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Sea Cliffs and Shattered Stars
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Characters: Elrond, Celebrian, Galadriel, Celeborn, Gil-galad, Elladan, Elrohir, Glorfindel, Erestor, Ecthelion of the Fountain, Arwen, Mandos, Turgon, Elros, Eonwë
Relationships: Elrond/Celebrían, Aragorn/Arwen, Galadriel/Celeborn
Summary: When Elrond reaches the shore of Aman, he brings bitter news that threatens to ruin the fragile future they have been promised together.
They aren't coming, Celebrían. Our children aren't coming.
But Celebrían, daughter of Galadriel Finarfiniel and Celeborn, prince of Doriath, will not allow her children to die. So with a sword in her hand and her husband by her side, she marches up to the Valar and demands they grant a new judgement.
Tags: Elladan and Elrohir Choose Mortality, Choice of the Half-Elves, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Elrond Peredhel Whump, Friendship, Adventure & Romance, Fourth Age, Aman, References to the Silmarillion, Galadriel & Celeborn are Good Parents
This fic is fully completed and will be updated weekly.
Available on AO3:
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/clears throat
All right, I wrote some stuff today (looking at @rain-sleet-snow as usual!!! for my uncorrupted mairon au)
“Well, I can’t fault your taste,” Mablung says, swiping the flask of wine from Celeborn’s hands and taking a healthy pull. Celeborn scowls half because he’d been saving that, damn it, and half because he knows Mablung doesn’t mean his taste in wine.
Beleg is a good enough friend to not intervene in the scuffle between Celeborn and Mablung, even when Celeborn shoves Mablung face-first into the dirt. He gently coaxes sparks into flame, humming a few protective notes that reverberate around their camp for the night. Queen Melian’s power can still be felt here at the edge of the Girdle, but it never hurts to be careful this far from Menegroth.
Celeborn reclaims his wine, releasing Mablung from the grapple. He stomps over to their packs and rummages for lembas to supplement the rabbits Mablung found in their snares. He can’t think of anything to say to save himself from the inevitable teasing he’ll have to endure tonight—pleading ignorance or mercy would only have his friends scenting weakness like hounds on a trail. It’s bad enough that practically all of Menegroth witnessed him calling Lady Artanis Finarfiniel by the name he’d kept private in his heart for her for years deliberately uncounted after the Mereth Aderthad—with her Maia husband standing right there. Nevermind that he’d thought of a name for Lord Mairon, too. Flooded with embarrassment, he had caught Mairon’s eye in the brief moment before he’d fled the hall. Mairon had smiled at him, warm and so handsome that Celeborn had almost stayed, bathing in the golden glow of his regard even if it burned him like moth to candle-light.
“You can’t sulk in silence all week,” Mablung says, arranging the rabbits onto a spit.
Celeborn sighs, breaking off a small portion of lembas and dividing it up for the three of them. “I won’t,” he says, crossing to the fire and holding the broken wafer out to Beleg first.
Beleg grins, cheerfully accepting Celeborn’s surrender. “If you didn’t want to talk about your feelings for Galadriel, you would have come out here alone instead of coming to me wild-eyed and desperate for an escape.”
“I don’t know why I did that,” Celeborn says, trying to pitch his voice into something mild, instead of—definitely still sulky. “You’re both aggravating.”
Mablung doesn’t dignify that with a response, but the flash of his smile says enough about their friendship. Celeborn huffs and smiles back, annoyed but affectionate.
“I don’t know why you’re so embarrassed,” Beleg says. “It’s an apt name for her. And it’s in Sindarin which is compliant with the King’s law now.”
“I wasn’t thinking about the King’s law.” Celeborn scrubs his hand over his face, trying to ignore the flush in his cheeks and how absolutely visible it must be, even in the low evening light. “Even if it would be useful to her, it was presumptuous of me to say it.”
“You’ve been thinking it for years,” Mablung says, while Beleg simultaneously says, “Friends gift names, too,” and Celeborn really drops his face completely into his hands then, despairing.
Mablung comes around and throws his arm over Celeborn’s shoulder, a heavy hand gripping his arm. “Cheer up, mellon nîn. I’m sure if your lady and her husband objected to your feelings—which are obvious since you ran away immediately after blurting out her nickname—Lord Mairon could have incinerated you in the blink of an eye.”
“Or,” Beleg adds, helpfully, “he could have caught up to us days ago. We’re good scouts, but surely not good enough to evade a Maia.”
“I have a name for him, too,” Celeborn groans—terrible to admit, but also a relief. At least only his comrades are here to witness it, instead of all the gossips in Doriath. “It’s Halbrand.”
Mablung laughs and jostles Celeborn a little, but Celeborn doesn’t look up, hunching his shoulders deeper. “Tall and noble—not as imaginative as crowned with a radiant garland.”
“I think it’s nice!” An idiotic wave of gratitude loosens the curve of Celeborn’s spine at Beleg’s words. “Mairon is quieter and doesn’t seem to like attention as much. A simple name would probably be preferable.”
Celeborn can’t spend all evening hiding his face, just like he can’t spend all week sulking about accidentally baring his heart during a feast. He’d had a plan about handling his feelings—and that plan had been to wait until the song in his spirit either quieted (unlikely) or needed to be sung (certainly not while he thanked her for dancing with him and absolutely not as a slip of the tongue that left her shocked, asking him to repeat what he’d said—)
He tips his head up and looks at the stars peeking out from the canopy of the trees. “What if I stay out here in the woods forever?”
He catches Mablung and Beleg exchanging a glance he can’t read out of the corner of his eye. Mablung moves away to keep their dinner from burning and Beleg shuffles over to switch out with embracing Celeborn. Beleg presses the wine flask back into Celeborn’s hands then tugs gently on the end of his long silver braid.
“Mablung is right, you do need to cheer up. Anyone with eyes can see that they both do like you.”
“You should have seen Mairon watch you during the archery contest,” Mablung says. “He couldn’t take his eyes off your arms, even to watch Beleg trounce you.”
Celeborn shrugs and holds out his left arm, firelight flickering across the green sleeve of protective runes inked into his skin. “They don’t have the same kind of tattoo customs in Aman, even among the Teleri. He asked me about them afterward. It seemed like academic curiosity.”
Beleg arches an eyebrow. “For someone who has a reputation for wisdom, you really are blind. He could have been angling to see more of what you have under your clothes.”
“Don’t,” Celeborn says, meaning don’t tease me, don’t lie to me, but Beleg tugs harder on his hair, insistent.
“I mean it. Mablung and I will stay out here with you until you work up the courage to go back, but I don’t think it will be as bad as you clearly seem to fear.”
Celeborn hums skeptically, but he also leans against Beleg and nods. “Thank you.”
Mablung finishes cooking their dinner and hands him a plate. “We’ll even help you plan what you’re going to say when you see them.”
-
So of course they run into Lord Mairon and Lady Artanis before they return.
There is a quiet stream in the wooded outskirts directly outside of Menegroth that Celeborn likes to visit before returning to the caves of the city, and Mairon sits on a stone as casually as if he was waiting for them to show up to an appointment.
Normally, Celeborn would unshoulder his pack, bathe his hands in the cold, clean water, and take one last look up at the the trees, drinking in the clear sky fragmented by the leaves—but he freezes instead like a deer caught unawares by a hunter, unsure if he should run.
Mairon’s eyes are very bright. None of the carefully crafted words Celeborn has been mulling over the past few days are in his mind anymore, just the overwhelming thought that he might like to be chased.
“Lord Celeborn, well met,” Mairon says, rising to his feet and smiling in a way that strikes Celeborn past his leather armor and cuts clean through. It is an expression Celeborn hasn’t seen in years, not that he’s been cataloging Mairon’s smiles (he has, a little, and they’re always small as secrets, if they aren’t sharp as blades), it is large and free, a grin that creases the corners of his eyes. The last time he’d looked like that had been during the Mereth Aderthad while watching his wife. Celeborn had felt his heart tear out of his chest and be lost forever at the sight. It’s dazzling to see it leveled at him, blazing like the sun.
Mairon, mercifully, looks toward Mablung and Beleg, greeting them courteously while Celeborn catches his breath. Recovering his composure completely, though, is a lost cause once Mairon turns his gaze downstream and calls out: “Galadriel!”
Deeply, deeply aggravating, Celeborn hears Mablung mutter, I knew it.
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