving by boat; and I expect that the Valar and Maiar would, for the most part, accomoany them. The landing would take place mainly all along the Falas, from Nevrast to the Mouths of Sirion, as well as farther north around the First of Drengist where Fëanor first landed.

Morgoth’s forces are spread throughout all of Beleriand, but vary in type. Hithlum stands out because it is not mainly inhabited by monsters, but by Men - the Easterlings and those among the Edain who are their thralls. I have an impression - partly from the Manwë’s reaction to the later Númenorean invasion, yielding authority to Eru even though the Valar certainly had the capacity to defeat Ar-Pharazon’s army - that the Valar and Maiar would be very uncomfortable about making war against Eruhini, even those who served Morgoth. So the portion of the invasion force at Drengist would be in large part the Edain, with some Elven and Maia support, and soon aided by uprisings among the Edain thralls. The role of Maiar or Valar here would largely be to keep the orcs and wolves and monsters of Morgoth at bay outside the mountains of Hithlum, but to leave the conflict against the Easterlings of Hithlum largely to the Edain and Eldar.

This would bring the northern portion of the army quite close to Angband, but they couldn’t attack from there - the Anfauglith would be packed with monsters and defenses, never mind the ever-present threat of Morgoth flooding the place with lava.

The greater part of the Valinorean forces would sweep east and north from the coast, facing substantial armies’ or Morgoth’s creatures (including cold-drakes, non-winged dragons, wolves, giant spiders, and really anything else horrifying you can think of; but the balrogs are being held in reserve by Morgoth for the defense of Angband). Various Maiar of Morgoth would be involved, including Sauron. One thing to note is that despite the presence of Valar, the Valar aren’t (aside from Tulkas and maybe Oromë) inherently suited to combat - that’s why Tulkas showed up in the first place. Even back in the Ages of the Stars, the Valar’s attack on Utumno was a hard fight - and that was when Morgith’s forces were far smaller than during the War of Wrath, though Morgith himself was personally more powerful then). So it’s not implausible for things to take some time and be challenging.

Episode 7 is the fight against the winged dragons and death on Ancalagon, and Episode 8 is the destruction of Angband and the casting of Morgoth into the Void.

Episode 9 includes Maedhros and Maglor’s demand for the Silmarils, Eönwë’s response, the brothers’ attempts to steal the jewel, and Maedhros’ death and Maglor’s departure from the known lands. This episode would also include scenes of the aftermath of Angband’s overthrow, the freeing of thralls and of captive spirits, in which the Fëanturi and their associated Maiar would have a large role (shout-out to @thearrogantemu’s latest fic!). At least a few of the Maiar who served Morgoth would genuinely surrender, which could be contrasted with Sauron considering surrender but ultimately choosing against it due to being unwilling to face consequences.

Episode 10 is the journey of (some of) the elves of Middle-earth to Valinor; the choice of others to stay (including Galadriel and Celebrimbor’s choices, and Galadriel’s last conversation with her father); and the promise of a new land for the Edain. It would also include the rebirth of Finrod in Valinor, giving hope that many of the audience’s favourite characters are not permanently dead, though it may be a long while before they return to life. I think having this at the very end is the best way to deal with elven rebirth without it feeling like a bit of a cop-out. If Finrod’s alive at the start of Season 6, you’re going to have pragmatically-minded viewers asking why the Valar don’t revive the Noldor as a whole and chuck ‘em at Morgoth - after all, if they die again, they can just come back again! Elven rebirth needs to be treated seriously, not as convenient respawning, so I think introducing it just as a possibility, for many years in the future, and at the end of the series, is the way to go.

This is also a great episode to show all the different reasons for different elves’ decisions on whether to return to Valinor. Returning out of weariness, or desire to see their families, or repentance, or simply having had enough of the endless wars and suffering of Middle-earth, or wanting to see the beauties of Valinor. Staying because they’re attached to Middle-earth; or want to make their own decisions outside the tutelage of the Valar; or are too ashamed to return and see the people they once knew; or, for some (especially Sindar) being unwilling to go to Aman if the Kinslayers can go there and be pardoned as well (“I’d rather live in the Anfauglith than have to share Valinor with them”); or still being curious about what the lands of Middle-earth beyond Beleriand are like; or wanting to know more of the Edain and Dwarves; or feeling a responsibility to aid and heal the world rather than leave it. I could even see a small handful of Vanyar or Valinorean Noldor choosing to stay for a while out of fascination with this world and its people, despite so much of what they had seen of it being horrible.

[arrivisting]

Can I request the part that starts with "Thats a fine ring you wear, my friend" from A wandering fire for the author commentary?

Let's do this! Sorry it's so belated - I wrote half an answer on my laptop but I don't have it with me today, so I'm starting afresh. I apologise for my natural tendency to talktalktalk! You can see why I had to write this on a computer, not my phone.

Anyway, I thought it was very interesting you picked that bit! That's the bit I had in mind most strongly in the first flash of inspiration. I will show you my first notes (which were mixed up with those for the dawn from on high, since they began as the same idea):

I just had this strong, clear idea of Cirdan watching the first people come from the West, and then watching the ship leave at the end of the Third Age (which I wanted to have Maglor on - the idea that Cirdan had seen him come and finally go, and everything in-between).

I didn't keep to the notes - I forgot that I meant them to talk about beards ("Gandalf taken a note from Mahtan"), and for Cirdan to look at his humble guise and think that the Eldar would never again trust a stranger arrayed in silks and jewels, never again after Sauron as beautiful as the morning at the gates of Ost-in-Edhil.

Anyway! Obviously the Maglor and Gandalf stuff split off into the dawn from on high, and what was left of the bookend-idea - the ships arriving - went into a file I didn't touch again for over a year. All there was of what became a wandering fire (which was the original title of the dawn from on high) was the beginning - from 'Fëanor and his seven sons and their followers had arrived in their stolen white ships at what had seemed Beleriand’s darkest hour, and their arrival had come as a great balefire' to 'Help had come from the West at last: but not in time for Beleriand'; and then part of the conversation you asked for commentary on.

The joy of scribbling on my phone and across various computers and Gdocs is that I can pull up the original version (and oh, right, I've just reminded myself that this story was originally to be called a fire in the heart):

“It was never made for my hand,” Cirdan said. “I have been holding it in trust and in safety. Celebrimbor meant to wear it himself. If it was in Feanor that the spirit of fire burned most fiercely, and in Feanor’s voice that the power to move others to action was strongest, it lingered to the end in his line; although fire had ceased to be a friend to them long before.”

Olorin looked at him under his white brows. “The power of Feanor is no gift to wield lightly.”

“Celebrimbor was many things, and not all of them were wisely chosen, but he meant the Ring to be something far subtler than Curufinwe Feanaro ever was. The Ring of Fire will not kindle a sudden flame in men quickly, and burn as quickly to ashes; it is a coal, burning not brightly but long, to warm hearts and not to scald them.”

“I regret that I am come too late to know him,” Olorin said. “Too late for Celebrimbor of Eregion, and too late for Ereinion Gil-gilad; but in good time, I fear, to face again the shadow that was their doom when it gathers itself in might once more.

This is the oldest bit of the whole two-fics mess, back to 2019. It needed a little refitting to go into the dawn from on high, not least that I took away Gandalf's name. Let's (finally!) look at the published version (everything not quoted above being new, only written this April):

“That is a fine ring you wear, my friend.”

It had taken the stranger many weeks to speak of it. Círdan turned his hand over to regard Narya as though for the first time. Such gem-work did not kindle his blood. He bore it only for Gil-galad, who he had loved as his own son, though he had known better than to give his heart to any of that line. He had seen them all come from the West, and he had seen them all die. All but Eärendil, who had been translated beyond the world, and who had deserved a warmer honour.

Because this was always meant to be about beginnings/endings, arrivals/departures, I didn't go a lot into the meat of Cirdan's life, although a proper Cirdan-story, in the way I wrote an Elwing-story and a Finduilas-story, would do that; I would have written much more about his time in Beleriand-under-stars, and building the Falas with Finrod, and his feelings about Thingol, and much much much more about Gil-galad and Earendil, and the kind of life they managed on Balar and at the mouth of the Sirion! It really had to be compressed into a few lines here, though a lot of the material about fallen Lindon and Cirdan's watch there is really about his sublimated feelings for Gil-galad, and I got in a bit in other paragraphs:

Eärendil, who Círdan had loved, and taught, had sailed away in the ship they had built together, a desperate hope hurled into that same impossibility.

and

As though the great ships from Númenor might arrive again on the horizon with their holds full of strange things and strange stories! As though Aldarion might once more swing down from the deck of one, laughing, the image of Eärendil with his tousled blond head and his bright blue eyes, bellowing already for Gil-galad. As though Gil-galad himself still held court in Lindon’s empty halls, filled again with life and music; as though he would ever again put aside his work for this newest and youngest of cousins, and come sweeping down the halls in his robes of state to greet him, his eyes shining and his dark hair a floating banner under his silver crown and Elrond on his heels…

Oh, my Second Age feelings, and my curiosity about that world caught between apocalypses, and my wondering about what the fall of Numenor meant to that world, and to those who had known Elros, and many of his line.

We know Cirdan taught Earendil to build Vingilot, that Earendil was part of some of his swift ship attacks up and down the coast towards the end of the First Age: I wonder what it means to him to know that Earendil sacrificed everything for them, to watch him sail the heavens every night? I've said here he was translated beyond the world, 'and deserved a warmer honour', and my reading of canon is that Earendil is indeed beyond the world; that Elwing may fly to him, night after night, but that he himself never sets foot on land again. I hate that reading, though. I think it's in the text(s), but in my personal accounting Earendil is living his best life - sailing the skies, exploring the world from afar, and at times fighting bristling things in the Void - and still able to spend a day shift with his wife, in her Tower, and to see his family, to have a few snatched mortal joys. But I don't think that's what Tolkien meant for him.

Narya was always warm. It glowered in its golden setting, a clot of blood in a slice of sunlight.

What's funny is that this is a story about the Ring of Fire, but I got a lot of my Ring-feelings out after this idea, but before I posted this fic, in last love song for now. My stories are never in the same continuity unless I explicitly say so, put them into a series - I don't have the temperament for committing to a single reading of a scene or a character etc, not when there's so much room for play - but my Ring-feelings are pretty continuous. I think of Narya as Celebrimbor's ring, linked with fire-Feanor-heat, and I always have; though Tolkien never tells us it was meant by him for his own.

“It was never meant for my hand,” he said. “I believe Celebrimbor meant to wear it himself. It may have been in Fëanor that fire burned most fiercely, and in Fëanor’s voice that the power to move others to action was strongest, but those gifts lingered to the end in his line; although fire ceased to be a friend to them long before.”

You know, I think I like the original version better! Not all rewriting is good.

The Messenger’s brows rose in respect, and there was none of the usual flinching at the name. “The power of Fëanor is no gift to wield lightly.”

I wanted Gandalf to respond to this: I think this is a constellation of facts I'm pulling together here. Gandalf inherited the Ring of Fire, and wielded it; Gandalf spoke of Feanor's skill with real regret and wonder, with that catch-in-the-heart Tolkien quality that refuses black|white lines and sees the glory of the morning even after night has fallen; that remembers who Feanor was and who he could have been, and grieves for it:

‘No,’ said Gandalf. ‘Nor by Saruman. It is beyond his art, and beyond Sauron’s too. The palantíri came from beyond Westernesse, from Eldamar. The Noldor made them. Fëanor himself, maybe, wrought them, in days so long ago that the time cannot be measured in years.

and

"Have I not felt it? Even now my heart desires to test my will upon it, to see if I could not wrench it from him and turn it where I would—to look across the wide seas of water and of time to Tirion the Fair, and perceive the unimaginable hand and mind of Fëanor at their work, while both the White Tree and the Golden were in flower!’

You give Gandalf the power to look back in time, and he would want to see Feanor at work! That's the most wonderful thing out of his grasp that he could imagine! That is I think part of the bond between Gandalf and Galadriel; who is in some ways what Feanor could have, should have, could never have been. I would have loved for Gandalf to meet Celebrimbor - not as much as he would have, though - and I think that is a huge motivation behind this scene.

“Celebrimbor was many things,” said Círdan, “and not all of them were wisely chosen. Yet he meant the Ring of Fire to be something far subtler than Fëanor Finwë’s son ever was. Narya will not kindle a sudden flame in others too swiftly, nor burn them as quickly to ashes; it is a coal, burning not brightly but long, made to warm hearts and not to scald them.”

Me, beating my drum: justice for Celebrimbor!!!!

I do think of Celebrimbor's life, up until the moment of his death, as such a willed decision to not be Feanor. To turn against his father and uncles; to open the doors of Ost-in-Edhil and to share skill with those who came; to share artistic credit: to refuse kingship, to share lordship. To be trusting rather than suspicious, open-handed rather than jealous. It is such a tragedy that living his life in that way - unpicking all the old patterns and turning them inside out - didn't help him; only brought him to his hideous death, only gave him fatal vulnerabilities through which darkness could enter. But I think that choice to open doors and hands and heart, to be vulnerable, was nevertheless an important one. Wise? Perhaps not. But sometimes there are more important things than wisdom. (Another reason I would have liked Gandalf and Celebrimbor to meet).

Is this story really an elegy for everything and everyone lost in the First and Second Ages? Yes; and Celebrimbor not least. Anyway, I think of the Ring here as a desire to perfect Feanor's skills; to crystallise that ability to rouse hearts and minds as he did in the Great Square after the death of Finwe, and to use it for good. To warm rather than burn. In the Appendices, indeed, that seems to be its function:

Take this ring, master, [...] for your labours will be heavy; but it will support you in the weariness that you have taken upon yourself. For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.

That's what makes Narya such a good match for Gandalf, for me: that link to what the Feanorians could have been, that refining of what was worthy in them that Celebrimbor strained from the ashes, kept in trust until it could be given to someone who understood that too.

The Grey One bend (that should be BENT, I must go edit) his head. “I regret I am too late to know its maker,” he said. “To know those already lost. Still I come in good time, I fear, to face again the shadow that was his doom as it gathers itself in might once more.”

I regret it too!!! Always too late, the Shining Ones; at least in my reading.

Círdan had known it when the ships from the West began to arrive, though they came so quietly, with none of Eonwë’s trumpets. He had known even as he had seen Isildur turn over the ring of Sauron in his bloody fingers.

Oh, Thingol; dear his lord, whose silver blood from before the coming of the sun still ran in the mortal veins of fallen Númenor’s children. Who had died for peerless and perilous Noldor gem-work, when he might have instead lived all the Ages of the World with Melian beside him. That Doom, it seemed, was not yet done.

I really like the idea of that dilute Maia blood spreading out through all of Elros's line, filtering in lesser and greater degrees through innumerable daughters and second and third sons of that house; otherwise how else do you get the tall, beautiful, dark-haired and grey-eyed Numenoreans? The Hadorians were blond; the Haladin a middling brown; the Beorians were dark, but the Beorians were almost wiped out. There were few of that House left when Elros founded Numenor with the Three Houses of the Edain. I like the idea of seeing Numenor as a personal, familial loss: I know part of the oddness of its fall, in a Doylist sense, is Tolkien working backwards to insert it into Middle-earth when it was separately conceived, but for me: how do the Eldar live with it? These are the great-great-great(-greats) grandchildren of Elros himself: these are the descendants of Earendil and Elwing, of Turgon and Fingolfin, of Beren and Luthien, of Thingol and Melian, Finwe and Indis.

Okay, yes, some of them have joined a goth death-cult and they're getting into human sacrifice and are all ungrateful and slamming their doors and saying they don't love you anymore (adolescence is rough), but how do you watch a continent get fed to the sea and live with that? When you're Cirdan, and these are all still Thingol's children from afar, when you've watched the generations turn and loved some of them (Elros, Aldarion) dearly?

I also like the idea of dying for sparkly jewellery being an inherited doom, from Thingol's side as well as Earendil's, not to be worked out of the line until Aragorn refuses the Ring.

Three times he had seen an Age die, and yet his own work was not ended, and neither was the loss.

“How long do we have?”

The Grey Messenger spread his hands. “I cannot say. It is only a shadow and a whisper even yet, even in the sight and mind of those whose power and wisdom far exceeds my own. But shadows grow, and whispers swell. As you know, my friend.”

why do I like Gandalf calling people my friend so much? anyway, even the Valar are fallible. That's why they're bearable. If they could see all of Eru's design, if they were all-powerful and all-knowing, I would have to hate them for what they do and fail to do; but because they are not, I can see them as very alien but well-intentioned powers, doing their best, and sometimes doing ill. Intention means a lot; and I do think there's a lot about the Children they do not and cannot grasp, which is why you get things that are clearly going to lead to great disaster or pain, like Finwe's remarriage, or Ulmo telling Feanor he is part of the dissonance in the Song, or Feanor getting exiled, or the Doom; or Earendil, fixed in the heavens, or the cruel choice of the Peredhel -

He had known in his heart when he had set eyes on the Grey Stranger and seen that strange knotting of mortal and immortal in him. He had seen Nienna’s servant, come in humbleness rather than glory, to help and to weep together. He had watched him delight in his first biscuit, and he had known what to do when the shadow came again.

It is important to me that Gandalf learned much from Nienna. I do think it's why he wears grey. I like to think of him as her avatar, walking where she cannot, offering grace and mercy where she/he may. That is what makes Gandalf so successful an Istar; when so many other Maiar we see go wrong. Not that Melian herself is wrong, but she is almost too close to the Children (especially since Eru tells the Ainu that they are not to consider themselves the Children's parents; Melian literally becomes such), so much so that she is damaged terribly by the loss of Thingol, and her flight wounds Doriath. What happens to the Blue Wizards? We don't know; but not what should. The Brown Wizard hews too closely to Yavanna's creatures. The White goes too far in the other direction, in the path already beaten by Sauron and his Ainu kin before him: to power, and to might, and to ignoring Eru's will for their relation to his Children. I see Eonwe as too glorious and too distant for real connection. But Gandalf is neither too close nor too far: he is kind, and he can be powerful; he has humour, and a delight in small things. Age and experience have drawn him close. It hurts a little that his rebirth as the White takes a little of that humanity from him and replaces it with majesty, but the essentials are still there.

Anyway, that's why I wanted him already to be quite proud of his beard, and trying biscuits, and being delighted by them.

He slid Narya from his finger and watched surprise wash like morning light over the Messenger’s face.

This is a call back to the line "Too late, when great white Swan-ships arrived at last with the Valar’s blessings from the West, their white sails washed yellow-gold with the dawn." That was at the end of the First Age; now, at the beginning of the Third, we have another morning, and another start, and the Valar have refined their touch upon the world; it is much more careful, and their proxies (or at least Gandalf) better fitted to help Middle-earth save itself than Eonwe and his host of Vanyar were.

“It was made to be wielded by a counsellor,” Círdan warned. “Not a king. Never a king! Celebrimbor knew better than that. It was intended for guidance and for wisdom - in war, and in dark times.”

This is part of my thinking from last love song for now: that the most powerful ring was meant to be Vilya, and that the choice to associate fire (/Feanor) with a lesser ring was meaningful, and part of Celebrimbor's overall purpose. And again working with what little we know of Narya from canon: For this is the Ring of Fire, and with it you may rekindle hearts in a world that grows chill.

The Grey One did not reach for it, though one hand had risen from his lap, age-spotted and painfully Mannish, and hovered in the air. “I am not of the Eldar,” he said. “It was not meant for me.”

“I have seen kings and lords enough rise and fall to know that the right to an inherited Doom is no recommendation. I have seen every arrival from the West since Fëanor, who came blazing and ended in darkness; and in Narya, you see certain of his gifts as they might have been. It belongs, I think, to the hope from the West that he should have been; to one who might use it to bring light to the darkness of this land where the Valar themselves will not come.”

Oh, so this is all newer stuff - and the right to refuse an inherited doom is meant to call to another new bit (Elrond refusing to be Gil-galad's heir in the mold of the High Kings). And you see again me beating the Feanor as he might have been; Feanor's skill at kindling hearts used wisely, sparingly drum. Oh, I'm subtle!*

*I am not

This is also a little bitterness that I don't know I necessarily think Cirdan feels - what patience there is in his long service! - but I have built in this a case for a little bitterness, at this moment, at the end of the Second Age. (To lose everything in one Age is accident; in two, incompetence!!). When the loss of Gil-galad et al is so recent, and so too is the loss of Numenor. If one is ever to feel anger at the Valar for their oscillating pattern of non-interference/over-interference, it is now.

“Cannot come,” said Nienna’s servant, and took the flower of so much Noldor genius and pain from Círdan, who had never wanted it. “They do what they can, Lord of the Havens. As do we all.”

But Gandalf is here! They've got the balance right, in him! He is going to warm the chill in your heart, Cirdan, and give you the strength to face yet one more long Age of slow bleeding-out and loss; and you will see an end to it. And again you see me beating my 'the Valar have good intentions, but imperfect knowledge and understanding, but they're trying' drum.

Sorry again this was so late!