#something something Adar refused to be baited towards Eregion and Sauron had to improvise I guess blah blah

[themalhambird]

The forge lies in ruins. Ash and dust choke the air; stonework lays scattered and smashed to pieces on the floor. The fires blaze like wolves raging against their containment: hotter, brighter, angrier than any smithing-fire ought to be, suffocating the room with heat.. And the scents clinging to the air underneath it all. The lingering stench of burning flesh, the metallic touch of spilled blood , coats Enerion’s tongue. 

Nevertheless, a little of his heart lifts with joy. The Lord of Eregion’s once rich gown is scorched, torn, bloodied; it hangs from his trembling frame in tatters. His feet are bare and filthy; one ankle is fettered. The silver chain, barely three feet long, glints and snakes like a river in the moonlight, tethering the smith to his anvil. Even from here, Enerion can see the bruising, the skin rubbed raw where the circle of metal bites into flesh. Celebrimbor has been made a prisoner in the one place that was ever his sanctuary- has undoubtedly been tortured-

But he is there. Sitting on the steps, hunched over and whispering almost soundlessly to something he seems to be holding in his bound, trembling hands. Against his darkest fears, Enerion has found Celebrimbor alive. 

His initial appearance elicited no reaction from Celebrimbor, but as Enerion begins to cross toward him, footsteps- light as they are- somehow echoing around the otherwise empty room Celebrimbor’s head whips toward him. He scrambles back, the movement eating up the few inches of give remaining on the fetter chain and then some- his ankle bending in a way it really shouldn’t. His hands move so quickly Enerion can’t quite track it, but whatever he was holding seems to have quite vanished. Celebrimbor’s right palm rests flat against the stone, his left hand anxiously crumpling the soiled fabric beneath his fingers. His face is streaked with grime, his temple streaked with blood- his lower lip split, his cheek marred with ugly, angry bruising, his flesh ashen and  gaunt. The eyes that fix on Enerion’s face flash with a fear that quickly fades into dull exhaustion. His mouth twists mockingly. “So,” he says. “That is your latest mask of deception? What do you think to achieve with me, by stealing that face?”

He thinks I’m Sauron. A reasonable, if bleak, assumption. Enerion moves toward Celebrimbor as cautiously as he might approach a wounded deer. He seats himself on the steps next to him, close enough to reach out and touch but keeping his hands to himself for now. The neckline of Celebrimbor’s gown has been  ripped. Enerion’s eyes are drawn to his shoulder, just below the collarbone, where the broad, crude strokes of an eye have been seared into his skin. Enerion grimaces, joy at finding his friend alive dimming just a little. The brand is fresh enough that the skin surrounding it is still blistered, the wound raw and weeping. How much might he have been spared, if I had taken action sooner? Gil-galad pushes the thought aside. Now is not the time for it. “Celebrimbor,” he says. “This is not a trick, or an illusion. Sauron has fled. Eregion is safe, you are safe-”

“Oh?” Celebrimbor says mildly. “And what will it cost, my deliverance, hm? Oh, Sauron is only fled, not vanquished. Will you have a weapon of me that can kill him? Would you have more rings-” he breaks off into a dry, rasping cough. Enerion pulls the water skin from his belt and flicks the stopper free, putting it to Celebrimber’s cracked and bleeding lips and holding it as his friend drinks. After a few gulps, Celebrimbor abruptly turns his head away, eyes closing and tears appearing in the creases of his lids.c The tremors running through him grow worse, every line of his battered body grows ridgid with tension. Enerion waits for a moment, then sits back and puts the water away. Another moment. Celebrimbor does not move. He doesn’t speak. Enerion turns his attention to the chain around Celebrimbor’s ankle. 

“I’m getting you out of here. Into the fresher air, the sunlight, and then the medic’s hall.” There’s a hammer lying not far off. With a few hard, targeted blows (and a slight surge from Vilya, the ring seeming to feel definite dislike for the chain holding its’ creator) the fetter falls apart. 

“I won’t do it,” Celebrimbor states. Enerion looks back up at him. Celebrimbor stares at his newly freed foot with a kind of morbid curiosity, before hurriedly pulling it into himself as if for protection and flitting his eyes up to Enerion’s face, his expression twisting into pale, frightened, certainty. “Whatever you think you can use this face- this voice- this false rescue to order me to, Shadow of Morgoth, you can forget it- if I mindlessly obeyed Gil-galad’s orders, I wouldn’t be in this mess, now would I?”

Despite himself, Enerion’s lips twitch. “I’ll remind you of that when I’m next delivered Eregion’s tax ledgers, all neatly signed with some apprentice or other’s best imitation of your signature,” he threatens lightly. Celebrimbor’s brow furrows, and the defiance in his eyes falters. For the first time, they seem to fall to the ring on his hand. “...High King?” he whispers. A mouse runs out from his sleeve, dropping to the floor and scampering up to sniff and squeak at Enerion with curiosity. With the way Celebrimbor’s eyes follow the creature- first with a flash of alarm at its appearance, and then with hope as it seems to deliver a verdict in Enerion’s favour by hopping up onto his boot, the High King suspects that this is what, or rather who, Celebrimbor had in his hands when Enerion first saw him. Celebrimbor looks from the mouse, to Vilya, to Enerion’s face. He bursts into tears. Relief seems to break Celeibrimbor in a way that fear could not. Enerion gathers him up in his arms, cushions his head in his lap, and holds him, runs his fingers soothingly through Celebrimbor’s brittle and dirty hair, and lets him fall apart. The back of Celebrimbor’s own, and the shirt beneath it, have been torn down the middle as far as his waist. It hangs open, revealing a map of welts, a criss-crossing of scars and deep, scabbing lines. Enerion rests his palm just above the mangled flesh, and lets Vilya ease the pain. 

*** 

At length, Celebrimbor’s tears slow. Between his gasping apologies, keening statements, and desperate questions, Enerion thinks he has a clearer illustration of what Sauron wrought on Celebrimbor’s mind. His heart twists at Celebrimbor’s description of “realising” that his city was under siege, had been for weeks while he laboured, oblivious…that the siege was simply another layer of illusion, a second blindfold slung around Celebrimbor’s eyes when the first began to slip, seems difficult for the Lord of Eregion to believe, but it does explain the state of the Forge. Stage-setting. “I suppose,” Celebrimbor murmurs., when the High King makes the suggestion. “Avoids another mishap like the everlasting candles.”

Enerion doesn’t ask for clarification. He continues to stroke Celebrimbor’s hair. Celebrimbor exhales, pressing into the touch. “You are being very kind to a prideful and reasonous fool,” he murmurs. “You need not fear that I am too fragile to answer for what I’ve done- do with me as you must.”

Enerion’s hand stills. “Celebrimbor,” he says finally, carefully. “As Lord of Eregion, do you see fit to punish the elves who, at Sauron’s bidding, seized you and brought you up to this place to be chained, flogged, and branded? Do you intend to pass sentence on the smiths who forged restraints for your wrists because Sauron instructed them to do so?”

Because Celebrimbor’s back is to him, Enerion senses, rather than sees, the other elf’s immediate frown. “Of course not! They didn’t know- they weren’t to blame. They thought I was completely out of my senses and they were frightened— oh. I catch your drift.” He sounds a little put out about the connection he’s just made, and Enerion rather suspects that Celebrimbor would find his own guilt easier to bear if he felt he were acting out a penance for it. 

“I’m taking you to have your injuries properly looked at,” he says, shifting his grip. “I’m going to carry you, because it will be faster, and if we’re too much longer the guards I left at the foot of the tower will get nervous and come looking for me, at which point they’ll all try to be helpful and they’ll get in the way. And if,” he adds, rising to his feet- one arm beneath Celebrimbor’s knees, the other around his back, and Celebrimbor’s head falling against his shoulder, “it will make you feel better, I’ll send Elrond by to scold you each and every afternoon the healers have you on bedrest.”

Celebrimbor’s quiet but genuine laugh as they leave the forge behind warms the king like a summer’s day.

@fantasyquests - tagging you because your tags on the concept-post I made along these lines expressed interest in this being written : )