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elevenelvenswords · 9 months

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Cross-posted on AO3.

The night seemed quiet to Celegorm. Despite the clamor raging on in Tirion, the chaos and utter dismay rising like dreadful clouds of smoke, all noise seemed drowned out around him. He should be grateful for it, for it was with clear intent that he asked Curufin to follow him, to leave that engulfing atmosphere and the people gravitating to it behind. It felt like too much, too soon. The ill news of their grandsire’s passing were not yet gone from his mind, nor the numb shock that they had caused. The sight of his father mourning- the way he tore at his hair, plucking strands clean off the scalp, growling in grief and such bitter anger that it was almost painful for others to behold it. The defilement of their homeland, the strife emerging with violent promptitude between the great Noldorin houses, the ceaseless doubts and fights festering within them all. It felt like impending annihilation. Like a winged shadow it followed their every step now.

Too much, too soon.

Sick to the very core he grew of the preparation for their departure. Of his brothers’ bickering, of his mother’s tears and his father’s foul moods of late. He wished for nothing more than a brief respite. He wished to leave it all behind, even if it was for a little while. Air seemed insufficient in the midst of the city and its mayhem.

Thus he and Curufin saddled their horses and galloped away. Celegorm led, bidding his horse make haste and fly over obstacles rather than go ‘round them. The faster he could get away, the better. Wind whipped across his face and his eyes watered. He blinked the tears away. Saliva frothed upon his horse’s mouth. He patted it on the neck, whispering encouragement to it. His thighs ached with the effort of riding so relentlessly, so recklessly. He squeezed them tighter to his mount’s sides. Resolute in his purpose, he soon left his brother lagging behind.

Climbing atop a hill bordering the northern forest that looked down on the peaks of Tirion, he halted his horse. Curufin joined him soon after.

They talked for a while, filling in the devouring silence. Useless nonsense it was; something about the supplies and how they might ration them on the road, something about Caranthir’s horse growing restless lately and how he might need a new steed that wouldn’t throw him from its back. Nonsense that served as a much welcomed distraction. Celegorm was glad for it. But before long, Curufin wished to depart.

“Safe travels then,” Celegorm said to him, absently poking at a patch of grass with the tip of his boot.

“You shouldn’t linger for too long,” Curufin replied, throwing the reins over his mare’s head. “Father will start to ask questions.”

Celegorm snorted in derision. “Yes, I am sure he’ll be sick with worry. I’ve always been his favourite son, after all.”

Curufin watched him in silence. Seconds trickled by in solemn stillness, a soft wisp of cold air setting the leaves above in bashful motion. No bird song could be heard anymore, nor the comforting buzzing of insects crawling among the foliage. Celegorm suddenly wondered if the hunting grounds he so loved had become a misshapen mirror of his soul. Perhaps the deadness of his heart pulsed out its hatred, and the darkness pooling like hot magma into his chest was infectious, corruptive. Returning to a place of laughter and delight before embarking upon the dreadful journey ahead might have been a mistake, after all. He did not wish to remember those lands as such- quiet, hopeless, engulfed in lengthening shadows and brisk despair.

By the time Celegorm deemed to turn his mournful gaze back towards the road whence he had come, Curufin was already nudging his horse forward, urging it down the slopes of the hills. Perhaps he had bidden Celegorm his farewell, or even asked him to join him, but Celegorm was unhearing.

He turned his attention to the tall trees. Dark and twisted they seemed to him now, heedless of his sorrows and worries. Towering over him like reminders of doom, turned from protectors and guides to beacons of the Great Powers’ scorn. Even so, he walked amongst them. Dauntless or simply uncaring, he couldn’t quite tell.

He walked lightly, pushing branches out of his way, but the purpose of his own pursuit he knew not.

The soft yet indistinguishable crack of a twig made his ears twitch, straining in search of the next sound. Slowly he flexed them, drawing them back towards his nape, intently listening. No other sound followed, but he knew the first one had come from somewhere above, and the culprit lay concealed by the thick branches arching their slender fingers upwards and inwards. Something pressed down upon his fëa, a heavy burden threatening to crush and devour, licking hungrily at his skin. Though no wind blew there and his raiments were thick about him, goosebumps prickled across his skin and he shivered. Malevolence seemed to seep through the tree barks, trickling even by his boots. Like tendrils of dark power it slithered up his feet, his calves, and disdainfully he watched as the thin tentacles probed at his trousers. It seemed to him that they searched for a way in, for a way to reach him. Celegorm considered kicking at them, pushing against them with the strength of his own will, for what further hurt could they truly inflict upon him, after all that had come to pass? But as one frozen in time he stood, and he watched them, and they hurt him not. Carefully he extended his fingers, allowing one of the stretching tendrils to lick at his fingertips. Where he expected cold, warmth pierced through, and the things coiling about his feet squeezed in what felt to him like encouragement. A strange feeling of familiarity rang in those touches, as though intent coursed through their feeble existence.

The ruffling of leaves above stirred him from his curiosity. He still did not turn around. Not at the off-putting scraping sounds upon wood, not at the uneasiness that suddenly coursed through him. If anything, it bound him to his stillness. The slithering vines wriggled at his feet, they clutched at his trousers, and their touch was suddenly all-too-familiar. It bore the will of another, a greater one than himself, and nothing about it appeared harmful to him. No, there was tenderness behind it.

The gnarled arms of the trees above shifted, parted, exposing the clear sky above. A stray ray of starlight glimmered down but by its grace Celegorm was unmoved. The things at his feet withered and perished, withdrawing with alarming quickness, but Celegorm heeded them not. The branches moved once again, and behind him something –no, someone- dragged its body weight.

Celegorm inhaled deeply as that presence and all of the things emanating from it bled away into recognition.

“You may show yourself now, lord,” Celegorm said flatly. His eyes stared straight ahead, darkened, his gaze unfocused and aimless amidst the cold mass of the forest. “I am not yet deprived of my senses.”

Silence settled in for a few moments and Celegorm looked behind him, at long last.

From high above, the creature regarded him with a mixture of curiosity and longing. A ridged beast skull covered its face, white and slender, its curves looping around the wearer’s features. Two twisted antlers curved their way upwards where they divided into lopsided, bony extensions. Akin to a stag’s head it seemed to Celegorm, yet sharp incisors gleamed in the starlight, set within the jaw left slightly agape. In spite of the crudity of that body part, the thing’s gaze spoke nothing of cruelty or ill-intent. It spoke nothing of scorn. Burrowed within two slanted cavities of the skull, a pair of soft green eyes peered down at him, slowly blinking.

A sudden twinge of sorrow stabbed through Celegorm’s chest. Thickly he swallowed as the creature’s two sets of arms moved to grab onto the tree, as claws left their marks upon the bark in its passing. Down it slid, with feline grace descending from its hiding place. The angles at which its body bent and contorted set uneasiness throbbing through Celegorm, but he feared it not. He had seen it do stranger things. He had known its touch and voice, and safety at its hands had always been guaranteed. No matter how terrifying the form it chose. No matter how immense and powerful and wild.

Slowly it discarded the mask; embedded into its very flesh, the skull retracted into the skin and muscle. Visceral and violent seemed that shift in appearance, the metamorphosis of the hröa, and Celegorm watched with the same fascination as ever.

He had told himself that, if the fates wished to grant him one last meeting with the thing he most loved in that realm, his heart would be closed and well-guarded against any assault by the common sentimentalities he used to fall prey to. But oh how sorely mistaken he was.

For there upon the places he ardently wished to escape, before the face of his soul’s dearest song and curse, he felt his heart quiver –and perhaps only for a moment, stop-. How he wished to simply crumble to his knees and leave the tears flow freely; how he wished to take and beg and smash himself bloody upon the shores of the traitorous love that grappled him.

Resolutely he pushed those things aside. Proud and tall he held himself before the huntsman, even as he approached Celegorm.

“Well-met, Fëanorion,” he murmured.

“Oromë,” Celegorm greeted him in return. The name tasted bitter upon his tongue and hard he fought the urge to spit the remnants of it to the ground below.

“I had hoped for a more joyous reunion.”

Celegorm scoffed. Mocking that remark sounded in his ears. Shifting his weight from one leg to another, he frowned at the Vala.

“I had hoped for that too. Yet denied we are in our wishes and prayers of late.” Oromë watched him with calmness that seemed to transcend into mute passivity. Celegorm wondered whether it was intentional or not.

“Each may wish for what they will, yet the fates play their ironies unawares,” Oromë said. The first hints of irritation drove their barbs beneath Celegorm’s at the utterance of such words. “As you may well know by now.”

Apologetic was Oromë’s tone, but to it Celegorm was unhearing.

“Yes, as I well know,” Celegorm hissed, his voice steeped in vitriol. “But do tell me, o’ great Vala, who ever daubs his hand in how the fates turn: how empowering, how exhilarating does it feel to watch little puppets wail over their grievances from the warmth and comfort of your throne?”

The Vala held his silence for a few long moments, tension and resentment overflowing in all of their unpleasantness. Celegorm felt like he might choke on it. Silence would not do; no, not this time. Not when his blood ran hot and perilous in his veins, anger simmering and scorching him from the inside. Disdainfully he held Oromë’s gaze, breathing heavily –in and out- in a fruitless attempt to hold onto whatever shreds of composure yet remained to him.

When the silence stretched on for too long, Oromë infuriatingly still –as though he was a mere statue carved in cold stone, ill-suited to emotion-, Celegorm stepped haughtily forward. And “You will speak to me,” he snarled, “I shall receive answers long overdue.”

Pain and defeat and a myriad other nameless things coiled their way within his chest. How they burned, how they smashed their violent protest against his ribcage. How unfair it seemed to him; Oromë simply stood there, a strange expression clouding his face; something like pity, or something like yearning. Celegorm felt polluted down to the very core, yet guilt swiftly gave way to blistering, blinding fury.

“Speak!” he bellowed, chest heaving and eyes burning in the wake of shameful tears. Oromë did not reply. “Speak, incorrigible fiend! Stop standing there like that, stop staring and fucking talk to me-“

Please.

Hard he panted, but he bade his tears stay. All of those traitorous emotions –sadness, grief, loss, desire, love- he reshaped into rage, revulsion, hatred. He thrust them before him as a shield, impenetrable and fierce.

“What does it feel like to watch me burn whilst you stand unhurt, untouchable as ever upon the summit of your own righteousness?” His voice was quiet now, barely more than a whisper.

“I am not untouchable,” Oromë began in an even voice that had Celegorm on the very verge of bursting into inconsolable tears, “Nor do I partake in the marring of those I hold dear to my heart.”

At that Celegorm laughed; mirthlessly, miserably, he laughed. He tipped his head back and sent his laughter to the mocking stars above as his brows knitted together almost painfully. Oromë swallowed in apprehension.

“You do not partake in marring, say you?” Celegorm scoffed derisively as he stepped closer, until his chest almost brushed Oromë’s. More spitefully he continued then, “How dare you say that to me after all that has come to pass? After all that your brethren have done, after all that you have allowed? My grandsire, our king, lies dead, and my family’s legacy teeters towards ruin. We must endure whilst you sit idly.”

Venom dripped from his words, such was the malice with which he spoke each one of them. Vehemence ignited his eyes and fey was his mood, yet if he expected angry protest in return, or some violent rebuke, Celegorm was left sorely disappointed. For Oromë was seemingly serene; his eyes flickered over Celegorm’s face sadly, as though searching for something that was no longer there. And good, Celegorm thought to himself, let him see that his old friend is dead, let him see that it was he that killed his young, jubilant spirit. Any shame that might pierce underneath Oromë’s skin would be well-deserved. Whatever grief Oromë might experience at the fleeting prospect of loss would be but an insignificant fragment of the raging abyss that yawned open before Celegorm. Betrayal was too small a word to encapsulate the hideous uproar of emotions that screeched inside of him; the enormity of the wound Oromë’s inaction had wrought could not be contained in any earthly language, and Celegorm knew many.

His hands closed into trembling fists at his sides, and though his eyes were glossy with tears, he did not let them fall.

“Was my life truly that unimportant to you?” Celegorm slowly asked, his eyes locked with the Vala’s, “Did you weigh the value of my life and found it worth nothing?”

“Tyelkormo…” Oromë raised a placating hand to the elf’s face, in the same manner he did when Celegorm shattered his humerus after he fell from his saddle in his early youth; in the same way he reassuringly stroked Celegorm’s hair whenever the elf came to him with red-rimmed eyes, claiming that his own father loved him no more. In the same way he let his fingertips gently trace Celegorm’s flushed cheeks as he lay naked and trembling beneath the Vala, a serene smile plastered over his face in the soft afterglow of their passion.

How Celegorm wanted to let himself crumble and simply shriek against the unfairness of it all. Let me stay with you, he wanted to sob. Touch me and let our bodies never part, skin to skin and heart to heart. Yet he violently batted the hand away.

“Do not presume to touch me or utter my name!”

At the abruptness of his voice Oromë flinched and retracted his hand, but it was not without a significant effort that he resisted the urge to ignore Celegorm’s abject fury and draw him into his arms anyway.

“My name is forbidden for treacherous tongues.”

“It is the name that I love,” Oromë replied truthfully. Nausea rolled in Celegorm’s stomach, wretchedly his jaw spasmed as he sought to keep his temper in check. The Vala’s audacity was appalling – “It is, without doubt, your name. The name I called for in my forests and in my halls. My Tyelkormo. Whatever might transpire, your name shall forever be spoken in reverence within my halls. And if my brethren will speak it spitefully, in reverence still my heart shall whisper it.”

“Your Tyelkormo?” Celegorm spat through gritted teeth, “What would you know about me?”

“I know much of you, my wild one.”

Oh, the gentleness, the fondness behind those words sent Celegorm’s spirit tumbling towards ruin. Acrid bile rose in his throat and balefully he looked upon the Vala, wondering how much easier it might have been if Oromë would have just struck him, yelled at him, cursed him a thousand times over. He could have simply turned away then, telling himself that there was no reason for him to stay or look back. Like mantra he would turn the feeble pretexts in his mind- I am not wanted here, he despises the very sight of me, there is nothing left between us, whatever threads still endure glisten red with blood. Over and over he would repeat it, like clockwork, until he became sure of it. Yet now it was difficult to pretend. And it was this, perhaps, the cruelty that Celegorm abhorred most.

Fretfully he pondered Oromë’s words, I know much of you, and quickly found that they rang true. For how could the Vala not know Celegorm when his words flew like arrows and struck their mark effortlessly? When Celegorm followed the Vala’s horn without hesitation, making his way through the murky forests with nothing but quivering excitement and unflinching loyalty to guide his way, who could doubt that Oromë had completely, irrevocably enraptured the young prince? In awe he always watched Oromë, be it as he walked down the ballrooms adorned in ostentatious garments during celebrations, or as he eviscerated a beast. Celegorm could still recall what it felt like to grasp a warm, beating heart with his bare hands at Oromë’s bidding. Viscera steamed in the winter’s chill as he pulled it out and found his way to the stag’s heart. So delicate and slippery it felt; blood dripped through his fingers and soaked his sleeve, arteries ruptured as he twisted the organ to pluck it free. And what pride swelled in his chest at the benevolent smile Oromë bestowed upon him.

My wild one.

Celegorm drew in a hitching breath before softly saying, “I will depart from Tirion tonight.”

Oromë’s shoulders seemed to relax –or tense, Celegorm couldn’t quite tell- by a fraction.

“I would tell you that I do not wish for you to go,” Oromë sighed, “but I know past affections won’t move your heart. I know your ears will shut out any claims of love-“

“You are right in your assumptions,” Celegorm interrupted.

“-but I will tell you this,” Oromë continued patiently, “This is folly. You are marching to your own death, far out of my reach. Your voice I won’t be able to hear, your prayers will go unanswered. You trifle with powers that are beyond your darkest fantasies. Hear me now, Tyelkormo, and take heed: go not thither. Step not where I can’t follow.” A pause followed then, and true melancholy rippled through Oromë’s voice as he added, “I don’t want you to suffer.”

The first seeds of doubt sprouted inside of him then, driving their roots through sinew, thin yet firm.

“I will not be daunted by omens and portents made stupendous by those that would see me and my kin diminished,” Celegorm grimaced. “I pledged my loyalty to my sire and his cause, our cause. I have sworn to follow and never turn my back on my family again. My fealty is not a feckless thing.”

“And yet you cast it aside in favour of precarious promises and vengeful ambitions.”

The snide remark made Celegorm bridle. Oromë couldn’t understand his motives, such accusations were untrue. Streaks of pride might swirl amidst the many reasons why Celegorm chose to walk that path, but other things ran deeper than that. More viciously they waged their war beneath his flesh, they ached in his very bones and bound him to that decision. Yet no longer did he possess the strength or patience to defend himself, to offer explanations that would merely earn him a condescending chiding.

“As I chose to follow you out of my own volition,” Celegorm slowly said, “freely I shall go. My fate is my own and the very heavens will shake and weep at the sight of my wrath if someone seeks to withhold that freedom from me.”

Whatever reaction Celegorm might have expected, it was definitely not a smile. And Oromë did just that- he smiled. Not a cunning, vicious smile, but a warm one.

“There is fire within you, Tyelkormo. I have taught you well. I won’t count this as a sorrowful parting as I don’t want to remember it as such.”

“But I am expelled from you heart,” Celegorm pointed out.

“Nay,” the huntsman shook his head as one of his hands came to gently hold Celegorm’s chin. “I have marked you as mine, and mine you shall remain. The ink needled into your skin will remind you of it. My words, my power, my love thrums through it.” Calloused fingers trailed Celegorm’s lips and it was almost enough to make him sob. “We won’t be so easily parted, you and I.”

With that he released the elf’s face and stepped back, appraising him. A question itched upon Celegorm’s lips, where Oromë’s touch still lingered.

“Will you wait for me?”

It was childish and he was being petulant, Celegorm knew, but he couldn’t quite help it. The Vala looked questioningly to him, so Celegorm pressed: “Will you wait for my return? Will you expect me to come crawling back to you?”

“I know you will. Though whether it is your body or your houseless spirit that will return, I cannot tell.”

Anger flared in him, pride and hurt forced a dark chuckle out of his throat, and Celegorm knew that he had made up his mind then.

Let us see then.

He brushed past Oromë.

I will prove you wrong.

His hand clutched the hilt of his dagger painfully tight.

And even if you are right…

Away he walked, away without further glance or regret.

“Do not wait for me. I will never return to you.”

#these two have been on my mind for a while now #celegorm #orome #celegorm/orome #my writing #silmarillion

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