#to return

To return… …with withered face. The snows of time have whitened my temples.

Volver… …con la frente marchita. Las nieves del tiempo platearon mi sien.

Lyrics of a famous tango by Argentinian pride Carlos Gardel.

Now she grumbled on and on about increasing their pace, that they may reach their destination and it’s rest faster. Celegorm cast yet another quick glance to his companion. Huan had walked with the silence of a Hunter, in long strides since they’d begun. Not once had he’d faltered or asked for rest.

A thought flickered across his mind, so petty and frivolous he could scarcely believe it came from himself anymore. With a soft breath he urged Hwin just the slightlest bit faster. Huan made not sign that he noticed, matching his stride easily, though his eyes slid over to see Celegorm’s growing smirk. With a huff and a face unused to hiding a smile he sped up a little more.

Hwin did not need any encouragement to join in this game, drawing into a canter. But she nickered with surprise as Huan suddenly tore forward like a loosed arrow. Celegorm could not help the laugh that escaped his lips as they ran after him.

The fields and fens pass by in a blur and they caught up with the Maia. Celegorm leaned over, reaching out his hand so that he could pull at his hair. Huan snapped at him and pressed forward, eyes wild and elated. He lifted his head and howled.

Celegorm stood in his stolen saddle. Joy like he feared he’d never be allowed to feel again coursed through his veins and he lifted his own voice in answer. For a moment there was no thought but the chase. For a moment he was free from himself.

“Tyelkormo!” Huan cried, though the rest of his challenge was silent. They were coming up to a rise, he could hear the sea behind it.

Celegorm grinned. He swung his leg of so that he stood only in one stirrup. With a shout he dismounted trying to match their speed so he only stumbled a little. They both pulled ahead of him easily but he pushed forward, His muscles burned and his breath stuck in his lungs as he ran up the tawny grass hill. The sight of the sand dunes and the grey waves greeted him right before collapsed at the edge.

The sky above him was grey with anticipation of rain. He drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes before the tears that were gathering in them could fall. Sweet Nienna, he was alive again.

“Runt.”

Huan kicked him gently. But he was panting so the elf counted it as a win.

“This is a new body.” He protested from the ground.

“Mmm you look like a boiled egg.”

Celegorm huffed indignant, opening his eyes. He reached to his belt and found himself weaponless so had to settled for throwing dry grass at his adversary. The Maia chuckled. He offered his hand and they walked down to the dunes.

At length in the disantce he saw a small cliff side and a cottage before it. Sea mist had been creeping onto the sand and the warm light from the windows twinkled in and out in a merry welcome. There was a thin wooden getty, with two ships docked into it but aside from that there were no more buildings.

Celegorm frowned deciding against covering his head with the cloak. Who did Huan know who lived so far from anyone else. They had walked past the first boat when the sound of footsteps drew their attention. Out of the mist on the second, a figure approached.

He gasped when he saw her. Dark haired and grey eyed, coming out of the mist like a phantom.

“Luthien?” He breathed.

“No.”

He held back a sigh of relief. The elf smiled faintly and immediately he knew there was something wrong with him. Something… ephemeral. Like he was not quite tied down to the ground. He did not seem to have the disposition of a sailor though he was dressed for travel. Walking to the edge of the boat, a book held between his fingers, he looked surprised to see them and not entirely pleased. But his face was pleasant and his eyes far more kind than she who must have come before him.

“Hello, Huan.” he said softly.

The Maia grinned and nodded, “Peredhel.”

Half elven. Celegorm’s took a deep breath as stranger turned to him.

“How did you come by my great-grandmother’s cloak Fëanorian?” His voice held a strange weave of ease and warning. Not a threat, just a heavy implication it could be.

“We stole it.” Huan spoke before he could think of a delicate response.

“We?” he glared at him.

The Maia, smiles and shrugs but doesn’t look at him, “You’d have been run down without my help.”

“I would have been long gone if you had not trapped me.”

“You would have been caught as I would have turned you in.”

“It is not stolen,” he said to the prince. “I need it for an errand, but I have ever intention of returning it.”

“And what errand would that be.”

Celegorm’s cocked his head to the side, trying to get a measure of him. This was who Huan had suggested. Even now as he looks at him on the deck of the ship, he could hardly guess was a sailor. And perhaps he was of Thingol’s line but he would hardly call him Telerin. Still the cloak was his family’s birthright and there’s not telling if he could not summon soldiers here if he was displeased.

“I wish to go across the sea unnoticed.” He said honestly, “I’m looking for my brother.”

The elf suddenly went pale. His fingers gripped into the wooden railing as he leaned forward but before he could speak a song floated over from the house behind them. Celegorm froze. He knew that voice.

Beside him Huan turned and bounded forward, grinning happily. Celegorm heard the sound of his feet on the sand and how he laughed as Huan swept him up in an embrace. He found his fear twist into anger as he turned to them and sure enough so a familiar figure beside the Maia. The tips of the Huan’s lips twitched and Celegorm though he might throttle him there and then.

Liar.

He spent all the time he ought to take figureing out what to say as Finrod approached, cursing whichever powers were laughing at the situation he was put into. Dior, he had wronged but never cared for but Finrod… Golden haired and furious and coming ever nearer, Finrod was the King he’d betrayed. Finrod was the little cousin he’d taught the language of butterflies. Finrod who now was face to face with him and he could not bear it.

Celegorm dropped to one knee.

“Aran-nín.”

The silence that followed was to heavy for him to risk raising his head. A fear overtook him that Finrod may say nothing at all.

“Get up!” Felagund hissed, “Get up you treacherous, backstabbing creature of woe.”

He rose slowly to his feet wincing at the sight. Anger he could have dealt with but such pain and hurt was wrought on his face that he almost missed his hand coming down to strike him. He fell hard back down onto the sand, taking o e breath and then another before meeting his gaze.

“What could I have done,” Finrod’s voice came out as a strained whisper, “If I had denied him.”

“You could not have.” he replied softly, “Any more than I could have stayed my tongue to oppose you.”

“You made it sting. You made a hard thing bitter as well.”

“I know, I… was angry and jealous and…”

And terrified. He had not admitted even to Curufin. But the certainty with which the Atani spoke. The strangeness of him, he’d been terrified that somehow he’d succeed. That Thingol would keep his father’s treasure from him and he’d be turned against his own people again.

At least in that, he had been right. He took a sick sort of pleasure in the thought was he marched into the hastily built gates of Menegroth.

“I cannot change what is done. But I am free now. I won’t insult you by asking forgiveness but if there is anything I may do to make amends.”

Finrod scoffed, “Go to Tirion, kneel instead before my father and kiss his feet.”

A beat of silence passed filled only with the song of the Sea and his cousin’s cold stare.

“You are serious.”

“Very serious.”

His pride boiled within him. He knew his face was flushing as bad as Carnister’s at the thought. Finrod gave his people safety and hope. Finrod he’d userped. Finarfin was not his king. What alligenice would he play at holding to bow before him.

“Very well,” he ground out as civil as he could, because he said he would and truly he deserved worse, “when I return.”

“Oh of course,” Finrod laughed mirthlessly and turned on his heel to look out on the sea. Though he marched back just as quickly, “And where are you going?”

“East.”

Finrod’s brow knit in confusion, “Tol Eressa?”

“Middle Earth,” came an answer from the jetty. Dior’s grandchild had disembarked the ship and walked toward them, “He goes to find Maglor.”

A look Celegorm could not decipher passed between them. Finrod sighed paced up the pier. The wind tangled his hair as he searched what little of the horizon is still visible. He wondered what he was looking for. At last he turned and walked back over to them.

“Get up,” he said, and gestured for them all to follow him into his home.

************

After a painfully quiet supper, Finrod lead them to a set of rooms, of which there were a great many. Celegorm reckoned if some madness overtook him and he so wished, Finrod could certainly fit the entire set of their shared brothers and cousins inside almost comfortably. Partly because the end of the house he found was actually burrowed into the cliff behind.

Finrod told him a friend of theirs, his and the other elf who introduced himself as Elrond, guided him through the design. When he’d asked where these friends resided, his cousin gave a familiar sad smile.

“They were mortal.”

“Of course,” he said, not unkindly.

The bedroom had a low ceiling and a window that peeked out of the hill onto the sea. When the tide was in, the frothy tips of the waves scratch. Celegrom almost chuckled as he looked across the small table and shelves, littered with all sorts of carvings and glasses and oddities. Whether here or far Beleriand, his cousin was ever the magpie.

He turned to say so but the words caught in his throat. He realised most unhelpfully that Finrod was the first of his family he’d spoken to since entering the Halls. There was an ache in his chest, begging him to say more. To pull him aside and embrace him and speak of losses and new joys but instead he stood before a chasm of his own making and helpless to cross it.

“Findarto…”

“Please don’t.” He shut his mouth as Finrod winced. “Ever am I the fool, falling your fair words. Please, not tonight.”

Celegorm let out a small breath an blinked hard. Outside the gulls called to the sea. The reflection of the moon on the water reflected on Finrod’s face as he glanced over the room to see every was in order. Finally he nodded.

“I’ll wake you before first light, we’ll head out with the dawn and cling to hope. Elrond said he would join us.” He sighed, “Sleep well, Turkafinwë.”

Celegrom’s lips twisted but he still said nothing, choosing a quick nod before Finrod disappeared down the corridor. He pressed his head on the doorframe, energy his had not place to put shivering through his limbs. At that moment the Maia came round the corner. Eyes narrowed as the sting of his earlier lies flared in the gaping emptiness of his chest. He grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him into the room.

“That was poorly done.”

Huan growled a curse that didn’t quite translate on an elven tongue but Celegorm snarled back and pushed him into the wall. The Maia froze for a moment something unreadable passing over his eyes. Celegorm did not care.

“Findarato is not a tool to use to make me miserable.”

He could hear his claws drawing up the painted wood as he drew his shoulders up. He shoved him again, though only really succeeded in pushing himself away.

“You got what you wanted.” Huan said to the floor, “Why are you angry?”

“You lied to me,” he took another step back, as Huan raised his head, there was no remorse in his dark eyes. Betrayal ran like a knife over an unhealed wounds, “If you hate me so, leave me alone. I have no wish to share a boat with one who might throw me overboard should the fancy take him.”

“I can’t hate you if you drown.”

“Get out.”

Huan whined, settling against the door with an air of defiance. Celegorm didn’t know when he’d picked up the vase. He barely had the presence of mind to aim the thing anywhere other than the wolfhound’s face before it flew from his hand.

The shattering glass sang in chorus with his own voice. “Get out!”

To return… …with withered face. The snows of time have whitened my temples.

Volver… …con la frente marchita. Las nieves del tiempo platearon mi sien.

Lyrics of a famous tango by Argentinian pride Carlos Gardel.