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1.
Míriel sticks her needle back onto the pin cushion with more force than strictly necessary. She winces and mutters a curse under her breath when it only accentuates the ache in her fingers, and she lies back down on the bed.
She already made that concession, this morning: working from her bed, with a stack of pillows behind her back, rather than using up what little energy she has to sit in her workroom. But it was not enough to lift the fog from her head, nor the throbbing ache from her hands.
She’s not someone who angers easily, but the frustration is – staggering, sometimes. This is her craft. It’s her passion. Embroidery is everything that she is, how she has chosen to define herself – not as a Walker of the Great Journey, or as the Queen of the Noldor, but as the Broideress. And increasingly, more obviously with every year, she is losing it.
She consciously takes a few deep breaths, and lays her hand on the slight swell of her stomach. Pregnancy is making it worse, she knows. She’s been exhausted ever since the begetting, and her pains have taken a sharp edge, where they used to be dull. Maybe once she gives birth, things will get better.
(They won’t.)
She must fall asleep while brooding, because once she wakes, the light outside the window has turned the silver of Telperion. She missed the Mingling, and the better part of the day, and she barely feels any better. It takes her a moment to realize that she was woken by a sound at the door, and she looks up to find Finwë in the doorstep.
He’s changed out of his court robes already, and his head is bare of the crown, his braids half-undone. She’s been struggling to do his hair, too. On bad days like today, even a relatively simple hairstyle takes all the energy she has, leaving none for embroidering. But she won’t give it up for anything.
She smiles tiredly at him.
“Are you hungry, my love?” he asks.
Míriel shakes her head. Pain kills her appetite, as surely as anything. She knows she needs to eat, for the child growing inside her, but she’s too nauseous now to think about it. “Later,” she murmurs. “Come.”
Finwë – her beloved Finwë, still as beautiful as the day she married him – comes to sit down on his side of the bed, not quite close enough to touch her. He reaches out and very carefully brushes her unbound hair from her temple.
He treats her like fine blown glass. The worst is, he’s not wrong to. There are times when the slightest touch can exacerbate her pains like the blow of a hammer. He doesn’t want to hurt her, and she can’t resent him for it.
But she doesn’t know how to ask. How to ask him to put his arms around her and squeeze her tight, not because the pressure helps (it does) but because she wants him to. She wants to feel him. She wants to stop lying in a fog in the dark. She wants to see the beautiful light of the trees in his eyes from up close.
They will have a child, soon. Míriel has seen him – a boy, as dark-haired as his father, as stubborn as her, and yet new and unheard of among the Noldor: brilliant, driven, proud. Full of fire. Fëanáro, he will be. She already loves him more than she can comprehend.
She doesn’t know how she will care for him, when she can barely care for herself, but Finwë will be there. They will be together.
The empty space between them suffocates her.
“Hold me,” she whispers.
Finwë climbs onto the bed.
(Years from now, Returned into the same aching body, she will more clearly see the unravelling threads of their family’s tapestry.
The tragedy was woven into it long before Fëanáro was even born.)
*
2.
Tyelkormo fumbles with the tinderbox. Checking that his body is still between the firepit and the rest of the Hunt, he tries again, but he can’t seem to get as much as a spark that he could then sing to life. Not that he has much breath left to sing with – they’ve been on the road for too long.
It’s late, past Mingling time, not that it makes much of a difference here. They are so far north that the Trees are just a guiding light in the distance. If they went due east from here, they would end up on the Helcaraxë.
Tyelko’s hands are shaking, despite the furs he’s wearing and the gloves he just removed. His whole body aches. His hip feels like someone tried to tear his leg off. It’s nothing new, but this is his first really long hunt, and before, he’s always managed to heed the warning signs and get back to Tirion before things got this bad.
Finally, he manages to get a single spark, and he hums it into a proper fire. It’s pitiful – the wood is too cold and wet to take properly – but then Tyelko is the only one who needs it, the only elf among the Ainur. The only one who feels the cold.
As soon as the flame is high enough, Huan comes to curl up in front of the fire, his head on Tyelko’s less aching leg, and Tyelko gratefully buries his hands in the hound’s fur.
“Alright there?” asks a voice behind him.
Tyelko twists around and immediately regrets it. His back gives a pop and pain blinds him for a moment. He whines before he can help it.
“Oh dear,” Tilion says. “Something’s wrong, right? That’s not a good elf sound. Lord Oromë!”
He shouts the last out toward the others. Immediately, Oromë is there, in less time that it should have taken him to walk over. Tyelko is still gingerly trying to straighten his back while biting the inside of his cheek to avoid making noises. He’s breathing in short gasps, which just serves to aggravate the pain, but he can’t seem to get enough air.
Oromë crouches beside him, his not-quite-elvish fana glowing softly in the starlight. “What’s wrong, eldanya?”
“Nothing,” Tyelko says through his teeth, though the time for pretence is clearly past. “Moved wrong.” That, at least, is the truth.
Oromë reaches out with a slender hand to cup his chin. “You’re hurting.”
“I’m fine.”
A breeze brushes his mind, but he clamps down hard on his shields – which leaves him breathless again. Huan whines and nuzzles his hand. Tyelko’s teeth are chattering, he realizes dimly, and the fire has almost gone out. He struggles to get air into his lungs, and the air that comes is cold and biting.
Fuck, they’re weeks away from the closest settlement, and he’s not going to be able to stand up come morning. What is he supposed to do? The Ainur don’t understand pain – don’t understand elven bodies at all. They don’t need to eat, or sleep. They’ve been humouring him so far, but he can feel their impatience at times. If he’s to ride with the Hunt, he needs to keep up.
Trust his body to betray him at the worst possible moment.
“What do you need?” Oromë asks in a tone so gentle that Tyelko breaks.
“To lie down,” he murmurs pitifully. “And to get warmer.”
“Build the tent,” Oromë orders Tilion.
Tyelko closes his eyes, almost unconsciously leaning into Oromë’s touch. His hand, glowing a pale white, is slowly radiating warmth, and it blissfully travels down his spine, taking the edge off the pain.
“Come on, eldanya,” is his only warning before an arm slips under his knees and he is lifted off the ground. Tyelko lets out an undignified yelp of surprise as he finds himself suddenly in Oromë’s solid arms.
Huan follows them under the tent. Tyelko is gently deposited onto a bed of furs, and Oromë stays kneeling at his side, his hands slowly warming him up on each side of his ribcage. Huan settles down at his feet.
“You should leave me here,” Tyelko murmurs.
Oromë tilts his chin, his way of indicating surprise. “Do you want me to leave the tent?”
“No, I mean for the hunt. I’m only slowing you down.”
That’s it, that’s the moment Oromë will finally see. See how much of a failure Tyelko is, how little he deserves the attention of one so great. He’ll gather the others and leave Tyelko here to – die, he supposes. Or maybe he’ll take pity on him and delay long enough to deposit him back in Tirion, for Grandfather’s sake, and wash his hands of him.
“It’s too cold for you here, I think,” Oromë says with an uncomprehending frown. “I did not realize. I still have much to learn of the Eldar. We’ll go south once you have slept.”
“You don’t get it,” Tyelko grits out. He pushes Oromë’s hands away, and immediately mourns their warmth. “I can’t even walk. You’ll have to carry me.”
“That’s not a problem,” Oromë says lightly, completely missing the bitterness in his tone. “You are very light.”
Tyelko sighs and closes his eyes, dejected. The pain in his back is slowly easing, but his hip is only screaming louder, and he just wants it all to stop. “You should leave me behind. I’m not fit for any of this. I’m not fit for you.”
Warm – nearly too hot – hands cupping his face make him open his eyes. Oromë’s terribly intense gaze is drilling into his, searching. “Tyelkormo, eldanya, what have I done to make you think that you are not enough for me?”
Tyelko gapes for a moment, lost in the swirling silver eyes he loves so much. Oromë does not breach his mind, but he brushes it again, softly, just making his presence known. Tyelko exhales and drops his shields, bonelessly falling back onto the furs.
“I—” he mutters. “I’m not… Something’s wrong with my body. I can’t be a good hunter. I’m not even a good elf.”
“What is wrong?” Oromë asks.
“I get pains in my joints. Sometimes they move in ways they shouldn’t.” Tyelko considers detailing, talking about the dislocations and the gut pains and the bruises, but Oromë barely knows anything about elven bodies. “Sometimes it hurts too much to walk. Grandfather says that Grandmother had it, too.”
Because he’s still staring into them, Tyelko can see the brief flash of fear in Oromë’s eyes. It’s gone almost as soon as it starts. Tyelko shivers – it’s not like he’s never wondered. Will Míriel’s fate will be his, too? Father says not to worry, but Father is terrifyingly good at ignoring the things that scare him, sometimes.
“Have you seen Estë?” Oromë asks softly.
“She gave me water from Lórellin that helps with the pain a little, but I can’t carry it with me.”
“I can carry it. I will go ask her for more. Is there anything else I can do?”
Tears well up in Tyelko’s eyes, and he’s powerless to fight them. “The warmth,” he whispers. “Feels good.” He guides Oromë’s hand down to his hurting hip, where the heat seeps into his tissues and eases some of the tension. Oromë shifts into a more comfortable position against his side, lying more than kneeling, their bodies presses together.
“Eldanya, you are a good hunter, and I want you in my hunt,” he says. Then, after a breath, “You are good, and I want you.”
Tyelko buries his face in his shoulder.
(Years from now, he will remember this night, and wonder when he left good behind.
His fate is so much worse than Míriel’s, after all, and it’s all of his own making.)
*
3.
“Got a new one for you, Kibil.”
Celebrimbor looks up from his console, where he’s sitting on one of the rolling stools that were a gift from his colleagues of the Guild. Narvi is standing at the door, holding something metallic in their hand. He sees their gaze go from the neat row of silver ring splints on the console, to the roll of bandages in his hands, to his bare torso and slumped posture.
“Bad day?” they ask without detour.
Celebrimbor shrugs, lets his own gaze travel to his aching hands, and nods. Given that he’s been trying to muster the energy to do his compression bandages and put a shirt on for about an hour, it probably qualifies as a bad day.
Narvi doesn’t live with him, though their relationship is hardly a secret among the Gwaith-i-Mírdain. They come and go, sometimes staying in their own apartment in the eastern quarter. They need their privacy, and Celebrimbor is more than ready to respect that.
Besides, he too often forgoes his own bed for the heat of the forges, and dwarves need to sleep more than elves.
Narvi shuts the door behind them, steps closer to set the object in their hand on the console – it’s another silver splint, a prototype for a design they’ve been working on together – and very gently nudges Celebrimbor toward the bed. Even sitting down, he’s half a head taller than them, but they’re more than stubborn enough to make up the difference. When Celebrimbor makes a token gesture of resistance, they simply kick the rolling stool closer to the bed. “Lie down,” they order. “You’re staying right here today.”
“But—”
“No. Bad days are bad days. Isn’t that what you keep telling me?”
Celebrimbor gamely rolls his eyes, knowing when he’s defeated. He’s worked hard to build a system of mutual aid in the forges and the workshops. Craft masters tend to be fiercely competitive and jealously guard their work, but the very purpose of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain is that they make better things by cooperating, by bringing together diverse crafts and races both. The assistants and apprentices, and even most of the other masters, now smoothly step in to help on the days Narvi’s arthritic hands refuse to hold tools.
“You’re not supposed to turn it back on me,” Celebrimbor says.
“Oh, really?” Narvi gently pushes his shoulders until he’s lying down fully. “So it applies to everyone but you?”
Celebrimbor just smiles. Until Narvi got here, until they became close…
For all its purported equality, he’s still the Lord of Ost-en-Edhil. He built the city, built the guild house and the guild itself – he started it all by himself, because few would work with a Fëanorian. Galadriel was the Lady of Eregion on paper, but she never cared about building. She was only there to judgementally watch over his shoulder and slap his fingers whenever she thought that he sounded too much like his grandfather.
He’s the oldest of the guild masters. Half of them were his apprentices at one point or another, and the other came to the city with little to their name beside their craft. They’re misfits, outcasts, dispossessed – just like he was. Celebrimbor takes care of each of them and learns their habits in the forge, their dreams and aspirations, their pains and heartbreaks. But always he keeps himself at a distance.
He’s learned the hard way not to let people get too close.
His family was never perfect, but they were always supportive. From the moment Celebrimbor started feeling the aches, a scant few years after Maedhros abdicated, they rallied around him to help. It was Celegorm who first showed him how to support his joints with compression bandages. Celegorm who taught him to recognize the right herbs for the painkilling teas, who carved him his first cane from a sturdy oak branch.
Celegorm who stayed in Himlad with them, rather than set out for lands of his own.
Father worked with him on his first splint prototypes. Maedhros always popped his bad shoulder back in without squirming. Maglor taught him songs to calm the inflammations. Caranthir was the first to find dwarves with a similar illness, and learned their lore. Ambarussa were always eager to distract him from the pain with stories and games.
Celebrimbor lost all of that in Nargothrond.
“You take care of everyone,” Narvi says. “But who takes care of you?”
I don’t need anyone, Celebrimbor wants to answer, but he looks down at his bare chest, the slightly inflamed scars from his breast removal that he hasn’t been ointing regularly, his left arm that he can no longer raise past his shoulder for lack of the right stretching exercises, his aching, curled fingers, and he stays silent.
“Guess I’ll have to do the job myself,” Narvi says with a mock-sigh. “Flip over, I’ll massage your shoulder.”
As they straddle his back and knead their knuckles into his sore shoulder, Celebrimbor wonders if that’s what it’s like, to have someone outside of family who truly cares. Someone who is there for the bad days as well as the good, who doesn’t think less of him for them.
He’s been yearning for it for a long time, he realizes.
His city is open and welcoming to all, but maybe it’s time he opens himself up, too. As much as Celebrimbor hates to think of it, Narvi won’t be around forever. But starting with them, maybe, with their help, he can learn to trust others again.
(Years from now, Narvi, aged and nearing the end of their life, will be very proud to see Celebrimbor wholly welcome a newcomer into his life.
They will never see how it ends.)